Charli

I’M NOT GOING TO PANIC.

She told herself that as she made the relatively quick drive from her house to the pub. She kept telling herself even as her hands tightened on the steering wheel and her breath came out in skittering pants.

She wasn’t going to panic.

So Con had called because Max had gotten into a fight and was a little messed up. Bleeding, Con had said.

That didn’t mean anything.

How many times had Max gotten himself into a mess and ended up with a bloody nose for his trouble?

Con wouldn’t call because Max had broken his nose. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, trying to calm her thoughts.

She couldn’t walk in there looking like she was about to fall apart and still do what she needed to do, then walk out...all without falling apart.

Sooner or later, everything she’d been hiding from, all the misery, the secrets she’d buried inside were going to come exploding out, and if she didn’t get a handle on herself, that was going to be today. Tonight. Whatever.

The darkness of the late hour wrapped around her and she blew out one slow breath after another, falling back on the habit she’d used to calm herself when she’d woken up, terrified and alone in her bed, in the weeks, months and years after her parents had been killed.

This wasn’t the same.

It couldn’t be.

They’d been her center, her rock, her world.

Max felt like a part of her soul, but he didn’t even want to be a part of her life and it should be easier to force the distance between them. Too bad it wasn’t.

The familiar street grew nearer and she slowed down just enough to take the corner without going into a skid.

The road was all but deserted at this hour.

Bardstown was no longer the small, sleepy little place it had been a few years ago, but it was no bustling metropolis, either, and once the clock ticked past a certain hour, not many people could be found wandering around. She had relative privacy as she climbed out of her car, gathering the pack she’d used to make her own “doctor’s bag”. She didn’t know if that construct was a thing of the past or not, but she’d had more than a few neighborhood parents come knocking on her door in a panic because their kid had busted his knee open while skating or...worse, a wife who’d come over in the dead of night, only because a sister or friend had insisted she get some injury looked at.

Charli was one of them.

She wasn’t a cop, or somebody who would go talking about things she shouldn’t talk about.

Charli was safe. They could trust her with their secrets.

Guilt punched her hard, because while she was safe, she was also leaving.

“I have to,” she said, ignoring the tug of guilt. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life miserable and wishing for a future that was never going to happen. And if she stayed in her hometown, that’s what would happen. She knew it.

If she left, she could find something else.

Something that was hers.

It would be better like that.

She could move past Max, and he could...do whatever it was he did.

She was under no illusion that he’d ever find some sort of happiness or closure in his life, but she was done trying to fill the void he had inside him. She should have known better anyway.

Unlocking the door, she disarmed the system as she called out, “Con?”

He appeared in the doorway that opened to the rear of the bar, backlit by the light coming out from behind him, lining him with a nimbus that only served to highlight the tension emanating from him.

The nerves inside her ratcheted higher.

This wasn’t going to be good.

“Come on,” he said tersely.

As she drew nearer, she caught sight of his hands and her heart stuttered a few beats.

He had blood on him.

“That’s not your blood, is it?”

“No.” He shot her a dark look. “I’ve already told him he needs to go to the hospital. He won’t. You know how he is.” He hesitated a moment, glancing back at her. “Maybe you can...?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Shame doesn’t listen to me any better than he listens to you.”

Con’s eyes narrowed, concentrated on her face.

She stared at him emotionlessly, but she knew the blank mask wouldn’t do much to hide things from him.

Con knew her better than anybody.

“We’re talking,” he said softly. “And I mean soon.”

She edged around him.

“We’ll see.”

“No.” Con fell into step beside her, his voice taut. “We won’t. We’re talking.”

Instead of responding, she nudged open the door to Riley’s office. It was the only place that made sense for him to be, and as light splashed in, limning his form, she blew out a slow, careful breath. The bag she carried suddenly seemed a lot heavier, almost too big a burden for her.

He was pale, and not the kind of pale that came from exhaustion or even illness.

It was the kind of pallor that made the doctor in her worry.

She shoved down the panic.

It didn’t matter who it was lying on that couch now.

He was a patient, and if she was right, he had some serious blood loss going on.

Forcing her tone to be brisk, she said, “Hello, Shame.”

His lids barely flickered for the first few seconds. Finally, he turned his head and looked at her.

“You never call me that,” he said, sounding too tired, too sluggish.

