uncomfortable sense that he had been sucked into something entirely outside his realm of experience.
And since he considered himself something of a Renaissance man, the sensation was discomfiting indeed.
After the doctor left, the frozen mask of composure on Ginny’s face slipped, just a bit, revealing her raw anxiety. “You don’t have to come with me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
The look of grateful relief on her face elicited another throbbing ache in the center of his breastbone. “He can be hard to deal with at the best of times.”
“He’s your younger brother?”
She shook her head, her voice bleak. “Older. But he’s my responsibility anyway.”
“Why?”
She shot him a frowning look, as if confused by the question. “Because he’s family.”
Of course, Anson thought. Family.
He should have known.
Except he’d never really had one.
* * *
DANNY LOOKED SO PALE. So small, somehow, even though he was a big guy, a little on the lean side due to drinking too much and eating too little, but at twenty-eight, the liquor hadn’t really started taking a toll on his health yet.
But it was coming. Ginny had seen it in the doctor’s eyes when he told her about Danny’s condition.
He was sleeping peacefully enough, so she didn’t try to wake him. They could talk when he was in his own room and sober enough to hear what she had to say.
She stepped away from the gurney where Danny lay and turned to look at Anson Daughtry. He looked entirely too large for the small metal chair onto which he’d folded his lanky frame, all arms and legs and broad shoulders. He looked up at her with such a soft expression that she felt the absurd urge to throw her arms around his waist and cry against his chest.
He’d wrap those long arms around her and say nice, comforting things to her, and maybe, just maybe, the world wouldn’t seem such a damn scary place all the time.
She forced herself to look away. There was nobody who could make her life better but herself. She’d figure it out, somehow.
“His vitals look good.” Anson nodded at the monitor next to the gurney. The smile that followed his words looked a little forced, as if he was trying a bit too hard to be a friend to her.
She shouldn’t have dragged the poor man back here with her. He didn’t really know her or Danny from Adam’s house cat. “You don’t have to stay with me, Mr. Daughtry.”
“Anson’s fine.”
“Danny’s going to be okay. I’m fine. We’ve already ruined your Friday night—”
“Ruined it?” His smile looked much more genuine this time. “I got a shiner, a busted nose and a story to tell out of it. Best Friday night ever.”
She smiled. “That is so sad.”
“Isn’t it?” He patted the empty chair beside him. “Have a seat. I can tell you a few more sad stories that’ll make your life seem like daisies and butterflies in comparison.”
She sat beside him, suddenly aware of just how big a man he really was. He was lanky, yes, but not skinny. His shoulders were deliciously broad, with muscle definition even his oversize T-shirt couldn’t hide. And he had a good face. A kind face, one lightly lined with creases that told her he liked to smile a lot.
She felt an entirely unexpected tug of attraction low in her belly.
“No more sad stories.” She made herself look away from the melted-chocolate softness of his eyes.
“I don’t know many happy ones.” Though his tone remained light, she heard a melancholy note in his Tennessee drawl that caught her by surprise. For a man who so clearly liked to smile and joke, he had a streak of sadness in him. It made her heart ache.
“That’s a little cynical.”
“That’s me.” He smiled broadly, carving his smile lines deeper, and she saw what the lines had hidden—some of his smiles were all for show.
He wasn’t joking, she realized. He didn’t know many happy stories.
She suddenly felt deeply sorry for him, sorry enough that her own considerable woes seemed lighter in comparison.
A couple of minutes later, Anson broke the tense silence that had fallen between them. “You really don’t know why those men were menacing you and your brother?”
He almost sounded suspicious, she realized, though when she met his gaze, there was only kind interest there.
What might he be hiding from her behind that gentle expression?
“I have no idea, but—” She glanced at the gurney where Danny was sleeping off the booze and the injury. What she’d been on the verge of saying felt like disloyalty.
“How much do you know about what your brother does when you’re not around?” Anson asked softly.
Not much, she conceded silently, taking in her brother’s whipcord-lean appearance. Danny had lost a lot of weight recently. From the drinking alone? Or had he picked up other bad habits that were so easy to come by in these parts? Meth, weed, coke, smack—she knew all the recreational drugs were as readily available as home brew in the mountains. “I’m at work during the day. He goes out sometimes at night.”
“Does he work?”
She shook her head. “He’s a machinist. Hurt his hand about a year ago, and the doctors aren’t sure how soon he’ll be able to do his job again. He’s drawing disability now until he’s cleared to work again.”
“So he has a lot of time on his hands, then.”
She looked down at the tile floor of the emergency room bay, hating to hear her own worried thoughts voiced by a stranger. “He’s not a bad person. When he’s sober, he’s so much help to me.”
“How often is he sober?”
She shot him a warning look.
He pressed his mouth into a thin line and looked away.
“Maybe you should go,” she said, hating the tight tone of her voice, the implied ingratitude. Anson Daughtry had saved her life tonight. He’d probably saved her brother’s life as well, distracting those men and sending her for help so quickly. If they’d had a few more minutes to finish the job on her brother—
“I’m sorry,” Anson murmured, his baritone voice sounding like a rumble of thunder in the quiet room. “It was not my place to pry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” She turned to look at him. “I’m stressed out and I’m worried about Danny. I sounded so ungrateful, and I’m not, I promise you. I know what you did for Danny and me tonight.” She took in his battered face, the drying blood staining his T-shirt, and her stomach knotted with sympathy. “I can see how much danger you put yourself in to help us. I just—”
“You don’t have to explain.” He smiled, but she didn’t miss the wince in his eyes. “I’ll go.”
She closed her hand over his arm as he started to rise. “No. Please stay.”
He settled back in the chair beside her, his gaze meeting hers. “Addiction is awful. It just is. And addicts can be the nicest people in the world when they’re clean and sober. Hell, they can be a barrel of laughs even when they’re high as a kite. But they’re trouble to the people who love them, no matter how hard they try not to be.”
The voice of experience, she thought, her gaze shifting involuntarily toward her sleeping brother. “He’s a drunk. That’s the addiction