Don't Mess With Texas (9 page)

“I don’t know why they think it’s good luck.” The blonde refocused on her phone.

“Me, either.” LeAnn wondered if she should get someone to help convince the woman to go back inside. “But I could use some luck.”

“Me, too.” A hint of desperation sounded in her voice.

“Bad day?” LeAnn asked.

“Extra bad.”

“Same here. I just had to face my estranged husband.” LeAnn wasn’t sure why she offered that information, other than she hoped to get the woman to trust her enough to come inside.

“I could top that.” The woman closed her eyes. “I found—”

The door from the hospital building swung open. For a second LeAnn thought it was Tony stepping out the door. Her heart dropped to her stomach, but she
quickly recovered when she realized it was Dallas, her bother-in-law. But why was he here?

“Dallas?” LeAnn said.

He turned his gaze away from the blonde to LeAnn. “Oh, hey. I was… looking for Nikki.”

The blonde stood up. But then her phone rang and she whipped around and answered the call. “Nana? What’s wrong? I only could hear part of what you were saying.”

“You know her?” LeAnn asked Dallas.

Dallas nodded but his attention stayed on the blonde and her phone conversation. Right then, another gust of wind blew past and flipped open the back of the patient’s hospital gown, exposing her backside.

LeAnn looked at her brother-in-law, who was staring at the blonde’s ass. Then he glanced at LeAnn and shrugged as if to say he hadn’t meant to see it. But then, in typical male fashion, he cut his gaze back to get a second eyeful.

Men!
LeAnn cleared her throat. Dallas winced.

Fortunately, Nikki reached back and caught her gown while she continued talking. “What? I mean… is she okay?” The panic in the other woman’s voice caught LeAnn’s attention, or was it the fact that she swayed on her feet again? Either way, LeAnn, forever the nurse, moved in. But Dallas beat her to the woman’s side.

“Where?” Nikki asked the caller, then holding a hand out to stop Dallas from grabbing her, she gripped the table. “What hospital?” There was a slight pause and then she turned around and dropped down on the bench’s wooden seat. “Okay. That’s where… I’m here now.”

“How do you know her?” LeAnn asked Dallas, but he was too busy listening to the phone conversation to answer.

“Yes,” Nikki continued. “I’ll explain later. I’m fine.” She disconnected. But she sat there and stared at the phone as if trying to cope with some terrible piece of news. Empathy filled LeAnn’s chest. She knew all about trying to cope.

Nikki looked up at Dallas. “Someone… someone attacked Ellen, my friend. She’s being brought—”

“I know.” Dallas’s gaze moved to Nikki’s bloody hand. LeAnn saw Dallas’s eyes fill with tenderness and concern. Her throat tightened, as she remembered when Tony had looked at her with the same caring O’Connor expression.
Home
, LeAnn thought. She missed it so damn much.

Dallas touched Nikki’s arm. “We should get you back inside.”

“Why would someone do this?” Nikki pressed two fingers over her trembling lips. “I don’t understand any of this. Why?”

“I think getting her inside is a good idea.” Knowing Dallas would help convince the escaped patient to return to her hospital bed, LeAnn moved in and helped raise Nikki from the bench seat.

Nikki eased away as if not wanting any help. And because LeAnn knew what it felt like to not want others to pity you or treat you as a basket case, she let go.

Nikki walked toward the door, but before she walked through, she looked back at Dallas. “You thought I’d run, didn’t you?”

Run?
LeAnn didn’t understand, but decided now wasn’t the time for inquiries.

“No,” Dallas answered too quickly. “Not at all.”

LeAnn didn’t know her brother-in-law that well. He’d been sent to prison right after she’d started dating Tony.
But she knew him well enough to know he’d just lied. Plain and simple, O’Connors sucked at lying.

They walked down the hospital hall and into the ER unit. A familiar voice rang out. Before LeAnn could turn and run, Tony came barreling up.