His pupils were too big, dilated in the icy blue of his eyes.

She moved closer and sat on the chair Con must have brought in from the main room of the bar. “I can already tell you this—you need to be in the hospital.”

“No.” He started to push upright but only made it a quarter of the way up before his strength gave out.

She didn’t bother to help him as he collapsed back onto the padded cushions.

“You’re weak. You need fluids—a transfusion might not be out of order. But you’re rather lie here and bleed on my brother’s couch.”

Through slitted eyes, he stared at her. “I’d rather die than go to a fuckin’ hospital. You know that better ’n anybody.”

“Actually, no. I don’t,” she said coolly. “It’s not like we’re friends, are we? But fine. I can’t make you go.”

Not yet anyway.

But he was going to pass out, if Charli knew anything about shock.

The problem was, she knew plenty about shock.

Max, though, seemed determined to defy all things normal, even biology.

Bit by bit, his eyes cleared. He blinked, focusing on her face and shooting a look from her to Con, standing at her shoulder.

“Get me some water,” he said, his voice still ragged and raw.

“You don’t need water,” she said shortly.

“I need something. I’m thirsty.”

Behind her, she heard Con grumble under his breath. As her brother moved away, the tension in her spine got even worse. “You’re not thirsty,” she said sourly. “You’re just trying to keep from passing out.”

“If I pass out, you’ll talk Con into taking me to the hospital.”

“If you pass out, that will be because you’ve lost too much blood.” She shook her head, unable to believe she was even considering sitting there and working on him instead of calling an ambulance. But because she couldn’t risk him losing any more blood, she opened the pack she’d brought and started pulling out supplies.

Con returned before she finished.

“Go ahead and help him drink something,” she said, pointedly ignoring him. “I’m going to need to cut his shirt off and see what I’m looking at. I’ll need your help, Con.”

Max wasn’t stupid enough to refuse help.

Once Con pulled the glass away—ginger ale if she had to hazard a guess—Max went to lie back down. “Don’t,” she said. “Not yet. Easier if we get your shirt off now.”

Max grunted and nodded at Con, trying to move farther away, but that pulled at the wound and made the clotted blood break apart.

Charli sighed as the dark red stain spread anew on his shirt. “Con, help him.”

“I don’t need help,” Max snapped.

“You’re either getting help,” she said quietly, leaning forward to speak into his ear. “Or I’m going to shove this needle into your arm and you’ll pass out in a minute flat. You’ll wake up in the emergency department.”

Max’s entire body went rigid.

Then, after a few seconds, he nodded and said, “Fine.”

Con helped him, and Charli closed her eyes as he bit back a moan of pain. Just as Con went to pull away, Max grabbed his arm. “No fucking hospitals, man. I never ask for nothin’...”

He stopped talking then.

Con closed his eyes, squeezed them so tightly shut that the skin around them went white. After a long moment, he looked at Max. “I won’t do anything I don’t absolutely have to, man. You know that. Now just...don’t be an ass. Let Charli do what she has to do.”

“Fuck. Yeah, she does what she has to, all right.”

The acid in his words stung her in the worst way, but she blocked it out and focused on his shirt, cutting it away so she could see what she was dealing with.

“I need more light,” she told Con.

He dug up an emergency lantern, one that threatened to singe her retinas, but it was definitely powerful enough.

She pulled on some gloves and started to clean the area, although fresh blood was still streaming from the wound.

“You need stitches.”

“Then stitch it up,” Max said.

Charli tipped her head back, staring at the ceiling.

She prayed for patience—and for him to just pass out. She didn’t get either. As he remained mercilessly conscious, she snapped, “If I stitch it up here, you’re going to feel it, Max.”

The reaction was subtle.

So subtle, she doubted Con had even noticed it from where he’d retreated to the other side of the room.

But she did.

A faint shudder went through him, from head to toe, and she heard a soft intake of air. Then he turned his head, not looking at her, just speaking over his shoulder. “Then use whatever drugs you just threatened me with and knock me out already.”

That he was even telling her she could was something she might have considered monumental a few weeks ago. A few months ago.

Now?

Hell, she wished she could knock him out.

Disgusted, she rose and picked up the scalpel she’d used to poke him with. Professional? No. But it had done the job and gotten him to stop straining and putting pressure on his injury.

