Hot Blooded Read online

  It was his work in Paris. There was no use in telling myself I didn't know what he was doing there, either. I mean, I didn't have specifics, but I knew it wasn't patisseries and sightseeing. Something had happened. How the hell did he end up at a service station in Kent? I pressed my foot down on the accelerator and overtook a lorry.

  A cold, grey dawn was just barely starting to break over the horizon when I finally pulled into what had to be the place. A BP service station, just outside of Sellindge. I pulled in slowly, searching the empty parking lot for Callum, and parked in front of the brightly lit shop. Almost at once, there was a tap on the passenger side window. It was him. Relief flooded my body just to see him there, in person and in one piece. I leaned over the console and unlocked the door. He leaned in.

  "Do you have a towel?"

  "What? Callum, get in the car, it's freezing."

  He hesitated. "Lily, I'm sorry, but I'm all bloody. You need to put a towel on the seat."

  Bloody? A cold sensation ran through my veins.

  "Get in the fucking car! Now!"

  "OK, OK boss-lady," he said. He was actually smiling. It suddenly made me angry.

  "Why the fuck are you smiling? Why are you bloody?"

  "I'm smiling because you're here, Lily. And I've had a really fucking bad day."

  I softened guiltily at the honesty in his voice. "I'm sorry, Callum. I'm just - you frightened me, calling me like that in the middle of the night. Do you need to go to the hospi-"

  "NO!"

  I clicked the overhead light on in the car and shrank back, appalled, when I saw Callum's leg. Almost the entire left half of his body, from his chest to his foot, was soaked with what looked like dried blood. A buzzing sound started in the back of my mind.

  "Callum, oh my God. Oh my God! We're going to a hospital!"

  He shook his head. "No, Lily. No we're not."

  I shifted the car into gear and started to reverse out of the parking spot, shaking my head.

  "Yes, Callum. Yes, we are."

  Instead of arguing, he reached over and grabbed the wheel. I tried to push his hand away but he had his fingers wrapped too tightly for me to budge. I tried to turn the wheel with both hands, but he held it steady, easily overpowering me.

  "What the fuck are you doing? Let go, you're scaring me!" I yelled.

  I turned to look at him, my pulse fluttering in my neck, and our eyes met.

  "No hospital, Lily. Promise."

  Then I lost it slightly.

  "I'm sorry, Callum, but what do you mean 'no hospital'?! You're bleeding! You're covered in blood! You sound like you're about to pass out. Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't take you to the place that you take bleeding people?"

  "Lily," he said, leaning over towards me, not loosening his grip on the steering wheel. "Lily. Look at me."

  I looked at him. Those blue eyes. "You know why we can't go to the hospital."

  "But, I-" I stammered, unable to push my mind away from the fact of all that blood - his blood.

  "Lily, you know."

  My mouth snapped shut and I leaned forward, resting my forehead on the top of the wheel and trying to calm down. He was conscious and talking, seemingly coherent. Maybe he didn't need a hospital - at least not right away? And even if he did it was clear he wasn't going to let me take him to one, even if it meant physically preventing me from driving.

  "OK, Callum. OK." I sighed, knowing that any sane person wouldn't be going along with his plan."No hospital. Where should we go then?"

  "A hotel. Somewhere close. I need to look at my leg soon and it's going to take too long to get back to London."

  "A hotel? I didn't even bring my wallet."

  I watched as Callum reached into his pocket and pulled out a huge wad of twenty pound notes, folded in half and secured with an elastic band.

  "Oh Jesus, Callum."

  "I know, Lily. I know. But let's please just get a hotel room so I can clean up. Just pretend I got this selling that goose liver stuff the frogs like so much."

  "Foie gras."

  "Fwah-what?"

  I shook my head - at myself, at Callum, at the situation. Was I risking my job? I was pretty damn sure I was. Maybe I could play it as part of the investigation? Maybe I could just wipe this strange night from my mind completely? How is it that I was sitting in my car with a bloodied man making jokes about French delicacies?

  "Foie gras, Callum. Fwah. Grah."

