Chapter Four #4
“Stop shaking your head. It would be different if you weren’t every bit as attracted to me as I am to you. And not just physically. I’d walk away, Harlow, but you’re just scared to trust anyone. You’ll learn I’m trustworthy.”
She ducked her head to avoid the intensity of his gaze. “It isn’t about you, Wilder. I’m incapable of a relationship. I’d mess it up very quickly. It’s called self-sabotage, but I’d convince myself it’s self-preservation.”
“Harlow, I’m just going to tell you this one more time, and then it’s all about showing you.
I’m not going anywhere. You can try to mess it up—I expect that from you.
You’re going to run like a little rabbit.
But I’m a hunter, babe, and we’re right for each other.
If we weren’t, we’d already be with someone else.
I don’t have any desire to be with anyone else, and I never have. I’m betting it’s the same for you.”
He was right about her. She hadn’t ever seen a man she wanted to spend time with—until Wilder. She had no idea why it was him, but there was no one else.
“Then knock yourself out, Wilder.” She made it an exasperated challenge, mostly because she liked that he indicated he was going to keep trying in the face of her attempting to shut him down.
“But right now, you’re at a disadvantage because you’re my patient, and until your doctor gives you the okay to be up, you’ll be staying right there in that bed. ”
A slow grin touched his mouth, nearly making her heart stop. There was something so dangerously sexy about the way he looked at her. Maybe she shouldn’t have used the word bed.
“Stop it.”
His eyebrow shot up, and his thumb moved in a gentle, soothing caress along her inner wrist. It occurred to her that he could read her frantic pulse.
She tried scowling at him, but that only made his smile climb to his eyes.
But then he lifted his gaze toward the door, tipping her off that they weren’t alone.
“Need a word with you, Harlow,” Rainier said, announcing his presence.
“You can have that word with her right here, Rainier,” Wilder stated. His tone was soft, low, even amicable, but there seemed to be an underlying threat Harlow couldn’t identify.
She spun around, shifting her position on the bed because Wilder hadn’t released her hand. “How is Raine doing?”
“What happened to Raine?” Wilder asked before Rainier could answer.
“She was climbing,” Rainier said. “Rattlesnake bit her, and she came off the rock, landed on her bad leg and suffered three breaks. She’s being treated with antivenom and Rush and his team are doing the surgery on her leg.”
“Is she going to lose her leg, Rainier?” Harlow asked.
“I honestly don’t know.” Rainier’s voice gentled even more. “Rush is one of the best, if not the best ortho man I’ve seen. If it’s possible to save her leg, he will. We need to discuss the threat that was in your mailbox this morning.”
“She has a file,” Wilder said. “Quite a few threats, apparently.”
Harlow turned back to glare at him. “Really? Do you think being a snitch is going to endear you to me?”
Wilder’s lips curved into his brief, fascinating smile. Or more like a smug smirk—she couldn’t decide, only that it softened his appearance for just one moment. “Babe, I told you we have to deal with any threats. I’ll be looking at that file right along with Rainier.”
“How many threats?” Rainier asked, a shade of darkness in his tone.
She shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve been getting them for well over a year. In the last few months, they’ve escalated. I can tell they aren’t all from the same person.”
“Did you mention this to Sam?” Rainier’s voice dropped another octave.
Sam was going to be very upset when he found out.
He’d been a part of her friend circle for a couple of years before he married Stella.
He thought of the women as family, her included, and he was protective of them.
She adored Sam, but she wasn’t the type of woman to go running to a man when she got what she considered normal threats.
They’d been coming since she was a young child.
“Why would I do that?” she countered.
Before Rainier could answer, Wilder did.
“So you’re safe. It may not matter to you, Harlow, but your safety means a great deal to me.
I’m hiding out in your home, which could potentially bring trouble to you.
We haven’t even told my boss I’m alive. It’s important to me, to Sam and Rainier and even Zale, that you’re safe at all times. ”
His hand cupped her chin, his thumb sliding gently over her cheek.
“It’s more than important to me, mon rêve.
