Page 144 of Lone Star

“Nah, man, you should stay here and eat Jell-O.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Gringo was sympathetic – God knew he wouldn’t have wanted to be in that bed, in that gown, with a leg he couldn’t put his weight on – but not overly so. Not considering. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone off doing shit behind Candy’s back, and you wouldn’t be laid up.”

Jinx’s face smoothed a moment. Absolute shock.

Gringo was a little shocked himself; he wasn’t the brother who dispensed wisdom. Not ever.

“I know why you didn’t like Pacer,” Gringo went on, “and, hell, I don’t even have a good reason, but I didn’t really like him either. He was a dumbass. But you let that old grudge make you stupid.”

Jinx scowled. “I wasn’t the only one who went to Sandoval’s.”

“Yeah. But you didn’t have to go along with them.”

Jinx gave him a look.

“Okay, so I’m real bad at this whole devil’s advocate thing. I’ve never done it before. What I mean is: you can’t be there now, tomorrow, but you can support the boss man from now on.”

“This really ain’t your look.”

“Tell me about it.” Gringo pushed a hand back through his hair and stood. “I’m freaking myself out here. Beingreasonableand shit.”

That earned a reluctant grin from Jinx.

“Shit, I better go down and see if there’s any hot nurses to hit on.”

That earned a chuckle. Success.

Someone rapped on the door.

“Ooh, maybe they’re coming to me,” Gringo joked.

But when the door swung open, it revealed a tall, broad-shouldered, muscled man in scrubs. He had an ID clipped to his pocket, and wore gloves, carried a little tray with paper pill cups.

But.

Gringo knew an immediate, instinctual bolt of apprehension, tight in his belly, tingling in his fingertips. He didn’t kid himself by thinking he was as savvy as Fox, or cold as Talis, or effective with his fists as Candy. But something about this moment screamedwrongto him, and he listened.

The man – the nurse – wore his hair shaved close to his head; he had a scar on one cheek, and his nose looked like it had been broken at least once. His neck spoke of weightlifting – lots of it. And his shoes, Gringo noted, as the door shut, and the nurse turned toward them, weren’t the usual Crocs or sneakers of every other nurse he’d seen. They were boots. Good, broken-in work boots that had been in dirt recently.

Oh, shit, he thought.

~*~

Tenny had been asleep for an hour or so. Reese had sat silent watch, occasionally checking the time on his phone, grateful for the quiet. It had given him time to think, to reflect on the conversation they’d had.

It wasn’t hate that simmered in his breast now – at least not his own understanding of that emotion. No flaring lights and sirens in his mind, an internal snarl, a fury that left him wanting to lash out. He felt…calm. Peaceful. Clear-eyed and sharp. Mercy had said what Tenny had then echoed, that Fox was testing him. That was easier to swallow than the alternative, than the idea of Fox not caring for his own brother.

Perhaps the problem all along had been about Ten not understanding family. The idea that he himself knew something that Tenny didn’t was a buoy. Maybe hewasa person. Maybe he’d been learning that for a while now.

Beyond the glass wall of the room, he heard the slap of feet, and snapped to instant alertness. Was on his feet and facing the door, hand resting at the small of his back, on the gun waiting there in his waistband, when the door rushed open and a nurse appeared in the threshold. It was the same one from before, the one who’d smiled at him and touched his hand and thought that he and Tenny were to be married.

She looked different now, stained by panic, her eyes wild and glazed, her mouth trembling. “There’s – there’s a–”

Reese didn’t ask for clarification. He knew that brand of panic; most often, he was the one dealing it.

He went down the hall, to the door between waiting room and ICU, and as he reached to open it, he heard a shout, and a scuffle. After he’d gone through, he saw Agent Maddox on his feet, tussling with a large, beefy man in scrubs, while a second advanced on them, the edge of a knife winking in his hand.

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