by Davis, Jo
Today, Tanner had grooves of stress cut deep around his mouth and silver in the dark brown hair at his temples . . . and his world had dissolved into a palette of murky gray.
Zack shoved down a wave of sympathy. “Cap.”
Tanner stood over his fallen man, hands in the pockets of his regulation trousers, electing not to waste time mincing words. “Knight. All the shit I said the other day, I was wrong.” His mouth tightened. “Can you forgive me for being such a fuckhead?”
In spite of himself, Zack choked a hoarse laugh. “You could’ve just said it with Hallmark. Sir.”
One corner of Tanner’s lips tugged upward. A thin crack in the veneer. “Didn’t get by the store this week.”
Zack let the silence stretch for a minute, and considered his next words carefully. Holding the captain’s gaze, he continued. “Forgive, sure. Forget? That’ll take a while.”
“You want your pound of flesh, I won’t fight you. I’ll get written up or suspended, maybe both.”
“And what would that solve?” If Tanner got suspended, he’d go home and drink himself to death. Maybe he even wanted to. No way would Zack be a party to a good man’s destruction simply to assuage his hurt feelings.
“Probably nothing, but it’s your call. I’m not asking for leniency just because I’m apologizing.”
“Are you? Apologizing, I mean.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Zack. More than you’ll ever know.” His voice was rife with sincere regret.
Zack was only human. The part of him that was still hurt and humiliated by their run-in wanted retribution, no matter how messy. The more insistent part of him wanted the team to regain its cohesiveness. These guys were his brothers, his only family.
Destroying Tanner would finish them as a team.
Hadn’t the captain—all of them—been through enough?
“I accept, and I recommend we put this behind us,” Zack said quietly. For one second, he could’ve sworn Tanner swayed on his feet.
“Thank you.” He stepped closer, gripped Zack on the shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’m goddamned glad you’re all right.”
Zack managed a smile. “Me, too, Cap.”
“I’ll come by again soon and we’ll talk. Get some rest.”
It wasn’t until after Tanner left that Zack realized the captain had never addressed the touchy issue of appointing Salvatore as acting FAO.
And whether Zack would ever recover the position.
A noise jangled near his head, startling a curse from his lips. Why did hospital phones need to be set loud enough to make a person’s brain bleed? Groaning, he rolled to his side and reached for the receiver with his free hand—the one without the IV—and brought it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Knight. Back from the dead, are you?”
The clipped, cultured voice, dripping with feigned cordiality, curdled his bone marrow.
Oh, God. Not Delacruz. Not now. “How did you know where to find me?” No need to ask why the man had bothered. At least the rusty croak from his illness masked the fear and strain behind the question.
“With a minimum of difficulty. Your landlady seemed to think something horrid must’ve befallen you, and there you are.”
His landlady! Dammit, he’d forgotten that his rent was long overdue. And now, as far as she was concerned, Zack had gone AWOL. Shit!
Delacruz chuckled as he went on. “And I’d thought perhaps you were avoiding me by not answering your cell phone.”
The bastard’s smug tone grated. “Considering the damned thing is sitting on the bottom of the Cumberland River? No. Besides, if I want you to fuck off, I’ll tell you straight up. Like now, for instance.”
“That’s what I admire about you,” Delacruz said smoothly. “Such indomitable spirit. I like you, Zack.”
“You don’t like anything but money. Which, FYI, I don’t fucking have any more of.”
“Oh, where there’s a will and all that.” He paused. “I assume your old man is resting comfortably in the nursing home?”
The veiled threat shredded Zack’s forced calm, fired his anger. Darius Knight had been a lousy father in his day, a selfish motherfucker, but was now just a pitiful shell of a man. His father deserved to face his debts, the trouble he’d caused. He did not deserve to be murdered for them.
Zack held the receiver in a death grip. “You stay away from my father, you sonofabitch. Or I’ll kill you.”
