Four more shots bounced off the field before they reached the car.
Jack pulled open the driver’s door. She slid in first, he followed. He fired the engine, backed up and floored the gas pedal. The car rocketed forward. Jack barely braked before he pulled out onto the highway.
Olivia didn’t breathe normally again until they were racing away from the park.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“Home.”
Panic shook her nerves. “You need medical attention. We need to turn around and go to the hospital.”
“They’re required to file a report with the police department if a gun shot wound comes in. There will be lots of questions, Olivia. Questions I’d rather not answer. It’s a flesh wound. The bullet went through and through. We can take care of it at home.”
He was right. Of course he was right. They’d ask her what happened and she’d tell them how her car had taken over and attempted to ram her into a moving freight train, how an invisible bubble had stopped a barrage of bullets meant to blast them full of holes…
“They’d cart me off to the nut house.”
“My point exactly.”
She tried to put it all together. There was that Phantom thing again. The same phenomenon had protected her from the car on Main Street, she was sure of it, felt it in her heart, and no matter how many times Jack denied it, she was sure he was the Phantom, lifesaver of Black’s Cove. But he needed anonymity. She’d give it to him for now. But how had he known where she’d be?
“How’d you find me?”
He cast her a sideways glance that sent her heart rate up. “I was worried about you this morning after you left. I decided to come into town to check on you.”
She could see right through him. Besides, how did he know she’d be in that car? If he was the Phantom, he’d have saved whoever was behind the wheel. Her bravado deflated.
Jack slowed the Jaguar and made the turn into the estate. His arm throbbed. How was Olivia going to react to the lab where his grandfather had worked out the details of NPQ? He was going to have to placate her somehow.
He’d blacked out everything in Ross’s file that could possibly spark her need to know. Would it be enough? Somehow he doubted it. Olivia Morgan was on a quest for something more, but he’d yet to delve into her thoughts and memories deep enough to find out what drove her. Could he protect her from herself?
“Would you look at that?” she said from the passenger seat.
Jack followed her line of sight to Black’s Cove Lake. The mist had dissipated and the afternoon sun shone on its surface, hitting the water and creating glistening diamonds in ribbons of light.
“It’s so beautiful.”
“Yes, it is.” He enjoyed the awe in her voice.
They drove the last quarter of a mile to the house and he pulled the car into the garage.
“Stuart will help me take care of my arm. Make yourself comfortable in the parlor.”
He glanced over at her and saw a stubborn glint in her eyes. She clamped her teeth together, jutting her chin forward. He was in trouble.
“I’d like to help because it’s my fault you were shot. I do realize now that if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”
Maybe there was hope for her hard-nosed, got-to-have-the-truth-at-any-cost attitude after all.
Stuart stepped into the garage and opened the car door. “Sir, I received your call. How are you holding up?”
“Thanks to Miss Morgan’s bandaging job I think I’m going to make it.”
She climbed out and came around the nose of the car, catching his good arm with her hand.
Heat shot through him.
“You called him? When?”
“My car is equipped with an alarm. Stuart knew there’d been trouble a moment after it happened.”
“Oh. How super-heroish.”
Stuart stared at her hard and long and Jack felt tension ignite the air around them. “It’s all right. Miss Morgan had some problems and I was forced to rectify them.”
“Very well.” He moved forward, opened the door into the house and followed them inside. “Will you need Mr. Smith?”
“No. It’s a flesh wound. I’ll take care of it in the lab.”
Stuart preceded them through the kitchen and out into a narrow hallway. “If you need me, sir, I’ll be outside.”
Jack nodded to Stuart, reached for the knob and pulled the closet door open.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Olivia whispered next to him, a tremor in her voice. “A secret lab?”
Amusement glided through him, but he held it in check. Every detail he gave her put him in danger of exposure and increased the fact that he couldn’t allow her to leave.
“My grandfather had to protect his research.” He took her hand and they stepped into the cubical. He shut the door and a tiny light came on overhead.
“On NPQ?”
“Yes.”
“That’s spooky.”
Jack reached through the mass of hanging coats and pressed the elevator’s Down button.
“I don’t think you understand, Olivia.”
“Then why don’t you help me to?” She stared at him, her blue eyes sparkling in the dim light. The proximity of her body to his stirred primal need in his bloodstream. A knot fisted in his gut and he was forced to look away, taking his trail of desire with him. She was dangerous and in danger. It was a twisted equation that could get them both killed.
“His research was cutting-edge in the late seventies. There were other scientists working along the same lines, but my grandfather was the first and only one to perfect the formula—”
“And use it on human test subjects?”
He was digging his own grave. “Yes.”
“My brother Ross…and you?”
“Yes.” Maybe there was hope she’d believe they were the only two test subjects. Maybe he could contain the situation after all.
The elevator car landed with a soft jolt and Jack opened the door. Taking her hand, he led her out into his grandfather’s lab and hit the light switch panel on the wall. Rows of fluorescent lights came to life, illuminating the pristine room, its walls lined with work areas, exam tables and shelves of chemicals and compounds.
