With the M.D....at the Altar?

by Jessica Andersen

  Panic surged through Rox. They were trapped in a dead-end room with bars on the windows and a Violent at the door.

  “Keep talking to him,” Luke ordered, heading for the window with purposeful intent, as though he knew something she didn’t.

  Even with the window broken open the air was starting to get thick in the supply room, and Rox’s head spun. “Doug,” she said urgently. “You’ve got to help us get out of here! The man who made you sick is going to kill a lot of people if you don’t. But if you help us, it’ll make up part way for what you’ve done. You were sick, Doug. You didn’t know what you were doing.” She patted his shoulder. “You didn’t know.”

  Finally, he quieted and went still. Pulling his hands from his grief-stained face, he said thickly, “What do you need me to do?”

  The door splintered and gave beneath the blows of the Violent out in the hallway. He’d be inside the room any moment.

  “Show us the way out,” Luke said. Rox gasped with relief when she saw that he stood next to a carved pillar in the corner of the room, holding up a stone slab to reveal access to the tunnel system below.

  Doug nodded. “I think I can do that.”

  WELLS STUMBLED through the forest for a second time, this time in daylight. His hands were sweaty and kept slipping on the grip of his revolver.

  How had things gotten so out of hand so quickly? He’d had everything under control, moving smoothly in the right direction. Then that bitch of an aide had gotten wind of the kickbacks, and he’d been forced to pay her off. The man on the phone had not been happy about that. He’d been even less amused that the investigation was headed exactly where he was supposed to make sure it didn’t.

  “Fix it,” he’d said, “or I’ll fix you.”

  But amidst all the bad news was the great, glorious, wonderful news that Camille was alive, that she’d be released the next day, once he’d finalized the sale of Beacon Manor.

  Beside that, most everything else faded. But not really, because he couldn’t enjoy having Camille back—and his wife out of mourning—if he was dead. Ergo, he had to take care of his problem in the monastery.

  But when he got there, he found that someone had already beaten him to it, and with a far more elegant solution.

  ROX FOLLOWED DOUG through the tunnels, with Luke right behind her. She was woozy and light-headed from gas as well as the rapid-fire injections of the nutrient followed by the two antidotes, but she was on her feet and moving.

  “The door is up here,” Doug said. “Just around the next corner.”

  “Let’s switch places,” Luke said. “If the bastard is out there, I’m in better condition to fight.”

  They made the change, with Rox squeezing close to the wall so the men could pass. Luke touched her hand on the way past, bringing a warm glow to her heart, though one that was tempered with caution as reality intruded. It was all well and good to exchange I-love-yous in the heat of the moment, when they were both just grateful to be alive. It was quite another to make it work in the day-to-day grind, and she already knew Luke excelled at the grand gestures but fell far short when it came to the daily business of life.

  When they reached the stone panel that the cured Violent said would lead to the outside, Luke gestured for her and Doug to move off to one side. Then he felt around for the trigger mechanism, and cracked the door to reconnoiter.

  “It looks clear,” he whispered a moment later. “And I see the mechanism that’s pumping the gas into the monastery.”

  “Is the scientist there?” she whispered back.

  “I don’t see him.” Luke paused. “Stay here. I’m going to take a look, and shut the pump down. I’ll reverse it if I can, see if I can get some circulation going to dissipate the gas as quickly as possible. Wait until I give you the all’s clear.”

  Rox nodded, but her insides churned with nerves. “Be careful.”

  He leaned in for a quick, hard kiss. “You, too.”

  Then he was gone. Rox held her breath and stood in the rocky doorway, which opened around the side of the monastery, and was disguised as a piece of the huge structure’s granite foundation.

  Behind her, she heard Doug groan and slide down to sit on the floor of the tunnel, propped up against the wall. She heartily wished she could do the same, but she stayed strong for Luke, and for the patients and their families, who were depending on them to shut down the gas.

  Luke crossed the grassy verge beside the foundation of the big building, staying low. When he reached a whirring generator attached to a series of pipes and bottles, he crouched down and fiddled with the mechanism.

  Moments later the motor noise stopped, then after a pause, it started up again at a different pitch. Luke turned and waved to Rox. “Got it. All clear!”

  She gave a glad cry and burst from concealment, racing toward him with her arms outstretched. “We did it!”

  She was halfway across the open space separating them when a shot cracked out from the nearby forest.

  “Down!” Luke shouted, and Rox hit the deck. He sprinted to her, dropped down beside her, feeling for injuries. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she said, shoving him away. “He missed. Get the bastard!”

  He was gone in a flash, bolting into the trees, heedless when two more shots rang out, going wild. Then he roared a primal battle cry and flung himself on a man who had broken cover behind a scrubby bush and turned to run.

