“Dr. Campbell, there’s a Mr. Friessen here to see you. He said it’s personal.”

Tom looked up from where he was lancing a nasty infected abscess on the buttocks of an eighty-year-old woman. It was a task he knew would be tossed his way, since he was coming on six plus weeks of grunt work, being tossed everything no one else wanted. He was better at giving orders than taking them.

The ER nurse winced at the pus and mess as he finished the last stitch, then dumped the soiled gauze on the tray and ripped off his gloves and gown.

“I’m done here. Can you finish up?” Tom said. “Where is he?”

“Waiting area,” said the nurse.

Tom wanted to know what Brad wanted now, but at the same time he suspected the man knew what he’d done with his daughter earlier that evening. Her image popped into his head again, forever burned in his mind, as he left the cubicle and dumped the soiled gloves and gown in the receptacles. He could see Becky lying naked on his bed, so seductive and perfect, nothing fragile or weak. Maybe that was why he wasn’t the same, maybe that was why he couldn’t get enough of her, as he could feel he was slipping into something he’d never been in before, dragged from the darkness by this unassuming woman who’d taken everything as he’d known it and flipped it upside down. He paused when the realization smacked him upside his head. What had just happened? He laughed for a second as he opened the door to the waiting area and looked around for her father.

“Are you Tom Campbell?”

He took in the tall dark-haired man with a touch of gray and amber eyes, a few inches taller than him, dressed neatly. He was a man of means, he assumed, by the dark leather jacket and dark jeans.

“Yes, and you are?” He took in a familiarity he couldn’t place.

“Neil Friessen. I’m Becky’s uncle.” He didn’t hold out his hand, and Tom now knew why he was so familiar. This was Brad Friessen’s brother. There was a resemblance, but the man before him wasn’t built like a linebacker or dressed like a cowboy. It was a subtle difference, including the diamond stud in his ear and nothing friendly in his eyes.

He looked around at the busy waiting area and could feel the nurses at the desk behind him watching and listening to everything being said. This was his private business, and that would never darken the halls of this hospital.

Maybe Neil knew, as he glanced around. “Is there some place we can talk?”

“Yeah, was going to grab a coffee,” he said. He wasn’t, but at least that would give them some privacy away from prying ears. He gestured to the hall that led down to the cafeteria.

Neil fell in beside him, and it didn’t take him long to realize he may have been wrong about his build. He was similar to Brad Friessen, and the expression on his face now had Tom feeling he was a far more dangerous enemy than Becky’s father.

“You’re dating my niece,” Neil said, his voice direct, accusing.

Not the time to point out his practiced line that he didn’t date. “She’s an amazing woman,” Tom said. He said nothing else as he strode along, aware that he needed all of his street smarts now.

“You’re dating the daughter of a Friessen, my brother’s daughter, but at the same time I have reservations and concerns about your character.”

He could feel the band of muscles across his shoulders tighten. “Oh, and what would those be?”

The man actually chuckled softly, and he glanced to him, seeing his expression. It wasn’t anything funny. “What exactly are your intentions toward Becky?” Well, straight to the point and exactly what her father had asked.

Tom scrambled to remember what he’d said while standing in the dirt under the dark glare. Neil was only seconds, he figured, from kicking his ass and at the same time was just waiting for him to say the wrong thing. “I never expected to meet someone like Becky. She…”

“You already said that. Let me sum up that Becky is a gem, and we love her, and she’s a diamond in the rough that hasn’t been degraded. We expect her to stay that way. Are you toying with her?”

Few people could read him, but there was something about the way Neil Friessen was talking to him that made a chill creep up his back. He was way out on a ledge he’d never been on before. “No, I’m not,” he said. He ground his jaw down hard.

“But you’re sleeping with her.”

“Yes, I am.” He stopped at the corner to the cafeteria, knowing this man wasn’t here to sit down and have a coffee and a chat. He was here to get some answers Tom wasn’t prepared to or wanted to give.

“Let me be perfectly clear then and cut through the bullshit. You looking to change my niece or somehow control her, grind her in some sort of submission to you, toy with her until you break her or you decide you’re done with her, isn’t going to happen.” He was very direct, and Tom was at a loss as to where this was coming from. Who had he talked to?

“Becky told you that?” he started, knowing he wasn’t hiding anything right now.

Neil just shook his head, not smiling. “No, not my niece, her tutor.”

He shook his head, glanced away, feeling the fury course through him at the thought of that asshole. There was something about that little piss-ant that had angered Tom from the moment he’d seen him and all his smoothness sitting across from Becky. The fact was that the little shit had hurt her, tried to overpower her, and he suspected he’d done so with more than just his hand.

“Let me guess. This Ian you hired has issues with me?” Tom said. He knew he was being an asshole with the way he said it and from the darkened look her uncle leveled his way. It could get a fist in his face, but that was nothing compared to what he wanted to do to Ian.

Neil said nothing. “He has concerns, which he shared with me. Did you or did you not tell my niece that you wanted a bed warmer and nothing more, no relationship, and at the same time you don’t want her seeing anyone else? You have this jealous streak, and I’m really getting a picture I’m not liking of a man trying to control my niece in ways she shouldn’t be controlled.”

Overprotective family, father, uncle… Who else was in the wings? He said nothing, because he’d said more than that to Becky, and now he realized what a fool he’d been. Even though he wanted everything, his way, on his terms, that wasn’t something that would happen with Becky. Maybe that was why he was feeling his footing wasn’t as secure as it once had been.

“You ever ask yourself why he would say that to you, out of concern for Becky or something else?” Tom said. Then he took in the cafeteria ahead and the other way, the hallway back to the ER. “You know what? I have to get back.”

Neil Friessen didn’t say anything to him, and although Tom had street smarts and a sixth sense about what people were thinking, from the depravity to the needy to those who made themselves easy marks, he didn’t have a clue what was going on in Neil Friessen’s head.

He started back to the ER.

“Tom,” Neil called to him.

He turned back and waited as Neil took a step and then another, closer. He didn’t cower, and he didn’t run away as he stood there eye to eye with a man who could have seriously hurt him. He wasn’t a fool.

“Don’t think I don’t understand how guys like you think, operate. I do, and here’s your warning: You hurt my niece in any way, you damage her spirit, her smile, or try to manipulate her in any way, I will crush you.”