Honor Unraveled (17 page)

“Not at this point. We’ll question her when she comes around. I’d like to know if she looks familiar to you.”

“They’re working on her right now. I’ll let you know once I can get in there.” He looked at Greer. “You can keep it. She didn’t actually stab anyone and Bolanger’s not pressing charges.”

Kelan’s body was humming with his need for Fiona after dancing two slow dances back to back. He loved the way she smelled, the way she felt in his arms, the way she lost herself when she looked up into his eyes.
 

Blade stopped him before they could sit. “Kit ran into some trouble. I’m going to take the girls home. You and Angel got Val duty.”

Kelan frowned and sent a glance over toward the table full of females pouring themselves over Val and Angel. “Okay. You sure Kit doesn’t need all of us?”

“He’s good.” Blade bumped his knuckles to Kelan’s. “Let’s go, ladies. Night’s over.”

“What happened to Kit?” Eden asked.

“Not sure. But he wants you two safe at the house,” Blade answered.

Kelan looked at Fiona. She looked confused—and a little irritated when she saw the table of women where the guys were. Kelan caught her chin, shifting her gaze to him. “I’m sorry tonight was cut short. I’m staying to guard the guys. Nothing else.”

“It doesn’t matter to me what you do,” she said, but her gaze lowered to his chin as she said it.

“It matters to me.” He kissed her cheek. “Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She sent him a last, dark look, then followed the others out of the bar. Angel gestured him over to the girls’ table.
 

“Join us!” Angel was sitting at the back of the U-shaped booth, a woman on each thigh. How he could talk with a girl’s tongue down his throat, Kelan couldn’t guess.

“Where’s Val?”

“He’s taking care of a couple of the girls.”

“Huh.”

One of the girls on Angel’s thighs crawled over to Kelan and sat on his lap. “Hey. You are fine looking.” Her nails dug lines up his back, over his neck, into the base of his skull. “We’re celebrating our friend’s wedding.”

“Where is the bride?” Had she gone to one of the back rooms with Val? Jesus, would he sink so low to do a woman who was about to get married?

“She went back to the hotel with her maid of honor. To be with their men. God, they’re missing out.” She rocked her hips against his crotch.
 

Kelan pulled her arms down, then lifted her off his lap. “No, thanks. Val and Angel will give you what you need. I’m not interested.”

She crawled back over to Angel. “I have the best idea! You guys should come to the wedding!”

Angel grinned and looked over at him, a brow raised in question.
 

“Negative.” Kelan squashed that thought. “We have to work.”

One of the girls got off Angel’s lap and pulled him toward the edge of the booth. “Let’s go join your friend,” she asked, easing her hips side to side.

Angel looked at him, standing with an arm around both women. “You’ll be okay?”

“Yeah. Give me your wallet. The least you can do is settle their tab.”

* * *

Greer stayed at the clinic after Kit and Ivy left. The medical center had gone quiet. Lights were still on, but the overnight crew was down to a skeleton staff. No one saw him slip into the girl’s room. She had an IV in her arm. A machine displayed her vitals in glowing green text and graphs.
 

The girl was dozing beneath a dim light over the head of her bed. Greer pulled up a chair and sat near her on the shadowy side of her bed. She didn’t need the light tonight. He would guard her. She must have sensed his presence, for she jerked to alertness, lurching forward to her elbows as she looked around the room.
 

“Take it easy,” Greer whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“
You.
”

“Yeah, me. How’re you feeling?”

“Did I do it?”

“Do what?”

“Kill Mr. Bolanger?”

“You tried.”

“Tried.” Her eyes watered up. “Is he going to die or isn’t he?”

Greer laughed.
As if.
“Who sent you? Why’d you do it?”

“I had to. It was the tithe my parents owed King.”

Greer frowned at the girl. Maybe the sleep meds the clinic had given her were making her loopy. “Your parents made you do this?”

The girl lowered her gaze. “Every family makes a payment when each of their children comes of age. They don’t get to choose what the payment is. But I’m not to talk about this. If Mr. Bolanger isn’t dead….” She shut her eyes and shook her head.
 

“And if he were, you’d be going to prison. Who’s this ‘King’ who put a target on my friend’s back? What made you think killing someone was okay?”

“It’s what was asked of me. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t want the alternative.”

“What was the alternative?” The girl looked down, the break in her gaze punctuating the end of their conversation. “Look, I can help you. Talk to me.”

“You can’t help me. No one can. It is what must be done.”

“How about we start with names? I’m Greer Dawson.”

“You’re the enemy.”

“I’m not the enemy.”

“You’re not one of us, though, or they wouldn’t have me kill your friend.”

“No, I’m not. So who are you, your people, that you consider yourself different from me?”
 

“I can’t talk about this.”

The door to the girl’s room opened. Beck stepped in ahead of a middle-aged couple. He nodded at Greer. “Her parents are here. They’ve asked for her to be discharged.” He looked back at the couple. “Against medical advice.”

The couple wore strange clothes. Simple and rough, like historical reenactors. Greer looked at the girl, whose name he still didn’t know. She looked fearful. “Are these your parents?” The girl nodded. “You don’t have to go with them.”

“They said she’s underage,” Beck told him. He went over to remove the IV from Sally’s arm.
 

Greer stood up, blocking their advance toward the bed. “You know she tried to kill my friend?”

“She did but try? We’ll have a talk about that with her.” The girl’s father eyed Greer. “You let men in this room with my unmarried daughter?” he asked the doctor.

“Greer was guarding her.”

“He could have done his job from outside the room,” the father complained as the mother stepped around Greer and held up a homemade quilt.
 

