BEAST (7 page)

Christopher scowled but it disappeared as soon as he looked down into the woman’s peaceful face. She was beautiful, she had a teeny little peanut nose and perfectly formed lips. He used to look at pictures and photographs of lips; ones with perfect cupid
bows
; like hers. Her face was round and girlish. He figured that she was in her late twenties. Her long lashes left dark shadows on her golden brown cheeks. She wasn’t
pink,
she was gold and brown like hot buttered toast.

He wished that she would sleep like this forever.

Ashleigh sucked in a loud breath as if she had been drowning under water. Her hands flung out and her eyes popped open; all at the same time. She was awake.  She looked up into the wary face of the man and let out a squeak of surprise. Oh my god. His face…
she could see it up close and clearly now.
Th
ere were scars
criss
-crossing his face
. His nose was flattened
but
his upper lips wasn’t exactly three separate pieces as she had first thought from her brief glimpse of him, but it did have deep scars as if it had been sewn back together; badly sewn back together. His hair was cut into a very short military cut but she could tell that it was red, just like his sparse eye brows and lashes.

She realized that she was staring, but she also realized that he was allowing it. Ashleigh quickly pushed away from him. Oh my god, she had been snuggling
against
him! She tried to come to her feet in horror that she had made a stranger so familiar.

“I am so sorry.” She said quickly. His hands were still on her arms as if he was waiting for her to fall again.

“You fainted twice.” He said. She tried not to stare into his face and looked around. He dropped his arms and she realized that she was being rude by being self-conscious. She looked at him.

“Where am I?”

“This is the security area of the subbasement.” He had a deep, soft voice with a country accent. “I’m Lt Christopher Jameson of the Department of Protective Services for Homeland Security.”

She gave him a surprised look, momentarily forgetting about his scars.
“In the subbasement?”

“Yes Ma’am,” h
e said politely. “The employees of the Federal Building and Federal Courthouse are our protectees.”

“Protectees...” She said testing the word. “Wow, I had no idea.”

“No Ma’am. No one sees us. But we’re here.” Ashleigh smiled. That was nice to know.

“I’m Ashleigh Dalton.” She blushed and tugged at her t-shirt. “And I need to really get back to work.”

“Mrs. Dalton, you’re not trying to exercise on an empty stomach are you?” She gave him a surprised look. And he quickly continued. “Well I see you workout each morning…and you blacked out. I figured that was why.”

She blushed again and looked away. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“Mrs. Dalton-
”

“Miss.
Please, just call me Ashleigh, spelled with a
gh
.”
After all
, she had just sat on his lap, and what a big lap it was. She
had to look up at him as he towered
above her. He was a giant. He was even bigger than DeAngelo. Big clothes concealed most of his muscles but she knew that he was perfectly toned beneath the sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt. She felt like such a slob around him. He’d probably felt every roll of fat when he lifted her. Feeling self conscious, she folded her arms in front of her.

“I’ll escort you back down to the lockers. Once you get dressed I want you to visit the nurse’s station in your building. You need to get your blood pressure checked and the lump on the back of your head looked at. Will you do that, Ashleigh?”

She gave him a surprised look.
“Yeah-Yes.
I’ll do that.”

He nodded without smiling and led her out the door. Several men were moving along the corridor and she instantly knew that they had been listening at the door. She looked up at Christopher who seemed to ignore it.

Several men nodded their heads at her as they passed. They were dressed in army fatigues and she was wearing sweats and a t-shirt. How embarrassing. Her cap was gone; she would have bed head!!! This day should just end. There was no way that she was going to work, she was going home and she was going to crawl into bed!

They walked down a long corridor and Ashleigh realized that he had carried her here. She looked up at him. He walked very straight and tall. She should say something.

“Thank you for helping me. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

He looked at her quickly. “No trouble. Um…do you feel okay?”

No, she didn’t feel okay. She felt drained but she didn’t think she was going to faint again. “I’m okay.” She said.

They reached the securi
ty doors and he used a card to
open
them
.
“After you, Ma’am--Ashleigh.”

Why was she so tired? Christopher was watching her
but she couldn’t read his expression
. He followed her into the corridor but instead of leading her to where the lockers were located he led her in a different direction. Oh hell she was all turned around
.
It felt like a maze to her anymore. But in a minute she was going to need to sit down. She hoped they would get to the lockers soon.

They reached a set of elevators and he pressed the button. She
saw him look at her with a sudden frown
.

“You’re crashing again. You’re about to black out.” Concern was
suddenly
evident in his voice and on his face.

“What?”

He placed his hand on her elbow to steady her and led her into the elevators. “I’m taking you directly to your nurse’s station.” There was no room for protest. He led and she went.

“I’m feeling a little sick,
” She admitted.