  I sat there for a few moments, thinking. Then I turned to him:

  "Are you OK? I mean, I can see that you're not, but you're not badly hurt, are you?"

  "It's just a scratch, Lily Parker from Canada." He grinned.

  "You know what works better than trying to charm a woman when you're covered in blood and acting like a nutjob?" I asked, exasperated - probably more at the fact that I was allowing myself to be charmed rather than the fact that he was trying to do so.

  Callum chose that moment to lean over the center console and kiss my neck, whispering his reply against my skin: "What?"

  I tried to respond. "Trying to charm a... woman... when..." But I couldn't quite do it. Callum's warm mouth on my neck robbed me of the ability to form sentences.

  "When I'm not covered in blood and acting like a nutjob?" He finished for me, kissing along my jawbone to my cheek, trying to get me to turn towards him so he could kiss my mouth. I refused. I had to keep a clear head - as clear as possible, anyway. We had to get to the hotel. We had to avoid getting arrested for public indecency and he needed to clean his leg. God, his kisses were so sweet, though.

  We quickly found a motorway hotel and Callum checked in with the cash while I avoided the lobby, paranoid about CCTV because I still wasn't sure how I was going to handle this with regards to the investigation. When we were inside, I grabbed a couple of bath towels and laid them across the bed carefully.

  "Do you know how much jizz there is on those bedcovers?" Callum asked, watching me. "I don't think a little blood is going to make it any worse."

  "First of all," I replied, "it's probably not a great idea to get jizz in an open wound, and second, that doesn't look like a small cut. I'd rather not raise suspicions by leaving blood all over the place. Now take your pants off."

  Callum raised a jokingly seductive eyebrow at me, but by then I was feeling increasingly irritated. The way you feel when someone you care about has done something really stupid - something dangerous - and is trying to play it off as no big deal.

  "Just take them off." I said, flatly. He did as he was told, gingerly unbuttoning and lowering his pants, which had to be peeled off his left leg. I watched him wince and then felt my mouth hang open at the sight of the wound itself.

  "Oh my God, Callum. That looks like a gunshot wound. Did you - did you get shot?"

  He looked up. "Yeah. Grazed, anyway." He ran his fingers down his leg, avoiding the bloodiest part. "I think it passed right through. I can't feel anything under the skin."

  I sank down onto the bed beside him, my mind reeling. He'd been shot. He'd been shot and then he'd called me to help him. I couldn't decide if I was furious or oddly flattered. Maybe both.

  "You should have a shower, you know. There's a lot of blood and crap in there. Have a hot shower and wash it, with soap."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  He disappeared into the bathroom and I lay back, covering my face with my hands. It's OK, I told myself, it's fine, he has no idea I'm a cop, this is all still part of the investigation. In fact, it might even be good for the investigation. He might be willing to spill a few more details now.

  My desperate rationalizations weren't untrue. But they also weren't the whole truth. I didn't jump in my car at three in the morning and drive to Kent for information. I did it for Callum. And what was I going to do when I had my next meeting with Akin and the team? Tell them everything. I had to. Anything else and I risked being fired. I couldn't lose my job. Without my job, I wasn't myself.

  Callum appeared a few minutes late
r, wearing nothing but a small white towel around his waist. I had to look away at once, he looked so damned sexy. Better than I'd even suspected - and believe me, I'd done a lot of suspecting.

  I focused on his leg, which was bleeding again, although not badly. The skin was very torn up.

  "That's going to need stitches, you know. And you're going to need a course of antibiotics."

  He sat beside me. "I can stitch it myself and I don't need antibiotics, I can keep it clean."

  "Oh Jesus, Callum."

  "What?"

  "What are you going to stitch it with? And how? I mean, I know you're a big tough fighter, but that's going to be really painful. Can't we just go to Accident and Emergency and give them a fake name?"

  He shook his head. "No. No way, Lily. You don't know what went down in Paris, it was completely fucked up. I mean, I think it was fucked up, but I'm pretty sure it all went how Gazza intended it to go. He just didn't feel the need to let me in on the actual plan."

