Читать книгу Two Souls Hollow - Пола Грейвс - Страница 9
ОглавлениеAnson entered the emergency room waiting area and acquired his target in seconds, despite the crowd of people filling the chairs and sofas scattered around the room. She sat in the corner, an island of stillness in a kinetic sea of anxiety, her blond hair now finger-combed into some sort of order and her hands folded serenely in her lap.
But as her soft blue eyes flicked up to meet his, he saw the terror her placid facade was hiding.
“Did you get checked out?” Her voice was low and tight.
“Yeah. Nothing broken. Didn’t even need stitches in my cheek.” The cut under his black eye was hurting like hell, but he refrained from whining about it, under the circumstances. “Any word on your brother?”
She shook her head. “I’m hoping no news is good news.”
“It might be.” He waved at the seat beside her. “Okay if I sit?”
“Of course.” She edged over as if to give him extra room. He sat beside her, taking care not to touch her. He had the strangest feeling that if he touched her, she would shatter.
“Thank you for the ride,” she added. “I really didn’t want to catch a ride with the cops.”
He touched his swollen nose with his fingertips, wincing at the inevitable pain. “You got warrants out on you or something?”
“No.” She answered as if it were a serious question.
Her response intrigued him, but he tabled his curiosity for later. “They’ll probably have more questions. They’re lurking near the exam rooms right now, I guess waiting for a chance to interview your brother.”
“It won’t do them much good. He’s not sober enough to make any sense anyway.” A touch of bitterness darkened her voice. She seemed to hear it herself, her expression icing over and her posture stiffening. “You probably want to get home. I can call a cab or something.”
“I’m in no hurry to get home.” He started to settle his long limbs more comfortably in the chair beside her, then stopped short. “Unless you want me to leave?”
She gave him a long, considering look that made him feel as if he were undergoing some sort of silent assessment. Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t mind the company.”
Ringing endorsement, that. He stretched his legs out and attempted to get a little more comfortable.
After a few minutes she broke the silence. “Did the police talk to you about those men?”
“They did.”
“Do you think you could identify them from a lineup?”
She sounded so hopeful, he hated to answer truthfully. “I didn’t get a very good look at any of them. I was focused on getting you clear of them, and after that, I was pretty much on the ground with my arms around my head having the hell kicked out of me.”
She winced. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“Not your fault.”
“I can’t get over how lucky I was that you were there. It was really brave of you to come to my rescue that way.”
The tentative smile she flashed at him felt like sunshine and rainbows and fireworks exploding, and he felt like a complete idiot for the direction of his thoughts. “Isn’t that sort of the company motto? All for one and one for all?”
“I think that’s The Three Musketeers.”
“Great book.”
“But a sadly flawed movie.”
“Which one?” He slanted a look at her.
“Any of them.”
That did it. He was in geek love.
“I guess I need to call Mr. Quinn and let him know I’ll be late coming in tomorrow morning.” She looked at her watch, frowning. “It’s after ten.”
“Quinn never sleeps. I think he’s a vampire.”
Her startled laughter sounded like music.
Oh, God, he had to stop thinking like that.
“I can call him for you,” he offered. “We’re tight.”
“Oh, is that why he put you on administrative leave?” she asked tartly.
Uh-oh, she had a sassy side. He was in trouble now. “Yeah, he loves me. All these days off with pay. I’m a lucky guy.”
“There’s an internal investigation, right?” She gave him another side-eyed look. “Something about information leaks?”
There was an odd tone to her voice that once again tugged at his curiosity. But before he could answer, the door to the waiting room opened, and every eye in the place focused on the man in the green scrubs who walked through the opening.
“Ms. Coltrane?”
As the others in the waiting room slumped back into miserable anticipation, Ginny stood up, her spine straight and her head high as the doctor approached her. Only the clenching and unclenching of her hands gave any indication of her stress.
“I’m Ginny Coltrane.” Her voice was clear. Strong. Anson marveled at her composure, because his own gut was twisting into knots of anxiety as he waited for the doctor to speak.
