CHAPTER 5
“Do you think you might need anything else before I leave for the evening? How about more ice water?”
Annoyance threaded through Lisa Connor’s voice like a muddy irrigation canal making its torpid way through a field of alfalfa, and tension stiffened her shoulders and that stubborn little jaw.
He hated to admit it but he was sorry to see the soft compassion in those pretty blue eyes give way to cool, distant politeness behind her glasses.
He should have known she would take his comments personally. She probably thought he had something against her kids. They weren’t really the problem. The little squirts seemed to be fine, although the older one certainly had a motormouth on her.
The truth was, he just had trouble with all kids.
Not that he disliked kids. He didn’t. But he didn’t have much experience with normal kids, the ones who were happy and well adjusted. In his line of work, most of the children he saw were battered and bruised, both emotionally and physically. Or worse, the ones who would never have the chance to grow up.
He had witnessed so many terrible things in his career with the Bureau. Child abuse, sexual molestations, kidnappings. Any possible way an adult could snatch away the innocence of a child. The agents who worked cases involving crimes against children had to maintain a mental toughness, a self-imposed distance, that others in the FBI didn’t always understand.
Over the years Gage thought his skin had grown as thick as an elephant’s hide. He wasn’t good at letting anybody inside, especially not a couple of little girls who would hopefully never be touched by the ugliness he dealt with on a daily basis.
“Ice water would be good,” he finally answered her question with wariness. He had a feeling she would just as soon grab that pitcher and dump the contents over his head. She didn’t, though. Lisa merely picked up the pitcher with that same polite expression on her face and walked out the door.
The room fell silent after she left, and Gage tried to eat a little of the supper she had fixed. He still didn’t have much of an appetite but he forced himself to chew and swallow several bites of the sandwich. It was good, he had to admit. Much better than the pablum they passed off as food in the hospital.
She was trying to make him as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Maybe he shouldn’t have come down so hard on her about her daughters hanging around.
He pictured the two little dark-haired girls. Anna and Gabriella. What were they? Three? Four? Whatever, they seemed to be fairly close in age to his little sister when she disappeared.
Maybe that was why he was edgy and uncomfortable around them—they reminded him too forcefully of Charlotte the last time he had seen her. No wonder he didn’t like having them around. He didn’t need more reminders of his little sister shoved in his face every minute. Especially when he had nothing else to do all day but lie in this damn bed and think about the past and the guilt that was as much a part of him as his bones and his blood.
“Oh. You’re finished.”
He glanced up to find Lisa standing in the doorway holding the pitcher of water. He’d been so engrossed in his thoughts he hadn’t even registered that he had eaten the entire sandwich without tasting most of it.
“I should have realized one sandwich might not be enough. I’m sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve fixed meals for a…for a man with a healthy appetite. Would you like another one? It would only take me a moment to fix it.”
The spasm of grief that flashed across her face made him curious once more about her late husband. She obviously still mourned the man. “No, thanks. I’m good,” he replied. “I’m afraid I’m still a few days away from a healthy appetite.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind in a few days, then, and adjust your portions accordingly.” She managed a smile—a peace offering?—and poured him a glass of water from the pitcher.
“It’s almost six. If you don’t think you’ll need anything else this evening, I’ll take Gaby and Anna next door and fix their supper and settle them into bed. I checked the monitor earlier and it appears to be working. If you need me, just call out and I can be here in seconds. Also, I’ve made sure the phone is right here attached to the side of the bed. My phone number is programmed into it and so is Ruth Jensen’s, just in case the monitor doesn’t work for some reason.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Behind the lenses of her glasses, her eyes narrowed as she studied him, and he hoped nothing in his expression betrayed the throbbing pain that had suddenly returned to his legs with a vengeance.
“Don’t be a hero, Mr. McKinnon. If you need anything, please tell me. I know how hard it can be to accept help—believe me, I know—but you’ve hired me to do just that until you can manage better on your own.”
“I didn’t hire you,” he muttered, wishing she would just go away and leave him alone to tackle the pain.
