Page 62 of Guarding Grace (Hawk Security #2)

Peyton

I settled into the plush leather seat of the Porsche, trying in vain to think of a way to avoid this visit to the hospital.

March got in and started the car without a word.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Then the hospital is the perfect place to take you. They’ll have nice bowls for you to puke into.”

“I might not make it.”

He lowered the window on my side. “Go ahead and puke if you want. It’s a company car, so you’ll have to answer to Joe.”

Joe was their mechanic, and not somebody I wanted to get on the wrong side of. My excuse hadn’t worked, so I buckled in and raised the window.

March’s tone said he was justifiably angry with me. But, he’d also called me smart and beautiful. That was actually a nice thing for him to say.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

March deserved better. He was a nice guy, and I’d been bitchy. No, super bitchy. He’d saved me from those two guys, and I’d still treated him like crap. What the hell was wrong with me? I should be kissing him for that. Wrong. Kissing would be a mistake.

“Forget it,” he said. The words were fine, but the tone didn’t back them up.

I turned to face him. “It’s not you, March. I’m truly afraid of hospitals is the problem, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I apologize.”

His face softened. “I didn’t know. What can I do to make it more comfortable for you?”

I’d already said too much, so I laughed. “Nothing.” That was the truth. “I have to learn to deal with the anxiety.”

He slid a hand over the center console in invitation. “I’ll be here for you.” It was the kindest gesture anyone had offered me in a very long time.

When I took his hand, the zing that shot through me was more electric than I’d expected. His touch was warm, his grip firmly reassuring. “Thanks.” I pulled my hand away after a few seconds. That simple movement took more effort than it should have. This man was dangerous.

He looked over, and I smiled back at him as my insides had turned to jelly. Danger, danger. No men. Touching could lead to kissing and more. My inner voice told me to say something nasty to break the spell and re-establish distance.

I didn’t. Instead, I put my hand under my thigh and sat on it to avoid the temptation to feel the zing again. My life had been completely zingless since the dinner that derailed my life.

At the hospital, March urged me ahead of him, probably worried that if I was behind him, I’d take the opportunity to run. His instincts were good.

He maneuvered me through to the emergency room check-in.

“My friend,” March said, “was mugged.”

The young nurse looked concerned. “That’s terrible.”

“She was hit and knocked her head against a concrete wall. She lost consciousness.”

“It was just for a minute,” I noted.

“She needs a CAT scan,” he insisted.

I rolled my eyes. “No I don’t.” It wouldn’t be my first CT and likely wouldn’t be my last.

“He’s right,” the nurse said. “If you lost consciousness, a CT is standard procedure.” She pulled out a sheet of paper and put it on a clipboard. “Let’s get you started and have a doctor take a look. Any other injuries?”

“Uh…” I flicked my eyes quickly in March’s direction and back to her. I couldn’t let my name go into the system. My pursuer might find me.

The nurse got the idea. “Sir, can you take a seat, please, and give the lady some privacy?”

March looked shocked for a second but quickly retreated to one of the waiting room chairs.

The nurse tapped her forehead. “Did he hit you?”

“No. Nothing like that. He actually saved me.” I touched the raised bump on my temple that was probably looking pretty bad about now. “One of the muggers hit me here. He got very agitated last time I mentioned it, and I didn’t want him to make a scene.”

“Boyfriend?”

I smiled. “He’s applying for the position.”

She laughed. “He’s pretty easy on the eyes.”

“That he is,” I had to agree.

She handed me the clipboard. “Fill this out. Did you already report it to the police? If not, I can call them for you.”

My heart skipped a few beats. “Already took care of it.” I nodded to the side. “He insisted.” Maybe that bit of truth made up for the lie.

Looking at the paper, this was just as dangerous as I’d thought it would be. A request for my name was the first line.

“I’ll need some ID as well,” the nice nurse said.

I didn’t go for the license in my pocket. “Sorry. I don’t have anything on me. The muggers took my purse, everything.” I tapped the cut on my wrist. “Even tore the watch off my wrist.”

“I understand,” she said. “Just fill out what you can. We’ll start a bill, and if you bring in your insurance information within a week, that’ll be okay.”

I chose Payton Ellis as the name to fill in, changing the spelling of Peyton on purpose. Since Elise was the middle name on my fake ID, it was close enough to laugh off the difference if my name was called.

March couldn’t know what I was doing, or why.

“We’ll call you shortly,” the nurse said after I handed back the clipboard.

March joined me in the little curtained exam area a little while later when they called Payton.

“How do you feel now?” he asked.

“I’m the animal in the cage, and you’re the zookeeper. You tell me.”

“It’s for your own good.”

The curtain being pulled open stopped my response.

“You hit your head and lost consciousness?” the short young doctor asked, looking up from her tablet. Her nametag read Dr. Holland.

I nodded. “It was just for a minute.”

“Okay.” She giggled. “That means I’m in the right place. How are you feeling?”

“Fine, considering I?—”

“She got hit in the head hard,” March interrupted. “She needs a CAT scan.”

The doctor turned around. “Family, I take it?”

I cringed.

“Uh, no,” March admitted reluctantly.

“Then, if you’re not here for a prostate exam, the waiting room is where waiting is done.” She shooed him out with a hand motion.

March scurried out.

I swallowed my laugh at the way the small doctor had scared the big SEAL.

“Do you remember what happened?” she asked.

