Page 23 of When He Fights (Protector & Defender #3)

Chapter Thirteen

“This is bullshit.” Kane glowered at the doctor and the nurse who seemed intent on trying to admit him to the hospital.

For cuts that were not nearly as bad as the ones he got while shaving.

“I have scratches. I am not littered with bullet wounds. I don’t need to be kept in the exam room any longer, and there is no freaking way you are keeping me in this place for observation!

Thanks, but no thanks. I am leaving in the next five minutes. ”

Ana stomped in front of the doctor and nurse. “The hell you are,” she said flatly. Her little hands balled on her hips. “If they want you to stay, you are staying.”

At least she was wearing clothes again. When the first responders had rolled onto the scene, Ana had been wearing that sexy, little blue robe. One that had a tendency to gape and show too much of her pert breasts. He’d insisted she change before he would agree to get in the ambulance.

The ambulance . Kane snorted. Talk about another colossal waste of his time.

He’d only gone on that ride because he’d wanted the EMTs to make absolutely certain that Ana hadn’t been hurt by the flying glass and damn bullets.

If she’d had so much as a cut on her delicate skin, he probably would have lost his mind.

Luckily, Ana had been unharmed, and he’d been able to keep breathing.

“You have stitches,” the doctor stated from behind Ana. The woman sniffed. “Glass had lodged pretty deeply into your shoulder.”

He was aware. They’d been painstaking about the removal of the glass. If someone had just given him tweezers and a mirror, he would have ripped the shit out himself. Only no one had obliged when he’d made the request. Then they had taken their sweet time stitching him up.

“We needed stitches to close the largest wound,” the doctor added. And she sniffed again.

Bullshit. He hadn’t needed stitches. He’d had way worse wounds over the years. What he needed was to get out of that hospital. To get to Gray. To find out who the hell had littered Ana’s house with bullets.

As if he didn’t already know, though.

Logan Catalano.

“If you don’t listen to our orders,” the nurse announced with a definite arctic bite in his voice, “then you will just break open the stitches.”

Yeah, that was probably gonna happen. It had happened before with other injuries. It would happen again. He’d survive.

Ana kept her gaze on Kane. “You are a terrible patient.”

He crooked his right index finger at her.

Her gaze sharpened.

He crooked the finger again.

Kane sat on the exam table, with his legs sprawled in front of him. He wore the same sweats as before, though now they had blood on them, so he’d have to be ditching them soon. Tennis shoes. Socks. No t-shirt because the EMT had been poking and prodding at his wounds and hadn’t let Kane put one on.

Ana crept closer to Kane. Her hands remained on her hips.

“Damn straight, I am,” he admitted when she was grabbing close, and, oh, but he wanted to grab her. Grab her, haul her against him, and kiss the hell out of the woman.

They tried to shoot her. If she’d been in that room, playing the harp without me there, the bullets could have slammed into her.

Shit, shit, shit.

“I want time alone with my girlfriend,” he snapped to the doctor and nurse even as he refused to take his gaze off Ana. “Now.”

“Kane!” Ana shook her head. “We are in a hospital. ”

He knew where they were. The antiseptic smell and the exam equipment were dead giveaways.

“You don’t get to order the nurse and the doctor around!”

Fine. He angled his head toward their audience and finally took his eyes off Ana. If she wanted him to play nicely, he’d try. For her. “May I please have time alone with my girlfriend?”

“ Kane!” Again, from Ana. Still sounding annoyed. “It’s a hospital, not a hotel! We don’t get a private room for fun.”

Had the doctor just snorted? Sounded like it.

“We have paperwork to complete,” the doctor announced. “Not like we want to just hang out with you all night.”

He almost smiled at that bit of bite. Maybe he could like the doc.

“You’re stitched up,” she noted. Dr. Asha Quinn.

She’d introduced herself immediately after entering the exam area.

The nurse was Sean Hill. The doctor pursed her lips and continued, “I am going to advise you to follow all release protocols that you will be given in your departure paperwork. I’m trying to help you heal with a minimum of scarring. ”

Nice of her, but he didn’t care about the scars. He just cared about getting the hell out of there and getting Ana into a new safe house.

She is not going back to her house. She can’t. The house he’d wanted to be a home for her. The bastard with the gun had shattered that home as surely as he’d shattered the windows.

“Good luck,” the doctor said. Those words seemed to be—very pointedly—for Ana.

“Yes, thanks,” Ana responded. “I’ll need it.”