“I’m Dr. Emerson. I’m the attending physician for your brother, Daniel. Your brother suffered a single penetrating stab wound to the upper-right abdomen. The good news is that the blade missed any major blood vessels and the lungs. But he does have a liver laceration that has us worried, especially given his blood-alcohol level. Does he have a history of liver disease?”
Ginny glanced at Anson before she spoke. “He— Not that I know of. But he is a heavy drinker.”
The doctor nodded. “He’s young and relatively healthy, and the liver injury should heal on its own without further intervention, but we’ll want to keep him here a few days for observation.”
Anson could tell from the doctor’s tone that a big part of the “observation” would be to make sure Danny Coltrane didn’t try to filter any more liquor through his injured liver before it had a little time to heal.
Ginny knew it, too. He could see the misery in her eyes as she nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“We can’t force him to stay if he decides to disregard our medical advice,” Dr. Emerson warned. “You may need to speak to him about the importance of letting us do our jobs.”
“I know. I’ll speak to him.” She smiled at the doctor, but there was no relief in her expression, only a miserable fragility that elicited a deep ache in the center of Anson’s chest.
“Right now, he’s sleeping, but if you want to go see him before we transfer him to a room—”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
Dr. Emerson looked at Anson. “If you wish, your friend can go with you. There are a couple of chairs in the exam room.”
Anson started to demur, but Ginny looked at him with those misery-filled baby blues and he was ready to follow her into a raging fire if she needed him to.
What the hell was wrong with him?
“Thank you,” she told Dr. Emerson, still looking at Anson.
He rose and stood beside her, tall and gangly to her small and composed, and he felt the sudden, uncomfortable sense that he had been sucked into something entirely outside his realm of experience.
And since he considered himself something of a Renaissance man, the sensation was discomfiting indeed.
After the doctor left, the frozen mask of composure on Ginny’s face slipped, just a bit, revealing her raw anxiety. “You don’t have to come with me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
The look of grateful relief on her face elicited another throbbing ache in the center of his breastbone. “He can be hard to deal with at the best of times.”
“He’s your younger brother?”
She shook her head, her voice bleak. “Older. But he’s my responsibility anyway.”
“Why?”
She shot him a frowning look, as if confused by the question. “Because he’s family.”
Of course, Anson thought. Family.
He should have known.
Except he’d never really had one.
* * *
DANNY LOOKED SO PALE. So small, somehow, even though he was a big guy, a little on the lean side due to drinking too much and eating too little, but at twenty-eight, the liquor hadn’t really started taking a toll on his health yet.
But it was coming. Ginny had seen it in the doctor’s eyes when he told her about Danny’s condition.
He was sleeping peacefully enough, so she didn’t try to wake him. They could talk when he was in his own room and sober enough to hear what she had to say.
She stepped away from the gurney where Danny lay and turned to look at Anson Daughtry. He looked entirely too large for the small metal chair onto which he’d folded his lanky frame, all arms and legs and broad shoulders. He looked up at her with such a soft expression that she felt the absurd urge to throw her arms around his waist and cry against his chest.
He’d wrap those long arms around her and say nice, comforting things to her, and maybe, just maybe, the world wouldn’t seem such a damn scary place all the time.
She forced herself to look away. There was nobody who could make her life better but herself. She’d figure it out, somehow.
“His vitals look good.” Anson nodded at the monitor next to the gurney. The smile that followed his words looked a little forced, as if he was trying a bit too hard to be a friend to her.
She shouldn’t have dragged the poor man back here with her. He didn’t really know her or Danny from Adam’s house cat. “You don’t have to stay with me, Mr. Daughtry.”
“Anson’s fine.”
“Danny’s going to be okay. I’m fine. We’ve already ruined your Friday night—”
“Ruined it?” His smile looked much more genuine this time. “I got a shiner, a busted nose and a story to tell out of it. Best Friday night ever.”
She smiled. “That is so sad.”
“Isn’t it?” He patted the empty chair beside him. “Have a seat. I can tell you a few more sad stories that’ll make your life seem like daisies and butterflies in comparison.”
She sat beside him, suddenly aware of just how big a man he really was. He was lanky, yes, but not skinny. His shoulders were deliciously broad, with muscle definition even his oversize T-shirt couldn’t hide. And he had a good face. A kind face, one lightly lined with creases that told her he liked to smile a lot.
