Page 17 of Twisted Secrets
Olivia set the phone back onto the table. “Nice lady.”
“Hardly. Doc Jones is as mean as a honey badger and twice as protective.” He shot her a look. “I think you’ll like her.”
What did that say about the way he sawherif he thought she’d get along with that snarly woman? She moved around the bar to fill a glass of water for both of them. It shouldn’t matter that he apparently thought she was mean. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She worked hard to be as unapproachable as possible while she worked. It didn’t affect her tips. People tended to like their bartenders one of two ways—mean as a snake or flirty as all get-out. The former had always come more naturally to Olivia.
So why did knowing that persona worked on Cillian bother her so much?
Chapter Six
Cillian knew he was in trouble the second Doc Jones walked through the front door. She was a big woman who looked like she came from a family of lumberjacks and bench-pressed trees for fun. Her orange-red hair was liberally streaked with gray, but she could be anywhere from forty to sixty. All he knew was that she’d been the family medic for as long as he could remember and, aside from the added gray hair that she liked to blame on the O’Malleys, she didn’t seem to have aged a day in the meantime.
She took one look at him and snorted. “Always trouble with you, isn’t it, boy?”
I’m twenty-six. I’m not a goddamn boy anymore.He bit back the instinctual response. It would only let her know exactly how much she got under his skin. Not that she needed the verbal confirmation. Doc Jones was one of the few people who talked shit to every member of his family from his youngest sister all the way up to hisfather, all without seeing any actual consequences. Probably because she was excellent at her job—and knew how to keep her mouth shut.
Olivia stood. “It’s not his fault. He was jumped.”
“Who’s this cute little piece of ass?”
She started to bypass Olivia, but Olivia got right in the doctor’s face. Nothing overtly threatening, but she didn’t back up when the large woman got into her personal space. “I’m the one who saved his ass. So maybe before you go dismissing me, you’ll ask me—the onewithouta head wound—for the details.”
Cillian braced himself to stand and get between the two of them if it became necessary. No one—not even his father—talked to the doctor like that. But Doc Jones just grinned. “I like this one. Try not to fuck it up.”
Right, because that was what he was worried about right now. The only reason Olivia was giving him the time of day was because she was afraid he’d fall down on the sidewalk and bleed out if she let him out of here unsupervised. It wasn’t exactly the suave impression he’d wanted to make. After this, he’d be lucky if she looked at him with anything other than pity.
“He was jumped by two men. He’s probably got a bunch of bruises, but the main issue is that he hit his head on the brick wall when he fell, and has been bleeding ever since.” Olivia glanced at him. “He’s been talking, but seems kind of out of it, so it’s possible that he’s got a concussion.”
“Any vomiting?”
“No.”
“That’s something, at least.” Doc Jones nodded. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble this one gets into.”
Olivia snorted. “Oh, I can imagine.”
Cillian tried not to be too insulted that theywere talking about him like he wasn’t in the room. Doc Jones took the towel off the back of his head and batted his hand away. “Don’t move.”
Since she had a history of smacking her unruly patients, he wasn’t inclined to disobey. He’d already had his bell rung tonight—he didn’t need it to happen a second time. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy.” She prodded the wound, her touch much less gentle than Olivia’s had been. “You don’t even need stitches.” She hefted her giant bag onto the table next to him and rifled through it, coming up with a handful of bandages. A few minutes later, he was wrapped up and feeling like one of those amnesia patients on the soaps his mother swore up and down and sideways that she never watched. “Good enough.” Another dip into her bag brought up an orange pill bottle. “These aren’t anything fancy—just extra-strength Tylenol. You’re a grown-ass man, so you can handle a little pain, and I’m not giving you anything else until we know if you’ve got a concussion.”
He ignored the bottle. “I don’t need anything.” Tylenol wouldn’t knock him out like the meds he’d been given after he was shot, but his aversion to pain pills had only gotten stronger as time went on. He didn’t want to take anything that might make him sleep too deeply—or take away his pain so he’d pass out. The nightmares were bad enough if he could startle himself awake easily. Being stuck in them…He wouldn’t take the chance.
Doc Jones’s eyebrows rose. “If you say so. Change the bandage once a day for a week, don’t knock your head into anything in the meantime, and you should be fine. Call me if it starts bleeding excessively again.”
“I will.” He wasn’t thrilled about thehead bandage, but it was better than stitches at this point. He fucking hated stitches.
She nodded, and turned to Olivia. “He can’t be left alone tonight. So either take him back to the O’Malley house or take him home with you.” Her dismissive tone said she couldn’t care less which option the other woman chose.
“Wait—what? Aren’t you going to take him?”
“Not my job. I made sure the idiot wasn’t going to bleed to death. The rest is up to you.” She grabbed her doctor’s bag and marched out of the pub without a backward glance.
Olivia stared. “That’s some bedside manner.”
“She’s always been like that. Comes in, patches us up, and is gone without any small talk.” Doc Jones may not have been into the softer feelings, but she liked her money. So she didn’t mind showing up at odd hours, fixing men who’d obviously been up to something less than legal, no questions asked. He was pretty sure she had her own clinic, funded in part by O’Malley money. Since he couldn’t see her answering to anyone but herself, he figured the arrangement worked well for everyone involved.
“Wonderful.”
