Chapter 4
Penny awoke from her nap to find herself on the couch, her head on Warrick’s lap, his arm wrapped around her chest. She twisted slightly so she could look up, finding him sitting, his head laying back. She couldn’t see his eyes, but they were likely closed as his chest rose slow and steady.
She remembered bits and pieces of his phone conversation as she went under. She wondered if she could get up and move quietly enough that she wouldn’t wake him. Her bladder insisted that she try regardless. She did her best sneaking out from under his arm and standing up. But, as soon as she turned to look at him, she saw his eyes were open, studying her.
She smiled. “I have to go to the ladies’ room,” she said by way of explanation.
He nodded. “I don’t know if the coffee is still hot, but there should be some left, if you want to get a cup on your way back.”
She walked to the bathroom, used the facilities and then took a moment to wash her face. The nap had done her a world of good, but she still felt groggy. It had been a hell of an afternoon.
She walked into the kitchen. The coffeepot had automatically turned off a while ago. She wondered how long she’d slept. She reached for her phone and realized she’d been asleep for just over an hour. “You should have woken me,” she exclaimed. “I wonder if I’ll even sleep tonight.”
“You’ll sleep,” he said comfortably. “That nap was just enough to get you through the next four or five hours. Then you’ll crash again.”
She smiled as she sat down on the couch. “Well, it’s almost six-thirty now. About time to leave and see Nina.”
He nodded. “What do you want to do about dinner?”
She frowned. “I’m not really sure. We don’t have time beforehand.” She looked out at the evening sky. “You don’t have to come with me, you know.”
He smiled. “Nope, I don’t,” he said.
She studied him for a long moment. “You don’t have to stay here with me either. I’m fine. You know that, right?”
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
Realizing he would likely be stubborn, she turned to face him. “I’ll probably come straight home after a visit with Nina, make a sandwich and just go to bed.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“What will you do?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean I’m not invited to see Nina, come back here, have a sandwich and go to bed?” He was teasing her.
She could feel the heat flushing over her cheeks. She glared at him. “No. You’re not.”
“Ah,” he said in a humorous voice. “Okay, in that case, I suggest we see Nina, and afterward we go out for dinner, and then I’ll drop you back home again.”
She frowned. But at least he was talking about leaving her alone at her place afterward. “I probably won’t eat very much,” she said.
“Nobody said you had to. But I highly doubt going to bed on an empty stomach is a good idea either. If you want, we can pick up some Chinese food and sit in one of the parks to eat.”
“Or at the beach.” She brightened. “That sounds pretty nice. Chinese food, pizza, a sandwich or something.”
He nodded. “In that case let’s head to the hospital, and then we’ll go out and eat.”
She glanced at her clothes. “If we’re doing that, I’m changing. I’ll only be a minute.” She hopped up on her feet and walked over to the bedroom.
Once there, she closed the door and changed into something a little nicer, then grabbed a cardigan. If they were eating at the beach, the wind could come up, and it got quite chilly. She walked back out, slipped on her flats and said, “Two vehicles or one?”
“In order for there to be two,” he said with a grin, “we have to go back to me not having my foot in a cast.”
Her gaze went to the walking cast on his foot. “I keep forgetting,” she confessed.
“And that’s okay too,” he said. “Keep forgetting. I can’t stand the thought of it myself. I’ll be grateful when it’s gone.”
“In that case I’m driving this time.” Her voice was firm.
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him.
She locked up the apartment and headed downstairs toward the parking lot.
Once in the vehicle, she directed it toward the hospital. “Do you think they’ll still have crazy security?”
“No. I would think it’s back to normal by now.”
“I hope so. I’d like to never see that again.” He didn’t say anything, but then she remembered all the training he’d been through and the missions he did and realized this was stuff he saw on a daily basis. “How can you stand it? Seeing that side of humanity and dealing with it day in and day out, month in and month out, even year in and year out?” she asked.
“You never get used to seeing what evil mankind can dish out, but we learn to compartmentalize it, then to shoot some hoops, down a few beers, take a grueling run, swim, whatever. You have to be grounded in the reason why you’re doing what you do, and then you realize that, day in and day out, there will always be a situation that needs your assistance. If people would stop fighting for the stupidest reasons, it would be a wonderful place to live. But, in the meantime, people are killing each other, and they need our help to make it stop.”
“Yet it never stops,” she muttered. She pulled up to the red signal light at the next intersection and stopped, waiting for it to turn green. She shivered lightly. “I didn’t put on my sweater. I was expecting it to be warmer outside.”
“It’s not so much that it’s cool,” he said, “but you’re still tired, still dealing with shock from this afternoon.”
