Sinful Southern Hero: 2 (7 page)

The apartment was silent and somehow Lucy knew she was
alone. Not that she thought she possessed some kind of sixth sense or anything,
but she knew well the difference between lying on a bed in an empty room and
lying on a bed in a room filled by an evil presence. Just to be sure, she lay
still for a few more minutes, listening intently for any indication someone
lurked within her apartment.

Slowly, she pushed up onto her elbows, then sat up and
scooted until her back was against the wall at the head of her bed. Nausea
swirled and flipped her stomach. When the feeling passed, she carefully slitted
her eyes open again and was relieved when the room appeared only slightly
rocking instead of spinning like a tilt-a-whirl.

If Ross had found her, why simply whack her over the head
and leave her alone? That wasn’t like him. Her heart stopped and her lungs
froze. Had he…? She fumbled with the buttons on her shorts, too panicked to
accept the lack of soreness between her thighs as an indication she hadn’t been
sexually assaulted. She slipped a hand beneath her white cotton panties,
finding herself dry and untouched.

Tremors wracked her shoulders and quiet tears slid down her
pale cheeks. Relief and confusions swamped her. It made no sense for Ross to
break into her apartment only to hit her over the head and place her on her bed
alone. But who else could it have been? As far as she knew, she had no other
enemies.

She zipped and buttoned her shorts before slowly sliding her
feet to the cool hardwood floor. Her sandals had either fallen off or been
removed. She forced herself to stand, made difficult by the tremors shaking her
limbs and the once-again spinning room.

Fuck.

Lucy knew head injuries weren’t something to mess around
with, especially if you had a history of past head injuries like she did. She’d
have to make a trip to the hospital, but who could she call to take her? She
didn’t want the embarrassment or hoopla of an ambulance ride and she sure as
hell couldn’t drive herself.

Dalton…

No, she wouldn’t let herself run to Dalton at the first sign
of trouble. She needed to keep him away from danger, not draw him into it.

Resigned, she stumbled into the living room and found her
purse tossed unceremoniously onto the couch, the contents spread across her
weathered coffee table as if someone had been looking for something. The shiny
black surface of her cell phone gleamed in the dim light coming through the
cheap plastic blinds.

From the center of her living room, Lucy could see most of
her small apartment. She glanced around, doing a rather poor survey of the
space because her eyes still wouldn’t focus. Still, she was reasonably certain
nothing had been damaged and she didn’t see any sort of vandalism. She’d half
expected to find spray-painted profanity on her walls or drawers and cabinets
ransacked. Instead of being comforted, the orderly condition of her apartment
disturbed her even more because she hadn’t a clue why someone had knocked her
unconscious, then simply left her alone.

She spotted her wallet on the coffee table, picked it up and
dropped to sit on the couch cushions while thumbing through the contents.
Everything was there. They hadn’t taken the five bucks she’d had tucked inside
her old leather wallet or touched the two credit cards.

Tossing it on top of the pile that had been dumped out of
her purse, she snagged her cell phone with a trembling hand and brought the
thin object close to her face, squinting to make out the names on her contacts
list to find Hart’s Ink. She’d just have to ask Abigail if she or Jed would
give her a ride to the emergency room.

As the phone rang on the other end of the line, Lucy had
second thoughts. If she didn’t want to draw Dalton into danger by asking for
help, how could she ask Abigail to endanger herself or her husband?

“Hart’s Ink.” Jed’s smooth southern voice made Lucy’s heart
speed.

She jolted off the sofa, standing too quickly, intending to
end the call and figure out another way to get to the hospital without drawing
attention to herself or endangering any innocent citizens of Clifton.

The fast move from sitting to standing was a terrible idea.
Before Lucy could say a word to Jed or end the call, darkness crashed over her
and she fell to her knees between the couch and coffee table. The phone
clattered against the table and, though she struggled against it, the world
faded away and she slumped to floor.

Dalton’s phone vibrated, sliding across the bathroom
countertop as he stepped from the shower. Though he wanted nothing more than to
rush straight to Lucy’s after work, he’d punished his body so thoroughly with
physical labor in the summer heat that he’d had no choice but to go home and
shower.

