“I could have walked,” he grumbled irritably as she pushed him down the hall towards the elevators.

“Yes, I’m sure that you could have,” she said dryly.

“Sarcasm?” he growled out, earning two points, because really that voice of his was really delicious and if she didn’t need to be somewhere, soon, she’d probably push him down to the gift shop and buy a romance novel. She’d sucker him into reading all the really naughty scenes to her, but alas she didn’t have that kind of time.

“Me? Sarcastic? Never,” she said distractedly as she studied the hospital directory.

“What are ye looking for?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

“The lockdown unit,” she murmured, wondering if it was labeled under a codename because she couldn’t for the life of her find it listed on the hospital directory.

“I’m not insane,” he bit out.

“Uh huh.”

“I’m not!”

“No, no of course you’re not. It’s perfectly normal to stroll around the emergency room buck na**d and thinking that you’re invisible.”

“I am not insane!” he snapped, moving to climb out of the wheelchair, but one well placed shove from her had him sitting back down like a good boy, a good boy who grumbled and bitched, but that was fine with her as long as he behaved himself.

“Uh huh, doesn’t matter anyways, because it looks like it’s the emergency room for you,” she said, moving to turn the wheelchair around and take him back to the ER.

“I’m not hurt, lass,” he said, moving to get up and this time when she tried to keep him in the chair, he shrugged off her touch and climbed out of the chair, a bit stiffly, but this time he managed to stand on his own two feet.

She shrugged as she pushed the wheelchair away and pressed the up button for the elevator. “Then you’re on your own, cupcake. I have someone that I need to talk to.”

“I don’t need help,” he grated out as he looked around and when he saw a cart filled with folded blue scrubs, he dropped the sheet, giving her a beautiful memory.

It really was a shame that he was insane, she thought with a sigh as she watched him pull on a pair of scrub bottoms that were a little too short and a bit snug around one of the best asses that she’d ever seen. Glaring at her like this was somehow her fault, he grabbed a white tee shirt and pulled it on. The shirt was tight, encasing perfectly sculptured muscles and making a girl wish that she could forget that he was insane.

That problem was solved when he grabbed some poor guy who’d made the mistake of walking by at that moment by his shirt and raised him off the ground. “Give me yer shoes, lad.”

“All righty then,” she said, turning her attention to the elevator doors sliding open and pointedly ignoring the insane man as he committed robbery and made some poor guy piss his pants. “You have a nice life now and don’t forget to be a good boy and take your Prozac.”

She stepped onto the elevator, pressed the button for the fifth floor and admittedly hadn’t expected the large mental patient to follow her. Then again, with her luck she really should have, she mentally berated herself as she calmly reached into her bag and palmed her gun. Then she thought better of it and reached for her stun gun.

‘This can’t be happening,” he murmured in that sexy brogue of his as he raised his hands in front of his face and moved them, wiggling his fingers as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

“Just keep telling yourself that,” she said, keeping an eye on him even as she watched the lights climb up to the fifth floor.

“Ye do realize that I’d take ye down before ye even had a chance to pull that out of yer purse, don’t ye, lass?” he asked conversationally as he dropped his arms, admittedly shocking her and grudgingly impressing her at the same time.

“Get tasered a lot, do you?”

He took her off guard when he chuckled. It was deep, and sexy as hell.

Mental. Patient, she reminded herself before she did something stupid like drool over him.

The well-timed ding of the elevator was truly appreciated as it gave her the excuse that she needed to get away from this man and get her mind back on her work. When the elevator doors opened, she sighed heavily. Looked like she’d found the psych ward after all.

“Hold her down!” a nurse ordered just as her large insane friend stormed past her.

“Get yer f**king hands off her!” he roared, noticeably startling the orderlies charged with holding the pretty brunette down while a nurse struggled to shove a very large needle in the woman’s arm.

The two large EMTs and the police officer with pepper hair helping to hold down the woman looked up as the raging insane man headed for them. It was more than obvious that her insane friend’s presence wasn’t a welcome sight and as she followed behind him, once again holding her stun gun, she contemplated the benefits of taking him down for them.

“Mind your business!” the officer snapped, securing his hold around the struggling, screaming woman, that honestly was hard to listen to without feeling her heart break. The woman’s pain was almost palpable and she would have given anything at that moment to turn around and walk out of here, but the man she’d been trying to talk to for the past week was here and this couldn’t wait a minute longer.

“Get yer f**king hands off her!” he snapped, grabbing the two orderlies holding the woman’s legs down by the backs of their necks and tossing them away from the woman like they didn’t weigh anything. That alone had her pulling her stun gun out of her pocketbook and setting the voltage to high, because really, there was just no way that the two EMTs, cop and nurse were going to be able to overpower this man.

Without a word, he reached down and plucked the needle out of the nurse’s hand and tossed it aside, his gaze locked on the sobbing woman. When the younger EMT moved to grab him, her insane friend simply shoved him away, knocking him clear across the room.

“Denny?” an older woman that she hadn’t noticed until then said, sounding calm which was probably a good thing right now since the last thing that this situation needed was a hysterical woman.

“Macha?” her insane buddy said soothingly only to frown a few seconds later when the woman didn’t respond. Then with a sigh and a self-deprecating shake of his head, he said, “Marty? Lass? It’s fine. He’s alright.”

The older EMT released his hold on the woman and looked like he was going to take his chances wrestling with the psych patient when the sobbing woman suddenly opened her eyes.

“A-are you sure?” she asked, looking up at the psych patient with such hope that Ashlyn seriously considered tasering the bastard on principle alone for screwing with this poor woman’s head.

He smiled fondly down at the woman. “Aye, he’s fine, still an ass**le, but he’s fine.”

The woman’s expression crumpled as her expression turned from heartbroken to relieved. She reached for the psych patient and wrapped her arms around his neck. He simply held onto her as she sobbed quietly against his shoulder and Ashlyn took that as her cue to move on. This wasn’t her drama so she really didn’t need to be here, she decided as she moved to take a step forward, but realized that there was no one manning the nurse’s station. So with a shrug, she faced the very confused looking group of people. She decided to ignore the ones that were unconscious, because they probably wouldn’t be much help and focused on the ones watching her insane friend.