Chapter Four
The commotion in her home seemed loud and chaotic after the peace and quiet of the Twin Devil boulders. Loud male voices came from the front bedroom, something entirely unacceptable when Wilder was so ill.
Harlow hurried through the great room toward the clashing voices, suddenly grateful Rainier had insisted she go with him, rather than get out when Rush took Raine out of the helicopter and ran toward a building she’d never seen before.
What looked like a team of nurses and techs met him with a gurney just at the door.
She didn’t like leaving Raine, but now, with the harsh male voices raised, she had an inkling as to why Rainier insisted she return to her home.
“What do you mean you lost her, Falcon?” That was Wilder. She’d never heard him raise his voice. He’d never needed to. He could sound scary as hell when he spoke in low tones, but just raising it a couple of octaves put him on an entirely different level of dangerous.
“Get the hell back in bed, Wilder. You’re going to tear everything loose again.” Falcon didn’t sound intimidated in the least.
Harlow stepped into the room, sweeping past Falcon to find Wilder swaying, pale, beads of sweat on his body but determination stamped into every line of his handsome features as he stood beside the bed, gripping a pair of fatigues in one hand.
“Wilder, what are you doing?” She took the trousers from his hand and tossed them into a chair, all the while scowling at Falcon. “You should know better than to upset a patient.”
“Me?” Falcon stared at her incredulously. “I wasn’t the one who upset him.”
Wilder dragged Harlow against him, slamming her body so tightly against his she could barely breathe. He might be severely injured, but he had the strength of ten men. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to break every rib in her body.
“What the hell, mon rêve, you scared the crap out of me. Where were you? No one knew; no one could find you. I thought…” He broke off and tightened his hold just as it was becoming bearable.
She rubbed his back and allowed her fingers to smooth out the hair at the nape of his neck before she gently pushed back against his arms. “You need to get back in bed, Wilder. Whatever’s upsetting you, we can deal with.”
She used her nurse voice, the one everyone listened to.
Apparently, everyone with the exception of Wilder.
He buried his face in her neck. She felt his entire body shudder.
Wilder made it impossible for her to fall back on her profession when she tried to deal with him.
It left her uneasy, uncertain, confused and feeling desperate.
He was the only person she didn’t quite know what to do with, and she didn’t understand why.
He made no sense when he was around her.
Like now. He was acting as if he had been terrified for her, his emotions all out of proportion, when Wilder was every bit as calm as Rainier always was.
In every other circumstance, Harlow could fall back on her nurse’s training or even all the years she spent in a political family living her life in front of a camera, but with Wilder she was off-balance.
She made every effort to be professional, keeping her voice calm.
“Let’s get you back in bed, and you can explain to me why you were so worried about me.
I go out all the time. I have a photography business.
That means I take pictures at all hours of the day or night.
You know that about me, Wilder. You shouldn’t, but you do. ”
All the while she talked, she put pressure on him to back up to the bed.
He complied but didn’t let go of her, so when he sank onto the bed, inhaling sharply against the pain, he took her with him, so she nearly fell on top of him.
She was able to steady herself, but only by putting both hands on his shoulders.
She found herself leaning over him in a precarious position.
She didn’t dare look at Falcon. Rainier’s men seemed to find everything amusing.
“Rainier got your mail this morning,” Wilder said, as if that explained everything.
She indicated for him to swing his legs back onto the bed and waited until he complied before she gave a little shrug. “Why would that make you worry about me?”
“There was a folded-up piece of paper someone had put into your mailbox. No envelope, just the sheet of paper with letters cut from a magazine.”
Harlow moistened her suddenly dry lips. She knew where this was going. Now she really couldn’t look at Falcon. He was far too quiet.
“The message said, ‘You’re going to die, bitch.’ ” Wilder’s intense light green eyes moved over her face, examining every inch of her expression.
Harlow forced a reassuring smile. “That’s what upset you? Honey, I’m the daughter of a politician. I work in a hospital and lose patients. I get crap like that all the time.” She kept her tone soothing and consolatory.
