Dangerous to Love

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  “Not tonight,” she deadpanned.

  Dan swore.

  “It was a cop.”

  “I don’t care what he does for a living.”

  “It was work,” she explained, hoping he was jealous. After all, the man had put her through hell. He deserved to suffer.

  “Did you tell him you were naked?”

  “Come to think of it...I don’t think I mentioned it. We had other things to talk about. Like getting together first thing in the morning.”

  He swore again.

  She just laughed at him.

  “Is this the part,” he growled, “where you tell me it’s none of my business who you talk to at one o’clock in the morning? Or the part where I get slammed for not being the kind of man who wouldn’t mind if someone else is after you, too?”

  “Take your pick,” she offered.

  “Jamie—”

  “I told you. He’s a cop. He has an interesting bullet to show me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Maybe a six-millimeter.”

  “Really?”

  “I thought that might get your attention.” She gave up on finding a nightgown, just stretched out on the bed and pulled the covers over her. “I had a friend at the FBI watching for queries about unidentifiable bullets. I may have gotten lucky.”

  “Where was this one found?”

  “They dug it out of a wall at a liquor store in the District after a robbery five days ago.”

  Dan whistled. “Good work.”

  “Well, we don’t have a match yet. Just something a ballistics person hasn’t been able to identify.”

  “You’re going to take a look at it in the morning?”

  “Yes. It’s the first thing I’ve seen that looks remotely like a lead in this case.”

  “I should let you get some sleep,” he offered.

  “Mmm.”

  “Did you make it to bed?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Want to tell me about your nightgown?”

  She wondered if it was possible to blush all over, marveled at the tone of the whole conversation. He obviously wanted her to know he wanted her. And that he wanted to finish what they had started that night, which now seemed so long ago.

  “I’m not wearing anything at all,” she said boldly.

  “Jamie,” he protested.

  “What?”

  “I’m stuck in this place for at least a few more weeks. Maybe a month.”

  “They won’t let you out?”

  He groaned. “It’s not exactly a prison. I could leave any time I wanted, but I need to be here right now. Rehab isn’t a nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday kind of thing.”

  “Oh,” she said carefully, forced to think again of the physical limitations he might be facing when he was finished.

  But it didn’t matter, she told herself. Dan would still be Dan, and she’d still care about him. Oh, she was nervous about the struggles they would face, but she wanted him—any way she could get him.

  “I thought about what you said this afternoon,” she said. “About...your injuries. I want you to know that whatever happens, I can handle it. We both can.”

  “Baby, I never wanted you to have to handle it.”

  “Well, I never wanted you to have to handle this, either, but you don’t exactly have a choice. Neither do I.”

  “You don’t even know how much control of my legs I’m going to get back. I don’t know that myself right now. I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this.”

  “But you will. You have the strongest will of any man I’ve ever known. Whatever happens, you’ll deal with it. And so will I.”

  “The chair—”

  “Hasn’t changed the way I feel about you.” She sighed, searching for anything she could say or do to convince him. “What if I was the one in the chair? Would it change what you felt for me?”

  “Jamie—”

  “Would it? Would you turn around and walk away from me?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then how can it be so hard for you to believe me when I say it doesn’t change the way I feel about you? And don’t even begin to insult me again the way you did today by telling me to just turn around and walk away.”

  “I meant it,” he said.

  “Which makes it even worse,” she complained. “You wouldn’t walk away from me, Dan.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  She waited, and he said nothing, although she thought she’d made some headway with him. “I want to see you,” she said again.

  “I’ll be there. In a couple of weeks.”

  “And in the meantime, I’ll come to you.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want you here.”

  “Oh,” she said, wincing at the hurt that came along with his words, at the idea of battles still to be fought.

  “This is something I need to get through by myself.”

  “No, it’s most definitely not the kind of thing you get through on your own.”

  “Jamie, please. Give me a couple of weeks. The worst of this will be over, and we’ll be together.”

  “Until things get tough again?”

  “What?”

  “We’ll be together until something bad happens. Until some problem crops up, and you disappear on me?”

  “You think I’d walk away from you when you needed me?”

  “No, I think you’d walk away when you needed me. I know it. You’ve already done it once, and that matters a great deal to me.”

  She started to shake, feeling scared and alone, thinking again of her mother’s warning. She couldn’t change him. He couldn’t give her something he simply didn’t have to give.

  But damn it, she’d been so hopeful that this time it would work. But if he never let her truly be a part of his life, if he kept things separated into neat little compartments, some of which she could be a part of, and some she couldn’t, how would she handle that? How could she overcome it?

  “You can’t give me a little bit of yourself and hold back the rest,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Jamie,” he said, sounding so very sad.

  “Think about it, Dan. Think very carefully. I can take the wheelchair. But I can’t handle the walls you’re determined to put between us.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” he admitted finally. “I’ve been this way for a long time. I don’t know how to be any other way.”

