Hotter Than Wildfire (11 page)

It was the wrong thing to say. His face froze, something, some strong emotion—grief?—crossed his features.

Harry stood up suddenly. “No, I don’t often rescue women. The hospital cot and IV line come from my partner’s house. His wife, Nicole, cared for her father at their house until his death.”

“I sort of remember a beautiful woman coming into the room. I thought she was a dream. Was that your partner’s wife?”

“Yeah. They were going to throw the hospital stuff out after her father passed away but they ended up storing it. I have a medical kit for—for emergencies. Nicole lent you one of her gowns. There are several other clean ones in a drawer for you. So as you see, I was equipped to help you. Luckily, you weren’t shot directly. The bullet was a ricochet and it wasn’t even that deep. I dug it out, debrided the wound and closed it up again. You have eight stitches. I used self-absorbing thread—they’ll be gone in a day or two. They’re not perfect, you might need some plastic surgery later—”

Ellen never wanted to be near a needle again in her life. “No, I’m good.”

“You were out of it for a long time, but from what I could tell it was more exhaustion than the effects of the wound. Am I right?”

She nodded. A year on the run, and then almost seventy-two hours straight without sleep. There’d been bone-deep fatigue. Ellen drew in a deep breath, sending out feelers to the far extremities of her body. She still felt a little weak, but completely rested. Another thing—

“You were there, weren’t you?” Ellen pointed to the chair by the bed. “All the time.”

He hesitated a moment before answering, eyes watching hers. To see how she’d react? “Yeah. Except for bathroom and shower breaks. Nicole brought me some food from time to time. But mostly, yeah, I was here.”

Wow. Four days and four nights, on a chair. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t necessary. I don’t think that I was in danger of dying or anything. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I did.” His eyes bored into hers, that fierce light brown reflecting the light from the windows. “At times you were…restless. You had nightmares. You’d wake up terrified, panting. I couldn’t leave you alone to wake up in the dark in a place you didn’t know.”

Now,
now
she remembered. The dreams that turned so quickly into nightmares, waking up terrified in the dark, a strong steady hand holding hers.

Warmth and strength, in the night. Not alone, in the night.

It was the reason she was feeling…refreshed. When she’d slept, when the nightmares weren’t chasing her, it had been deep.

She hadn’t slept one night through to morning this whole past year. She put herself into a shallow sleep, alert in some part of her brain to the noises of the night. A barking dog, a car’s exhaust, a fighting couple, a slamming door—they’d all been enough to wake her, gasping for breath, grasping for the knife she kept under her pillow. The knife that was still under her pillow in her miserable little studio apartment, which she’d never see again.

These past nights, there had been stretches of real sleep. At some deep level, the animal part of her had known she was safe.

For now, there was no danger to her at all, unless you counted starvation. She opened her mouth to ask for some food, but he beat her to it.

“Okay. I’m going to get you some breakfast now.” One last, intense glance, as if to make sure that she was okay, and he stood, hand still on hers.

She remembered he’d had on a dress shirt in his office, and now he was wearing a black tee that hugged his huge chest, the sleeves almost too small for those bulging biceps. He had an unusual figure—absurdly broad through the shoulders with big arms, very lean and narrow through the waist.

He lifted his hand and she immediately felt the chill, which was ridiculous. Warm wind was blowing in through the open French doors.

Ellen watched him walk away, tall, enormously broad-shouldered, T-shirt and jeans rumpled, and she felt bereft. Which was crazy. Her body might be sending frantic
it’s all okay, don’t worry
signals, but she didn’t know this man at all. Granted, he might not be Satan’s spawn or a spy for Gerald, but he could be anything. Mean, violent, even crazy.

Though as she was telling herself this, even she didn’t take herself seriously. A violent, crazy man didn’t spend four days and four nights on a chair in case a woman he didn’t know woke up alone and afraid.

There were clattering noises and more good smells. Of bread and cinnamon, the dark chocolaty notes of coffee underlying them.

Ellen looked down at herself. Her shoulder itched, but it didn’t hurt at all. She lifted her arm and sniffed. Someone had given her a sponge bath. She smelled fresh, of soap. She shifted the nightgown and looked at the neat bandage on the upper right chest. The bandage looked freshly applied. Curious, she lifted the tape and saw a wound with small, neat black stitches. The scar wouldn’t be that big.

The skin was clean and clear around the wound. No infection.

Underlying all of that there was something else. A—a lack of something. Fear. She wasn’t afraid.

Fear had been her constant companion this past year, day and night, expecting at any moment the incursion of masked men, the punch of a bullet or the hot slice of a knife across her throat.

She’d been afraid and lonely every single second of the past year.

Right now, she wasn’t afraid and she wasn’t alone. For a small span of time, she was utterly safe. She didn’t even question it, this switch inside her that had been thrown. The switch from
Harry Bolt is dangerous
to
Harry Bolt is safe
. As crisp as an electrical switch. Darkness to light.

She couldn’t stay long, of course. His business, and the business of his partner, Sam Reston, the one married to the beautiful Nicole, and presumably of the other partner she’d never met, Mike, was to spirit her away. Set her up in a new life. So as soon as she was completely recovered, they’d put some new documents in her hands and point her on a new road.

Alone, of course. There was no question of that.

There was no doubt in Ellen’s mind that as long as Montez was after her, she’d be alone. And that might possibly hold true for the rest of her life.

So the important thing now was to savor every second of this time, while she wasn’t alone. While there was a man willing to sit by her bedside night after night and who was right now rattling pans in the kitchen.

Though the temptation was there to simply bask in this feeling, she knew she had to become well enough to get going soon. Every minute spent here was a luscious, golden temptation. She couldn’t afford to get used to this—to having someone look after her. To having a dangerous man on her side.