“You’re right,” she said after a moment. “If you want to be technical about it, Ruth actually hired me. But she did so on your orders. We both know that right now I’m the only thing standing between you and that hospital room you just left. Please ask if you need something.”
“Fine. I need something.”
Her face lit up with an eagerness to help he would have found laughable if it didn’t shine a warm light on a cold, empty place inside him. “Anything. What can I get for you?”
She was probably imagining he would ask for another pillow or even those blasted pills he hated so much. He almost enjoyed popping her devoted-nurse fantasy.
“My sidearm. It should be in a holster in the personal effects I brought home from the hospital. I want it close enough where I can reach it.”
After a moment of shocked silence, she raised an eyebrow. “Planning on doing a little target shooting at the TV, are we?”
He shouldn’t have to explain anything to her. It wasn’t any of her business that he had acquired his fair share of enemies after more than a decade at the Bureau. She would call him paranoid if he tried to tell her that certain parties would be thrilled if word happened to trickle out that he was lying here helpless, unable to defend himself.
“Just get it,” he snapped.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea. How do I know you won’t accidentally shoot me in the night if I come over from next door to check on you?”
“I don’t want or need you checking on me in the night. Don’t come skulking over in the early hours of the morning and you should survive to collect your severance pay.”
To his surprise she laughed at that. Her laugh was low and soft and reminded him of a high mountain stream, bubbling and clean. “You don’t scare me, FBI.”
Too bad. Things would be much safer all around if she had a healthy fear of him and the rough world where he usually lived. “Just get it,” he repeated.
She paused for just a moment then crossed the room to the closet and found the white plastic bag from the hospital with the clothes he’d been wearing at the time of the accident.
He ought to just have her throw away the clothes, since he wouldn’t get much use out of that suit now, not after the paramedics had to cut away his pant legs to access his injuries, he thought.
She rooted through the bag and a moment later pulled out his shoulder holster. As she carried it over to him with two fingers, he thought she looked like a prissy little girl being forced to hold a garter snake. “Where do you want it?”
Gage gestured to the rolling bedside table and she set it down gingerly, as if afraid it would explode. Under normal circumstances he would store it loaded. But with two curious little girls in the house—even two little girls whose mother probably wouldn’t let them venture into his bedroom again—he couldn’t take any chances.
He emptied the chamber and placed the bullets in the small drawer of the table, then put the weapon under his pillow.
As long as he could reach both the bullets and the gun, he didn’t mind the extra safety precaution. He could load the Glock in his sleep. When he was satisfied everything was within reach, he turned back to Lisa Connors and found her watching him, her mouth prim.
“Should we come up with a secret knock or something so that if I have to come over in the night you’ll know it’s me and won’t shoot first and ask questions later?”
“I’ll know,” he muttered. He didn’t think he could mistake this woman for anyone else on earth, even if they were trapped deep inside the dank recesses of one of the abandoned silver mines that dotted the mountains around Park City.
He had a funny, uncomfortable feeling he would know her anywhere. How could he miss her? She smelled like violets, sweet and pure. For some strange reason she made him think of spring afternoons spent lying in damp new grass, plucking a handful of tiny purple blossoms he would clutch in his fist and present proudly to his mother, who would accept the gift solemnly, then grab him close and kiss his cheeks until he squirmed away.
That made twice in one afternoon he had thought of his mother. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Lynn hadn’t been a part of his life for years, a conscious decision made by both of them. Why would he think of her now?
Probably the same reason men on the battlefield cried out for their own mothers in the midst of lonely darkness and fear. Maybe while he tried to cope with the physical pain of his shattered legs, some corner of his psyche wanted to reach out to the one person in his life who had kissed the sting of his early scrapes and cuts away.
Until they had all come up against a raw, devastating pain no amount of kisses could ever make better.
He jerked his mind away from that uncomfortable train of thought and turned back to his neighbor. “Make sure you lock the door behind you.”
“I will. Ruth gave me a house key so I’ll still be able to come over if you need me.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“Estelle was right. You macho types do make the worst patients.”
