by Kay Hooper
Her body was utterly limp and she couldn’t find the strength to open her eyes, but she managed a faint protest when the warmth of his body left her.
“Shhh,” he murmured. “I’ll be right back.”
Teddy heard the click of the lamp and sensed more than saw darkness fill the cabin. And she heard other faint sounds that puzzled her slightly, until Zach returned to her. He sat on the edge of the bed and bent to kiss her, gently parting her legs and pressing a cool, damp cloth between them, caring for her with shattering tenderness.
Then he was beside her, drawing the blankets up around them and pulling her close. Teddy nestled against his hard side in warm contentment.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he told her huskily, his lips moving in her hair.
“You hardly did,” she murmured truthfully. And then, because she had to, she said, “I love you, Zach.”
For a moment he went still, even his heart seeming to stop, then his arm tightened around her. “Mine,” he rasped almost inaudibly. “For now, at least.”
Teddy opened her eyes in the darkness, troubled. Not because he had made no declaration of love; she’d not expected one. But because she thought that just so would he have spoken of something priceless and yearned for that he was allowed to hold for only a moment.
“Zach—”
“Go to sleep, honey.”
“I’m not sleepy,” she protested. And it was true. She was weary but wide-awake. And though she sensed that her warrior’s armor lay around him in shards, she was suddenly afraid that the morning would find him securely within it once more. She might have only this night to make a place for herself near his heart, and she had to try.
“You should be sleepy,” he told her.
“Are you?” she countered.
Zach sighed softly. “No.”
“Then talk to me. Tell me … tell me about your work and your friends.”
His hand moved over her back in a stroking motion, gentle and slow, and after a moment he began talking. At first, unused to exposing his emotions aloud, he spoke in short, stark sentences, revealing only facts. But gradually, as if a dam somewhere inside him had been breached, he revealed more of himself in talking of his life. In the dark intimacy of their bed he tentatively and at first awkwardly gave her the gift of himself.
Teddy nearly held her breath as she listened, fearful that he would realize what he was doing and, realizing, stop. She listened as he spoke briefly of his army days, mentioning them only because it was there he began to learn electronics. Listened as he talked about meeting Joshua Long when both were young in years but old and tough in experience. Listened as simple words revealed a friendship that had weathered more than fifteen years and explosions both personal and professional.
She saw in her mind the circle of Zach’s trust and watched and listened as others entered it after Josh Long, their places won by time and events. She saw a cheerful and charming blond man, Lucas Kendrick; a deceptively lazy attorney, Rafferty Lewis; and she saw the two women who had won places within that circle with their own brands of courage and strength and honesty.
She listened to her warrior make light of his own part in various battles, and she ached inside because his life had taught him so well to guard himself.
He was letting her in, but the cabin was dark and still, and she didn’t know what the morning would bring. What he was giving of himself he could never reclaim, she knew, but she also knew that the knowledge could well be all she was left with.
And she held on to him tightly, silently vowing that she would find the strength and courage to fight for him, for his love. And that she would somehow find the knowledge she needed to convince him that her love was real.
“No family?” she asked quietly.
“No. Raised in foster homes.”
Teddy rubbed her cheek against his chest, aching for him. “I love you,” she murmured.
He turned her face up and kissed her gently. “Go to sleep,” he whispered, and this time she did, still holding him tightly in an effort to keep some part of him.
She awoke the instant he began drawing away, knowing that it was morning even though the cabin was still dark. “Zach?”
He paused a moment to kiss her but still drew away and slid from the bed. “Go back to sleep,” he told her. “It’s barely dawn.”
Instead, Teddy raised herself up on her elbows and rubbed her dry eyes automatically, waiting for the light. Her body felt different. Vaguely sore but not really painful, and curiously more alive than ever before. She blinked when the lamp came on, and when her eyes cleared, her first sight was of Zach’s magnificent naked body.
He was completely unselfconscious and unconcerned by his nudity as he padded silently over to his equipment shelf to check for activity gone unheard in the night, and Teddy’s mouth went dry at the riveting sight of him. She could feel the faint rumble of her inner storm and relished the return of it. But she was also anxious, half afraid he had withdrawn from her more than just physically.
She threw back the covers and slid out of bed, unconscious of her own nakedness until he turned his head to look at her. She went very still, gazing at his immobile face, searching for some sign of what he was thinking or feeling.
Very quietly he said, “You are beautiful.”
Teddy was startled, unnerved. “No,” she said honestly, “I’m not.”
His eyes flared. “You are.” And she was. Her vibrant hair tumbled around her shoulders like flame, its color and silky mass emphasizing the delicate, vital face and huge satin eyes. Her naked body was slender and utterly feminine, her small breasts perfectly shaped, her waist tiny and hips curved. And, surprisingly, the tempestuous passion he had shared with her had left no marks on her creamy flesh.
Zach crossed the room to her, his tread the soundless padding of a jungle predator. When he reached her, his hands found her waist, drawing her against him, and she came into his arms eagerly.
“I’m not beautiful,” she murmured when she could, delighting in the sensuous rasp of his morning beard against her skin. “But I’m so glad you think I am.”
