Chapter Eight
What the hell was wrong with him? Had he hit his head in the accident?
Why had he insisted Jory say his name?
They weren’t dating. He got it that she was playing it cool for her job, but he’d wanted her to acknowledge him as more than a patient, as more than the generic Mr. Miller, on a visceral level that still had him shaken.
And what was up with the medallion?
How could she possibly have a duplicate and not be involved in his vow for Jace—like his brothers’ now wives?
Calhoun felt like he was going to throw up again, and it had nothing to do with the pain meds that were finally working their way out of his system.
“The doctor went flying out of here.” Ryder breezed back in without knocking. “Something you said?”
Cross and Rohan were on his six. Seemed like some things were easier to change than others.
“You’re going need to up your woman-winning skills now that you’re out. You can’t just look silent and tough at the off-base bar,” Ryder advised, helping Kai back up on the bed so he didn’t jump and hurt Calhoun.
Even with his brothers back, he felt like Jory had taken all the warmth and life energy with her.
“What scared her off?” Ryder teased. “You practicing your moves now that you’re embarking on a business venture with us?” Ryder’s tone was teasing, but Calhoun heard the question behind it.
Calhoun didn’t know much about a potential business. Jace had mentioned pooling their resources, but he didn’t know what he wanted to do. The future looked gray—fuzzy around the edges. But helping his brothers launch a business would be a good use of his money. He needed to play it cool. Find out what they needed before he staked his claim, but he didn’t want to personally commit.
Story of my life.
“What’s up with that?” Cross, arms crossed, leaning against the wall, jerked his head at the medallion he still held wrapped in his hand.
“I don’t know. Yet.” Already his instincts hummed.
“I saw her touching something that looked similar when she blew outta here.” Cross wouldn’t let it go, and damn the man for never missing anything.
“You knew her name.” Calhoun stared down Rohan, ignoring Cross’s question.
“Huck should be here. Wolf too if we’re going to break the rules,” Rohan said, unyielding.
“What rule?” Calhoun demanded, irritated. He hurt like hell, and he hated that he wasn’t just soldiering through it like Jace would have. Jace had been hit, badly, and he knew his time was running out, yet he’d still barked orders into his com even as he choked on his blood. Huck had desperately tried to stop Jace’s bleeding even as Jace had slapped a pressure bandage on Huck’s gaping neck wound instead of one on his own.
And Calhoun had scooped up Kai. Stopped his bleeding and returned fire, leaving Huck alone with Jace.
He dragged his attention back to now, not wanting to remember his animalistic retreat as he fought through the enemy lines to retreat to the extraction point with his team. It was one of the few failures to complete their mission.
“Who is she?” He stared down Rohan.
So much for their agreement to remain strangers. Calhoun knew her name and job and that she hummed when she went down on him but little else.
“Jory Quinn,” Rohan said after a long beat of silence.
“And?”
Rohan shrugged and didn’t meet his gaze, whereas he and Cross faced off across the small hospital room like rival sentries.
“What’s so top secret about who she is?” And how the hell did he hook up with the one woman who held a key to the mystery he was supposed to solve? The statistical probability of that was laughable, and spooky.
He looked at his three Coyote brothers. They’d come here for Jace. They’d stayed. Made lives.
Maybe…
No. He shut himself down. He was not going to continue the Lael-Miller DNA strands. The toxicity and greed and narcissistic selfishness wouldn’t die with him unfortunately—he had four sisters, and his parents had siblings, but he wasn’t going to contribute.
“We took a vow,” Cross’s voice rumbled like it had been released from a cage. “No shirking. No sharing deets until the task is complete.”
Pain screamed through him, fingernailing down his patience.
“You all had a specific, knowable task from Jace,” he accused.
“And you just got a shiny medal?” Cross said softly.
Calhoun wanted to flip him off, but he was too tired. Bone-deep.
“I could use some help.” The minute the word was out, he regretted it. Three pair of eyes drilled into him.
“We’re always here for you,” Cross said. “You know that but looks like you got a lead for your task with the petite doctor who has eyes full of stars.”
Calhoun felt helpless in the bed, at a total disadvantage, like his entire childhood and anger stirred in his gut. He grit his teeth so he wouldn’t answer. This was how Cross got others—officers, soldiers, rebels, civvies, hostiles to spill their guts. He found their weak spot and poked until he got the information he needed.
“Throw me a bone about Jory,” he said to Rohan. He needed a starting point.
To his surprise, Rohan looked uncomfortable. Then he looked at Cross, who nailed the Easter Island statue vibe. Primitive and aloof.
