by Jane Graves
“That was good,” he murmured, still breathing heavily. “So good.”
She pressed a kiss to his lips, then slipped out of his arms. To his surprise, he heard the jingle of shower curtain rings again as she stepped out of the shower.
What was she doing now?
When Dave thought his legs would carry him, he turned off the water, the knobs squeaking as the shower was silenced. In the darkness, he found his way out of the shower, felt for the door, and opened it just enough for the pale moonlight from the other room to light his way to a towel.
He ran the towel through his dripping hair as he walked out of the bathroom. He saw Lisa lying on her side, her elbow resting on the bed, wearing that same watchful, knowing expression she had out on the patio.
He dried off a little, then tossed the towel aside. With a huge exhalation, he lay down beside her, his hand against his chest, wondering if it was possible for his heart to burst right out of it. Turning, he saw her staring down at him, her green eyes like a pair of emeralds on fire.
“I think you’re going to kill me,” he told her between breaths. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe you already did.”
To his surprise, she took his hand and pulled him over until he was lying on his stomach.
“What are you doing?”
She put one hand against his shoulder to keep him from rising, grabbing the lotion from the nightstand with her other one. She apologized for the floral scent, then straddled his hips. She touched him, her hands cold at first with the lotion, but they quickly warmed as she moved them over his back in long, sensual strokes. He moved his arms up to hug the pillow, sighing with satisfaction as her thumbs moved deep into the muscles along his spine.
He’d discovered tonight what he’d always suspected—this woman did nothing halfway. She poured her heart, her soul, her passion into everything, whether it was becoming a pilot, going after the bad guys, or making love with him. And it had been incredible. He’d never been with a woman who was so attuned to every move he made, reading every sigh, every groan, every involuntary clench of his muscles, making every moment wild, hot, and exciting.
And now every inch of his body felt limp with contentment, his mind pleasantly foggy, as she brought him to the other end of the spectrum, capping off total tension with total relaxation. It was as if she knew exactly what to do to wring that last bit of pleasure and satisfaction out of him until he was completely spent.
Then he thought about Carla.
He held his breath for a moment, waiting for the shot of guilt he knew was coming. But just as quickly as she’d come to mind, she shifted away again, becoming only a faint apparition in the distance that he could barely make out. He felt the strangest swell of relief, like an asthmatic who is suddenly able to breathe. Lisa had been a release, a reprieve he thought was completely beyond his grasp. For these few hours tonight, she’d made him forget. And God, if nothing else, he owed her for that.
She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Good?” “Too good,” he murmured. “You keep that up, and I’m liable to fall asleep.”
As she continued to rub his back, he sighed deeply, thinking that there had to be another human being on earth who felt better than he did right now, but he couldn’t imagine it. As the last of his energy slipped away, he closed his eyes, knowing that opening them again would be an insurmountable task. Her hands were still on him, moving, always moving, as he drifted off to sleep.
As it grew later, the light dimmed with the shifting moon, painting the room in pale monochromatic tones. Lisa leaned against the headboard, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms tucked around her legs. Dave’s steady breathing told her he’d quickly fallen into a deep sleep. He needed it. They both did. But just for now, all she wanted to do was stare at him.
His body was little more than silhouette, but even that much was impressive—strong shoulders and a broad, muscled back tapering down to his waist. He was hugging the pillow where he lay, his arms flexed, biceps bulging. She thought maybe he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and she’d seen her share. That was part of the problem, of course—that she was so attracted to him and always had been, so much so that she was in danger of losing her head every time she even thought about him touching her.
She leaned her head back against the wall with a weary sigh, so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She’d gotten so caught up in the spell of it, in the desire she’d felt for him since she was eighteen years old, that she’d have done anything to have him tonight. But that meant that tomorrow would only be that much more painful. She had no doubt that Dave would feel guilty when he thought about Carla and angry at Lisa for pushing him into betraying her memory. Neither of those things was the least bit justified, but that wouldn’t stop him from feeling them just the same.
She lay down and pulled the covers over her, resisting the urge to reach out and touch him as he slept. Instead, she closed her eyes, telling herself that it was time to stop with the adolescent fantasies. Right now she saw him as some kind of knight in shining armor, but that wasn’t reality. It wasn’t the long haul. In truth, he was a father and a family man, with the kind of nine-to-five existence that would only tie her down.
She’d built the kind of life she’d only dreamed about as a teenager. In a world where most people went to their graves never having accomplished anything they set out to do, she could hold her head up and say that she had. And she wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot. She still had a hundred places she wanted to go, a thousand people she wanted to meet. There was always something new beyond the next horizon, something bigger, better, and more exciting than the place she’d just left.
She and Dave were on different tracks that had intersected for a few brief moments in time, but soon they’d be going their separate ways again. It could end no other way.
chapter twelve
Adam slowly became aware of pale rays of daylight warming his face and a gentle breath of air fanning around him. He opened his eyes, but his vision was blurry. His head hurt. God, how it hurt, as if somebody were pounding on it with a hammer from the inside out.
Where was he?
