Dangerous Waters

by Toni Anderson

  He spun, searching for a blood trail, and worked his way back up the hillside. Then he spotted something dark lying unmoving in the low brush, and he sprinted up the slope.

  Holly, covered in blood.

  Absolute terror shot through his veins as he ran to her side.

  “Jesus. What did you do to yourself?” He squatted beside her, checked her breath and pulse. Her skin was warm. Pulse fluttering steadily beneath his fingers. Alive. Thank god she was alive. He moved her hair off her forehead to look for injuries. Dammit. He was torn about what to do. He couldn’t risk moving her. Couldn’t risk leaving her behind.

  “Holly?” Most of the blood seemed to have come from her nose. Smears covered her chin and shirt, but he knew from experience it probably looked worse than it was. “Can you hear me?” He touched her shoulder gently, and she groaned and started coughing. It was the best sound he’d ever heard. “Steady. Steady now.”

  He held onto her lightly so she didn’t try to get up.

  “F-Finn?”

  Relief punched his heart. Her gray eyes were cloudy with confusion, the surrounding flesh already starting to swell.

  “Yeah, it’s me. What the hell happened?”

  “Someone ran me off the road.”

  Anger seared his flesh. She grimaced as she tried to raise her arm.

  “Don’t move.” He ran his hands over her limbs to reassure himself she hadn’t broken anything. “Are you saying someone did this on purpose?”

  She pushed his hands aside and sat up, squeezing her eyes shut, clearly in pain. When she opened them again, she stared down at the wreck at the bottom of the hill. “Holy crap.”

  Finn stared too. “You’re lucky you’re not dead.” Christ, his hands trembled as he tried to examine her injuries. He was shocked at how much this totally freaked him out. Despite everything he’d told himself, the cop had slipped under his skin like a damn sliver.

  “How’d you find me?” She pulled away slightly.

  Finn didn’t like the suspicion that darkened her gaze but understood the nature of the beast. Why should she trust anyone after what she’d just been through? “I saw skid marks on the bridge; ground was churned up enough I knew someone had veered off the road. Are you all right?”

  “No. Help me stand, will you?”

  “You shouldn’t try to move. I can go for help. Get an ambulance out here.” But it would take hours and it was almost dark.

  She shook her head, but then grabbed her skull. “I managed to throw myself out of the cab before it rolled and crashed. I didn’t hit anything harder than the ground and the airbag.” She touched her nose. “But that hurt like hell.”

  Her cap was gone. Long dark hair strung around her face, which was a mess of stark white skin streaked with dirty crimson. Fuck.

  “We need to get you up onto the road and get a crew out here to deal with the wreck.”

  “That’s evidence of the attempted murder of a police officer.” Holly pointed at the SUV, her movements shaky. “IFIS need to process it before anyone else touches it.”

  “As long as it doesn’t set the whole place on fire, they can do whatever the hell they want.” Finn didn’t care. “Let’s get you out of here.” He eyed the steep incline. Before she could protest, he eased her cautiously into his arms and started the difficult ascent. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and it shouldn’t have filled him with anything except relief.

  Holly Rudd stirred dangerous feelings inside him, feelings he wasn’t used to and did not want. The fact she’d almost died in a car wreck—caused by some frickin’ maniac—frayed his usually rock-solid composure. He’d wished her far away from Bamfield and out of his life. But not like that. Never like that.

  At the top of the bank he stepped onto the road, breathing heavily, and carried her to his truck. He let go of her legs and leaned her gently against the passenger door. “How do you feel?” Christ, her color looked awful, and she was going to sport one if not two black eyes.

  “It’s red.” Her voice broke and she sagged with whole-body relief.

  He squinted at her, wondering how hard she’d hit her head.

  “Your truck. It’s red.” She grinned at him, and although she looked like shit, it was probably the most genuine smile she’d ever given him.

  “Yeah.” He leaned over and opened the door for her. “It’s always been red.”

  “The truck that ran me off the road was black.”