“Damn it. Where did you…” He stopped bellowing at Nikki when he spotted LeAnn.

LeAnn stopped breathing again. Time froze and both Dallas and Nikki stared at Tony.

“She was making a call.” Dallas broke the awkward silence, and shot Tony a back-off look. Not that Tony noticed. He was still too busy staring at her. And LeAnn’s heart was too busy missing home for her to think straight.

Tony finally looked at Dallas and grimaced. “So she just yanked out her IV?”

Dallas frowned. “Maybe what happened was—”

“Maybe you should ask me,” Nikki said.

“Okay, I will.” The scowl line between Tony’s brows tightened. “Why did you pull your IV out?”

LeAnn knew her husband could come off as a hard-ass, and perhaps Tony in cop mode was just that. But beneath that tough exterior was a man who cared deeply—a man who always tried to do the right thing. She knew, because she had been his right thing.

“I didn’t pull it out,” Nikki said. “I forgot it was in. I got a call from my grandmother and all I could hear was something about blood and then the connection went out. I panicked and left to find a place with better reception.” Nikki frowned. “And I just learned that someone attacked my friend. She’s being brought here in an ambulance. Why is all this happening? You’re a cop, you should—”

Tony’s scowl line faded. “We’re trying to figure it out.”

That’s when LeAnn finally figured it out herself. Nikki was the woman Tony thought had killed her ex-husband. LeAnn looked at the accused and decided she didn’t believe it. And seeing as how she’d spent her entire life meeting strangers, she had a knack at reading people—distinguishing the good from the bad. It was part of basic survival. And LeAnn knew that Nikki wasn’t bad. Tony’s gaze landed on LeAnn again. Emotion tightened her chest. “I’m… I need to get back.” She walked away.

“LeAnn.” Tony’s voice stopped her. She turned around. He touched his cheek. “You have… something.”

“Bird shit,” she said before she could stop herself. Then for some unknown reason, she continued, “It’s supposed to be good luck.”

Feeling her face heat with embarrassment, she met Nikki’s gaze. “I hope things go okay.” As she darted off to the restroom, one thing was clearer than before: she couldn’t—wouldn’t—do next Sunday. She wasn’t emotionally capable of dealing with Tony yet.

And perhaps it was time to see a lawyer to get things settled so she didn’t have to face him ever again.

Nikki saw the way the detective watched the nurse leave. Then she saw the way the PI—her PI—was watching the cop. If she wasn’t so worried about Ellen, if she hadn’t found her ex-husband dead in her trunk, if she hadn’t been poisoned, she might have started wondering about the strange way everyone was behaving. But the hint of curiosity vanished when sirens echoed from outside the double doors leading out of the emergency room.

Nikki turned toward the sound.

Dallas caught her arm. “Let them see to her first.”

Trying to think straight, she swallowed a deep gulp of air. “Oh God. Her family needs to be called. I don’t have their home number.”

“They’ve already been called,” Detective O’Connor said, but he didn’t look away from the nurse disappearing down the hall.

A few nurses ran out the double doors and Nikki’s heart tightened for her best friend. She took a step closer to the door leading to the ambulance.

Dallas caught her arm again. “Why don’t we—”

“I want to make sure she’s okay,” Nikki said.

“Tony can find out and let us know. Right?” Dallas looked at the detective.

“Yeah,” his brother said.

Nikki stared at Dallas’s face and then at the detective’s serious expression. She got a terrible feeling. “How bad’s Ellen? Do you know something you’re not telling me?”

Dallas appeared to flinch, and the detective cleared his throat and answered, “All we know is that it’s serious.”

“Define serious.” Fear bounced around her completely empty stomach then crawled up her throat and crowded her tonsils. “How serious?” When neither man answered, a vision of Ellen fluttering around the gallery filled Nikki’s mind. Ellen—so filled with life, so upbeat, so positive, so caring. Ellen—the single parent to her little girl.

