The Hotter You Burn

by Gena Showalter

  "You're going to be okay," he told her. "You have to be okay."

  She was too weak to respond. She could no longer even hold open her eyelids.

  When a few minutes passed without another incident, he carried her to bed and tucked her into the softness of the sheets. Her face was puffy from strain, her skin waxen and clammy. Locks of hair clung to her damp cheeks and neck. He dressed her in a clean T-shirt but it, too, stuck to her skin.

  Brook Lynn and Jessie Kay entered the room and flanked his sides.

  "I heard she threw up on the mayor," Jessie Kay said. "I thought it was the most awesome prank ever. I didn't realize..."

  "She'll be okay," he repeated. More to himself than to them.

  Brook Lynn patted his arm. "Why don't you take a shower, get changed. Let us take care of Harlow for a while."

  "No. I'm not leaving her side." This woman was the center of his world. He'd let her in, or maybe she'd burrowed her way inside. Either way, she belonged to him and with him, and damn it, he needed her to get better, and he needed to see her do it.

  She'd been fine one moment and deathly ill the next. She wasn't feverish or exhibiting any other symptoms.

  "Is there some kind of virus going around?" he asked, desperate for answers. He couldn't help her until he knew what was wrong.

  "No, otherwise I would have gotten it long before now," Jessie Kay said. "I always get sicker faster and far worse than everyone else. Could she have eaten too much junk food?"

  A soft moan rose from Harlow--right before she vomited up a river of blood.

  The crimson splatter on the sides of her mouth had to be the most horrifying sight he'd ever seen. Beck sprang into action. He scooped Harlow into his arms, her body utterly boneless, and shouldered his way into the hall. "Jase! West!"

  Both friends came running.

  "Help me get her to the emergency room."

  Jase swiped up his car key, and West held open the front door, then the car door.

  "Go to St. Joseph's." He wanted Harlow to have the best medical care, experts in every field at her disposal, and as much as he loved Strawberry Valley, he wasn't sure about the medical facilities.

  As fast as they drove, they reached the city hospital in less than an hour. A true miracle, considering they didn't wreck or get pulled over. Along the way, West made some calls, so, by the time they screeched to a halt at the curb, doctors and nurses were already outside, waiting for them.

  Several people reached for Harlow at once. Beck almost couldn't bring himself to let her go. But he did it, his stomach seeming to twist around a knife. She was placed on a gurney and wheeled away.

  As Jase parked the car in the lot, West led Beck inside. They sat in the waiting room, and one hour after another passed, every second more agonizing than the last.

  Beck checked with the receptionist at the front desk so many times she began to moan every time he approached. Brook Lynn and Jessie Kay eventually arrived with food and bottles of water. Brook Lynn tried to get him to eat or drink something, but he refused, too unsettled. She tried to engage him in conversation, but there was only one person he cared to chat with right now, and she wasn't available.

  Finally, a nurse came out to ask their entire group questions about her. What Harlow had eaten and drunk that day, what she had done. He answered as best he could, but when he asked questions of his own, the nurse rushed off without responding.

  Another hour passed.

  He couldn't lose Harlow. He just couldn't. He liked--no. Damn it, no. He loved her, and he wasn't going to hide from the truth any longer. He loved her with all his heart, all his mind and all his strength. He loved her, and he had come to depend on her. She was the best part of his life.

  The only part that mattered anymore.

  A burn of tears in the back of his eyes, He tangled his hands in his hair and tugged at the strands. Was it normal to be kept waiting this long? Damn it! Why the hell wouldn't anyone tell him what was going on?

  He paced. He considered punching the walls. He tried to breathe as his imagination tormented him with a continuous replay of Harlow vomiting blood.

  At long last the nurse returned to lead their group to a comfortable seating area away from the crowd. No matter the questions Beck threw at her, she replied with, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to ask Dr. Lowe."

  "I'd be happy to ask him. If he'd be kind enough to show his damn face."

  She beat feet. Finally, a short, squat man with a no-nonsense gaze and a stern demeanor joined them, saving the building from the fury of Beck's fists.

