Hearts Awakened (19 page)

“Right.” She took the file he proffered.

Jay glanced sideways at Mark. “Drop the handkerchief.” Mark frowned, winced with the movement and lowered his hand. Jay’s eyes narrowed. “Lift your arm.”

Rolling his eyes heavenward, Mark complied. Tori caught a glimpse of the raw patch on the back of his biceps and flinched. Jay nodded, making a noncommittal sound in his throat. “Layla? I’m going to check out the possible broken arm in four. While Mrs. Stinson is in X-ray, would you stitch up Mark’s eyebrow and irrigate that gravel rash on his arm?”

Layla grinned, an evil glint in her dark gaze. “Sure thing.”

“I don’t need stitches.”

Jay slapped him on the back. “You won’t feel a thing and she does beautiful work. The best stitches you’ll ever see. Hey, Layla, have him hit the scales too, would you?”

Mark scowled. “That’s cold, Jay.”

With a laugh, Jay ducked out of the cubicle again. While Layla retrieved a wheel chair and escorted Maggie to the radiology department, Tori watched Mark fill out a report. The silence stretched, as did Tori’s nerves. She fidgeted, slipping a finger beneath the hem of her sweater to twist her navel ring.

“What happened to you…to your eye?” she asked, unable to bear the quiet anymore.

He didn’t look up. “Jed didn’t want to go to jail.”

She shivered at the images his bald statement conjured. “You’re okay?”

His pen scratched across the paper. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re bleeding and I care what happens to you. Why wouldn’t I ask?”

With a muttered curse, he ripped the report from his clipboard, crumpled it and tossed it in the trash. He pulled a fresh form and snapped it on the board. “Fine, you care. I’m okay. We’re both happy.”

The bitterness made her stomach ache. She wrapped her arms around her midriff. She hadn’t wanted it this way. They’d agreed to be friends, but obviously, it was impossible to go back there from where they’d been. She couldn’t leave things the way they were, though.

“You were great with Maggie earlier,” she said.

With a rough sigh, Mark laid down his pen and finally looked up at her. “What do you want from me, Tori?”

She opened her mouth and closed it. What did she want from him? What did she want, period? She stared into his stormy gray eyes and the anxious pain in her abdomen intensified. Had letting him go been the worst mistake she’d ever made? She missed him, missed the way he made her feel. Maybe she’d been wrong. She swallowed hard.

“I—”

“Okay, Investigator, let’s take a look at that laceration.” Layla breezed into the cubicle. Tori ran a hand over her eyes, not sure if she was irritated or relieved by Layla’s appearance. Humming, Layla snapped on a pair of gloves and laid out her supplies. “Tilt your head back, please.”

Mark didn’t move. “This isn’t necessary. It’s not that—”

“Are you a doctor? I didn’t think so.” Layla put her hand under his chin and pushed. “Now, tilt.”

Jaw tight, he complied. With economic movements, Layla cleaned the cut and applied a local anesthetic. When she pierced Mark’s skin with the needle, Tori averted her gaze. Once, he gave an audible gasp and Layla snickered. “Oh come on, Cook, that didn’t hurt.”

“Easy for you to say,” he grumbled. “You’re not on the receiving end.”

Tori glanced back as Layla tied off the final stitch. With deft movements, Layla cleaned and irrigated the raw patch on Mark’s arm. “Okay,” she said, clearing away the supplies and stripping off her gloves, “I’m going to see if Maggie’s finished in radiology.”

She swept out. A pained grimace twisting his face, Mark reached for his clipboard and pen again. Tension gripped the line of his shoulders and Tori wanted to reach out, stroke soothing fingers over those taut muscles. She wrapped her hands into tight fists. He wouldn’t welcome her touch. A memory of them together, his arms around her, flickered through her mind. He’d been so patient, so ready to wait. She’d thrown all that away out of fear and guilt.

She darted a look at his face, set in lines of concentration while he filled out the standardized report form. Maybe it didn’t have to be too late. Surely if she talked to him, explained how her insecurities and her worry over Tick had twined together in her mind, leading to a rash decision, surely he’d listen. He’d understand.

