Free Guardian (The Protectors Series) by Nancy Northcott

she could live with that.
    Mel swallowed hard. “I’ll sign myself out against medical advice if I have to.”
    “Then go back into the field, investigate and patrol?” His expression hardened. “No.”
    Considering how chummy he and Dan Burton were, Stefan could enforce that. The burn now came from gut-level frustration and pure hatred of being trapped.
    Holding her gaze, he said, “You can’t tell me your head doesn’t hurt. You’re about the color of the sheet on that gurney, and the pinched look around your mouth is a dead giveaway.”
    “You know the old saying, ‘If you can’t play hurt, you can’t play.’ I can.” She had to convince him, or he’d stymie her efforts to work Cinda’s case. If he decided she wasn’t lucid, he could refuse to release her weapons to her.
    “I know,” he said gently. “The whole business isn’t fair, but you don’t want to risk brain damage.”
    His sympathy grated far more than his opposition. “There has to be another choice.”
    He hesitated. “We need to run those questions again.”
    “I’ve answered them twice now.”
    “But only once correctly.” Stefan raised an eyebrow. “Do you never go back over something with a witness?”
    “Sometimes.” Damn it.
    As she’d expected, he said, “There’s a purpose here, too. So I’ll ask again, and if your answers are okay, I’ll make you a deal. You let me wake you up every three hours, and I’ll take a room at the motel.”
    Talk to him in her motel room? In the intimate darkness of the night? She and Stefan had shared a motel room once, when they’d gone to see the London Symphony on tour in Richmond, Virginia. Memory washed over her, of him rolling her beneath him, sliding into her, touching her everywhere while she’d reveled in the passion surging between them.
    Mel’s cheeks heated. Before she could shove the memory away, his eyebrow shot up.
    Cheeks still burning, she managed to shrug. He hadn’t meant anything by the offer. The conk on the head had stirred up ideas she didn’t need.
    “No,” she said, staring at the wall above his head. “Thanks.”
    “You have limited choices. Refuse that one, and you’re left with signing out AMA, and without the medical clearance Dan Burton will want before he puts you back in the field. Or you can stay tonight and maybe tomorrow night.” He raised an eyebrow, his face stony. “What’ll it be?”
    Damn it. She took a deep breath and made herself meet his gaze. Stefan went all cold and grim like that when he was angry or hurt. Maybe he still resented her for calling him on his lies and bailing. Regardless, there was no point in the two of them spending more time together than they had to.
    “Do you truly think,” he asked softly, “you can’t trust me in your motel room?”
    Mel sighed. He’d taken her refusal personally, but why would he care what she thought? “Of course not. I just don’t see why you’d offer.”
    “Because I understand how you feel. Because…” He hesitated, frowning. Slowly, he finished, “You aren’t just another patient. No matter how things ended for us.”
    Not just another patient? Her pulse kicked again, and that was silly. He was invoking old times, not old feelings. His grave eyes stayed on her face, with nothing loverlike or remotely tender in them. Maybe he felt he owed her for cheating on her way back when.
    But she didn’t want to dig into that old mess, hated that this situation kept taking her back and bringing up the ugly waves of hurt. Getting to the point of not thinking about Stefan every day had taken her two years, and now here he was again. Merely being around him seemed to stir up the pain she’d locked away.
    Whatever his reason, she had little choice about his offer. She needed out of here. Once she was in her motel room, alone, she could straighten out her head.
    “Okay, then.” Mel blew out a breath that did little to ease her frustration or the new tension between her and Stefan.