The Heathen (Preacher Brothers 2)

When I reached my hand in to see if there was anything I’d missed, my fingertips brushed up against something cold and hard. My heart stopped and my body froze. I knew what it was before I even pulled it out of the bag.

A gun.

As I held that gun in my hand, the weight substantial in my palm, the overhead lighting glinting off the silver and making it shine almost ominously, I felt my heart jump into my throat.

I wasn’t a stranger to violence or weapons, not just within my employment, but also in my personal life. Guns and abuse were an everyday occurrence that came through the ER. The violence had also been an everyday occurrence with my father coming home drunk and angry because he’d lost even more money gambling and using me as his punching bag.

I shook my head and pushed those toxic thoughts away. They had no place in my life anymore.

My instinct was to drop the weapon right away, but I set it down gently and pushed my chair back, just staring at it and then glancing over to where he lay.

He breathed out evenly, a relaxed expression on his face. He was running a fever, a pretty high one at that, and I worried about infection setting in. Hell, maybe he’d been sick before he’d gotten into the accident. I wouldn’t know anything until he woke up, but I still took measures and even gave him some antibiotics one of the times he’d been awake.

I looked in his bag once more and saw an orange envelope lying flat on the bottom. I reached for it and realized it had some substantial weight to it, and as I ran my fingers over the edges, I already knew what would be inside before I opened it.

Money.

I opened the flap and looked inside, seeing two stacks of bills. I pulled each one out and held them in my hands, realizing they were all hundreds. I wasn’t even able to guess how many were in each stack, but it was a shitload. I swallowed and put the money back in the envelope then put that back in the bag.

I glanced down at the gun but ignored it for the time being. I reached over with shaky hands, picked up the black leather wallet, and opened it, seeing his driver’s license right away and pulling it out.

His picture was frighteningly intense, his expression stoic, his dark eyes trained at the camera with this almost dead look in them. It looked like he was ready to kill something, like they were pissing him off just by being alive.

PREACHER

CULLEN

564 CLARKMILL RD

STANSBURG, WASHINGTON

LICENSE NO. BIRTHDATE

FG88694 04-26-1983

SEX: M Ht: 6-03 Wt: 215

Eyes: BLU Hair: BRO

I looked at his address again. He was about an hour away from home. “Where were you running to?” I whispered those words, although I was just assuming, guessing. I didn’t know if he’d been running to or from something, but the gun in his bag, the envelope filled with cash, had me thinking he was probably running.

Without Internet, it wasn’t like I could look him up. I also hadn’t found a cell phone on him, and I’d been so focused on getting him out of there that I hadn’t even bothered checking the floor of his SUV, which might’ve produced the phone, giving me some numbers and names. Anything.

I looked back at him. Cullen Preacher. The name suited him, with this dark and kind of dangerous quality to it.

Maybe he was a criminal. He had a gun, a bag packed with clothes as if he were going away. He had a shitload of money. He looked intimidating and scary, with tattoos and his big, muscular body. I opened up the billfold, and all I saw was hundreds upon hundreds of dollars inside. I closed the wallet again and put everything back in the bag the way I’d found it.

I stood and walked toward him, stopping when I was by the edge of the couch, looking at him, seeing his face, wondering who he really was. I’d covered him up with a blanket, removed his shoes and jacket, and couldn’t help but stare at his arms that rested on top of the fleece. His biceps were huge, his hands big and masculine.

I walked around the couch and stood right next to him, looking down, staring at his relaxed face, the bruise I could see creeping out from under the bandage I’d placed over the sutured wound above his eye. I grabbed the thermometer that sat on the little table by the couch, the lamp on it casting a warm yellow glow. I ran my palm over his temple, his fever still prevalent, but it had lowered since I’d given him something to reduce it.

I didn’t like seeing him this way, despite the fact that I had no idea who he was, and I had this very strong feeling he wasn’t the type of man who liked being this vulnerable either. I looked over at the table at his duffel, knowing the gun was inside, a stack of cash right under that. Had he killed someone? Had he robbed a bank?