She knew Gunner was in bed with her. She hadn’t fallen into a full sleep until he’d gotten in next to her. The warmth of his body gave her that final push to nod off.
“Gunner?”
“I’m here, baby,” he told her, his drawl thick with sleep. “I’ve been here the whole time.”
“I know.”
“Do you need more pain meds? Drea left them for you.”
“She’s gone?”
“Yeah.” Gunner paused. “Jem said she asked to come with us.”
“You should let her,” Avery said sleepily. “She needs us.”
“You’re psychic now?”
“I could tell.”
Gunner pressed a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. “You need to eat and drink something.”
Her stomach churned at the thought. “Can’t.”
“At least drink.” The bed rustled and a can of Coke, complete with a straw, was in front of her face.
She did, because she was thirsty. The soda was cold and sugary and went smoothly down her throat, easing the ache she had from holding back her screams for so long.
She closed her eyes to shake away the memory and saw Landon’s face flash in front of her eyes. Heard his laugh. Felt his hands.
Shit. This had to go away.
“You’ll get through this, Avery. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure of it,” Gunner told her.
“You already got me through. All I kept thinking about was you. Being with you. That you’d come get me. And then I’d kill Landon for you. For both of us.”
The bed shifted and Gunner moved around so she couldn’t not look him in the eye. He knelt down by her side of the bed, rather than trying to make her move. “I won’t let you.”
“I already have blood on my hands,” she reminded him.
“Not like that.” He took her hands in his, kissed them. “I’ll never let you have that on your conscience.”
“Landon deserves what’s coming to him, Gunner. My conscience will be just fine.”
He shook his head and she knew what he was thinking. “It was different with my mom.”
“You thought it was going to be,” he said quietly.
“Right now I hate that I told you things.”
Drea didn’t try to do anything for the rest of the night, especially not talk to him, Jem noted. But she did check on Avery, quietly, not waking either her or Gunner as she did so.
Avery was tough—Jem knew she’d get through it, but Gunner would have to avoid the whole alpha I can fix this shit and just be there for her. This wasn’t the time for Gunner to retreat into medical jargon—it would be too easy for him to distance himself with what had happened, and Jem knew from experience that distance from emotions was bad.
Of course, that was also coming from someone who was way too much in touch with his own.
He shifted, stared out the window again. The bikes were back again, the way they’d been all night. There was a strip of bars down the road, so this could’ve all been a normal, nightly thing, but . . .
But Drea practically went out of her way to remain too casual every time she heard the rumble of the engines. The subtle signs, the shift in her seat while pretending she was just getting comfortable, the avoidance of eye contact . . . the fact that she was more than willing to let a group of strangers who’d kidnapped her take her the hell out of town . . .
“You okay?” he asked for the millionth time, and she nodded. Sipped the Coke and stared at the TV.
He checked his watch. It would be time for her to go in the next hour. Time for him and Gunner and Avery to get the hell out of Dodge too, once Key got here.
God, Key was pissed. Jem was sure Dare and Grace were too, but he wasn’t even looking at their messages, much less answering them. At this point, his phone was like a fucking vibrator in his pants and even Drea was starting to look at him funny.
When she was pretending not to look at him.
He glanced down at his phone, then hers, and realized that his wasn’t the only phone blowing up. “Thought you said no one would worry about you.”
She stared out the window, tightened her arms across her chest for a second before loosening them. “No one I care enough about.”
“Fuck, Andrea, that’s not what I asked you before.” There were more than twenty text messages from two different accounts, not including e-mails and missed calls. She might’ve had him beat on the people are pissed at you contest.
“None of them are going to bother you.” She held her hand out and he gave her the phone. This time, he didn’t stop her when she pulled her jacket on and she didn’t ask to stay. She wouldn’t a second time, had too much pride.
But a part of him wished she didn’t. “Need me to walk you across the way?”
“I don’t think so.” She paused, hand on the doorknob. “Tell Avery I hope she gets what she needs.”
“Andrea,” he said more sharply than he meant to. “You don’t have any training.”
She pushed her lips together tightly, like she was trying to keep information inside, then simply said, “Right.”
And then she was gone.
“Fuck me,” he muttered, watched her cross the street back toward the clinic. Instead of going into the front door, she went around the back and a few minutes later, a motorcycle pulled to the edge of the lot. “And that is really fucking cool,” Jem muttered to himself. Wanted to get on the bike behind her and beg for a ride.
Yeah, he’d have to find out more about Dr. Andrea Timmons. What would make her want to pick up and hang out with a merc group, especially one that kidnapped her?
She roared away, her ponytail trailing behind her out of the helmet, and at the last second he noted her bike’s logo. He recognized it from the bikes he’d seen riding by the clinic earlier—the symbol of the Outlaw Angels, a one percenter biker gang with charters all over the States. Now that was interesting as fuck, and maybe one of the reasons she was so keen to stay on with them.
And that was trouble they couldn’t afford at the moment.
He’d almost turned away when he heard the rumble of more bikes. They were trailing after her, had been lying in wait in the parking lot next to the motel.
Ah, fuck, couldn’t be good. Not when another couple of them pulled into the motel lot.
“Gun, we got company,” he called quietly.
“Trouble?” Gunner came out from behind the curtain, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“Outlaw Angels.”
“The hell?”
“I think our doc might be tied to them.”
“That why she asked to come with?” Gunner asked as he glanced out the window. “Yeah, I spied on you. You’ve got game, brother.”
“And I wasn’t even trying,” Jem pointed out. “Cavalry’s here.”
Cavalry in the form of Key, and he looked pissed as shit. He was on an old Harley Fat Boy and he slammed past the bikers and pulled in front of the room. They surrounded him and he looked toward Jem through the window. Jem nodded and then Key turned slowly back to the menacing group.
His anger was palpable, directed totally at Jem, but when Key turned it outward, it was a sight to see.
“Baby brother’s got this,” he told Gunner. “Go back and get Avery ready to go.”
“At least we know for sure this isn’t Landon,” Gunner said. “But what the fuck, Jem?”
“I ask myself that every single day,” Jem muttered, turned back to watch Key getting three beefy OAs under control. “That’s good. Get your anger out on those good old boys.”
He had Drea’s address, dialed her phone number and got her voice mail. Didn’t want to leave her one in case other OAs were checking her phone.
After ten minutes of Key’s reasoning techniques, the OAs up and left, speeding off into the night. Key slammed into the room. He was tan. His hair was longer, pulled back, and he had several days’ growth of beard.