She felt an entirely unexpected tug of attraction low in her belly.
“No more sad stories.” She made herself look away from the melted-chocolate softness of his eyes.
“I don’t know many happy ones.” Though his tone remained light, she heard a melancholy note in his Tennessee drawl that caught her by surprise. For a man who so clearly liked to smile and joke, he had a streak of sadness in him. It made her heart ache.
“That’s a little cynical.”
“That’s me.” He smiled broadly, carving his smile lines deeper, and she saw what the lines had hidden—some of his smiles were all for show.
He wasn’t joking, she realized. He didn’t know many happy stories.
She suddenly felt deeply sorry for him, sorry enough that her own considerable woes seemed lighter in comparison.
A couple of minutes later, Anson broke the tense silence that had fallen between them. “You really don’t know why those men were menacing you and your brother?”
He almost sounded suspicious, she realized, though when she met his gaze, there was only kind interest there.
What might he be hiding from her behind that gentle expression?
“I have no idea, but—” She glanced at the gurney where Danny was sleeping off the booze and the injury. What she’d been on the verge of saying felt like disloyalty.
“How much do you know about what your brother does when you’re not around?” Anson asked softly.
Not much, she conceded silently, taking in her brother’s whipcord-lean appearance. Danny had lost a lot of weight recently. From the drinking alone? Or had he picked up other bad habits that were so easy to come by in these parts? Meth, weed, coke, smack—she knew all the recreational drugs were as readily available as home brew in the mountains. “I’m at work during the day. He goes out sometimes at night.”
“Does he work?”
She shook her head. “He’s a machinist. Hurt his hand about a year ago, and the doctors aren’t sure how soon he’ll be able to do his job again. He’s drawing disability now until he’s cleared to work again.”
“So he has a lot of time on his hands, then.”
She looked down at the tile floor of the emergency room bay, hating to hear her own worried thoughts voiced by a stranger. “He’s not a bad person. When he’s sober, he’s so much help to me.”
“How often is he sober?”
She shot him a warning look.
He pressed his mouth into a thin line and looked away.
“Maybe you should go,” she said, hating the tight tone of her voice, the implied ingratitude. Anson Daughtry had saved her life tonight. He’d probably saved her brother’s life as well, distracting those men and sending her for help so quickly. If they’d had a few more minutes to finish the job on her brother—
“I’m sorry,” Anson murmured, his baritone voice sounding like a rumble of thunder in the quiet room. “It was not my place to pry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” She turned to look at him. “I’m stressed out and I’m worried about Danny. I sounded so ungrateful, and I’m not, I promise you. I know what you did for Danny and me tonight.” She took in his battered face, the drying blood staining his T-shirt, and her stomach knotted with sympathy. “I can see how much danger you put yourself in to help us. I just—”
“You don’t have to explain.” He smiled, but she didn’t miss the wince in his eyes. “I’ll go.”
She closed her hand over his arm as he started to rise. “No. Please stay.”
He settled back in the chair beside her, his gaze meeting hers. “Addiction is awful. It just is. And addicts can be the nicest people in the world when they’re clean and sober. Hell, they can be a barrel of laughs even when they’re high as a kite. But they’re trouble to the people who love them, no matter how hard they try not to be.”
The voice of experience, she thought, her gaze shifting involuntarily toward her sleeping brother. “He’s a drunk. That’s the addiction I know about, anyway.”
“That might be all it is.”
“It’s enough.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. Beside her, she could feel the solid warmth of Anson’s long, lean body. His quiet respirations helped drive away some of the gnawing fear she’d been operating under since she’d looked across the car and seen her brother’s blood spilling down the front of his shirt.
Don’t get too used to it, a cautionary voice whispered in her head. He’s not going to be there forever. Or even tomorrow.
She was on her own. As always.
And she was all Danny had.
* * *
BY THE TIME the hospital in Knoxville moved Danny Coltrane to a room, midnight had come and gone. Danny had awakened during the gurney ride to the fourth floor, just sober enough to know he’d been drinking too much that night. His tearful apologies to his worried sister had grated on Anson’s nerves until he was ready to explode.
