Chalk Dirty to Me, page 11
Something that was for sure actually wrong.
“Are you okay?”
That was Soren.
The ER doctor.
I swallowed hard and said, “Why would you ask that?”
He pressed his finger to my neck, garnering both my brother’s and Will’s attention. “You have hives.”
“I do?” I asked, pressing my hands to my throat in a half-assed attempt to tell what he was talking about.
“You do,” he said. “And you’re sweating. If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were having an allergic reaction.”
I frowned. “I haven’t had anything that would cause an allergic reaction,” I told him bluntly. “I haven’t eaten at all today. And I only had coffee today to boot. Something in which I have every day.”
He frowned and reached for my wrist but stopped before he actually touched me. “May I?”
I extended my wrist to him, feeling quite secure for the first time in a while.
But likely that had to do with the man sitting beside me like a sentinel.
He had his arm around my waist, and he was staring at Soren as if he would lop his head off at one wrong move.
I bumped him with my shoulder just as Soren’s fingers found my pulse.
“It’s racing,” he said.
I shifted again in my seat as a feeling of fire started down below.
I squirmed in my seat all over again.
“I think you should probably get her to the ER.” Soren looked at me worriedly. “Her lips are swelling, too.”
They were?
“They are?” I squeaked.
Will leaned over and studied my face, his eyes widening at what he saw. “They are.”
• • •
I’d never had epinephrine before, but apparently, there was always an end to everything.
The moment I walked into the ER wheezing, the nurse took one look at me and took me straight back.
Two minutes after that, I was getting my first dose of epinephrine.
One minute after that, I could breathe again.
They gave me Benadryl five seconds later, and now that I could finally speak, they were now asking some questions.
All the while, Will held on to me with a look of sheer determination, as if his touch alone would hold me tethered to this earth.
“Do you have a latex allergy?” the doctor, that thank God wasn’t someone I knew, asked.
I looked over at Will, then at the doctor, and shrugged. “Not that I know of.”
“You’d likely know it if you wore latex gloves at the hospital every day,” Will pointed out., using his detective’s brain to make guesses. “Maybe it’s the other stuff?”
The other stuff being his ejaculate.
“Actually,” the ER doc said. “We switched over to non-latex about a year ago. Here, and at the nursing program in town, assuming that’s where you went. More and more people are showing up with latex allergies and don’t know it that the board thought it prudent to go ahead and switch. Not to mention that the president of the hospital has a massive latex allergy, and he’s a large contributor. If you never wore gloves before coming to school…then it’s likely you wouldn’t know.”
I mean, honestly, I’d had no reason to. The only time I could ever pinpoint someone actually using gloves around me at any point in time over my life had been when I’d get vaccinations from the pediatrician’s office when I was younger.
“I had no reason to wear them before,” I agreed. “And I’ve always had issues with a few other things, but I’ve just learned to avoid them.”
“Avocados?” he guessed.
I nodded. “Yes, those. Bananas, and chestnuts. How did you know?”
“Usually when you’re allergic to those, you’re allergic to latex,” he explained. “You said that you think it was the latex condom?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“Such short exposure to it…” he hesitated. “If you didn’t do anything but have it touch your skin like you said, then that would mean that your allergy to it would be rather intense. I would suggest getting with your PCP—primary care provider—and getting your own EpiPen for instances just like this.” He hesitated. “And not using condoms with latex in them ever again.”
After a few more minutes of discussion, the doctor tapped his clipboard against the counter, then stood up. “I’m going to have the nurse come in and discharge you with a few instructions for the next couple of hours.”
Then he was gone, leaving me with a silent Will.
I turned to him warily and found him staring at his hands.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling lost with him being so far away, even if he was so close physically.
His eyes snapped up and he stared at me for a few long seconds before he said, “I almost lost you, and I didn’t even know that I needed you.”
My heart seized inside my chest at his words.
“Will…” I hesitated.
I didn’t know what to say to make this better.
Hell, I’d scared my damn self, and I didn’t usually scare myself. Others? Of course. They always scared me. But me literally being scared of something that I’d done? Yeah, that didn’t happen often.
“I have a few unexplained hive incidents over the course of my life that are now explained,” I tried to lighten his mood. “And at least now I know. Next time when we…” I paused, hesitating on the word long enough that a soft chuckle left his lips. “Yeah, we’re gonna need some different condoms, because I don’t want that to happen again.”
“Imagine what would’ve happened if we’d actually done the whole thing with it on?” I shivered.
His hand clamped down on my hip as he said, “I shudder to even think about it. It might’ve happened during the actual act, and then I’d never have been able to breathe again because your brother would’ve beaten the shit out of me before he’d allowed me to explain.”
At that, I burst out laughing, right around the time that said brother came strolling around the corner.
Along with the other four, and my parents.
“Oh, boy.”
