You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,28
expected I’d order a cosmo? Or a lemon drop? Or maybe a piña colada?”
“Maybe,” he admitted and took a long swallow from his glass, draining his beer.
That was the problem, she thought. Everyone, including this clod in the Mariners cap, underestimated her.
But not for long.
“Well,” she said as the bartender slid the drink in front of her. She picked it up, held it close to her lips, and said to him, “You were wrong.” She smiled, just enough to let him know that yeah, she was hot, and he wasn’t getting any of it.
* * *
James under his breath. Unless he wanted to hitchhike home, he’d have to wait until someone brought him his pickup; otherwise, he was stuck here.
Riggs Crossing, unfortunately, didn’t have much in the way of Uber, Lyft, or even a damned taxi service.
But it shouldn’t take long for his ride to get here.
Despite the doctor’s orders, he was leaving, and he’d called Bobby to bring him some clothes, then haul him back home. “You’ll still be without wheels,” Knowlton had confided. “The cops, they took your Explorer.”
“Then I’ll use the company pickup.”
“They got that too.”
He’d clipped out, “Fine. I’ll deal with them. Just come and fetch me.”
“You sure about this?”
“Do I sound unsure?”
“Fine. Fine. I’m on my way.”
So he just had to wait. A half hour or so. He’d already called for the paperwork to sign himself out, been transferred to a different department twice, then gotten the runaround from someone in “admin.” Something about waivers for going against medical advice or some such rot. He didn’t care. If the doctor didn’t sign him out, or if the paperwork didn’t arrive before Knowlton, he’d just leave and deal with the fallout later.
He swung his legs over the bed.
Felt a twinge in his side and ignored it.
He’d have to give up the pain pills, he supposed. Probably couldn’t get a prescription from the doctor when he was hell-bent on disobeying the man’s advice. Fine. He’d deal. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t before.
That much he remembered.
More than one bar fight.
But that had been a while back. High school? College? Some other time? He didn’t know. Couldn’t call it up. But it was there, buried and not that deep. Slowly, bit by bit, his injured brain was beginning to remember a bit. Maybe when he got home, settled back in, he would recall more about Megan, how involved they were, why they’d been fighting, what had happened. He raked a hand through his hair, touched the edge of his bandage, and felt a slice of pain. He glanced at the clock.
Twenty more minutes, possibly twenty-five.
Along with the rattling of a cart in the hallway, he heard footsteps, and suddenly Doctor Monroe was back. “I hear you want to get out of here.”
“You heard right,” James said.
Monroe frowned. “It wouldn’t hurt to stay another night.”
“I need to get home.”
If the doctor thought about arguing, he kept it to himself. “If that’s the way you want it.”
“I do.”
With a nod, Monroe said, “Then I’ll leave you with some prescriptions and talk to admin about your discharge papers. You’ll probably have to jump through a few hoops. Insurance and all that.”
“All right.”
“No driving for a few weeks, until I give you the green light,” he added, and James wanted to argue, but didn’t. It wasn’t as if he had a vehicle at his disposal anyway. “And I want to see you this coming week. Make an appointment. If anything doesn’t seem right, call immediately.”
“Fine.”
“All right, then,” he said reluctantly. “You should be out of here within a couple of hours.”
When James started to argue for a quicker release, the doctor was already stepping to the door. He held up a hand to cut off any complaints. “Paperwork.”
“More like red tape.”
“Whatever you want to call it.” And Monroe was gone.
Could he wait for the grinding wheels of hospital administration to spew out dozens of sheets of paper that he wouldn’t read anyway? Already, he was climbing the walls. And he wasn’t a patient man; that much he knew about himself.
He considered. Maybe he’d just have to up and go, and to hell with all their protocol.
CHAPTER 10
In the mirror over the bar, Sophia watched the newcomer, a pretty woman who’d taken off her hat and dropped it, along with a small bag, onto an empty stool after ordering a whiskey.
There was something familiar about her, but Sophia couldn’t quite put her finger on it. The newcomer was making small talk with Marshall,