“Her story is her story to tell,” Rohan finally said, his voice firm, but there was a hint of sadness in it that hit Calhoun dead center in his chest.
“Since you’re not getting sprung tonight, one of us will be back for your sorry carcass tomorrow,” Cross said. “We’ll get you and Kai set up so you can heal and start your hunt.”
Calhoun would make his own plans. He wasn’t ever going to be under anyone else’s control again.
“I’ll walk Kai again before I leave and feed him, and I’ll be back O five hundred to walk him and feed him again,” Ryder said. “I’m heading out on the road again Thursday morning. I can take Kai with me.”
“I’ll be mobile,” Calhoun said, not letting doubt in.
“I know,” Ryder said. “But…” He trailed off. Took a treat from his pocket and fed it to Kai without him having to do anything. “The first few weeks out are tough,” he said. “Tougher than I thought. Keeping busy helped, but I googled a splenectomy. Hard on the body. You’re going to need to take it easy for a while, and that gives you time to think and…”
“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Calhoun said, and even as he spoke he wished he’d been kinder, remembering what Rohan had said. He hadn’t thought about that. Ryder seeing Kai hurdle through the open window, his Coyote brother jump into the road to catch him. The one-two punch of moving steel.
“I got Kai, and I got my brothers.” He softened his defensive anger.
Ryder bobbed his head, didn’t look at him. “Yeah. Always.”
And then he was gone, and Ryder had been right. All Calhoun had now was time to think. He wanted to avoid the dark hole his thoughts jumped into, but he feared he was going to drag Jory in there along with him.
*
The team hadsaved the mother and baby, and Jory was once again grateful for the big-city level-one trauma hospital where she had had the chance to do an extra year of training just for situations like this—unexpected and dire complications for what had first appeared to be a common medical event—giving birth.
She peeled off her gloves, washed her hands, sucked down a bottle of water and then made herself another coffee. Her first instinct was to go to Calhoun and demand to know where and when he’d been given her brother’s medallion, but she had a chart to finish on the emergency and rounds to complete.
She needed to think, and she didn’t want to confront him with a very private conversation in front of his friends. She probably needed a witness every time she was in his room, but she didn’t want an audience.
Her training saw her through the next hour, but her focus wasn’t absolute because it often drifted off to a stunningly handsome, enigmatic man in room310 who just might help her find her brother. Had he been a soldier? Had Calhoun and her brother been friends?
It was a little past eleven at night when she gently rapped on Calhoun’s door, this time not bothering to ask Rhianna to accompany her.
He was awake. His dark honey gaze pinned her to the spot, and it was only with an effort that she walked into the room.
“Your dog on the bed is against medical advice.”
Not the friendliest opening, but it could never be construed as flirty, and she wrapped herself in her professionalism like it was a scarf.
“Kai’s my partner, not my dog.”
“No partners in bed with you in a hospital setting,” she countered, nearly wagging a finger at him, but by the way his gaze was already glinting with light, she had a feeling he wasn’t taking her seriously, so she didn’t need to add fuel to that fire.
Note to self: never sleep with a future patient.
Like she’d need that reminder. Jory had thrown caution to the wind last night with Calhoun. She didn’t think a repeat was in the cards.
“No partners, ever?” He raised one eyebrow, and her insides lit up with heat like he’d flipped a speech.
“Where’d you get the medallion?” she demanded.
Regret lit his face, and Jory’s legs wobbled.
“Sit,” he said.
“I’m your doctor,” she answered, drawing the lines.
“Doctors don’t sit?”
“Sometimes. If it’s bad news.” She drew each word out, feeling like they might tangle in her throat. “Did you know my brother Josiah? Josiah Quinn?”
Calhoun’s hands rested on Kai, who lay tucked next to Calhoun’s body. He began to stroke the dog, whose expression remained alert, and his steady gaze never left her face.
Jory felt tired. She wished she could sit, pet the dog, drop her wall just for a moment. What would that be like—to have Calhoun trust her, to have his dog trust her? To be able to trust them both?
“No, Jory,” he said, his voice kind like it had been last night. “I didn’t know your brother. Tell me about him.”
She fiddled with her medallion, nervously, wondering if she should take it off so that they could compare them, but no, she’d seen it. They were close enough.
“My dad and brother took off one Saturday when I was eight. Josiah was ten. They never came back. Never contacted any of us again.”
Calhoun absorbed her words, head bent toward Kai, as if conferring, but she knew she was being imaginative, wasn’t she? But she’d heard that dogs and their handlers could have an almost spiritual connection, and Jory wanted to cry as longing pierced her. To have a close friend. A lover. Family. Someone who got her, so she wasn’t always outside in the snow with a storm barreling down.
