“What’s wrong?”
Jake heard the alarm in her voice but couldn’t respond. He felt the attack coming this time, like some huge tidal wave ready to explode against the shore. Absolutely nothing could stop it. Dropping his hand from hers, he reeled down the hall to his room.
The attack hit him sooner than he wanted. Hard. The pain, savage, all pervasive, cut through his chest, slashing into his insides and limbs. The power of it snatched the breath from his lungs.
He stumbled at the room’s threshold and latched onto the doorframe before he fell flat on his face. He saw the bed just ten feet away, but somehow the distance felt like miles. If he could just get across the floor without falling...
“Jake!”
He tried to answer, tried to let Margot know he’d heard, but he couldn’t open his mouth, couldn’t even form a syllable. His jaw felt sutured shut.
“Jake!”
Whimpering, he pushed off the doorframe and lunged for the bed, hoping like hell he didn’t crack his skull against the floor before he got there. He hit the mattress face down, twisted sideways, and curled into a ball in an effort to ward off the pain. He didn’t think he’d ride through this attack. Not this time.
###
Margot watched in horror as Jake convulsed on the bed. She rushed over and touched his shoulder. The heat of his skin seared through the fabric of his shirt and into her palm. He burned with fever. Knowing she needed to get his temperature down and quickly, she fled the bedroom and came back with several cold, wet towels.
Jake was still curled up on his side but had stopped shaking. His sudden stillness pulled her into a panic. Swallowing down a hysterical sob, she hurried over to the bed and stared down at his chest. She saw movement. Thank God. He’d passed out. At least that’s what she hoped. She couldn’t really tell.
This was insane. How could she help someone she couldn’t even see?
After easing Jake onto his back, she unbuttoned his shirt and struggled to get his arms out of the sleeves. As she pulled the material from beneath his body, a seam ripped at the shoulder. Swearing under her breath, she crumbled the garment in one hand and tossed it on the chair against the wall. That’s when she noticed the bandage. Frowning, she groped across the bed for Jake’s hand and slid a palm up over his forearm until she reached the gauze at his elbow.
“No!”
Margot dropped down on the edge of the bed. She didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was undeniable. Jake had injected himself with the antidote. The crazy fool. He’d done it without talking to her first. Tears of anger and fear welled in her eyes.
Why hadn’t he talked to her? Didn’t he trust her enough? Did he think she was incapable of the truth? That she couldn’t handle the possibility of his death?
The idea that Jake might not live through the night shot her off the bed and onto her feet. No. She wouldn’t think that way. Instead, she needed to concentrate on getting his fever down. Granted it might not do a damn thing, but doing nothing wasn’t an option.
She couldn’t call for an ambulance. Even if the police, the media or the general chaos Jake would cause at the hospital weren’t factors enough, his condition, something beyond any doctor’s scope of experience would set all records.
After she rushed to the kitchen, she came back with a bucket of ice. Stepping into the room, she almost dropped the copper pot on the floor at the high keening coming from Jake. Shivers raced up her arms and spine as she watched him wreathing on the bed. So much pain. She bit down hard on her lip. If he kept this up, he was liable to get hurt. She might have no other option but to tie him down.
Margot placed the bucket on the nightstand, and dropped a handful of ice into an already damp towel. She bundled the cubes up inside and placed it across Jake’s brow. She did the same with another towel and dabbed his shoulders, chest and stomach. Slipping her fingers beneath his wig, she pulled the thing off and flung it on the chair with his shirt.
She hadn’t a clue when the quaking subsided. Minutes, hours all blurred into one. Searching blindly across the bed, she found Jake’s wrist and a pulse, steady against her fingers, but she didn’t have the medical background to read anything into it other than he was alive. Knowing she couldn’t do much more than she already had, Margot, too tired to battle with her clothes, left them on and crawled in bed with Jake. She slid up behind him, rested a cheek against his naked back, and wrapped an arm around his waist.
Every person who had held any great meaning in her life was dead—except Jake. But that might change in the morning. Oh please, God, don’t take him from me, not when I just found him.
Exhaustion forced her lids closed. Seconds later, she snapped them back open. She felt like she’d wiped her eyes against Marmaduke’s fur and overdosed on cough medicine. As the clock down stairs chimed two, then three, Margot battled against falling asleep, but time and her bone-weary body were too tenacious and sleep eventually won.
Margot woke up to silence, light and warmth. She found herself still curled up behind Jake with an arm flung over his middle. For several long moments, she didn’t move, too surprised to do anything but stare.
Slipping her arm from around his waist, she eased backward and placed a trembling palm across the muscle and sinew of Jake’s back. The warmth of his skin seeped into her palm. The feel of his flesh against her own wasn’t what amazed her, but rather the way the morning light touched his back, which illuminated the texture of his skin, the fine pores and hairs, the indentations across a strong spine. This wasn’t foundation, make-up, camouflage, or what have you. It was real and undeniably visible flesh.
“Jake.”
He sighed but didn’t stir.
“Jake!”
Jerking up onto an elbow, she pulled on his shoulder. He grunted a response and buried his head deeper into his pillow.
“You’ve got to see this!”