The doctor laughed. But she did fire one more firm look Kane’s way. “Don’t rip open those stitches.”

He would make no promises.

The doc and the nurse exited.

“That was rude,” Ana told him as soon as they were alone. “You were rude.”

Right, fuck, he had been. “I’ll send an apology note.”

“Don’t you dare mock me.”

He wasn’t mocking her. He was dead serious.

Probably not the time to tell her that his mom had been a stickler for manners.

Thank you notes had been required for any and all gifts and if he fucked someone up—like the time he broke that jackass Bryan Kendall’s nose in the sixth grade—she’d made him send an apology note.

Dear Bryan,

I am sorry that you are an ass. You shouldn’t pick on people smaller than you. If I see you doing it again, I’ll just have to break your nose a second time.

Your (never-gonna-be) friend,

Kane

His mom had insisted he write the notes, but she’d never actually read them. Or if she had read them…for some reason, she’d still let him mail the suckers.

She’d done her best with him. He’d loved his mom. And then, one day, she’d just been gone. An aneurysm. No warning. No stopping it. Just— gone.

Sometimes, you didn’t realize what a giant, gaping hole someone would leave in your life, not until the person was gone.

After Ana had left, there’d been another hole in his life. One so big that it threatened to swallow him alive.

He’d written a letter to Ana at the time. A note apologizing for the way he’d left her. A note spilling out his guts. Only, he’d never given her the note.

Dear Ana,

I’m sorry that I am not there with you right now. But at my core, I’m a cold-blooded bastard, and you need more than me in your life. I’ll drag you into the dark, and you belong in the light. Hell, you are the light. At least, you are to me.

You told me that you were falling in love with me. When you said those words, all I wanted to do was grab onto you and never, ever let go ? —

Ana started to back away. Kane couldn’t have that, so his hands flew out and curled around her waist. He pulled her toward him.

“Kane! ”

He jumped off the exam table. Spun around and put her on it. Then he began to carefully inspect every single inch of her. Just in case he’d missed something before. Kane believed in being thorough. Particularly where she was concerned.

Ana batted at his hands. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for cuts.” He tried to lift up her t-shirt.

She shoved it right back down. “I told the EMT on scene, I told you like four times already—I am fine! ”

“Yeah, but you could have been lying. All those times.” He tried to lift the shirt again.

She shoved it down once more even as she gasped, “How dare you accuse me of lying!”

“Oh, come on, sweetheart, you could probably have lost a limb and you wouldn’t complain.

Do you remember how you were after the attack at that lame-ass, no-tell motel?

I had to force you into the ambulance even when you had blood streaming down your side.

” A memory that would be forever burned into his mind.

Luckily, though, he didn’t see any blood on her body.

This time.

“You were the one cut by flying glass,” Ana reminded him. “Not me. How could I possibly be cut? I had my own personal human shield covering every inch of me.”

He checked her neck. Lifted her hair. Damn straight, he was her shield.

“I do not have any cuts,” Ana enunciated clearly and slowly. “You do. Thus, the stitches.”

He let her hair fall. “I think you should strip.”

Her hand slammed into his chest. “I think you should get your sanity back. I am not cut. I am not shot. I might have a bruise on my ass from hitting the floor when you tackled me, but otherwise, I assure you, I am perfectly fine.”

The door squeaked open behind him.

He ignored the squeaking door. “Let me see your ass.”

“No!” Ana blasted. “You are not seeing my ass right now! I am not stripping for you!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Gray’s quick exclamation. “Big time-out here, people. Big. No ass showing, and that’s an order.”

Kane’s teeth snapped together. “I’m trying to make sure Ana isn’t hurt!” He spun around and frowned when he saw Gray. “What in the hell happened to you?”

Gray lifted—partially lifted, anyway—his left wrist. A brace covered his wrist and snaked up his forearm.

“You mean this lovely new accessory? It was a gift from the ER doc who recently treated me. No worries. I get to follow up with an orthopedic specialist, ASAP. Joy. Should be fun. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll even get surgery.

” Faint lines bracketed his mouth. “What can I say? It’s been a busy night for us all. ”

Ana tried to jump off the exam table and approach Gray.

Kane wrapped an arm around her and put her right back on the table.

“Kane!” Ana snarled.

He kept a hand on her waist. “How the hell did you break your wrist?” he asked Gray.

“Oh, the usual way.” Gray lowered his wrist.

“What is the usual way?” Did it look as if Kane had endless patience? His friend could spit out the details at any moment.