In The Still of the Night [The Protectors 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (6 page)

“She didn’t call at all. I found her when I came to pick her up to go shopping,” Tina said.

Riley followed behind the nurse pushing the wheelchair.

“Sir, we need her information at the check-in desk,” the nurse said.

“Tina, you know more about her than I do. You answer their questions. I’m going with her.”

“Sir, you can’t go back there with her until they finish the exam. I’ll come get you when they finish.”

Riley stopped the wheelchair and looked down at Jenna.

“You tell them everything. Do you understand? Let them do their job. If that means staying here, you’re staying.”

Jenna nodded her head and looked down. Riley cursed under his breath and stood up to let the nurse continue to the back. He stood there with his hands on his hips and worked to regain control of his temper. Knowing that she hadn’t trusted him enough to call him for help both hurt and angered him at the same time. He wasn’t mad at her but mad at himself for acting like an ass toward her. Finally, he returned to where Tina was giving the clerk the information they needed. He only half listened.

“Okay, that’s everything for now. We do need a copy of her insurance card and driver’s license when you can get them to us.”

“I’ll get them to you as soon as I know what they plan to do with her,” Tina promised. She stood up from the chair and followed him to the waiting room.

Her skin appeared pale, and it was obvious she was worried about Jenna.

“Better call Logan and let him know where you are and what’s going on.”

“You’re right. I’m going to step outside where I can hear better to call him. Come and get me if they come out and are going to let us back to see her.”

He watched her walk through the sliding doors. All he could do now was wait. Normally he was a patient man, but this was not one of those times.

* * * *

Jenna let the nurse help her undress and slip on the ugly green hospital gown. Then she stepped up to sit on the stretcher. Every movement aggravated the pain in her side and hip. She didn’t think Riley had noticed her hip, thank goodness. She figured it was black and blue, as well. She looked around the room. It looked like every other emergency room she had been in over the years. The last three times had been here.

The events of the night before came flooding back to her. Somehow her ex had gotten inside her house. It had to have been through the front door since Tina had come in that way. He’d pulled her out of bed by her hair, yelling at her almost incoherently. Then the beating had started. Her head must have hit the corner of the night stand when it turned over to put the cut on her forehead. She had finally managed to curl up into a ball, trying to protect her belly and head. The return of her neighbor from his night shift interrupted him. Jenna had screamed the best she could for help. Even though he hadn’t heard her, Gregg didn’t stick around to find out. She lay there for hours, too scared to move. Finally, she’d gotten to the bathroom and held a cloth to her head until Tina had found her.

The return of the nurse cut into her musing. She had her lie down on the stretcher, but she raised the head of it until she was in a semi-reclining position. She took her information of what had happened.

“Did he rape you?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’m going to take you to get an X-ray. Any chance you’re pregnant?”

Jenna shook her head then wished she hadn’t. The pounding got worse. The nurse unlocked the wheels on the stretcher and wheeled her through the double doors and through the emergency room toward the back. They turned a couple of corners then entered the radiology suite. For the next thirty minutes, they moved her around, taking X-rays of her head, neck, chest, and hips until she was crying. Finally, a radiology technician wheeled her back around to the emergency room and into her room.

Sometime later, a doctor arrived to examine her.

“Looks like you need something for pain. Let me check your X-rays.” He left the room but returned a few minutes later.

“Well, you have a slight concussion. I’ll let you have some Tylenol but nothing stronger. I don’t want to mask the symptoms of a possibly more serious problem. I’m sorry I can’t give you anything stronger right now. I’ll give you something to help decrease the swelling, and that will help with the pain, as well.”

The nurse flitted around, setting up a tray. The doctor sewed her head up, putting in three stitches. Then the nurse applied a bandage.

“You’ve also got two cracked ribs. They don’t look too bad, but you’re going to hurt for a while. Your hip is fine, just bruised.” He checked his chart and then looked back at her. “Are you sure we don’t need to do a rape kit?”

“I’m sure. He didn’t rape me. He was more interested in hitting me.” Jenna touched her head gingerly. “When can I go home?”

“I noticed you have some friends out there waiting to see you. I’m going to allow you to go home in about two hours. I want to watch you for a little while longer. You need to be woken up every two hours to be sure you’re okay.”

“I know the drill,” Jenna said.

“I expect you do. I saw the old breaks on your X-rays. I’m going to refer you to a counselor for domestic abuse.”

“He’s my ex-husband. I’ve already been through them,” she said.

“Okay then. Stitches come out in seven days. You can come here or go to your personal physician. If you have any of the symptoms on the paper the nurse is going to give you, come back immediately.”

“Okay.”

“The police are out there to speak with you. I’m going to let them in then your friends can come back.”