She dug her nails into his shoulder and put all her weight into shaking him.
Jack-knifing into a sitting position, Jake grabbed his head with one hand and frowned down at her. “What?”
Margot smiled, loving the way he looked—sleepy, grumpy, but most importantly healthy.
“Look!”
She whipped the top sheet off both of them and found herself momentarily diverted at the sight of his naked chest. He looked good. Long legs encased in low slung, faded jeans, narrow hips, a flat belly free of excess fat, and a chest thick with muscle. Nothing about him was effeminate. Especially when it came to what rested below his waist.
Jake thrust both hands in front of him, rotating his wrists back and forth as he stared at them.
“Do you know what this means?” he whispered in awe.
“A miracle.”
“Yeah...”
“How are you feeling?”
He flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders. “My joints are a little stiff, and there’s a bit of tenderness to my muscles, but everything feels like it’s functioning.”
Abruptly, Jake swiveled and pushed her deep into the mattress with the warmth and hardness of his body. He kissed each curve and corner of her lips with his own, slowly, softly. Drawing back, he looked down at her with a crooked grin on his face. And his eyes. Oh, my. They were a beautiful blue, the color of an ocean with the morning sun shimmering across its surface. Margot thought she’d never see their color.
“It worked.” He laughed, a deep rumble of pure pleasure. “Who would have thought?”
He kissed her again, this time hard and quick, and then rubbed a thumb along her lower lip. “You look a little smeared.”
Margot touched her face and looked down at her palm where foundation clung to the tips of her fingers. She smiled ruefully. “I feel a little smeared.”
With the flats of his hands on either side of her, Jake pushed off the bed.
“Come on!” She watched Jake’s backside with interest as he rummaged in the dresser drawer.
“Why?”
“You have to ask ‘
why’?” he asked in obvious amazement as he dashed to the closet and grabbed a shirt from the hanger. After he stuffed both arms into the sleeves, he paused and lifted his brows. “Because we have important things to do! We’ve got to get that antidote inside you.” Grabbing her hand, Jake hauled her from the bed and playfully smacked her on her butt. “And the time isn’t any better than now.”
“And here I thought you were going to get a little frisky on me.”
“Oh, believe me. I will. The minute you’re back to your old self, I’ll be on you like superglue. And that’s a promise.”
Margot cocked a brow and rubbed her bottom. She loved that grin of his. “Then let’s get going, lazybones!”
###
That afternoon, Jake, his legs stretched out in front of him as he sat in one of the chairs, watched Margot move restlessly from one place to another in her office. She stopped at the window, and the only reason he knew that was because she’d slipped on a thick velour housecoat after her shower.
He was so proud of her. She’d been so brave, even though he suspected she must have been terrified from the moment they’d stepped into the lab. But she hadn’t been the only one terrified. He’d been hovering over her since the moment he’d injected Miracell’s antidote into her system.
Jake knew she was hurting. Maybe not half as bad as he’d experienced because his own system had been so tenuous, but the pain still lingered. He watched helplessly as she suffered through it silently. At first she’d wanted to lie down, but she’d found the lack of movement only exasperated the pain. Then she’d taken a cold shower to ease the burning. While now, she’d grown restless, pacing first the kitchen and now this room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked suddenly, hurt and reproach in her voice. “Why did you go ahead and test the antidote on yourself before coming to me? I thought we’d had an agreement.”
“‘You’ had the agreement.”
“And you didn’t, because you couldn’t trust me.”
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose even though prepared for this. “That’s not true. I trust you.”
“Do you? Do you really?” The drape fluttered, and she moved to the other side of the window. “I don’t know if that’s the truth.”
“Why?”
“Because you made a huge decision without talking to me first. Obviously you didn’t think my opinion had any importance.”
“Damn it, Margot. I couldn’t risk your life.”
“It was already at risk.”
“I know that, but—”
“But you still lied—by omission. Deep down, it’s just as bad.”
“I’ll admit you have a point, but can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t have down the same?” In frustration, he rubbed the heels of his palms against the chair’s arms. “I knew if you found out I’d finished the antidote, you’d be right there wanting to be the first to test it out. Well, I couldn’t let that happen and live with myself. There was no way in hell I was going to endanger another person. Not again. Particularly you.”
“‘Not again’? What do you mean by that?”
Damn his mouth. He straightened and dug his fingers into the chair’s fabric. He’d let his emotions crash through any sense of caution. Guilt. He hated how it churned through his gut.
“It’s just a turn of phrase,” he whispered.
Silence slipped over the room as Jake tried to think of a word or thought—anything—to deflect the direction of Margot’s thoughts.
“Really?” Doubt coated the one word.
She sighed and walked toward him. The hem of her housecoat fluttered, then whirled as she dropped down into an adjacent chair.
“Can you be honest with me?” she asked, her voice husky and earnest. “Can you do that? You know, you don’t need to protect me. I’m stronger than you think. Stronger than I even thought.” She gestured with an arm, and the empty sleeve of her housecoat wavered in the air. “I’m missing something here. I don’t have any idea what it’s about other than it has something to do with Miracell and Miltronics. And I guess, the reason why I brought up trust is because somewhere I’ve always felt in the back of mind that you don’t—at least not fully. It’s like you’re keeping a part of yourself from me, holding back in some way. Almost as if you’re ashamed of something. I don’t know. Maybe that doesn’t make much sense, but that’s how I feel at times.”
