Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1) by Tisha Wilson Page B

his head and looked at his Uncle.
    Victor turned blazing brown eyes on him. “I want to haul her ass in because every time you’re around her you end up back here in the hospital! I want to arrest her because she acts like she doesn’t give a damn that people around her keep ending up in the hospital. I want to arrest her because if she told you she doesn’t know who hit you then she is lying her ass off. I want to arrest her because I don’t know why you trust her and she is only going to get you hurt some more, but you are too smitten to see it!”
    “I am not smitten,” Jerry objected quietly.
    “Oh yeah? Then why is it you were so ready to hold her ass to the fire when you woke up from your accident, but now that you’ve met her and all her long legs you’re so willing to forgive her?”
    Jerry didn’t realize just how intimidating his uncle could be. He’d never been on this side of a grilling and his uncle was like a looming mountain towering over him.
    “Because she didn’t have to save my ass but she did and she didn’t have to save Russ’s ass. Hell I don’t know if Jesus Christ himself would save Russ’s ass, but she did. She’s a decent person. She’s selfless. So what if she’s made a few errors in speeding, who hasn’t? Sometimes people need to be cut some slack, it’s not her fault if unlucky things happen to her sometimes. I imagine she feels pretty stinkin’ bad about the things that happen to the people around her. Put yourself in her shoes and just get off her back will you!”
    Jerry shocked him self with the ferocity of his defense of her. His Uncle just shook his head and stood back. “Jerry. I don’t even know you any more. You’re a cop. There are grey areas but you’ve crossed too far into that arena with her. You need to pull back and see things in black and white for a little while. You need to stop assuming she’s the victim. She knows something that she’s not sharing with us and you are too blinded by a nice rack and long legs to see it. Women make you plumb stupid!”
    Before he could say anything else in Al’s defense his uncle scooped up his hat and started for the door. “I am going to get some air, check on the station. When I get back I expect you to be thinking a little more clearly. I didn’t give you this second chance to get your life together just to let you have another woman ruin it. Think about that.”
    Jerry picked up the ice bucket and tossed it as the door closed behind his uncle. A second later Sarah Watkins walked into the room. She had been a nurse in this hospital for as long as he could remember. She also attended the church that his father and mother had forced him to attend when he was a young boy. Was he ever glad his mother was away on a cruise right now. She would be a pile of nerves to see him in this hospital bed.
    “Are you supposed to let him harass me like that? Couldn’t you have come in and said something like ‘He needs his rest. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’?”
    The older woman smiled and shook her head as she stepped over the scattered ice on the floor. “You watch too much T.V. I don’t usually interrupt a patient’s visit and I don’t tell the Sheriff that he needs to leave so my patient can rest.”
    “He’s a Chief, not a Sheriff.”
    “In this one horse town he’s the Sheriff and the Chief and that is all the more reason for me not to interfere with his family issues.”
    She walked over to check his bandages. His ribs were wrapped so tight it felt like he could hardly breathe. “When can I take this off?”
    “Only to shower and then you have to put it right back on for it to heal right.”
    “Where’s Doctor Lana. I want to get out of here before she comes back. I don’t need another lecture about how I-”
    “Need to be more careful. Apparently I need to be telling you not to climb into trees, walk on your two feet, or enter rooms where bears are feasting on the mini bar,” Doctor Lana