He left, and two policemen walked through the swinging doors. One stood maybe five feet six inches and had black hair. The other one was a good four or five inches taller. His hair looked a dark shade of brown. Jenna spent the next thirty minutes going over the details of her attack. They listened and wrote notes in their little notebooks.

“So he is out of prison now. You need a restraining order on him,” the shorter one said.

“I plan to. I don’t understand why someone didn’t warn me he was up for parole and then that he got out.”

“I don’t know, either, but we’ll be taking him back for assault. They should send him back for violating his parole,” the taller one promised.

“You don’t need to be alone until we catch him.”

“Don’t worry, she won’t be.” Riley walked in.

Jenna closed her eyes and counted to ten. Tina walked in followed by Logan. Between Riley and Logan, she didn’t stand a chance at going home. Fine, she would stay with Tina.

“You are?” the shorter one asked.

“Riley. I’m a friend.”

Logan strode forward and held out his hand. “I’m Logan, and this is my fiancée, Tina. We will be sure she is taken care of.”

The taller one said, “She needs to file for a restraining order against him.”

“I’ll see to it,” Riley said.

He never took his eyes off of Jenna. It made her uncomfortable. His eyes looked so intense. He was so different from when she had first met him. He seemed almost jovial and flirted with her. Now he acted serious all the time and quiet except where she was concerned. It scared her sometimes.

“Okay. We have everything we need right now. We’ll contact you when we apprehend him.”

“She’ll be staying with us.” Logan gave him their number.

Jenna breathed a sigh of relief. She had been scared that Riley would have insisted on staying with her. A nurse came in and handed her several sheets of paper.

“Here are your discharge papers and instructions. You are familiar with them you said.” She turned toward the others. “Make sure you wake her up every two hours. She has to be able to answer the simple questions on the list.” She pointed to the papers in Jenna’s hands. Then she handed her a prescription.

“That’s an antibiotic. Take it twice a day until it’s all gone.” She left through the swinging doors.

Riley took the papers from Jenna’s hands and began reading them. She sighed and turned to Tina.

“Are you sure it’s all right for me to stay with you? I don’t want to cause any trouble. I mean, Gregg could come back and look for me at your place,” Jenna said.

“Nonsense. Of course you’re staying with us. We handled Todd. We can handle Gregg,” Logan said.

Jenna drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, remembering her ribs. It was good to have friends. She wanted to go home but knew that was out of the question. She needed her things, so they would have to go by and pick them up, but she wouldn’t be staying. Then it hit her. Logan had said “we.” Surely Riley wasn’t going to stick around just to babysit her. Who was she kidding? No way would he leave Logan to deal with her mess all alone. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the stretcher.

“Jenna? Are you okay? Do I need to get the nurse?” Tina asked.

She opened her eyes. Riley stood right there next to her, staring down at her. Those dark eyes missed nothing.

“I’m fine. My head hurts is all.”

Tina started toward the door. “I’ll get the nurse. They need to give you something for the pain.”

Logan caught her at the door with an arm around her waist. “They can’t, honey. She has a concussion. You can’t have anything that might sedate you when you have one.”

“But she can’t just lie there hurting,” Tina fussed.

“Tina, I’m fine. They gave me some Tylenol. It helps.”

Tina leaned against Logan. “I hate to see you hurting.”

Riley moved a strand of hair away from her face. “The best thing for her is sleep right now. We’ll have to wake her up every two hours, but she’ll feel a lot better with some rest.”

“How long till they release you?” Logan asked.

“They said two hours. That was about an hour ago.” Jenna closed her eyes again.

“Tina and I will go gather up your stuff and meet you and Riley at the house,” Logan said.

“Anything in particular you want, Jenna?” Tina asked.

“No, I can’t think of anything.” Jenna swallowed and tried to relax against the stretcher. It wasn’t easy with Riley staring so intently at her.

“Why didn’t you call someone to help you?”

“I’ve had worse and handled it. I would have been fine.”

“Fine my ass!” Riley growled. “He could have killed you. Hell, he almost did.”

“He didn’t. The police will pick him up, and he’ll go back to prison,” Jenna said.

“When are you going to let someone in?”

“Who am I going to let in? Who? Tina has had enough trouble in her life. She doesn’t deserve my problems, too. Who do you think I can trust to care?” Jenna couldn’t help the tears that poured from her eyes.

She stared at Riley. “I’ve always dealt with my life my own way. Why would I change now?”

Chapter Six

“Because I care,” Riley said. “I care what happens to you.”

He watched as Jenna struggled to accept what he said as fact. He knew the minute she did. Her face crumpled, and she began to cry in earnest. He went to her and smoothed the tears from her cheeks. Then he bent down and kissed her gently on the lips.