  His wound bled a little more heavily whenever he tensed the muscles in his thigh. I folded up one of the unused bathroom towels and pressed it gently against the torn flesh. He winced and I caught myself wincing, too, just at the thought of how painful it must have been for him.

  "Yeah, I guess it was fucked up. I mean, what if this had hit an artery? What if it had hit your chest, or your head? Is this just normal for you, getting shot and stitching yourself back up like it was a grazed knee?"

  Callum leaned forward, head in his hands, and I watched the smooth, cleanly delineated muscles of his back and shoulders tense up. My instinct was to reach out and touch him but I knew I would just end up snatching my hand away, like a child touching a hot stove. Either that or I wouldn't be able to stop touching him.

  He turned to me, shaking his head. "No, Lily. This isn't normal. I'm not some kind of hitman or gangster or whatever it is you're thinking. Gazza didn't tell me a damned thing about what was going down. In fact, I still don't have any idea what actually happened."

  I hesitated nervously for a few seconds and ploughed on. "Well...what was supposed to happen?"

  Callum looked me right in the eye for a few seconds, as if searching for something, before he answered me.

  "It was supposed to be a deal. You know, gak, nose candy. A brick, two bricks at most. It's never been more than that, Gazza isn't some kingpin, he just sells it to customers in the Club for fuck's sake!"

  That was what I thought it was going to be, something relatively small-time.

  "So, uh, what happened? Did they rip you off?"

  "No, we ripped them off. I mean, no one told me we were ripping them off but apparently that was the plan all along. There were three of them. Ian killed two and I killed the other one."

  "Wait," I said, my voice a whisper as hot, thick dismay rose in my throat. "Callum, wait. You killed someone?"

  "Yes. He shot me first, and then I think his gun jammed or something. I didn't have a choice."

  There was a tiny measure of comfort in hearing that he hadn't just shot someone for no reason, but I was still shocked by the scope of the violence. To my supreme embarrassment, and so quickly I didn't even have time to think about suppressing it, I started to cry. My eyes just welled up out of nowhere.

  "Oh, shit, Lily," Callum said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have called you. Just - just leave me here. I can deal with everything from here. I-"

  I held up one hand for him to stop and then sat there, gulping back emotions and trying to get it together enough to speak. When I did, my voice was wobbly and squeaky and I let out a stupid little laugh.

  "No, Callum. I, uh, I don't even know why I'm doing this. I'm sleep-deprived. I never do this. I, uh, I never, I never cry. Not really. I don't know what the hell is happening right now, I-"

  Instead of waiting for me to finish rambling, Callum wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me, tightly.

  "Shhh, Lily."

  I don't know if it was the 'shhh' or his tone when he said it, but the sweetness of him in that moment was so sharp I could almost taste it. All the embarrassment of my crying dissipated instantly, surprisingly. I turned to look at him, shocked by how easily it had slipped away.

  "What? Why do you have that look on your face?" He asked me, his voice quiet with concern.

  "I, I don't know. I just suddenly felt better when you said that. When you said 'shhh'. Am I going crazy? I seriously don't cry in front of people."

  "Silly girl," Callum whispered, smiling at me. "So smart, and so silly. You felt better because I comforted you. That's what human beings do when someone is hurt or scared. Do you think you're made of stone, Lily Parker? Because you're not."

  I sniffled and wiped my nose. "I don't think I'm made of stone. Maybe I just wish I was."

  "Exactly."

  I could feel the wall going up inside my mind. I knew it was happening, but I was helpless to stop it. Callum was right. He could see my vulnerability and that was terrifying. A lot more terrifying, in some ways, than being woken up in the middle of the night by someone I cared about telling me they were in deep trouble. In the latter scenario, I had some power, some sense of control - I could do something. In the former, I was weak.

  "I have to go." I said, aware of how unnatural and awkward I sounded."I have work today and you're not going to bleed out. You need to keep it clean, though."

  Callum didn't say anything. He just looked at me like he knew exactly what I was doing.