  "My apologies for the delay. I'm Dr. Lowe," he said as he shook one hand after another. "I'd like to speak to Miss Glass's next of kin."

  "I'm her boyfriend," Beck said. "How is she? What's wrong with her?"

  The doctor pursed his lips. "I'm sorry, but considering everything I've learned, I will only speak with immediate family."

  "Why? What did you learn? Did something happen to her?" Beck nearly grabbed him by the shoulders to shake the answers out of him. "Is she going to be okay? You have to tell me. Please."

  "Tell me. I'm the sister," Jessie Kay said, pushing her way forward. "I'm Jessica Glass."

  Dr. Lowe led her to the side, and Beck nearly burst out of his skin. He didn't have a right to know Harlow's condition because he wasn't her husband? Hell, no. Unacceptable. He would have joined the pair and demanded answers now, but Jase grabbed him by the arm, holding him in place.

  "Let go, man. Now."

  "Calm yourself." Jase motioned to the entrance. Two security guards stood in the doorway, and a fortysomething woman wearing a pantsuit entered, a notebook in her hand. A detective, guaranteed. He'd talked to enough of them after Pax's death to recognize one on sight.

  The blood drained from Beck's head. If the cops were involved...

  Something bad had happened to Harlow.

  Panic flooded him as he shook off Jase's hold and raced to Dr. Lowe and Jessie Kay. "She's okay. She has to be okay. You tell me anything else, and I will lose my shit." His throat was closing, making breathing difficult. Dizziness hit him, and blackness winked over his vision. "She can't be...she just can't be... I need her!"

  Gentle hands helped him into a chair. "Beck." Jessie Kay's voice reached him through the length of a long, narrow tunnel. "You really have to shut your mouth and listen to me, okay. I know you're thinking the worst, but Harlow is alive."

  The most profound sense of relief dulled the worst of the panic. Able to breathe again, the dizziness fading fast, he lifted his head and met navy blue eyes brimming with concern. "Where is she? What's wrong with her? When can I see her? Why are the cops here?"

  Jessie Kay rubbed his back, saying, "Let me tackle this a question at a time, all right? They've admitted Harlow to intensive care. I'm sorry, but she isn't even close to stable. Dr. Lowe said...he said she's slipped into a coma." Tears streaked down her cheeks. "You can't see her. Not yet. None of us can."

  A coma. Harlow was in a coma. In intensive care.

  But Jessie Kay wasn't done. "You know eyedrops? What people use to make the red fade from their eyes? Well, the active ingredient is tetra something...something chloride. I'm can't remember the technical mumbo jumbo, I'm sorry, but whatever it is, it's great for the eyes but apparently ingesting it causes blood vessels to shrink and blood pressure to drop."

  "Are you telling me Harlow drank eyedrops?" His tone was hard and harsh, cutting and loud, but he didn't attempt to moderate it, and he didn't apologize.

  "Not willingly, I'm sure. Someone must have put the drops in her drink. The doctor said vomiting would have occured within minutes of ingestion, and since she threw up on the Ferris wheel, it would have happened right before you guys got on."

  "No. Impossible." Before the Ferris wheel, she'd finished off her sweet tea--sweet tea he'd also ingested when he helped Brook Lynn set up her booth. Harlow had nursed that damn cup for hours, savoring every sip, and she hadn't got sick. Neither had he.

  Beside
s, who would do something like that?

  "They've run tests," Jessie Kay said, treading gently. "Plus, her symptoms fit. Vomiting occurs within minutes, and sometimes even seizures and a coma."

  Seizures. Coma. There was that word again. Sometimes people fell into comas and never woke up.

  His heart shriveled in his chest. "The symptoms fit other things."

  "Yes, but they were able to question Harlow before she sank into...well, she mentioned her tea tasted funny. Tea doesn't go bad unless mold is starting to set up, so they ran tests for certain kinds of poison."

  "You're Beck Ockley?"

  In a daze, he glanced up at the newcomer. The detective. "Yes," he responded, his voice hollow.

  "I'm Detective June, and I'd like to chat with you."

