nose and a story to tell out of it. Best Friday night ever.”
She smiled. “That is so sad.”
“Isn’t it?” He patted the empty chair beside him. “Have a seat. I can tell you a few more sad stories that’ll make your life seem like daisies and butterflies in comparison.”
She sat beside him, suddenly aware of just how big a man he really was. He was lanky, yes, but not skinny. His shoulders were deliciously broad, with muscle definition even his oversize T-shirt couldn’t hide. And he had a good face. A kind face, one lightly lined with creases that told her he liked to smile a lot.
She felt an entirely unexpected tug of attraction low in her belly.
“No more sad stories.” She made herself look away from the melted-chocolate softness of his eyes.
“I don’t know many happy ones.” Though his tone remained light, she heard a melancholy note in his Tennessee drawl that caught her by surprise. For a man who so clearly liked to smile and joke, he had a streak of sadness in him. It made her heart ache.
“That’s a little cynical.”
“That’s me.” He smiled broadly, carving his smile lines deeper, and she saw what the lines had hidden—some of his smiles were all for show.
He wasn’t joking, she realized. He didn’t know many happy stories.
She suddenly felt deeply sorry for him, sorry enough that her own considerable woes seemed lighter in comparison.
A couple of minutes later, Anson broke the tense silence that had fallen between them. “You really don’t know why those men were menacing you and your brother?”
He almost sounded suspicious, she realized, though when she met his gaze, there was only kind interest there.
What might he be hiding from her behind that gentle expression?
“I have no idea, but—” She glanced at the gurney where Danny was sleeping off the booze and the injury. What she’d been on the verge of saying felt like disloyalty.
“How much do you know about what your brother does when you’re not around?” Anson asked softly.
Not much, she conceded silently, taking in her brother’s whipcord-lean appearance. Danny had lost a lot of weight recently. From the drinking alone? Or had he picked up other bad habits that were so easy to come by in these parts? Meth, weed, coke, smack—she knew all the recreational drugs were as readily available as home brew in the mountains. “I’m at work during the day. He goes out sometimes at night.”
“Does he work?”
She shook her head. “He’s a machinist. Hurt his hand about a year ago, and the doctors aren’t sure how soon he’ll be able to do his job again. He’s drawing disability now until he’s cleared to work again.”
“So he has a lot of time on his hands, then.”
She looked down at the tile floor of the emergency room bay, hating to hear her own worried thoughts voiced by a stranger. “He’s not a bad person. When he’s sober, he’s so much help to me.”
“How often is he sober?”
She shot him a warning look.
He pressed his mouth into a thin line and looked away.
“Maybe you should go,” she said, hating the tight tone of her voice, the implied ingratitude. Anson Daughtry had saved her life tonight. He’d probably saved her brother’s life as well, distracting those men and sending her for help so quickly. If they’d had a few more minutes to finish the job on her brother—
“I’m sorry,” Anson murmured, his baritone voice sounding like a rumble of thunder in the quiet room. “It was not my place to pry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” She turned to look at him. “I’m stressed out and I’m worried about Danny. I sounded so ungrateful, and I’m not, I promise you. I know what you did for Danny and me tonight.” She took in his battered face, the drying blood staining his T-shirt, and her stomach knotted with sympathy. “I can see how much danger you put yourself in to help us. I just—”
“You don’t have to explain.” He smiled, but she didn’t miss the wince in his eyes. “I’ll go.”
She closed her hand over his arm as he started to rise. “No. Please stay.”
He settled back in the chair beside her, his gaze meeting hers. “Addiction is awful. It just is. And addicts can be the nicest people in the world when they’re clean and sober. Hell, they can be a barrel of laughs even when they’re high as a kite. But they’re trouble to the people who love them, no matter how hard they try not to be.”
The voice of experience, she thought, her gaze shifting involuntarily toward her sleeping brother. “He’s a drunk. That’s the addiction I know about, anyway.”
“That might be all it is.”
“It’s enough.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. Beside her, she could feel the solid warmth of Anson’s long, lean body. His quiet respirations helped drive away some of the gnawing fear she’d been operating under since she’d looked across the car and seen her brother’s blood spilling down the front of his shirt.
Don’t get too used to it, a cautionary voice whispered in her head. He’s not going to be there forever. Or even tomorrow.
She was on her own. As always.
And she was all Danny had.
* * *
BY THE TIME the hospital in Knoxville moved Danny Coltrane to a room, midnight had come and gone. Danny had awakened during the gurney ride to the fourth floor, just sober enough to know he’d been drinking too much that night. His tearful apologies to his worried sister had grated on Anson’s nerves until he was ready to explode.
Never again was the most useless phrase in the English language. It held no meaning, acted as no promise, broke a million hearts and rendered the speaker an unmitigated liar.
There was always an “again.” Always.
He made his escape and waited down the hall in a small lounge area set aside for patients and families to meet without going to the formal waiting room. The area consisted of two small sofas and a handful of chairs, all empty at this hour of the early morning.
He folded himself into one of the chairs, grimacing at his own reflection in the windows. He was six foot four in his bare feet, and trying to fit his long limbs into the bowl-shaped chair he’d chosen made him look rather like a praying mantis trying to tuck itself into a walnut shell.
With a sigh, he moved to the sofa and averted his gaze from his reflection as he pulled out his phone to check his email. Twenty new messages in the past two hours. All of them virtually useless.
He rubbed his bruised rib cage, wincing at the flood of pain even his light touch evoked. He was going to be a walking bruise by morning.
He had one email from Tuck at
