Chapter 3
Drew had no compunction about hustling himself out the door with Alex. The chilly weather was much more hospitable at this point.
“Give me that. I need it.” Tank marched out into the snowy parking lot.
Taking no chances, Roan opened the bag, popped the top off the mimosa, and downed it. “Sorry. Save your boozing for your flight after you drop me off at home. And no, you don’t get to hang out and cry because one doctor thought your sister was dateable.”
For good measure, he tossed the bag in the trash and headed out, forcing Tank to follow him.
They climbed into Tank’s Jeep and got on the road in silence. Roan held his tongue because Tank, the professional operator that he was, would wait until he was in a safer environment.
Yep, the second they were on the clear main city street, Tank let loose. “What the fuck? How did you let this happen!”
“Nothing happened,” Roan said, feeling the last drink hitting his bloodstream. Thank God he had always been a nice, polite drunk.
Horny, yet nice.
“When I kill him, I’ll make it look like an accident. You can help me. How much cyanide can you sneak in his coffee?” Tank asked.
“None. Drop it.” In the past twenty years, he’d heard similar diatribes from Tank about his goal of keeping the entire global male population away from Clarissa for eternity.
“Hell no. If you won’t poison him, can you help me bury his body?” Tank’s hands had a death grip on the steering wheel.
“No chance. Ground’s too frozen,” Roan made a promise he would definitely keep. “I promise you, a hundred percent, Drew will never touch Clarissa.”
“How sure are you that he already hasn't?” Tank responded, stopping at a light.
“I said a hundred percent. He has never touched her, and he never will.” Roan spoke the truth he understood in his bones.
It never left him, simmering beneath the surface of every interaction he had with her.
No one else had ever touched Clarissa. Only him.
And he wanted to see to it that no one ever would.
She was his, belonged to him. Any hell, even this purgatory, it was absolutely worth it.
“I’ll hold you to that.” Tank punched the steering wheel. “It’d be easier if I could kill him.”
Maybe Roan was going about this the wrong way. If he intended on keeping Clarissa permanently, he’d have to deal with this immovable object—her brother—someday.
Today might be that day.
“She’s an adult, stuck at a hospital full of twenty-something singles for eighty hours a week.
If Alex, who is a walking romance disaster, noticed her, others did too.
There are limits on what you and I can do to fend them off.
” Other than date her himself. He’d been holding back making a big deal about it thus far, but it would be an excellent way to keep other guys from sniffing around her.
“I liked it better when we had a chain of command and a captain like you could order anyone away,” Tank grumbled, his energy dissipating by degrees.
Roan debated his next words and decided to use the liquid courage he’d already consumed. “She’s gonna find someone someday. Hopefully, employed, educated, and all that.”
“I don’t care. No man on the planet is worthy of her. She’s a goddamn angel. I fucking fought two wars for her.” Tank was unwilling to face a reality that he had no idea had already occurred.
“You fought two wars because you wanted to get paid, shoot guns, and do what the U.S. government told you to,” Roan reminded him.
“Small matter of protecting the ideals of democracy and stopping terrorists from flying planes into buildings,” Tank retorted, building up a new head of steam.
“Point is, no matter what I got out of it, I was making the world safer for her. I was protecting her. The parents sure as hell aren’t.
I may not be what they wanted, but her? She’s a fucking saint.
Good, sweet, and saves babies, right? That’s what she does, correct? ”
“Yeah, that's what she does. They're called pediatricians,” Roan answered half-heartedly. He understood too well the way Tank felt. Equally deep as his need for Clarissa was his desire to protect her. Shield her from the pain of the cruel world and the endless ways it caused misery.
He’d watched her February rotation viciously pound her into the ground.
She’d bent over backward to lie, cheat, steal, and scheme every shred of extra help she could get for a dying pregnant woman.
In the end, they’d saved the baby and lost the mom.
It had been devastating to Clarissa, and there had been nothing he wanted more than to spare her the suffering—but he couldn’t.
He’d be damned if he didn’t try to give her everything.
Tank echoed his thoughts, though in a bit more graphic manner.
“She deserves better than any fucking guy on the planet. I swear to fucking God I will eviscerate, decapitate, and disembowel the next damn asshole who even looks at her with an impure thought. Burn their bodies, sow them with salt, and whatever the hell it takes!”
Which basically meant Tank wasn’t going to be interested in venturing down any avenue where Roan opened a conversation about his attachment to Clarissa. Especially since Roan had done much more than look at her with impure thoughts.
“Shit, maybe I should give her this bounty. Forty K would probably let her find her own place and stop struggling along with roommates. This Oregon one will cover most of my expenses.” It was telling that Tank didn’t even suggest going to their parents to support Clarissa.
Tank had been cut off from the family finances and barely spoke to his father.
His sister was on better terms with them, yet receiving no actual financial support for her medical school or residency.
Though Tank was vastly underestimating the price of medical school.
“Forty K won’t touch what she owes. Besides, it’s not a struggle. Three lady residents against the hospital.” Roan shrugged and tried to find a way to compare it to Tank’s own training. “It’s not boot camp, but you didn’t wrestle with the Angel of Death over babies on twenty-four-hour calls.”
It was probably best he didn’t give more details because otherwise Tank might storm MetroGen if he discovered exactly how miserable residency could be for his sister.
Truthfully, it was more like SEAL’s Hell Week for years on end.
When the hammer came down, you’d either be pounded into a blade or become scrap.
The Jeep turned again, and Roan idly noticed they were in his neighborhood.
Except there was too long of a pause...
“How do you know how she feels? You never even had roommates.” Tank latched onto his comment.
Shit. He’d shown way, way too much insight into Clarissa’s situation. “She’s a resident. I have residents. They talk a lot.”
A poor choice since Roan had never ever not a single time mentioned to Tank in their entire friendship any attachment to his own underlings. As a department chief, residents existed to be trained, sans emotion from him.
“You don’t give a crap about residents,” Tank rightly called him out. He parked the car in front of Roan’s house and hit the locks. “Got more to say?”
Fully cognizant that a confession would lead to him ending up as blood splatter on the passenger seat, Roan opted to talk his way out of this jam.
“Yes. I do.” Roan sat up straight, showing no fear, because no one could sense fear better than his best friend.
“Love to hear it. How do you know so much about my sister and her roommates’ ‘feelings’?” Tank asked, his face once again blank, thus untrustworthy.
The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and if Tank killed him, he could expect to find his soul trapped in the icy confines with betrayers in the ninth circle of hell.
Fortunately, Roan was far better at this than Drew had been. You had to be willing to go toe-to-toe without flinching. “First, you unlock the car, Saint-Claire, and second, you misbehaved at the North Star, so that’s gonna be the only question I’m answering.”
“No fair.” Tank startled at the sudden reversal of fortune, his own emotions coloring his ability to follow through on his own plan.
“Tough tits. Unlock the doors, Master Chief. That’s an order.” Roan folded his arms, glad the alcohol in his system kept him from thinking too hard about what he was going to say next.
“Fine, you rank-pulling bastard.” Tank popped the locks, and Roan immediately opened the door, lest Tank try to trap him again.
“Good.” Roan stepped out onto the sidewalk without closing the door. “The answer is ‘Clarissa’s roommate Willow has pink mittens.’ Adios, hermanito. Have a good time in Oregon.”
Roan gave Tank the finger and walked to his front door.