He looked at her. “I know.” She wasn’t brown anymore. Now she was gray. He drew his hood on and looked down in order to shield his face just as the elevator doors opened. They hadn’t used the main elevators leading to the lobby but a back elevator that was in the same corridor as the first floor nurse’s station. Ashleigh had passed these elevators a hundred times and never noticed them.

The man, Christopher, had taken her hand and was leading her, pulling her forward. Maybe she was going to black out. Everything was grays and blacks…

Christopher pushed open the doors to the nurse’s area and two women wearing white scrubs looked up at him in surprise. One of the women started backing up in alarm, the other looked from the man to the gray woman and she jumped into action.

“Get a gurney!” Things moved very fast. She was laying on a gurney, someone was taking her blood pressure, someone gave her more orange juice and she began to come around. A man, a doctor shined a light in her eyes and she blinked and turned away.

“Mrs. Dalton? We called an ambulance. It should be here any minute. Are you taking insulin?”

“Ambulance?!”
She tried to sit up but a gentle hand was on her shoulder. She looked over and it was a man wearing a hood, Lt. Christopher Jameson. She quieted.

“Mrs. Dalton?” The doctor was talking to her and she turned her attention back to him. “Are you diabetic?”

“No. No.” Why was he asking her if she had diabetes?

“You’re hypoglycemic and there is a good chance that you
are falling
into a diabetic coma.”

“Coma?”

“
Basically unconsciousness
due to low blood sugar.”
A nurse handed her a piece of toast. “Try to eat this. We can’t give you glucose here. If the toast doesn’t work it’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel better. You have to go to the hospital. We contacted your emergency contacts and they are on their way.”

Ashleigh rubbed her face with shaking hands.
Diabetes.
The doors flew open and Lance and Kendra were suddenly there flanking her bed, holding her hands, smoothing her hair, kissing her cheeks and telling her how badly she’d scared them.

~***~

Christopher spent the morning filling out reports; incident reports, breach of security report, points of contact reports. When he was done he went down into the gym room and retrieved the CD and Ashleigh’s cap. He quietly stared at the monitors, ran his sweeps, but
his mind was deep in thought. No
one bothered him. Carlos mumbled, “She’s going to be alright, Beast.”

He gave the man a surprised look. But Carlos tucked his head down and hurried away. Bruce walked into the security room later that evening. Christopher looked up from the screens waiting to get his ass chewed for leaving the area without permission.

“I got a report from the hospital. The civilian…uh the girl, Miss Dalton has been released and she’s doing just fine.” Christopher sighed. “Go down into the lockers and secure her property. I don’t want any of her belongings getting stolen.”

“Yes, sir.”
He stood up quickly and hurried out the door, but paused and turned back to Bruce. “Thank you, sir.”

“She’s a tough, cookie. She must have been feeling bad for days and came in every day and pushed herself. I didn’t h
ave men at boot camp that push
themselves as hard.”

Christopher nodded. He agreed.

~***~

“You two are making me hot!” Ashleigh grumbled. Lance was cuddled up in her bed to the right and Kendra to the left. He made to get up and Ashleigh gripped his shirt and pulled him back down. He chuckled when she sighed in contentment.

She’d spent most of the day at the hospital. It was confirmed; she had diabetes. Ashleigh had pulled her lip into her mouth and almost cried. The needles, the regulated diet, no more rice…She had to have PF Chang’s twice a week, she just had to!

But sometimes when a door closed a window opened. DeAngelo had shown up at the hospital. He had been among her emergency contacts and he’d dropped everything to rush to the hospital and to be at her side! He had looked terrified when he saw her pale face. He gripped her hand and kissed her finger
s
.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Are you okay, Ashleigh?” She’d stared at him in surprise. Kendra and Lance had rolled their eyes at his show of affection but had backed away—not leaving all-together, of course. But they had given her a bit of space to talk to him.

She explained about the
black out
and he had blanched. “Jesus…” He had stayed with her during the diagnosis and
had asked questions when the doctors explained that her A1C test was at 12 which is why she had to immediately take insulin instead of pills. He
held her hand during the injections. He had even offered to drive her back home but Lance said that his WIFE would be worried about him.

Ashleigh narrowed her eyes at Lance but it was true. “You should go. My friends are going to drive me home.”

DeAngelo had given her
a steady look. “I’m your friend
too, you know.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips lightly. “I thought…I thought you would have forgiven me by now. I don’t want to lose you
Ash,
you
gotta
tell me how to make this right between us.”

“Okay,” Lance stormed forward. “You want to know how to make everything right? You fucking disappear! You leave her alone and stay out of her life!”

“Lance,” Kendra placed a calming hand on his narrow shoulder. Ashleigh couldn’t believe that Lance was attacking DeAngelo like that! He was half the man’s size. But in that moment he looked like he would whup DeAngelo’s ass.