With a dark-navy bath towel wrapped low around his waist, he
peered at his phone. His brows drew low as “Hart’s Ink” flashed across the
screen. After hastily drying a hand on the towel, he answered, holding the
phone slightly away from his ear to keep it dry. “Hello?”

“Dalton, I need you to go check on Lucy.” Jed’s voice
rumbled across the line, his words causing Dalton’s back to snap straight.

“Why? Did something happen?” Dalton was already on the move,
ditching the towel and yanking on a pair of faded jeans. He struggled,
contorting his muscled body to hold the phone to his ear with his shoulder
while forcing the jeans over his damp legs.

“I’m not sure. I got a call here at the shop. I thought it
was a prank or something because no one spoke on the other end. Then I heard a
gasp, something that sounded like a crash, and the phone went dead. When Abigail
looked at the number, she said it was Lucy’s cell. We called back but it went
straight to voice mail.”

“Damn it, you’re closer than me, why aren’t you over there
right now?” What the hell was wrong with Jed? Lucy could be in trouble.

When Jed spoke, his voice sounded strained with worry. “I
don’t know everything going on with your woman, but Abigail said Lucy wouldn’t
want the cops called and she also said Lucy would be more comfortable with you
barging in instead of me. Abigail is with a client right now but she’ll go
check on her if you can’t.”

Dalton didn’t bother correcting Jed over the “your woman”
bit. The tires on his truck spun and squealed, leaving thick black marks on the
pavement as he sped toward Lucy’s apartment. “I’m already on my way.” He
snapped his phone shut without giving Jed a chance to reply.

Luck was on his side as Dalton drove toward Lucy’s
apartment. He’d only been stopped at one red light and traffic moved smoothly
despite the after-work rush of cars on the road. He spun his truck into the lot
beside the two-story Victorian and slammed it into park. A few seconds later,
he was rapping on Lucy’s apartment door with a fist clenched so tight white shone
over his knuckles.

He paused, leaning close to the door to listen for any sign
of trouble, but the only sounds he heard were his loud, forced exhales and
gulping inhales. He pressed an ear to the sun-warmed surface of the door.
Still, no sounds of an altercation, no voices, no sign of life…

Dalton stopped the thought as it formed. He didn’t want to
go there, needed to believe Lucy was all right.

After knocking again and getting no answer, he plucked his
cell from the back pocket of his jeans and dialed her number. Straight to voice
mail. He glanced around, noting no one in the area except a lone man in an
idling sedan halfway down the block. Dalton had a decision to make.

Before his mind had worked through the reasoning, his heavy-booted
foot crashed into the door just beside the knob. Apparently his instincts and
body weren’t content to wait out his mind’s careful planning. The sound of the
door busting open, the lock breaking, seemed too quiet, like his sense of
hearing no longer worked as Dalton’s entire being focused on what he’d find
inside Lucy’s apartment. The door swung and bounced once before he pushed it
open again and stepped over the threshold.

Dalton’s lungs seized and blood rushed to his head as tunnel
vision closed in on the pale, limp hand visible on the floor in the living
room, as if someone lay sprawled between the couch and Lucy’s heavy wooden
coffee table.

No, no, no.

His knees nearly gave out when he stepped forward. Then he
was kneeling beside Lucy’s body with no memory of closing the space between
them. Dalton’s hand shook as he reached out and pushed the stubborn curl which
always seemed to fall into her face back behind her ear. His hand slid through
the length of her hair and he swallowed hard at the sight of a small pool of
blood, black and shiny in the dimly lit apartment.

Time to stop being such a pussy. Get control. Assess the
situation. Get help.

The apartment was empty, at least it must have been because
Dalton hadn’t yet been clubbed over the head by whatever intruder had done this
to Lucy. Her chest rose and fell in a comforting rhythm. The only comforting
aspect of the entire situation. He placed two fingers over the pulse beating in
her smooth pale-skinned neck and relief cascaded over him as the steady beat of
her heart thumped against his fingers.

Lucy had a golf-ball-size lump behind one ear but blood no
longer flowed from the gash there. She appeared otherwise unharmed but the fact
she hadn’t woken at the sound of Dalton kicking in the door worried him.