“Do you use this place?”
He let go of her hand and retrieved the medical kit from inside a cupboard. “I used to, after I graduated from medical school. But I realized I didn’t want to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps. The Foundation was doing good work and needed someone at its helm, so I changed my focus.”
He laid the kit on one of the exam tables and opened it. Taking out a pressure dressing, swabs, sterile water, several gauze pads and some antiseptic, he laid everything out for her.
“Come on, I’ll tell you what to do.” He unbuttoned his shirt one-handed. “Take off the bandage.”
Olivia felt the pull toward him well before she picked at the knot she’d tied in the makeshift dressing. Her heart hammered in her eardrums as she fiddled with the material and released the square knot. She unwound it, noting the bleeding had stopped almost completely. The lab gave her the creeps and she wondered what was behind the massive vault door in the far corner of the room. Did mad scientists have vaults where they kept their demented formulas?
“It looks good. No more bleeding.”
“First aid training?” He pulled his good arm out of his shirt first and eased off the bloody sleeve on the other side.
Olivia swallowed and tried to keep her stare on the bullet wound rather than the broad expanse of his bare chest, but it wasn’t easy. The whole room closed in on her.
“Yeah. I clean it up with antiseptic first.” She tried to pull herself together.
“Yes. Use lots of it. I don’t want this to get infected.”
He sat down on the exam table in front of her. Now she was forced to stare at his skin, hugging well-shaped pecs and pulled taut over ripped abs. Even the branching lines of scarring left her wanting to tr
ace them with her fingertips.
Damn. She was in some kind of trouble.
She fumbled for the bottle of sterile water, grasping it as he reached for her chin and pulled her face up, making eye contact.
Her head spun.
“If this is a problem for you, Olivia, I can get someone else.”
“It would help if you didn’t…touch me, while I’m trying to work.”
A sultry smile bowed his sexy lips and drained the reservoir of denial she was paddling around in. Her lifeboat sank and she leaned into him, caught in a current of raging desire she couldn’t swim out of.
He took her mouth in complete possession, exploring her with his tongue in slow sensuous strokes that stoked the fire burning in her veins. Her body engorged with heat so hot that she thought she’d melt into her shoes. Then he let her go, grasping her upper arms to keep her from rocking over and falling backward.
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “You said you hadn’t been kissed enough after your near-death experience. I thought I’d take the opportunity to rectify that.”
Suspicion took a hold of her jumbled physical and emotional faculties. She reached for a piece of gauze to clean around the wound. “You just want me to keep my mouth shut about your being the Phantom. That’ll take care of it, Jack.” She knew she was lying, as she twisted the cap off the bottle. Being kissed by him had only shown her how needy she really was, how behind her hard-charging style she was still a woman.
A woman without love in her life.
His teeth clamped together, setting a hard line along his jawbone.
What was his game? Did he really think seduction equaled no exposé? Did he think her heart was up for grabs? Well, he’d be wrong. She swallowed hard and doused the gauze with water.
Working carefully, she wiped the drying blood from around the wound at the entrance and exit sites. Thank God, it was a clean shot that had penetrated the skin on the underside of his upper arm. The bullet had missed the bone.
“Thank you.” She looked him in the eyes. “Thank you for doing what you do and for making sure I survived.”
“You’re welcome.”
She put the bloodied gauze down and picked up the iodine. “This might sting,” she said as she saturated the swab and began probing the wound.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t look at her again until she’d slathered antibiotic cream on his arm and bandaged it.
Jack teetered on a precipice of his own making. He could let her go and his identity as the Phantom would be front-page news within the week, but that wasn’t the worst of it. They would try to kill her again and they might succeed next time.
Or he could play his last card and force her to stay where he could protect her and convince her to let the story die.
“All done.” She stepped back and he was hyper-aware of her body, of the curve of her full breasts pressing against the fabric of her torn blouse, of the pensive, what’s-next way she held her mouth in a manner that belied her quick wit and active mind.
He slid off the exam table and stepped toward her. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel, so you can get your things.”
Her eyes widened. He prepared for an ardent protest.
“You’re not safe and I won’t have your blood on my hands.”
Still, she just stared at him like he’d grown an eye in the middle of his forehead and sprouted horns.
“You can’t keep me here!” Indignation spoiled her features and made his heart squeeze.
Jack reached for her, but she bolted out of his grasp.
Dammit, he’d do anything to keep her safe. Even endure her hatred. But he’d rather reason with her.
“You saw the power they possess. They tried to kill you this morning.”
“Who are they?” She moved around him in a circle.
“I can’t tell you. But I can promise you’ll be safe here. They won’t try to harm you while you’re in my care.”
“There are more like you…that’s it.” Her mouth opened in wonder. “They have the same power as you do.”
“Not the same.” His veil of secrecy was thinning a degree at a time.