“I’m sorry, Jory.”
She’d expected more questions.
Calhoun sat up in bed, sheets pooled around his waist, looking like an athletic celebrity ‘It boy’ prepared for a photo shoot. She’d see designer underwear ads featuring A-list actors who looked less physically perfect. Never had any patient post-trauma and post-surgery glow so determinedly with good heath. His expression was somber. She had a feeling he was worried.
She braced herself for his answer. “How…” She licked her dry lips. “How did you get the medallion? Did…did you serve with a Josiah Adam Quinn?” She balled her fists, unable to ask the follow-up.
The room was silent. Jory lowered herself into the chair on the bed.
This was bad. Worse than she’d thought even though she’d thought plenty about where her father and brother might be, but she’d always held out hope once she’d gone to college. Josiah would find her when they were adults. For whatever reason her father had taken him and raised him, Josiah would find his sister. He’d been a wonderful big brother. Kind when no one else had been.
“Any coffee for a wounded warrior?”
She didn’t have to look at his chart. She knew it by heart. She also knew he would ignore medical advice.
Coffee. Of course he wanted coffee. But then so did she, and he could probably use the distraction as much as she could.
She grabbed the straw from his water bottle and jammed it into the hole in the lid of her coffee. She shoved it at him.
He looked at her handiwork. “Seriously? Why not get me a sippy cup while you’re at it.”
Sippy cup. Kids. Condom mishap. Heat flushed her cheeks and she stared at Kai instead of Calhoun.
“And that reminds me though I haven’t forgotten,” he said softly.
Jory slumped in her chair, hand up. “I don’t want to talk about it. We’re talking about my brother’s medallion.”
She jerked up as another, less ominous thought occurred. “Did you find it at a pawn shop or something?” Although the medallion had no value since her great-grandfather and then grandfather had destroyed the historic coins with their ‘artistry’ and desire for the family tree to appear more…epic?
“We need to talk about the condom. I don’t walk away from responsibility.” An expression fleeted across his face, and Jory stared, fascinated.
“Did you take the Plan B like you said?” His voice sounded as neutral as a robot’s, and guilt whispered through her.
“No,” she admitted.
For a moment he said nothing. His gaze never wavered, and she wondered what was going on in that handsome, far too complicated head.
“Is there a medical consequence for you if you do take it? Side effects?”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s always a consequence for the woman,” she snapped without meaning to.
“I meant health wise. I imagined it would be uncomfortable.”
“It’s an emergency contraception pill that contains a synthetic hormone levonorgestrel, which prevents ovulation.” Probably more than he wanted to hear and hearing herself say the words was a slap in her face because she, Dr. Jory Quinn, career woman who’d never once thought she’d marry or have children, had felt paralyzed taking a course of action that she would have unhesitatingly—and had—recommended for a patient.
She sat there waiting another dose of judgment.
“I would imagine that you would need to take the pill soon after having sex.”
His voice was horribly neutral, and Jory felt it like a lash.
She nodded. “I’m still within the window of time,” she said, wondering if he expected her to run down to the pharmacy right now and pop the pill in front of him. And why didn’t she?
“I feel…I feel…like a stranger to myself,” she admitted to him, not meaning to. “I’ve always supported women and their choices for themselves and their families. When I was in medical school, I volunteered at a domestic violence shelter and also for a rape crisis hotline, and I helped many women access the Plan B and other medications.”
So why hadn’t she swallowed it with her latte from the staff lounge when she’d come in tonight? She looked at him as if he’d have the answer.
“I’m not sure of the right thing to say,” he said, his expression shuttered.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. “It’s my situation.”
“Our situation.” He stepped on her words.
“It’s unlikely that there is a situation,” Jory shot back, standing up and then sitting back down again.
Frustration was stamped on Calhoun’s handsome features, and he pressed his lips together as if not wanting to say something that would piss her off, which was funny because Jory’s emotions were all over the map and she couldn’t begin to grab one to react to.
“Tell me about my brother.”
*
“I can’t.”
Her midnight eyes flashed—first shock, then anger.
He could watch the storm of emotions in her eyes all day. It countered how dead he felt inside. No. Now that he had Kai with him, he knew he could reengage with the world. It was alone he shut everything down. And Jory—not his teammates—threatened to pull the lid off.
“But you have his medallion. There were two presented. Father to son. Only I was a girl, so my grandfather made another. It was the one time I felt…” she ducked her head as if trying to hide her feelings “…special,” she whispered.