Delacruz laughed. “Noble as well as spirited, even after all he’s done to you. ‘The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children,’ ” he quoted. “Exodus 20:5.”
“Euripides, 484 through 406 BC.” Bastard.
“I stand corrected,” he said in amusement. “My faith in you is restored.”
Zack closed his eyes against the pounding in his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I mean that an intelligent young man such as yourself will have no problem solving the dilemma of how to come up with another fifty-thousand-dollar installment, let’s say, two weeks from today. I’m feeling generous, in light of your accident.”
Zack’s hands started to shake. He wondered whether suppressed rage would cause him to stroke out like his father. “You’re pissing into the wind, Delacruz. I’m not a magician.”
“But you are a genius. Be a problem solver, Zack. I’ll expect good news in two weeks.”
Their connection was ended with a click. For a few seconds, Zack sat with the receiver pressed against his ear, the pressure building in his chest, white-hot and unstoppable.
Fifty thousand. Two weeks.
They’ll kill my father.
And when Delacruz decides I’m tapped out, they’ll kill me.
Too much. It was all too much and he couldn’t take this on top of everything else. Was helpless to stem the tide of resentment and rage sweeping every nerve ending, devastating the iron-willed control he’d held on to by a slim thread for so long.
A roar erupted from his throat as he rolled, scooped the base of the phone from the bedside table. With all his strength, he hurled the entire unit. It smacked the wall opposite his bed with a satisfying crunch, clattered to the floor in pieces.
The destruction wasn’t nearly enough. He glanced around wildly, but there wasn’t anything else to wreck. Moaning, he clasped his head in his hands, the agony overwhelming. Any second, his brain would ooze out his ears.
“Oh, God.” What am I going to do?
Two nurses burst into his room, one after the other.
“Mr. Knight! What happened? Are you all right?”
Was she serious? “No. My head—”
“Jee-zus, Mary, and Joseph!” The second nurse fisted her hands on her wide hips as she eyed the defunct phone. “You gonna hafta pay for that, baby.”
Of course he would. And for some reason, that struck him as suddenly, incredibly funny.
Zack started to laugh. Couldn’t help it. He laughed until he began to gasp and wheeze, while the first nurse fussed at him in vain to be still. Seemed he’d dislodged his IV and his hand was bleeding. He must look like he’d gone completely off his rocker. With any luck, he finally had.
The first nurse—DEE, her name tag read—grabbed his shoulders, pushed him firmly onto his back. “Shawna, get me one milligram of Ativan.” To Zack, she ordered, “Mr. Knight, you have to calm down. Your blood pressure is sky-high and you’ve injured yourself.”
Ativan? Shit! If they plugged him with that stuff, he’d be drooling like an infant for the next twenty-four hours.
He tried to compose himself and remain still while Dee cleaned his throbbing hand and readjusted the IV, but it was impossible. His ragged gasps for air came between bouts of the miserable coughing strangling his lungs. Black spots began to dance in his vision and his head spun.
Christ, he couldn’t breathe.
“What’s going on? Zack!”
From nowhere, Cori appeared at his other side. A gift from heaven. Without hesitating, she
took his uninjured hand, brought it to her cheek. “Easy, let them help you. Breathe slowly, honey.”
Zack squeezed her fingers as Shawna returned, holding a syringe aloft. “Please,” he rasped. “Don’t.”
“Hi, Shawna. Ativan? Sounds like our hero’s been a bad boy,” Cori said, worry coloring her attempt at wry humor.
“You know it, girlfriend.” Shawna pursed her lips and arched a brow. “I think the man wants to relapse. Crazy fool, throwin’ shit around.”
“Hmm. Guess you’d better cool it, unless you prefer to be comatose for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, hot stuff.”
Zack blinked up at Cori. These two knew each other? And how the devil would Cori know about the effects of Ativan?
All three women looked at him in question. He did his best to appear contrite as he wheezed an apology. “I’m sorry. I’m calm now, I promise.”
