Ryland (3 page)

Alistair sat there with his own lunch in
front of him for over thirty minutes. His mother was right, they had treated
her badly. Paying for the lunches, he took his own with him as he made his way
back to the offices. He stepped off the elevator in time to see Bronwyn answer
another call. Liz was sitting next to her.

~~~

Bronwyn saw him get off the elevator and
turned away. She was going to work for him, but she didn’t have to like him. And
right now, she hated him. Putting the phone into the cradle, she looked at Liz
when she stood up.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Golden, there was a
miscommunication. I thought she was coming to my office and the officer brought
her here. When she didn’t show I thought she was a no call no show and—”

“And she’s sitting right here.” Bronwyn
flushed when they both looked at her, but before she could say anything else
the phone rang. She picked it up, this time with the correct greeting. She
heard the two of them talking softly, but not what they were saying, so she
ignored them. When she hung up Liz was gone and Mr. Golden was sitting across
from her.

“I’m sorry for the way you were treated.
If I was half the man I thought I was I would have met you in the lobby and
brought you here myself. I dropped the ball.”

She looked at the notes she’d taken from
Liz.

“You’re supposed to say you forgive me.”

There was humor in his voice, but she
wasn’t in the mood for it. “He pointed a gun at me. You said I’d be safe here. You
told me…no, you promised me that no one would treat me like that again.”

“Yes, I did. And I’m sorry about the
gun. Are you all right now?” She nodded. “Bronwyn, look at me. Are you all
right? Did you go to the doctor again?”

“I’m here, and I work for you from nine
until five. I don’t have to report to you about my health or my wellbeing.” She
looked at him. “You said yourself in the courtroom, we’re not friends. I owe
you money and that’s all this is.”

He sat there for two more phone calls. One
he showed her how to redirect, the second one he told her to tell the man that
the company had a standard policy on that and he would need to make an
appointment through the company lawyer.

“Bronwyn, what you did for me that
night…I wish you would just let me help you without all of this. I told you
before that I owe you my life.”

She stiffened and then tried to relax
when it hurt.

“Bronwyn, please—”

“I have a job to do. If you don’t mind,
I’d like to do it. And as for the other, I didn’t do anything. I was just in
the wrong place at the wrong time.” The phone rang again and she snatched up
the handset like it was a lifeline.

As he walked away, she reached into her
bag and pulled out the pain reliever that Sindy had shoved at her before she’d
left. She wouldn’t be able to sit here much longer if the pain didn’t recede
soon. Taking a handful of them, she swallowed them down with a bottle of water
she’d brought with her. The sandwich from earlier was still sitting untouched
on the desk.

By four o’clock, she was near tears she
hurt so badly. Thinking about cutting out of seeing Mr. Golden, she walked to
the bathroom down the hall to see if her wound was seeping again. Blood stained
her shirt and, even though it was dark blue, she knew that someone could see it
if they looked. Pulling on her hoodie again, she made her way back to the desk
to find the other Mr. Golden standing there. He looked anything but pleased to
see her.

“Are you injured?”

She didn’t move from the doorway. When
he came toward her she backed into the wall behind her and moaned at the
shooting pain. She held onto the wall behind her while he looked at her.

“You are hurt and bleeding. What is the
matter with you?”

She shook her head not able to speak
through the pain.

“I asked you a question and I want an
answer.”

“I’m just fine and dandy,” she snapped,
and glanced at the clock over her desk. “It’s almost five o’clock and I’m
supposed to meet with the other Mr. Golden. No one showed me how to put the
phones to the service so either you show me or you do it, but I’m out of here.”

He stared at her for several seconds
before he went to the phones and pressed buttons. She didn’t know what he was
doing and didn’t ask. This man was a prick and she decided she didn’t like him
overly much.

When she started toward Mr. Golden’s
office, he followed her. Trying her best not to show she was hurting, she
walked as close to the wall as she could without touching it. When she told the
secretary that she had an appointment with her boss, she was asked to wait. She
stood while her boss watched her.

“You should call me by my first name. It’ll
make it easier on you when you have to tell which one we are.”

She didn’t care what his name was, nor
did she ever think that there would be an occasion where she’d have to speak to
them together.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes. I just don’t care what your name is.
You’re both Mr. Golden to me.” The secretary told her she could go in now. She
started toward the door when he followed her. “I’m seeing him, not you. I put
in my eight today with you.”

“I want to speak to you both.” He opened
the door for her and she watched as Alistair Golden came toward her from his
desk. “Go inside, please.”

Alistair stood up as she entered. She
wasn’t sure what the hell they wanted, but she wanted to go home and crawl into
bed and never wake up. When Alistair asked her to sit, she looked at the chair
with longing, knowing that she’d never get up if she sat.

“She’s bleeding.”

Bronwyn looked at the other Golden,
Ryland, and before she could deny his claim he continued.

“She’s in a great deal of pain too.
Though she won’t admit it, she’s afraid to sit down because she more than
likely won’t be able to get up again. What happened to her?”

“None of your business.” She looked at
Alistair. “What did you want to see me about? I’d like to go home.”

“Ryland, she’s all right, or so she’s
told me several times. I’m handling this. She needs some rest is all.”

She glared at them both and she had a
feeling that something more was going on. Especially when Alistair looked at
her sharply.

“What happened to you?”

She looked at Alistair, who nodded at
her then back at Ryland when he asked again.

“Something is hurting you and you are
bleeding. Badly, I would say. If I don’t get some answers I’m going to call the
police after I call an ambulance.”

