West brought the car to a halt behind the other cruiser parked in front of the historic brownstone housing Ellie’s medical office. Blood rushed in his ears. His hands shook with temper. Putting aside her first careless choice to go on a break by herself behind the pub, she’d taken on some anonymous motherfucker, alone, without regard for safety, caution, or an ounce of God-given common sense. The predominant question in his head made it past his lips. “What the hell was she thinking?”
Without waiting for an answer, he slammed out of the car and started up the short flight of stairs to the double-hung doors as old as the building they fronted, boasting a fresh coat of paint nearly as dark as his mood. They opened without resistance at the force of his pull, and a few more steps brought him to another door with gold letters across frosted glass. DR. ELLANORA SWANN-LONGFOOT. The sound of duty boots on hardwood told him Shaun followed close behind. Then a firm hand landed on his shoulder, and a voice full of reason said, “Take a deep breath and get yourself under control, or don’t go through that door. The last thing this situation needs is a hotheaded boyfriend charging in and adding insult to injury.”
“I know.” He did. He absolutely did. SEAL training and cop training left him with normally excellent control of his emotions—volatile moods didn’t belong on the job—but Roxy wasn’t part of the job to him, she was
part of his…the word life sprang to mind, but he took that deep breath Shaun had recommended and pushed the thought aside, because thinking too much about what Roxy was gave rise to emotions far more dangerous than temper.
“I’m fine,” he said after releasing the breath. “I’m not going to charge in like a hotheaded…like a hothead.” With that, he opened the door, passed through the deserted waiting room, and followed the muted sounds of conversation to the first treatment room. Ellie stood on one side of the exam table, Hudson stood on the other, and in between them, a pair of slender legs in red cowboy boots stretched out on the paper-covered table.
At his approach, Ellie glanced over her shoulder and gave him a quelling look. “Hey, West. Shaun. Good news. Our patient will live to fight another day.”
He opened his mouth to try and offer a reply that matched Ellie’s casually reassuring tone, but just then Ellie stepped back and Roxy came full into view. He took in lots of details at once—her red blouse ripped at the sleeve, a livid scratch across her cheekbone, and ice pack on her forehead. A grim array of asphalt stains and bruises decorated her elbows and knees. As a final, miserable detail in the picture she presented of a Wednesday night gone wrong beyond all reason, a bug-eyed, bat-eared black dog lay next to her, shivering. The thing looked like a cross between a pug and a space alien, with its undernourished body connecting a big, round head and oversize paws. All concept of casual reassurance fled. “Jesus Christ, Roxy, you’ve taken recklessness to a whole new level.”
Her eyes went wide but completely unrepentant. “I should have just ignored a redneck bully getting his kicks beating a half-starved animal?” She used her ice-pack hand to gesture at the dog.
The move revealed a contusion the size of a golf ball and the shade of a nuclear apocalypse along the side of her forehead. “So you jumped him? Holy shit, woman. He was bigger, stronger, and hey, as a bonus, he might have been armed. He might have done anything. Your rescue effort had all the earmarks of a suicide mission—for you and the damn dog.” Just voicing the possibilities brought on a fresh wave of panic. “You could have called 9-1-1. You could have run into the bar for help. Did any of those thoughts register in that hard head of yours before you went off half-cocked?”
The dog’s whimpers filled the echoing silence, making West realize two things at once. Namely, Hudson and Buchanan had retreated from the room, and he’d raised his voice. A lot.
Roxy stroked the shaking canine. “You scared him.” The softly spoken words were full of censure.
“You scared me,” he shot back.
Now the contrition he’d initially sought loosened the stubborn set of her jaw and brought a sheen of something he feared might be tears to her eyes. Suddenly he felt as mean and low as a dog-kicking dickhead.
“Well,” Ellie said briskly, “now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” she gently guided the ice pack back to Roxy’s forehead, “let’s keep the ice in place for another couple minutes and then I’ll do a compression wrap. You still might end up with some bruising lower on your forehead or even around your eyes, but the wrap should minimize it. Keep icing this evening—ten minutes on, twenty minutes off, until you go to bed tonight, and repeat that as much as you can tomorrow. Your head’s going to ache like it’s splitting for the next couple days. Use Tylenol for the pain, and I can give you Ultram for the worst of it—”
“No, don’t. I can’t take it.”
“Roxy.” West stepped closer. She was hurting. He could see it in the tight line of her lips. “Ellie’s a doctor. If she tells you to take something, you take it.”
Her chin took on a mutinous jut. “I. Can’t. And you know it.”
He spun away. Helpless frustration had him primed to punch a wall. Instead, he took a breath, let it out slowly, and approached the exam table again, prepared to try diplomacy. “Goddammit, Reckless…”
Her attention cut to Ellie. “I have a history of opioid addiction. I can’t risk—”
“Of course not.” Ellie smoothed a hand along Roxy’s shoulder. “Double up on the Tylenol for tonight, if your stomach can take it, and keep your head elevated above your heart. A couple pillows should do the trick. The likelihood of a serious concussion is low given what I’ve seen—you’re alert and oriented, with none of the typical symptomatic complaints—but”—her gaze drifted to West—“it would be best to have someone stay with you tonight.”
“I—”
“Done,” West answered over Roxy. “What do I need to watch out for?”
Ellie ran down the red flags for him while she put a compression bandage around Roxy’s head. Shaun and Hudson returned, and while Roxy signed her statement, Shaun handed West the key to the cruiser. “I’ll ride back to the station with Hudson. You’re off the clock. Call tomorrow and let us know how she’s doing.”
“Will do.” To Roxy he said, “Come on, Captain Marvel, let’s get you home.” He went to the exam table to lift her into his arms and then paused when the dog aimed one round eye at him and let out a feeble sound that still managed to approximate a growl.
“Shhh. You’re okay,” Roxy cooed. To him, she added, “I can walk. I’ll carry him to the car.”
“No, and no. Hey,” he called to Shaun’s retreating back, “can you or Hudson take the dog? I’ll call animal control tomorrow and find out where it belongs.”
“Sorry, no can do,” Shaun said, sounding not at all sorry. “Ginny’s allergic.”
“Me, neither,” Hudson chimed. “Sheila would skin me alive, bringing a stray home to a four-month-old baby.”
“Don’t look at me.” Ellie tucked her hands behind her back and retreated a step. “Tyler leaves at the crack of dawn every morning, and I have unpredictable hours. There’s nobody around to look after him during the day.”
“I’m taking the dog,” Roxy announced.