“Let’s go,” Michael said in an implacable voice.
Once in the pickup, Blair pulled out onto the highway, traveling south, back toward Emerald Bay. Michael, his head against the seat, sat immobile next to her. The only time she’d been to John’s airfield, they’d come from Emerald Bay. She didn’t drive this way often, but she thought she remembered where the turn was. Twenty minutes later, she passed it.
“To the right up here,” Michael said once she’d made a U-turn on the deserted highway.
He directed her with mumbled left and right instructions, past the airfield. Quick glances at Michael revealed he was still resting his head against the back of the seat. His lids fluttered open. “That house,” he said, pointing to a small, neatly kept, shingle house.
She turned back to Michael.
He had lost consciousness.
***
Elena Rodriguez looked like a sex goddess. Her dark hair tumbled down her back; her rich complexion glowed. Blair still wasn’t quite sure how Elena had known to come rushing out, but there had been no doubt that she knew Michael. Concern had clouded the beautiful woman’s features when she took one look at him.
But Blair didn’t notice Elena’s looks until after she’d sewn Michael up and bound his wound, partly because it took so much effort to understand Elena’s broken English.
“I give him injection. You give him capsules.” Blair accepted an envelope bulging with what appeared to be pills. “He must drink liquids. Today, tomorrow, next day maybe. Then, when he is hungry, red meat.” She snapped a leather attaché closed. “Okay?”
“Yes.” Blair bent over Michael, who lay on a floral couch, and pushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Why is he still unconscious?”
Elena seemed to analyze the way Blair touched Michael. “He will wake soon,” she said abruptly, picking up the wash cloth and towel she’d used. “You will not leave him.”
“No, of course not.”
Elena nodded, seemingly satisfied. “I will give gauze to change for you.”
Blair was beginning to understand the logic of Elena’s English. “Can he be moved?”
“Juan and me will take you. He take truck to your house. He say car rent will be return, like that.” Elena snapped her fingers, and bent to touch Michael’s cheek. He didn’t stir. “No one will know.”
Blair nodded, her concentration on Michael’s inert body.
Elena looked at her for long silent moments. “You are la mujer ¿no?” Elena asked.
“The woman?”
“The one who break his heart.”
Blair wanted to shake her head, but felt pinned by Elena’s dark eyes.
“No importa. No matter. You help him now.”
Blair, aware she’d been judged but redeemed through helping Michael, couldn’t resist her own curiosity. “How do you know Michael? Why are you helping him?”
“Because he save Juan.” she replied. “He is … muy valiente. How you say?”
“Very brave?”
“Ah, sí.” A spark of humor lit her eyes. “Also, he is muy guapo.”
“Handsome?”
“Sí, but we will see if he is shy, no?” She knelt next to Michael and began unfastening his blood-stained jeans. “I will wash his clothes, okay?” She didn’t wait for Blair’s reply. “You help.”
***
Michael hurt. Everywhere. The most persistent pain came from his side, at his waist. Confusion blocked his efforts to understand why he felt so bad.
Then he remembered. He grabbed at his side and felt the thick bandage.
“You’re safe.” Blair spoke from a chair beside the couch where he lay.
She might have run like hell six years earlier, but she had helped him this time.
“Go now.”
“You need help.”
He should thank her by making her leave. He should insist.
But just one look at her stopped him. Maybe she had more spirit than good sense, but she was tenacious.
That tenacity had saved his life.
His mouth seemed unwilling to cooperate with his brain. Exhaustion pulled at his consciousness. Blair’s face faded. His last thought was that he didn’t have on any clothes. He started to demand she explain, but got no further than the thought.
***
Bright sunshine peeked through a crack in the blinds. Dust motes danced in the narrow rays.
Michael felt his side with care. It didn’t hurt any worse to touch it, but there was no point in taking a chance, so he didn’t press hard.
He looked around. Not Elena’s house. This was an elegant bedroom. The bed beneath him was wide, the cotton sheets soft and cool. A small black and chrome table with matching chairs dominated a sitting area. A wet bar—chrome, of course—filled an entire wall. He struggled to raise his arm to check the time, but he wasn’t wearing his watch. A quick glance down told him he only wore boxers. In front of the window, overlooking a garden, he saw jeans and a shirt draped over a chair.
With considerable effort, he rolled to one side and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The bedside table, a modern looking black one, held his Glock.
Shaking, sweat rolling down his back, he stumbled to the chair and struggled into his jeans. He’d managed to pull them up before the door opened.
If it had been Eddie and his cohorts, he’d be a dead man. The Glock was just out of reach.
But it was Blair, dressed in shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She carried a tray.
“You shouldn’t be up.”
He smiled at that, at his own weakness. “I’m not.”
“You should have stayed in bed.”
“And get caught with my pants off?”
She stepped in, leaving the door open behind her. “You certainly fought hard enough to keep them on.”
Surprised at the mirth in her voice, he paused in his struggle to zip the jeans while seated. When he looked up at her, she was smiling.
“You would have thought Elena and I wanted to have our evil way with you.”