• • •
WILL
“This is my mother and father,” Haggard introduced the two older people responsible for bringing up six children, four of which looked like they wanted to murder me.
They’d heard why she’d had the allergic reaction, and needless to say, they weren’t happy.
And Shine was looking at me like an interesting worm that he saw baking on the concrete and considering whether he wanted to save it or not.
“Mom, Dad.” Cannel broke the stare between Shine and me. “This is my friend, Will.”
We hadn’t discussed actual titles with each other, but the one that she’d introduced me as was sufficient enough, even though I probably would have preferred boyfriend even though I hadn’t been a ‘boy’ in a long time.
“Derringer.” Her father held out his hand. “And this is my wife, Reedy.”
I took first Derringer’s hand, and then his wife’s.
It was as I was studying Reedy that Derringer started to laugh. “They were all ten pounds at birth, and no, she had no trouble birthing them.”
My eyes flicked up to Derringer when I said, “How’d you know what I was thinking?”
“Because everyone thinks it when they meet her, and then see the boys and I standing next to her.” He continued. “I don’t know how they all got so big. I mean, obviously it was me, but I at least suspected they’d get some of her in them somehow.”
Her father was where all six of them got their dark looks and perpetually tanned skin from, that was for sure. He was well over six feet, just like the boys, had dark hair, dark eyes, and a black few-days-old beard that told me he didn’t feel like shaving, but most of the time he did.
He looked exactly like his children.
His wife on the other hand? If I hadn’t heard they belonged to her, I wouldn’t have ever pinned her as being related at all.
Reedy snickered. “If it makes you feel better, he saw each and every one of them come out of my body.”
I shook my head. “I have kind of the same thing going on with my nieces. Only they look like my sister. Curly brown hair and pasty white skin that’ll never hold a tan for the rest of their life if they’re anything like me. All I do is burn. Their daddy, though? Looked so much like…”
“I knew you were familiar,” Derringer snapped.
We then went on to have a short discussion of how I was acquainted with them in a roundabout way.
“Broke my heart when they died,” she whispered. “I’d love to see those girls.”
I smiled then. “They’re on vacation with my parents. They’re actually living it up in the most expensive motorhome that middle class money can buy. I’ve gotten blurry pictures from pretty much half the country these last two weeks.”
Reedy smiled, and then gestured toward the parking lot. We’d all gathered outside of the hospital doors the moment that Cannel was discharged.
“We’re in town for a reason,” Reedy looked at Cannel. “Y’all want to head back to the cabins? Daddy found some news out today.”
I didn’t think I was going to like this at all.
I was right.
I really fucking didn’t.
CHAPTER 14
Life is too short to remove a USB safely.
-Will to Cannel
WILL
Two days later, I was still thinking about what to do, and coming up empty.
“You’re being awfully quiet today,” Brianna mused.
I grunted instead of answering her, not liking how pissed I was, and how much she was getting on my nerves without even trying.
Today, thankfully, was officially my last day to work with her.
Tomorrow, I’d be on my own, and I couldn’t thank the captain more for that announcement as I’d arrived at work today.
It’d come on the heels of a quiet, tense night—sex free due to my inability to do anything with her despite her assurance that she was okay—and that set the pace of the whole day.
After spending the last couple of hours with Brianna, I was fairly certain that she knew exactly what she was doing.
She was rubbing salt in the wounds.
“Nothing of importance,” I found myself saying, wanting the day to end.
I had about six hours left to deal with her, then I’d be done.
At first, when I’d started at Paris PD, I hadn’t realized the ‘looks’ that I’d gotten. Or understood the comments.
But now? Now I knew.
Just yesterday, one of the older detectives had commented about Brianna being a ‘vow breaker.’ At the time, I’d thought that he’d meant that she was a rule breaker.
But now I understood. Brianna liked to break up relationships.
I’d done enough of my own detective work over the last couple of days to finally understand all the offhanded comments that were made about her. For instance, when I’d come in off my fourth or fifth shift with her, there’d been a mid-to-late thirty-year-old woman sitting next to a male cop—Brewster. She’d taken one look at Brianna, and her face had shut down, going completely blank. Brewster looked like he was about to start crying.
And it was only now that I knew that at one point in time, Brewster and Brianna had a fling.
A fling that had only lasted a couple of days because it had been cut off quickly the moment that the woman found out about Brianna.
Hell, from what I understood, Brewster and his wife were still going to marriage counseling.
And that hadn’t been the first relationship that Brianna had helped break up.
All of a sudden, I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Brianna, why do you sleep with married men only? Or men that are in relationships?”
The silence in the car was heavy as that question sank underneath the surface.
Then Brianna said, “I like the thrill of it. The secrecy. I cheated on my own husband for fifteen months, and he didn’t even notice. That’s why I asked for a divorce.”