“I believe her exact words were the good-looking, macho types.”
Her short wispy hair swung a little as she shook her head, exasperation in her blue eyes. But Gage thought he saw a hint of color brush across her high cheekbones. “That too.”
She headed for the door. “I’ll just wash your supper dishes and then we’ll be out of your way so you can sleep again. I’m leaving your pain pills right here by the bed. Use them, Mr. McKinnon,” she said sternly. “As Estelle said, if you don’t stay on top of the pain, it’s only that much harder to get it under control again.”
She stood and reached across the bed for the dinner tray then carried it out of the room, leaving behind a tantalizing hint of the sweet, spring-like smell of violets.
* * *
Just past midnight, Allie sat up in bed again, hugging her knees tightly as she gazed at the glowing light of the baby monitor by her bed.
Stubborn man. Why didn’t he have the good sense to take something for his obvious pain?
The monitor was just too sensitive. Sounds came through loud and clear. She could hear blankets rustling and the bed creaking under his weight as he shifted restlessly, and every once in a while she heard him mumble something low and tortured, then a sharp intake of breath that probably indicated he had moved wrong.
She had a feeling he wasn’t really conscious. He never would have betrayed his discomfort if he were awake.
She knew she would never be able to sleep until she could be confident her patient rested comfortably. But shy of shoving the blasted pills down his unconscious throat, she didn’t know how she would ever be able to accomplish that.
She had to do something, though. She wasn’t sure she could take much more of this.
The hardest part of her job as a nurse had been seeing people come into her emergency room in agonizing pain and knowing there were limits to how much of that pain could be controlled. In this case she knew Gage would sleep far more deeply and comfortably if he would only take some pain medication.
He made another one of those raspy sounds in his throat, and she knew she couldn’t ignore it any longer. With a sigh, she slid from her bed to the cool wood floor.
Pale moonlight shimmered through the curtains of her cozy little bedroom as she quickly threw on shorts under the T-shirt she slept in and slipped into her sneakers. After a quick peek into the girls’ room where she found them both sleeping soundly, she grabbed her keys and walked outside, locking her house behind her.
The night was cool, scented sweetly from the hundreds of blooms growing next door. She paused on her steps to inhale some of that fresh air into her lungs. Something about the night reminded her of summer evenings on her grandparents’ farm in western Pennsylvania with frogs peeping in the pond and fireflies flashing over the hay fields and a barn owl swooping silently through the night sky in search of prey.
She had never lived anywhere but Pennsylvania but she was finding she enjoyed life in the Rocky Mountains. The air was thinner and drier than she was used to and everything seemed to move at a different pace here but she and the girls seemed to have settled in.
For how long, she didn’t know. If only she could shake this fear that hounded every stop, that left her anxious and uneasy.
Allie jerked herself back to her responsibilities and hurried up the steps to Gage McKinnon’s house. After she found the key and unlocked the door, she stood inside trying to get her bearings in the dimly lit house. Before she left, she had turned the light on over the stove in the kitchen, but that provided the only illumination in the house except for the pale moonlight spilling in through the windows.
Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure exactly what to do. She suddenly realized she couldn’t just burst into his bedroom to check on him. Not when the man was a trained law enforcement officer who slept with an ugly black revolver under his pillow.
After a moment’s indecision, Allie hurried to the bedroom door and knocked softly. “Mr. McKinnon? Gage?”
She heard nothing for several long moments, then a sleepy growl answered. “What?”
Maybe coming over here wasn’t the greatest of ideas. He didn’t exactly sound thrilled about the nocturnal visit.
“It’s me. Al—” She caught herself just in time before she blurted out the wrong name. “Lisa Connors. I’m coming in. Don’t shoot,” she tried for a joke, then pushed open the door.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. In the dim light she could see that he had pulled himself up to a sitting position in the bed. His hair was messed and the muscles of his bare chest gleamed.
Oh, mercy.
She cleared her throat. “You were moaning in your sleep. I was worried about you.”
He glared at her. “Worry about yourself. You’re hearing things. I’m doing fine. Or I was, until a few moments ago.”
