Free Don't Mess With Texas by Christie Craig Page B

embarrassment, she met Nikki’s gaze. “I hope things go okay.” As she darted off to the restroom, one thing was clearer than before: she couldn’t—wouldn’t—do next Sunday. She wasn’t emotionally capable of dealing with Tony yet.
    And perhaps it was time to see a lawyer to get things settled so she didn’t have to face him ever again.
    Nikki saw the way the detective watched the nurse leave. Then she saw the way the PI—her PI—was watching the cop. If she wasn’t so worried about Ellen, if she hadn’t found her ex-husband dead in her trunk, if she hadn’t been poisoned, she might have started wondering about the strange way everyone was behaving. But the hint of curiosity vanished when sirens echoed from outside the double doors leading out of the emergency room.
    Nikki turned toward the sound.
    Dallas caught her arm. “Let them see to her first.”
    Trying to think straight, she swallowed a deep gulp of air. “Oh God. Her family needs to be called. I don’t have their home number.”
    “They’ve already been called,” Detective O’Connor said, but he didn’t look away from the nurse disappearing down the hall.
    A few nurses ran out the double doors and Nikki’s heart tightened for her best friend. She took a step closer to the door leading to the ambulance.
    Dallas caught her arm again. “Why don’t we—”
    “I want to make sure she’s okay,” Nikki said.
    “Tony can find out and let us know. Right?” Dallas looked at the detective.
    “Yeah,” his brother said.
    Nikki stared at Dallas’s face and then at the detective’s serious expression. She got a terrible feeling. “How bad’s Ellen? Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
    Dallas appeared to flinch, and the detective cleared his throat and answered, “All we know is that it’s serious.”
    “Define serious.” Fear bounced around her completely empty stomach then crawled up her throat and crowded her tonsils. “How serious?” When neither man answered, a vision of Ellen fluttering around the gallery filled Nikki’s mind. Ellen—so filled with life, so upbeat, so positive, so caring. Ellen—the single parent to her little girl.
    “Get back in the room!” A nurse ran to the unmanned desk and picked up a phone. She punched a few numbers and then started spouting out orders.
    Dallas gave Nikki’s arm a pull. Nikki stepped back. Three doctors sprinted down the hall to meet the arriving patient.
    A gurney, surrounded by a crowd of people, came barreling through the doors. They all talked at the same time, calling out heart rate, blood pressure, O negative blood, stat.
    Nikki stared, hoping to see Ellen. Just a quick glance to know she was okay. Just a tiny sign that told Nikki this wasn’t as bad as the detective made it sound.
    Dallas tried again to nudge Nikki back to her cubicle, but she yanked free. She had a mission and its name was Ellen. Finally, a small clearing appeared through the haze of the ER crew. But all Nikki could see was Ellen’s arm. A very limp arm hanging down with blood dripping from the fingertips.
    “No!” Nikki bolted for the gurney. Dallas caught her around her stomach and pulled her back a couple of steps. She yanked free, and took one step when a large male hand caught her arm and another hand moved down her lower back and she was swooped off her feet.
    “Put me down!” She felt a cool breeze on her backside and realized Dallas’s palm pressed against her bare bottom. She put a hand on his chest and looked into his dark blue eyes so he would know she was serious. “Put me down.”
    “Sorry.” Ignoring her order, he carried her into the curtained-off room and carefully placed her in the hospital bed beside her purse.
    Shaking, not so much from anger—though there was some of that, too—but mostly out of concern for Ellen, she stared up at him. Her gaze shot to the open slit in the curtain. She considered making a run for it, a run back to check on Ellen.
    “Don’t do