Now that her head was clear, flashes of memory were coming back. She couldn’t remember every detail of what had happened outside her hotel but the heart of it was that Harry Bolt had come running toward her and had killed three of Gerald’s men to save her.

A man like that on your side would make anyone feel safe.

She couldn’t afford that. Couldn’t afford to get used to the feeling of safety.

Get well and get out.

Step number one was to stand on her own two feet.

Okay. She’d been walking her whole life. How hard could it be to get back on her feet?

Ellen threw back the blanket, slowly shifted until her legs hung over the bed, looked down and swallowed. Whoa. The floor was way,
way
down. She’d never been hospitalized before. Who knew hospital beds were so high?

How to do this? Maybe one leg at a time? Shifting her hips, she reached down with her right leg, stretching to find purchase on the shiny hardwood floor. Ah. One foot planted on the ground, now the other—

Harry appeared at the door. “What would you like—
hey!
”

Ellen placed her left foot on the ground and her knees buckled. She gasped, stretched out her hands to break her fall and found herself swung up against a hard chest.

Her startled eyes met his. How had he moved so fast? He’d been at the door then he was right beside her to catch her fall. She hadn’t even seen him move.

A memory stirred. Harry racing at what seemed like the speed of light toward her, gun out, already shooting…

The man was fast.

He was scowling. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Um…getting out of bed? I’m not an invalid. And you yourself said the wound wasn’t serious.”

Harry’s scowl smoothed out as he looked down at her in his arms, golden eyes glowing.

“You’re scared,” he said softly. “You’re scared of being weak. You’re scared he’ll find you when you can’t fight back.”

Oh God, it was like he was looking right into her soul. “Or can’t run away.”

“You don’t have to be scared about that,” he replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. “He’s not going to find you. No one’s going to find you. No one’s going to hurt you, ever again.”

Ellen glanced down at the floor, so shiny and stable and safe. That safety was deceptive, just as everything else was. She couldn’t even stand on her own two feet on that floor.

“I know how you feel.” It was so odd, having this conversation while being held in his arms in his study that had been turned into a hospital room. Somewhere there was a light pinging sound, exactly the sound a toaster would make when the bread was ready.

“Hmm?” He’d said something while she was completely distracted by—well, by the most incredible male body she’d ever touched.

Gerald’s company had been full of buff men, often with that bodybuilder’s waddle that was so unattractive and ridiculous. They all cultivated a real tough don’t-mess-with-me air, but it turned out it was all a bluff, because Harry Bolt had beat three of them, hands down.

She could
feel
why he had prevailed. Instinctively, one arm had gone around his shoulders, her other hand braced on his chest. She’d never felt flesh like this before, like skin over warm steel. He was built like a racing engine, muscles long and lean, wrapped around big bones.

“I said, I know how you feel. I know what it’s like to feel weak, barely able to stand. It’s horrible. I hated every second of it, and I didn’t have someone after me. I can imagine how you feel.”

Ellen’s eyes met his in surprise. He was perfectly serious, sober even. Long grooves in his cheeks, full mouth closed to a thin line, eyes grave. It seemed impossible to her that the man holding her in his arms as easily as if she were a child had been—

“What do you mean? You were
weak
? Weak how?”

Even saying it sounded outlandish. The parts of him she could see and feel—strong neck, the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen, huge sinewy hands—could never have been called weak. He was simply too large a man.

His mouth turned down and he shrugged one massive shoulder. Ellen dipped and rose with the movement.

“Got shot up in Af—where I was deployed, about a year ago. Had four operations in as many weeks. Lost sixty pounds. Couldn’t walk for months. Yeah, I was pretty banged up there for a while.”

Ellen covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry. It must have been really serious. How did you get back in shape?”

One side of his mouth turned up. “I can’t take any credit at all. It was my brothers who forced me to get back in shape. Sam and Mike. You’ve met Sam, and Nicole. You haven’t met Mike, though he’s been here quite a few times to check up on you while you were out of it. I wasn’t just banged up. I was depressed, too. Probably would have sunk into a sea of self-pity if they hadn’t hired the Nazi to whip me back in shape.”

“The Nazi?”

“Yeah. He wasn’t actually German, he was Norwegian. Bjorn. Man, he was pitiless. Two hundred and fifty pounds of pure mean. He came every day for six months and he reported back to Sam and Mike. When I resisted he said he was more scared of them than he was of me. They would have whupped his ass. Me? At the beginning I was lucky if I could stagger a couple of feet before falling straight on my a—er…face.”

Ellen soaked up the tones of affection when he spoke of his brothers. She hadn’t realized that Sam and Harry were brothers. They didn’t look anything alike, except for both being tall and exceptionally well built. But wait. Sam was named Reston. And Harry’s last name was Bolt.

“How are you brothers? Same mothers, different fathers?”

“Blood brothers, not real brothers. Long story. Tell you some other time. But they weren’t the only ones who helped me. You were responsible, too. I’m here because of you.”

She simply looked at him, too astounded for words. “
Me?
I never met you before. How could I have had a hand in your healing?”

“Your voice. I listened to your music endlessly in the night. I think, in a very real way, your music saved my life, Eve.” His deep voice had turned low, his gaze so intense it was like being touched by hands. “I wanted to stay in this world, in this life, to hear you sing. Hell of a thing to say, but it’s God’s truth.”

“Ellen,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Eve is my stage name. My agent chose it. Eve, first woman, woman of mystery, maybe—I don’t know what his reasoning was. But my real name is just plain Ellen. Ellen—” At the last second, bells sounded in her head. She’d been about to tell him her last name, plunge off the precipice of trust, but she windmilled her arms in her head and stepped back. She trusted Harry, but right now telling him her last name made her feel…almost naked.