There was a wealth of feeling in that last world.
Calhoun’s father had been like that—a man who wanted a son. The son would be lavished with attention. The girls ignored. Only it hadn’t gone that way at all. His shriveled heart pinched a little, and the ache in his side burned for his angry sisters and for his father’s brand of attention, but he shut down the memories.
He was built tough.
Honed in fire and steeped in insults and scathing disappointment.
The army had ground him to a fine point of a weapon and unleashed him. He could handle cracked ribs and missing organs.
“I was in the army. Special Forces. Our team leader…” His words sounded like gravel in his throat.
Jory handed him her coffee again. Her kindness and rapt attention spurred him on. He took a deep draw of the coffee. It had a lot of milk in it—something he wasn’t used to. It felt like a luxury.
One day out and I’m injured and going soft. Distracted.
On a mission, that could get him and his team killed. He only had one mission left, and he’d nearly blown it before it had started. Lost condom, distracted thoughts. He hadn’t commanded Kai to stay. Kai had acted on instinct and so had he. Bitterness squatted on his chest, accusing. Maybe he was as dumb and soft as his father had claimed.
“Our team leader was Jace McBride. He was weeks from mustering out and coming home to Marietta, but he didn’t make it home. He left a list of unfinished business, and each of us—we call ourselves the Coyote Cowboys because we’d all grown up ranch…” His mouth twisted up. If his brothers had seen the ‘ranch’ he’d grown up on, they would have laughed him out of the brotherhood. “We all came to Marietta to finish what Jace planned.”
He was tired. His head was woozy. His ribs screamed with every movement, and he couldn’t suck in enough air.
Jory was on her feet. She tilted his bed back at a slightly lower angle. Rinsed out the straw and added more water and ice chips.
She held the cup for him, and he drank greedily.
“You had blood loss from your damaged spleen. Not devastating as the hospital was so close, and the first responders were picking up their breakfasts to go at the Java Café a block away, but your body has suffered a trauma, Calhoun. You will need to rest, and if you won’t take any meds for the pain, that raises your blood pressure. Necessitating rest and fluids. Infection is still a risk, and without a spleen, you won’t have the same immunity to viruses and bacteria, necessitating rest—more than you’re probably used to needing.”
He wanted to rest. Close his eyes and just turn off. But that wasn’t fair to her. Or Jace.
He had a mission. One last responsibility for someone else and then he could lead his life as he pleased.
Unless Jory was pregnant.
His eyes snapped open.
He truly was the F-up his father had sneeringly proclaimed.
“We all had tasks. There were five. We each drew one out of Jace’s helmet and had a year to complete it. I was delayed a few more months on a mission with the temporary new team leader.”
“What’s my brother’s medallion have to do with your task? Did you serve with him? Did Jace?” She had sat down, but now jerked to standing like someone had pulled her strings. “How did Jace or you get the medallion? Did my brother die in battle, and the medallion is all that’s…” Her eyes teared up, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Left? Oh. God.”
Jory bent over, her chest to her legs, and sucked in breath after breath, and he hated that he couldn’t go to her. She’d made it clear she didn’t want anyone to know that they had a history though it was ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ brief.
“I knew Jace McBride.” She sat up again, wiping at her face, trying to compose herself. “Well, not really knew him, but his family had a ranch near our farm. They had more land and were more successful, but when I was a kid, their fortunes seemed to decline—not as fast or far as ours, but still. The cattle herds they ran got smaller each year. We’d stopped cattle soon after I was born.”
“But how did he get the medallion? What is your task?” She was as bewildered as he was, only he had suspicions that grew with each piece of the puzzle Jory inadvertently provided.
“I don’t know how he got it. Jace left a list of tasks, but not much information because he knew the details.”
“Keep drinking the water.” Jory sounded every inch his doctor.
“From what I surmised from trying to get intel from my teammates, their tasks were straightforward. Be a godfather to a friend’s kid. Walk a sister down the aisle at her wedding. That sort of thing.”
Jory didn’t blink, but he could see her thoughts race across the sky of her eyes.
“Mine was more obscure. Open-ended.”
Creepy.
“What was it?” Jory was on the edge of her seat, body angled forward, her pointed chin thrust out as if she suspected it was going to be bad, and she needed to be braced for the hit.
He wondered if she’d had to steel herself for a rolling barrage of storms growing up as he’d had to do. There was strength in her, even though she was physically small. Her spirit—her life energy, her quick brain felt expansive.
“What did your piece of paper say?”
“Find the bodies?”