Page 3 of Serve ’N’ Protect

“Because”—he squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaving now—“they’ll find me. And kill me.”

Chapter Two

Markus York was in deep shit. Even in his woozy state, he recognized the signs. His body was going into shock. He’d seen it enough times in the Middle East. Good men with non-fatal injuries quickly becoming just another statistic. Something he was determined never to be.

He swatted his dog’s muzzle away. Ghost was drowning him in slobber.

“Ghost, knock it off.” His dog whined but did as ordered then tucked himself in tightly against Markus’s side. The dog’s warmth seeped through the blanket into his chilled body, easing some of the shivering.

Outside, a car started—the neighbor’s car, the same woman who’d draped the blanket over him and put on his boots. He barely remembered agreeing to go to the hospital. Laying low had been the plan, but if he died while hiding out, he’d never get the chance to nail the motherfucker who’d done this to him.

Slowly, he pushed to his hands and knees. Ghost’s furry face wavered before his eyes. For several seconds, there were two white German shepherds before they eventually merged back into one. He rested his forearm on the sofa and was rewarded with a shaft of pain ripping through his torso, although not as badly as before. Yeah, that had been stupid.

Against doctor’s orders, he’d done a short walking workout on the treadmill, leaving him achy and exhausted. Prescription meds had more than mellowed the pain. They’d left him feeling no pain whatsoever and stupidly believing he could leap tall buildings in a single bound. So he’d gotten out the stepladder to change a lightbulb then fallen off, face-planting on the floor.

Real smooth, numb nut.

Clumping came from the front steps. The woman was coming back. Going to the hospital was risky, but letting her drive him there was better than being transported in an ambulance. Less exposure. Keeping the number of people who knew where he was—let alone who he was—to a minimum was paramount to staying alive. And it would avoid an ass-chewing of mammoth proportions from his boss.

The footsteps and that odd clumping sound got louder. With a groan, he eased to a sitting position on the floor, using the sofa to prop himself up. This time, the entire room wavered before his eyes, and there were three German shepherds licking his face. Nausea built in his stomach and he had to swallow repeatedly to keep from throwing up.

Shit, but he hated being like this. Hated being injured and hated having to rely on someone else. Especially a total stranger.

With few exceptions in his thirty-five years, he’d been completely independent. Trusting someone else to help him wasn’t in his genetic makeup. The only exceptions were the handful of guys he’d gone through K-9 school with. Kade Sampson, one of his closest friends, was bunking with another of his friends, Matt Connors. Both would be there for him in a heartbeat, but they were at least an hour away in Virginia. She, on the other hand, was right here. He didn’t even know her name. Not that it mattered. He didn’t figure on being in this backwoods town for very long anyway.

The door opened, and a gust of cold air rolled into the room. He tried pulling the blanket tighter around him, but he couldn’t even manage that simple task. In his drugged-out, injured state, he was as helpless as a turtle on its back.

Markus fisted his hand, instantly regretting it when pain lanced up his arm, down his shoulder, and directly to the through-and-through knife wound in his back and abdomen. Before he’d escaped from the emotional torture chamber of his teenage years, Steven had repeatedly and methodically drilled into him that any sign of weakness—physical or emotional—made him a failure. Today, Markus had pegged a perfect ten on Steven’s scale of losers.

Clump. Clump. Clump. He turned his head to see her standing a few feet away and leaning heavily on a metal cane. Now he knew what all that clumping came from.

Ghost’s tail thumped on the rug. His dog trusted her, so that was a good sign. Like him, Ghost didn’t trust easily but was never wrong about people.

His vision still sucked, but at least she wasn’t shifting from one person into three. The one glaring thought in his brain was whether she’d be capable of helping him. Not likely. From the way her baggy jeans hung from her legs, there wasn’t much muscle tone beneath that denim. But again, he had no choice. It was either her or an ambulance, which also meant the cops would show up. They’d have to make a police report with his name on it. Not that he’d give them his real one, but police reports were often made public, and there was no way he could let himself get immortalized on the daily police blotter.

“Let’s get you up,” she said. “Can you stand?”

Good question. Using his dog for leverage, he placed one hand on Ghost’s back, trying to get his feet under him and falling back on his ass. The movement jarred his injuries and he couldn’t stop the grimace or the string of curses flying from his lips. Something about fudge, monkeys, and excrement.

“Interesting choice of words,” she said with the barest hint of humor in her voice. “And here I was thinking my brothers took first prize for imagination. I was wrong. Here. Take my hand.”

Reluctantly, he did. The hand gripping his was tiny compared to his but stronger than he expected. She tugged, albeit unsuccessfully.

“This won’t work,” he muttered. “You’re not strong enough.”

“You’d be surprised,” she said in a tone he could swear was a little annoyed. “Try again.”

“Fine.” She still had that phone in her pocket, and he couldn’t risk her calling 911.

“Ghost, here.” His dog pressed his body against Markus’s side, allowing him to rest more of his weight on Ghost’s back while letting the woman grip his other hand.

“On three,” she ordered. “One. Two. Three.”

He pushed off Ghost. She pulled on his other hand. Markus gritted his teeth through the pain. They teetered, about to go down. Then she let the cane fall to the floor, gripping his forearm with both hands and tugging harder until he was upright. More pain sliced into his wounds, and he bit back the three- and four-letter words on the tip of his tongue. “Easy, Wonder Woman.”

“I told you to let me call an ambulance,” she quipped. “But nooo, you didn’t want me to. So how about being a little more grateful and a little less grumpy?”

“Grumpy?” The room began to spin, and he leaned more against her, wrapping his arms around her body for balance. Again, they both wavered, forcing her to wrap her arms around his waist. The top of her head barely touched his chin. Together, they stood that way for a few more seconds, clinging to each other in a weird little embrace. “For the record,” he said in a slurred voice, which told him the drugs were still very much in his system, “I’m not grumpy.”