“It’s amazingly debilitating.”
“The minute you’re afraid, you’ve given away all your power, and it’s very hard to mentally deal with the crisis situation.”
She thought about that. “Most people don’t talk about giving away their power.”
“More people should,” he said shortly. “It’s important to remain grounded. To understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. If you come from a victim’s standpoint, you are incapable of doing anything or making a reasonable decision. You’re too easily swayed by everybody around you.”
“That hasn’t really been an issue in my life yet.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” His voice came out almost determinedly cheerful.
“Do you have any family?”
“Yep, I do. I see them every once in a while but not too often.”
“My family is all back East,” she said. “I haven’t been there for years.”
“Not interested in seeing them?”
“My parents divorced after my brother’s death. Both have since remarried. Both have families. I’m supposed to belong to both of them, but, in actuality, of course, I belong to neither.”
“You don’t sound too bothered by it.”
“Not now. They divorced when I was eighteen after we lost my brother. They both remarried when I was twenty and twenty-one, respectively. It’s an odd thing to realize how much everybody else has moved on. I know my parents still love me, but they have other priorities now, and I’m an adult. So it’s not like I need anything from them.”
“Need is one thing. Maybe wanting something is a different issue.”
She shook her head. “I’m pretty happy out here on the opposite coast. I’m not sure I’m ready for little kids. And every time I think about them, and the brood they’ve produced, it’s pretty scary.”
“How many?”
“Three and four … respectively,” she said.
“Right. My father married somebody quite a bit younger, and he’s the one with four now. My mom had another daughter, then twin boys. I don’t think the twins were really in the plan, but life sometimes gets ya.”
“Isn’t that the truth?”
She pulled into the hospital parking lot and found an empty spot. As she got out, she said, “I hope Nina is okay.”
“We’ll find out soon.” His tone was soothing.
She looked up at him. “Are you always so nice?”
“Is there another way I’m supposed to be?”
She shrugged. “Maybe nice is boring.”
He snorted. “And yet, if I was yelling or screaming or hitting you, you wouldn’t like it much either.”
“No, of course not.” She shrugged. “I’m being foolish.”
“Right. I’d really like to get into the psychology of what you were asking about, but I’m not sure you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m wondering if you’re looking for negative traits in order to not like me as well.”
His thinking was a little too close to the truth.
She picked up the pace, putting herself just ahead of him as they walked into the hospital. At least it kept her face out of his view. Interesting comment. There was something very different about Warrick. Maybe because he’d had just come out of a long-term relationship, but then she’d dated recently divorced men before who didn’t have words of wisdom for her.
Warrick was definitely his own man.
She walked up to the receptionist and said, “Nina Foster. Do you have a room number for me, please?”
“Two twelve,” the woman said with a smile. Her gaze went from one to the other. “You two were here earlier today, weren’t you?”
Penny nodded. “Yes. Not much fun for any of us.”
The nurse nodded. “No, it wasn’t.”
On the second floor they found Nina’s room number and opened the door to see a ward of four beds. There were curtains around each of the sections. “Nina?”
“Over here.”
Penny walked toward the end of the room and to the last curtain on the right. She stopped and smiled. “Hey. How are you feeling?” She bent to give her friend a gentle hug. She studied Nina’s green and purple swollen face and winced. “I hope you are feeling better than you look.”
Nina gave a choked laugh. “I look that bad, huh?”
For a moment Penny was not sure what to say. “Honestly I don’t even know what to say, but it looks pretty rough.”
“That’s how I’m feeling too,” Nina said as her gaze lifted to Warrick. She stared at him, and then, as if recognition hit, she beamed. “You’re the man who took down my ex, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes. He’s a pretty upset young man.”
“He’s an angry young man,” Nina said ruefully. “About everything. It didn’t matter whether it was his laundry that wasn’t done, his supervisor who wanted him to do something shitty, his coworker treating him terribly, the guys teasing him, the sun wasn’t shining … It didn’t matter,” she said. “He was always angry.”
“I’m sure he’ll get some help with that when he’s in prison,” Penny said gently. “Anger management is huge.”
Nina sighed, her fingers busy pulling the sheet over her chest. “I hope he does. He’s a good man inside.”
Penny withheld judgment on that. An awful lot of men were angry at the world, but they didn’t take it out on innocent bystanders, and they certainly didn’t take a hospital hostage. “Did you talk to him at all?”
