In His Keeping

Ari was vehemently shaking her head even as Beau vetoed the idea.

“Psychic bleed,” he explained to Zack. “She’ll need to be monitored to ensure she didn’t do permanent damage to her brain or if there was a severe hemorrhage.”

Zack scowled, his expression causing Ari to scoot even closer to Beau as if she were afraid of the other man. Beau instantly put his arm around her like it was the most natural reaction in the world.

“Psychic bleed?” Zack questioned. “Is she psychic then? Is that what happened to those other vehicles who tried to run you off the road?”

Ari stiffened, going rigid in Beau’s arms. Her respirations were shallow and he didn’t know if it was from blood loss, fear or a combination of both.

“He can be trusted,” Beau whispered against her ear. “He works for me and there’s no one I trust more than my brothers.”

She gave a short nod, but she still regarded Zack warily as they drove as fast as they could without gaining the notice or attention of a cop setting a speed trap.

“You going to fill me in on what the hell is going on and who our new client is?” Zack asked impatiently.

One corner of Beau’s mouth quirked upward. How like Zack to automatically insert himself right into the thick of things. His hands were wrapped firmly around the steering wheel, his knuckles white as he performed swift lane changes to weave in and out of the busy traffic on the 610 loop.

“Later,” Beau said shortly. “Right now I need to get her to safety and make sure she’s okay. And I’ll need you to get on the horn and figure out who’s free to help out on this assignment. I know Dane and Eliza are tied up with another job at the moment.”

“I’ll handle it,” Zack said simply.

“Where are we going?” Arial asked in a quiet voice.

She seemed in shock, the blood a stark contrast to the paleness of her features. Beau fished in the first aid kit and then slowly lifted her blood-soaked shirt so as not to alarm her.

In answer to the unspoken question and the wariness in her eyes, he soothed her as best as he could. He wasn’t a smooth-talking guy. He was too blunt and abrasive to know how to calm a woman’s fears. Especially a woman he was currently stripping free of her shirt.

“I need to see how bad this is,” he said with calm he didn’t feel.

Inside he was a seething caldron of fire, furious that she’d deliberately put herself in the line of fire to protect him and Zack. That was his job. To protect her. Not the other goddamn way around and it pissed him off no end that she’d put herself at such risk. It would not happen again, and as soon as he was assured she was all right they were going to have a serious come-to-Jesus meeting about the way things would be going forward.

She winced when he carefully prodded the two-inch-long gash in her side. But what pissed him off further were the purple bruises that were already present on her rib cage. Evidence of her last run-in with the bastards after her.

“It’s not too bad,” he murmured. “It needs stitching, but we can take care of that when we get to a safe place.”

Her eyebrow rose in question.

“When you have more money than God, as is the case with Caleb, doctors come to him, not the other way around,” Beau said with a shrug.

“And not you?” she queried. “Don’t you share in the Devereaux fortune?”

He shrugged again, uncomfortable with discussing his financial status. Most of the Devereaux fortune was tainted money. Inherited from their parents, who had most certainly been involved in shady dealings. At least his father had. He had no way of knowing whether his mother had knowledge of his father’s dealings or was directly involved herself.

They’d put the money to good use and had made their fortune the old-fashioned way. By earning it through hard work and smart investing. People no doubt thought all their money had been inherited when, in fact, their parents hadn’t left them much, considering their net worth when they’d been murdered.

“Where are we going?” she asked, more firmly this time as if she’d shaken some of the numbness she’d experienced up to now.

“Someplace safe,” Beau said grimly. “Somewhere I can be sure of your safety so you don’t go off half-cocked in search of your parents. You hired me to do a job and that’s precisely what I intend to do. But you’re staying put where I stash you. The last thing I need is to have to worry about you when we’re trying to track your parents’ whereabouts.”

“I won’t get in the way,” she said softly. “If you believe you can find my parents, then you have my full cooperation.”

Satisfied with her promise, he carefully began cleaning the blood from Ari’s nose, face and ears. Some had even slithered in long trails down the sides of her necks to her shoulders and even lower onto her chest.

He did his best to preserve her modesty, leaving her bra on even as bloody as it was. The last thing he wanted was to embarrass her or make her self-conscious.

“I’ve never bled before,” she said in obvious confusion. “I don’t understand. You called it a psychic bleed. How could you possibly know what that is?”

Beau gently scrubbed the last of the blood from her face and inspected her to see if she’d incurred more bruising. He frowned when he saw thin cuts to her arms and hands, no doubt received when she’d crawled out of the overturned vehicle.

He set to work cleaning and then putting antiseptic on the cuts before covering them in light bandages.