Levi looked up at her, studying her for a solid minute before dropping his gaze. “I’m fine,” he said, the sharpness in his tone impossible to miss. “If I weren’t, you, Sheriff Vicram, would be the first to know.”
Sun tried not to read too much into that statement. She failed. A million interpretations sprang to mind when he was obviously being sarcastic.
Rojas raised a questioning brow toward her.
“Thank you, Toby,” she said to the EMT. “They’re right, Levi. You need to be checked out by a doctor.”
He bit down, his stoic façade cracking. “I need to be on the road chasing down that fucking truck. And I would be”—he gave his uncle a lethal glare—“if someone hadn’t hidden my keys.”
Surprised, Sun offered the stocky brunette watching from the sidelines a look of bemusement. Clay Ravinder was the last of Levi’s uncles still in the area, and he was about as warm and caring as a pit viper. If he was keeping Levi from going after the truck, he had a reason, and it had nothing to do with Levi’s well-being.
“Thank you,” she said to him regardless, curious as to what he would say.
He said nothing. Instead, he sucked on a toothpick and let his gaze rake over her.
Nice. She turned back to the frustrated man sitting before her. Stepped closer. Lowered her voice. “I could arrest you.”
Not one to let a foe seize the upper ground, he released an exasperated sigh and stood to his full height of sexy feet, AF inches. “For what exactly?” His voice, as deep and rich as the dark auburn in his hair, flooded her nether regions with warmth.
Holy hell, she had to get a grip. She swallowed, then said, “For being a stubborn asshat.”
He let a mouthwatering smirk soften his battered face. “Is that a misdemeanor or a felony?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the jail time.”
Sun’s stomach did a somersault. It wasn’t until he gave her an inspection as lackadaisical as a summer night that she remembered she wasn’t wearing a bra. She brushed a lock of hair back as an excuse to raise her arm and cover her nigh-exposed assets. Surely, he couldn’t tell with the summery sweater she wore, yet his eyes lingered in that general area for far too long, suggesting she could’ve been mistaken about the sweater’s camouflage capabilities.
“Well,” he said, seeming to recover when his gaze traveled back to hers, “while we’re on the subject, you need to do a drug tox.”
She laughed nervously. “I only had two sips.”
“Keith Seabright is former special ops. He’s a survivalist and the best hand-to-hand combat fighter I’ve ever met.”
“Good for him,” she said with an appreciative nod. “I always hoped he’d do well. Who’s Keith again?”
One scythe-shaped brow inched up. “The man who was almost stabbed to death?”
She snapped back to attention, struggling to get a grip. She hadn’t seen him for months, so Levi Ravinder up close and personal was like a hit of heroin.
“Right. Right.” She grabbed a confused Rojas’s pen and notepad and started taking notes. Notes that her deputies probably already had. “Keith Seabright. Where do you know him from?”
“Here and there.”
Great. She was going to get cryptic Levi. Out of all of his personalities, cryptic was not her favorite. She much preferred flirty Levi. Or lusty Levi, though she’d only seen it once in her life. Twice if one were to count their last encounter in his bedroom, but he’d been beyond exhausted. Hardly in his right mind.
Then again, the first time he’d been drunk, so …
She pretended to write down his statement. “Here and there. Okay, how long have you known him?”
“Longer than most. Not as long as others.”
“Right. Longer than most. Not as long as—”
“Are we done?”
She looked up at him. “In a hurry?”
“I need to find those men.”
She lowered the pen. “This is an investigation, Mr. Ravinder. You need to go to the hospital and let us do our jobs. Why do you want me to run a tox screen on your friend?”
He huffed out a breath and looked away, annoyed at being detained. “Because he was stabbed. Multiple times.”
“From what I understand, three men with knives will do that.”
He stepped closer. “You don’t get it. There could’ve been ten and he would’ve taken them without breaking a sweat. He’s what they call an elite. No way in hell three scrawny punks can take him down. They had to have drugged him. Put something in his beer or tranqed him somehow.”
“Levi,” Sun began, but he stopped her with another scowl.
“He wasn’t moving right when he came out of the bar. And he was fighting back but it was like he was drunk.”
“Hence his exit from a bar.”
“Where he drank one beer. Seabright doesn’t drink enough to become inebriated. Not when he’s on a job. He’s a soldier through-and-through.”
“He was on a job?”
He raked his free hand through his hair and turned away from her. “I don’t know. He seemed edgy. Hypervigilant. Like when he’s working.”
While that was interesting as hell—how would Levi know what Keith Seabright looked like while he was working and what exactly did the man do for a living?—it could wait until he was looked after. If Levi was right, however, this wasn’t just a random bar fight. This was a premeditated attempted murder.
Quincy walked up then. “I might be able to explain your friend’s behavior.”
Levi turned back, tightening his grip on the cap impatiently.
“According to a couple of witnesses, he got into an argument with a man at the Quick-Mart this afternoon. They said it got pretty heated.”
Levi frowned. “He didn’t say anything about that.”
“Why did he come outside?” Sun asked. “Was he leaving?”
“I need to go,” Levi said.
Quincy stayed him by showing a palm. “Mr. Walden was working the Quick-Mart, if that’s where you’re wanting to go. We’ve already contacted him. He didn’t see anything.”
Levi looked toward the heavens as though begging for patience. “Then who were the witnesses at the store?” He scanned the small crowd. “I’ll talk to them.”
Sun had enough. “Give me your wrists,” she said, her voice razor-sharp.
He spun around to her. “What?”
“Your wrists.” She demonstrated by pointing to one of her own. “I’m placing you under arrest.”
If rage had a name at that exact moment in time, it was Levi Ravinder.
3
Do we serve drunken, sarcastic assholes?
Find out next week on We Think the Fuck Not.
—SIGN AT THE ROADHOUSE BAR AND GRILL
“I mean it.” She unclipped a pair of plastic wrist cuffs off Quincy’s belt. It was either arrest him and force him to go to the hospital or release the floodgates and beg him to go, hoping her tears would sway him. First, they would not. Second, no one needed to see that. By officially arresting him, the sheriff’s office would be obligated to take him to urgent care whether he wanted to go or not.