“Enough.” He moved toward the desk in the corner and pulled open the bottom drawer. Reaching inside he took out her red baseball cap, the one she’d dropped in the basement of the clinic. He hated to threaten her, but he was out of options. This was concrete. This was something she could understand, respect.
He turned around.
The force of something hard made contact with his head. Pain and anger, burned through him.
“You can’t keep me here!” she yelled, raising the chair for a second blow.
Jack held out her red ball cap.
Olivia froze in mid-act. The meaning of the lost hat sinking deep into her brain. Jack had been there the first night she broke into the clinic and he’d been there the night the fire almost took her life. Jack Trayborne was the Phantom of Black’s Cove. He held her fate in his hands. But he’d also saved her life time and again.
“You would use that against me? You would turn me in for breaking and entering?” She lowered the chair.
A bead of fear pearled inside of her, culturing hesitation. She could go to jail.
“Stay, Olivia.”
“Do I have a choice?”
Chapter Eight
Jack stared at the lakefront cottage less than a hundred yards from the main house. He’d chosen to give her a space of her own. She’d accepted his ultimatum on the surface, but underneath he’d tapped into her resentment. She hated being trapped, feeling helpless…and scared. That wasn’t his goal, to frighten her, but if it worked to keep her safe, it was a tactic he felt compelled to employ.
He glanced at the thick file in his hand and took the steps off the terrace. Maybe having access to Ross’s medical information would alleviate her distress. Convince her the clinic had done everything short of curing him. Maybe then she’d consent to leaving Black’s Cove for good.
Regret ticked along his nerves and matched the beat of his footsteps through the rose garden and onto the porch of the cottage. His approach alerted Gunner, his German shepherd, and he immediately rushed toward him, tail wagging.
Jack patted the dog’s head and raised his hand to knock.
The door opened before he could rap on it.
“I saw you coming.” She turned away leaving the door open for him to enter.
The sway of her hips in her blue jeans made his jaw clench and he pulled in a deep breath before crossing the threshold into the land of temptation.
“I have something for you.”
She stopped, turned and plopped down on the couch, a devil-may-care grin on her face. “You’re going to free me from this exquisitely decorated prison?”
A knot swelled in his chest. He lowered himself onto the chair facing the sofa.
“It’s Ross’s medical file.”
She dropped the contrivance she’d wrapped herself in and sat forward. “You would give that to me?”
“Yes.” He watched disbelief pull her eyebrows together as she studied him, her intense blue-eyed gaze never leaving his face.
“It’s that simple. You give me the medical file, I read through it, determine if the clinic is responsible for his present medical condition and I’m good to go?”
“Something like that.”
The briefest flash of acceptance flitted across her pleasing features and he moved in for the kill.
“There’s one condition. You leave Black’s Cove immediately and you leave its secrets behind when you go. You’ll have the answers you seek about Ross and I’ll have my anonymity. There will be no exposé. Do we have an agreement?”
Reluctance kept him out of her mind. Any trail of thought she went down could only lead him back to his belief that she thought he was a freak and she’d love nothing better than to expose him as one.
Olivia stood up, her nerves a jumbled mass of short-circuiting bio-matter. What Jack was asking was career suicide f
or her, a lethal dose of unemployment. A journalist who couldn’t dish was dead. Was she willing to trade the story of the century for a manila file with her brother’s name on it?
Remnants of guilt surfaced in her mind, dragging her toward a decision. She stared at the folder Jack held so casually. He had her recompense in his hands. The absolution of her guilt for causing the accident that injured Ross.
“You know I have to take Ross’s file.”
“Yes, but why, Olivia? Why are you willing to risk your life for what’s inside this folder?” He held it out to her.
A lump formed in her throat. She reached for the information, but he pulled it back. “Why is this so important to you?”
The sting of tears blazed behind her eyelids. She wanted to run, wanted to escape his scrutiny as badly as she wanted to avoid her own.
“Because Ross’s accident was my fault. He was on my trike and I wanted it back, so I pushed him. He was two.” Her voice cracked and she turned loose of the pent-up pain festering inside of her.
“I was only four, for God’s sake! I had no idea he would roll so fast into the street. My mother tried to catch him, but she couldn’t and then the car…”
Jack advanced on her and pulled her into his arms. She didn’t resist; she didn’t have the will to. She needed to feel his touch, his sympathy, his consolation and she wasn’t disappointed.
She listened to the drum of his heartbeat under her ear and closed her eyes, letting the tears come.
He brushed his hand over her head, pressing her tightly against him.
“You had no way of knowing what would happen, Olivia. Children lack reasoning skills and understanding of the consequences of their actions. Their cognitive function hasn’t fully developed at that age.”
His justification made perfect neurological sense, but there wasn’t much emotional solace in it.
She pulled back and dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “I sabotaged my own childhood. From that day on, we traipsed around the country looking for help. Some miracle cure for his brain damage. My parents barely looked at me after that and never forgave me. They’re both dead now, my dad twelve years ago, and my mom a year ago.”
The Phantom of Black’s Cove Page 8
