The door across the room exploded open.
Nick burst in, weapon raised, stance ready, expression absolutely deadly. “Let her go, and I’ll consider not planting some lead in your eye socket.”
The bad guy’s knife twitched, and Becca clasped her hands together and wrenched back with her left elbow with all her might. Whatever she’d connected with earned her a satisfying grunt and had the desired effect of diverting whatever plans he’d been making with the blade. Suddenly, she was free, and a hard shove to her back sent her sprawling face-first to the floor. Trying to catch herself, she landed funny on one hand, and her forehead glanced off the floor.
Her attacker fled out the open door as Nick called her name.
Footsteps crossed the room, then stopped at the sound of a long, low growl.
Groaning, Becca pushed onto her elbows. Her little guardian had placed herself between Becca’s prone form and Nick’s advance.
His expression managed to be livid and bewildered at the same time.
Making a little calling sound with her mouth, Becca caught the puppy’s attention. “ ’Sokay, girl. He’s a good guy.” She held out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, the shepherd whined and lay down by Becca’s shoulder.
Nick holstered his weapon and came around to her back. Easing his hands under Becca’s arms, he said, “Can you sit up?”
“Yeah,” she rasped, holding her breath as every joint protested the movement. “Thank you,” she managed. “For getting here in time.”
Metal scraped along the floor. “Chair right behind you. On three.” He counted off and lifted her into the chair.
Her whole body sagged into the plastic.
“Becca?” a voice asked from the doorway, where a slack-jawed crowd had gathered. Janeese. Donna. Alison, the nurse she’d been subbing for. Others whose names she couldn’t immediately bring to mind in the moment. Becca nodded.
They poured into the room, a momentary shocked silence followed by everyone talking at once.
“What the hell happened?” Janeese asked.
“A maintenance man grabbed me,” Becca said. “Nick scared him off and he fled out the door.”
“Did you recognize him?” Donna asked.
Becca shook her head just as Barry, one of the hospital security officers, pushed into the room, followed a few minutes later by Tomás and Mike, two BPD officers she knew pretty well. They’d been hanging in the ER waiting to take witness statements. She groaned inside, especially as Nick’s silent agitation became more pronounced in the tension of his muscles and ticking of his jaw.
“Becca, are you cut somewhere?” Janeese pointed and knelt next to her. “Honey, you’re bleeding.”
She twisted to the left. A line of crimson was soaking into the green of her scrubs. Lifting her ripped shirt, she frowned. How did she not feel that gash? “Oh,” she said. Her gaze lifted to Nick, standing next to her, his eyes trained on her wound and absolutely on fire. That blazing glare lit onto her face next. As reserved as he looked on the outside, she doubted anyone else in the room realized that he was an active volcano on the inside.
The next ninety minutes passed with her giving a statement to the officers, being admitted, and getting stitches—the cut wasn’t too deep, so she only needed four—winning an argument about keeping Nick and the puppy in the room with her, and failing to get Nick to tell her why he’d come racing to the hospital in the first place. If all that wasn’t enough, she also had a visit from the hospital lawyer, who was clearly trying to feel out whether she was going to sue, but on the upside they told her to take off as much paid time as she needed to recover. And given the situation with Charlie, that was a godsend.
By the time she was discharged, the adrenaline letdown had kicked in with a vengeance, leaving her tired, shaky, and feeling a whole lot like she’d been hit by a Mack truck.
Carrying the puppy like a football under his left arm, Nick guided her out to his car. He kept her a half step in front of him, his big body shielding hers from the side and back as they crossed to the sidewalk and paused at the curb.
He opened the car door and eased her down. Carefully, Becca lowered into the passenger seat and accepted the dog into her lap.
The door slammed so hard it shook the car. Nick stalked around the hood, very clearly still on full alert. He ripped a parking ticket from under the wiper and sank into the driver’s seat. Another slam. And then the car came to life on an exaggerated roar of the engine.
The puppy shrank into her chest, and Becca eyeballed Nick. Everything about the rigid discipline of his movements and the deafening volume of his silence screamed rankly pissed off.
Shifting in her seat, she reached across and placed her hand on his arm. His muscles locked up tight under her touch and his posture and expression painted a billboard for Back the hell off, but Becca couldn’t wait another moment.
“Nick, I need to know. What happened?”
AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE this day had thrown at him, it was her touch that threatened to break him. Because it made Rixey want to haul her into his lap and prove with his mouth and his hands and his cock that she was okay.
It was the adrenaline high talking. He knew it and had experienced it before—the need to grab onto life with both hands and not let go. After all, he hadn’t known Becca Merritt long enough to explain those urges any other way. Right?
Shy of a good, long fuck to even him out, Rixey would settle for punching something. Hard. And repeatedly.
So close. He’d come so close to losing Becca. When he’d opened the door and seen that asshole yanking her out the other side, his paws touching her skin, Rixey’d yearned to lay that motherfucker out. Even now, lethal intent surged through his veins until he could barely breathe. No way he could examine all of the whys of that right this second.
“Nick?”
Her voice wrenched him from his thoughts, but not out of the dark, violent headspace. “Not now. I can’t talk to you right now,” he managed. His emotions were too volatile. Anger roiled too close to the surface. Aggression surged through him. “Let’s just get home.”
Not waiting for a reply, he veered out into traffic, his gaze making a constant circuit from the windshield to the rearview mirror to the side-view mirrors. He bet dollars to donuts they’d pick up a tail. Sure enough, within a block he was certain the gray van five cars back was following them. Just in case, he made a few choice last-minute turns and gunned it through the dying breaths of every yellow light he encountered. Either he lost the van, or paranoia had gotten the best of him and it’d never been in pursuit in the first place.
Sonofabitch.
As they hit the eastern side of town, Nick chanced a look Becca’s way. Her expression was absolutely bleak, one tiny push away from shattered, and her skin was pale as snow—except for the swollen goose egg above her left eyebrow from when the lowlife had shoved her to the floor. That was bright fucking red.
Say something, asshole. Throw her a goddamned rope. “What’s, uh, what’s with the dog?” Outstanding, Nick, truly.
She tilted her face and rubbed her cheek against its big ear. “I found her.”
“She has three legs.” Rixey winced at the idiocy of the observation.
“Uh, yeah.” Her gaze slid out the passenger window, making it crystal clear she wasn’t in any more of a mood to chitchat than he’d been before. And fine. Until he got her off the road, situational awareness was his top priority. Everything else could wait. He cut in and out of traffic on Eastern Avenue, eager to get her home. Eager to get her safe. A few moments later, Becca’s posture straightened and she leaned forward, like she was looking for something. Her gaze whipped toward him. “This isn’t the way to my house.”