He turned his head to the left, where he saw a fuzzy blob that looked like an intravenous fluid bag. It said hospital. But something wasn’t right. The bag was hanging from something unfamiliar. A coatrack?
He blinked to clear his sight, then slowly moved his gaze to the ceiling of the room, expecting to see a blank painted surface with fluorescent lighting. Instead the ceiling vaulted upward to bare wooden rafters. And the smell. It wasn’t the antiseptic odor of a hospital room but something much warmer and fresher, like outdoors. Turning, he saw that instead of heavy draperies hanging over plate glass, lace curtains fluttered at an open window.
He looked down at himself, blinking again to clear his bleary eyes. A bandage was wrapped around his chest just under his arms, with another one lower that bound his left arm to his body, immobilizing it. Looking lower still, he saw a flowered sheet pulled up to his waist. Glancing around the room, he saw an oak dresser, an overstuffed chair, a small portable television. A quilt lay folded at the foot of the bed.
Slowly it came back to him, like a movie playing inside his head, first out of focus, then slowly becoming sharper. A gunshot. Falling down a rocky hillside. Lying at the foot of that hill, feeling his life draining away.
There’s your explanation. You’re dead, and this is heaven.
Nothing else made any sense, except he couldn’t imagine heaven needing a hospital, even one as ethereal as this. Then he rolled his head to the right and decided that his afterlife theory was making more sense all the time.
Serafina Cordero was lying on the bed next to him.
One of her hands was curled beneath her chin, her eyes closed in sleep. Dark eyelashes fanned against olive skin, with long black-as-night hair that spilled across the flowered pillowcase beneath her head. Her other hand rested against his arm, slender fingers grazing his wrist.<
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Sera’s house. How in the hell had he gotten here?
Putting a hand to his forehead, he felt a bandage, then moved his hand enough to realize that it wound completely around his head. He tried to sit up, but pain shot through his head and chest so wildly that it took his breath away. He fell back against the pillow, groaning softly.
Sera’s eyes instantly fluttered open. She rose on one elbow, her hand tightening against his arm. “Adam?”
“Damn. Thought this was heaven.” He let out a tortured breath. “Too much pain for heaven.”
Sera sat up quickly, her brows pulled together with worry. She moved to the edge of the bed and grabbed a blood pressure cuff from the nightstand. She crawled back to Adam, wrapped the cuff around his arm, inflated it, then dropped the stethoscope to the inside crook of his elbow.
“Sera?”
“Hush.”
She listened intently, then slipped the cuff off his arm, with a gentle breath of relief. She put her hand against his cheek again, then put a thermometer in his mouth.
“No fever,” she said a minute later, and he could hear the relief in her voice. “How do you feel?”
He touched his fingertips gingerly to the bandage on his forehead. “Head hurts like hell,” he said in a dry, raspy voice. “And my chest.”
Sera reached for a glass of water and helped him drink. His head pounded unmercifully, but the water soothed his dry throat. He settled back against the pillow with a weary sigh.
“Do you remember what happened?” Sera asked.
“Gunshot,” he said. “My chest. And I hit my head. . . .” He paused as the events slowly became clearer in his mind. “I fell down a hillside. How did I get here?”
“Gabrio brought you.”
“Gabrio?”
“Yes. Do you remember that?”
No. Wait. Yes, he did. He remembered a voice coming out of nowhere. Now he realized it had belonged to Gabrio. Dr. Decker. Hey, man. Can you hear me?
Adam blinked, shifting a little in the bed, slowly becoming more lucid. Gradually it came back to him. Gabrio had made Ivan and Enrique believe he was dead, and then he’d brought him here. The reality of that struck Adam almost as hard as the gunshot had.
Gabrio had saved his life.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “I remember.”
“Gabrio told me some strange things,” Sera said. “Something about counterfeit drugs, and he said that it’s . . .” She paused for a moment, a disbelieving look on her face. “He said that it’s Robert who wants you dead?”
Adam nodded. He put his hand to his forehead. Jesus Christ, he had a headache. And every breath he took shot pain through his chest.
“Then it’s true? And he sabotaged Lisa’s plane?”
Lisa. Robert had killed her. Adam felt a swell of sorrow mingling with cold, stark anger. She’d been such a good friend. And now she was gone.
“Yes,” Adam said, closing his eyes. “It was Robert. He killed Lisa.”
Sera slid her hand over his. Lisa had been almost as close as family to him, and he couldn’t believe she was gone.
“Gabrio told me not to go to the authorities, because they’re in on it, too,” Sera said. “Is that true?”
Adam nodded. “Yeah. It’s true.”
“I don’t believe this.”
He gazed at the equipment that surrounded him. “Where did all this come from?”
“I took it from the clinic. Everything I thought I’d need.”
“Robert will know things are missing,” Adam said.
“But he won’t know I took them.”
So Sera had stolen equipment from Robert’s clinic and used it to keep him alive. How about that, Robert? Do you like irony?
“Gabrio,” Adam said. “Where is he now?”
“He stayed here with you until I got back with the supplies, and then he left. He was so scared. I don’t know where he is now, but he told me that as soon as that gang he runs around with finds out that he let you live, they’ll kill him.” She paused. “Do you think that will actually happen?”
