Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

I nodded as I chewed.

“Jesus, Miro, you need someone around to make sure you eat.”

Not normally.

As I stood in the kitchen, damp but drying, close to the vent pumping out warm air, one of the men coming in for another beer stopped in front of me.

“I know you,” the guy said.

“Wow, that’s a great line,” another of Barrett’s friends said, smiling at me. “I think I know you too.”

I shook my head, swallowing and tipping my head at the handsome man in front of me. “You don’t, but he does. He was my doctor a few years back when I was in the hospital. What was your name again, Doc?”

“Dr. Sean Cooper,” he offered with a smile as he got closer. “But just call me Sean, all right? And you’re Miro, I heard Barrett say.”

“Yeah.”

“Here,” Barrett said as he put a large glass of ice water down in front of me. “Drink this, let’s get you hydrated.”

The last of my buzz was slipping away. “I swear I’m good.”

“Drink the goddamn water.”

So I did as I hoovered down the burger.

“Dr. Benton is your friend,” the movie-star handsome man said, returning my attention to him, as he very gently lifted my chin. “And you were shot in the line of duty.”

“I was,” I replied with a shrug. “And I’m sorry if she came off bossy that day. She gets that way when she’s scared.”

“She’s a phenomenal surgeon.”

“And bossy,” I reiterated.

“In the line of duty?” the other man asked, having latched on to those words. “What kind of law enforcement?”

“Miro’s a deputy US marshal,” Barrett answered absently, tucking a piece of hair around my right ear. “You have bruises all along your jaw here.”

I grunted.

“Yeah, I was noticing that,” Sean admitted, trailing his fingers down the side of my neck to the collar of my Calvin Klein dress shirt and lifting it so he could see the skin underneath. “Oh, Miro, you’re bleeding.”

I shook my head, shoving chips in my mouth now that the burger was gone. “It’s old,” I said without swallowing. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not at all fine.” Sean glowered at me. “How much have you had to drink?”

I came clean. “A lot, but it was a while ago now. I’m 90 percent sober.”

He nodded. “Okay, I think we need to go to the hospital.”

“I just need to go to bed.”

“How about if Barrett comes with us?”

“Nope. I’m going home now anyway. I just came to eat and run.”

Sean’s eyes flicked to Barrett. “I think you need to insist.”

“Miro,” Barrett began, slipping his hand around my bicep. “Were you in a fight?”

“Deputy US marshal,” I apprised him, cocking an eyebrow for his benefit. “It comes with the territory, right?”

He took a breath. “Could Sean just look you over?”

“I think he did already.”

“How about you go upstairs, shower, and you can borrow a T-shirt and sweats from me, and then he can—”

“I’m just gonna go.” I yawned. “I don’t wanna take off my gun holster till I get home.”

“You have a gun?” another friend of Barrett’s asked.

I was going to say “marshal” again, but I let it go. “I do, yes.”

“You’re drunk,” Sean said sharply. “And you’re carrying a gun?”

“I’m not drunk at all, and yes, I’m carrying a gun. Not firing it.”

“Maybe you should give the gun to me,” Barrett offered with not quite a condescending smile, but close. It was like he thought I was simple or too stupid to understand what he was saying to me. Thing was, I followed all too clearly. I was sleep deprived, yes, but as I’d just said, not drunk.

“Miro, I think—”

“I gotta go,” I informed Barrett, because now I was irritated. How dare they question me? I’d never put anyone in danger on purpose. How many other people could say that?

He caught me at the front door.

“Stop, don’t leave because you’re mad.” He chuckled behind me.

I had it opened a crack before he banged it shut.

“Miro—”

“No,” I barked, rounding on him, pointing into his face. “How dare you second-guess me or how I perform my job. You and your doctor friend don’t know shit about the training that any agent of the federal government goes through because we carry a gun twenty-four seven.”

“No, I—”

“I’ll have you know that I was on my way home and the guys on my team made sure I was. They would never leave me alone. We all have each other as a safety net, so you questioning me is you questioning them, and I don’t fuckin’ like it.”

This was why, beyond the four women who were more family than friends, I didn’t have people in my life beyond the guys I worked with. No one else understood that you could never let yourself completely go, never let your guard all the way down, and never take off the holster until you were home.