Page 3 of Lone Star Witness

Tonight, she was wearing purple scrubs, and she had her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. She smiled, the relief evident in her expression.

Then, no relief, and the smile went south in a hurry.

“You’re bleeding,” she blurted, following the direction of the drops that were now splatting on the sidewalk.

Slade cupped his hand around his arm to add some pressure so he didn’t leave a blood trail all the way into the facility.

“Don’t you dare say it’s a scratch,” she added, and she went to him, taking hold of his other arm to lead him inside.

“It’s more than a scratch,” he admitted. “I was hoping you’d give me a stitch or two on my arm. Again,” he tacked onto that since it wasn’t the first time she had done that particular medical procedure for him.

Then again, Marise was a nurse and a former combat medic, so he suspected she had stitched up plenty of people over the years.

While they walked, she studied him, frowning but also giving him a nurse’s once-over. “You’ll need a butterfly bandage on your forehead, and you’re moving as if your ribs might be injured. I won’t bother to ask if you’ve been to the ER.”

Slade conjured up a smile. “You’re my preferred caregiver in situations like this. So, stitch me up, and then you can tell me why you called and left that message.”

A message she’d left nearly an hour ago now, and when Spock had read it to him, it had given him a jolt of instant alarm.

Slade, I need to see you as soon as possible. Please meet me at Patriot’s Retreat. I won’t be leaving until I speak to you.

Yeah, instant alarm and a whole lot of urgency since in the entire decade that he’d known Marise, she had never once played the as soon as possible card. He’d literally gotten here as fast as he could, along with sending her a text to let her know he was on his way.

“Can you tell me what happened to you?” she asked as she led him inside the facility. The A/C was up and running, and he immediately welcomed the cool air that spilled over him.

“Parts of it.”

Unlike the military missions they’d served on together, his op wasn’t classified, but there were still bits of it he’d rather not share. It was hard enough to live with some of the images without spelling them out.

“An asshole from Austin decided to prove to his estranged wife how much he loved her by kidnapping her and taking her to a rundown motel in nowhere Texas. The estranged wife’s new boyfriend hired Maverick Ops to find her. I did, and I got her back. I handed her over to the cops before I drove here.”

Marise made a sound to indicate she was giving that some thought—along with assessing what he hadn’t said. “So, the Austin asshole beat you up?”

He shrugged and winced when it got some bruises whining again. “Him and his two equally asshole brothers. At gunpoint, they forced their hostage, AKA the estranged wife, to call the boyfriend, telling him that she’d escaped and for him to come to the motel and get her. The boyfriend called me, and since I was closer to the motel, I got there ahead of him.”

“It was a trap?” Marise concluded.

“It was,” Slade verified. “I figured the kidnapping bastard of a husband would be there, but the moment I stepped out of my van, the brothers rushed out from behind a huge trash bin. One of them had a bat. The other, a knife.”

He wouldn’t mention the gun.

Slade felt her hand tense on his arm. “How bad is the cut.” But she shook her head, waving that off. “I’ll see for myself.”

She maneuvered him down a hall, past an office that had her nameplate on the center of the door. Marise Brennan, Chief of Staff. A lofty title, but he knew she’d held a loftier one as the rank of Captain when she’d been in the Air Force. That’s where they’d met, on sand-clogged missions where people got hurt.

And died.

That’s where they’d laid the foundations for a solid friendship. Something they’d both needed as much as their next breaths. A confidant. A shoulder to cry on. Someone who knew exactly what they’d gone through and could help them continue to get through it.

Because they’d wanted to hang on at all costs to that solid friendship, they’d never been lovers. They’d come close. But always pulled back. Much easier to bleed all over a solid friend for life rather than a lover.

She took him into an infirmary that was similar to what he’d seen in some hospitals. There was an exam table and lots of equipment, and Marise had him sit on the table.

“Take off your shirt if you can manage it so I can check for other injuries,” she instructed. Her back was to him while she rummaged through one of the cabinets.

Oh, he’d manage it all right. Along with doing a massive amount of silent cursing. Slade peeled off his black tee, glancing down at his chest and stomach. Hell, it looked as if a hoard of toddlers had had a field day with black and blue markers.

“The bat,” Marise muttered, drawing his attention back to her. She met his gaze and aimed a scowl at him. “I’m tempted to poke at those ribs just to prove to you that you need to be x-rayed. I can’t do that here,” she quickly added. “The facility is top shelf, but for anything more than the routine, we send clients to the hospital.”

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