My Brother's Keeper
Chapter Two
Kimbra Davies caught the look of panic that flooded the stranger's eyes. She could well understand why. Steven could be very scary when he went into full-fledged serve and over-protect mode. Who was she kidding? Steven was hardwired into over-protective mode.
She squinted up at him, trying to gauge how bad this was going to be. But then the words that came out of his mouth surprised her.
"Springfield. . . " He pointed a finger at the young man who was staring at him somewhat warily. Wariness turned to almost comical confusion.
"Springfield," Steven insisted. He tapped a fist against his forehead as if he were trying to recall something. Kimbra began to wonder if he weren't right after all to insist that she come down to the hospital and get some x-rays done.
"Jennifer? Judy. . . ?" Steven then began to spout off women's names that began with 'J'. Just when Kimbra was beginning to wonder if the knock she'd gotten hadn't caused more damage than she'd imagined, the other man began to catch on.
"Jasmine?" He tried. "You know Jasmine?"
Steven snapped his fingers in satisfaction. "That's it. Jasmine. About five, six years ago maybe? She helped with a case. There was a guy with her who looked an awful lot like you. I never forget a face. You two could be brothers."
A smile that was at least 75% relief spread across the young man's features. Kimbra wasn't too out of it to notice that he had great dimples, and that when he smiled, it made a person want to smile in return. And then a white coated woman appeared, saying that she'd come to check on Steven, to see if he needed any help.
Remembering that a friend of Steven's was doing them a favor by going around the usual ER protocol, Kimbra moved to get up, and hissed in pain. The too-fast motion jarred the nerve endings in the left side of her head from a dull throb to full pounding alertness. Both men were immediately at her side, hovering and suffocating her with concern.
"Give me a minute," she muttered and raised both hands, attempting to ward them off. "I'm okay." Sorta. Her eyes were closed as even the light hurt, and she mumbled her words in an effort to move her face as little as possible. But she didn't need the macho men to help her to her feet. She simply needed to take it more slowly.
She felt one set of hands move away as one of the men backed off. The stranger, she suspected. Steven would be stubborn. When after several moments of deep breathing she was ready to open her eyes, she shot him the best glare she could manage. He, too, then backed off a pace. If her head didn't hurt so much she might have felt guilty at his look of concern.
"Are we ready?" the voice of the white-coated woman asked, not unkindly. Kim had practically forgotten that she was there. She still remained nearer the door.
"Yeah, I'm ready." She moved more slowly to her feet and gingerly pushed thick, just-above-the-shoulder hair away from the side of her face. Realizing that she must have dropped the make-shift ice pack when she'd fallen asleep, she had no intention of bending down to retrieve it. Ignoring both men, she followed the woman out of the room.
Both Jerry and the cop stood and watched as the women disappeared from the room.
"Secretly they love us this way," Jerry ventured into the silence.
The other man laughed. "You think?"
Jerry grinned and extended a hand. "As I mentioned before, I'm Jerry. Joshua is my brother. Jasmine's my sister-n-law."
"Steve." He shook Jerry's hand and settled into the chair that the young woman had just vacated. Jerry hesitated for only a moment before settling across from him.
Silence descended as Jerry tried to determine how to get information on the young woman without offending Steve in case she were his girlfriend. He latched onto the phone that she'd left on a nearby chair.
"I really would like to pay to replace her phone," Jerry said. "I know what a hassle they can be to get serviced."
Steve smiled knowingly. "You'll have to discuss that with her."
Jerry nodded. "Yeah. That's probably best." Silence descended again as he pretended not to notice that Steve was studying him. He discovered that he was drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair and made an attempt to restrain himself.
"Um," he cleared his throat. "How was she hurt?"
"You'll have to discuss that with her, too." Steve's smile grew ever so slightly.
"Yeah. Okay." He nodded. If Jerry felt that he knew the man better, he would have sworn that he was being toyed with and that the man was enjoying it. "What's her name? Maybe I could look her up and ask her -- about the phone, that is."
Steve was no longer smiling, but was looking very serious indeed. "What? Do you expect me to just give you her phone number?"
Jerry's eyes widened. Had he gone too far? "Er, no. I could give you mine and you could give it to her and if she wanted to call me she could." Even though he'd meant the words as a statement they'd come out sounding more like a question.
"Do you normally come to the hospital to pick up women?" Steve demanded.
Jerry felt himself redden. He was behaving like an idiot, he realized. Here he was grilling a man he'd never met for information on a woman whose name he didn't even know. Was he really that desperate?
"Listen, I apologize. I don't know what came over me." He rose to his feet. "I'll mention that I met you to Jasmine and Joshua." He was nearly to the door when Steve spoke.
"So you're just going to give up on her that easily?"
Jerry spun. "Come on man, put me out of my misery."
Steven smiled again, a real one this time. "Give me your information and get out of here. I won't have her hounded tonight. If she's interested, she'll call you. If she's not, she won't."
"Fair enough. But I won't lie and tell you that I'm only interested in replacing her phone."
"You'd better," Steve replied, his expression never changing.
"Tell me you meant that in a good cop kind of way."
"No, I meant that in an older brother kind of way."
"Oh God, that's worse."
Steve laughed out loud. "Best of luck, pal."