The Fox and her Bear (Mating Call Dating Agency, #2) (8 page)

Someone hung up the receiver, but not before she heard Dawson groaning about his ribs, and a voice she vaguely recognized as Tenner’s saying that he had no idea what happened. He said someone who had it out for him pulled a gun, fired, and then Dawson went—

And that’s where it ended.

Angie was shaking, trembling, from her head to the tips of her fingers. She came back to reality with Colton gripping her shoulders and shaking her gently. “Ange? You all right? You kinda zonked out. What’s going on? Is anyone dead?”

She shook her head, still dazed. “No, at least I don’t think so. He didn’t say, he...”

“That was the guy? That was the bar?”

“Yeah, but... I don’t know what’s going on past the basics. I need to go and make sure he’s okay. If nothing else, I think I can safely count him as a friend at this point.”

“Go, go,” Colton urged her. “It doesn’t matter why you want to check on him, but if you’re this shook up, you must be feeling
something
. I’ve never seen you get all flustered like that before.”

And it was true. So achingly, horribly true. She was unshakeable, unflinching. Angie was the one who could handle the worst, most horrific emergencies without batting an eye. She always broke down afterwards, but never in the heat of the moment. “I don’t know what’s going on with me, Colt,” Angie said. “There’s something in my stomach twisting up. It’s like an octopus in is there, suckers sticking all over my insides.”

“That’s... really gross,” he said with a smile. “But I think that might be love.” Angie returned the expression and sniffed hard, then shook her head.

“Leave it to me,” she said. “I can take the worst situation and make it somehow even more awful.” She laughed, softly. “Hell, I don’t even know where to go.”

“Well, you’re a dispatcher. You could, you know, use the radio?”

That got her laughing more. “Yeah, yeah, I suppose I could, huh?”

She sent out a call to the patrol cars that had just left Tenner’s, and found that Dawson and Tenner had been packed up in the back of an ambulance and sent off to the White Creek General. “Is he okay?” she asked.

“Aw, I’m sure he’ll be awright,” Harry Davis, tortoise-shifting patrolman, answered, though he didn’t sound as sure as he acted. “He’s a big boy, yanno, big bear. He got him a few good cuts, and a buncha bruises on them ribs, but, you know, he’s awright. Real cut up though, real busted up. He’s strong, but... damn he’s real messed up.” Davis’s voice was a long, drawn out, monotone drone. “That other one, the fat walrus though, he’s tore up plenty bad. Shot a couple’a times. He’ll be awright though, just take longer.”

Chewing her lip from the nerves gnawing at her guts, Angie nodded and Colton grabbed her shoulder again. “Okay so, WCG?” she used the in-the-know acronym for the hospital. “Did he hurt anyone?”

Davis let out a long-winded laugh. “I daresay that young man who decided upon the shootin’ won’t be doin’ that no more. Got another call comin’ through, you take care, little girl.”

The tortoise signed off, leaving Angie with nothing but her nerves and Colton latched onto her shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine,” he said. “Bears will heal, and fast, too.”

“That’s not really what I’m worried about,” she said. “From the sound of things, he really tore up the guy who got violent. All these things are running through my head. I can’t stop thinking he killed someone, or ended up really tearing someone up. Even if he was just defending himself, that’s still...”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Colton said, staring straight into her eyes. “Listen to me, Ange. You
know
I’m right. You know I’m telling you the truth, and you know you tend to get excited when you really don’t need to. Am I right or not?”

“You’re right,” she grumbled looking at her toes, which she wiggled. “I need a mani-pedi.”

“Go check on your boyfriend, I’m sure everything’s fine. Call me when you find out?”

She nodded, wandering toward the door to the batcave as they called the dispatch room, in a haze. It didn’t occur to her that Colton called Dawson her boyfriend until she climbed into her car and cranked the ignition.

Her stomach hit her knees. “Boyfriend?” she asked her rearview. “No way. Right? When the hell did I turn into a giggling teenager? Or is it because something is really happening? Ugh, I’m going to kill myself with stress unless I cool the hell off.”

She grabbed four sticks of Trident out of her glovebox. She kept it there so the heat in the car would keep it slightly soft. Angie had a touch of TMJ from grinding her teeth all the damn time, so her gum habit wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it was better than cigarettes. Also, it staved off some of her near-constant anxiety. It didn’t work as well as a prescription, but it also didn’t turn her into a drooling zombie. Sometimes the zombie thing was preferable, but not right now.