  "Alright," he said, gently. "Thank you for coming to my rescue, Doctor Lily. I'm going to take care of this and then I'm going to call you."

  He leaned in to kiss me and I turned my head away so he got my cheek. I couldn't even look at him I was so embarrassed. I tried to force a casual tone as I left.

  "Get some sleep, too. Talk to you soon!"

  So cringe-worthy. "Talk to you soon!" Like he was a colleague and we'd been having a polite discussion about our schedule. Ugh. I banged my head gently against the steering wheel when I was back in the car. It was only an hour later, tiredly wending my way through the endless suburbs of London, that I realized I'd just completely negated the opportunity to question him further with regards to what had happened in Paris.

  The spiral of self-blame was only avoided by my own tiredness. I walked in my front door and fell straight into bed, utterly exhausted.

  Chapter 11: Callum

  My mum was, thankfully, on her way to work when I got to her flat. She was rushing around in her blue and white pharmacy-assistant's uniform looking for last minute keys, lunch money, her phone, etc. She didn't have time to take a good look at me, although she was surprised I was showing my face so early in the day.

  "Callum! Why are you here? Is something wrong?"

  "No, mum," I lied, "I'm just looking for an old jacket I think I left here."

  "Oh? Well, OK. Most of your things are still in your room, although it's possible Jake has some of them. You should call him."

  "Sure, yeah, I'll call him if I can't find it."

  She came over to me and kissed me on the forehead before leaving, then pulled back and took a slightly harder look at me.

  "Are you sure you're alright? You look - you look tired. Is something going on?"

  "No, mum. Nothing's going on. You're going to be late."

  "I know, I know. There's Jaffa Cakes in the cupboard if you're hungry. Love you."

  "Love you too."

  Thank God she was late for work. No one can give interrogations like my mother and even though I'd cleaned up and changed clothes, it only would have taken her a few more minutes to figure out something was, in fact, quite wrong. As soon as I heard the door close and lock behind her, I went straight to the cupboard. For the gin, not the Jaffa Cakes. Mum always kept a bottle of gin on hand, in case anyone dropped by.

  Standing in the kitchen, resting most of my weight on my good leg, I unscrewed the cap and took a big gulp, nearly retching at the foulness. How anyone - let alone little old ladies -
could drink gin was beyond me entirely. As soon as the alcohol started to work its way into my system I found my mum's sewing kit and took off my trousers. Lily had been right, I definitely needed stitches. The wound kept re-opening every time I moved too quickly or stood up.

  Thinking about Lily made me smile. She'd been so sweetly startled by her own vulnerability. It had taken everything in me not to pull her into my arms when she'd cried, but I knew I had to be careful with her. There was something so fragile there, something inside herself that she felt needed to be hidden and protected. She was wrong, of course, but even I could sense she was likely to bolt if I pushed too hard.

  But she'd come to me in the middle of the night when I needed her, and her concern - her genuine worry for me - had been like a balm to my soul. If she needed me to wait, I would wait. If she needed me to prove myself, I would prove myself.

  My brother Jake arrived about twenty minutes later and found me in the kitchen, trousers around my ankles, gritting my teeth and halfway through the job.

  "Callum? What are you-" he spotted the injury on my leg. "What's that? What are you doing?"

  "What does it look like I'm doing, genius? Baking a cake?"

  Jake and I had a good, if somewhat distant relationship. He stayed in school, unlike me, and was busy with A-Levels and A-Level girls and the university applications me and mum thought were mostly pointless.

  "What happened? That looks - that looks pretty bad, Callum. I can give you a lift to A and E if you like?"

  "Fuck A and E, man. I'm almost finished. Can you hand me the bottle?"

  Silently, he handed me the bottle and I took another swig.

  "Jesus Christ, why does mum keep this?" I asked, grimacing.

  "She likes to have something to offer when people drop by."

  "It was a rhetorical question, Jake."

  My brother knew what I did. He knew I was a fighter and he knew I did other kinds of work for Gazza. Everyone in the neighborhood knew. It wasn't a big deal.

  "What the hell happened?"