Troublemaker Read online

  “Okay, it’s one of those nights,” Bo sighed. Having fought the food wars for all of Tricks’s life, she knew the battles to pick. This wasn’t one of them. She bent down and selected a piece of kibble, offered it to Tricks. Tricks turned her head away, as if the kibble wasn’t worthy of being considered and she was offended that Bo had offered it.

  Bo dropped the kibble back in the bowl, then rubbed behind Tricks’s ears and crooned to her how pretty she was, that she was the prettiest puppy in the world, and sometimes she needed her head pinched off for being such a PITA, but it was said in that loving croon and Tricks ate it up. Bo selected another piece of kibble, offered it for inspection. This time Tricks sniffed at it as if this one had possibilities, then turned her head away again. Bo once more went through the ear-rubbing and love-talking routine, then picked up the third piece of kibble. Tricks sniffed it, thought a minute as if weighing whether or not she’d been praised enough, then daintily took the kibble from Bo’s fingers. It passed muster because she gave a pleased wag of her tail and without further ado lowered her head to the food bowl and began eating.

  Bo rolled her eyes at her canine diva and while Tricks was occupied, hurried back to her guest/patient. Hands down, he was more trouble than the dog.

  She grabbed the stuffed duck from the floor and tossed it at him. It landed on his stomach. He didn’t wake.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, and pick up the one-legged giraffe. Tricks had torn off the other three legs but used the remaining one to sling the giraffe from side to side when she was “killing” it. Now that Tricks had started eating, it wouldn’t take her long to finish, and Bo needed to get him awake before that happened. She wound up and put some muscle behind the throw. The giraffe hit him full in the face.

  He started awake pretty much the same way he had before when he’d choked her, except this time his attacker was a mangled stuffed animal. She saw the fierce glitter of his eyes as he lunged upward, then he gave a deep groan and collapsed back onto the sofa, his free hand going to his chest and his expression a grimace of pain.

  Horrified, Bo’s eyes widened and she clapped one hand over her mouth, then immediately removed it to say with fervent guilt, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

  He fought off the pain and opened his reddened lids. “What the hell?” he rasped, breathing hard.

  It was almost a replay of the choking episode, with some aspects swapped. Apologetically she said, “I was trying to wake you up—again. I tried calling, but that didn’t work. You said to throw something at you,” she added, then winced. “In practice, not a good idea.”

  Cautiously, moving as slowly as a ninety-year-old, he levered himself to a sitting position. The bear and duck fell from his lap to the floor. He looked at them, then at the one-legged giraffe still clutched in his fist in a death grip. Loosening his fingers as laboriously as if the joints had frozen, he dropped it to the floor with its fellow toys, his expression carefully blank. Bo had the chilling memory of that same grip clutching her own throat. This guy obviously lived dangerously, given that he’d been shot, but it struck her like a punch in the stomach that what she knew only scratched the surface. The back of her neck prickled with warning, as if she’d been caring for what she’d thought was a dog only to realize it was really a wolf.

  “The bear and duck didn’t work,” she said uncomfortably, lacing her fingers together in front of her and pushing away the unsettling comparison. She felt awful; she simply hadn’t considered how much pain he might be in, especially if he moved without thinking.

  He rubbed his face, then let his breath out in a sigh. “It’s okay. How long was I asleep?”

  “About two and a half hours.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to sleep so long. I guess the drive took more out of me than I expected.”

  “I imagine so, since you just got out of the hospital,” she said, keeping her tone neutral though she personally thought he needed his head examined for pushing himself that hard. The long nap didn’t seem to have done him much good; his color was still an awful shade between gray and dead white. “The reason I woke you up is, you need to eat, even if it’s just a little, and you can’t let yourself get dehydrated. Then there’s the practical stuff: can you make it up the stairs to the guest bedroom—”

  He looked chagrined, as if just now considering the matter, but shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so. That means you’re going to be sleeping on the couch, though I guess I could make a pallet on the floor if you’d rather be able to stretch out, but in my opinion you wouldn’t be able to get up and down by yourself.”

  “I can,” he muttered. “But I’d rather not.”

  “Got it.” Oddly, she did understand what he meant. If he had to, he would. If necessary, he would crawl up the stairs, or do whatever circumstances called for, but that gritty determination would cost him in pain. “In that case, I need to show you where the bathroom is, which I figure you need by now. And if you don’t, then you’re definitely dehydrated and I’m going to start pouring liquids down your throat.”

  “I do,” he said. “Need the bathroom, that is.”

  “Then let’s get you there.” She frowned, thinking. “I wonder where I can rent a wheelchair.”

  “No,” he half-snapped. “I’m walking. I’ve had enough of wheelchairs. The only way I’ll get my strength back is by pushing myself.”

  She started to argue with him about how ill advised that was but bit back the words. Stubbornness went hand in hand with gritty determination, and if she told him he was stupid to try doing something, he’d probably half-kill himself to prove her wrong. Instead she asked, “Are you healed enough yet? How long has it been since you were shot?”

  “About a month.” He wiped the sweat from his forehand, sweat caused by the exertion of fending off a one-legged giraffe and then sitting up.

  “Not that I know anything about gunshot wounds, but yeah, it does seem you’d be in better shape by now.”

  He snorted. “The open-heart surgery was worse than getting shot.”

  She blew out a breath. “That would certainly explain it. They saw your sternum in half, right?”

  His mouth quirked in a kind of ghastly humor. “That was almost the least of it, but yeah, I don’t guess the bone has completely knitted back. Then I got pneumonia. The docs didn’t want to let me go, but I’d been in one place too long. Mac and I decided it was time to move.” As he spoke, he began the struggle to get to his feet. Bo moved to one side to try to help him but the angle was awkward and she moved to the end of the sofa, where she could at least get her left arm hooked under his right armpit and help lever him upward.

  “Mac” was obviously Axel, and the pneumonia on top of open-heart surgery definitely explained why he was so weak. “Are you still on any medications?”

  “No antibiotics, my lungs are clear.” He was finally standing upright, though he was breathing hard and swaying back and forth.

  Something about the phrasing caught her attention. Chief of police was an administrative position, not a real one, but she had still picked up on some things from Jesse. “That’s good about the antibiotics, but what about other prescriptions?”

  His red-lidded blue eyes sparked with irritation. “If you mean dope for pain, why not ask outright?”

  If he thought she’d back down, he was about to embark on a learning curve. “Okay. Are you supposed to be taking any dope for pain?”

  “Forget it. I’m not taking any more of that sh—crap. It makes me woozy.”

  “So?” A thought occurred, and suspicion gnawed at her. She narrowed her gaze. “Unless you think you have to be alert because this location isn’t as secure as Axel said, though why I’d believe anything he said is a question for the ages.”

  He said tersely, “I have to get around by myself now. There aren’t any nurses or orderlies to get me up if I fall. So if it’s okay with you, I’d rather be steady on my feet.”

  Her suspicion f