“Lucy. Lucy, wake up, darlin’.” He squeezed her small hand
with his larger, callused one, the contrast between her unnatural paleness and
his deeply tanned skin made his heart skip a beat. “Lucy,” he called with more
force, drawing upon the dominance inside him he was so careful to keep hidden
from her. “Wake up. Open those pretty eyes and look at me.”

Dalton watched a slight shudder work through Lucy’s soft
body and knew she was beginning to come around. He unleashed his
darkness—though now it felt more like strength than anything dark or ugly—and
used the voice he reserved for his submissives. “Open your eyes and look at me,
Lucy. Right now.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Do it now or I’ll take down your
shorts, lay you across my lap and spank your ass like I’ve wanted to since you
ran away from me at the shop. I’ll watch as your delicate skin turns pink and
stroke my fingers over your sensitive flesh until you beg me to let you come.”

Blue-gray eyes the color of a summer storm snapped open and
regarded him with a sweet mixture of fear, relief and sexual heat. Dalton
leaned in and placed a tender kiss to Lucy’s forehead. “Welcome back, darlin’.”

* * * * *

Lucy fidgeted, tugging and smoothing the scratchy hospital
gown, trying and failing to find a comfortable position on the unforgiving
emergency room bed. Sandpaper would make finer bedding than whatever hospitals
used to cover their plastic mattresses. At least the vile, thin sheet provided
a bit more modesty than the gown alone. She wondered why the hell the standard
hospital gown was open in the back. Were there that many people needing a close
examination of their asses? Why not have the gowns tie at each side, over the
ribs?

“…not listening to me.”

An unfamiliar masculine voice brought Lucy back to the
present, exactly where she didn’t want to be.

She blinked, wincing at the pain that shot through her brain
whenever she opened her eyes. Though the nurses had dimmed the lights inside
her ER cubby, it still felt as though she was staring directly at the sun. A
groan escaped her before she could smother it and her left hand was soon
encompassed in a much larger, calloused hand.

Forcing her eyes to focus on Dalton’s face, she felt a pang
of regret for the position she’d put him in. His dark brows were drawn together,
strain lines feathered out around his navy-blue eyes and his usually sensual
lips were pressed into a tight line. He looked worried, concerned for her. He
was angry at whoever had hurt her and pissed off at the fat-bellied cop
standing at the end of the hospital bed with a tiny notepad in his pudgy hand.
What Lucy didn’t see in the emotions scrolling across his handsome face was
fear. Fear for himself. Fear that the person who did this to her would come
after him. Dalton, the idiot, didn’t have sense enough to fear for his own
damned life.

“I told you already, she’s not up to it. Come back later.”
Dalton growled the words at the cop without taking his gaze off of Lucy. His
barely leashed rage was apparent in the way his words rumbled from his chest,
sending a vibration through their linked hands and up Lucy’s arm.

The cop made an attempt at hoisting his belt over his gut,
but with the notepad and pen in one hand, he only had one hand free to do the
hoisting. Obviously, raising this man’s belt above such a mountain would
require more muscle power than a single hand could provide. He gave up with an
extended huff and curled his thin lips into a snarl.

Lucy shivered. She hated cops, and with good reason. Even
though this cop was from a station a few hundred miles from her ex-husband’s
station, she knew it wasn’t safe to talk to him. Even if two cops didn’t know
each other, they stuck together like barnacles on a boat, their bond surviving
on principle alone.

“The problem is, the little miss here originally said she’d
fallen down some stairs.” He stared hard at Lucy and she focused her attention
on the ugly mole on his left cheek to keep from looking away from him entirely.
“Now, that’d be all right and well, if the doc hadn’t found those ugly
fingerprint bruises on her breasts.”

When the cop leered at her chest a little longer than was
proper, Dalton’s hand squeezed Lucy’s and he growled, a real, honest-to-God
growl
.
The obviously dense cop smirked as if the whole situation amused him.

Yeah, asshole, battered women are real fucking funny.

“Then there’s the issue of those giant letters written in
what I’m told is permanent marker on the skin between her belly button and her—”

Dalton cut him off. “We know damned well where it is.”

