The Strong Silent Type

Hawk deposited her inside the rear of the ambulance.

“She’s all yours,” he announced, backing away with his arms slightly raised, like a rodeo star who had just tied up a calf. “Best of luck to you.”

A ray of panic flashed between the shafts of pain vying for possession of her. He was leaving.

“You’re not coming?”

If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she looked scared. But if he’d learned nothing else these very long nine months, he’d learned that Theresa Cavanaugh did not get scared. Or, and this was probably more likely, if she did, she never showed it.

“Someone has to fill in the reports.”

Hawk began to walk away when he saw her wince as the paramedic slid off her coat. There was blood everywhere, spearing on his guilt. If it hadn’t been for her pushing him out of the way, he would have been the one with the wound. And, more than likely, his would have been more serious. He was taller than she was. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that the bullet would have probably found its way into his gut.

The encroaching panic continued spinning out its web, swirling around her. She saw the way Hawk looked at her wound and guessed at what he was thinking, if not saying. She shamelessly used it to her advantage. “We caught the bad guys, Hawk. The paperwork can wait for a couple of hours.”

The paramedic was administering to her wound, bandaging it up as quickly as possible. Hawk averted his eyes from the exposed area, giving her her privacy. “Why do you want me to come with you?”

She could lie. She could make a joke about it. But right now, she needed to have him come with her. To chase the specters away. So she went with the truth and hoped it would work.

“I need someone to hold my hand,” she told him honestly. “I never liked hospitals. People die in hospitals.”

He wasn’t sure if she was putting him on again or not. But there was a look in her eyes that didn’t allow him to retreat the way he wanted to. He couldn’t just abandon her.

Hawk looked around the area. The so-called suspects had been placed in the back of a squad car that was about to pull out. There was protocol to follow, he reminded himself.

The paramedic was urging her onto the gurney. “Only the good die young,” Hawk informed her. “I’ll catch up with you.”

To his surprise, she said nothing. She only continued looking at him. Continued looking even as the paramedic closed the doors, severing eye contact.

“Ah, hell,” Hawk bit off, shaking his head. Spinning around on his heel, he looked around until he saw a face he recognized. Quickly, he crossed to the heavyset detective. “Hey, Mulrooney, tell Mr. and Mrs. Wong that I’ll be back to take their statements after they’ve had a chance to pull themselves together.”

Mulrooney looked surprised that Hawk wasn’t on his way back upstairs. “Where are you going?”

Hawk clenched his teeth together. He didn’t like having to explain himself, especially when he was having trouble understanding is own motivation.

“My partner’s been shot. I’m heading out to the hospital to make sure she’s all right.”

Again Mulrooney nodded, this time looking at the ambulance that had just peeled away, its siren going full blast. He grinned broadly. Everyone liked Teri Cavanaugh. The same couldn’t be said about her partner. “Trade assignments with you, Hawkins.”

Hawk made no answer. Given his choice, he would have liked to take Mulrooney up on that. The latter had the better end of the deal.

Muttering a few choice things under his breath, Hawk hurried to his car.

Her side throbbed wildly to the beat of the 1812 Overture by the time the ambulance pulled into the parking lot behind Aurora Memorial Hospital’s ER. Even so, Teri braced herself as the paramedic went to open the rear doors.

This was the hospital where they had brought her uncle Mike the day he’d been shot.

This was the hospital Uncle Mike had died in.

The shooting had happened less than a month after her mother’s car had crashed through the guardrail and gone over the side, to be submerged in the river. Teri had been twelve at the time and the two events combined had overwhelmed her almost completely. She’d come away with a lasting phobia of hospitals.

That same phobia was alive and well now, fifteen years later, even though she knew that logic dictated that she come here to be treated.

Logic was one thing, but superstitious and phobias didn’t understand logic.

“You better lie down.” The paramedic who’d treated her placed a hand on her shoulder, intending to help her get comfortable.

She stiffened as if she’d been shot again. There was no way in hell they were going to strap her down to the gurney, not while she was conscious.

“I can get out on my own power.”

She didn’t want to be held down while they wheeled her in, not as long as she could walk. There was something helpless about being pushed in through the electronic doors, not being able to move a muscle.

She pressed her lips together, her body tense, her side stinging like crazy as the rear doors opened, braced for the inevitable wave of fear to hit her with the force of a tidal wave.

What she wasn’t prepared for was to see Hawk standing there when the doors opened.

Chapter Three

He came.

The words vibrated in her brain, bringing with them a wave of relief and happiness. Teri waved away the paramedic who’d just tried to get her to lie on the gurney.

“I’ll sit, but I won’t lie down.” She looked at Hawk who stepped back as the gurney was brought out of the ambulance. The dread drained out of her. She didn’t have to face going in alone. “Did you forget something?”

“Yeah, my better judgment.” He’d seen the relief that had leaped into her eyes, so intense that for a second it stopped him in his tracks. What was that about? Was she actually afraid of hospitals? He hadn’t thought she was afraid of anything. It was part of the woman’s appeal.

The paramedics were pushing her through the doors. And Hawk was not fading back into the parking lot—he was coming in with her. “What about the statements?” she asked.

“I told Mulrooney to tell the victims I would be by later to take them.”

There were nurses and attendants scattered throughout the rear of the ER. Hawk flashed his badge at the one closest to them. The tall woman in dark green livery immediately pointed the paramedics to an open bed.

“We,” Teri corrected him. “We would be by later.”

There was brave, and then there was stupid. Cavanaugh had crossed the line. “Thinking of going somewhere, Superwoman?” Before she could answer, he asked, “Don’t you think that you’ve done enough damage to yourself for one day?”

Again she waved back hands that reached out to help. “I can do this,” she told the nurse who eyed her dubiously. Bracing herself against the mattress, she slid off the gurney and onto the hospital bed. Her body hated her for it. “It’s not like I stood there, daring the guy to shoot me. Hawk. I took a bullet for you.”

Guilt corkscrewed into him a little further. “Yeah, you did.”

Sitting on the bed, she read the look in his eyes. “And you feel guilty, don’t you?”

“Guilt’s not in my file folder.” He wasn’t about to have her poking around in his head, thinking she could read him. There were things there she couldn’t see.

Teri laughed shortly. “Don’t tell me that. I’ve seen it often enough on the faces of my brothers to know guilt when I see it.” Pain dragged spiked shoes across her side. Teri waited to catch her breath. It wasn’t easy. “No need for guilt. You would have done the same for me.” And then she surprised him by taking hold of his hand in hers. “Thanks.”

The simple gratitude he both saw in her eyes and heard in her voice stirred something within him and made him uneasy. He shrugged her words away.