There was a long, pregnant pause as we both took in her words, and then I said, “Why? Why do you do it at the office where you work? These men and women have to have your back. If you stick a knife in every one of them, they’re not going to come to your aid if you’re hurt.”
“They’ll come,” she disagreed. “It doesn’t matter that I burned a few bridges. What matters is that we’re all cops. In this together.”
I snorted. “It’s nice that you think so but…I don’t agree. One day, something will happen to you, and they’ll remember what you did. And don’t think that I don’t know that you’re the one to inform their wives after enough time has passed. I know. But one day, something’s going to happen, you’ll need them, and they’ll hesitate.”
She shrugged. “Then whatever happens, happens. I’m not going to stop living my life because of fear.”
That sounded like something that Cannel told me yesterday when I’d asked her if she was okay with hearing that and how she was coping.
Speaking of Cannel…
I pulled the car over at the local coffee shop when I saw the familiar man in the wheelchair roll through the automatic doors.
“I’ll be back,” I told Brianna, not offering to get her anything.
Not because I didn’t know that she would want something, but because I wasn’t going to get her anything.
I didn’t like her attitude, and honestly, I didn’t really like her.
The more I learned about her, the harder it was to find something to like.
Getting out of the car, I pocketed the keys so she wouldn’t do something ‘funny’ and drive away without me—something in which she’d done before—and headed inside.
When I got inside, I ordered my drink from the first open barista, and headed straight for the table that Beau was sitting at.
The moment I sat down at the table, I wasn’t surprised to see anger on Beau’s face.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled.
I sat back and waited for my coffee.
“I could ask you the same question,” I pointed out.
He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “I want to make sure that you are going to treat her right. I’ll stay until I’m satisfied.”
I didn’t know that I could argue with that.
I didn’t like how he handled things with Cannel.
I was sure that I didn’t know the full story, even still.
But, to get Cannel out of the clutches of mad men, what would I have done?
I didn’t actually know.
I mean, on one hand, I would’ve done just about anything to get her back. I would’ve given my own life to get her back. But would I have offered up another woman?
No.
And not because I couldn’t do it as much as I knew she wouldn’t like it.
Even knowing her for such a short time, it wasn’t hard to see that she cared, almost too much.
On the way inside the hospital yesterday, the paramedic that’d worked on her all throughout her ambulance ride had almost tripped walking into the ER bay. She’d all but turned on the gurney to check on him.
Or, when we’d been coming into a gym, a bee had flown at a young girl who’d started to freak out. With no care to what she was doing, Cannel had run toward the little girl and helped get the bee away from her.
I had hundreds of little instances like that, little things here and there, that showed what kind of character that she had.
So no, I would never trade anyone for her.
I just wouldn’t be able to live with her hating me.
Something that Beau was now having to do.
Though, from what I understand from her, she’d already been having trouble with him beforehand.
I hated that she had to be put through a trial of fire to get to where she was at now, to get to me, but I was glad that I had her now.
What did that make me?
“Don’t do stupid stuff because you win stupid prizes,” he murmured, looking at the table. “I wish every day that I hadn’t tried to make that trade.”
I wasn’t sure when I’d meet Trouper and Beckham, but I knew for a fact that I owed them everything.
“I don’t plan on doing anything stupid,” I said as I took a rather large gulp of coffee after picking it up from the counter. “I do hope that when you make sure she’s okay, that you’ll stay out of sight? There’s something about seeing you that makes her extremely uncomfortable. And though she’s made leaps and bounds in improving, she’s still working on being one hundred percent.”
Beau jerked his head up in the affirmative, and a thought occurred to me.
“As of today,” I said, “they’re officially taking the man that held her captive for a year into protective custody. He will be given a new identity after he testifies and allowed to live his new life as a free, different man.”
Beau looked stunned at the news.
“That’s…” he paused. “That’s ludicrous!”
I agreed.
Which I told him a moment later.
“I’m having a friend look into the investigation,” I hesitated. “But from what he told me…things aren’t playing out in Cannel’s favor. The man that kept her has way more information. His keeping Cannel prisoner for a year doesn’t seem to rate on their scale of the information they can get out of him instead.”
Beau cursed and I stood up. “Take care, Beau.”
Beau didn’t say anything more as I walked back up to the counter and ordered a black coffee to go. After paying for the coffee and the cake pops that were beside the register, I headed back for the car where Brianna was silently fuming.
That fume slid off her face when she saw the food and drink in my hand.
“Is that for me?” She smiled as she reached for the cup. “You shouldn’t have.”
I moved it out of her reach. “Actually, I’m going to drop you off at the station and go have lunch with my girl.”
Brianna’s face went mutinous.
It stayed mutinous the entire trip to the station.
And when I pulled up to the curb at the front to let her out, she slammed the door so hard on her exit that my ears popped.