  “Tell me you’ll try. Tell me you’ll talk to me about what you’re going through there and how it makes you feel. Lean on me a little. Tell me you’ll think about letting me come see you.”

  “I’ll talk to you,” he said quickly. “Every night when you climb into bed. You can tell me about your day, and I’ll tell you about mine, while I lie here and go half-crazy imagining what it would be like if I was there with you.”

  “You don’t have to imagine,” she insisted. “You could be here with me if you weren’t so damned stubborn.”

  He swore. “You don’t fight fair, babe.”

  “You taught me not to.”

  “Jamie—”

  “You can’t fight me and yourself. I don’t think you’ll be able to stay away from me,” she argued. “I think you’re tired of being alone. And I’m right here waiting for you. All you have to do is come to me.”

  “It’s not that simple,” he claimed.

  “It’s every bit as simple as that. Come to me, and I’ll show you.” Then she thought of one more argument. “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me,” she said. “Maybe you don’t need me now, but I need you. I have a bad feeling about this whole mess with the shooting. I’m not sure what I should do next, and I need you. I’m worried this thing’s going to burst wide-open and once it does, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “Then back off. Now. While you still can. I can be there in two weeks, Jamie.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

&
nbsp; “Then at least stick close to Josh. This is no tune to be running around on your own.”

  “Josh is busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’m not sure. Tanner pulled him off the Section 123 review weeks ago. He’s been quiet about it, and I haven’t pushed him to tell me what he’s been doing.”

  “Back off, Jamie.”

  “Come and help me,” she countered.

  “God, you are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”

  “And you’re an incredibly exasperating man. Arrogant, stubborn, irritating. I must be crazy, but I just can’t forget about you, no matter how mad you make me.”

  “I guess that means we were meant for each other,” he said.

  “You guess?” she exclaimed in mock outrage.

  “We can’t even have a conversation without arguing.”

  “That’s because you’re still fighting it.”

  “It?”

  “Us,” she explained. “Give it up, Dan. Give in to it.”

  “I want to,” he confessed. “God, I want to. Good night, babe. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  She was still smiling as she hung up the phone, because she felt hopeful once again, and she didn’t think she’d have long to wait before he showed up at her door.

  Chapter 11

  She wasn’t home the following night when he called, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  Dan had pushed himself to the limit that day, because he was sick and tired of hospitals and doctors and therapists. He was impatient to get on with the rest of his life, impatient to get to her. He also had a nagging feeling that she was right about the shooting at the warehouse—that something really odd was going on, and she was caught in the middle of it. He worried about what she was going to do.

  She wasn’t a reckless person, and she was very well trained; he’d made sure of that. But he’d feel a lot better if he was beside her. No one would work harder than he would to keep her safe.

  He almost decided to say to hell with his intentions—which were to go to her on his own two feet. Because she’d made it clear that he could come to her right now, and she would welcome him.

  So it was nothing but stubborn pride that was keeping him away from her now. That, and knowing he was so close to getting back on his feet. His leg muscles were strong enough now to hold his weight for short periods of time, but nerve damage that hadn’t healed and likely never would had left him unable to control some of the muscles in his legs—particularly the left leg. The best he could do at present was shuffle along with the help of a cane. Maybe one day he could walk without it. Maybe not. It was still too soon to tell.

  Truthfully, it was bothering him less and less every day. He’d accepted the fact that he wasn’t going back to the job he once held. He’d find something else to do eventually. With the money he had in the bank, he could take his time about deciding on a new career.

  For now, he intended to concentrate on Jamie. On making her smile, making her laugh, getting her used to the idea that she was his. Primitive as it sounded, he wanted to own her, body and soul, putting the stamp of his touch and the feel of his body on her, like a brand she could never erase. He intended to make her his. In every way that mattered.

  If he pushed, in two weeks or so, he could walk out of here. There’d still be work to do for his legs, but he would do it as an outpatient and spend his nights with her.

  Dan glanced at the clock, getting edgier as the minutes slid past and he still didn’t know where she was. When she said she needed him there, his first thought was that she was merely trying to make him feel that she needed him, simply because she wanted him to be with her.

  But maybe her worry was genuine. Maybe there were things she hadn’t told him, things that could lead her into real danger. If she was in trouble, he’d be there for her. His only misgivings were not knowing how effective he could be right now in covering her back.

  Of course, he couldn’t ask her any those things, because she still wasn’t home.

  Dan called Jamie’s number every fifteen minutes for the next hour, and by one o’clock in the morning, he’d gone a little crazy. She wasn’t there, but it didn’t necessarily mean she was in trouble, he told himself. She could simply have been called away on assignment, so quickly she hadn’t had time to call him. It was possible. Unlikely, he thought, but possible. At one-thirty, he decided to call the agency, just in case something had happened to her.