The cop finally had the good sense to drop some of the
amusement from his tone. “Right. Well, between the concussion which I’m told is
as near a skull fracture as it can get without bein’ one, the bruises on her
chest and the big block letters declaring ‘YOUR MINE’ written on her, we’re
gonna need to file a report.”

Suddenly, a hysterical laugh bubbled up through Lucy’s
chest. The bastard couldn’t even use enough care to spell “you’re” correctly.
Why she found this so funny, she couldn’t say. Being bashed over the head will
do crazy things to a person’s emotions, she knew from experience.

A tall, thin nurse sashayed into Lucy’s cubby, ignoring the
cop and pressing her bony hip against Dalton’s arm while pretending to check
over Lucy’s IV and pulse oximeter. The blatant display, however inappropriate
and inconsiderate of the nurse, gave Lucy a great idea. She remembered one
other time she’d seen Dalton next to a model-perfect blonde.

“Rough sex.” Lucy’s voice came out way louder than she’d
anticipated. Heat bloomed on her cheeks and, fuck, even blushing hurt.

All eyes turned to her. The nurse took a hesitant step back,
maybe thinking she’d bitten off more than she could chew by trying to entice
the giant, tattooed dude with a shaved head.

Dalton’s eyes were wide with a shocked expression she hadn’t
thought him capable of.
He whips and binds women for fun, how could the
words “rough sex” be any kind of shock to him?

The cop merely cocked his head to the side and studied Lucy
as if he’d stumbled upon an interesting moth he’d like to pin to a board at
home for later dissection.

“Sure, rough sex. Sometimes things get a little out of
control in the moment, you know?” Lucy indicated the bruising on her breasts. “The
writing on my stomach was just a joke. We thought it was funny at the time,
though I didn’t realize it was permanent marker.” She mock glared at Dalton. He
raised an eyebrow, a mischievous light dawning in his dark eyes.

“And the fall down the stairs? What was that? Foreplay?”

Lucy really wanted to punch this cop, right in his fat gut.
She turned a real strike-’em-dead glare on the man at the foot of her bed. “No,
asshole, they were separate incidences. Dalton would never seriously injure me,
make me bleed, on purpose or otherwise.” The conviction in her voice shocked
her. Did she trust Dalton that much? She must, the words had simply come
spilling forth from her heart.
Damn.

The cop tapped his cheap pen on the miniature notebook.
Tap.
Tap. Tap.
She watched Dalton’s jaw harden and knew he was probably thinking
about snapping the pen out of his hand and shoving it someplace unpleasant,
exactly what Lucy was wishing she could do.

She cleared her throat after noticing the flirtatious nurse
had taken her leave, and used all her remaining willpower to meet the cop’s
gaze head on. “So, there won’t be a report, because there is nothing
to
report. I won’t be pressing charges because there is no one for me to press
charges against.” Proud of how strong her voice sounded, she continued, wanting
to get the damn cop far away from her so she could have herself a little
breakdown and think about what her next step should be. “Are we done here?”

With awesome timing, another nurse entered the cubby, pushing
a wheelchair and nudging the cop further towards the curtain which served as a
door. “Your room is ready for you, Miss Ellingsworth. The doctor would like for
you to be settled there as soon as possible.”

The older, motherly nurse’s brown curls bounced atop her
head when she turned to spear the cop with a look only nurses can perfect, and
only after a solid decade of dealing with jerkwad patients and pushy visitors.
She said nothing, but the message was clear. The cop had overstayed his
welcome.

“Keep yourself out of trouble, Miss Ellingsworth.” He
grunted and spun on the heels of his shiny black shoes before disappearing past
the curtain.

Lucy glanced at the wheelchair, not ever wanting to sit in
one again. “I can walk.”

“I’m sure you can, sugar. But hospital policy says you will
ride in the chair.” The nurse’s no-nonsense tone almost made Lucy smile.

Lucy squeaked a startled sound when Dalton’s strong arms
slid underneath her with careful movements. Surely he didn’t mean to pick her
up. She was too heavy, Ross had always told her so. Even before that, she’d
known her body wasn’t the size men liked.