“That is what you felt, dumbass,” she snapped. “I don’t exactly go around with sedatives in my bag. You need a reason to carry those. I don’t have one. I can stitch you up, but if I do, you’ll feel it—every last second.”

Max’s eyes focused. On her.

He blinked slowly and she had a feeling it was taking everything he had just to stay focused.

“You aren’t calling me Shame.”

“It’s a medical technique,” she said, sniffing. “I’m trying to make sure you know who and where you are.”

“You haven’t asked me where we are.” His lashes swept down, shielding those impossibly pale, impossibly blue, impossibly beautiful eyes.

“You’re getting the economy treatment, because I’m trying to make sure you don’t lose any more blood.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she tapped her foot. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? It will be easier. Less painful. Con and I can stay with you and you won’t even have to stay for observation. You won’t be put under.”

She knew that was his fear.

But Max’s jaw locked tightly.

“No,” he said in a voice as hard as steel. “Just let me bleed to death if it’s too big of a deal for you to do it here.”

The words cut her straight to the heart and she turned away, defeated. “Fine. Just...fine.”

As she moved to gather everything she needed, Con edged closer to Max. “Shame, quit being a dick. It’s your own fault you’re in this shape. Don’t take it out on her—”

“Let it go, Connor,” Charli said, shooting him a look as she settled down on the chair behind Max. He couldn’t see her from here, which was perfect in her opinion. Leveling her gaze on her brother, she gave him what her parents would have called her five-star-general look. “Just let it go.”

Con looked like he wanted to argue, but something he saw in her expression had him blowing out a sigh, then he just nodded. As he came closer, he asked, “What do I need to do?”

She glanced around Riley’s office. “If Ry has anything seriously strong in here that might make him pass out, that would be beneficial.”

Con cocked a brow. “You mean as in drunk?”

“At the moment, for all I care, you could slip him some illegal morphine. Just don’t tell me about it.”

“And how in the hell would I know where to get illegal morphine?” Con grumbled. Sighing, he moved over to a case that had been left on Riley’s desk. “We ain’t ever going to be able to sell this shit in here. Too strong. Kentucky Flame, we’re told it’s called—one hundred thirty-five proof.”

Under normal circumstances, Charli would have laughed.

Now she just nodded. “Fine. Load him up.” She knew Max’s tolerance for alcohol was far higher than it should be and right now, that was ideal.

“Do I get a say in this?” Max asked.

“No.” Con and Charli spoke in unison.

While Con filled up the glass that had once held ginger ale, Charli retreated to the private bathroom in Riley’s office and focused on scrubbing up the best she could.

“No,” she said under her breath. “I’m not doing something that could cost me my career—future career.”

In the mirror over the sink, as she scrubbed and scrubbed, she stared into her tired eyes and acknowledged the truth.

She sure as hell was.

She shouldn’t be doing this.

And if it was anybody but Max, she wouldn’t.

Okay, maybe Con or Riley, but those two, she’d guilt trip into going to the hospital. And even with Max, if she let him know she could lose her job, get in trouble with the medical board, all of that, he’d probably go to the hospital. She knew how to work him.

But could she do that to him, knowing how deep his fear went? The thought of being completely and totally under somebody else’s control? And that was how he’d view it if he was in a hospital.

Her hands shook a little as she finished washing.

Leaving the water running, she stepped out, hands held up.

Eying her brother, she jerked her head toward the bathroom. “You’re playing my nurse tonight. I need you to turn off the water.”

He scowled, then glanced at her hands. “I guess this is one of the doctor things.”

Ignoring him, she went over to the tray she’d already set up on the desk, the nearest surface to the couch where Max lay with his back up, the wound now easily accessible.

“Last chance, Max.”

“Jus’ do it,” he mumbled.

He passed out after the third stitch.

She didn’t know if it was pain or alcohol, or both.

He’d flinched when she’d had Con grab him, and for a minute, she’d thought he’d hit her brother.

“Be still, Max, or go to the hospital,” she commanded in the firmest voice she could muster.

His eyes had gone wide and wild.

A moment later, he’d gone limp.

She hated herself a little for it.

But she’d been able to go quicker and get it done when she knew he wasn’t feeling everything she did.

“Keep a hold on him,” she told Con. “I’m going to get this done fast.”