Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker Off the Books #4) - Nicole Edwards Page 0,70

home to your family. Keep an eye on them. We’ll deal with this here.”

Once more looking at the burning rubble, Travis nodded, then glanced over at Brantley, held his cousin’s gaze. “If this is her… If she tried to put me in the ground…” He lowered his voice. “I’m gonna need a solid alibi, Brantley, because she won’t get away this time.”

His cousin had the decency to simply nod.

They both knew there was no talking him off the ledge. Because if Juliet Prince brought the fight to Coyote Ridge, she wouldn’t walk away from it this time.

He would make damn sure of that.

Chapter Sixteen

“I don’t need a doctor,” JJ insisted when Baz pulled up to a quaint two-story house.

“We’ll let the doctor determine that,” he said, just as he had when she’d asked where they were going after she’d woken to hear him on the phone.

JJ swallowed more arguments, because the truth was, she didn’t feel all that well. Now that her adrenaline was waning, the pain had returned full force. Not only was there throbbing behind her eyes, she was nauseous, and if she had to spend much more time in this truck, she was probably going to embarrass herself.

“This is my father’s personal physician,” Baz explained as he put the truck in park. “You can tell him as much or as little as you’d like. He understands discretion.”

JJ was hoping not to tell him anything more than that her head hurt, but she nodded in agreement.

With Baz’s help, she got out of the truck and walked up the steps to the porch with its colonial-style columns. The red door opened before they could ring the bell. An older man with a head of white hair and sympathetic brown eyes gave her a thorough assessment before stepping out of the way.

“Thanks for seein’ us, Doc.” Baz kept his arm around her.

“I’m glad I was home. A few more minutes and I would’ve been on the golf course. Right this way.”

The doctor led the way into a formal living room complete with a settee and matching ornate armchairs.

“Let me get my bag.”

When Baz assisted her to the pretentious little couch, JJ glared up at him. “I will be fine, you know.”

“I’m sure you will. You’re hardheaded and all, but I just want to be sure.”

Since it wasn’t like she could run out of the house, JJ resigned herself to the checkup, hoping it would be quick and painless, because she really, really wanted to lie down.

*

Baz was grateful it was only fifteen minutes from the doctor’s house to his father’s because he wanted to get JJ off her feet and into bed, although he suspected she would fight him tooth and nail on that.

As soon as Dr. Medley gave his official diagnosis, a mild concussion, which explained her headache, nausea, and grogginess, Baz’s concern had grown.

But it had been when he’d asked the doctor if she’d been drugged that Baz had seen red. Although he didn’t draw blood or have any way to confirm, Dr. Medley believed there was a very good possibility. His best guess—which Baz had to pry out of him because doctors evidently did not like to guess at anything—was ketamine or something along those lines had been injected into her left arm, where he’d found what appeared to be a puncture mark.

The prescription: bed rest, a lot of fluids, and Tylenol—for the first twenty-four hours—for pain. After that, ibuprofen was safe.

Baz had left wishing JJ would let him take her to the hospital, but she had refused. Only when she had agreed to let Dr. Medley make a house call tomorrow had Baz decided to take her to his father’s house as they’d planned.

“My father and stepmother are out of town,” Baz reminded JJ as they entered the house. “But we’re stayin’ in the guesthouse, so we won’t see them even if they come back unexpectedly.”

Plus, they would have privacy in the moderate-sized—as his father referred to it—house, one of three enormous structures that sat on the twenty-three-acre estate. While Baz appreciated the privacy and the accommodations, he wouldn’t go so far as to say it was moderate-sized. For a full-time family of five, maybe, but not for a place for people to temporarily lay their heads when visiting.

At thirty-seven hundred square feet, the contemporary modern structure, with its clean, neat lines, large, picture windows, and sustainable building materials had pretty much everything one would need for an overnight, including four bedrooms, a game room, media