Adam thought about Ivan and Enrique, how they’d shown up at the clinic to carry out Robert’s orders without question. In their world, loyalty was everything. And the moment Gabrio showed any disloyalty, he would be their next target.
“Yes.”
“But Ivan—won’t he protect him?”
“Ivan’s the one Gabrio needs to be afraid of.”
“Surely not. His own brother?”
“His own brother.”
He could tell by the look on Sera’s face that the very idea of that was unfathomable. She’d always been one of those rare people who believed in the good side of humanity, no matter how much inhumanity she saw.
The dark circles under her eyes told him just how tired she must be, but still she looked so beautiful to him. She always had. The very first time he’d seen her, everything else in her midst had seemed to pale in comparison. Two years had passed since he’d first met her, and nothing had changed. He still had the feeling that he could fill entire days doing nothing but staring at her pretty face.
“I can slip you out of town,” she said. “Take you to Monterrey. No one will know.”
“Eventually they’ll find out,” Adam said, his head still pounding. “I have to find Gabrio. If he comes with us, he’ll be safe.”
“The only place you should be going is to a hospital. Besides, you can’t show yourself in town. If Robert finds out you’re alive, he’ll come after you again.”
“If anyone finds out I’m alive, that kid’s going to die. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“But you’ve been shot, Adam. You need treatment.”
“Where exactly is the entry wound?”
“Below your shoulder, above your heart, thank God.”
“Exit wound?”
“There isn’t one. The bullet is still in there. You’re at high risk for infection.”
“What about my head wound?”
“You have a deep laceration. You could have a concussion, or even a delayed hematoma. You know how dangerous that can be.”
“That’s unlikely. My speech is fine, isn’t it? And I’m moving all my extremities. How are my pupils?”
“Equal and reactive.”
“No neurological damage, then.”
“That’s hardly conclusive. God, Adam, if you could have seen the blood . . . from your head, your chest . . .”
“Do I seem disoriented?”
“No.” She paused, and he could tell she was searching for ammunition. “Not now. But you’ve been in and out for the past twenty-four hours. Any loss of consciousness is cause for concern.”
Why did she have to have a nursing degree? This would be so much easier if she were an ignorant layperson and he could just pat her on the hand and tell not to worry. But no matter how frightened she was, he wasn’t moving from this house until he could talk to Gabrio. He tried to take a deep breath, only to wince at the ache in his chest. If only his head would stop pounding . . .
“I can tell you’re in pain,” Sera said.
“It’s tolerable.”
“You need a CT scan. That’s the only way to know for sure the extent of your injury. And you were hypotensive because of the blood loss. Hypotensive patients with head injuries have twice the mortality rate as—”
“I told you I’m not going anywhere without Gabrio.”
“But you need to see a doctor!”
“I’ll stay in this room for the rest of my life before I let that kid die.”
“Stop it, Adam! Just stop it!”
Her voice was hushed, but the emotion behind her words exploded into the room. She took a deep, quivering breath. “I was so afraid to sleep. I woke up every hour and took your vital signs, gave you more fluids, and put God on overtime listening to my prayers. I didn’t know what the bullet had done, because you kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I was so afraid I’d wake up . . .” She paused, her voice tight with
despair. “I was afraid I’d wake up and find you dead.”
As tears filled her eyes, the fear and concern he saw there went straight to his heart. He remembered waking to find her hand on his arm, as if she could keep him from slipping away from her as he slept if only she kept on touching him.
“When I heard that you’d been killed in that plane crash,” she went on, “I can’t tell you how I felt. For two days I mourned you, Adam. I cried until there wasn’t a tear left in me to shed, and I can’t do it again. I can’t. Please, please let me take you to a doctor.”
The idea of her sitting in this room, crying for his memory, made him wish he could take her in his arms and hold her until she forgot every bit of that. But no matter how much pain it caused her, caused both of them, Adam could not, would not, put Gabrio’s life at risk, even if it meant he was in danger himself.
“I know you don’t understand this, but it’s because you weren’t there. It was the most horrific thing you can imagine.” He took her hand. “Robert called Ivan and Enrique. They came to the clinic a few minutes later. Armed.”
Sera turned away. “Adam, please—”
“They tied my hands, drove me out to a secluded place. Made me get out of the car—”
“Please don’t tell me this!”
“Look at me, Sera.”
Slowly she turned back.
“They made me get out of the car. Shoved me to the edge of a hillside, ten paces away. Gabrio asked why. Ivan said, ‘Blood spatters.’ Then he shot me.”
Sera put her hand against her mouth, tears filling her eyes. “If Gabrio cared so much, why didn’t he stop them before they shot you?”
“Disloyalty is a capital offense. Gabrio couldn’t have saved me. Ivan and Enrique are animals. No conscience. But Gabrio . . . Even with all that in his life, still there’s something so good in that kid that when he was faced with a decision like that, he made the right one. He could have let Ivan put another bullet in me, but he didn’t, even though he knew the danger it put him in. How can I do anything less for him now?”
Sera sat there for a long time, a battle clearly raging inside her. Finally she looked up again, her voice hushed with resignation. “You can’t.”