He half closed his eyes, his hands slipping down over her hips, fitting her more tightly against his own awakening body. A bit hoarsely, he said, “You drive me crazy, and I can’t keep my hands off you.”
“Good,” she whispered.
He was kissing her, each kiss more fierce and possessive than the last. “Not good,” he said deeply. “You need time, honey, you’ll be sore—”
She looked up at him with the slightly wild eyes of rising passion, and her voice was fierce. “If you think that’s going to stop me—!”
He was almost laughing when he eased her back onto the bed, exhilarated by her uninhibited desire. She was wild in loving him, and he forgot everything but her.
They had dressed and eaten breakfast, when a conversation from the house drew Zach’s attention to the recorders. He went to listen while Teddy cleared the table and cleaned up, and by the time she was finished, so was the conversation.
“Anything important?”
He was frowning a little. “They’re leaving again. I think I’ll check out the goods one more time.”
“You’re still bothered by something.”
“Something too vague to put my finger on,” he said. He crossed the space between them and framed most of her face in one big hand, lifting her chin and kissing her. He raised his head at last, looking down at her for a long, long moment, his thumb rubbing gently across the lips still swollen from earlier kisses. “You belong to me,” he said in a strange, suspended voice.
“Yes,” she said instantly, knowing she did, knowing she was his, body and soul, no matter what the future held.
He enfolded her in his arms and held her tightly for a moment. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said firmly, and it was a promise, a vow chiseled from stone.
“I know.” She hugged as much of him as she could, but released him instantly when he stepped
back.
Zach drew on his shoulder harness, automatically and methodically checking the big silver automatic. “I’ll probably be gone for quite a while,” he said. “This may be my last chance to look things over before they ship out.”
“All right.”
The door closed softly behind him.
Teddy stood perfectly still for a long time, staring at that door. A chill was playing up and down her spine, and a sudden fear clenched her heart.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Why, she wondered, had he said what he did just then? Had some Scottish forebear of his own gifted Zach with a presentiment of danger? There had always been danger, of course, but why did she feel now as though it were much closer and far more deadly?
She gasped suddenly as a dizzying wave broke over her, only dimly surprised that she was somehow being granted a second gift of vision. The image flashed with lightning swiftness, and a moan broke from her lips in a sound of anguish.
No. No, it wouldn’t happen.…
The image was gone, and she was left staring at the closed door. Vaguely, she wondered at the arguments that it was possible, given knowledge, to change the future. Either she had been given two differing glimpses of the future, or else … or else both would take place. Unless she could somehow change at least one of them.
There really was no choice for her.
She found herself standing before the computer, and sat down quickly. She turned the machine on, her thoughts centered on the man who meant more to her than her own life.
“Forgive me, Zach,” she whispered into the silence of the cabin. “I have to do something.…”
Her fingers were steady and sure on the keys, and her brow furrowed as she concentrated intensely on remembering the sequence. Swiftly, she typed out the proper access codes.
An hour passed, and Teddy paced the cabin. The computer had been off for half of that time, and her nerves had stretched to the screaming point. She was no longer thinking of what she had done, that was past and unregretted.
She thought instead of what had driven her to it. She had wondered, in the beginning, how people survived the awful ache of love, and Zach’s physical possession, though blunting the pain, had left the yearning intact. She thought she would never lose that, even if Zach one day learned to love and trust her completely. The thought of it held no terrors for her.
But what did terrify her was the possibility that Zach would go forever beyond her reach, leaving only the terrible anguish of knowing just a part of his love. If he sent her away, or walked away himself, at least there was the belief that she would somehow be able to hold him in her arms again. But if he were taken from her by an act of violence—
She frowned a little, something nagging at her. After a brief hesitation she went over to kneel by her luggage and purse. A moment’s digging brought out the case of tranquilizer darts that Zach had returned to her purse. She held it thoughtfully, then scrabbled through the luggage he hadn’t bothered to check in the beginning. The dart pistol was just where she’d packed it.
Acting on nothing but the need to be prepared, she readied two darts and loaded the pistol, then put it and the case in her purse. Then she carried the purse to the table and left it there before beginning to pace again.
God only knew if she’d have reason—or a chance—to use the pistol, but having it ready made her feel just a bit less helpless. And she was an accurate shot, there was that.
The pacing didn’t help and she stopped, swearing softly.
Teddy shivered, hugging herself for a warmth that never came. She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt of Zach’s that swallowed her but bore the faint musky scent of him. And she was afraid.
She was desperately afraid.
When the first shot came, she literally jerked under the emotional impact of it. Then she stood frozen, hearing the second shot and the third. Before the last echoes had died away, she was tugging open the door and running, completely forgetting the pistol in her purse. Half a dozen steps from the cabin door she paused, looking around in an effort to get her bearings. Impenetrable forest surrounded her, but a fourth gunshot jerked her to the right and sent her racing, only one thought, one agonized question in her mind.
She hadn’t realized they were so close, and burst through into the clearing surrounding the house without being able to stop herself. Immediately a whining bullet chipped bark from the tree to her left, and from her right, rising with a crash from the undergrowth, lunged Zach.