It’s imperative. Crucial. We’re asking you not to let anyone know I’m here.
I’m asking that you be the one to take care of my wounds because I trust you.
I’m also asking you to allow us to see to your safety. ”
What was she going to say to that? “I’ll get the file.”
“That’s my woman.”
She didn’t know about being his woman, but she wasn’t going to argue in front of Rainier. “Just so we’re all on the same page, Raine guessed that you were alive and were in my home.”
“That’s no surprise,” Rainier said. “She would never disclose that information.”
“Even if Blom contacts her?” Wilder asked.
“Raine would never say a word,” Rainier answered for her. “She doesn’t work for Blom, although she has done work for him. She’s independent, and she doesn’t mix up which branch she’s working for. We have no worries on that score, Wilder.”
“Do you suspect Blom of something nefarious?” Harlow asked.
“He’s Wilder’s boss. He wouldn’t set him up to be killed, would he?
” The idea was terrifying, but not altogether impossible as far as she was concerned.
Blom was Vienna’s birth father, and he’d denied it, and he’d used her to draw out a killer. He didn’t seem to have any scruples.
Wilder flashed his grin. “Nefarious? I’d say that’s a good word to describe the boss. That and ruthless. If he decided to get rid of me because he thinks I’m too much trouble, but I know too much, yeah, he might set me up for an ambush.”
Harlow didn’t like the blasé way he treated his near-death experience, as if he accepted that the man who had sent him out on countless missions would decide to end him and expected that kind of treatment.
“Tell me what happened, Wilder. I think you both suspect Blom.” She really didn’t expect him to answer her and was shocked when he did.
“I was sent to meet with another agent. James Selleck.” He exchanged a look with Rainier that Harlow couldn’t quite interpret, but it gave her a very bad feeling.
“I knew him fairly well. He had information on a terrorist cell in Indonesia. We were talking; everything seemed fine. He was handing me proof, photos, and I stepped close to him to take them. I don’t know what tipped me off, but I turned at the last second when he attacked with the knife. He was fast.”
“He’s known for his knife work,” Rainier said.
He sounded so matter-of-fact, Harlow wanted to yell at him that it wasn’t normal, but she knew, to the two of them, what had happened to Wilder wasn’t unexpected.
“I didn’t count the stab wounds; my focus was on taking him out, which I managed to do with his own knife. I needed to step away from him, catch my breath and deal with the bleeding before I took care of the body.”
Harlow’s stomach lurched. The idea of Wilder in such a terrible situation sickened her.
She looked at Rainier. He didn’t appear upset.
Neither did Wilder. They lived in such a different world, but she knew that because Rainier was a doctor, he knew how dangerous it was for Wilder to be exerting energy when he was bleeding profusely.
“The second I stepped out of the trees, I stumbled. My legs were so weak. That fall saved my life. The bullet hit just below my heart instead of my heart. I knew there was a two-man team after me and a sniper was up in a tree somewhere. I kept rolling when he shot me, back into the trees and shadows, and then it was on.”
Harlow waited. Rainier just nodded as if he understood. She didn’t. Wilder was wounded. Losing blood. “There is no way you went after the sniper in the condition you were in,” she declared.
“Babe.” Wilder’s voice was gentle. “You do what you have to do to survive. I was set up. No one could be allowed to escape and get back to whoever sent them to say I was still alive. I couldn’t have him coming after me. It had to be done.”
“That’s crazy. I just have to let both of you know, it’s totally insane the way you live. And now you’re worried his boss, a man very well respected in the CIA, very powerful, could be the one who sent those two men to kill him.” She was rather proud of the fact that she wasn’t yelling at them.
“It’s under control,” Rainier assured her. “We’re just being cautious. Please get the files for us to go over.”
“Sure. Why not?” Sarcasm was heavy as she stood. “We won’t worry about the threat to Wilder, even though he had enough stab wounds and gunshot wounds to make him a human sieve, but we’ll all get worked up over a couple of idiots cutting words out of magazines.”
Neither man said a word, and she flounced into the living room to retrieve the very large file. She’d forgotten how large it had become over the last year.