“Don’t cry, baby. It’s going to be okay. I’ll take care of everything.” Where the words came from, he didn’t know.

He only knew that he meant every one of them. He wouldn’t let her deal with her ex on her own. He’d be there to keep her safe and shore up her defenses. There was no way he would let that son of a bitch anywhere near her again.

“Why would you care about me? I’m a basket case with nothing but trouble following me around.”

“Don’t worry about it so much. Just accept my help and leave it at that.” He turned back to the swinging doors when they opened.

The nurse walked back in with another paper for her to sign. “This is your discharge paper. Just sign there on the line and you can go.”

Jenna signed the form and looked around for where her clothes were. The nurse picked up a bag and handed it to her.

“Looking for your clothes?” she asked, smiling. “Do you need help getting back into them?”

“I’ll help her.” Riley didn’t hesitate to let her know right away he was in charge.

The nurse nodded and walked back out. Riley took the bag from Jenna and opened it up. He pulled out the T-shirt first. Jenna looked dubious at his helping her.

“Okay, let’s get you out of this ugly ass gown.” He proceeded to untie the strings.

“I can dress myself,” she protested.

“You’ll only hurt yourself. I’ll help you, and we’ll get through twice as fast with less pain.”

She growled at him, and he smiled.

She slipped the gown down from her arms but kept it lodged firmly under her arms. He rolled the shirt up so she could slip her arms in then slide her head through the neck of the shirt. Next came the sweat pants. He rolled them up her legs and had her lift her pelvis for him to pull them up the rest of the way. Her face turned a cute shade of pink when his fingers brushed against her pussy.

“Okay, I’m going to go pull the car up to the door. You wait here for the nurse and the wheelchair. I’m serious. You don’t wait and I’ll turn your ass a pretty shade of red when you’re healed up.”

She nodded, so he left her and told the nurse what he was doing. He expected she would be bringing Jenna out in the wheelchair about the time he made it to the loading ramp.

Riley took a few seconds in the car to get control of himself. He didn’t want Jenna picking up on his strong emotions. She needed to stay calm and rest. It was all he could do to keep the rage inside of him when all he wanted to do was hit something. Finally, he was satisfied he could present a calm façade. When he pulled up the ramp, the nurse wheeled Jenna out and opened the passenger side door. Riley ran around the front of the car to help get Jenna in the car. Once he had her settled, he backed down the ramp and drove toward Logan’s house.

“Thanks, Riley.”

“For what?” he asked.

“For helping me. For helping Tina deal with me.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just concentrate on resting and getting better.” He couldn’t keep the gruffness out of his voice.

She didn’t say anything else the rest of the trip. Riley was thankful for the silence. He needed to plan. He and Logan would need to figure out how best to protect the women. As long as Jenna was there, Tina would be at risk, as well. He was glad he could depend on Logan’s help. But then, they had always had each other’s back when they were in the same unit.

He risked a look over to where Jenna lay back against the seat with her eyes closed. It was all it took to strengthen his resolve again to kill the man responsible for putting those bruises on her. He swallowed and reminded himself that she was off limits. He would keep her safe, but that was all. He couldn’t let his heart into the equation because she deserved better than the likes of him. Every time he thought about tying her up, tying her down, his cock got hard and his heart grew heavy. No, she didn’t need someone like him. His kinks ran even harsher than Logan’s did.

He turned into Logan’s drive and pulled up behind the truck. Jenna didn’t even stir. He climbed down and walked around to help her out. When he opened the door, he found her staring at him with tears in her eyes.

“Aw, baby. What’s wrong?” He reached up and wiped away a tear with his thumb.

“It hurts so bad.” Another tear rolled down her face.

Riley reached in and pulled her out into his arms. He couldn’t stand to see her hurting like this. He felt so helpless. There was nothing he could do to take away the pain.

Tina had the door open by the time he reached the carport. He slid in sideways, careful not to jar Jenna, and carried her to the bedroom that had been his. Logan would have known where to put her. The sheets on the bed were freshly turned down and a suitcase sat at the foot of the bed. He gently laid Jenna down in the bed and pulled the sheets over her.

“I’m going to talk to Logan. You try and sleep.”

She didn’t reply, just lay in the bed with her eyes closed and another tear sliding down her cheek. He gritted his teeth and turned to leave. Tina stood just outside the doorway.

“How is she?” she whispered.

“Hurting and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.”

“Logan is in the office. I’ll sit with her in case she needs anything.”

Riley started to walk off, but Tina grasped his arm. He turned back to look at her.

“Thanks for taking care of her. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Yeah.” He headed toward the office and something he could actually do to help Jenna. Make plans to put an end to her ex.