  Rox struggled to her feet, calling, “Doug! Get the main doors open and drag the police officers out, then shut the doors again. Once they’re awake, help them contain the other Violents. We’ll need more antidote before we can let them go free!”

  Then she was off across the grass, limping toward where Luke and the other man had disappeared.

  She came upon them in a clearing just in time to see Luke get the bastard by the scruff of the neck and slam him to the ground face-first. Luke’s face was bruised and battered, and already starting to swell, but she loved the lean lines of it, and the determination when he whipped the other man’s arm up behind his back so high his captive howled with pain.

  “I didn’t do it!” the other man shouted. “It’s me. Percy Wells. I came to help, I swear!”

  Luke cursed and flipped the mayor over, but didn’t back down. “Then why did you shoot at us?”

  Wells held up both hands, the gun having fallen free in the struggle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I thought you were him, the man who started the generator. I saw him one minute, then the next he was gone. Then you were there, and I panicked.” He was close to blubbering now, and there was no mistaking the fear in his eyes. His voice dropped to a broken whisper. “I was only trying to help, I swear.”

  Luke looked across the clearing at her. “What do you think?”

  “Let Swanson have him,” she said, swaying a little on her feet. “He’ll figure everything out.”

  Luke frowned. “Rox? Are you okay?”

  “Nuh…no.” The sway became a lurch, and suddenly the world was spinning. “I don’t feel so good. I think…I think all the injections are catching up to me.”

  She pitched to the ground as the world went gray. The last thing she knew was the feel of strong arms holding her, and the sound of Luke’s voice whispering, “Don’t worry, Roxie. I’ve got you, and this time I’m not letting go.”

  AS RAVEN’S CLIFF seethed with news of the near tragedy up at the monastery and the doctors’ heroic rescue of their patients and other townspeople—as well as the lady doctor’s collapse just thereafter, and rumors of the mayor’s involvement—the well-dressed scientist took the opportunity to slip along the cliff-side pathway to the caves hidden beneath Beacon Lighthouse.

  The mayor had made the deal and sold off the lighthouse, which meant it was up to him to hold up his end of the bargain, by returning Camille to her father.

  His other plans might not have gone as well as he’d hoped, but this one was right on schedule.

  Whistling softly, the scientist picked
his way through the cave system, using his flashlight to light the way. When he reached the cave at the far end, he stopped dead, the whistle dying on his lips.

  She was gone.

  Unable to believe his eyes, he strode into the chamber and circled the small space, cursing, trying to figure out what had happened. She’d been there two days earlier, had still been unconscious. Had she come around and somehow managed to escape?

  No, he thought. Impossible. Even if she’d regained consciousness, she’d been securely chained. The old shackles were easy to open from above, but it would’ve been impossible for her to unchain herself. Which meant someone else must have rescued her.

  Or maybe not a rescue per se, he realized. If she’d been rescued—or escaped—she would’ve turned up in town by now. Someone else had taken her, stealing his prize.

  The scientist thought quickly. He could search for her, but there was no guarantee she was still in the cave system, and he couldn’t very well call the cops or go door-to-door and ask if anyone had seen the mayor’s dead daughter. But at the same time, he’d made a deal. If he double-crossed Wells, there was a chance the mayor would reveal the bargains they’d struck, and involve the cops, maybe even the feds.

  Unless…

  A smile touched the mad scientist’s lips as he thought of a way to use the recent chaos in Raven’s Cliff to his advantage.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the days following Luke and Rox’s harrowing escape from the monastery, she drifted in and out of consciousness. She was alternately burning with fever and wracked with chills as her body responded to the agents she’d been injected with.

  Her white cell count was off the charts, her hormone levels were haywire and when she did wake, she wasn’t terribly lucid. But against all odds she was alive, and her body was fighting hard to clear the foreign substances and return her to the land of the living.

  Through it all, Luke stayed at her bedside. He wanted her to see him every time she woke, wanted her to hear his voice telling her she was going to get better, that he was there for her, that he loved her. Not just that, but he wanted to be beside her through the illness. He needed to be there, needed to watch her breathe, watch the drip of the IV that fed fluids into her body, guarding against dehydration.

  Bug and Thom had helped him move her to her private apartment over the clinic, so she wouldn’t have to be in the monastery anymore. They had stayed on in the monastery, helping a second team of doctors manage the Violents, and prepare and administer the antidote to all the remaining patients.

  The patients’ recoveries following administration of the antidote were nothing short of remarkable. Some, like May, took a few hours to respond, while others, like Doug, recovered almost immediately. The one common denominator was that all of the DLD sufferers who survived to receive the antidote made a full recovery, both Violents and non-violents.

