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What was she going to do, sign on to be the kid’s nanny or something? He hadn’t realized Haldyn even liked kids. In the entire time he’d known her.
The kid was safe—they had more important things to focus on right now. Like who had put those bruises on her face, instead. And finding them so Jarrod could repay them in kind. His fists flexed, preparing to do just that.
“Dr. Devil, what in the hell do you think you are doing?” She had no business getting out of that bed. Not with as much damage as those bastards had done to her. Broken ribs, hairline fracture in her wrist, more bruises than he wanted to think about, black eye, busted lip—and she wanted to go find that kid herself.
Jarrod stepped up to the bed just as she tried to swing her legs to one side. He stopped her. “Oh no, you don’t, lab lady. You’re staying in that bed, even if I have to cuff you to it myself. I’ll square it with Daniel later if I have to. You’ve had the shit beaten out of you. Where do you think you’re going?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been bruised and beaten, and I’m going to go find that little boy. He is going to be so scared. Handley told him I was taking him to his new mother. Melody. Instead, he’s in a hospital room with strangers. Beck won’t understand what’s happening right now. He needs me.”
“I will find Beck. I’m sure someone can bring him to visit you here,” Heather said. Damned if she didn’t step between him and the pain in the ass in the bed. “Foster, do you think you can focus on doing your job long enough to get us going on the next part?”
“I am doing my job. I’m interviewing the victim.” Victim. He almost snarled again. Haldyn shouldn’t have ever been a victim. “Go. Find that kid. Bring him here, if that’s what it takes to get her to cooperate.”
“Behave yourself.” Heather scowled and then shook her head at him. “I have an in with the assistant head of pediatrics here. I’ll get him. Foster, do not be an ass. Understand?”
He suspected he’d been given Ms. Rules as a punishment sometimes, no doubt about it. Then she was gone, and he was looking at the woman now sitting on the edge of that bed.
Hell, Haldyn looked so small. Defeated. Defenseless.
She was about five six or seven or so, he thought. He had a good nine inches on her. She was thinner than average. She definitely that fairy-queen thing going on, with little catlike feminine features. Big blue eyes and what he’d always thought was generic strawberry-blond hair completed the picture.
He knew why Daniel McKellen acted like an overprotective baboon where she was concerned. The woman just looked like she needed a big strong man to protect her.
It made cavemen like his pals in Major Crimes want to do just that. All of the guys in Major Crimes were that way, with the ladies of the lab.
Even this keeper of the evidence vault. The Queen.
She seriously rubbed him the wrong way—especially when she tilted that perfectly shaped little nose in the air and looked at Jarrod in that particular way she had.
Like he was an uncivilized, uncultured ape or something.
They’d been snapping at each other for three years now. Since the lab had first been blown up and she’d replaced his favorite computer techs after.
His closest friends in the world.
Melody, Brynna, and Gabby had been a huge part of his life back then. Now they were busy with those doofuses they’d married. Making babies and having families. They didn’t need him any longer. He missed Gabby, Brynna, and Melody—in his daily life and in the lab. No denying that. Now the lab was different. Where this woman reigned supreme.
Nothing was the same.
Haldyn had a very exact way of running her lab. Some—especially Jarrod—said she had a very anal way of running her precious lab and evidence vault. It was efficient, he’d give her that.
Jarrod had had some trouble adjusting to her new rules. Daniel had told him that when he was ripping into Jarrod once. For upsetting Haldyn.
No one was allowed to upset Daniel’s precious Haldyn. Ever.
“I think we both know how this works, Foster. Ask your questions. I tried…to remember…as many details as I could. For Major Crimes.”
Her voice broke. There at the end.
That was what did it.
Had him turning into an idiot and actually wanting to just hold her and promise things would be better. That he would make it better for her, because that was what he did.
He wasn’t stupid; things didn’t ever get better. People just got used to the way things were. But not scooping that woman as close as he could and holding her was one of the hardest things he’d done in a long time.
He’d always been a softie where hurting women were concerned. Apparently, that was true even when that woman was the blue-eyed spawn of Satan in front of him.
“Ah, Dr. Devil Harris, don’t look at me like that. You know I’m a sucker with crying women.”
