“She’s the expert,” Ben said. Trey raised a disbelieving brow, and Ben added, “Unless of course Sam wants you to chase after her, to prove you really love her, and if you don’t call she’ll feel neglected—”
“Don’t try to game the system,” I said. “Give her a couple of days at the very least. Then call.”
“Can you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Call her. Put in a good word for me.”
“No! I mean, I’d love to meet her, but only when she’s ready. If she’s nervous now imagine what’ll happen when she faces a whole room of werewolves.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“Besides, imagine what she’d think if this strange woman she’s never met butts into business that ought to be between you two.”
He sagged again. “I guess that would look strange.”
More than a little. “I know it’s tough, but you can get through this. If she’s as great as you say she is, she’ll come around. She’ll be fine.” Please, let Sam be a sensible woman, let this all work out …
Trey was about to respond when my phone rang. Still shoved into my jeans pocket after last night. One of these days, I was going to take a hammer to the device. Justifiable technocide. I checked the caller ID.
“It’s Detective Hardin,” I said, as justification for taking the call. I wouldn’t have, for just about anyone else, but I clicked the talk button.
“Kitty?”
“Detective Hardin?” I said, worried, but at least I didn’t start declaiming about how I’d done nothing wrong and it wasn’t my fault.
“I’m here at the emergency room at St. Joseph’s with your buddy Cormac.”
She kept talking, but I didn’t hear anything. Something had gone wrong, and it didn’t matter that he’d been keeping his nose clean, trying to stay out of trouble—at least as best he could. Someone from his past had found him, he’d gotten into a fight he couldn’t get out of—
“Kitty?” she said. “Are you there?”
“What’s wrong, what happened?” Ben had gone tense, sitting up and leaning forward, straining to hear, bacon and coffee forgotten. Even Trey responded to the anxiety, straightening, as if we faced danger right here.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. But he asked me to call you and Ben. You should probably get down here.” It couldn’t have been too bad. She sounded almost amused, not at all like someone delivering bad news. In fact she may have been enjoying this. That still could have meant bad news, knowing how she felt about Cormac …
“What happened?” I squeaked.
“He said he’ll explain it when you get here.”
“Right. Okay. We’re on the way.” I clicked the phone off. I stared at it for a moment.
“Go,” Ben said, pushing at me to let him out of the booth. “I’ll drive.”
“What is it?” Trey said. He hadn’t been close enough to hear Hardin over the phone. “You’ve gone completely white.”
“Ben’s cousin’s in the emergency room,” I said starkly. I looked at him despairing. “Can we pick this up later? I’m sorry—” Wolf, curled up deep in my gut, growled a little. We were alpha, we shouldn’t be apologizing. But I was human, and Trey had asked for help.
I couldn’t do everything.
“Yeah, sure, of course,” Trey said. Ben had the presence of mind to slap a twenty on the table as we were leaving. At least we didn’t stick him with the check.
Ben took my arm and pulled me toward the door. Shaken out of my shock by his urging, I hurried to keep up.
Once outside, we ran to the car and drove to the downtown hospital in silence.
Chapter 10