Despite his insistence, she could see lines of pain around his mouth, and she thought he looked a shade or two paler than he had when she left earlier in the evening, but that could have been a trick of the moonlight. “You know you would have a more restful sleep if you took something.”
“I’d have a more restful sleep if my nosy neighbor didn’t come poking around, waking me up.”
She deserved that, she supposed. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve done your job and checked up on me. As you can see, I’m fine.”
There was clear dismissal in his tone but she wasn’t quite ready to leave until she’d had some chance to assess his condition for herself. “While I’m here—and since you’re up now, anyway—I would feel better if I could check your vital signs.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“You met Estelle. Do you think either one of us wants to be on her bad side?”
He only grunted in answer, which she took as assent. After she turned on the low lamp by the bed, she found the equipment she needed on the dresser. He didn’t protest when she shoved the thermometer in his mouth then wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his upper arm, trying fiercely to ignore the little sizzle of awareness that sparked inside her as her hands wrapped around his powerful biceps.
Her fingers quickly found his pulse at his wrist, a reassuring strong, steady beat, then she inflated the blood pressure cuff and put the stethoscope to her ears, conscious of him watching her movements out of those steely gray eyes.
By the time she finished touching all that warm, sexy male skin and pulled the thermometer from his mouth, she was feeling jittery, light-headed. Maybe she ought to check her blood glucose while she was awake. Or maybe she should just avoid touching Gage McKinnon in a moonlit bedroom in the middle of the night.
“You’ve done this before,” he said after she noted his vital signs on the chart Estelle had left and returned the equipment to the dresser.
“Yes,” she acknowledged after a moment.
“Are you a nurse?”
She thought about lying to him. But he was too sharp-eyed, too astute. He would know she wasn’t telling the truth and would be suspicious as to what possible motive she might have for the lie.
“Yes,” she finally said again.
She would have left it at that—better not to muddy things with unnecessary explanations—but he only waited, watching her out of those intent gray eyes, and she knew she had to add more.
“I’m not licensed in Utah yet. That’s why I agreed to take this job, because technically I didn’t need to be licensed for it.”
“What were you doing until yesterday?”
“Cleaning rental units for Ruth.”
She could see by his puzzled look that he was wondering why a registered nurse would be content scrubbing toilets and making beds.
“I guess it was a lucky day for you that I was stupid enough to get my legs broken then, wasn’t it?” he finally said.
“Oh, yes,” she said dryly. “You’re a real answer to prayer.”
To her surprise, he actually unbent enough to respond with a small smile. She blinked. It was only a smile. Nothing to get all twitter-pated about, even though he certainly didn’t seem to have many of them to spare.
Still, she had to admit that simple, momentary lightening of his expression changed him from a stern, unapproachable FBI agent to a gorgeous, bare-chested male.
To cover up her reaction, she finally ventured to ask the question she’d been wondering about for the last hour, since hearing his unconscious mutterings on the baby monitor. “Was someone else injured in your accident?”
He gave a rough laugh. “Let me tell you something, sweetheart. When a suspect trying to evade arrest deliberately crushes you against a brick retaining wall with a three-ton pickup, accident isn’t exactly the best word choice.”
She winced at the mental image he conjured up. “Sorry. Was anyone else with you?”
“A dozen other FBI agents and local cops were there. None was lucky enough to receive the same special attention. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “While you were sleeping, I thought I heard you call out for someone named Charlie. I thought it might have been another FBI agent who had been hurt along with you.”
His expression went instantly cold, so cold she shivered, regretting whatever crazy impulse had led her to bring up the subject. “I must have been having a nightmare.”
She knew she should just let it drop but something made her push. “Is Charlie a friend?”
“Charley was short for Charlotte.”
Someone he had loved very much, she suspected, at least judging by the raw pain in his voice. She thought he would let the matter drop but after a moment he went on, his face without expression and his eyes focused on the curtains fluttering in the night breeze.
“Charlotte was my kid sister. She was kidnapped from our front yard when she was three years old. We never saw her again.”