St. Nacho's 4: The Book of Daniel Read Online Free

worried about me, maybe, and a little depressed that he couldn’t make things better. I’d seen that look on his face before.
    “You make it a lot easier to take, Jordan.”
    He nodded again, but put his hand on my shoulder. “I wish I could make it go away.”
    Would there have been any sense in my saying Me too ? I didn’t think so. I just left to make my way across the gym, which as usual was chock-full of healthy athletes, first-rate bodies working like finely tuned machines, gripping, lifting, squeezing, and pumping iron with perfect hands and arms while I…
    It didn’t bear thinking about, so I put my head down and started walking. I held my new yellow torture device in my good hand, manipulating it with ridiculous ease while my injured arm rested in its special sling, when someone getting up from a weight bench tripped over his towel and hurtled into me on the right side, a mass of muscle and bone that smashed and flailed against my just-iced hand and caused such pain to explode inside my skin that fireworks of color burst behind my eyelids.
    “ Fuck .” I doubled over to protect my hand even as my knees buckled from the pain. “Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck .”
    “ Watch it !” a voice behind me barked. Warm hands drew me away from the collision and into another solid mass of muscle, this one tall, hot, and damp—I guessed from working out—but oh, so gentle and fuck, almighty, I turned into whoever’s touch that was and nearly passed out, savoring the warm embrace and the smell of a clean man’s honest sweat.
    “Are you all right?”
    I couldn’t open my eyes and still squeeze back tears, so I nodded.
    The man who tripped into me said, “It was an accident, man. I’m so sorry.”
    I nodded again. “’S’okay. Shit happens.”
    Jordan had apparently seen the collision, because soon he was standing right at my elbow. I recognized his distinctive, fresh cologne, and he and whoever had caught me were leading me back to the therapy room where I could sit down. A big hand stayed where it had landed on my shoulder, soothing me while I learned to breathe again.
    “I’ll get more ice.” Jordan hurried to the door. “I won’t be long.”
    That left me with my Good Samaritan, so I opened my eyes, prepared to thank him and tell him I would be fine.
    It was Cameron Rooney, and I had no words.
    “Don’t worry. I’ve got you, Daniel.”
    I hadn’t recognized his voice because it was different, as unlike the voice of the firefighter who’d cut me out of my car as it was unlike the man who’d verbally sparred with me the night before at Nacho’s. Maybe that was the first time I realized that Cam Rooney had lots of different voices. That he suited what he said and did to the moment more perfectly than anyone I’d ever known. In a way, he was the ultimate chameleon. Later, when I thought about it, I realized that when we were alone, he called me Daniel.
    “Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome.” He got up and moved to the wall on the other side of the room and struck a cowboy pose, hunched over with arms crossed, his leg bent at the knee and his foot braced against the wall. He was so beautiful I just stared at him.
    A long silence stretched out between us, and I figured that was because we usually took potshots at one another and he didn’t want to fire at me when I was already down.
    He surprised me again by saying, “I don’t get you.”
    I glanced up at his face. “What’s to get?”
    He shook his sweaty blond head, which had for some reason at one point resembled a buffalo head to me, and I never got tired of telling him that. “I figure we can agree that sometimes I see people at the worst moments of their lives. People are hardwired for survival, and a firefighter gets a front-row seat to the best and worst, you know?”
    “I never thought about it that way.”
    “I’ve seen nice people run from burning buildings and leave their kids and pets behind. I’ve seen men and women die trying to