Touching the bump that had grown on the back of my head, I knew I’d never forget it. “The guy was big. He hit me pretty hard, and then I bumped my head against the wall behind me.”

“Do you remember it and what led up to that?”

“Uh, not really.” No cops.

“That’s when you lost consciousness?

I nodded.

She typed on the computer. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. Long enough for Mr. March there to carry me down the street and back into the bar.”

She shined a penlight in my eyes. “Follow the light, please.”

I did, feeling a sense of accomplishment.

“I’m going to give you three words to remember, and then you say them back to me when I ask. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Apple, horse, drive,” she said slowly. “You said bar. Were you drinking?”

I shook my head. “No. Nonalcoholic only.” Getting drunk could easily lead to me breaking one of my rules and having him find me again.

“Repeat those words back to me now.”

“Drive?” I shook my head when that was all that came back to me after a few seconds. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll have someone take you down to radiology for the CT and meet you back here to go over the results.”

“Do I have to?”

“Your boyfriend seems pretty adamant, and he’s right that a CT is indicated in your case. It would be beyond foolish to say no.”

I worried my hands together.

“Perhaps you’d like to talk it over with him first?” Her smile said she knew she had me.

“I… You think it’s best?”

“I do.” She typed some more on the computer before she left.

It took an hour to get wheeled to the CT machine, wait in line, and get the scan completed.

When the nurse pushed my wheelchair back into the exam space, March was waiting. A lump the size of a grapefruit formed in my throat when I saw the policeman with him.

“How’d it go?” March asked.

“Hop in bed,” the nurse said, ignoring him.

“Do I have to?”

She didn’t even have to check the computer screen. “Doc’s orders.”

I slid up onto the bed and answered March’s question. “I don’t know. This whole process takes forever. The technician didn’t say anything, and the doctor said she’d be by to talk with me in a while. But she also promised to give you a prostate exam.”

The nurse giggled but didn’t add anything as she raised the railing on the side of the bed like I was in danger of falling off.

The cop shook his head.

“Close your eyes,” March commanded. “And hold out your hand.”

When I did, cool metal landed in my palm. Opening my eyes, I couldn’t believe it—I held my watch. “You found it,” I screeched with joy.

March had found my watch, Cassie’s gift to me and my constant reminder of why I had to keep running.

“Can you keep it down, lady?” an irritated male voice came through the curtain from the exam space next to mine.

March held up some money. “I got your forty dollars back as well, just not your purse. They threw that away. Winston is checking to see if he can find it along the route they took.”

“Thank you.”

Dr. Holland pulled aside the curtain and entered, throwing a questioning glance March’s way.

“They can stay,” I said, answering her unasked question.

“The good news is, your CT came back clean,” she said.

I watched as March let out a relieved breath. It felt comforting.

“The bad news is…” She hesitated. “You have a mild concussion. It may seem antiquated, but you should have somebody watching you for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, just in case.”

“I’ll watch her for the two days. I’m familiar with concussion protocols.” March jumped in before I could suggest that I go to Grace’s.

“Military?” the doctor asked.

“Affirmative.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to get out of this situation.

The doctor laid a hand on my wrist. “In case any other symptoms appear. Sometimes there are delayed issues. I’ll prepare your discharge paperwork.”

I thanked her, and she left. I avoided March’s gaze, as the story of his friend Tommy Willmont haunted me.

Zane

In that small exam space in the ER, I basked in the news that Peyton’s CT was clear, and her excitement that I’d retrieved her watch.

It was a nice watch. Okay, maybe it was a knock-off, but it was a very nice one. Even so, it seemed more important to her than that.

“Miss Smith?” Officer Gentry asked. “Can you confirm that this watch is the one stolen from you?”

She nodded with teary eyes. “Yes. This is mine.” She looked at me. “But how?”

“You said you dislocated that one guy’s shoulder. While you were getting your head scanned, I checked admissions, and his buddy had brought him here. I asked, and he returned it.”

Actually, I’d whispered in his ear that my SEAL training included twenty-seven ways I could kill him with my bare hands. That had motivated him.

“He said he found it on the sidewalk,” Gentry added.

She rubbed her fingers over the watch’s face and then locked eyes with me. “Thank you.”

The look she gave me was all the reward I needed.

“Are these the two men who assaulted and robbed you?” Gentry showed her his phone with the pictures we’d just taken of the two scumbags. He already had his partner keeping an eye on them while he got what he needed to arrest them.

Peyton squinted at the screen, and her demeanor changed. “I can’t say. I don’t remember.”

I gripped the railing to control myself and cocked my head in disbelief. “What?”

“It must be the hit on the head,” she said. “I can’t remember anything about it. I’m sure it happened. March told me I’d been attacked, and the bump on my head is real.”

Gentry looked at me. “Can you positively identify them?”

The sizes were right, and they had the watch, but in the dark, I’d never gotten close enough to them for a positive identification. “No.”

“Sorry, Mr. March, but the DA will never take a case like this without a positive ID from one of you or preferably both.

I let loose the death grip I had on the bed’s railing. “I understand. Thanks for your time.”

“Miss Smith, if your memory improves in the near future, we can revisit this.”

“Thank you, officer. I’ll be in touch if it does.”

Fat fucking chance . At Tito’s she hadn’t said a thing about not remembering. In fact, she’d remembered dislocating one guy’s shoulder.

No, Peyton Smith was lying to me. She had torpedoed this prosecution for a reason, and I was going to find out what that reason was—maybe not tonight, but soon.