Rubbing her hands together, she moistened her lips. “Mark?”

“What?”

“I was wondering if—”

“Here we go.” Layla wheeled Maggie back into the cubicle. “No broken bones.”

Tori dredged up a smile. “That’s great.”

Filled with a sense of loss, she glanced away from Mark and stepped forward to do her job.

Mark leaned against the patrol car and ran his hands over his face. “Man, I’m beat.”

“It’s been a long night.” His clipboard braced on the car’s roof, Chris finished filling out his report on the fight at Spirits, where Jed and Maggie’s evening had gone haywire as well.

“A long shitty night.” Actually, it had been a long shitty week, filled with double shifts, a populace that seemed determined to perform every asinine action possible, and mostly sleepless nights disturbed by weird dreams of Jenny and Tori both leaving him.

Chris tilted his wrist to glance at his watch. “Hey, it’s after eleven. Call us in.”

Stretching sore muscles, Mark twisted to pick up the radio handset. “C-3, Chandler.”

The radio crackled. “Go ahead, C-3.”

“C-3 and C-5, ten-seven, ten-forty-two.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this ready to call in out of service, ending tour of duty. A couple of hours in that tiny cubicle with Tori and her big eyes had him ready to jump out of his skin. He supposed that whole mess with her checking on him had to do with their being
friends
.

Her friend was the last thing he wanted to be. It was damned depressing.

“Oh, yeah. I called FDLE this morning.”

Mark perked up at mention of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. “And?”

“They’re sending us a listing of all unidentified female remains found in Florida since the year Jenny disappeared.” Chris shrugged, recapped his pen and stuck it in his pocket. “I figure we can check those out, eliminate any in the wrong age range.” He slanted a sideways glance at Mark. “I don’t suppose you have anything we could pull a DNA sample from?”

Mark shook his head, unwrapping a piece of gum. “Her mama might though.” His mother-in-law had turned Jenny’s old room into a virtual shrine. More than likely, she still had a hairbrush or one of Jenny’s baby teeth. “I’ll call her tomorrow morning.”

“Good deal.” Chris tossed his clipboard on the dash. “They can pull DNA from skeletal remains.”

A shudder worked its way through Mark. Skeletal remains. It was one thing to accept Jenny’s death when he still remembered her as a pretty, vivacious blonde, quite another to have his last image of her a pile of scattered bones.

“There’s a couple of witnesses on Rigsby’s list he didn’t have interview reports for too.” Chris removed a hard caramel candy from his pocket, the cellophane crinkling as he pulled it free. “We’ll want to follow up on those.”

“Yeah.” Mark squinted up at the sky. The city’s lights obliterated the stars. “We could run down this weekend, see her mama and those witnesses for interviews.”

The automatic doors to the ER slid open and Tori emerged. Mark’s chest tightened and he chewed harder, wintergreen exploding in his mouth. Weariness colored each of her movements, her shoulders slumped. She pulled her keys from her pocket and scanned the area, her gaze falling on him. She straightened.

Don’t come over here. Please.
He wasn’t up to dealing with more of her friendship tonight.

Her steps light and graceful, she moved down the stoop and walked toward him. He swallowed a groan. He should have known this wouldn’t be easy.

“You don’t look happy to see her,” Chris muttered, lips barely moving. “I thought y’all had something going on.”

“You thought wrong.” Mark crossed his arms over his chest. Her snug sweater curved around her full breasts and he glanced away, tamping down a memory of holding her, those silk-covered breasts brushing his arm.

When she reached them, she smiled, although the corners of her lips trembled. “Hi, Chris.”

Chris tipped his hat. “Hey, Tori.”

Mark watched her eyes dim as she turned to him. She rotated her keys in her fingers. “Mark? Are you off duty yet?”

He opened his mouth but Chris cut him off. “We just signed out.”

Eyes narrowed, Mark glanced at Chris. Some temporary partner he’d turned out to be. Partners were supposed to watch your back, not stab it.

