Page 43 of On the Chase
“My shoulder, mostly.” As he started manipulating it, she flinched. She’d been automatically stroking Lexi with her other hand, but she stopped for a second so she could shove against his chest. “Ow. Stop it.”
His face set and serious, he didn’t react to her push—or stop moving her shoulder. “It’s not dislocated. If it were, or if it were broken, I’d be peeling you off the ceiling right now.”
“Are you done with your sadistic science experiments now?” she asked, although her sarcasm was thinned by the quaver in her voice. Now that her shock was wearing off, and the realization that all three of them had survived was slowly starting to sink in, Grace wanted to laugh or cry or maybe dance around wildly, if only her shoulder wasn’t hurting so badly.
Hugh carefully lowered her aching arm to her side before reaching for Lexi. “How about you, partner?” he crooned, running his hands over her furry body. With a sound that was more sigh than whine, Lexi lay down next to them, not flinching at Hugh’s probing touch until he reached the area just behind her front legs. When Grace started to move out of his lap so Hugh could reach the dog more easily, he wrapped one arm around her and brought her firmly back down onto his thighs.
“Okay,” he said, finishing his examination of Lexi with one hand, since the other was busy keeping her snugly against his chest. “Hospital for Grace, and vet for Lexi.”
Any objection that Grace had about going to the emergency room disappeared when she shifted and accidentally jarred her injured arm. A wave of pain—so sharp she could taste it—flooded her. “Oh. Yes. Hospital, it is.”
Hugh shot her a look so full of concern that it made her want to cry again, but she clenched her teeth and forced back the tears. If she started, it would be big and ugly, with a ton of snot and racking sobs. She needed to wait until she got back to her new room and…
The thought trailed off as she remembered that she couldn’t go back to her safe-house bedroom, not without endangering Jules’s whole family. The tears rushed back, and Grace had to bite her tongue hard to keep them contained this time.
Hugh shifted her off his lap onto the floor next to him, and she instantly missed the comforting warmth of his hold. As he hauled himself to his feet, he kept his injured leg straight, hopping a few times on his good leg before he caught his balance. She watched him, concerned. Hugh always hid any sign that his injury was bothering him. If he was showing her that he was in pain, then he had to be inagony.
“How bad is your leg?”
He shrugged, concentrating a little too hard on untying the knotted nylon rope around him. “I’ll live.”
“I’m only going to the emergency room if you promise you’ll let them look at you, too.”
He eyed her sharply, but she held his gaze without flinching. “Fine,” he grumbled, throwing up his hands. The movement made Grace notice his palms, and she sucked in a harsh breath.
“Your hands!” Scrambling awkwardly to her feet, she rushed the few steps to him. Grabbing one of his wrists, she gently turned it over. His palm was raw and bleeding. Her gaze moved to the yellow rope, several feet of which had been stained a rusty color.
Following her gaze, he made a wry face. “Didn’t think to grab a pair of gloves.”
A laugh burst out of her. “So between us, we have one working hand? Good thing I don’t drive a stick shift.”
His grin, the one that usually infuriated her, was now the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Chapter 12
“That’s it!” Theo slammed the exam room door. “I’m sick of this shit.”
Hugh hushed his partner, but it was too late. Grace, who’d finally dozed off five minutes earlier in a very uncomfortable-looking chair, had already startled awake. She winced, probably because the movement hurt her strained shoulder. Curled up in the chair, she looked so fragile, so delicate, that it was hard to believe she was the tough woman who’d saved herself and Lexi. Hugh watched her closely while absently responding to Theo. “You’re sick of it? I’m the one who keeps bleeding. All you have to do is visit me.”
Turning his head, he saw that Theo was vibrating like a tuning fork—a rage-filled tuning fork. Hugh couldn’t help but smile again. He knew that Theo would take every bruise and burn and bullet hole for Hugh and Otto and Jules and the kids if he could. The same went for Otto. Hugh’s partners were his family.
From the look on Theo’s face, it seemed that Hugh’s happy expression was just cranking up his anger, but that was fine. If Theo did give into temptation and punch Hugh in the head, at least they were already at the hospital.
“It’s not a joke,” Theo snarled. “The R and R guy talked about you.”
“About me?” Hugh widened his eyes, trying to keep a straight face. “Really? What’d he say? Has he heard good things? Bad things? Is it my hair? Does he hate it? Did he say that my T-shirts are so last year? Because that’s just mean.”
By the way Theo worked his jaw muscles, Hugh was pretty sure that his partner had ramped back up to murderous. It took Theo a few seconds to say a word, but he finally gritted out, “About who wants you dead, dumbass.”
Grace sucked in an audible breath.
“Me?” That caught Hugh’s interest. He’d much rather discuss which scumbag had a grudge against him than the way it hurt Theo’s secretly tender heart when anyone he cared about got hurt. “Not Grace?”
“It wasn’t Jovanovic. The truck bomb, the shooting, the biker, your deck… They were aiming for you. There’s a hit out on you.”
“What?” Grace came to her feet. “What do you mean there’s a hit out onHugh?”
He’d been so sure that Martin Jovanovic was trying to get to Grace that Hugh’s thoughts were scattered by the unexpected revelation. He stared at Theo for a long moment before he spoke. “Who ordered the hit?”
