From the concern she'd shown over her pet, Nicholas had expected Jo would stay with the mutt. It would have been convenient. He had hoped to call the enforcer house and tell them to have Bricker and Anders pick her up here, and then watch the building from a safe distance to be sure Ernie didn't get to her first. Unfortunately, Jo was a smart cookie. She chased after him, catching him by the elbow at the exit.
"You're dumping us here," Jo said accusingly.
Nicholas avoided her gaze and lied, "No. Of course not. I told you, I need to make a phone call."
Her eyes narrowed, but she held out her hand. "Then give me the van keys."
"What?" he asked with amazement.
"If you're just making a call, you don't need the keys," Jo said with inarguable logic. "So give me the keys and go make your call or I start yelling rape and tell everyone here that you are the one who hurt Charlie, and while you're trying to fight off this animal-loving mob, I run out and slash your tires and neither of us goes anywhere."
"Jesus, woman," Nicholas muttered with amazement.
"I'll do it," she warned.
Nicholas opened his mouth, closed it, and then sighed and said, "Jo, I'm just calling Bricker and Anders to have them come get you. I wouldn't take off until I knew you were safe. You're better off with them. At the house Mortimer and the others can keep you safe."
"Oh yeah, because they've done such a bang-up job already, at the house last night and then just now at my apartment," she said dryly.
"That was…" Nicholas paused when she arched one eyebrow. Actually they hadn't done such a hot job of keeping her safe so far, he acknowledged. Still…
"I want answers, Argeneau," she said grimly. "I'm worried sick about what my sister has got herself into. My dog has been hurt, and some crazy guy is after me, and I want to know what the hell is going on."
"Mortimer—" he began.
"Mortimer and those guys won't give me answers," Jo snapped impatiently. "From everything you've said they're more likely to wipe my memories instead, and then—what? Keep me an unwilling 'guest' at the house until this—whatever this is—all blows over?"
Nicholas grimaced guiltily; that was exactly what they would do. Sighing, he ran one hand through his hair agitatedly, and then asked, "What makes you think you'd get any answers from me?"
"Because I'm going to pester the hell out of you until I get them," she said bluntly. "Now, do I get the keys or should I start screaming my head off?"
Nicholas stared at her silently, a reluctant smile curving his lips. It was inconvenient as hell that he couldn't read or control her… but it certainly made life interesting, he decided. Pulling his keys from his pocket, he handed them over. "There. Now get back to Charlie."
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What are you going to do?"
"I told you, I have a phone call to make," he said solemnly. "If you're done before I come back in, I'll be in the parking lot."
Jo hesitated, obviously suspecting a trick, but then she apparently decided to trust him and turned to walk back into the examination room.
Nicholas watched her go with admiration. He didn't doubt for a minute that she would have started screaming if he'd tried to leave, but that wasn't why he'd given her his keys. He had done so because Josephine Willan was one interesting woman: plucky, caring, strong, determined, and sexy as hell. He didn't want to leave her there and couldn't resist the temptation of keeping her with him for at least a little longer.
It might just have been the stupidest decision he'd ever made in his life, of course. But then Nicholas had made a lot of those in his five hundred and sixty years, and if he'd learned anything in that time it was that regret was a waste of time… and he'd wasted fifty years on that emotion already.
The examination door closed, cutting off his view of Jo. Nicholas sighed and started to exit the building, but paused when one of the other examination room doors opened. An older gentleman appeared, his face not dissimilar to that of the bulldog he was leading on a leash. As the man led the dog to the counter, Nicholas quickly slid into the fellow's thoughts. After finding out the man had a cell phone and where he was headed on leaving there, Nicholas went outside to wait for him. He'd use the fellow's phone to call the enforcer house and find out if Ernie was caught without risking the call being traced or the phone being tracked to him.
Jo stepped out of the clinic and paused to quickly scan the parking lot. The van was still there of course, she had the keys. But she'd still worried that Nicholas would either hot-wire the van, had another set of keys, or would leave on foot. That wasn't the case, however, the van was there, and so was Nicholas, just visible inside the van. The moment she spotted him, however, he was opening the door and slipping out to hurry toward them.