He found Logan talking on the phone when he walked in the room. He paused in the doorway and leaned against it as Logan argued with someone.

“I don’t care what you haven’t done. I want to know what you’re planning on doing.” Logan looked up and nodded at Riley.

“Yeah, she’s staying here where we can keep her safe until you catch that son of a bitch. We’re not letting her out of our sight.” He slammed down the phone.

“I take it they don’t have a clue where the asshole is.” Riley fumed.

“Nope, and they actually had the gall to want to use her as bait to set him up.”

Riley pushed off the door facing with his hands curled into fists. “Over my dead body!”

“Yeah, that’s what I told them. They aren’t happy and want to talk to Jenna. I told them she wasn’t any in condition to talk to anyone right now.” Logan ran a hand over his face and leaned back in the chair. “They’re going to try and talk her into it, you know.”

“Like I said, no way in hell will I let them use her.” Riley ground his teeth to keep from cursing.

“Let’s do this the same way we did with Tina. It worked before. You can keep an eye on her, and I’ll set up outside.”

“We need help. I’m calling Morgan. I wish Tyler was closer. It’ll take him a good two days to get here.” Riley dropped into the seat across the desk from Logan.

“Call him anyway. The more the merrier. We still have Tina’s house, so there’s plenty of room for everyone.”

Riley pulled out his phone and dialed Morgan’s number first. The man was going to be three shades of pissed. It almost brought a smile to his face.

“Yeah, what the hell do you want?” Morgan asked, a scowl in his voice.

“We need your ass back here ASAP.”

“What’s up?” Morgan dropped the pissed attitude, sensing something was up.

“Jenna’s ex beat the hell out of her. We need help getting this guy out of her life.”

“I’m up at Tyler’s. Want me to bring him?”

“I was calling him next anyway. Tell his ugly ass we could use his help.” Riley closed the phone, knowing Morgan would have cut him off if he gave him the chance.

“Morgan was at Tyler’s anyway, so that worked out,” Riley explained.

“I expect her ex will look for her at Tina’s house, so I’m thinking we’ll bunk Tyler and Morgan over there to ambush him. We’ll have to have the women go in and out of there throughout the day to make it look good. She will have the cover she needs with us. The police won’t spare enough people to keep her safe.” Logan laid out his plan.

“She isn’t going to be doing anything for a day or two. She’s in a lot of fucking pain right now. Did you get her prescriptions filled?” Riley asked.

“Yeah. Tina has them in the kitchen.”

“I’m giving her a pain pill as soon as it’s safe. I can’t stand to see her cry.”

“You’re a little more hung up on her than you’re admitting to, aren’t you, Riley?”

“Hell, I can’t stand to see anyone cry.”

“Uh huh.” Logan stood up and stretched. “Think I’ll grab Tina and take a nap. It’s going to be a long few days till this is over. Better get you some rest, as well.”

“I’ll watch Jenna.” Riley stood up and followed Logan back to the bedroom that was now Jenna’s.

Tina sat in a chair just inside the room. The lights were out, and the curtain drawn. She looked up when he and Logan walked into the room.

“Shhh. She’s finally sleeping. The light was bothering her, so keep the lights off.” Tina stood up and went to Logan,

Logan wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Riley felt a moment of envy then squashed it and walked closer to the bed where Jenna lay on her side. Her face seemed paler in the dull light.

“Come on, Tina. Let’s take a nap. Morgan and Tyler are coming down in the next day. I figured I’d put them at your house…” Logan’s voice faded away as he led his fiancée down the hall toward their bedroom.

“Tina?” Jenna’s voice sounded so forlorn.

“It’s Riley. What do you need, baby?”

“A drink of water.”

He walked over and took the glass from the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed to help her sit up. He was mindful of her ribs and tried to keep from hurting her, but she still winced when he held her. A knife sliced through him at the knowledge that what he was doing hurt. How could any man stand to hurt a woman, much less their wife?

“Thanks.” She lay back down with his help.

“Don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone.” She looked up at him through her good eye. The other one was still almost swollen shut. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here.” He pulled the chair closer to the bed.

“Please hold me. I need you to hold me, Riley.”

He swallowed hard around the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat. It didn’t matter that it would kill him to hold her, knowing that is all he would ever be able to do with her. He’d made a mistake in thinking he could fuck her and get her out of his system, made the mistake of thinking that he could be satisfied with
normal
sex with her. He wanted it all. He’d settle with holding her while she slept.

Riley pulled off his boots and carefully climbed in the bed beside her, slipping under the covers to spoon her body with his. She sighed and relaxed against him. He was careful to keep his arm off her sore spots and buried his face in her hair. He drew in her scent and held it. It felt like coming home to have her in his arms. How in the hell would he ever be able to leave her once this was all over?