"With Avery, let isn't exactly the right word. I don't think there's any way to stop her. But she won't be alone." He shoved Drea's phone back into his pocket. He'd already gone through it, made a copy of the information he'd found, just in case. "Do you need any other supplies to get her through the night?"
"I'd love a monitor, but it's probably not necessary. She's breathing okay and she wouldn't let me give her much in the way of drugs."
"No, I'd expect she wouldn't have. White-knuckling it seems to be our specialty," he muttered.
Drea stared at him for a long moment before saying, "It's an endearing quality, even if I'm here against my will."
"And you're sure no one out there's looking for you?"
"Yeah," she said, but she was lying. He didn't push it, because it hadn't triggered any bells and Jem would go down living and dying by his gut. "Is there anyone out there looking for you?" she countered.
"More than you could hope to count, sweetheart."
"You like it that way, don't you?"
"Very much."
"I think you're crazy," she told him.
"Like I don't have papers from the nuthouse to prove that, sweetheart." He took a long drag from the cigarette, blew the smoke out the half-open window that gave him a clear view into the lot. Gun and Avery were sleeping peacefully, and he'd let them remain that way until night. Then they'd move the hell out of Tennessee.
He felt his phone buzz, knew it was Dare or Key demanding explanations as to why he was bringing them in. Not answering them would piss them off and get them here faster, both of which he was in favor of. The shit had officially hit the fan, and the blowback was already a killer.
He'd told Key to find them a secure location, scout it out and leave him a coded message. He'd already ditched the truck and found another while Drea was working and Gunner was watching to make sure she didn't run.
Now he typed Drea's name into his laptop and came up basically empty. Which meant one of two things on an initial search-either she completely shunned social media and had no friends or she wasn't who she said she was.
But she was a practicing doctor-that wasn't something a clinic would allow her to fake, not even a clinic here.
He was about to go further into his search when Drea put her coffee down on the table and he felt her eyes boring into him. He glanced up, raised his brows.
"She almost died and you're tapping away on the Internet. I don't get it."
"Didn't ask you to." And, yes, he was definitely running a search, because she was trying to distract him from it.
"You're just . . . Is everything so easy for you to shrug off?"
Even though he knew what she was doing, it still took him a long minute to push back and swallow back the big burst of anger that threatened, leaned into her and smiled.
"I just heard one of the best friends I'll ever have, one of the best women I've ever met, get tortured," he said with a bluntness he knew didn't match the smile. "I'll never be the same."
And then he moved away from her. "Answer your question, Doctor?"
She tightened her arms around herself and he threw a blanket her way. She pulled it across herself and glanced out the window as a couple of motorcycles rolled by. Loud and proud, their engines rumbled, motorcycle gang members just roaming the town.
She didn't tear her eyes off them until they'd moved past the clinic and were far enough down the street so they couldn't be seen. And yeah, there was most definitely a problem here. And fuck it all, Jem knew how to pick them.
"You know them?" he asked.
She turned back to him, like she was pissed he'd caught her. "They come into the clinic sometimes after they've been fighting. Usual drunken bar brawl stuff."
I'll just bet. "You like your job?"
"I'd better. I have a lifetime of loans to pay off." She gave a small smile. "It's all I could remember wanting to do."
"Good to have goals. Life dreams."
"Is your job yours?"
"Sweetheart, my life's goal was to get the hell out from under my parents' rule and do whatever I wanted. So yeah, for the most part, I got that, aside from a few blips where people try to pretend I'm going to obey them."
She smiled again. Fuck, he liked her smile. He could tell it was an underused expression of hers and it lit up her eyes.
Her hands were long, slim fingered and nimble. Even though she'd stitched Avery carefully, she'd worked fast. She knew what she was doing. Probably got enough practice with the clinic, judging by the clientele he'd seen in the waiting room.
He wondered if the MC gangs had pulled her into service like he had once too often. It would make sense as to why she wasn't all that surprised when he'd done it.
"What kind of work is this that gets a woman attacked that personally and viciously?" she asked suddenly. "If this was a government job, you'd already have a doctor on your payroll."
"It's not government, but it's definitely not against the good old U.S. of A. We've got standards." He paused. "We're specialists. Gunner's a medic. So far, that's gotten us through."
"And when it doesn't?"
He shrugged. "Try not to dwell on the negative shit."
"Take me with you," she said suddenly. And she was completely serious.
"I can't."
"Why? You have doctors you kidnap in every city?"
"I just told you, Gunner's a medic."
"He can do a lot, but not what I can."
"True. But you wouldn't even let me call you by your nickname half an hour ago. Why would you suddenly want to do that?"
"You seem like an impulsive kind of guy yourself," was her answer.
Chapter Nineteen.
It was like waking from the deepest sleep Avery had ever had. It took her several moments to realize where she was . . . to recall what had happened. She was still half numb, but the pain had begun to seep through the edges.