From their dubious expressions, they didn’t buy the lie. God, he didn’t want to be out of it for another day.
Dee glanced at the monitor. “BP’s coming down. I don’t know. What do you think?” She looked to Shawna, who gave Zack a scary, I’m-not-taking-your-crap smile.
“That I’m gonna send Mr. Knight to la-la land if he so much as twitches the wrong way again.” She sounded terribly disappointed at the lost opportunity.
“No twitching,” he croaked. “Honest.”
Dee shrugged. “You’re being moved to a regular room as soon as they have one ready, so you won’t be our problem. How easy you want the rest of your stay to be is up to you.”
“A regular room? Does that mean I can go home soon?”
“Keep improving and I’d guess the day after tomorrow.”
Thank God. He needed out of here. To crawl into a hole and never emerge again.
Eyes narrowed, Shawna waved the capped end of the needle at Zack. “Until then, mind your manners.” She turned to Cori. “I’ll leave Conan in your hands. Got a feelin’ he’ll appreciate your company more than mine.”
She sailed out, Dee trailing behind. Conan, huh? From mild-mannered firefighter to barbarian. Jesus, they’d nearly tranked him like a rampaging elephant.
Cori took a seat beside him, amber gaze shadowed with concern. “Tell me what happened.”
“I received a rather . . . upsetting phone call. Didn’t handle it well.”
“Care to talk about it?”
Hey, sure! I’m gonna get murdered by mobsters!
“No.” Hurt flashed across her face, and he winced. “I mean I can’t. This is something I have to deal with alone, and the less anyone else knows about it, the better.”
“Sounds heavy.”
“You have no idea.”
She paused, studying him as though she could read all his secrets. “Okay. Just know I’m here when you’re ready to unload.”
“Thanks,” he said quietly. Drinking in her lovely face and fall of hair the color of dark honey, he sought to distract himself from his troubles.
Her loose tresses tumbled past the shoulders of her dark overcoat. Underneath the coat, he caught a glimpse of a glittery, low-cut red dress. His gaze traveled down her graceful neck to the swell of her generous breasts. So much golden skin, the dress barely covering nipples he’d love to taste.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Her big, white smile blasted him with a double shot of desire. Awakened his slumbering libido. She was sex incarnate, a treat he’d never sampled. He wondered if she’d believe his innocence, then reminded himself it didn’t make any difference. Even if he wasn’t a disaster zone, Cori was way out of his league.
The steely fist around Zack’s lungs began to loosen and he sank into the pillows, exhausted. Sick at heart.
He decided to give her an out. “Don’t you have to work a party tonight? You’re going to be late.”
“Do I look like I care? For you, they can wait.”
His breath caught and any reply he might’ve made was stopped by the lump in his throat. No one had ever put him first.
No one.
As he struggled to hold his emotions in check, she leaned into him. Like a dying man, he reveled in the soothing caress on his brow, his cheek. Her breast brushing his arm, the sweet scent of something light and floral on her skin. Lulled by the wondrous sensations chasing off the stress of the day, he yawned.
“I’m so tired.” Well, one part of him wasn’t convinced that resting seemed like much fun. The one woman he’d ever reacted to so strongly, and he couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
“Sleep, Zack,” she whispered. “Everything will be all right, you’ll see. I’ll be right here.”
He sighed, turned his face into her touch. The soft promise, her nearness, skittered down his belly to his groin, stroked his balls and cock as he imagined her gentle hands would.
An intimacy he’d longed for . . . and never experienced.
He’d fought so hard day after day since this whole nightmare began, only to find himself stripped down to nothing. He might’ve quit once and for all. If not for Cori.
For the first time in his life, someone special was at his side. Not just one of his friends, but a woman who was interested in him as a man. Encouraging him to hang on one more day. To believe.
He was sick of just existing. He wanted so badly to be needed. To be the other half of someone’s soul. Hers alone. If he had a chance with Cori, he’d take it.
