Page 1 of A Lick and A Promise
ONE
HE WANTS YOU
I shouldn’t be here.
I knew I shouldn’t be here.
But when Raye called, even though my mind said one thing (that I shouldn’t be here), my body (okay, my heart) said another.
So I was here.
The good news: I was just one more body in the mix, so it wasn’t like I was the cast-off chick hanging around, embarrassing herself pining for some dude.
In other words, that hospital waiting room was a crush seeing as all the Hottie Squad was there, all the Angels along with Tex, Nancy, Shirleen, Marjorie. Even Tito was there.
So I was just another person in a sea of people worried as fuck Knox got shot.
That was the bad news, Knox had been shot.
Twice.
He’d been shot…twice.
Oh yeah.
That was the way bad news.
He did not get shot while conducting Nightingale Investigations & Security business, which it was my understanding was a possibility, if not a probability in their line of work due to them not being your average, everyday private investigations and security business, but a whole lot more.
He got shot because his family was a nightmare.
More good news, the surgeon came out and told us he was out of surgery, stable, resting and no lasting damage had occurred. Though he’d need some time to mend and do physical therapy to regain full strength in his shoulder and leg.
Okay, so that was mixed good news because, absolutely, no lasting damage was obviously a good thing.
But he had to recuperate from two gunshot wounds he got because his family was borderline ready for their episode of Evil Lives Here, and that totally freaking sucked.
More of that mixed good news, my staring contest with Cheyenne was over.
Although I sensed why she hated me—even though it was lame as hell, since she’d had him for a while, and I didn’t (well, I did, but it wasn’t a very long while)—what I didn’t know was why she was there at all.
They’d broken up.
But by damn, when the surgeon came out, the bitch popped out of her seat like a demented jill-in-the-box and shouldered even Cap and Mace out of the way (respectively, Knox’s best bud and his boss) to belly up to the doc.
She also lied and said she was Knox’s partner, so she got to be the first to go back and see him.
Usually, the dudes were super cool with chicks. Lots of patience (needed), lots of understanding (also needed—what could I say? we were a bunch of nutso broads), all kinds of room to be who we were and do what we did (as, of course, it should be—save Knox in that scenario, but that was a longer story).
But when Cheyenne did that, everyone got pissed, and even the dudes didn’t hide it.
And when she did it, Raye took my hand (again, she’d been holding it on and off for the last three hours), and Brady shot me a look.
Truth: Brady and I had screwed the pooch.
Honestly, it seemed a good idea at the time.
Okay, not a good idea. A demented, in-your-face, heartbroken idea. But when you were heartbroken, demented ideas often seemed like good ones.