Tori still watched him, her smile gone, fingers nervously spinning those keys. “I was wondering if you wanted to go for coffee or something?”

“You don’t drink coffee.”

Her mouth thinned and a tiny frown appeared between her brows. “Then you have coffee, and I’ll get a Coke. I was hoping we could talk.”

Like they had anything to say, really. “I don’t think so. Chris and I have to gas up the unit—”

“I can do that.” Chris opened the car door and rested a hand atop it. “Tori could drop you back at the station after your coffee.”

Anger flooded Mark’s veins. His
partner
, temporary or not, better worry about his own back. “That’s out of her way.”

“I don’t mind,” Tori said, a pleased expression chasing away her frown. “It sounds like a great idea.”

Oh yeah. A freaking fantastic idea. He clapped a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “Thanks, Parker.”

“Anytime.” Chris tapped the brim of his hat and climbed into the driver’s seat. With a wave, he pulled off.

Tori clutched the keys so hard her fingers whitened. “Don’t be angry with him.”

She was telling him what to feel now? “What do you want, Tori?”

Shaking her head, she bit her bottom lip. “Just to talk.”

“It’s been a hell of a week and I’m wiped out. I’m not up for this tonight.”

“Mark, please.” She stepped forward, too close, and laid a hand on his forearm. He stared at her fingers on his skin, the surface burning under the soft touch.

“Don’t.” Encircling her wrist, he lifted her hand free of his arm. Dark eyes wide and filled with hurt, she stared at him. He clenched his teeth. He wasn’t going to feel guilty and she could stop looking at him like he’d kicked her cat or something. He ran a hand over his nape. “What do you want from me?”

“I just…” She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. When she opened them, a fierce fire burned in the dark depths. “I want you to listen to me.”

“Fine,” he snapped and waved a hand between them. “Talk away.”

She swallowed, the graceful line of her throat moving. “The other day…I was wrong. I was scared and worried about Tick, nervous about us, about failing you and getting hurt, and I let it get bigger and bigger in my head until the easiest thing to do was run. To tell you—”

“To dump me, you mean.”

“I guess.” She twisted the key ring around her fingers. “I’m sorry, Mark, if I hurt you.”

If. Damn it, he’d left himself open to her, had let himself believe in them. “Is that all?”

She bit her lip again. “Please give me another chance.”

He was hearing things. Had to be. Lay his heart out there for her to stomp again? No, thanks. “Let me get this straight—
you
asked me for a chance in St. Augustine and then dumped me two days later because your brother didn’t approve, and you want me to give you another chance?”

“I know it’s asking a lot and I’ll have to prove myself to you, but—”

“No.”

She jerked back a half step, eyes wide. Her mouth trembled. “W-what?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Oh.” She was trying not to cry. He could tell by the stiff way she nodded, the fingers clenching the keys, the deep breath she dragged in, the shimmering eyes. “I understand. I should have…” She blinked rapidly. “Do you still want a ride?”

“No thanks. I’ll walk.”

“Okay.” She flicked a glance up at him and looked away, teeth tearing at her bottom lip. “Good night.”

She walked away. The ache in his chest made it hard to breathe and he rubbed a hand over burning eyes. Staring up at a streetlight, he bit down hard on his gum. “Blew that, didn’t you, Cook?” he muttered. Yeah, he’d acted like her friend. He’d acted just like what he was, a proud, half-in-love-with-her male crushed by her rejection. A guy who’d tried to salvage his pride and keep his heart safe by hurting her. Man, he was low.

Low and stupid. What was he thinking, letting her just walk away? Hadn’t he just spent a week wanting her back? He jogged across the street, keys and cuffs jingling. She was halfway to her car, her head slightly bent but still moving with the motions of someone scanning for signs of imminent danger.

“Tori, wait up.”

She stopped, shoulders straightening, a visible shudder moving through her body before she turned to face him. She lifted her chin to a defiant angle, tears glittering on her face under the bluish lights. Guilt slammed him. “I’m sorry. I was an ass.”