by Kaylea Cross
The gun Frank Decorah had given her. She knew exactly where she had put it, and now it wasn’t here. She reached farther into the suitcase, feeling through her clothing, but the Glock was definitely missing.
Someone had taken it.
That Padilla guy? Or someone else?
She closed her eyes for a moment, wanting to contact Frank right away and tell him. But that was impossible. And what good would it do her to report the gun missing? She was stuck here on her own. And she knew someone had gone through her possessions and knew she had brought a weapon.
There was nothing she could do about that now. Instead she found clean clothing, a soft knit navy shirt and gray slacks. After the fastest shower in the history of humanity, she got dressed again and brushed her hair back into the bun that had come undone.
Wishing she had more time to get ready to face the family, she descended the stairs. When she reached the front hall, she almost turned back. On some deep, primitive level, she knew she wasn’t going to like this breakfast. Yet she was here to figure out who had hit Jordan over the head, and observing the family was a good way to start.
Hannah jumped when someone moved into her path from the shadows beside the staircase.
“I’m sorry to startle you.” It was Mrs. Estes, the housekeeper.”
“I’m fine,” Hannah said.
“How are you settling in?” the woman asked in a more friendly tone than she’d exhibited earlier.
“Fine,” she answered again, wondering if the housekeeper was the one who had taken the gun out of the suitcase.
Mrs. Estes looked over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “They came in and took over the house. It’s not right. You need to help me.”
Hannah looked at her helplessly. “What do you mean?”
“Take care of him. Make him well again.”
She nodded slowly, startled and puzzled by the obvious anxiety displayed by Jordan’s housekeeper. It sounded like she really cared about him.
“I’ll do my best.”
Before the woman could say any more, a door opened, and Stephanie stepped into the foyer.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “Come in. Everybody’s waiting for you.”
Mrs. Estes hurried away, and Hannah followed Jordan’s sister into the dining room. The rest of his family was there. Some had plates of food in front of them. Others were helping themselves from a buffet spread along an enormous sideboard where a length of holiday greenery and small Christmas balls added a festive touch.
Hannah poured herself coffee and set the cup at an empty place, then took eggs, bacon, some hashed brown potatoes and sliced fruit. Bringing the plate to the table, she sat down and looked around. Everybody was dressed in casually elegant clothing that made Hannah feel frumpy. And from their expressions, she guessed they had probably been talking about her.
“We haven’t met yet. I’m June Brighton, Jordan’s younger sister,” a slim blond in her early thirties said.
“Nice to meet you.”
“How are you settling in?” June asked.
Hannah fingered her coffee cup. “Well, I had to get right to work last night. But I expect I’ll be able to unpack today.” She took a bite of egg, chewed and swallowed before asking, “You and Stephanie were here when Jordan had his accident?”
“Yes.”
“That was lucky for him.”
“Yes,” June answered.
“Tell us what you think about Jordan’s condition,” Stephanie said.
Glad to be able to focus on her patient, Hannah quickly she gave them a rough assessment.
Stephanie leaned forward. “When is he going to wake up?”
“That’s hard to say,” she answered carefully. “He’s shown some signs of reaching a higher level of consciousness.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed, as though he thought she was making it up. “I hope that’s not just wishful thinking. Exactly what did he do?”
“His facial expression changed,” she answered, amazed at how easily the lie came to her lips. She wasn’t going to tell them about her dream. Well, not a dream. She’d been in the world that Jordan was inhabiting now. In that world, he thought he was in danger. It was undoubtedly true here, too. And he wasn’t the only one. Someone had searched her luggage and taken her weapon. If not the staff, then someone in this room.
“He always did love risky behavior,” Richard muttered. “It’s his own fault that he’s in this fix.”
“How?” Hannah asked.
“It was too rough to be out in the motorboat—especially by himself.”
No one disagreed.
Hannah wanted to retort that it was a pretty hard assessment, considering it wasn’t true. She didn’t think he would have gone out if the conditions had been bad.
“I’ve done some reading on coma,” Stephanie said. “The longer he’s unconscious, the more likely it is there will be permanent damage.”
Hannah flicked a glance at her. “Yes.”
“So that would mean he wouldn’t be competent to make business decisions,” June said.
Was that what this was about? They all wanted to get Jordan declared incompetent, so they could get control of his money?
“I’m not able to comment on that,” she said, struggling to keep the irritation out of her voice.
They left the topic alone, moving on to more mundane aspects of Jordan’s treatment—his physical therapy regime and the like. Hannah fielded the questions with studied care, acutely conscious of not wanting to say anything that might affect the status quo. Her best approach was to have another talk with Jordan and find out what the devil was going on around here.
Maybe if she prompted him with what she’d found out, he’d get a better handle on the situation.
Chapter Eight
Jordan woke up. Well, he didn’t think he was actually awake in the true sense of the word, but he was aware in a way he hadn’t been before. He was in the room where the woman named Hannah had come to him, a room that he thought was his bedroom at Campbell’s Reach. She’d told him he was in a coma. He didn’t want to believe it, but he was starting to think she might be right.
