Fatal Courage: Shadow Force International, Book 3 (Shadow Force International Romantic Suspense Series) (38 page)

Colt put an arm under one of Jax’s shoulders and helped him stand. The man in the suit gave them both a nod. He had the air of a proper English butler. “Mr. Megadeth. Mr. Shinedown. Beatrice sent me.”

Yeah, whatever. The man assumed that said it all, and it pretty much did. “Follow Ruby,” Jax told Colton. “I need to tell the doctors about the poison, and her heart, and the bullet wounds.”

“They know,” Mr. Suit said. He hit the auto button on the wall next to him and the glass ER doors slid open. He held out a hand, motioning Jax and Colton in. “Looks like you two could use some medical attention yourselves.”

“I’m fine,” Jax ground out, letting go of Colt as he hobbled across the threshold.

Colton, fine ex-SEAL that he was, seconded the pronouncement.

“Very well, then.” The man edged around Jax and turned right, heading down a hallway. “Your client will be in surgery for a bit. I suggest we get you cleaned up and into some dry clothes. Perhaps I could get you a cup of coffee or some sandwiches?”

Jax was torn between following the man and heading the opposite direction where he’d seen Ruby disappear. A couple heading past him screwed up their noses and gave him a disparaging look.

Even in a hospital where plenty of people came in bruised, bloody, and dirty, he was a sight. Clean clothes would be good. Coffee too. But no way he wanted to be on the other side of the hospital while Ruby was in surgery.

“Can you get me into the surgical room?” he asked, limping behind.

Mr. Suit was Beatrice’s man after all, and Jax was due for a miracle.

The man looked him over. “Perhaps after you shower, sir.”

Good answer. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. You may call me James.”

“All right, James. Where’s this shower?”

James led Jax and Colt to an office in the far wing of the hospital. The nameplate on the door read “Doctor Null.”

James unlocked the door and showed them in, leading them through a fancy, contemporary office and into a private bathroom, complete with a shower. “You may clean up here,” he said to Jax. “Mr. Shinedown will be across the hall doing the same. Clean clothes are on the back of the door.”

Colt gave Jax a
what the fuck
look, then followed James out. Jax shed his clothes and went to work on cleaning off the mud, caked on blood, and sweat.

As he watched the blood—Ruby’s blood—swirl at his feet and drain away, he felt gutted again. As if it were his own blood washing down the drain. She was his everything and he hadn’t told her.

Her body had seduced him. Her brains had challenged him. Her incredible strength of character and charming charisma had made him fall in love with her.

The thought of losing her once again hit him in the solar plexus so hard, he had to bend over and prop his hands on the shower stall wall.

He’d cried for the first time in years today. The rain had kept him from acknowledging the wetness coming from his eyes during the drive, but now he realized he was crying again. Big, tough, SEAL, acting like a pansy. The heat that had filled his stomach so many times from anger, now rose up to his chest cavity.

This heat was different, though. It wasn’t rage. It didn’t burn like a motherfucker. The waves of heat were warm and soothing, like the sun shining on his skin. It was…

Satisfying.

He let the sensation course through his system, Ruby’s face all he could see. He heard her voice in his ears. Remembered the little O her mouth made when she was coming for him.

He loved her. Her love gave him something. Filled something. Soothed the angry demons.

He felt whole.

Healed
.

The last of the blood swirled past his toes and down the drain. Jax straightened. Ruby had healed his broken heart. He hadn’t even realized how his parents’ rejection had split him in two. How his being kicked out of the SEALs had felt like the slap of abandonment. The people and institutions that should have offered him a family had both spurned him.

Until Beatrice and the Shadow Force team had taken him under their wing and made him believe in himself again.

Ruby had taken things a step farther. She’d repaired the cracks in his heart.

He had to tell her, had to let her know.

The clothes on the back of the door were nothing but a set of scrubs, but Jax didn’t care. They covered what needed to be covered. He had to get to the surgical unit and be by Ruby’s side.

James was waiting in the hallway. “Very good,” he said, seeing Jax’s improved state. He handed him a mug with the hospital’s logo on it, steam rising from the coffee it contained. “Shall we visit the operating suite?”

“Lead the way,” Jax said, accepting the coffee. “And hurry.”

“Yes, sir.”

A few minutes later, Jax was in the glassed-in, overhead gallery, looking down on the doctors working on Ruby.

Not exactly what he’d envisioned, but James had assured him that Beatrice had pulled all the favors she could to get him into the authorized personnel-only area. Entering the surgical room itself was out of the question.

Several video monitors gave him close-ups of the work being performed. The operating table sat in the center of the room, a host of wires, electrodes, and tubes to and from Ruby. Large lights overhead shone on her body and the anesthesia cart sat at the head of the table.

Machines to measure her blood pressure, her pulse, and her heart rate surrounded the surgeons and nurses. A cardiac catheterization machine was also nearby.

Jax’s coffee grew cold as he sat and watched. James disappeared. Colton joined him, sliding into the seat next to him without a word. Just a slap on the back for support.

Over the next few hours, more people arrived. Zeb, Emit, Rory, with his cane. Hunter showed up too. They sat around Jax, not asking questions, simply lending silent support as Ruby’s system was flushed of poison, her neck stitched, the bullet fragments in her shoulder removed, and her ribs reset.

At one point, several hours in, Jax felt a hand on his. He glanced up to find Beatrice had taken up residence in a chair next to him. Cal, looking fit to be tied, was on the other side of her.

“What are you doing here?” Jax asked, his voice raw.

“You’re family, Jaxon.” Beatrice smiled. “Where else would I be?”

Those bloody hot tears filled his eyes again and he looked away from her knowing face. “You should be headed back to DC. That baby’s bound to come soon.”