*

“D
awson Lex,” she told Nurse Hibby, an old swan with a mean streak and a heart of gold. “The ambulance and the police brought him in about twenty minutes ago. Or at least, I think. I kinda lost track of time.”

Hibby smacked her gum and plucked a pen from her bouffant. She kept it stuck in the front, which Angie always found a bit curious, but what the hell, she only liked melted gum. “Relation?”

Angie tilted her head, knowing very well what she’d been asked, but gawking in a slightly stupefied way.

“Mate? Sibling? You his momma? I doubt that last one, but I’ve seen weirder things.”

Angie shook herself back to reality. “Oh, uh... well just a friend.”

“You know the rules, Ange,” Hibby said. “Friends can’t go in until they’re in their rooms.”

“He’s in
surgery
? He said on the phone he was fine!” She caught herself almost screaming. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to screech. But he said he was fine when I talked to him.”

Hibby cracked her most patient, tolerant smile. This was a woman who had dealt with every single damn thing imaginable, and managed to do it all with a certain elegant grace that belied her general agitation. “Not surgery, just getting patched up.”

“I’m his mate,” Angie spat out. “Just got together, sorry, not used to the change.”

She had no idea why she lied, she had no idea why she
had
to see him, but as she said the words
I’m his mate
she felt something melt deep inside her chest. Hibby must’ve noticed the change in her mood.

“Well I’m guessing you don’t have the paperwork, but since he was asking for you, I guess it can’t hurt. I’ll warn you though, he ain’t in great shape.”

Halfway down the hall, what she’d just heard struck her. “Wait,” Angie stopped short, her feet skittering softly on the cold tile floor. The scent of alcohol, Ben Gay and that weird, antiseptic aroma of medical care facilities struck her like a pungent non-smell. “He asked for me? How did he know I was here?”

Hibby chuckled. “Listen honey,” she said. “When a man’s that far gone for someone he just met, you may as well be mated.”

Angie cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he busted half his ribs and was doped up on morphine. And past that, I mean that he was so zonked out he was sort of drooling. But he was still moaning for you. He told me the whole story while I was checking him in. That stuff really does a good job of making people tell all sorts of truths.”

Angie was shaking her head, stunned silent. “I can’t believe...”

“Believe it, sugar,” Hibby said. The way she said ‘sugar’ ended with an ‘ah’ sound. “Eve do it? Make the match, I mean?”

Angie didn’t know what to do except to nod. “Just yesterday.”

“Mhm. She works quick. But come on, your bear is waiting. I’ll just warn you though, the outfit he’s wearing is slightly less dashing than his butt-hugging jeans and that shirt that could hardly keep his muscles inside.”

With a dumb smile on her face, Angie followed the rest of the way. Just outside the door, a grumble, and a crash. Hibby pushed past her. “He
is
still a bear, and he don’t like shots one bit. Come on in here if you think you can calm his ass down!”

“Dawson?” Angie almost shouted as she entered the room to find him on all fours, crouched on the hospital bed with his ass in the air, sticking straight out of his split-open gown. There was also something else dangling there. She could only imagine his openness had something to do with opioids. “Dawson! Stop!”

“No more Jell-O! No potatoes!” he roared, flinging the tray aside. “Milkshake!”

“Get him a damn milkshake,” Hibby said to the two orderlies. “Don’t you two know anything?”

“Yes ma’am,” one of them said, and both of them rushed out of the room.

“What are you doing, Dawson? You should eat that Jell-O and be happy about it. Last time I was in the hospital, they wouldn’t let me have anything except ice chips. Also, what kind of luxury hotel is this? Mashed potatoes and milkshakes in an ER? Honey, that ain’t what I’ve seen. How did you manage all this food?”

“We’re used to feeding bears,” Hibby cut in. “We know how they get unless they’re fed well, and fed often. Anyway, keeping them happy lowers our insurance rates.”

The rage and fury in Dawson’s eyes almost immediately dissipated like clouds parting after a brutally hard rain. “Angie?” he blinked heavily. She was amazed he was coherent, with all of the drugs he’d been shot up with. “Is that you?”

A moment later, she laid her hand on his back. “Lie down,” she said. “You’ve gotta calm down. And besides, your dong is hanging out of that gown.”