He looked down at the clothes he was wearing. He had the feeling he’d been in this room for a long time, dressed in the same slacks, sports coat, white dress shirt and loafers. And even though he’d been here a long time, he didn’t remember eating anything. That argued that he really wasn’t in the known universe.
He hadn’t left the room, and that made him angry at himself. If he could get out of here—he should.
Hannah had gotten out. Well, not in the usual way. He’d been touching her breast, and she’d simply vanished like an assistant in a magician’s act. Not exactly a real-world exit.
Quickly he walked to the door, reached out and turned the knob. He’d been afraid that he was locked in, but it opened easily, and he was free to step into the hall. Not the hall he expected to see outside his bedroom door at Campbell’s Reach. Instead he was staring into a corridor in an upscale hotel, it looked like. Maybe the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton, hotels he frequented when he was on business trips.
He laughed. If he was making this place up, he’d apparently decided to be comfortable. He peered at the numbers on the doors, turning to see which one he’d come out of so he could find his way back. His breath caught when he saw it was this year.
The hallway was empty, and the place gave him an eerie feeling as he walked toward the elevators. The rooms on this side were all twenty something. On the other side of the elevators, they were nineteen something, which was strange. He’d never seen a hotel arranged that way.
He started back, then heard holiday music and sounds coming from room nineteen ninety-three.
Holiday music?
Yes, he remembered that it was mid-December. And that seemed to be true here, too.
Above the music, it sounded like a battle was going on in nineteen ninety-three. He raised his hand to knock, then changed his mind. Why
alert whoever was in there?
Feeling like a spy in his own dream, he slowly eased the door open. He saw a boy sitting on a sofa with two little girls, one younger and one older.
He recognized the trio. It was himself and his sisters—Stephanie and June. They were all facing an old-fashioned clunky television set. He was playing a video game that sat on the coffee table, and the girls were watching.
The boy who was his younger self paid him no attention as he concentrated on slaying alien invaders intent on raining death down on the earth’s population.
Jordan remembered getting the video game for Christmas years ago. And his sisters were holding the expensive dolls they’d gotten. They wanted to play his game, but he wasn’t letting them.
June was angry, and Stephanie was resigned.
June looked up and saw him in the doorway, and she went very still.
“What are you doing here?” she challenged.
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly.
“Go away.”
“Why should I?”
She made a scoffing sound. “You always do what you want to, don’t you?”
“That’s the way you see it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wrong.”
Stephanie stared from one of them to the other, a look of shock on her face.
“How did you get here?”
He shrugged.
“Go back where you belong,” his older sister whispered.
Wishing he knew exactly where that was, he backed out the door and closed it.
Good lord, what was going on here? He’d seen a glimpse of his own past. Well, not really, because he certainly didn’t remember his adult self coming in to interrupt Christmas nineteen ninety-three.
But then he hadn’t looked up from the game. The present-day Jordan Campbell had been talking to June and Stephanie, not himself.
If he opened other doors, would he see other long-ago scenes?
Like, could he find his parents? What if he could tell his mother to make sure she got a mammogram? Would that keep her from getting breast cancer? The idea was tempting, but he didn’t think he would find reality behind the doors. This was more like the scene with Hannah. Not real but not exactly fake, either.
With a sigh, he turned around and walked rapidly back to the room where he’d started, the one that looked like his bedroom back at Campbell’s Reach.
He went inside, kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed. He didn’t want to think about why he was here or what it meant. And he didn’t want to think about the three kids on the sofa. Instead he let his thoughts turn to Hannah, the woman who said she was his nurse. But she could get into the mind of an unconscious patient.
That seemed crazy on the face of it. But the only other alternative was that he’d conjured her up. From where? He was sure he’d never seen her before. And he was also sure he couldn’t have come up with that precise combination of beauty and brains on his own.
They’d kissed, and he’d cupped her breast. That had turned him on, and now he wanted to make love with her. Which he was pretty sure was a novelty in this place.
He thought back over the time he’d been here. As far as he could remember, he’d been numb and unresponsive since … his accident, if that’s what it really was. Hannah had brought him alive in a way he couldn’t explain, and now as he thought about kissing her and touching her, his cock hardened.
As he lay there, he kept thinking about Hannah. He didn’t want to think about what she’d told him. Instead he focused on the other part. The physical part. And really, wasn’t that the right thing to do? If he could build up enough sensations, maybe he could wake up.
He might be fooling himself with that assumption, but he went with it anyway because it was a lot more appealing than her urgent message. He’d loved kissing her. Loved the taste of her mouth. The feel of her tongue.
He thought about covering her mouth with his and ravishing her with a greed that he could hardly control.
When he’d wrung all the juice he could out of kissing her, he moved on. She’d been wearing a very buttoned-up gown. He switched it to another one—the color of café au lait … with only ribbons for straps and lace covering her breasts and the whole thing so sheer he could see the thatch of surprisingly soft blond hair covering her mound. A lot of women shaved down there these days. He was glad she didn’t.
