Page 149 of Beware of Dog

Then logic caught up to him. “But Maverick…” He didn’t want to cause a scene, for anyone to get arrested, to get shit stirred back up after the post-Abacus peace.

“This isn’t up to Maverick,” Walsh said, with a note of finality. “It’s Devin’s op.” He nodded toward his father. “His and the Foxes.”

“If there’s any blowback, I’ll take it,” Devin said. “Not you, and not the club.”

Shep had drunk his coffee too fast; his head was starting to buzz. He reached up to massage at his temples and said, “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“And you don’t have to.” Devin grinned, teeth flashing white in the blue-dawn dimness of the room. “It’s my treat. Consider it a wedding present.”

~*~

Cass’s chest felt very, very warm. It was pleasant at first, like a heated blanket, or that initial moment of slipping down into a hot tub. But then it was too warm. And then it was burning. And then it was pain, an ugly pulse of it, lightning zingsbranching off from the main source and crackling across her ribs and down her right arm.

Sensation filtered back in slowly: the feel of scratchy fabric against her bare skin, a cool draft coming from overhead, the scent of industrial-strength cleaner.

She heard beeps, and murmuring voices. There was a sense of light, a fluttering: her eyes trying to open.

An unfamiliar, but friendly female voice said, “Cassandra, are you waking up? How’s your pain, honey? Can you hear me?”

Lifting her eyelids was a conscious struggle, and even that hurt her chest. Oh, God, it was on fire. And the pressure was incredible, like someone had dropped a stack of cinderblocks on her. She blinked, and a kindly round face came into view; blue scrubs with little cats on them. A nurse. And the pain was mounting, mounting, mounting…

She opened her mouth to sayterrible, and a high-pitched whining noise came out instead.

“Okay, gotcha,” the nurse said, and reached for something out of sight.

“Cass?” That was Mum’s voice. High, panicked. “Oh, darling, are you okay, oh…”

“She’s okay.” Shep! That was Shep! “She’s hurting. She needs another morphine hit.”

As he said it, the pain began to dull. She was warm again. Soft. Floating.

“Just a half-dose this time, sweetie,” the nurse said, and patted the back of her hand. When she stepped back, Mum took her place, a strange halo of light around her head. Everything was fuzzy; sound seemed to come down the length of a tunnel.

“Darling.” Emily laid a careful hand on her arm and leaned into her face. “My precious girl, I’m so sorry.”

“Mum…s’okay.” Cass wanted to lift her other hand to clasp her mother’s but her arm didn’t want to cooperate.

Shep appeared behind Emily, his expression tense like it had been the day in the precinct. The day she’d propositioned him, and he’d taken her home and delivered. The face of a man about todo something.

This time, she knew, it wouldn’t involve rolling around and rucking up the sheets, laughing at each other between kisses.

Even through the glitter and glow of the morphine, worry pulsed cold in the place where the pain had been.

She lifted her hand—she tried to—she focused on it—and it raised up a few inches. “Shep.” Her mouth was dry, and her lips heavy, and she couldn’t say what she wanted to: Mum, I love you, but please, I need Shep, I need to talk to my husband.

They seemed to understand, though.

Emily drew back, wiping at her tears, expression morose when Shep touched her shoulder and guided her gently back. She went, though: stepped out of sight. And Shep crowded in close at the head of the bed.

Maybe it was the morphine, but she swore his fingertips struck sparks along her forehead as he swept her hair back off her face and tucked it behind her ear. His eyes were terribly soft and red-rimmed, but he didn’t smile.

She tried to wet her lips, but her tongue was leathery and thick in her mouth. She tried to find the right words, but the morphine was spinning her thoughts out slow and stringy like saltwater taffy. When she blinked, the dark was lovely, and her eyelids were so heavy…but no.No. She had to say…had to tell him…

“You’re…leaving,” she croaked, and it wasn’t a question, because she could see it all over his face, in every loved line and groove of it.

His throat bobbed, and a muscle in his cheek twitched. “I’m notleavingleaving. I just have to do something. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“No…Shep…”

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