There was instant silence. She could hear the clock ticking, but the room felt as if the air had been sucked out of it.
Wilder’s features hardened into his usual mask, the one that was both attractive and terrifying.
She couldn’t help herself; she glanced over her shoulder at Falcon. He was wearing a similar expression.
“Did you let Rainier know you’ve been receiving death threats?” Wilder asked, his tone very low. Velvet soft. That voice that always sent a shiver of awareness down her spine.
She started to pull away from him, but his fingers clamped around both wrists like twin handcuffs. She told herself she didn’t resist because he was injured and she didn’t want to chance adding to the damage.
“Rainier has far more to do than deal with the nonsense of idiots writing ugly letters or stuffing my mailbox with nasty threats.”
“Stuffing your mailbox with nasty threats?” Wilder echoed, his tone lower than ever.
This was not going well at all. She sat on the edge of the bed, not fighting his hold on her.
He was definitely upset simply because she had disappeared when Rainier found the ugly note in her mailbox.
That, at least, made sense to her. Wilder was a very protective man.
All the men working for Rainier’s security company seemed to have off-the-charts protective instincts.
Maybe that was even one of the requirements.
“Wilder, I’m sorry I disappeared without saying anything to anyone.
I’m used to going off on my own. I haven’t answered to anyone in years.
But had I known you would be upset, I would have texted you my plans.
” That much was true. She wouldn’t have done so to Rainier or any of the others, but she would have to Wilder.
She didn’t want to examine too closely what that meant.
Wilder sighed, his piercing eyes searching her face. “Babe, you don’t seem to understand you’re in danger.” He released her wrists, but not before he gently turned each one over to inspect it, as if looking for evidence that he’d held her too tightly.
“I’m not—that’s the thing, Wilder. I know you’re used to a life of intrigue or whatever, but I actually live quite simply.
I distanced myself from the senator and my mother years ago.
I don’t go home for visits. Only my mother has come here, and that’s been three times in the last few years.
I work as a surgical nurse and have a small circle of friends.
I don’t even date.” She had no idea why she threw that in; it was way too much information.
“You sell your photographs in prestigious galleries and get written up in magazines all the time. You aren’t exactly flying under the radar, Harlow.”
“Maybe not, but I don’t do anything to make enemies who despise me enough to do me in. The people sending those threats are venting. They lost a loved one, or hate or love my father, and they need a way to vent.”
“The message said that you were going to die. That’s a threat to take seriously.”
There was no use in arguing, so she nodded. What was there to say? It wasn’t as if she were Shabina with a pack of guard dogs surrounding her when she went anywhere without her husband. Harlow had Misha, who would probably greet an assassin with joyous abandon.
“You said you’ve gotten threats before,” Wilder persisted. “Did you keep them? Send them to the FBI? What have you done with them?”
“I keep them. I have a file.” She detested admitting it, knowing he would want to see them.
“That’s good. I’ll need to see them. Rainier will want to as well.”
She sat back, pulling completely away from him. “You’re the one someone is trying to kill, Wilder, not me. Rainier and his team are here to look after you.” She stated that firmly.
“I don’t give a damn if they’re here to look after me. I can look after myself. It’s keeping you alive that matters to me. That and making certain you’re happy. If that means standing in the doorway to keep your parents out, I will be doing that.”
She was grateful he wasn’t holding her wrists. Her pulse leapt and heat shot down her spine. It would be so easy to fall in love with him. So easy.
“Fortunately, I made it very clear they aren’t welcome here.”
“Fortunately, that should deter them until I’m a little stronger, but they’ll come, Harlow.
Things are going to heat up for them, even worse than they already have.
I don’t want to make the situation worse for you, but I’ve monitored the senator since I first met you.
He’s in deep trouble, and there is little doubt he’s guilty of several other charges that are about to be brought against him.
Since it’s come out about the missing girl and he was indicated as a suspect, several women have come forward to say they were raped or had sex when they were underage because he threatened to deport them.
Your mother has been complicit, and that can be proven as well. ”