Page 25 of In The Trenches (Owens Protective Services)

Rae was already at the door, holding it open for me. “What happened?”

“She’s injured,” I said, stalking down the hallway to the medical room at the back of the gym. Rae hurried ahead of me and opened the door, flipping on the light. I laid the woman down on the table, then lifted her shirt to assess her injured shoulder. It was pulled from the socket, dangling there like a limp weed.

“Holy shit,” Rae muttered.

“Did she say anything about a shoulder injury?”

“No, she didn’t say a word. I definitely got the feeling she wasn’t comfortable training, but that was it.”

“Call Lock in here.”

“Shouldn’t we take her to the doctor?” Rae asked.

I stared down at the woman, knowing instinctively that’s not what she would want. Until she woke up and I could talk to her, I wasn’t taking her anywhere.

“No, go make the call. I’ll stay with her.”

“Boss—”

“Just do it!” I snapped over my shoulder.

I gritted my teeth, mentally berating myself for talking to Rae like that. I was always the calm one, cool and collected. Shit washed right off me, but staring down at this woman, my protective instincts were flaring, telling me something really shitty was going down.

Now that I had a moment to really look at her, I brushed the dirty blonde hair from her face and took in her features. With an angelic face and beautiful, tanned skin, I had a hard time figuring out why anyone would dare hurt this woman. I pulled her shirt back down, not wanting her to wake up in such a vulnerable position. As I was shifting her shirt, I noticed scarring on her stomach, wrapping around to her back.

I bent over for a better look. She had a few jagged scars that ran along her waist, but I couldn’t see how far they went without moving her. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to calm down before I beat the shit out of someone. I pulled her shirt the rest of the way down and moved over to the sink, resting my hands on the edge as I breathed through the anger and hatred.

I’d seen enough shit in the military to make me want to kill every fucking man out there that even so much as looked like an asshole. But I’d locked that shit down long ago. I had a successful business and great friends. I would not ruin that all by exacting revenge on someone that I didn’t even know. Even if I felt something stirring inside me when I looked at this woman.

A moan from behind me reminded me that whoever she was, I needed to use kid gloves with her. She was injured and scared, and my anger would only terrify her. I turned around, but stayed where I was, not wanting to make her even more uneasy. She winced as she tried to raise her arm, only to have it lay limply at her side.

“You dislocated it,” I said more gruffly than I intended.

She flinched slightly, her eyes moving cautiously to meet mine. “What happened?”

“I was about to show you how to move when you cried out. Then—”

“I remember now,” she interrupted me. She started to sit up and I rushed over, pressing my hand on her good shoulder.

“You don’t want to do that.”

“I need to leave. I have to work tonight.”

“Not like this, you’re not.”

She glared at me, the first sign of some fight coming out in her. “I’ll be fine. Please take your hands off me.”

I gritted my teeth, but did as she asked, stepping back to give her space. With her good arm, she shoved herself into a sitting position. I didn’t miss the hiss of pain or the way she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Luckily, the door opened and Lock walked in, followed by Rae.

The woman noticeably stiffened until Rae walked over and stood beside her. “Beth, this is Jerrod Lockhart, but you can call him Lock,” she smiled. “He’s a medic, and he’s going to take a look at your arm.”

She shook her head immediately. “No, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Lock said as he walked over to her, trying to get a better look. “You should go to the doctor. From what Rae told me, Cash barely touched you when your shoulder dislocated.”

“It’s an old injury,” she confessed. “But I’ll be fine.”

“If it’s an old injury, you might want to consider surgery.”

---