Nina raised her gaze. “He called me, and, not recognizing the number, I answered. I was at a coffee shop, trying to figure out what to do with my life, where to move. I guess he heard the background noise and recognized it. Next thing I know, he was in the coffee shop, standing in front of me. He wanted me to go home, just have a talk with him. He was calm and friendly, normal like. So I did. And of course that went badly.” She clenched the sheets in her fingers. “I managed to run out of my house, screaming. He came after me, but the neighbors were already calling the cops. He disappeared. The cops brought me to the hospital. The next thing I know, he shows up here with a weapon.” Tears rimmed her eyes. “I knew he had several weapons, he’s always kept them locked up. It’s not as if he can carry them around on the base. Besides, I never considered them an issue as I didn’t think he’d ever get this bad.”
“No, but you knew it was bad enough,” Penny said. “I’m not trying to be heartless, but we can’t wash this away as being one of his episodes.”
“I know.” Nina’s voice was tearful, soft. “I was so hoping he would improve.”
“Here, take a seat, Penny,” Warrick said.
She turned to see he had placed two chairs close to Nina’s bed so they could both sit down. She sagged gratefully into one. “I’m still really tired from everything that happened today too.”
Nina squeezed her friend’s hand. “Thank you so much for coming into the hospital. He kept saying he would get you here, and I knew the cops wouldn’t add another hostage, but then, just like that, the two of you walked in, and I couldn’t believe it. He seemed to be really surprised too.”
“I didn’t want to come in alone,” Penny admitted. “And Warrick wouldn’t give me that option either.”
Nina smiled, her gaze going from one to the other. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” she said. “But at least you found a protector and not an abuser.”
Penny winced. “What will you do now?” She was trying to get Nina to focus on her future, not her past.
“I don’t know. I finally called my mom and explained what happened. She’s pretty upset. She wants me to go home. I’m not so sure I’m ready to do that.”
“Where is home?” Warrick asked.
“Mexico City if I had a choice,” Nina said with a smile. “It’s a very different world there and I have some family there now.”
“True, but it would get you away from everything that’s happened here.”
“I know. I can see going maybe for a week or two, but I’m not sure that’s the life I want anymore. I have a decent job here. It pays well. I have friends. The problem with that is that he knows where I work and live, and who my friends are.”
“You don’t have to make a decision right away,” Warrick said. “It’s a good time to be sensible and give yourself a little time to recover and then make some decisions about your life.”
After that there was some small talk, and then finally Penny stood. “We’re going out for dinner. Then I’m going home and catching some sleep. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be back to normal.”
“What about our boss? Now we’re both not at work.”
“I already told him what happened today. He told me to take the afternoon off, but I’ll be back at work tomorrow. It’s Friday, and I have a bunch of paperwork I need to file and submit before the week is over.”
Nina nodded. “I think I have more sick leave coming. I don’t know.”
“Talk to the boss. I’m sure he won’t have a problem with you taking time off. You’ve been through a lot already. Besides that’s the kind of paperwork we do, so, if you need a hand with it, you can let me know,” she joked.
Nina waved goodbye, and Warrick and Penny headed outside.
Penny checked her watch. “That was only about forty minutes.”
“Right, so it’s still early.” Warrick wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gently tugged her a little bit closer as they walked to the parking lot. “So Chinese, pizza or sandwich?”
“Chinese,” she said. “In one of those take-out boxes with chopsticks.”
Her decisiveness made him stop and stare at her.
She shrugged. “And I want to sit on a log and feel the wind in my hair. I want to watch the sun go down.”
“Okay,” he said with a smile. “I think I can handle that.”
She chuckled. “Pretty sure you said you were damn good at everything.”
He chuckled. “Challenge accepted.”
*
He directed her to his favorite Chinese restaurant and said, “You sit here. I’ll go in and get our orders.”
“It’ll take time though,” she said. “We may have to wait ten or fifteen minutes. You only ordered it a few minutes ago.”
He shook his head. “They are really fast here.” And without waiting for her to reply, he hopped out, closed the door and walked inside.
Even with a walking cast, he moved with a lion’s grace. He was big; he was lean; he was muscled, and there was just so much power radiating from him. She was pretty damn sure George had taken one look and realized it was already over, and, even though he held the weapon, no way in hell he would get away from Warrick. She watched as he had a quick conversation with the clerk, and the next thing she knew, a large bag was placed on the counter, and Warrick was at the cash register taking care of the bill. He was outside and getting back into the vehicle in no time.
She smiled. “I thought you’re supposed to be off your foot.”
He chuckled. “I am. Who knows, besides you, that I’m not being as good as I should be?”
She rolled her eyes.
He said, “Now let’s head to the beach.”
There was a spot in her mind that she wanted to go.
On the way he pointed out a Starbucks. “Let’s swing by there and grab coffees to-go.”
