Page 2 of True Valor
If only Mac could get through this withoutblubbering like a baby.Breaking this kind of news never goteasier.
Never.
Chapter One
Nic had intended to close down the bar, butnow he didn’t feel like it.He’d managed to watch the end of thehockey game on the corner big screen and polish off the pizza he’dordered.But finishing his second beer required more effort than hewas willing to expend.He half smiled.Joey would have said leavingbeer in a glass was alcohol abuse.Grief surged up from his gut,closing his throat.No matter.
Just before midnight, Nic shoved to his feetand walked to his car.No energy left to dig his gloves from hispockets, his hands frozen from scraping snow from the windshield,he headed back to the hotel.
Nic muttered aloud as the car in front ofhim, which up until this point had been going slow enough to makehim curse, now coasted to a stop on the side of the road.“Not...now...Batman.”His breath came out in a crystal fog and he tuggedthe collar of his North Face parka up around his chin.
The ongoing argument began again.Nic, therescuer, thrived on rushing in and saving the day while Nic, theprivate citizen, had better things to do.Right now, he just wantedto get back to the condo and go to bed.He’d tried, on numerousoccasions, to outsmart, out wait, or out will Batman Nic.It hardlyever worked.But damn it, Citizen Nic was tired and cold and hewould win tonight.He tried not to look at the driver as he pulledaround the disabled sedan but Batman managed a long-enough glimpsethat he knew it was a female, a not-too-bad-looking female withshoulder-length blonde hair and delicate features.Her hands on thewheel, she stared straight ahead.
Citizen Nic made it to the end of the blockbefore grumbling his frustration with superheroes and turning thecar around.He grumbled again as he pulled his rental car around infront of hers, and, huddled in his coat, dashed back to hercar.
“Miss?”He knocked on the window, then drewhis hands to his mouth, using his breath in a vain attempt to warmthem.“Miss?”
As if moving through Jell-O, she turned andlooked at him, her eyes glazed with confusion.Drugs?Or alcohol?At last, she rolled down the window.
“Something wrong with your car, ma’am?”
“I...think...it’s, uh, maybe—” She shiftedher gaze to the instrument panel.“—out of gas.”
She was definitely on something.“You livearound here?”Maybe he could just give her a quick ride and be donewith this.
“No.”
No such luck.
“Where are you headed?”
She stared at him as if he were speakinganother language.“I don’t know,” she said at last.
Concerned now, the paramedic in him geared upto solve a medical mystery.“Are you feeling okay?”
She smiled a bit, causing analmost-imperceptible tightening in his groin.Almost imperceptible.“I think so.”
He began looking for evidence of injury,scanning her face, her head.No blood.Odd, she didn’t have a coaton.But there was something else, something not quite right.
“Do you need an ambulance?”
“No!”The word came out almost in a shriek,her hands grasping the steering wheel in an iron grip, her headshaking back and forth desperately.“No ambulance!”
Wanted by the police?Running from an abusivehusband?The thing that nagged at him had finally made it to theforefront of his brain.“Are those your pajamas?”
Her gaze drifted down, taking in her clothes.She looked back up at him.“Maybe.”
Okay, let’s start over.“What’s yourname?”
“Julie.”
“Julie what?”
She began to look around as if hoping theanswer would appear in lights.It wasn’t that hard a question.Hell.This could be a problem.While he waited for the answer, heautomatically clicked through the possible causes of altered levelof consciousness.Alcohol, altitude, anaphylaxis, apnea...the listwent on.
“I don’t know,” she said at last.
“Do you know where you are?”Nic proceededthrough the questions methodically.
