Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(140)

Manny got back to his condo around six p.m. All told he had spent eight hours at the hospital getting poked and prodded by various people he knew better than members of his extended family.

The results were in his e-mail in-box—because he’d forwarded copies of everything from his hospital account to his personal one. Not that there was any reason to open all those attachments. He knew the notes by heart. The results by heart. The X-rays and CAT scans by heart.

Tossing his keys down on the counter in the kitchen, he cracked the Sub-Zero and wished there were fresh orange juice in there. Instead . . . soy sauce packets from the Chinese takeout down the street . . . a bottle of ketchup . . . and a round tin of some kind of leftovers from a business dinner he’d had two weeks ago.

Whatever. He wasn’t all that hungry.

Restless and twitchy, he measured the light in the sky: Still some lingering to the west.

He wasn’t going to have to wait long, though.

Payne was going to come back to him after the sun had set. He could feel it in his bones. He was still not sure why she’d spent the night with him or why his memories remained, but he had to wonder if she was finally going to fix that when she got here.

Heading down to the bedroom, his first move was to snag the pillows from the floor and put them back where they belonged. Then he smoothed out the duvet . . . and was ready to get packing. Over at his bureau, he started taking out clothes and stacking them on the neatened bed.

Nothing to go back to at St. Francis. He’d resigned in the midst of all the tests.

No reason to stay in Caldwell—if anything, it was probably better that he get out of town.

No clue where he was headed, but you didn’t need a destination to leave somewhere.

Socks. Boxers. Polo shirts. Jeans. Khakis.

One advantage to having a wardrobe that consisted mainly of scrubs provided by a hospital was that he didn’t have a lot to pack. And God knew he had enough gym bags.

In the bottommost drawer of the bureau, he took out the only two sweaters he owned—

The picture frame underneath them was facing down, the little cardboard kickstand lying nice and flat against the back.

Manny reached out and picked the thing up. He didn’t have to turn it over to see who it was. He’d memorized the man’s face years and years ago.

And yet it was still a shock to pivot the picture in his hands and look at his father’s image.

Handsome SOB. Very, very handsome. Dark hair—just like Manny’s. Deep-set eyes—just like Manny’s.

Annnd that was as far as he was going to go with the retrospective. As always, when it came to shit about his dad, he just pushed it all into a mental corner and got on with his life.

Which tonight meant that the frame went into the nearest duffel and that was that—

The knock on the glass came too soon to be her, he thought.

Except then he glanced at the clock and realized that this packing routine had lasted a good hour.

Looking over his shoulder, his heart went triple-time as he saw Payne standing on the far side of the glass. God . . . damn . . . she knocked him out. She’d braided her hair and she was in a long white robe that was tied at the waist and she was . . . breathtaking.

Going over to the slider, he opened the door, and the cold blast of the night hit him in the face, snapping him into focus.

Smiling broadly, Payne didn’t so much come in as leap into his arms, her body so very solid against his own, her arms so very strong around his neck.

He gave himself a split second of holding her . . . for the last time. And then, as much as it killed him, he set her down and used the excuse of closing the gusting wind out to move away even farther.

When he glanced back at her, the joy that had been in her face was gone and she was wrapping her arms around herself.

“I figured you would come back,” he said hoarsely.

“I . . . I had good news.” Payne glanced at the lineup of gym bags on the bed. “Whatever are you doing?”

“I have to leave here.”

As her eyes shut briefly, it nearly destroyed him not to go over and comfort her. But this was hard enough already. Touching her again was going to break him in half.

“I went to the doctor today,” he said. “I spent all afternoon at the hospital.”

She blanched. “Are you ill?”

“Not exactly.” He paced around and ended up at the bureau, where he pushed the empty bottom drawer back into place. “Far from it, actually . . . It appears that my body has regenerated parts of itself.” His hand went down to his lower body. “For years, I’ve had an arthritic hip from too much sports—I’ve always known that eventually it was going to need replacing. As of the X-rays taken today? It’s in perfect condition. No arthritis to be found, no inflammation. Good as it was when I was eighteen.”

As her mouth fell open, he figured he might as well hit her with all of it. Pulling up his shirtsleeve, he ran his hand over his forearm. “I’ve had freckles from sun damage for the last two decades—they’re gone now.” He bent over and lifted his pant leg. “The shin splints I have from time to time? Disappeared. And this is in spite of the fact that I ran eight miles this morning without even thinking about it—in under forty-five minutes. My blood work came back with no cholesterol problems, perfect liver values, spot-on iron and platelets.” He tapped his temples. “And I’ve been on the edge of reading glasses, doing the arm stretch with menus and magazines—except I don’t need to anymore. I can read fine print two inches from my nose. And believe it or not, all this is just the beginning.”