  She proceeded to ask him personal questions about his life, and about Harlow and her past, and about their relationship. He answered everything, leaving nothing out. Who cared about privacy at a time like this? Nothing mattered but saving Harlow's life. Nothing mattered but finding the one who'd poisoned her--and making him pay.

  "Can you think of anyone who would want to do her harm?" the detective asked now.

  He shook his head absently. "Everyone seemed to have gotten over their anger. They smiled and waved at her."

  "Not everyone," Jase said. "Not Tawny Ferguson and Charlene Burns."

  The detective focused on him. So did Beck. The guy had done his rock-solid best to fly under the radar since being released from prison. As an ex-con with a history of violence, he was likely to be the first suspect in a case like this--Beck and West surely close seconds. The fact that he was speaking up meant more than Beck could articulate.

  "That's right," West said. "Both Tawny and Charlene hate Harlow. I was with Beck and Harlow when the two women approached. Soon after, a man named Scott Cameron drew our attention elsewhere. After that, I escorted Tawny and Charlene away, but it wasn't long before they broke away from me to follow Beck and Harlow to the Ferris wheel, giggling about something. I'm sorry. I never thought--"

  Detective June wrote something in her notepad and said, "They may not have intended this to happen. A lot of people have heard that putting eyedrops in someone's drink causes diarrhea, nothing more, but they are dead wrong. I'll speak with Strawberry Valley's police chief, and I'm sure he'll question Miss Ferguson, Miss Burns and Mr. Cameron. If you think of anything else he needs to know--"

  "I'm not Harlow's sister," Jessie Kay burst out, as if she couldn't hold back the words any longer. "I just said I was to find out what was wrong with her. And I went twenty miles over the speed limit to get here. Don't arrest me."

  Frowing, Detective June handed everyone a card. "Dr. Lowe, please call me when Miss Glass wakes up."

  After the detective left, the doctor adjusted the lapels of his lab coat. "You're all welcome to stay in here if you'd like, but visiting hours are currently over. They'll begin again tomorrow at eight, and at that time, we'll let you see Miss Glass, one at a time." He strode from the room.

  Just like that? Beck was supposed to stay away from the love of his life for an entire night? A woman who lay in a coma, hooked to machines? She could die before the sun rose. He could lose her. After everything, he could lose her, and it would have nothing to do with his past, or his issues, or not being enough for her.

  Death didn't care about Beck's future happiness, or Harlow's young age and sweet heart. The bastard took without prejudice and left the survivors to deal.

  I can't deal.

  Until Harlow, he'd had only half a life. He'd had friends and work and lots of sex, but no love. No real purpose. He'd hated change, and perhaps that was one of the reasons he'd resisted Harlow so fervently, and yet, where would he be without this change? Without her?

  He stormed to the door, not sure what he would do. Leave not only the hospital but Strawberry Valley, hoping distance would ease the pain, make him forget? Drink himself into a coma? Sneak into her room? Hunt down Tawny, Charlene and Scott--hurt them?

  Arms banded around him, steel bands he would have to fight to break through. West and Jase had surrounded him, offering comfort.

  He drew on their strength, and in a moment of startling clarity, he knew what he had to do. "I've got to go," he said, wrenching free of his friends.

  "Beck, man. Don't leave," Jase said. "Stay. For her."

  West grabbed his wrist. "If you're thinking about going after Tawny and Charlene, don't. If you're locked behind bars--"

  "Don't you see?" He whirled on them, taking a moment to explain because he owed them and didn't want them to worry. "I've always expected the worst from everyone, so I've always cut and run. Except with you two, because I saw myself in you. But I see myself in her, too. I see her pain and her need to connect--needs I share--and I'm not going to hold anything back anymore. I'm not going to worry about the future, or what will or will not happen. I'm going to do what's right, what I should have done the moment I met Harlow."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  HARLOW BLINKED RAPIDLY to clear the fog currently obscuring her vision. The lights in the room were too bright, tears dried and crusted around her burning eyes. Her ears picked up a slow beep, beep, and when she turned her head, she found a bank of machines with flashing lights and numbers, connected to tubes, and the tubes were connected to her arms. A woman and a man she'd never met stood beside her bed, discussing heart rate and vitals.

  She frowned. She was in a hospital?

