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“She seems smart from the little I’ve heard,” Tegan said. “Maybe she’ll compel them to get off their asses and mingle, see that the families in the hoard have a lot to offer them. Like how to treat women, for one.”
“Maybe you should stick around and befriend our Belle Eveque,” Patches said, grinning at her. “Compel her to compel them?” He sighed and pulled his phone out his pocket, looking. “Nurse Sarah is calling.”
“She’s wondering when you’re taking her on that date,” Felix said. “You realize the whole hospital knows all about it.”
Patches groaned and shook his head.
“You did that one to yourself,” Nitro chuckled. “Mr. Marry local.”
Felix smacked him on the shoulder. “You act like that’s a bad thing?”
“That’s not what I meant.” He wrapped his arms around her. “You’re with me, aren’t you?”
She gasped, looking over her shoulder. “No, I’m not with you, you’re withme.”
He gave a big laugh and Felix joined in, the sound making Tegan smile. She had the feeling those two hadn’t had very many of these moments over the past three days. She glanced at Patches and her breath caught at catching him watching her. He tossed his head toward the door with a wink and headed toward it.
“We’ll be back to get you tagged in thirty minutes,” he said at the door. “And please. No blood baths till after?”
“We’ll try,” Felix said, squealing out a laugh when Nitro gobbled her neck.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Patches didn’t like the fix he was in. He didn’t want to cause more rumors than what likely already circulated about him and Tegan, but he damn sure didn’t like denying what she needed from him. More than ever he realized her thick skin was thin as silk with him. He needed to protect that. But how the hell would he do both? “Can you do me a favor and go get the small black bag from the medicine cabinet in the downstairs apartment while I check on our mothers? Bring it to Grand Pier’s room, I’m headed that way. Then we’ll get Nitro tagged.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He watched her hurry off, wondering what was in her head. Besides pretending to be the strong woman who wasn’t afraid her swamp cowboy would break the heart he took while she wasn’t looking.
“Finally!” Sarah gushed when spotting him up top. She hurried to him with the phone, holding it out. “Look at this,” she said. He took the phone. “Category four. Could be a five. And straight for us.”
“How are our mothers?” he asked, making his way to Becky’s room first.
“They’re comfortable and their bellies are full. Becky’s sleeping, I need to do her vitals in ten minutes. Grand Pier has been trying to escape his room to go smoke on the front porch. Caught him three times!”
“Mon Dieu,” he muttered, detouring to the other mother’s room while shaking his head. “He doesn’t have cigarettes, does he?”
“If he does, he’s smuggled them where I can’t find them.”
“Guessing you looked.”
“Oh yes, and he just had a blast watching me dig, telling me I’d never find it.”
“He’s always toying with you.”
“I know,” she said, fondly. “I tell him he’s my favorite bayou buzzard and he gets a kick out of that.”
“I bet he does.” Which was why he pushed Sarah so hard on him. He barely stopped himself from asking if she’d do him a favor and marry him.
“I heard about the Viking situation.”
He paused at the room wondering how.
“Word traveled real fast on that one,” she muttered.
“I see that.”
“Bullets left out with fifteen men. What on earth is going on?”