“Get back in the room!” A nurse ran to the unmanned desk and picked up a phone. She punched a few numbers and then started spouting out orders.

Dallas gave Nikki’s arm a pull. Nikki stepped back. Three doctors sprinted down the hall to meet the arriving patient.

A gurney, surrounded by a crowd of people, came barreling through the doors. They all talked at the same time, calling out heart rate, blood pressure, O negative blood, stat.

Nikki stared, hoping to see Ellen. Just a quick glance to know she was okay. Just a tiny sign that told Nikki this wasn’t as bad as the detective made it sound.

Dallas tried again to nudge Nikki back to her cubicle, but she yanked free. She had a mission and its name was Ellen. Finally, a small clearing appeared through the haze of the ER crew. But all Nikki could see was Ellen’s arm. A very limp arm hanging down with blood dripping from the fingertips.

“No!” Nikki bolted for the gurney. Dallas caught her around her stomach and pulled her back a couple of steps. She yanked free, and took one step when a large male hand caught her arm and another hand moved down her lower back and she was swooped off her feet.

“Put me down!” She felt a cool breeze on her backside and realized Dallas’s palm pressed against her bare bottom. She put a hand on his chest and looked into his dark blue eyes so he would know she was serious. “Put me down.”

“Sorry.” Ignoring her order, he carried her into the curtained-off room and carefully placed her in the hospital bed beside her purse.

Shaking, not so much from anger—though there was some of that, too—but mostly out of concern for Ellen, she stared up at him. Her gaze shot to the open slit in the curtain. She considered making a run for it, a run back to check on Ellen.

“Don’t do it.” From the way he stood at the end of the
bed, feet planted slightly apart, and determination etched onto his face, he looked capable of catching her.

That’s when logic wiggled its way into her mind. She couldn’t come between Ellen and her doctors—couldn’t slow down whatever treatment Ellen needed.

Her insides started to shake again. “She’s my friend,” Nikki said around that knot in her throat and swatted a tear that rolled down her cheek.

“I know. And that’s why you need to let the doctors do their thing. You understand?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand why any of this is happening. Who would want to hurt Ellen?”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said calmly.

She bit down on her lip to stop herself from crying.
Crying doesn’t solve anything. Crying is for the weak
. How many times had her mom told her that the first six years of her life? Enough that at twenty-seven, it was still tattooed on her memory.

She felt Dallas’s gaze on her and for some odd reason she remembered his hand against her backside. Taking a deep breath, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and, reaching behind her to make sure the back of the robe was securely tied, she stood up.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for something.” She didn’t glance at him as she opened the little cabinet beside the bed. Hadn’t the nurse put the bag of her stuff in here?

“What are you looking for?” His voice came out soft, as if he was dealing with a child or someone who wasn’t in their right mind.

And yes, she accepted that, for a second there, she’d
lost it. But for good reason. She’d wanted to make sure Ellen was okay. “Just… something.”

“What?”

She turned around and stared at him. “My underwear.” She wasn’t sure why she’d had to remove them, but she recalled being told by the nurse that she had to remove
everything
. Now that she wasn’t trying to throw up her heart, she realized that didn’t make sense. She hadn’t been here for a pap smear, so why had she needed to remove her underwear?

“I… have them,” a male voice said at the opening of the curtain, and Detective O’Connor entered the small space.

Nikki looked at the detective and then at Dallas.

She recalled at some point thinking these two men looked alike. Now that they were standing shoulder to shoulder, she realized just how much they resembled each other. Not that the detective gave her the stomach flutters like Dallas did. Now she wondered if her recently hired PI—whose job was to prove her innocence—was somehow related to the detective whose job seemed to be to find her guilty.

Her mind went back to the problem at hand—her lack of panties—and she recalled what the detective had said.

“Why do you have my underwear?” she asked.

A
KNOT FORMED
in Dallas’s stomach at the look on Nikki’s face. His gaze shot to his brother, hoping Tony handled this well.