  Yeah. Made sense. She remembered throwing up on Mayor Trueman and being carried away from the festival in Beck's arms. Now there was a strange heaviness to her limbs, a shakiness she wasn't used to experiencing.

  "Beck," she said. Or rather, tried to say. Her throat was sore, her voice nothing more than a whisper.

  The man in the lab coat heard her, however, and patted her hand. "Harlow, I'm Dr. Lowe. You're at St. Joseph's hospital in Oklahoma City, and you've been very sick. We removed a tube from your throat, which is why you're having a bit of trouble speaking. But don't worry, the discomfort will pass."

  A tube down her throat--she'd needed help breathing?

  "Where's Beck?" She needed Beck.

  "We'll talk about him in a minute," Dr. Lowe said. He propped his hip against the side of her bed. He wasn't very tall, and was a bit on the heavy side, his features stern. "Do you know why you're here?"

  "I was sick."

  "Not just sick. Harlow, you were poisoned. Thankfully, you've responded to the medications very well. You'll make a full recovery with no lasting damage."

  Her mind got stuck on a single word. "Poisoned?" But...but...how? And by whom? So few people hated her now. Right? And she'd done nothing to anger anyone. Had she?

  "It was a prank gone horribly wrong, apparently. Someone from your hometown put eyedrops in your tea. You slipped into a coma four days ago."

  Wait, wait, wait. "I don't understand." Four days?

  "When confronted by your police chief, the culprits confessed to their crimes. I don't remember their names, I'm sorry. There were two women and a man. They've been charged with contaminating a substance for human consumption. They're lucky they weren't charged with attempted murder."

  "Beck," she croaked. "Where is he?" He had to be worried. "I want to see him."

  The doctor's expression remained impassive. "Let us finish checking your vitals, all right?"

  For the next half hour, she was poked and prodded and questioned, and she did her best to keep her temper in check. Beck had to be more than worried about her; he had to be freaking out. As poorly as he'd handled her vomiting, she couldn't imagine what the coma had done to him.

  Finally the exam ended, and the medical staff filed out of the room.

  "Don't forget to send in Beck," she called.

  The doctor stopped in the doorway. "I'm sorry to tell you this, Miss G
lass, but there isn't anyone in the waiting room for you."

  Harlow lay in the bed, heart stuttering in her chest. No one was out there? Truly? "Maybe he's in the cafeteria?"

  His half smile was not reassuring. "Yes, I'm sure that's it." He shut the door with a soft click. "Give him time. He'll arrive soon enough."

  No way Beck would have left her, even for a minute. Unless the thought of losing her--as he'd lost so many other people in his life--had pushed him over the edge. He might have abandoned her in an effort to protect himself.

  No way in hell. She wasn't going to think the worst of the man she loved and trusted with her fragile heart. But she was going to find him.

  She maneuvered her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Her knees instantly buckled, her weight too much to hold, and if not for the bedrail, she would have toppled. When she felt more stable, she transferred her grip to the pole with her IV and catheter bags. Her paper-thin gown gaped in the back, but she couldn't hold it closed and hold herself up.

  With as much dignity as she could muster considering her backside was bared, she worked her way to the door, the hallway, calling, "Beck! Beck!"

  The nurse who'd poked and prodded her rushed over to latch on to her and prop her up. "What do you think you're doing? You shouldn't be out of bed."

  "Beck!" Thankfully, she managed to do more than squeak this time. "Where is he? I know he's here. He wouldn't have left me." Tears beaded in her eyes. "He wouldn't."

  Taking pity on her, the nuse said, "All right, sweetie. We'll go have a peek in the waiting room." She helped Harlow bumble onward.

  Six people sat in the cushioned chairs, watching TV or reading magazines, and one slept on the couch. But none of them were Beck, or any of her friends.

  "He's...he's not here." The tears spilled over, and a sob bubbled up, nearly choking her.

  "I'm sorry, sweetie. I really am. Men can be pigs."

  "Not mine. He's--"

  "Harlow? Harlow!"

  Beck! She turned, practically collapsing with relief when he raced from the elevators. West, Jase, Brook Lynn and Jessie Kay were in tow.