  OK. “How do you feel? Any pain? Any sickness?” He stared at her pupils, watched them react to the light. So far so good.

  “Don’t you get it? I know you weren’t the person who ran me off the road.”

  He squeezed her shoulders carefully and smiled down at her. “I already knew that. Do you think I’m the kind of man to run anyone off the road?”

  Her lips opened. Then she blinked away a sudden shimmer of tears and shook her head. “I’m just used to needing proof, not relying on instincts.”

  “I’m beginning to think your instincts are pretty damn good, if only you trusted them.” He leaned down and, for some crazy reason, kissed her forehead before helping her into the truck. He would never hurt a woman. He would especially never hurt Holly. As confessions went, it was a dangerous one, so he kept it to himself. It wasn’t his own secrets he was guarding. And no matter what, he could not afford to get close to this woman.

  If circumstances had been different, Holly Rudd might have made quite the impact on his life and his heart. Thinking about the strain lining Thom’s face, maybe it was just as well things weren’t different. Heartbreak wasn’t pretty.

  Her hands shook as she tried to do up her seat belt. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found me.”

  He already knew that admitting weakness didn’t come easy to her, so he snorted and made light of it. “You’d have crawled up that hill on your hands and knees and flagged down a passing logging truck and demanded to be taken wherever you needed to go.” She had grit and balls. How anyone wouldn’t admire those traits, especially in such a beautiful, if battered, package, he didn’t know. He leaned over and fixed her belt. Tried to quiet the rage that simmered in his blood.

  Hell. She was lucky to be alive, and he didn’t want to think about the possibility of internal bleeding or what could have happened if she hadn’t thrown herself out of a vehicle careening at speed down a wooded hillside. And what if the person who’d run her off the road had stopped to finish the job?

  Fuck. He was so angry it was a wonder his skin wasn’t steaming. But Holly didn’t need his macho bullshit. She just needed to be taken care of. The cops could deal with finding whatever asshole had done this. He’d make sure no one got the chance to do it again.

  He walked around the nose of the cab and got in. “Now I’m gonna give you a choice.” Because he knew being in charge mattered to her. “The hospital in Bamfield is only twenty minutes away. It doesn’t have all the mod cons of Port Alberni, but it’s got the basics. If there’s a problem, they can call for a chopper evac, which is probably as fast as driving back to Port Alberni from here.” He gave her a flat-eyed smile. “Or we can drive back along this road to Port Alberni. What do you want to do?”

  “Bamfield.” She braced her hand against the dash. Her breath came in sharp, shallow pants. “I want to get off this damned road as soon as possible.”

  Good. “Who knew you were traveling this road alone? Who wanted to get rid of you?”

  Her brow crinkled as he put the truck in gear. “A lot of people want to get rid of me—it’s a hazard of the job.” Her voice rasped in her throat. He handed her a bottle of water from the groceries behind his seat, and then grabbed his own.

  He passed her his jacket to use as a pillow. “Tell me if you’re hurting and I’ll slow down.” He checked the mirror and pulled out onto the gravel, concentrating on avoiding the worst of the ruts so as not to jar Holly’s injuries, but wanting to get to the clinic as fast as possible. All the time his mind was whirling.
Who the hell would want to kill a cop? A woman? Holly?

  “I couldn’t see the driver with the sun in my eyes and all that dust flying.”

  “It must have scared the shit out of you.”

  “It wasn’t my best moment, that’s for damn sure.”

  He put his hand on her thigh. Ignored the electricity and tried to give comfort. “Close your eyes. Get some rest.”

  She put her hand over his and squeezed; he was disconcerted to feel the sensation echoed in his chest.

  “I’m sorry about what happened with Thom this morning. Staff Sergeant Furlong was pissed at me and took it out on the professor,” she said.

  “Staff Sergeant Furlong is an asshole.”

  She snorted, then winced and grabbed her ribs. “Unfortunately, until I solve this case, he’s also my boss.”

  “Well, that’s a hell of an incentive to solve the case.”

  “It sure is.” She visibly gritted her teeth.