  He dialed the number with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. Curiously, Tanner’s secretary was there. He told her he was looking for Jamie. Amanda said a priority briefing was in progress at the office. Jamie should have been there, but wasn’t. She hadn’t answered her phone all afternoon or evening. She hadn’t responded to a priority page, either.

  Dan kept asking questions. Someone from the agency had been trying to reach Jamie for two and a half hours with no response, which was troubling. Nobody ignored a page about a priority briefing.

  So where was she?

  Dan gritted his teeth and asked about Joshua Carter, who was in the briefing. Amanda promised to ask him to call Dan when the briefing ended. He was about to hang up when she asked him to wait a moment—the meeting had just broken up and Tanner wanted to speak to him.

  “I wanted you to know,” Tanner said, when he came on the line a few moments later, “that the CIA and the FBI haven’t gotten anywhere in finding Hathaway. They’ve given up on keeping this thing under wraps and are going public with a full-court press. We’re back in it, and I wish you could be here and be a part of this.”

  Dan thought it over. The man had shot and killed Doc. Whoever helped Hathaway escape had left Dan struggling to walk again, left him starting over at thirty-nine without a clue as to what he’d do with his life. Dan wanted the man caught, and it seemed odd not to be a part of that effort. But it didn’t bother him as much as he expected it would. At the moment, all he wanted to do was find Jamie.

  “I think I’ll leave the bad guys to you,” he said.

  “Sorry it has to be that way.”

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “Listen, I’ve been trying to get hold of Jamie, but I’m not having any luck. Amanda said she couldn’t reach her, either. Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “Hang on,” Tanner said cryptically. He put Dan on hold, picked up the phone a few minutes later. “Sorry, I didn’t want to have this conversation in the hallway. Jamie and I had a little disagreement this morning, and I suspect she’s decided to take a few days off to think some things through.”

  That was odd, Dan thought, especially if the agency had finally been brought back into the search for Hathaway.

  “You had a disagreement?” Dan said carefully.

  “The lady’s stubborn as hell,” Tanner complained.

  Dan laughed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I’ll admit it’s not all her. Things have been nuts around here. Everybody’s tense, and I’m getting squeezed from both ends You have no idea of the pressure that’s being put on everyone to get Hathaway back. I know it’s been hard on all our agents, too. But I’ve got to have some cooperation, and I’m through asking nicely for it.”

  Dan couldn’t imagine Tanner asking nicely for anything, but he got the picture.

  “You can’t tell the woman anything,” Tanner complained. “She’s had her own ideas about this investigation from the beginning. I’ve tried to give her some time and some room, and I respect her judgment. But I have priorities of my own, and I’m shorthanded with you out and Doc gone. I can’t have Jamie running around doing whatever she thinks is most important and ignoring what the people chewing on my butt want done.”

  “She’s hardheaded,” Dan agreed. “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “Cooling down, I hope. I threatened to suspend her yesterday if she tried to countermand one more order I gave her.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t told Dan that.

  “Yeah. She came in here this morning telling
me it’s time to canvass the northwest quarter—all because a cop dug a bullet out of a liquor store wall, and no one’s been able to identify it yet.”

  “Is it a six-millimeter?”

  “I don’t know. The D.C. police have it, and we’re trying to get it released to us so our ballistics people can check it,” Tanner said. “Even if it is a six-millimeter, what’s it going to tell us? That someone dumped one of the weapons as they headed out of town, and some punk found one and used it to hold up a liquor store.”

  Dan had to agree. That was probably what they’d find.

  “So where did you and Jamie leave it?”

  “I told her I thought we were going to be brought in on the search for Hathaway, that if she was going to be a part of it, I’d expect her full cooperation. That meant giving her full attention to whatever assignment I gave her. Let’s just say she was less than enthusiastic about doing things my way. She claimed she might need some time off to get her head together, but I suspect you and I both know what that means.”

  Dan swore. “She’s going to nose around down there by herself.”

  “I’ve warned her,” Tanner said. “If I find out she’s done that, I’m going to lose every bit of the manners my mother worked so hard to teach me. So I hope she’s just cooling off somewhere right now.”

  “Do me a favor,” Dan said. “If you find the lady, have her call me. We have some things to discuss.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Thanks,” Dan said, hanging up the phone.

  He tried Jamie again and still got no answer at her apartment. It was nearly two o’clock, and his stomach was in knots. He tried to talk himself out of a full-blown, gutwrenching certainty that something was very wrong. She could have gotten caught up in something related to work, could have been oblivious to the fact that it was late, he told himself.

  But she’d have her pager. The page would have taken priority over everything else. She wouldn’t have ignored a priority page unless something was terribly wrong.

  Dan’s phone rang. He snatched it up and said, “Jamie?”

  “No,” said a smugly amused voice. “Josh.”

  Dan had no time, no patience for niceties, as he demanded, “Do you know where she is?”