“Dr. Bennett, there is a gentleman here to see you.”

I turned from the glass window of a room in the juvenile burn unit where I had been watching Juan, an eight-year-old boy, sleeping in his hospital bed.

His family had immigrated from Mexico and lived in an overcrowded house. His mother had been cooking a pot of chicken caldo on the stove when Juan, who had been chasing his cousins, knocked into her. The pot spilt over. Juan’s mother and his cousins where able to move away without hardly any injuries but Juan was scalded with the boiling water in several places.

The family didn’t have health insurance and his parents could not afford the necessary surgeries to save him, so I stepped in. No child – no person – should have to endure the amount of physical pain Juan was in. And he was in for a lengthy healing process. For me, being able to do something for his physical health was only a small part of it. It wasn’t the young boy’s fault that the world was such a cruel place to grow up in.

I smiled at the nurse who delivered the message as I passed her on my way to the hallway just beyond the double doors of the ICU. Thad was leaning up against a wall waiting for me.

“I thought you dropped my wallet off at the nurse’s station?” I asked.

In my haste, I had forgotten my wallet at the office when I left for the hospital earlier this afternoon. I had called Thad to ask if he could drop it off. No one wanted to be caught without a license.

“Yeah, I did but as I was leaving I saw Ciaran in the emergency room waiting area.”

My chest immediately tightened. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. Something happened to one of her friends and she rode with her in the ambulance.”

I spun around to the group of nurses chatting in front of the burn unit doors and recognized one of them.

“Alicia,” I called.

The younger woman wearing scrubs covered in rainbow dinosaurs turned towards me. “Yes, Dr. Bennett.”

“I’ve had a personal emergency come up. Will you let Dr. Phillips know I had to leave and ask him to finish checking in on my patients, please? I already followed up with room 901 and updated the chart.”

“Yes, Dr. Bennett. I’ll page him right away.”

My chest burning, I pushed past Thad as I rushed towards the elevator. I had to get to Ciaran. Thad had said she was fine but I had to see her with my own eyes to make sure.

“Which friend?” I asked, slamming the button down for the first floor.

“I believe she said her name was Brenda,” Thad stated calmly.

I swear to God, calm was his middle name. It definitely wasn’t mine at the moment. Especially when it came to the woman who had shoved her way into my life. She had some sort of grip on my soul.

I spotted Ciaran as soon as we stepped off the elevator, sitting in one of the plastic chairs. She was tracing a line along the floor with the tip of her shoe. She looked so small. Even from a distance, I could see her eyes were puffy. She had streaks of mascara running down her splotchy cheeks. Without moving a single step, my body leaned in her direction as I took in every detail that I possibly could. She appeared to be fine, upset but fine.

Suddenly, a flash of blonde blocked her from my line of sight. I watched as Stuart Whitman pulled her from the chair, wrapped his arms around her and proceeded to rock her back and forth. I don’t remember my feet moving; however, within seconds, I reached where they were swaying. He was whispering to her but I couldn’t make out a word he was saying, which only angered me more.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” I demanded.

My own hands fisted at my side. I wanted to rip Whitman’s arms from his body so that he was never capable of touching her again.

Whitman had the nerve to look at me and smirk.

I took a step closer. “Remove your fucking hands or I will remove them for you.”

Ciaran snapped into action. She pushed Stuart away at the same time I reached for her. Letting out a loud cry, she flung herself into my arms. “Kean.”

“Baby, what happened?” I asked, pulling her tighter against my chest.

Heavy sobs tore through her slight frame making it impossible for her to speak. Thad and I made eye contact over her head. I needed to get her out of the waiting room. With one arm I reached under her knees and swept her up.

Next to us, Thad was giving Whitman a menacing look. Satisfied that he would deal with the situation, I began to walk in the direction of the emergency room double doors when Whitman blocked us.

He reached for Ciaran’s arm. “Ciaran? What the hell is going on?”

Thad immediately intercepted the move, positioning his massive body between Whitman and where I was carrying a bawling Ciaran.

“Are you fucking him?” Stuart shouted around Thad, drawing the attention of several people in the waiting room.

