The Departed

questions?” the nurse asked, giving Dez a bright, hard-edged smile.
    It seemed to read: Say no, please, so you can get the hell out of my hospital and take this prick with you .
    Dez narrowed her eyes. For some reason, she was oddly tempted to play dumb and act like she hadn’t understood any of the words she’d just ignored. But she wanted out of here too much.
    Giving the nurse a wide smile, she took a deliberate look at her name tag and said, “Ms. Lafferty, you’ve taken such excellent care of me, the next time someone from our unit is injured in the line of duty, I’m sure my boss is going to put in a special request just for your services.”
    She had the pleasure of watching the nurse’s eyes tighten minutely around the corners.
    Yeah, Taylor could be a prick.
    But he got the job done.
    Plus…he’d saved her life.
    And she really needed to tell him thanks for that, too.
    * * *
     
    DEZ’S full, firm mouth was set in a mutinous line as she was wheeled out of the hospital in a chair. The nurse had given her an innocent smile and insisted, “Hospital policy.”
    And it most likely was, Taylor figured. One person trips over his own feet and decides to sue and hospitals everywhere are going to be cautious. Still, he knew Dez hated it.
    He had an urge to stroke his finger down the line between her brows and tell her to relax. It was all of five minutes, and after what she had gone through, what did it matter if she sat in a wheelchair for five minutes?
    That’s what he wanted to do.
    Instead, he tucked a hand inside his pocket.
    There was a thin, golden chain inside there, one he needed to return to her.
    It had somehow fallen off her neck that night—he didn’t know how. But after the paramedics had rushed her away, he’d seen it there, glinting in a puddle of her blood, and he had picked it up. The chain itself was damaged, but the slender cross wasn’t. Although he didn’t know the history of the bit of jewelry, he knew it was important to her. Dez didn’t wear jewelry—just this piece, and she always wore it. To him, that meant it mattered.
    He should have returned it before now, but he couldn’t seem to. He needed it out of his sight because every time he looked at it, he saw Dez again, bleeding out under his hands.
    Too close . It had come too close…
    “Okay, Agent, if you’ll bring your car…” The nurse stopped and stared at the black Mercedes parked in front of the double doors and then she looked back at him, disapproval in her eyes. “Is this your car?”
    “It is.” He smiled coolly, watched as the woman’s shoulders went stiff and tight with indignation.
    “You shouldn’t park there.”
    Taylor lifted a brow. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I have an agent in need of your services, Ms. Lafferty.” He hadn’t missed the expression on her face when Dez had made that comment. Her lids flickered and she sniffed.
    He might have said something else, but he knew he’d been a bastard to her and the rest of the medical staff in the days since Dez had been brought in. He wasn’t inclined to apologize—he didn’t care whether they cared for his attitude or not—but he knew he’d definitely done enough to incur their dislike.
    A few minutes later, they were pulling away from the hospital and Dez sighed, the tension easing out of her body.
    “How bad was it in there?” he asked quietly. Hospitals could be bad, bad places for some of his people, especially those who were more in tune with pain…and death.
    “Bad enough,” she admitted. “I need a few minutes of quiet. I feel like the death is sticking to me.”
    He could give her the quiet she needed, and in the forty minutes it took to drive to her little place outside of the city, he saw the difference some peace and quiet could make.
    Her color returned and the soft, warm brown of her skin looked almost normal again. A night of sleep, a few days of decent food, and she’d be as good as new.
    No thanks to you…you never should have let her go in there. Not her damn job, not what she trained for. You fucking moron.
    He wished he could silence that voice.
    Wished he could take more comfort in knowing a child lived because of Dez’s actions.
    Always before, it had been enough.
    But for now, all he could see was her blood, so much of it, dark red, spilling out over his hands.
    As he parked in front of her house, her eyes opened and she shot him a quick glance. “You never forget a thing, do