“I’m in an award-winning hospital sitting next to a doctor who saved two people in the same number of days. If this baby comes, he comes. So be it. We’re both in good hands.”

“She,” Cal corrected. “We’re having a girl.”

Jax wiped his eyes with the palm of his hand. “I’m not delivering your baby, boss. And with Ruby, as well as Elliot, I may have violated the Hippocratic Oath.”

“What part would that be?” she said watching the closest screen as the men and women in blue scrubs circled around their patient. “It is a common misconception that the oath states ‘first, do no harm’,” she continued. “although I believe that to be construed in all versions, from the original to the modern ones used in US medical schools today. However, correct me if I’m wrong—and I’m not—most oaths contain this statement:
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug
. You certainly have shown sympathy and understanding when it has come to the care given Agents Hayden and McKellen. The CIA, and Shadow Force International, owe you a great debt.”

He’d never actually taken the oath, but of course, Beatrice knew it by heart.

Somewhere deep within Jax, a little voice told him he should go back, finish his residency, and take that oath. He’d always wanted to be a doctor. A part of him still did.

But Beatrice was wrong. Sympathy and understanding weren’t going to save anyone’s life. “I screwed up big time. I nearly got our client killed, and you along with her.”

This time it was Cal who spoke up, leaning around Beatrice to look at Jax. “Bullshit,” he said in a low voice. “You did exactly what any of us would have done. We’re the best damn operatives in the business, but once in awhile, some asshole can still trick us or outmaneuver us. No one in the CIA, NSA, or the Department of Defense had a clue that Al-Safari faked his own death. What makes you think you should have figured it out?”

Because I was there when we picked him up
. He’d taken Hayden’s word for it, the damn Moroccan intelligence group’s word for it, that the man they had arrested was Abdel Al-Safari.

“Even I didn’t see that one coming,” Hunter agreed behind Jax’s right shoulder.

Beatrice looked at Jax as if that confirmed it.

Maybe it did.

Cal was right. The SFI team was the best in the business. Beatrice was a genius. Hunter, a superhuman soldier. Emit, the man who supplied them with every high tech gadget he could create, including his own software programs the military and intelligence services around the world would kill to have. The men who worked for SFI, like Cal, were all former SEALs. The best of the best.

The kind of experts that Mohammed Izala liked to collect.

Only all of the SFI team members worked together because they wanted to, not because some asshole held them prisoner and tortured them.

Jax glanced over his shoulder at Emit, who sat behind him. “You still want me on board, even after I turned this assignment into a goatfuck?”

Emit chewed on a Twizzler, seemed to consider the question carefully, and for a second, Jax’s gut went south.

Then Beatrice gave Emit a look that made the man stop chewing and sit up straighter.

“You apprehended Elliot Hayden and cleared him of wrongdoing.” Bite, chew. “You saved Agent McKellen’s life, and stopped two major terrorists who found a way into our country from kidnapping her. The CIA is turning cartwheels, and her boss told Beatrice he plans to take Ruby back into Langley’s folds and prime her for an officer’s job.”

Another bite and a chew. “She’ll be running her own squad of operatives when she goes back into the field is my guess, and I just received a message from my contact at Justice—they’re reopening Elliot’s case, by the way, and he’ll probably be cleared of all charges. My contact’s been in a meeting with the president along with the heads of the Agency, the Bureau, and Homeland for the past hour, and guess what? The president reamed them all a new one for failing so badly at finding Commander Pierce and keeping scum like Al-Safari and Izala out of America. There’s an investigation into Homeland already—Elliot will need to help them root out the traitor—and, oh yeah, the president is awarding you a Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism.”

“What?” Jax had to grab onto the arm rests. “I’m not even in the Navy anymore.”

As if that was the real reason for his argument. They all shot him confused looks.

“I mean, that’s ridiculous,” he continued. Ruby still wasn’t out of the woods and he’d created a mess at the airport, then fled the scene. “I’m no hero.”

Hunter snickered. “The president can do whatever he wants. Trust me, I know from past experience with the previous guy who sat in the Oval.”

“Jaxon.” Beatrice rarely showed irritation, but it was obvious in her voice and the look she gave him. “I only hire heroes. The cream of the crop. You know that.”

He started to argue—this was all surreal—but she shut him down with an arched brow and a feisty light in her eyes. “You will report for duty as usual tomorrow morning. Don’t even think about not coming back to SFI.”

He knew when he was beaten. There was a lot for them to talk about, but maybe right here, right now wasn’t the place. “I’m still not delivering your baby,” he said, only half teasing.

“Fine,” she said, and he heard a note in her voice that told him she was really thinking,
we’ll see about that
.

“And I’m going to need a day or two off to recoup,” he added.

She narrowed her eyes, understanding that what he was really saying was,
I need to stay with Ruby until she’s okay.
“I suppose you’ve earned a few days off after this latest mission.”

“Thanks.” He had to swallow hard around the lump in his throat. “Thanks also for everything you’ve done for me. Ruby, too.”

Her only response was to squeeze his hand.

The door to the viewing balcony opened and James stepped inside. In a lowered voice, he said to Beatrice, “Ms. McKellen’s parents are here.”

“Thank you, James.” She started to rise, and Jax grabbed her hand.

“I can talk to them if you need me too.”

Emit jumped up, putting a hand on Beatrice’s shoulder to keep her in her seat. “I’ll handle this. You two stay put.”

Beatrice nodded. “Agent McKellen’s boss at the CIA has already explained most of what happened to them. It came as a shock of course, since they didn’t realize she was an undercover agent.”

“No problem,” Emit said, following after James. “I’ve got this.”

Jax sat back and rubbed his tired eyes. “Do I still need to talk to the authorities about what went down at the airport?”