Never again was the most useless phrase in the English language. It held no meaning, acted as no promise, broke a million hearts and rendered the speaker an unmitigated liar.
There was always an “again.” Always.
He made his escape and waited down the hall in a small lounge area set aside for patients and families to meet without going to the formal waiting room. The area consisted of two small sofas and a handful of chairs, all empty at this hour of the early morning.
He folded himself into one of the chairs, grimacing at his own reflection in the windows. He was six foot four in his bare feet, and trying to fit his long limbs into the bowl-shaped chair he’d chosen made him look rather like a praying mantis trying to tuck itself into a walnut shell.
With a sigh, he moved to the sofa and averted his gaze from his reflection as he pulled out his phone to check his email. Twenty new messages in the past two hours. All of them virtually useless.
He rubbed his bruised rib cage, wincing at the flood of pain even his light touch evoked. He was going to be a walking bruise by morning.
He had one email from Tuck at the office. Marty Tucker was his assistant in the IT department and currently holding down the top job while Anson was on administrative leave. Anson opened the email and scanned Tuck’s rambling missive about the latest glitches and grumblings from what Tuck liked to call “The Great Unwashed,” those field agents at The Gates whose grasp of technology was, to be kind, subpar.
Nothing urgent or particularly interesting popped up in Tuck’s verbal meanderings, though Anson was mildly amused by Tuck’s latest nickname for one of their newer agents, Olivia Sharp—“Bombshell Barbie.” Sharp was tall, blonde, shapely and bigger than life, and she walked around The Gates as if she owned the place. Still, she’d seemed nice enough the handful of times he’d run into her before he’d been stripped of his duties. Tuck was in mad love with her, it seemed. In that annoying way of adolescent boys.
Too bad Tuck was older than Anson.
He pocketed the phone and rose to stretch his legs, grimacing at his battered body’s creaks and groans of protest. He had to keep moving—sitting still would only make the pain worse.
At least he’d have a story to tell the next time he ran into someone he knew, right? How many IT professionals could brag about taking a beating for a pretty girl?
Thinking of Ginny Coltrane brought his mood down quickly. He’d had no idea she was living such a sad, stressful life. Sure, she didn’t smile or joke much at work, but a lot of people approached work that way, with singular focus and intensity. They still had fun on the weekends or at night, enjoyed their families and friends. Anson’s life was pretty solitary compared to most people’s, but he had a group of old friends from high school he still spent time with on the weekends, white-water rafting or fishing or just swimming in the river where it widened and deepened down past Johnson’s Dam.
He wondered if Ginny ever got the chance to slip on a bikini and spend some time on the river. Probably not. Her nights and weekends were probably spent the way she’d spent tonight—dragging her brother out of bars before he could drink himself to death.
As he neared Danny Coltrane’s hospital room, he heard singing. A woman’s voice—Ginny’s voice—quietly singing a mournful mountain ballad he remembered from his early childhood. It was a rather gruesome lament about a woman whose love for her dead sweetheart wouldn’t let him move on to his peace, but Ginny’s soft alto made it sound ethereal and full of dreadful beauty.
Stopping outside the doorway, he leaned against the wall, closed his eyes and listened as she sang, remembering his mother singing the same words. His mother’s voice had been warbly and slightly off-key, but he’d loved to hear her sing anyway, loved everything about her, from her rosewater scent to her soft brown hair that fell in a long braid down her back.
She’d died when he was five, leaving him alone with his father. He’d never known another moment of happiness at home.
Footsteps coming down the hall faltered, distracting him from Ginny’s song. Opening his eyes, he saw a man standing about ten yards from where he stood, dressed in dark blue scrubs. But the uniform couldn’t hide the shaggy beard or the hard blue eyes of the man who’d gone after Ginny tonight at the Whiskey Road Tavern.
The man with the beard locked gazes with Anson, his eyes widening.
Anson pushed away from the wall and squared himself in front of the doorway, daring the man to make a move, even though his heart was racing like a scared squirrel being chased by a hound dog.
For a second, Anson saw the man consider it. Then he turned and started running, surprisingly fast for a man his size.
Anson took off after him.