Jake leaned his head back against the chair and stared up at the ceiling. Margot was too astute. She’d hit on something he himself had tried to deny and forget.
Yes, Jake was ashamed. At times, the feeling was so prevalent that it would wake him in the middle of the night with his heart crashing against his eardrums and sweat coating his body.
He knew she was staring at him, waiting for a response. How did he begin? How did he vocalize something he had problems formulating in his own head?
“What are you hiding? Tell me. Please. You can trust me with it. I promise.”
“I—”
Jake couldn’t find the right words.
“How bad can it be?”
If only she knew. Bad didn’t even begin to describe his crimes, Jake realized in despair, as Margot leaned toward him. Her distinct sent of flowers and sunshine wrapped around him.
“This thing you’re hiding is eating you up alive, so don’t even try to lie. It’s right there on your face. Absolute torment. What is it that has you so ashamed?”
Jake’s eyes suddenly watered. Bowing his head, he blinked several times and tried to focus on his hands across his lap. He hated Margot seeing him like this.
“Oh, Baby. Please,” she urged. “Talk to me.”
The air stirred around him as Margot sat on the arm of his chair and brushed a leg up against his own. He felt the light touch of her nails as she skimmed them across his temple.
He blinked again. Finally, his vision cleared and his hands came into focus. He cleared his throat. It was time to tell his dirty, little secret and...possibly lose Margot forever.
Chapter 19
“You know how no one suspected that I was missing, that I died in the blast at Miltronics?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder?”
“I guess.” Shrugging a shoulder, Margot shifted on the arm of his chair. “But I never thought about it in any great detail. There were so many other things I had questions about.”
“It’s because there was another body, another person who died in the explosion. Selfishly, I saw the opportunity and used it. Dental, police records, you name it.” Jake laughed harshly, staring across Margot’s office to the wall of bookshelves. “It’s amazing what you can do when you’re invisible.”
“Who was he?”
“Henry Steward. I didn’t know much else other than his general statistics—an eighteen-year-old, white male. Then again, at the time, I didn’t want to know. I was too afraid to know what was going on. The guy was probably a runaway, a drug addict or some lost soul who was unfortunate enough not to have any relatives or friends who would miss him if he disappeared.”
“What do you mean? Disappeared? It sounds—”
“Ominous? Oh, yeah. I know Malcolm had some type of deal with him. Money changed hands.”
“You’re not—you’re not talking a human guinea pig, are you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Experimentations didn’t stop at mice or lab rats. It went much further. Steward wasn’t the only one. There were others. I don’t know how many. Maybe one or two. Maybe even more.” Jake cleared his throat. He really hated talking about this. “I turned a blind eye to what was going on with Malcolm and Miltronics. I didn’t confront Malcolm. I didn’t investigate what I suspected. I’m just as bad as Malcolm. But at least with Malcolm, he never pretended to be anyone other than who he was.”
“Don’t. Don’t categories yourself with the likes of Malcolm. You don’t compare, and never will.”
Shocked at hearing compassion instead of contempt, Jake
glanced up but of course couldn’t see what she thought. What he wouldn’t do to be able to read her expression right now.
“You don’t understand,” he insisted. “I suspected what was going on and I let it happen. I’m just as guilty by keeping silent.”
“You can’t say that. You’re not positive they’re dead.”
“No. But they disappeared all the same, and I know what Malcolm was capable of.” He shook his head and frowned. “Why? I don’t get it. Why are you being so understanding? Anyone else would have turned away in disgust.”
“But I’m not anyone. I’m me.” She brushed his temple again with her nails. “Did you think that by revealing your worst secret that I would stop loving you? It doesn’t happen that way. Love is a gift you just don’t take away because of someone’s mistakes. Love is knowing the worse part of that person, taking the bad along with the good, and still believing and wanting to be with them. At least that’s love to me.”
Jake felt truly humbled. “I don’t deserve you.”
“But you’ve got me. That is, of course, if you want me. Goodness knows I’m not the best catch. There’s my drinking. I’ve got it under control right now. Then I tend to be a tad stubborn.”
He heard the uncertainty in her voice, and quickly assured, “What fool wouldn’t want you? You’re beautiful.”
She laughed. “Well, right now, that’s pretty darn hard to tell, since you can’t see me.”
“Then you’d better take another look at yourself,” he said in growing excitement. “The antidote is starting to work. It’s only a matter of time now.”
Jake pulled back the sleeve of her housecoat to reveal the ghostly image of her arm.
“Oh, my.”
She wiggled her fingers in front of her face—a face slowly but undeniably materializing before Jake’s eyes. In delight, he watched the clean line of her jaw, the thick sweep of her brow and how the amazement etched in her eyes sharpened and solidified. “You’re an absolute genius.” Wonder interlaced with sadness touched her voice. “You could have won the Nobel Prize over this. Miracell would have given you fame.”
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