In His Protective Custody

Still, there was a loose end to consider. “What are you going to use for transportation?” Ryan asked Zane.

Transportation was the last thing on his mind right now. “When the time comes, I’ll improvise,” Zane answered. “Maybe I’ll even give you a call,” he added, knowing that was what the other man was hoping to hear. For some reason, to Lukkas that would mean that they were bonding.

But rather than take off, Ryan hesitated. He slanted a look in the doctor’s direction to see if she gave her blessings to his departure.

Zane caught the small, almost imperceptible nod she gave his partner. And felt the more positive attitude that Lukkas assumed.

“Okay, then,” Ryan declared. “I’m off. But you call me the second the doctor’s done patching you up and they let you leave here, understand?” Ryan instructed.

Zane said nothing. Instead, his partner gave him a penetrating look. Ryan realized that he had overstepped his boundaries. He’d dictated rather than merely put the suggestion out there. Zane didn’t appreciate being dictated to.

Changing his tone, Ryan asked brightly, “Okay?”

It cost him nothing to be agreeable, even if he didn’t mean it. “Okay,” Zane replied.

Ryan blew out a breath, suddenly looking as if he was at loose ends. “Okay then,” he murmured, flashed an unsteady grin at the sexy surgeon and ambled out of the small area.

The man had muscles like a rock, Alyx thought, slowly probing around the wound for the bullet that had caused it.

“You like intimidating him?” she asked mildly.

“I’m not intimidating him,” Zane contradicted. “Just not letting him act as if he’s in charge.”

Again he saw that smile, the one he found unnervingly seductive. There was also amusement. “Because you are.”

Was she mocking him? Or just trying to bait him? He couldn’t tell.

“I have seniority,” Zane said, neither agreeing or disagreeing with her assumption.

Amusement curved her mouth and he decided that she had a nice smile. A really nice smile. Something vaguely familiar stirred within him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. These days, his work took up all his available time. When he wasn’t working, he was usually asleep. It kept him from thinking, or remembering.

Or noticing the emptiness in his belly that had nothing to do with food.

“Which makes you in charge,” Alyx concluded.

This would go faster if the man had slacked off and skipped a few workouts. She held her breath as she continued probing, waiting until she heard the sound of metal on metal: her scalpel hitting the bullet. And then there it was, the point of her scalpel touching the lethal part of the bullet. They were in business.

“Okay, we’re almost past the worst part,” she told him. He was being very quiet. She didn’t even hear him breathing. Sparing him a glance as she worked the bullet out of his flesh, she asked, “How are you doing?”

He watched her work in utter fascination. “Don’t feel a thing.”

She detected a note of frustration in his voice. He had no idea how lucky he was not to “feel a thing.” “Good.”

But it wasn’t, he thought. Not feeling anything made you hollow and that was how he felt, had felt for a lot of years. As if he was hollow. Unable to reach out, unable to forge any sort of a relationship with a woman. He had nothing to draw on as an example. All he remembered was shouting. Words of recrimination would bounce back and forth between his parents with frightening regularity. No words of endearment counterbalanced that, no warmth at all, other than the type that came from a heater in the garage.

“If you say so,” Zane commented on the doctor’s pronouncement.

Finally coaxing her quarry out into the open, Alyx deposited the bullet into the corner of the tray with no small feeling of triumph.

She glanced at her patient. His expression was completely neutral. He neither looked happy to be done with it or grimacing in anticipation of the pain.

“You are a very complex human being, Officer Calloway,” she commented.

He said nothing.

Alyx began to clean the wound again, making it as sterile as possible before she started sewing up the hole. The ensuing silence made her uncomfortable.

“So, are you a Yankees fan, or do you like to root for the underdog and cheer for the Mets?” she asked him as she prepared the sutures and needle.

Zane lifted his other shoulder and let it drop dismissively. He’d never watched more than a part of a game and those instances only occurred when he was at someone else’s place and they were watching the event. He had no use for watching grown men swinging a stick at a ball.

“Neither.”

There was finality in his voice. She raised an eyebrow in his direction. “You don’t follow baseball?” she concluded.

Zane moved his head from side to side only once. “No.”

She tried to remember if she’d ever met anyone who didn’t root for their home team. “How about football?”

The answer was the same. “No.”

“Basketball?” she guessed. “Soccer?”

“No and no.”

She wasn’t about to give up. There had to be some sport he enjoyed watching if not playing. He didn’t make her think of someone who liked being on the sidelines. “Bowling? The poker channel?”

Each question drew out the same answer. His “no” grew a little firmer each time.

He completely fascinated her. “A man not into sports. I didn’t know there was such a creature.” Her smile raced straight into his insides, pureeing them before he could think to sideline it. “Maybe you’re not so complex after all.”

His reasons sounded completely plausible to him. “I don’t have time to follow sports.”

What did he do that fired his imagination so much it kept him away from vegging out before his set at least once a week? she wondered. “What do you have time for?”