He felt a flush creep up his cheeks. “I like to take off my own clothes.” He sounded like an idiot. What he should have said, what she understood, given her next words, was that he liked to be in control.
“You were in no shape to do anything.”
“I’m better now.” Determination brought him to his feet. Dizziness brought him right back down. “Why are you still here?”
“I had two choices. I could let you fall flat on your face, or I could help.” She paused. “Besides, after discovering how sensitive you are about dropping your pants, I was intrigued.”
She seemed to be waiting for a reply, so he made the effort. “Don’t expect me to thank you.”
“Elena said you’d be crabby.” She crossed the room and put the tray on the table.
“Where are we?”
“In Tampa. In a house that belongs to Elena’s cousin. John and Elena flew us here.”
“I don’t remember a damn thing,” Michael said, preparing to make another effort to stand.
“You were pretty out of it,” Blair replied, then added. “She’s very beautiful,”
“That’s what John thinks.”
Blair nodded slowly. “Oh.”
Despite the dizziness, he fought a smile. He couldn’t help but like the knowledge that she’d shown a little jealousy.
Then he sobered. “You’d better get back before you’re missed.”
“School’s not in. No one will miss me.”
“What about Drew?”
“He won’t miss me.”
“And if he does?”
“He knows the phones are a mess. Besides, it’s not as if we talk to each other often.”
He realized he was too weak to argue. “What’s to eat?”
“Soup. Juice.” She paused before adding, “Jello.”
“Elena and her liquid diet.”
Shadowed green eyes met his from across the room. “You’ve been
like this before. With her.”
He could have told her how Elena had saved his life once. How she’d kept him from bleeding to death from a gunshot wound to his thigh during an operation gone bad—the one that saved Juan from certain death. How in his delirium he’d thought Elena was Blair. How the beautiful woman couldn’t practice medicine despite her medical degree because she couldn’t speak English well enough. “Yes.”
Blair stared at him, her face unreadable. Then she stepped forward. “I’ll help you back to bed.”
He didn’t want her help. He wanted her gone before she got hurt. Before he got so used to her presence that letting her go would rip his heart out again.
But he couldn’t get out of the damn chair.
He felt her arms around him, careful of his side, and used what little strength he had left to lever himself up. Stumbling back to the bed, Blair’s perfume, a subtle mixture of vanilla and soap, brought back waves of memories—light, fun ones, blazing hot ones.
He groaned.
“Did I hurt you?” Blair asked, steadying him as they stood next to the bed.
Michael stared down at her upturned face and wondered if she could see his answer.
“The bed’s behind you. Just sit back.”
Stubbornly, he stood, legs braced apart, an arm around Blair’s shoulder. “Go home, Blair. This is no place for you.”
“Elena helped you. You didn’t chase her away.”
“I needed her help. I don’t need yours.”
She looked up at him again, this time with a quizzical half-smile. “You don’t?”
He tried to straighten, despite the pulling at his side, despite the very real possibility his knees would buckle. “I could have gotten back to bed on my own.”
Michael thought he’d won when her half-smile turned into a frown. Then the room spun and he struggled to ease back without hurting himself.
***
Blair stood in the kitchen, stirring a pan full of chicken noodle soup. She had never felt jealous in her entire life. There simply had been nothing to be jealous of. She had her parents’ love, she had friends, had been engaged.
But right now she was jealous. Even though Elena and John were a couple, she had seen how well the woman knew Michael. She had helped him before. When Blair herself should have been there for him.
There was no one to blame but herself. She’d made the choice that ripped a common future from Michael and her. The emptiness of the past six years was her own doing. Her refusal of Jim Andrews, whom she’d been expected to marry, who’d seemed so right for her, had come too late to save Jim’s feelings and her parent’s embarrassment. But it had been the only choice she had when she realized she still wanted Michael. She’d simply figured it out too late.
Sweet Jim who’d promised a life in the suburbs, children, summer vacations, and more importantly, “normal,” whatever that was. All those things she’d wanted as she’d watched her parents endure their marriage.
While she still pined for Michael and the heady passion of his loving. Michael, with whom life would have been an exhilarating ride, each day fraught with danger and insecurity. Never knowing anything beyond what he was willing to tell her. Never knowing if he’d come home. Knowing that nothing about Michael and herself would be mundane unless she made it so—worked at it.
Her parents’ marriage had been a struggle. Her father’s work and social schedule was not one with which her mother could cope, despite her desire to do so. As Blair grew older, she knew she wanted so much more for herself.
She should have shown more courage, been more willing to take a leap of faith. She should have understood that there were things Michael would never tell her. Instead, she’d thrown away the love of her life.
A tear tickled down her cheek and she swiped at it.
But she was different now, realized her failings, her bad choice. Michael had changed, too. He’d spent six years doing what he loved. Six years without the constraints of a woman of little courage.
She poured the soup into a bowl and prepared a tray. Elena’s cousin certainly had high-priced taste. Expensive china and flatware graced the bright airy kitchen. The house, a little too modern for her, was filled with decorator-style furnishings.