Grinning, he imagined undressing her… pushing those skinny straps off her shoulders and down her arms until those spectacular breasts spilled out—into his waiting hands.
And meanwhile, she’d be unbuttoning his shirt and pushing it off his shoulders, her small hands sending a shock wave over his skin everywhere her fingers brushed and caressed him. Like his nipples. That would be good. And then unzipping his pants and reaching lower to clasp his aching cock. Or maybe he would yank his own shirt off.
He was driving himself crazy, and he had to stop. Or did he? This was a dream, or like a dream. He could do anything he wanted, and what would be the harm?
Yet he knew what was wrong. He didn’t want to lie here by himself, imagining making love to Hannah. He wanted to do it for real. And not just in a coma dream.
He smiled to himself. Waking up so he could take her in his arms gave him a goal, something he was sure he hadn’t had since he’d found himself in this shadow of his bedroom.
* * *
By the end of breakfast, Hannah was exhausted. After being shown the kitchen and given permission to get herself snacks or hot drinks, she wanted to go upstairs and fall into bed. Instead, she went into the den, where she found Richard working on his laptop.
“Is there some way I could get e-mail here?” she asked.
“Did you bring a computer?”
“A tablet.”
He looked surprised. “Why does a nurse need a tablet?”
“Well, to read books. But also my Uncle Frank is in his 80’s. I worry about him, and I told him I’d keep in touch.”
“What’s your uncle’s name?”
“Frank Donaldson.”
“And where does he live?”
“San Francisco. Can I bring my tablet?”
Richard sighed. “I might have a problem hooking you up to the house network. You can borrow my laptop for a short time,” he said grudgingly.
“Okay.”
Richard passed her the laptop, then got up and stood behind her while she got into her Web mail. She skimmed most of the messages headlines and went right to one from “Frank Donaldson.”
“I arrived here okay. I’m fine,” she told him. “I’m on that special assignment I told you about. My patient is still unconscious. I’ll be here until he’s better.” She didn’t mention any alternative to that, and she couldn’t think of a way to tell Frank that the gun had gone missing.
Richard was behind her, reading the message, and she gave him plenty of time to do it so he could see how innocuous it was. Finally, she hit “reply,” clicked out of her mail, and handed him back his computer.
“Thank you,” she said as warmly as she could. “I probably should go up and get some sleep so I’ll be ready for my next shift.”
“Good idea.”
She left the room, feeling his gaze on her back, and knowing that as soon as she was out of sight, he would check up on Frank Donaldson, which wouldn’t be a problem. He had an address near Union Square, his bio said he was a retired engineer, and further investigation would show he had a niece named Hannah Andrews, a nurse.
She’d expected to sleep only a few hours, but she didn’t wake until around five. After a real shower, she did her hair back into a bun and changed into her uniform, then had a quick dinner in the kitchen before returning to the sickroom, where she told Nurse Fahrenhold she would take over.
The other woman was glad to be relieved early.
After reading her notes, which said the patient was stable but still unresponsive, Hannah changed Jordan’s IV and checked his vital signs. They were still s
table, and she wrote down the information.
Having finished the routine tasks, she stood by his bed and looked at him. “How are you?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t answer, and she reached out to smooth back a lock of his dark hair.
“I think you’re good for him,” a woman said behind her.
She whirled and saw that it was Stephanie. Lord, the woman moved like a cat.
“I wish you people would stop sneaking up on me,” she blurted, then regretted it. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m still finding my way around here, and that’s at least the third time since I arrived that I’ve been startled by someone I didn’t know was behind me.”
“I like to sit with Jordan in the late afternoon,” Stephanie said. “You could take a walk through the gardens if you like.”
Hannah hesitated. She would like the chance to get out of the house, if only to clear her mind so she could think better. But when she cast a glance at Jordan, she was certain she saw a frown flicker across his brow.
“Thanks,” she said, “but I think I’ll just stay here. Maybe I can get out in the morning.”
Stephanie looked surprised—and frustrated. But she masked the negative expression quickly, adding to Hannah’s growing conviction that Jordan wasn’t safe here.
“You’re very dedicated,” Stephanie said.
“Well…” Hannah flapped a hand in a dismissive gesture. “That’s why I’m a nurse. I wanted to help sick people.”
The other woman cocked one eyebrow. “Is that it? Or are you forming a bond with your patient?”
“A bond?” She gave what she hoped passed as a bewildered look. “I just met him.”
Stephanie’s expression remained suspicious, but she said, “All right, then. I’ll see you in the morning.” Turning, she left the room.
Hannah exhaled the breath she’d been holding. She wished she could build a fortress around Jordan’s room, a place to keep him safe.
But safe from what? Or from whom? Was Stephanie only pretending concern?
She made a mental list of everyone she’d met and tried to figure out who was the biggest threat.
Richard had seemed hostile. Paula, his wife had come across as neutral. Stephanie seemed friendly one moment and hostile the next—but maybe the hostility was directed at the new nurse, and not Jordan. And Stephanie was the one who had saved his life.