Ciaran didn’t answer but instead cried harder as she tucked her head under my chin and tightened her grip around my neck. With one last warning look at Whitman, I gave both men my back and carried Ciaran away.

I could hear Thad talking to Whitman behind us. “You need to leave.”

Pushing through the doors, I quickly found an empty room and set Ciaran down on the hospital bed.

“It’s going to be all right,” I whispered, pressing my lips against her temple while keeping my arms around her.

She shook with each sob.

A minute later, Thad stepped through the door carrying a bottle of water. Unscrewing the top, he handed it to a now hiccupping Ciaran.

“Here, drink. You’ll feel better with some fluids,” he told her.

As she drank some of the water, I grabbed a box of tissues off the counter and handed her one. She put the water bottle down and wiped her nose.

“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked.

“I-I-I’m not sure. I was meeting Brenda at my apartment. We were going to hang out. You know, like a girls night. S-s-she got there before me. She has a key to my apartment so she let herself in. When I got there, I found her on the floor. Kean, I’m so scared. I kept shaking her but she wouldn’t open her eyes. She didn’t open them once in the ambulance on the way here. I kept asking the paramedics what was wrong but they wouldn’t answer my questions.”

“They probably didn’t know. What is Brenda’s last name?” Thad asked.

“Larosa.”

I turned towards Thad. “Stay with Ciaran. I’ll check on Brenda’s status and see what is going on.”

“Got it,” Thad answered, taking one of Ciaran’s hands in his paws.

Any other time, the sight of big, burly Thad providing comfort to an upset woman would have amused me. Women, especially crying women, had a tendency to make him uncomfortable. He didn’t seem to have that issue when it came to Ciaran, which made me content. I trusted the brute with my life as did my parents before me. I knew he would protect Ciaran with everything he had when it came down to it.

Placing a kiss on Ciaran’s forehead I left the room to find the attending ER doctor. He was standing at the desk in center of the unit.

“Dr. Walker.”

“Dr. Bennett, what are you doing down in this neck of the woods?”

“They brought a friend of the woman I’m seeing via ambulance and I was trying to find out some information. Her name is Brenda Larosa.”

“Ah, yes. She underwent a gastric lavage when she first arrived because her friend was insistent that the patient may have accidentally ingested bad chocolate or something poisonous. She is stabilized however unconscious. We are running several blood work panels. Initial test results showed high levels of diazepam in her system. I was planning on admitting her for a couple of days. I can send your office the updates once we find out the rest of the results if you would like?”

I shook Dr. Walker’s hand. “Thank you. Please keep me updated on her status and I appreciate the information.”

I walked back into the room just as Thad was trying to convince Ciaran to drink more water. I was happy to see more color was returning to her face. The minute she saw me, she pushed the bottle away.

“Is Brenda okay?” she asked.

“She is going to be fine. She had a large amount of diazepam in her system. They are going to keep her for a few days. Ciaran, was she on any medications or does she suffer from seizures?”

“No, not as far as I know. We have been friends for years but she never mentioned anything. What is diazepam?”

“It’s a form of Valium,” I told her, pushing her hair behind her shoulders.

“Can I see her?”

“Not tonight. She will be asleep for several hours and probably through the majority of tomorrow. Why did you tell the nurses you were worried Brenda may have been poisoned?”

Ciaran sniffled and rubbed her nose with the wadded up tissue. “I think it was the truffles. I found a box on the floor a couple of feet from where I found her. I think she was eating them before I got there.”

I looked at her confused. “Unless you keep chocolates laced with drugs lying around, there is no way that’s possible.”

“No, of course I don’t. I had never seen the box before but it could have been delivered to my apartment when I wasn’t home and Brenda intercepted it. I won’t really know until I ask her.”

Thad returned to Ciaran’s side. “Why do you think it was the chocolates?”

“Because about four pieces were missing from what I could tell. I don’t ever buy chocolate because I have a weakness for it. I’m pretty sure they were delivered. I didn’t find a note anywhere with the candy but there was a white rose bud on the top. It looked like one of the ones from the bouquet Kean sent me at work. I would have thought the truffles were from you and probably would have eaten them.” She looked at me.