Whatever Drea had given her had taken away dreams, and taken the threat of nightmares with it. She had a feeling they wouldn't stay away for long, but she was grateful to the doctor.
She knew Gunner was in bed with her. She hadn't fallen into a full sleep until he'd gotten in next to her. The warmth of his body gave her that final push to nod off.
"Gunner?"
"I'm here, baby," he told her, his drawl thick with sleep. "I've been here the whole time."
"I know."
"Do you need more pain meds? Drea left them for you."
"She's gone?"
"Yeah." Gunner paused. "Jem said she asked to come with us."
"You should let her," Avery said sleepily. "She needs us."
"You're psychic now?"
"I could tell."
Gunner pressed a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. "You need to eat and drink something."
Her stomach churned at the thought. "Can't."
"At least drink." The bed rustled and a can of Coke, complete with a straw, was in front of her face.
She did, because she was thirsty. The soda was cold and sugary and went smoothly down her throat, easing the ache she had from holding back her screams for so long.
She closed her eyes to shake away the memory and saw Landon's face flash in front of her eyes. Heard his laugh. Felt his hands.
Shit. This had to go away.
"You'll get through this, Avery. If it's the last thing I do, I'll make sure of it," Gunner told her.
"You already got me through. All I kept thinking about was you. Being with you. That you'd come get me. And then I'd kill Landon for you. For both of us."
The bed shifted and Gunner moved around so she couldn't not look him in the eye. He knelt down by her side of the bed, rather than trying to make her move. "I won't let you."
"I already have blood on my hands," she reminded him.
"Not like that." He took her hands in his, kissed them. "I'll never let you have that on your conscience."
"Landon deserves what's coming to him, Gunner. My conscience will be just fine."
He shook his head and she knew what he was thinking. "It was different with my mom."
"You thought it was going to be," he said quietly.
"Right now I hate that I told you things."
Drea didn't try to do anything for the rest of the night, especially not talk to him, Jem noted. But she did check on Avery, quietly, not waking either her or Gunner as she did so.
Avery was tough-Jem knew she'd get through it, but Gunner would have to avoid the whole alpha I can fix this shit and just be there for her. This wasn't the time for Gunner to retreat into medical jargon-it would be too easy for him to distance himself with what had happened, and Jem knew from experience that distance from emotions was bad.
Of course, that was also coming from someone who was way too much in touch with his own.
He shifted, stared out the window again. The bikes were back again, the way they'd been all night. There was a strip of bars down the road, so this could've all been a normal, nightly thing, but . . .
But Drea practically went out of her way to remain too casual every time she heard the rumble of the engines. The subtle signs, the shift in her seat while pretending she was just getting comfortable, the avoidance of eye contact . . . the fact that she was more than willing to let a group of strangers who'd kidnapped her take her the hell out of town . . .
"You okay?" he asked for the millionth time, and she nodded. Sipped the Coke and stared at the TV.
He checked his watch. It would be time for her to go in the next hour. Time for him and Gunner and Avery to get the hell out of Dodge too, once Key got here.
God, Key was pissed. Jem was sure Dare and Grace were too, but he wasn't even looking at their messages, much less answering them. At this point, his phone was like a fucking vibrator in his pants and even Drea was starting to look at him funny.
When she was pretending not to look at him.
He glanced down at his phone, then hers, and realized that his wasn't the only phone blowing up. "Thought you said no one would worry about you."
She stared out the window, tightened her arms across her chest for a second before loosening them. "No one I care enough about."
"Fuck, Andrea, that's not what I asked you before." There were more than twenty text messages from two different accounts, not including e-mails and missed calls. She might've had him beat on the people are pissed at you contest.
"None of them are going to bother you." She held her hand out and he gave her the phone. This time, he didn't stop her when she pulled her jacket on and she didn't ask to stay. She wouldn't a second time, had too much pride.
But a part of him wished she didn't. "Need me to walk you across the way?"
"I don't think so." She paused, hand on the doorknob. "Tell Avery I hope she gets what she needs."
"Andrea," he said more sharply than he meant to. "You don't have any training."
She pushed her lips together tightly, like she was trying to keep information inside, then simply said, "Right."
And then she was gone.
"Fuck me," he muttered, watched her cross the street back toward the clinic. Instead of going into the front door, she went around the back and a few minutes later, a motorcycle pulled to the edge of the lot. "And that is really fucking cool," Jem muttered to himself. Wanted to get on the bike behind her and beg for a ride.
Yeah, he'd have to find out more about Dr. Andrea Timmons. What would make her want to pick up and hang out with a merc group, especially one that kidnapped her?
She roared away, her ponytail trailing behind her out of the helmet, and at the last second he noted her bike's logo. He recognized it from the bikes he'd seen riding by the clinic earlier-the symbol of the Outlaw Angels, a one percenter biker gang with charters all over the States. Now that was interesting as fuck, and maybe one of the reasons she was so keen to stay on with them.
And that was trouble they couldn't afford at the moment.