Between one heartbeat and the next, Teddy knew with haunting despair that she herself had blindly invited the reality of the image she had seen with such distortion. With every fiber of her being she had known that Zach could take care of himself, would be canny and cautious, but that he would instantly and without thought shield her with his own body from danger, yet she had rashly placed herself in just that position.
A sharp report and the hollow thud of a bullet striking flesh, and scarlet blood …
If only she had remained in the cabin.
And in that instant, between one heartbeat and the next, she twisted violently in an irrevocable attempt to change what had to be.
Her lightning movement threw Zach off-balance, and he, too, was twisting in midair, reaching out for her, a raw, despairing terror tightening the muscles of his face. And he almost got her, his outstretched hand reaching her arm. But he jerked her around before he pulled her down with him, and when her back was to the house, in that fleeting second another shot rang out.
Zach wasted no time. With an arm around her waist he hauled her back into the undergrowth, his big automatic bucking in his hand. The sound of it was deafening as he fired behind them and tried to pin down the gunman. Then the house was lost from sight, and he lifted her into his arms and carried her swiftly through the woods toward the cabin.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he demanded in a furious, shaking voice. “Dammit, Teddy, you could have been killed!”
“I was worried about you,” she said very softly, staring up at his white face.
He said something violently explicit between gritted teeth.
She had left the door open, and Zach carried her inside and set her on her feet, reaching back to slam it shut behind them. “We’ve got a few minutes at least,” he said, still angry. “I winged the bastard just before you came diving into it, so I doubt he’ll come hunting us in a hurry—”
Teddy felt very peculiar. She was cold and couldn’t seem to feel the floor beneath her feet, and the most appalling weakness was spreading throughout her body. Shock, she realized vaguely. I’m in shock. She looked down at the floor as the sound of the door slamming shook the cabin, and bemusedly watched tiny splashes of scarlet color the rough wooden planking beside her boots, and she idly wondered why her fingers were red, too, and why her arm was so heavy and why Zach’s voice seemed to be fading into the depths of some bottomless cave.…
“Teddy!”
He caught her as she swayed, lifted her, and carried her to the bed where he covered her with blankets. When she opened her eyes, Zach was ripping her left sleeve from cuff to shoulder. He swore steadily in an odd monotone and seemed a bit clumsy when he hurried to get the first-aid kit. Teddy thought about that from the distant reaches of her vast detachment.
Zach wasn’t clumsy.
How odd.
She came back to herself with a painful suddenness that made her gasp. Her arm was still heavy, but now it throbbed with fire and she could see why when she looked at it. The gauze Zach was using to wipe her skin was stained bright red, and there was an ugly gash that ran from her elbow almost to her shoulder. Fascinated in a horrified way, she saw that the bullet had torn into her sleeve just above the elbow, plowed a furrow up her arm, and torn its way out at her shoulder.
She remembered the moment she’d been shot. She had been off-balance, yanked around by Zach’s lunge, her arm thrown up. She remembered the burning sensation in her arm, barely no
ticed at the time. And she realized that if she had not jerked backward and twisted, if Zach had not been forced to twist his own body in order to reach her, he would have caught the bullet squarely in the center of his back.
It almost made the pain go away.
Trying to shake off the weakness of lost blood and shock, she murmured, “I’m fine, Zach. It’s just a scratch.”
He sent her one look from glittering gray eyes, then concentrated entirely on the task of cleaning and bandaging her wound. His face was ashen, the scar on his cheek a livid slash, and his hands trembled slightly.
Teddy wouldn’t have willingly put him through this for anything she could think of, but her heart leaped in joy when she realized that he really did care about her, whether he knew it or not. He had seen uncounted battlefield wounds and had suffered a few himself, yet the sight of what was in all honesty a slight injury to her had shaken him badly.
In silence, he cleaned and disinfected the wound, being amazingly gentle under the circumstances, then bandaged it very carefully. Teddy found that the pain was only a dull throb, although she had no idea how badly it might hurt when the shock wore off completely.
“It didn’t harm anything vital,” she said finally, watching his face.
“No,” he agreed. “But you … lost a lot of blood.”
Trying to ease the pain revealed by his bleak look, she said, “Only a pint or so. I’ve given that much at the blood bank.”
“Not in shock, you haven’t. And not because of a bullet.” His expression remained the same, but now Teddy could tell that something terrible was going on inside Zach. He was holding her arm in his hands, staring down at the neat white bandage, and his long fingers quivered. In a strange, wondering tone, he said, “The bastard shot you.”
Teddy caught her breath, staring at him, as aware of the danger filling the small cabin as if it were a visible thing. Menace literally came off Zach in waves, cold and deadly, like an Arctic wind howling off a glacier.
In the back of her mind, memory stirred, and she recalled something a psychologist friend had once told her. One man in perhaps ten thousand was a throwback to those old Scandinavian berserkers, whose blood rages had been awesome and uncontrollable; that such a man, pushed too far, became something more dangerous than any man-made weapon could ever be. On those rare occasions he was beyond rational thought, existing briefly in an icy, remote place where violent action was the only solution to inner rage and anguish.