  Still, the town mourned the lost. Mr. Prentiss and his older son went home without the other two members of their family, and Mary Wylde would raise her two children without their father, Henry. Doug Allen teetered on the brink of depression over the people he’d killed, and the Raven’s Cliff cemetery would gain six new headstones.

  And that wasn’t the end of the troubles in Raven’s Cliff, either. Though Mayor Wells protested his innocence, loudly and in great detail to anyone who would listen, Captain Swanson had uncovered evidence that the mayor had been the mastermind behind production of the deadly nutrient. In the midst of the furor that announcement had caused came more tragic news when the bodies of two young women washed up on the beaches south of Raven’s Cliff. Identified as high school seniors Cora MacDonald and Sophia Lagios, the girls had last been seen the night of the prom.

  The police, including Sophia’s brother, homicide detective Andrei Lagios, were keeping the details quiet, but rumor said the girls had been found wearing white dresses and seashell necklaces, indicating that they had been the victims of the Seaside Strangler.

  The curse, it seemed, had not yet left Raven’s Cliff. And as far as Luke was concerned, he wasn’t leaving until it did…and maybe not even then, if Rox would have him. So he sat by her bedside, fielding increasingly irate calls from his higher-ups as they learned how free and loose he’d played with regulations, dosing numerous patients with thoroughly unapproved drugs.

  At first he listened and apologized, because his bosses were right—the rules existed to protect the patients, and he’d skirted way too close to the “harm” side of the “do no harm” part of the Hippocratic oath. But after a while, he got sick of the bureaucratic garbage and snapped, “It worked, didn’t it? What would you rather have me do, let them all die?”

  “You got lucky,” his boss’s boss said.

  “I know,” Luke replied, glancing over at Rox’s sleeping form and feeling a tug of love, and the worry that went with caring.

  “Unofficially, I agree with everything you did,” his boss’s boss admitted. “Officially, though, you’re suspended pending an investigation into your actions.”

  And though a year ago—heck, a couple of weeks ago—that would’ve been devastating news, now Luke turned away from the bed and shrugged. “Good. Saves me from requesting a leave of absence for the next few months.”

  He rang off soon after, and in the silence that followed, Rox said, “You’re staying?”

  He looked at the bed, and his chest tightened when he saw that she was awake, her eyes clear and bright. “Yeah,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “I am.”

  ROX STARED AT HIM, assessing, not quite daring to believe he was saying what she hoped he was saying. He’d said he loved her, had said they’d make it work. And he’d stayed through her illness; every time she’d opened her eyes he’d been there, making her feel cherished and safe.

  But still, she’d made assumptions about him before and gotten burned.

  “For how long?” she said now, even though deep down inside she knew there wasn’t a right answer to the question. If he said he was leaving as soon as she was back on her feet, he’d break her heart again. But if he said he was staying for good, how could she be sure she believed him?

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. Definitely until things have settled down in this town of yours.”

  Sitting down in the chair beside her bed, he took her hand in one of his, and used his free hand to brush her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear in a gesture so tender it brought tears to her eyes. “Then you’re not really staying, are you?” she whispered.

  “I think that’s something we should decide together,” he said, leaning in so he could look into her eyes. “There’s going to be two of us from now on, maybe more later, when the time’s right to start a family. So I foresee some serious negotiations in the future, like whether we both live here full time, or we split our time between here and D.C., or whatever. And you know what? I don’t really care where we live and what we do, as long as we’re doing it together.”

  Her gathered tears brimmed up and spilled over as she realized she’d been wrong before. Apparently there was a right answer to her question, and that was it.

  They’d figure it out together.

  Feeling her strength return on a wash of love and trust, she reached across and slid the IV from her vein, wincing slightly at the burn. Then she levered herself up in the bed and reached for Luke.

  He met her halfway and held her hard, and she could feel all the love and worry and stress in his big frame. “Thank you for staying,” she whispered, pressing her face into his chest.

  He pulled away and grinned down at her. “Just try and get rid of me, I dare you. I’m in it for the long haul this time, whatever it takes.” He paused. “I love you.”

  “Love you back.” She grinned and lifted her face to his, and they met in a kiss that closed one chapter of their lives and began another. As they kissed, twining together like two halves of a whole, a gentle summer breeze blew through the open window of her bedroom. On it she heard the cry
of a seagull and the clang of a harbor buoy, and she realized that Raven’s Cliff might be a home, but Luke—and their love for each other—was her center. It had taken them some time to find their way back to each other, but now that they had, she was finally at home in his arms, and in his heart.

  And she was going to stay there, forever.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1832-5

  WITH THE M.D.…AT THE ALTAR?

  Copyright © 2008 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.eHarlequin.com

  *Bear Claw Creek Crime Lab

  *Bear Claw Creek Crime Lab