“Ciaran, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would you suspect chocolates that had been laced with drugs were delivered to you?”

“Because I’ve been getting threats.” Her voice was so low I barely caught her words.

My heart crashed heavily in my chest.

“What are you talking about? What threats?” I asked, tilting her chin up so I could meet her worried eyes.

She blinked a few times. “Someone has been sending me stuff. Messages about you and your family. The first one was written on an old newspaper clipping about your father. Whoever it is wants me to include what they are sending in the article I’m writing. They want you to pay for the things he did.” Her gaze darted nervously between Thad and I as she spoke.

I ran both hands through my hair and closed my eyes. It sounded like the same type of threats I had been receiving for years.

“How many threats have you received?” Thad asked.

“Two, not including the chocolates. With the second one, there was a large centipede in the box along with a page from Kean’s high school record about an incident with a younger female student.”

A light bulb clicked on in my head. Ciaran was in danger. She was in danger and hadn’t mentioned a word about it the entire time.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled.

Ciaran leaped off the exam table.

“Kean,” Thad warned.

I turned towards him. “Thad, someone has been threatening her because of me and my fucking father and I’m just finding out now? She is in danger. They have been watching her. She could have been killed if she had eaten the box of candy.”

I was beyond pissed. I was infuriated. When I found out who the hell was behind all this, I was going to beat them to a bloody pulp and destroy their lives.

“Ciaran, earlier when I first ran into you I didn’t see Stuart. Did he ride with you in the ambulance?” Thad asked, as he helped her back onto the exam table.

“No, he just showed up. He said he went by my apartment and a maintenance guy was locking my front door.” Her eyes met mine. “I was in such a hurry to ride with Brenda to the hospital I asked building maintenance to secure the apartment. Stuart said the guy told him they had taken a woman via ambulance from there. He assumed it was me.”

“Were you planning on seeing Stuart tonight?” Thad asked. He shot a brief glance at my pissed off face.

“No. It was just Brenda and I. I’ve gone out with Stuart a couple of times so he knew where I lived but I wasn’t expecting him,” she answered as she watched me.

I moved in front of where she was sitting, gripped her hips and slid her slightly towards the edge of the bed where I locked her in front of me. It was a possessive move. She belonged to me. Fucking Whitman needed to get it through his thick skull.

“Are the chocolates still at your apartment?” Thad asked.

“Yes, I picked them up and threw them in the trash in the kitchen. I know I should’ve called the police but I was afraid to. I’ve been worried word would get out about Kean’s history,” she explained.

Fuck, this woman. She wasn’t fearful of the danger she was in but instead worried about me. Her priorities were all screwed up.

“Ciaran, can I have your keys so I can pick up the candy. I have some friends in the police force who will run tests for us and keep it quiet.”

Reaching into her skirt pocket, Ciaran pulled out her keys and handed them to Thad.

With my eyes on hers, I told Thad where to find us when he was done. “I’m going to take her home. Keep me posted with what you find.” 

“Will do,” he said as he left the room.

I pressed my lips to Ciaran’s and kissed her softly before pulling back to make eye contact with her again. “You should have told me.”

“I tried but you got so upset the first time I brought up your father. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up again.”

It pained me that she was right. She had tried to come to me more than once but I refused to listen. I didn’t deserve her, not a single ounce of her, in my fucked up life.

“Ciaran, I’m sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault. I hate that you are being threatened over shit concerning me. You could have been seriously hurt if not killed.”

“Kean, it’s not your fault. I’m the one who was assigned to write about you. Whoever it is knows what I’m doing and is trying to use me to get to you. I keep trying to figure it out myself.” 

“I know I acted like an ass but you still should have told me. I could have helped. How was I supposed to keep you safe if I didn’t even know you were in danger to begin with?”

She pushed up and pressed her lips to mine.

I broke the kiss, the need to get her out of the hospital and somewhere safe weighing heavily on my conscience.

“Let’s get you home.”

“Will you stay with me?” she asked, misunderstanding my words and intentions. She didn’t realize which home I was referring to.

“Ciaran, I was talking about my place.”

She gave me a smile that pierced right through me. I returned it as I leaned my forehead against hers. I was falling deeper with every ticking second.