In His Protective Custody. Marie Ferrarella

his teeth, trying to think of other things, Zane allowed his eyes to slide over her scrubs. “So I guess you really are a doctor.”

      She widened her tolerant smile. The man was not the smoothest talker. Finished, she tossed the wipe into a wastebasket. “Yup. Got my diploma from the back of a comic book and everything.”

      “Sorry. Didn’t mean to insult you.”

      “You didn’t.” She spread out the instruments on the tray, wanting to make sure she had everything she needed before she got started. “But you did rub me the wrong way the other night.”

      “You rubbed her?” Ryan blurted out, his eyes wide. He’d been silently listening all this time, trying not to get on Zane’s nerves. The bullet in his partner’s arm had been meant for him. If Zane hadn’t pushed him aside, he’d be the one on the hospital bed now—or a slab in the morgue. “And you didn’t say anything? Damn it, Zane, you’ve really gotta learn how to share and tell me things. I’m your partner.”

      Zane fixed him with a cold look. “That can be changed.”

      Alyx glanced at Calloway’s partner, who came across a great deal more affable than the man she was about to work on. “So I take it that he’s this surly with everyone?” she asked the officer.

      Ryan nodded and allowed a sigh to escape. “For the most part.”

      “Again, my condolences,” she said. Reaching for the syringe, she held it up and pressed the plunger just enough to release the tiniest drop of solution to make sure that there wasn’t an air bubble going into his arm. “This’ll numb your arm so that you won’t feel anything while I’m working,” she explained.

      “Too late,” he bit off, his arm still stung from the antiseptic she’d applied.

      For some reason, he could almost feel her smile across his lips as it slid over hers. “Then I guess in this situation we can say better late than never,” she countered.

      Alyx paused just before she gave him the injection, pretending that she was trying to recall the steps to the procedure.

      “Now, how much of this do I give you?” she murmured under her breath.

      “You don’t know?” Zane exclaimed, suddenly alert.

      The next second, Alyx jabbed the needle just above his wound.

      “It just came back to me,” she informed him cheerfully, then did it again, this time injecting him just below the wound.

      Zane gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead. He could feel moisture gathering in his eyes. Damn it, now she would think he was crying.

      In all honesty, Zane couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. Maybe never. He hadn’t even cried at his father’s funeral.

      The day his heart officially broke.

      Chapter 4

      The ER doctor was right, Zane thought. His arm had gone numb. Completely and utterly numb. He was vaguely aware of having an appendage, but that was it. He was nervous.

      “This is just temporary, right?” Zane asked the woman working over him. “The feeling in my arm, it’s going to come back, right?”

      Alyx raised her eyes to his for a split second and was surprised to detect a glimmer of anxiety in the deep blue orbs. He didn’t strike her as the type to be anxious about anything.

      “All too soon,” she assured him, resuming what she was doing. “You’re going to need a prescription for painkillers. I’ll write it up for you once I get this bullet out and get you all sewn up.”

      “Dunno about his needing painkillers,” Ryan interjected. He stood leaning against the back wall, his arms crossed before his chest, an all but silent witness to the procedure. “Calloway bends steel in his bare hands.”

      This was not the time to try to talk him up, Zane thought. “Shut up, Lukkas,” he muttered.

      Her eyes, he noticed, were laughing as she raised them to his. He also noticed that they were a brilliant shade of blue. The kind of blue that stayed with you after you walked away.

      “No bending steel for at least a week,” she instructed.

      He knew she was kidding, but there was a note of restriction in her voice. Restrictions always made him chafe. “But I’ll still be cleared to go back to work, right?”

      “That all depends.” She stopped for a moment to look at him. “Does ‘work’ mean sitting behind a desk?”

      “Only if they duct taped him to a chair,” Ryan volunteered with a laugh. “And even then it would be touch and go.”

      Zane really didn’t need Ryan’s “helpful” comments. Nor did he want a witness to his having the bullet dug out of the fleshy part of his shoulder.

      “Why don’t you get back to the precinct, Lukkas?” Zane suggested again, this time more forcefully. “The captain’s probably looking for you.”

      It was getting late and Ryan knew he’d feel better making his own report to the captain. McKenzie was an annoying glory hound and he liked nothing better than taking credit for something positive—even if it didn’t belong to him.

      Still, there was a loose end to consider. “What are you going to use for transportation?” Ryan asked Zane.

      Transportation was the last thing on his mind right now. “When the time comes, I’ll improvise,” Zane answered. “Maybe I’ll even give you a call,” he added, knowing that was what the other man was hoping to hear. For some reason, to Lukkas that would mean that they were bonding.

      But rather than take off, Ryan hesitated. He slanted a look in the doctor’s direction to see if she gave her blessings to his departure.

      Zane caught the small, almost imperceptible nod she gave his partner. And felt the more positive attitude that Lukkas assumed.

      “Okay, then,” Ryan declared. “I’m off. But you call me the second the doctor’s done patching you up and they let you leave here, understand?” Ryan instructed.

      Zane said nothing. Instead, his partner gave him a penetrating look. Ryan realized that he had overstepped his boundaries. He’d dictated rather than merely put the suggestion out there. Zane didn’t appreciate being dictated to.

      Changing his tone, Ryan asked brightly, “Okay?”

      It cost him nothing to be agreeable, even if he didn’t mean it. “Okay,” Zane replied.

      Ryan blew out a breath, suddenly looking as if he was at loose ends. “Okay then,” he murmured, flashed an unsteady grin at the sexy surgeon and ambled out of the small area.

      The man had muscles like a rock, Alyx thought, slowly probing around the wound for the bullet that had caused it.

      “You like intimidating him?” she asked mildly.

      “I’m not intimidating him,” Zane contradicted. “Just not letting him act as if he’s in charge.”

      Again he saw that smile, the one he found unnervingly seductive. There was also amusement. “Because you are.”

      Was she mocking him? Or just trying to bait him? He couldn’t tell.

      “I have seniority,” Zane said, neither agreeing or disagreeing with her assumption.

      Amusement curved her mouth and he decided that she had a nice smile. A really nice smile. Something vaguely familiar stirred within him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. These days, his work took up all his available time. When he wasn’t working, he was usually asleep. It kept him from thinking, or remembering.

      Or noticing the emptiness in his belly that had nothing to do with food.

      “Which