Captain Jack (Book Three - ManxMan ManxManxWoman)

Chapter Ten

"This is a sad and sorry affair," Daniel Hennessy had arrived at the hospital not that long after Melissa had snuck them into the room.

Neither of them asked how but he'd been escorted right into Jack's room by the Hospital's Chief Executive who seemed surprised and agitated that they were in Jack's room.

At least, up until the point when Daniel Hennessy said to him, "My friends Blake and Melissa Wright. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that they are the absolute authorities on who comes or goes from this room."

Blake looked at him in astonishment. Especially when the Chief Executive said, "Of course Mr. Hennessy."

"Thank you Roger," Daniel said and it sounded like a dismissal, which is what it must have been as the officious looking man departed silently.

He didn't even look annoyed about being dismissed.

"You couldn't have been a day sooner?" Melissa demanded of him from her place by Jack's bed.

Daniel held his hands up in complete surrender.

"I moved as quickly as I could," he told her in his deep confident voice. "Roger needed a bit more persuading than most - arrogant doctors, being arrogant doctors."

She flushed at his jab but Blake stayed out of it. Their dynamic was making very slow progress but Blake knew that Daniel was more capable of wearing his wife down than Melissa would ever admit.

Good thing too because Blake wanted him, but while Melissa hated him, he wouldn't go there.

"It took you this long to bribe a doctor?" Melissa demanded bluntly enough that Blake gulped.

The way Daniel looked back at her should have seemed comical we're Jack not lying between them all unconscious.

"As a matter of fact, my focus was on keeping the hospital from calling his parents," Daniel added coolly. "We're running out of time, so I expedited the only alternative."

Blake raised an eyebrow at him.

"His brother should be here in a few short days," he continued, his eyes remaining upon Melissa. Perhaps because she had been the one to challenge him. "He was in a combat zone. I'm led to understand it was very tricky extracting him, or will be... they wouldn't tell me much more than that."

Blake was surprised again. "That's more than I got."

"Being me has its advantages," Daniel Hennessy said pompously, which Blake knew was all for Melissa's benefit.

"I need air," she said and stomped from the room. Blake it was best not to point out to her that she could only do so because she could now get back in; all because of Daniel.

The surprisingly well dressed man placed a tentative hand on Blake's shoulder. "I am so sorry that this has happened."

"How did it happen? Who would do this to him?" Blake narrowed his test pulling taut as his arms grew rigid, his knuckles were white as his fists clenched. "Josh told me he'd stuck a deal with you," he began and Daniel quirked should eyebrow curiously. "He said you'd protect him and Jack from..."

How could he put it into words?

"This," he added lamely, gesturing at Jacks still form.

A moment when by when they're was not sound but the brown of medical equipment and the soft regular beat of Jack's pulse monitor.

"He did," Daniel admitted. "I'm surprised he told you that."

Blake shrugged. "I was supposed to take care of Jack, the two of them were out in public together..."