“You’re at the clubhouse.” His lips press together. “We brought Doc to treat you here. But if he thinks you need a hospital, that’s where you’ll go.”
“Are you alright, Finn?” I belatedly ask, waving at his broken body. “Will you heal?”
“Broken wrist, broken leg, cracked ribs and a fractured collarbone. I took a bump to the head and had a concussion, and I’ve a few nice scars including on my stomach where Gun went to town with his knife, but I’ll heal, babe. It’s you I’m worried about.”
Because his injuries are all on the outside.
An awkward silence comes over us.
The door opens and Swift comes back in. “This is Doctor Mason.”
“Do you want Swift to stay?” Finn asks.
I shake my head. Swift goes to Finn’s wheelchair and pushes him away. I feel like a part of me has left the door with him.
But now I’ve got to pull up my big girl panties. Before the doctor can ask anything, I get in first.
“Doctor Mason, can I be tested for STDs, and…” I swallow hard, feeling tears fill my eyes. “Can I have a test to see if I’m pregnant?”
32
Stormy…
I hate not being there while the doctor is talking to Cat. How can I know how to help her when I can only guess at what she’s been through? I hate relying on imagination which is bad enough, I’d prefer to deal in hard facts.
At my direction, Swift silently pushes me to the comms room, and I take it from there, Wheeling myself over to a free workstation.
What I’m going to do next is child’s play. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go unnoticed.
“You sure you want to do that?” Swift, holding a cup of her preferred tea is standing behind me.
Normally I don’t try to justify myself, or explain my actions to anyone else. My modus operandi is to do whatever I fucking want, and what I want now is to get the information that I can’t do without. But that talk with Mace is going around my head on repeat. I have no idea how to deal with Cat, all I know is I want her in my life, and have no greater desire but to help heal her. How can I start without any idea what the bastards put her through?
“I have to.” I pause the cursor on the screen, hovering over the club doctor’s medical report. “She won’t tell me, Swift. I know she won’t. She’ll keep it bottled up as if it’s only her that has to deal with it. How can I help her and how the fuck can I move forward myself, without knowing her triggers?”
“How’s it going to affect you, Storm?” She pulls up a chair and sits next to me. “You love her, don’t you?”
A simple nod suffices, while thinking how bizarre this is. A conversation about emotions was not one I’d ever have expected to have with Swift.
“Well, fuck.” She gives a small smile. “You’re different since you came back.”
“She grounds me,” I reply, simply. “It’s for her that I came back to the club. Not just to ask for help in her rescue, the decision had already been made. We were all packed up.” And thank Christ for that. Her beloved animals are being well cared for. “Cat made me see it was because I couldn’t make sense of anything that I cut everyone out. It was letting her in, admitting I needed her, that made me realise I needed you too.”
“I presume you’re talking about the club, not me.” She winks.
Despite the circumstances I smirk. “Even you, Swift.”
“Loving Road has changed me,” she admits. The previous me would have scoffed, would have accused her of being weak. How can I now? When I understand only too well.
“You’re softer, Swift. More approachable.” When she bristles, I add, “And just as fuckin’ dangerous.”
“Threaten my man and you’re dead,” she confirms, voicing how I feel about the woman I love. “Which is why when we find Gun, I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.”
I don’t tell her I want to do that myself. How could I, given my current physical limitations?
“Waterboarding?” I might have picked up on some of the discussions about what she’d got up to in San Diego.
“Oh, I can think of worse,” she promises earnestly. “This time it won’t matter if I leave marks.” She jerks her chin toward the monitor, returning to our previous topic. “You do this, you can’t take it back. Whatever you find, she might be hurt you invaded her privacy.”
I hear what she says. “I’m out of my depth, Swift. We’ve rescued women before, but handed them over to the experts.”
“Perhaps you ought to do that.”
Maybe I’m not as changed as I’d like to think. Cat’s mine, and I want to be the one she leans on, not leave her to talk to an anonymous person. I need facts to formulate a plan of attack, even if the enemy is all in her head.
Leaving the decision to me, Swift pats my shoulder, then gets up to leave.
“Want a coffee, Storm?” Honor offers as he gets a beverage for himself.
The mouse is still hovering over her file, but Swift is right. If I do this, there’s no going back, for a moment, I hesitate.
So I accept his offer, and ask, “Got anything?” When he places the cup near my left hand, I reach for it, picking it up.
“Would you believe communications between Smythe and Jeffrey Morgan?”
I still, replacing the cup, my coffee forgotten. “Recent?”
Honor looks self-satisfied as well he might. “Did you know Pip had a hand in getting Smythe away from the front line?”
I give a sharp nod. “Pip told me, and that it happened before I met him.”
The man I’d love to again be able to call brother shrugs. “Pip and your Admiral go way back.”
And the admiral gave me Pip’s card, I kind of guessed it had to be something like that. “Have you evidence Smythe knew about Pip’s involvement?”
“I think he does.”
My eyes sharpen. “Was Smythe behind Swift’s kidnap? Was it him who wanted revenge on Pip rather than it being down to Kincaid?” If so, it seems flimsy, and I let Honor know why. Shaking my head dismissively I explain, “Too much time has passed. And Smythe wasn’t demoted, why the fuck should he care? He’s safer to himself and us working from behind a desk. I never felt he was comfortable in an active role.” Pausing a second for effect, I add with emphasis, and a barely suppressed shudder, “Gun hated me, Honor. He wanted to inflict maximum pain. I tried to hide what I felt about Cat, but he fuckin’ saw it.”
“I think it’s safe to say you were supposed to die along with Pooh. You lived longer than he’d expected. Once he had a chance, he tried to rectify that.”
“If he wanted me dead, why not come after me immediately?” I grimace. “I was in a bad place, Honor. There were easy ways to set something up to make it look like I swallowed a bullet.”
Honor’s brow creases. “Back then, when you were kicked out, even if you knew something, Storm, how much would the word of a disgraced SEAL count for? It would have been put down to sour grapes. I’d venture that it was your presence in Cat’s house that made him presume you had something to do with his failure to take down Pip. That would have caused alarm bells to start ringing.” He gives a cold mirthless chuckle. “I’d also say you were lucky he hated you. Otherwise it would have been a simple headshot. Him wanting you to suffer kept you alive.”