They hit the drive-through and soon had hot steaming coffees beside them. She drove the last leg to the parking lot above the beach.
As she got out and collected the coffees, she said, “Can you walk in the sand in that thing?”
“Don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ll be just fine.”
She wondered if she’d insulted him. From his tone of voice, she thought she might have.
She deliberately headed toward a large log that overlooked a section of rougher beach area where the ocean slammed in waves against the big rocks, leaving seaweed behind. On the log they were far enough back to get a little spray from an exceptionally large wave, but most of the time they would be dry. She had her cardigan wrapped around her tight. She figured they could start on the log, and, if it got too cold, they could sit on the sand up against the log and be out of the wind more. She deliberately didn’t watch Warrick’s progress as she worked her way toward the log. She scrambled up on top, closed her eyes and sat with her face tilted into the wind and the remaining sunshine. Immediately she could feel the stress and tension of the day drifting off her shoulders. It felt so damn good to get out and have that fresh air and warm sunlight wafting over her.
When she heard him sit down beside her, she smiled and said, “Isn’t this beautiful?”
“You’re beautiful.”
His words surprised her. She opened her eyes and smiled. “That’s not quite what I meant.”
“Maybe not, but it’s what I meant.” He opened the bag and pulled out a box with a little metal handle on the top and set it at her feet. Then he gave her a pack of chopsticks. At the same time he took his coffee from her hand and buried it partway in the sand, so it wouldn’t fall over. Then he pulled out his Chinese food.
It looked like something still remained in the bottom of the bag, but he put it down on the other side of him. She followed suit with her coffee and then opened up her Chinese food. She didn’t know what the heck he’d ordered, but the smell was intoxicating.
She took her first bite and moaned in joy. “This is perfect.”
He chuckled, and they sat in amiable silence enjoying the moment.
Every once in a while she gave her head a shake and let the wind ripple gently over her face, her eyes closed. “I needed this tonight.”
“It’s always good to have something like this,” he said. “There’s a sense of wildness, a sense of freedom out here.”
“Freedom.” She nodded, mouthing the word again. “I like that. That’s exactly what it is.” She went back to her Chinese food, and, when it was gone, she sighed and stared at her empty carton. “I guess I was hungrier than I thought.”
“Are you still hungry?”
There wasn’t any surprise in his voice. As if he’d expected her to polish off the whole thing. “I wouldn’t normally eat that much,” she confessed. “But I think you’re right. After everything today, I have an appetite now.”
“I’m almost done with mine.” He took the last couple bites of broccoli and folded up the two empty cartons, put them back in the bag, then pulled out a tinfoil container with a cardboard top.
She stared at it. “More food?”
He took off the lid, and, sure enough, inside were several egg rolls.
“Oh, now that’s a good idea.”
Ignoring the chopsticks, she reached into the container and pulled out a big fat one. Then she picked up her coffee. With coffee in one hand and the egg roll in the other, she munched her way through it. And, when she was done with that, she had a second one. After that she was full. She waved the rest of them at him. “Those are all yours.”
The wind had picked up. She pulled her sweater a little bit closer around her shoulders.
“Are you cold?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I was thinking, if I got much colder, I could sit in the sand, but that will be cool too.”
Just then a big gust blew through, and she shuddered and hunched a little lower. Warrick polished off the last of his food, cleaned up the garbage, turned so he was straddling the log, and then pulled her into his arms, under his windbreaker, so she was a little more protected from the wind.
Tucked against his chest like that, no way she could be cold. The man was a bloody furnace. She snuggled happily, let her head rest against his chest and smiled. It wasn’t exactly what she thought the evening would bring, but she was all for this. “He won’t get out, will he?”
“I hope not.”
“I keep thinking he’ll escape, or they’ll let him off on a technicality or something stupid.”
“The only way he could get off or get out is if he escaped.”
“That doesn’t bear thinking about. Poor Nina. She needs to heal and recover.”
“So do you,” he said. “There’s never an easy answer after something like this.”
She nodded and smiled.
They stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s arms for at least another forty minutes. She kept thinking it was time to go home, but she never wanted to break the moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she just sat and relaxed, enjoying being with a man.
When his phone rang, disrupting the silence of the evening, she shifted so he could pull out his phone. When he answered it, she felt the change come over him immediately. His body stiffened, and, though he kept an arm wrapped around her firmly and kept her tugged tightly against him, she could only hear his part of the conversation. But what she heard was enough to set her blood running cold.
She tilted back her head when he hung up and said, “Did I hear that?”
He nodded. “Yes. The asshole got loose.”