  He swallowed a knot of emotion. He wasn’t good with other people’s pain. In his stint in the military he’d seen too many people suffer. It hadn’t taken his fellow soldiers long to figure out that while he was tough on the outside, he was mush in the middle. He might not blink at taking down terrorists or insurgents, but show him a sick kid or injured animal and he was doing everything in his power to help them. Trouble was, nine times out of ten, he couldn’t do a damn thing to help without risking the op. It was one of the reasons he didn’t miss it. He’d loved being a soldier; hated the associated misery.

  “Have you always had the hero gene?”

  “What?” he asked, confused.

  “You know,” she tried to smile, “saving the day, sweeping a girl off her feet?”

  He shook his head. “It came to me later in life. God knows I needed saving often enough as a kid.” There was silence in the cab except for the constant rumble of the gravel beneath the tires.

  “I saw the photos. Of what he did to you…”

  He gripped the wheel tighter. Didn’t want to talk about it. “It was a long time ago.”

  “It was during your formative years. You should have turned out to be a complete jerk.”

  He dropped his voice to a sexy whisper. “Are you giving me a compliment, Sergeant Rudd?”

  She groaned even as she held her side. “I have a head injury. No other way to explain it.”

  He grinned, wishing they’d met under normal circumstances, wishing he wasn’t just delivering her to the hospital after someone had tried to ram her into a tree.

  Holly closed her eyes. He drove as fast as possible while avoiding bumps in the road and keeping an eye out for deer. They got to the clinic just as the doctor and nurse were leaving.

  “Anita. Dr. Fielding. I need your help.” He jumped out of the cab and went around and opened Holly’s door. Her eyes were open but she looked green. “Pulled the sergeant here out of a car wreck.” He took her in his arms and she hung on tight around his neck. Which felt good. Which was a damn shame because she was only here to catch Milbank’s killer. “You need to check her out.”

  Holly fiddled in her pocket as Finn strode through the doors. He laid her gently on a bed in the infirmary and she handed him her cell. “Call Jeff Winslow. Tell him to get a crew out to the site of the wreck. Some bastard tried to kill me and I’m not about to curl up and let him get away with it. And tell him not to call my father.”

  He wanted to ask questions, but the doctor forced her to lie back and started shining a light in her eyes. Then they started undressing her, and Finn knew it was time to leave. But he didn’t want to go. He had some crazy-assed notion he was taking care of her now. He gave her fingers a squeeze and wanted to kiss her again. Instead, he went outside and found the number for her colleague the way she’d asked him to, the way she’d trusted him to. Even as he pressed “dial” he knew his life was about to get a hell of a lot more complicated. Somehow Holly had added herself to the list of people he needed to keep safe, and the way things were going it wouldn’t be easy.

  The village he’d grown up in had always been full of secrets and lies, darkness hidden beneath the quiet, picturesque exterior. Even though he’d known most of these people all his life he didn’t trust any of them, except Thom. And Thom was the one person in this place who would never hurt Holly. Because Thom thought this woman was his long lost daughter, which also made the only person he could trust bug-ass crazy.

  Two hours later, Finn was exhausted and starving. He’d been interviewed three times, and they still wouldn’t let him back in to see Holly. But now all the other cops had left, and he couldn’t take sitting around like a piece of meat for a moment longer. Thom had come down and had a local engineer replace the parts for the compressor. Rob Fitzgerald, Finn’s assistant, was filling all the bottles they needed for tomorrow’s dives.

  Finally he’d had enough. He pushed through the door and found Dr. Fielding, who’d already run every possible test imaginable.

  “Does she have to stay in overnight?”

  “She has a name.” Holly stared at him with big dark eyes, fragile against the pillow.

  The doctor rubbed the lines over his brow. “She seems to have come off remarkably well, considering. No sign of broken bones, internal bleeding, or even concussion.” He almost sounded disappointed. “She’s going to be stiff and sore and black and blue tomorrow, but”—he met Finn’s gaze—“as long as she has supervision, I don’t see why she can’t be discharged.”