Michael had quickly fallen into a restless sleep. Blair made sure his foray out of bed had not ripped his stitches, and, after seeing he’d quieted, decided he needed nourishment.
Now he lay on the white sheets, his dark hair tousled, his chest bare, his eyes watching.
“You’re awake. Good.”
“I don’t suppose you have real food there.”
Blair stepped into the room. “Chicken noodle soup.”
“Funny, you don’t look like my mother.”
Blair felt his perusal and struggled for a reply. “Elena said liquid first.”
“Elena’s never had to survive on liquid.”
“But you have.”
His dark eyes met hers. “Yes, Blair, I have. That’s the kind of life I live. The kind of life I like.” His voice sounded hard.
She had no response for that, so she tried for humor. “You like being hurt?”
Michael sighed. “You know what I mean.”
“Drink the soup, Michael,” Blair said putting the tray down next to his gun on the table. “Can I put this in the drawer?”
“Give it to me.”
She picked up the gun, handed it to him and watched him put it under the spare pillow.
Then he rolled to one side, bracing himself to sit up. Blair leaned over and helped.
“Don’t let me get used to having you around,” he said.
Blair straightened once he rested against the headboard, prepared to tell him he needed her, but stopped herself. Did she want him to need her? Did she really want a second chance?
He looked at her levelly before adding. “It’s something you’ll regret.”
***
They spent two days between bursts of conversation fit for strangers and uneasy silences. Michael wished there were words that would place her out of harm’s way. He thought of plenty, but couldn’t bring himself to be that cruel again. Blair cooked, changed his dressing, gave him his pills.
And while he regained his strength, courtesy of steaks and rest, Blair seemed remote and unwilling to talk about anything but his health, the weather and the news. He knew she’d told friends and her mother that she was visiting in Atlanta before leaving with him for Tampa. When he asked if Drew had tried to contact her, she told him she didn’t know. Her home phone still didn’t work and she hadn’t brought her cell, which was good since any calls on it could be tracked.
They couldn’t continue like this. He couldn’t. This morning, he’d decided to be firm, but kind. She had to go.
She brought him a plate and a glass of orange juice as he sat at the table in the kitchen, her hair brushing the shoulders of a Mickey Mouse shirt. He supposed she’d had to buy some things since she couldn’t go home. The clothes she’d been wearing didn’t look like the sort of thing he’d ever seen her in. Blair Davenport wasn’t flashy, she had good taste. This outfit looked like it had been picked piece-meal, as she needed things.
To stop himself from thinking about her looks and her clothing, he spoke. “Is that bacon I smell?”
“And eggs. Should send your cholesterol levels into the danger zone.”
“But I’ll die a happy man.”
The juice nearly sloshed out of the glass when she released it. Her green eyes flashed as they zeroed in on him.
That one look spoke volumes. Her face paled. Fear. For him.
Michael didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to acknowledge it.
The air vibrated with unspoken tension. He grabbed for the glass in an attempt to steady it, to steady himself.
His fingers closed over Blair’s hand. The contact singed him. He brought his other hand up slowly, to see if she’d object, to Blair’s arm, to the pulse point at her throat, to the back of her neck. To draw her f
ace down to his, savor.
Want.
Her lips, cool and soft, flowered for him. For a single instant he was aware of Blair’s hands on his shoulders. Then all was heat and promise.
With fingers eager to feel her warmth, he pushed his hands into the thickness of her hair, to hold on. To never let go.
Unbearable hunger thrummed through him as her mouth took in his desire and re-doubled it. Tongues touched, feasted. There didn’t seem to be enough air, enough time, enough—
He fought for control, for something to distract him from what he wanted more than anything.
Pulling back, he found the strength to push her away gently.
Because he loved her.
Chapter 9
Blair stumbled back, the glass, the food, forgotten. He’d robbed her of breath, of reason, in a heartbeat.
“You need to go, Blair. I’m getting stronger. I’ll be back to normal soon.”
She stared, mute, at his mouth.
“It would be easy to make—have sex. It was good before.”
Blair wanted to crawl into a hole as his words pierced her heart.
His dark eyes held hers. “I don’t think either of us wants that without the emotion.”
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t true, but couldn’t. Six years ago she’d loved him so much there was no question they’d make love. Now she didn’t know. She shook her head.
He said nothing, cool, dark eyes locked to hers.
Her thoughts raced. She’d wanted to love Jim Andrews, such a nice man. She’d felt like she’d betrayed something sacred when she’d been with him. Seeing Michael made her realize she had.
Silence, thick and heavy, lay around them.
The phone rang, startling her. She met Michael’s gaze.
“Answer it.”
She reached for the shrilling portable on the counter behind her.
Elena asked specific questions about Michael’s condition. Blair listened carefully, then handed the receiver to him and backed away. He watched her.
“Hola, Elena.” He spoke in Spanish for a minute then stretched, wincing, to hang up the phone.
“I told her you were leaving today.”
That nearly stopped her heart. She hurried to answer. “You can’t manage on your own.”
Against the Wind Page 10
