“That’s why he kept her alive,” she murmured.
“Pretty much. Look, Andrea, by this time tomorrow, your life will be back to normal and you can forget all about us. I’ll make sure the clinic gets a good donation for your time.”
He wanted to ask her why she was working at a clinic rather than a hospital, but he didn’t need to get involved any more than he already was.
“Avery’s going to need counseling. You know that, right?”
“I heard you talking to her. You sound like you’ve had some experience in this, Doc,” he drawled. He blew smoke out the open window. His weapon was held loosely on his thigh as he kept an eye out for any disturbances in the force.
“Would that matter to you?”
“Maybe.” He leaned forward. “I hope I’m not dragging up bad memories for you.”
“Really? Now you have a conscience?”
“Only a quarter of the time. Keeps my life much simpler.”
She dipped a fry in ketchup, paused before eating it. “I don’t buy that at all. I’m betting there are things that keep you up more nights than don’t.”
“In this game, there’s always something burrowing in your brain, refusing to let go.”
“Like?”
“Like . . . what if you play the game like you’ve got nothing to lose, but you end up losing something big? Is that worth it?”
“Let me know when you find the answer.” She ate in silence for a few more minutes, then asked, “What do you guys do that makes you the good guys?”
“You takin’ a survey?”
“I’m trying to figure out if I should hate you or not,” she countered. And yeah, he really liked her.
“We help innocent people. And sometimes we get caught in the cross fire. Speaking of.” He pulled her cell phone out of his pocket. “Is there anyone you need to call? Anyone who’ll worry?”
She stared at the phone, and her face flushed. At first, he thought it was anger that he’d gone through her bag and taken her phone without her noticing. He also had her wallet but figured now wasn’t the time to tell her so.
“There’s no one,” she said quickly.
“You’re sure?”
She pushed the unfinished food away. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“You’re not close to your family?”
“Are you?”
“To my brother. I consider those two family. Couple of others. The group’s small but worth it.”
She drank more of her coffee. “Are you really going to let Avery go after the guy who did that to her?”
“With Avery,
“I’d love a monitor, but it’s probably not necessary. She’s breathing okay and she wouldn’t let me give her much in the way of drugs.”
“No, I’d expect she wouldn’t have. White-knuckling it seems to be our specialty,” he muttered.
Drea stared at him for a long moment before saying, “It’s an endearing quality, even if I’m here against my will.”
“And you’re sure no one out there’s looking for you?”
“Yeah,” she said, but she was lying. He didn’t push it, because it hadn’t triggered any bells and Jem would go down living and dying by his gut. “Is there anyone out there looking for you?” she countered.
“More than you could hope to count, sweetheart.”
“You like it that way, don’t you?”
“Very much.”
“I think you’re crazy,” she told him.
“Like I don’t have papers from the nuthouse to prove that, sweetheart.” He took a long drag from the cigarette, blew the smoke out the half-open window that gave him a clear view into the lot. Gun and Avery were sleeping peacefully, and he’d let them remain that way until night. Then they’d move the hell out of Tennessee.
He felt his phone buzz, knew it was Dare or Key demanding explanations as to why he was bringing them in. Not answering them would piss them off and get them here faster, both of which he was in favor of. The shit had officially hit the fan, and the blowback was already a killer.
He’d told Key to find them a secure location, scout it out and leave him a coded message. He’d already ditched the truck and found another while Drea was working and Gunner was watching to make sure she didn’t run.
Now he typed Drea’s name into his laptop and came up basically empty. Which meant one of two things on an initial search—either she completely shunned social media and had no friends or she wasn’t who she said she was.
But she was a practicing doctor—that wasn’t something a clinic would allow her to fake, not even a clinic here.
He was about to go further into his search when Drea put her coffee down on the table and he felt her eyes boring into him. He glanced up, raised his brows.
“She almost died and you’re tapping away on the Internet. I don’t get it.”
“Didn’t ask you to.” And, yes, he was definitely running a search, because she was trying to distract him from it.
“You’re just . . . Is everything so easy for you to shrug off?”
Even though he knew what she was doing, it still took him a long minute to push back and swallow back the big burst of anger that threatened, leaned into her and smiled.
“I just heard one of the best friends I’ll ever have, one of the best women I’ve ever met, get tortured,” he said with a bluntness he knew didn’t match the smile. “I’ll never be the same.”
And then he moved away from her. “Answer your question, Doctor?”
She tightened her arms around herself and he threw a blanket her way. She pulled it across herself and glanced out the window as a couple of motorcycles rolled by. Loud and proud, their engines rumbled, motorcycle gang members just roaming the town.
She didn’t tear her eyes off them until they’d moved past the clinic and were far enough down the street so they couldn’t be seen. And yeah, there was most definitely a problem here. And fuck it all, Jem knew how to pick them.
“You know them?” he asked.
She turned back to him, like she was pissed he’d caught her. “They come into the clinic sometimes after they’ve been fighting. Usual drunken bar brawl stuff.”
“I’d better. I have a lifetime of loans to pay off.” She gave a small smile. “It’s all I could remember wanting to do.”
“Good to have goals. Life dreams.”
“Is your job yours?”
“Sweetheart, my life’s goal was to get the hell out from under my parents’ rule and do whatever I wanted. So yeah, for the most part, I got that, aside from a few blips where people try to pretend I’m going to obey them.”
She smiled again. Fuck, he liked her smile. He could tell it was an underused expression of hers and it lit up her eyes.
Her hands were long, slim fingered and nimble. Even though she’d stitched Avery carefully, she’d worked fast. She knew what she was doing. Probably got enough practice with the clinic, judging by the clientele he’d seen in the waiting room.