  Her lips thinned in an unhappy line. “The other officers are going to be working through the night. We don’t have time or resources to waste playing nursemaid—”

  “I’ll watch her,” Finn said.

  “No.” Holly looked appalled.

  The doctor looked from one to the other. “It’s up to you, Officer. But if you don’t have someone on hand to call if necessary, then you’re staying here, and I will call your commanding officer to make it official.” The doctor slumped. “Which means I’m staying here too. Which means if I’m too tired to treat an emergency patient tomorrow we get to blame you.” He beamed, but there was stubbornness to his smile that even Holly recognized.

  “I need to get back to work.” She tossed back the covers with a wince. “But fine, I’ll go with Carver.”

  Dr. Fielding looked relieved. He headed into his office. “You have my home phone number and my cell. Call if you need me.”

  She grunted as she moved. “Damn, I don’t think I can even get in a boat without a shot of morphine.”

  “You don’t need to. There’s a spare room in my cabin. You’ll have privacy, but you’ll also have me in case you need anything.”

  She looked uncertain.

  “You can call your team. They can stage a rescue anytime you feel scared.”

  “What am I, eight?” She laughed, recognizing the same tactics she’d tried on him yesterday when she’d been trying to talk him into taking her diving. Christ, was that only yesterday? “I really need to get back to work—”

  “Tomorrow,” the doctor shouted through the open door, “if I approve you.” He hurried back and handed her a bottle of meds. “Promise me you’ll get some sleep tonight, and you can be back on the job first thing tomorrow.” He waited her out with raised brows.

  “Fine, but tomorrow starts at midnight.” Her eyes took on a spark of fire that had been missing since the wreck. She looked at Finn. “Can you help me with my stuff, please?”

  The nurse had found her a hospital gown, which billowed about her like a puffy cloud. She eased her feet carefully to the floor. Finn could barely take his eyes off flashes of naked skin. The doctor walked away, leaving the two of them staring at each other.

  “Finn?” She raised a confused brow.

  Snapping out of his trance, he strode into the nurse’s office and snagged a new set of scrubs off a shelf. “Order some new ones on me,” he told Anita as she busied herself shutting down the computer.

  He shook out the scrubs—they smelled like wa
rm cotton—and stood beside Holly, bending down so she could slip first one foot, then the other into the pant legs. He held her gaze as he pulled them up over her hips, his fingers brushing the velvet soft skin beneath her gown. Her cheeks got a little pink and her breathing hitched. “Thanks.”

  The top half was going to be trickier for both of them. “Turn around and face the wall.” The curtains were drawn, but there was no way she’d be able to get this over her head without help. If he’d been wearing a button-up shirt he’d have given it to her. Instead, he pulled the string of the hospital gown and held his breath as it drifted slowly to the floor. Perfectly toned shoulders and a delicate spine greeted him. Red grazes covered the tops of her arms and all down one side. It reminded him of how close she’d come to serious injury and how much pain she was probably in.

  “Can you lift your arms?” His tone was gruff. Perhaps he should have waited for the nurse to do this, but he could tell Anita was in a hurry to get home. And was he really going to miss out on his one opportunity to see Holly naked?

  “I think so.” She lifted them slowly.

  He could hear the catch in her breathing as she attempted to stir battered flesh. He stood behind her and leaned forward, keeping his eyes firmly on her hands. His chest brushed her back as he whipped the top over her fingers and let the material slide down her arms before drawing it carefully over her head and torso. An electric sizzle snapped through the air between them. He’d never been so aware of another human being in his life.

  “Any idea who did this?” He had to rescue his mind from inappropriate thoughts. Like what it would feel like to slip his hands under her shirt and lift those breasts in his palms. Not helping.

  “The guy I busted for murdering his wife last month? Some local drunk driver with a grudge?” She tried to laugh, but it came out as a gasp. “I’d just paid Remy Dryzek a visit, so officers from Port Alberni are going to question him first. Oh, and you need to know, he recognized me from the bar and thinks you’ve been working with the cops. You need to watch your back.”