Page 4 of Cassidy

“No! We can’t go to the hospital.” He grabbed her arm. “Please, Cassidy, just take me home. I’m sure I’ll remember everything by morning.”

“Gabe, you’re bleeding and have a head injury. Of course, you need to be checked out. The gash on your head likely needs stitches.”

“No, please. I don’t want to go.” His voice sounded panicked. “Not yet.”

She glanced at him with concern. “What is really going on here, Gabe?”

“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then turned to look at her. “I wish I understood why I’m in this situation. All I can say is that my gut is telling me to lie low. To keep off the grid. To make it difficult to find me.”

“Who? To make it difficult for who to find you?” She didn’t want to risk his head injury getting worse. But the way he was so emphatic about not going in to be seen was weighing on her. What if he was right? What if someone was still out there, waiting for the chance to finish him off?

“I don’t know!” His voice was tortured. “If I knew, I’d tell you so you could help me find and arrest him!”

“Him? You remember the assailant was a man?” she asked.

He sighed heavily. “No, I don’t remember. I guess it could be a woman who clocked me in the back of the head, but I assumed the person responsible was a man. Someone with the strength to toss me out of the car and onto the side of the road.”

Cassidy didn’t point out that she, Raelyn, and Jina, the only female members of Rhy Finnegan’s tactical team, were capable of that and more. Because he was probably right. It wasn’t likely the assailant was a woman, yet one thing she’d learned over the course of her career was to not make any assumptions.

She and several of her teammates had trusted the wrong person before. Anything was possible.

But that didn’t help in making the right decision about whether to take him to the hospital or to give in to his request to be taken home.

“We could try to reach out to Alanna,” she finally said. “I’m sure she has the ability to stitch up a wound.”

“No. I can’t allow you to drag anyone else into this.” Gabe curled his fingers into fists, another gesture she’d never noticed from him before. He seemed very different from the Gabe she’d worked with for four years now.

“I would rather—” she began, but he cut her off.

“No. I’m begging you to take me home. If my memory is still foggy by the morning, I’ll agree to be checked out.” He met her gaze. “I promise.”

“Fine.” She threw up her hand. “Have it your way. I don’t ever remember you being this stubborn before, Gabe. It’s not the least bit logical not to have a doctor examine a head injury.”

“I’m sorry.” His tone was subdued, as if she’d wounded him by speaking her thoughts. “I can’t explain it other than to say I have this weird sense that I’m in danger. That I need to remember what happened before I do anything else.”

She gave in, mostly because she knew how important it was to trust her instincts. If Gabe felt as if he was in danger, then she needed to take his feelings into consideration.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go to your place,” she said, breaking the silence. “You can stay with me.”

He hesitated. “I don’t want to put you out. The thought of going home doesn’t scare me the way going to the hospital does.”

That didn’t make any sense. Yet rather than continuing to argue, she passed the exit that would take them to her condo and kept going toward White Gull Bay.

She’d give in to a certain extent. If he wanted to go home, she’d stay with him at his place. She knew Gabe had inherited the house from his father, who had passed away two years ago. Not only did he have a nice guest bedroom, but he was in no condition to toss her out.

For one thing, Gabe was tall and skinny, despite the way he devoured snacks like he feared a worldwide shortage loomed on the horizon. But even more so because she and Raelyn had begun working out with Jina at her MMA gym. She didn’t have Jina’s skill or strength yet, but she was learning.

She could be stubborn too.

“What’s my last name?” Gabe’s question came from left field. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Melrose. Your name is Gabriel Thomas Melrose. Your dad’s name was Thomas.” She glanced at him. “He died two years ago.”

He frowned. “I wish I could remember him.”

She had no idea what to say to that. Gabe and his father had been very close, but that wasn’t the case with his mother who had remarried eighteen years ago. She’d traded up, as Gabe had put it. Giving up his father the police detective for a wealthy lawyer.

Gabe’s home was a small ranch, two houses in from the corner. She pulled into the driveway, frowning when she didn’t see any Christmas decorations. Gabe had mentioned his plan to put up a tree this year, but it appeared he hadn’t followed through.

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