She’ll run once she knows the truth. Then you’ll be worse off than before, broken and bleeding out in the dirt.
Maybe. But she’d be here when he awoke. For now, it was enough. As the weight of exhaustion pulled him under, he held on to her words.
God help him, that promise was all he had left.
6
In Zack’s newly assigned private room, Cori watched over him while he slept. Hours after she should’ve shown at the bachelor party, she sat by his side, just checking the steady rise and fall of his chest. Making certain he was really okay.
Nothing else mattered. Certainly not the money she’d lost tonight, or the drunken groping she hadn’t been forced to endure. No, her only concern was the awful scene she’d walked in on earlier this evening. The anguish in Zack’s blue eyes, the defeat.
And how that emotion changed to something entirely different the moment he realized she was there.
She studied his handsome profile, so peaceful in sleep. Absent were the lines of strain around his eyes and mouth that evidenced worry no man his age should know. He looked like a young prince, waiting for the kiss of his princess to awaken him from a wicked spell. “Sleeping Beauty” in reverse.
Maybe not so far from the truth.
“I have to go,” she whispered, bending to kiss his uninjured cheek. He didn’t stir. “See you tomorrow.”
She hated to leave him, but he was out, most likely for the night. Her own bed was calling and she had to be up earlier than normal if she wanted to run her Saturday morning errands and get back here at a decent time to visit Zack.
Okay, truth: She didn’t give a crap about the errands. She just wanted to see Zack again.
On the way home, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. What made this man, of all the guys who’d shown a interest in her, so special? Lots of men had that sweet, heroic Clark Kent thing going on. Didn’t they?
Nope. And they weren’t Zack, either.
Be honest, Corrine. If he hadn’t nearly died saving your life, he’s exactly the sort of quiet, unassuming guy you’d never have given a second glance.
A few days ago, Zack was just a jerk who’d rear-ended her SUV in a moment of inattention.
Because he was ill and battling exhaustion from working much too hard. She’d noticed that he was an attractive man, and that something seemed to be wrong besides his distress over their fender bender, but her own annoyance had been more important.
Which made her every bit as self-absorbed as Tony. The admission shamed her.
Disturbed by the c
omparison, Cori turned down her driveway and reached for the garage-door opener—only to remember the device had taken a nice long soak in the river with her Explorer. Insurance had declared the vehicle a total loss, but wouldn’t cover the cost of replacing the items inside. She needed to find out how to get a new opener, but just hadn’t made time to do it yet.
“Dammit.”
And of course, it was scary-dark out here, turning her little country jewel of a house into a setting straight out of Friday the 13th.
“This is where the too-stupid-to-live heroine gets out of the car and walks to the front door in total ignorance that her spine is about to get ripped out and eaten for a midnight snack,” she muttered, putting the vehicle into park.
Terrific. Palming her keys and shouldering her purse strap, she stepped out of the car. The night was freezing, her breath frosting in the air, or so she imagined. The darkness closed around her, a suffocating cloak hiding every frightening creature her mind conjured.
And silent. Much too silent, except for the quiet rattling of bare branches in the chilly wind. Skeletal fingers swaying in the moonlight.
She made a beeline for the porch, not running, but not letting grass grow under her shoes, either. Beady eyes drilled the spot between her shoulder blades, an unseen threat coiled to pounce. Every ridiculous childhood fear spurring her legs to pump faster, the boogeyman you can’t see always more terrifying than reality.
Halfway up the steps, Cori discovered how wrong she was.
To her right, a shadow moved. She froze on a strangled gasp, keys outstretched in her hand. Stared into the gloom, straining to make out the shape . . . and then wished she hadn’t.
There, by the porch swing. The silhouette of a man. All in black, featureless. Like a manifestation from hell, straight from her nightmares to something corporeal.
And deadly.
Scrambling backward, she found her voice. Screamed loud enough to wake the county, but knew there weren’t any neighbors close enough to come to her rescue, even if they’d heard.