He twisted his head around and looked at his cheeks, he started laughing as he repeated ‘dong’ over and over. His voice boomed, then he clutched his chest, groaned, and fell flat on his face.

“That was quite a transition,” Hibby said. “Although it’s better this way. I’d hate to be the doctor checking his ribs if he was conscious.”

––––––––

T
he orderlies finally managed to get Dawson to suck on the very large, very chocolatey milkshake they brought, and the next time he came to, Angie was beside him, stroking the beard that had grown in the eight hours since last he shaved.

“What the hell happened?” she asked when he looked like his brain was ready to process something. “They took x-rays, patched you up, and the doctor set you up with a bunch of bandages and—no! Stop! Lay down, jackass!”

Dawson groaned heavily and clutched his bandaged side. “That... hurts.”

“You have eight broken ribs and a gash the size of my arm down your side. What the hell happened? The cops that went to Tenner’s told me the whole place was a giant mess, you apparently saved a bunch of people’s lives when some guy went nuts and started chopping at you. You... shifted? And shook him around by the neck?”

Dawson lifted his right arm, and let out a yelp of pain, then switched to the other to rub his head. “How much morphine did they pump into me?”

Angie shot a glance at the drip mechanism. “Well,” she said, doing math in her head and chewing on her lip. “A lot. You were, uh, not very happy with the orderlies and then you got really pissed off about mashed potatoes and Jell-O they were trying to feed you.”

“You can’t blame me,” he said. “I hate gooshy food. I’d rather eat a tin can out of a garbage can than mooshed up beans or potatoes or,” and then he shivered, “Jell-O. What flavor was it?”

“Green. Er, lime, I guess.”

“Green’s more accurate,” Hibby had come in at some point in the past few moments, and had another needle in her hand. “Sorry about this sweetie, but we’ve got to make sure you ain’t gonna end up gangrenous and rotten. That wouldn’t be a good look. And before you ask, we can’t just do it in the IV. Bears have curious veins. For the sake of keeping your lunch down, I’ll stop there.”

“I dunno, green would look pretty good with that gown, I think,” Angie said, considering it. “Although it ends up more black than anything else, right?”

“Necrosis?” Hibby asked. “Yeah, black and generally with a lot of pus. But, you know, even if it gets that far we can generally get rid of the infection. Whatever it’s already gotten to is beyond saving, but what the hell, you know?”

Dawson started gnawing on his straw.

“Can’t have it both ways,” Angie said. “Well, I guess since he’s going to be a big whiny baby about the whole thing, we just have to hope he doesn’t catch anything from being cut open with that dirty bar glass.”

“Tenner washes them a lot,” Dawson said, although obviously not with any sort of confidence. “I’ve had a tetanus shot.” His voice began to waver.

Hibby shrugged and put the cap back on her syringe. “Sure, yeah, those will save you from dying. But then again, if you didn’t have any hands, you wouldn’t be making much music, huh?”

With a yelp of pain, Dawson rolled over onto his good side and threw open his gown.

“Wow,” Angie remarked. “If I’d known it was that easy, I would have just started talking about flesh eating bacteria the first time we met. That’s quite an ass, isn’t it?”

Hibby let out a long whistle. “I see asses all the time. But that one? Yeah, I’d give it top five. Top ten at the least.”

“Come on!” Dawson yelled. “Give me the damn shot and stop talking about my ass! I’m right here!”

“Oh honey, we
know
it.” Angie said. “Although I feel slightly weird at gawking at you like this after we only had about a half a date. I was expecting it to take at least two times going out.”

“Do you think he knows this goes in his side?” Hibby asked. “I could tell him, but then we’d have to stop looking—”

“God!” Dawson half-grunted, half-laughed as he rolled back onto the bed and lifted his arm. “How do I end up in places like this, dealing with women like you two?” A laugh shook him, and then he winced and closed his eyes tight. “Tell me when it’s over,” he said through gritted teeth.”

“When what is? Oh, the shot? It’s been over since about fifteen seconds ago. You didn’t notice?” Hibby thumped one of the bags hanging off his IV stand. “Antibiotics were in here. I just couldn’t resist seeing what would happen. That stuff about bear veins was a big ol’ crock.”

Dawson’s cheeks burned furious red, but he was smiling despite himself. Angie smoothed the sweat-soaked hair back out of Dawson’s face. “Well,” she said. “This has certainly been an interesting evening. I don’t think I could come up with a better excuse to leave work and come to a hospital.”