Page 17 of Beyond Rosy Irish Twilight

“What do you need me to do?”

“I don’t fucking know,” I said as I ran my fingers through my hair.

“You’re too close to her.”

I huffed out a laugh. “How can I be close to a person I barely know?”

“You like her,” he said frankly. “You can’t help yourself. The moment you saw her, you wanted her. I know you, man.”

That was the bad thing about working so closely with these guys. They knew everything about me, including how I would respond to a woman that so desperately needed help.

“Get the fucking doctor here now. I want her relaxed and sleeping. Her father didn’t allow her to have any fucking pain medication, and I want to know why.”

He nodded. “Maybe Patrick can get it out of her.”

“I have to go take care of shit. As soon as you get ahold of the doctor, I need you to make the announcement that we’ll be moving locations.”

“You know, we could call in OPS. This would be a great time to add some more guys to the detail.”

“Not a fucking chance. Cash made it perfectly clear that if we took this job, we were on our own.”

“And you don’t think he’d help you out?” Chance asked. “Come on, we’re closer now than ever to taking down Ambrose. If there’s ever a time to ask for help, it’s now.”

I shook my head. “No, there’ll be a time we really need him. I’m not calling in any favors before then. Besides, we need these guys to trust me. If I start bringing in other men to replace them, we’ll have a mutiny on our hands. Pick out the ten most trustworthy men and have them set up at whatever property you chose. I want that place secured before we arrive after the wedding.”

“What are you going to do?”

I clenched my jaw angrily. “I have a meeting with a new client.”

“And you’re going alone?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “No fucking way. You’re not going anywhere without me.”

“Chance—”

“No,” he snapped. “When we agreed to do this job with you, it was under the condition that we would have your back. If you fucking die, who do you think this job falls back on? Do you think we stand any chance of finishing the job? There’ll be an all-out war for who takes over. I’m not getting a bullet in the head because you decided to go your own way. Either I go, or you don’t go anywhere. It’s bad enough we have Patrick on babysitting duty for the foreseeable future.”

“He’s on babysitting duty for a reason,” I snapped.

He took a deep breath and nodded. “I know. Give me five minutes and we’ll leave.”

I nodded to him and swiped my hand through my hair. When moisture gathered between my fingers, I stormed into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I was fucking sweating. Christ, I had to pull it together. I couldn’t be freaking out like this over a woman. Whether she was going to be my wife or not didn’t matter. I had to focus on the job at hand.

Storming from the bathroom, I marched into the living room and nearly yelled at Patrick as he lifted her from the couch. “What are you doing?” I asked, barely containing my rage at seeing his arms around her.

“Chase said you had the bed ready. I was going to take her there, unless you wanted to do that yourself,” he said with a sly grin.

I did want to do that, but this wasn’t about me. It was about getting answers. That’s what I told myself anyway, as I marched over to her and scooped her up into my arms. On the way to the room, she moaned and her eyes fluttered open. She stared at me for a second before closing her eyes again and resting her head against my chest.

Fuck, this was bad. I didn’t want her thinking she could rely on me. I laid her down and put a good amount of distance between us. She looked so small as she laid on the bed taking deep breaths. She was still terrified and I was dying to know why, but I wasn’t sure now was the time to get into that.

“Are you okay?” I asked, unable to leave until I knew she wasn’t going to panic again.

“Yeah,” she said in a small voice. “Sorry about that.”

I glanced back at the door and almost left, but I wanted answers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head, but refused to say anything else.

“You ran out into the street!” I snapped angrily. “You could have been hit by that truck.”

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