She sat down. Weak with worry that he’d
do just that, she dropped her bag to the floor and looked at Alistair. He sat
too and handed his brother a file. “It happened three nights ago. She was
bartending at the bar on Tenth when a man came tumbling out and fell on me. Another
man came out quickly after him and he fired three shots. Bronwyn took two that
were meant for the first man and saved my life by killing the man with a bat
that had been under the bar.”

“You bastard.” She tried to stand up,
but couldn’t. “You said that no one would know. You told me that I’d never have
to let anyone know what happened after the judge had it tossed out.”

“Let me see.” She looked at Ryland when
he stood up. “I want to see the wounds. Where are they?”

“Go to hell. I’m not showing you shit,
and where do you get off thinking that I would?” She looked at Alistair. “I’m
finished. I’ll get you the money I owe you somehow and then I’ll be—”

“Be quiet.”

She snapped her mouth closed and glared
at Ryland when he turned to Alistair.

“She’s my mate. I didn’t…Christ, when I
smelled the blood I came out of my office to see what she’d done. Then she came
down the hall and I could smell it was her. I got close enough to smell all of
her and she’s my mate.”

“Christ.” Ryland nodded at Alistair and
both men stared at her.

She had to get out of here and right
fucking now. Standing up cost her, but she was moving to the door when hands
wrapped around her waist and over her wound in her side. Screaming out in pain,
she turned and hit him. She was falling now and knew that when she hit, she was
going to hurt worse than ever. Closing her eyes against the impact, she slipped
away when she was grabbed again. This time she felt the wounds tear open.

Chapter 3

Ryland watched her sleep. She was so
still that he was worried for her. Twice now he’d gotten up to make sure she
was still breathing, even though he could hear he heart beating in her chest.
He touched her hand and was amazed at how cold she still was. He moved back to
the chair when the door opened. His mother and two of his brothers stood there
in addition to Alistair.

“She all right?”

Ryland nodded at his mom.

“Why don’t you go home for a while and
we’ll stay with her. Doctor Myers said she’d be out for a few more hours.”

He and Alistair had talked while they
waited on the ambulance to come. He wasn’t to tell anyone what she was to him.
Alistair had agreed, but only after he made him promise that he wouldn’t wait
too long. Their mom was going to be pissed enough as it was. He wasn’t too
happy either.

“I’ll stay with her. She works for me
and I rode in with her.” That sounded lame even to him and he decided to change
the subject. “She have any relatives that we should notify?”

“The nurse pulled her file when we got
here. There’s a next of kin to notify. I didn’t hear what the woman was to her,
but her name is Sindy Wilson. The nurse seemed be familiar with Miss Lawrence.”

Ryland nodded at his brother Brock.

“You think she’s been in here a lot?”

Ryland didn’t know, but when he’d pulled
up her shirt to look at her wounds he’d had to take several deep breaths. She’d
lost a great deal of blood. And there were enough scars on her ribs to let him
know that someone had used a whip on her recently. He looked over at her again
and wondered who she was.

“I’m going to tell you how I came to
meet her. She will be pissed, but I think under the circumstances, we should
all know.” The door opened and his last two brothers walked in. Alistair smiled.
“Good. We’re all here. I was going home from work three nights ago when I
walked past the Red Rose. I could hear the fight going on inside and was just
about to cross to the other side of the street when a man came tumbling out and
fell on top of me.”

“Did you get your suit dirty?”

Ryland glared at his brother Jules and
he apologized.

“I never seen a man so particular about
his suits as he is, was all I was saying.”

“Well don’t say anything else unless you
can be constructive. This is serious. She saved his life.” He looked down at
her again then looked at his mother. She was staring at him oddly.

“The man had been drunk, but not hurt. Bronwyn
came out after him yelling at him to get home and that she’d called a cab.
Seconds later, another man came out just as she was helping me to stand. He was
holding a gun and telling the first man that he was going to kill him. Bronwyn
tried to reason with him, but he pointed the gun at the first man just as he
fell. She stepped in front of me and took both shots.” Alistair sat down. “Had
he hit me in the position I was in, he’d have shot me in the head. Both shots.
She didn’t drop and, at first, I thought he’d missed us both. She had a bat in
her hand and she hit him. He dropped then and hit his head. The police said he
was dead before he hit the ground. But she stood there after he fell and turned
to look at me. Her face was covered in blood and she was pale. As I took a step
toward her, thinking she was in shock, she put out her hands and told me not to
touch her. She said for me to leave so that no one would know I was there. She
said I was too pretty to be in that part of town and to run.”

“You stayed with her?”

Alistair nodded at Ryland.

“What did the police say when they got
there? It was self defense, correct?”

“They arrested her even as she was being
put in the ambulance. The medic came to find me before they left. She was awake
and pissed.” Alistair smiled. “She has a very colorful vocabulary when she’s
upset. She was pissed at me.”

“Whatever for?”

Ryland looked at his mom, who looked at
each of them before continuing.

“Why was she mad at him? All he’d done
was stay with her until help arrived.”

“Because I told him to get the hell away
from there.” Everyone turned to Bronwyn when she spoke. “You said no one would
know. You lied to me like everyone does.”

Ryland started forward, but she waved
them all away. She tried to sit up, so he pushed her back to the bed. When she
pulled on the cord to summon a nurse, he turned on the light above her head. Christ,
she looked like shit.

When the nurse came in she told everyone
to step out. He sat down and looked between the nurse and Bronwyn. He wasn’t
going anywhere until he spoke to her. When she realized he was staying, she
looked at the nurse.