“Let’s go home now, child.”

“Your daughter was drugged. You know anything about that?” Greer tossed out.

“It’s a dirty world outside our farm,” the woman commented as she wrapped the quilt around the girl’s shoulders.
 

“And where is that farm? We may have more questions for her.”

The girl’s father shut him down. “She’s answered all the questions she’s going to. She’s been through enough as it is. And because of you, her ordeal has only begun.”

“Are you threatening her?”

“You aren’t familiar with our ways,” the father said. His wife had gotten the girl off the bed with the quilt wrapped around her hospital johnny. She clutched the girl’s meager clothes close to her, but handed the boots to the girl.
 

Greer caught the girl’s arm before she was dragged from the room. “I’ll leave my contact info with Dr. Williams. If you need me, or think of something else, call me.” He handed her a business card. “Here’s my info. Keep it.”

“Get away from my daughter.” The father grabbed the card from the girl’s hand. He crumpled it then dumped it on the floor.

Greer and Beck followed the three out into the hallway and watched them hurry from the clinic. “Do you have her address?” Greer asked the doctor.

“You know I can’t share patient information with you.”

“Beck—”

The doc held up his hands. He nodded toward a beautiful, spindle-backed bench that was sitting against the wall opposite the front desk. “You see that bench over there? It’s new.”

Greer looked where he indicated, getting tangled by Beck’s orthogonal thinking. True, that bench hadn’t been there when they came in, but what of it? “Your point?”

“There’s a commune-like group that has a huge parcel of land about an hour northwest of here. They live in an area known as the Friendship Community, but folks around here call them the Friends. They’re peaceful separatists, not unlike the Amish or Mennonites. They don’t participate in our society. They live as people did at the beginning of the nineteenth century, eschewing all modern conveniences—cars, cultivators, electricity, appliances. It’s like a time warp going up there. They don’t use our currency. They don’t use our medical system. They school their own until fourteen or so. If they ever do need goods or services from outlanders, which is rare, they pay in kind.”

“You’re saying the people who came and got her left that bench?”

“I’m saying the bench is from the Friends. I admire them. They’re extraordinary craftsmen. They take care of their own. On the rare times I’ve had occasion to visit or treat any of their people, I’ve been impressed with their physical—and mental—health.”

“Doc, the girl was drugged and ordered to commit murder. If that’s how they treat their young, something ain’t right in paradise. And they lied to you. They said she was underage, but she said her attempt on Kit’s life was a tithe for coming of age.”

“Who knows what that age is. Could be fifteen or eighteen or twenty to them,” Beck said, tossing more unknowns in the heap at Greer’s feet.
 

Greer walked outside and watched as a small, black horse-drawn buggy made its way slowly down the road. He considered following them, but didn’t want to make more trouble for the girl. He’d head out that way when he could to see how the girl was doing.

He went down to the bunker when he got back to the team’s headquarters. It was late—he was hoping the guys had quit for the night. He couldn’t get a pair of hazel eyes out of his head, or the lean, ripe body that went with those eyes. Or her braided, honey-brown hair. He tried to remember whether she’d had freckles or not, and the absence of that memory bugged the hell out of him.

He sat on his chair in the control room and leaned forward to bury his face in his hands. He didn’t know her name, where she lived, what trouble she was in. Didn’t know a goddamned thing about her, but thanks to King, her bucolic existence was about to crash about her rocking cowboy boots.

“Hey,” Kit said from the door to the control room. “’S’up with Sally?”

“She’s not Sally.” He looked up and caught Kit studying him. His team lead remained quiet, letting the question stand. Greer sighed. “Her parents retrieved her—against medical advice. Beck said she’s part of an agrarian sect known as the Friendship Community that lives up near the WKB compound.” He straightened in his chair. “She said her murder attempt was a tithe her family owed King.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. I think her parents were the ones who drugged her. But whatever. This guy King’s called a hit on you.”

“We all have targets on our backs. And he’s going to have to send a more effective assassin if he wants me ended.” He straightened from the doorjamb. “Gather some info on the group. We’ll meet with the team tomorrow. We need to return the favor to King.”

Kit left Greer in the bunker and went back upstairs. It was late; he hoped Ivy had already crashed. He moved silently down the hall to the suite of rooms he shared with her and their daughter. The last thing he wanted to see tonight was the woman he loved glowing from her amazing date with another man. And yet his brain colluded with the devil to replay every smile she’d given the good doctor, every touch of their hands, the way their bodies had moved together in the handful of dances they’d shared, the dances she’d had with other guys.

He dragged his mind away from that thinking. After all she’d done for their daughter, she deserved to be happy. And if it fucking killed him, he’d make her dreams his dreams, her desires his, until he knew, beyond any doubt, that she was happy. Or until he took his very last breath.

The trick was, how could he do that and maintain his sanity?

He looked up and stopped in his tracks. Ivy had come out of her room, wearing a soft, slinky tee that cut across her belly and a pair of knit shorts. Her feet were bare. Her hair was loose. Her face was natural, washed free of her makeup. She looked as surprised to see him. In the dim light of the sitting room, he could see the peaks her hardened nipples made against the slinky fabric of her top.

He nodded at her and stepped to the side. He had nothing to say to her. Except to beg her to choose him and forget the others. He’d almost passed her when she reached out and touched him. Her fingers were cool on his forearm. He stopped, reflexively looking down where they touched. She slowly retracted her hand.

“How’s the girl?” she asked

Kit lifted his gaze, dragging it up to her eyes. “Her parents took her home.”

“She was okay?”