Chapter 7 #2
She pulled in a deep breath. “Am I smelling what I think I’m smelling?”
A smile flickered on his sombre face. “Absolutely. As much breakfast as you can eat.” His hand covered hers. “Please tell me you feel hungry.”
“Oh yeah,” she breathed.
His hand over hers was hard and warm, so warm some heat trickled up her arm. His smile had warmed her, too.
Um, actually, to tell the truth, his smile hadn’t just warmed her. His smile had sent a burst of heat running through her entire body, the most amazing sensation. The sensation of…of life.
Suddenly, she couldn’t stay on her back like a half-dead creature for one second longer. She bent her legs, digging in her heels, lifted herself up on her forearms…and found herself sitting up, pillows at her back. He’d lifted her up with total ease, as if she were a child. Carefully and smoothly.
“There you go.” He smiled into her eyes and for the very first time, Ellen realized how incredibly attractive this man was.
The outsized body, the gorgeous golden coloring—even his stubble glinted gold over that square-jawed face—it all added up to one hugely attractive package.
Her fear of him had masked it, but the fear was gone now and she felt it in full.
That, in itself, was amazing. Something about the time she’d spent on this bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, had drained the fear right out of her.
She had a sudden muscle memory of him holding her hand for hours. Days.
“What day is it?” she asked suddenly.
“Thursday.”
Ellen blinked. “I’ve been out for four days?”
“You haven’t been out all this time, no. You woke up a few times.” His eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember?”
Maybe. Awareness was seeping back into her consciousness, a friend that had been gone too long. “Where am I?”
“My place. This is my study.”
Her eyes refocused on him. “I’ve been here four days,” she repeated, just to get it straight.
“Yeah.” His lips pressed together into a thin line. “I told you this before. I didn’t take you to a hospital. You were shot and hospitals and doctors must report gunshot wounds to the police. I imagined you didn’t want that. Those men meant business.”
“You’re right,” she whispered with a shudder. “I didn’t want that.”
“And I didn’t want it either because you can be sure Gerald Montez is watching hospitals and monitoring police stations.
” He pulled his chair closer to the bedside, the chair’s legs scraping along the hardwood floor.
He tightened his hand over hers. “He has no idea where you are. And it’s going to stay that way. ”
“Um, to tell you the truth, I don’t know where I am, either.”
“I told you. My place.”
“Which is?”
“Coronado Shores.” His eyes widened at her blank look. “You don’t know San Diego, do you?”
Ellen shook her head, amazed that it didn’t hurt.
“No, I’ve never been here before. I’m assuming it’s along the beach because it sounds like the ocean out there.
So, you patched me up.” She moved her right shoulder, lifted her right arm, moving with ease.
Above all, that horrible feeling of weakness was gone.
She looked down at herself. She had a vague memory of wearing a huge tee shirt but now she had on a pale peach nightgown.
Pure silk. Absolutely gorgeous. Possibly La Perla.
“More than patched me up. You seem to be pretty prepared for caring for women who’ve been shot.
You’ve got a hospital bed, an IV line, presumably surgical instruments.
” She brushed her hands along the soft peach material.
“Silk nightgowns. Do you have a habit of rescuing women?”
It was the wrong thing to say. His face froze, something, some strong emotion—grief?—crossed his features.
Harry stood up suddenly. “No, I don’t often rescue women. The hospital cot and IV line come from my partner’s house. His wife, Nicole, cared for her father at their house until his death.”
“I sort of remember a beautiful woman coming into the room. I thought she was a dream. Was that your partner’s wife?”
“Yeah. They were going to throw the hospital stuff out after her father passed away but they ended up storing it. I have a medical kit for—for emergencies. Nicole lent you one of her gowns. There are several other clean ones in a drawer for you. So as you see, I was equipped to help you. Luckily, you weren’t shot directly.
The bullet was a ricochet and it wasn’t even that deep.
I dug it out, debrided the wound and closed it up again.
You have 8 stitches. I used self-absorbing thread, they’ll be gone in a day or two.
They’re not perfect, you might need some plastic surgery later—“
Ellen never wanted near a needle again in her life. “No, I’m good.”
“You were out of it for a long time, but from what I could tell it was more exhaustion than the effects of the wound. Am I right?”
She nodded. A year on the run, and then almost 72 hours straight without sleep. There’d been bone deep fatigue. Ellen drew in a deep breath, sending out feelers to the far extremities of her body. She still felt a little weak, but completely rested. Another thing—
“You were there, weren’t you?” Ellen pointed to the chair by the bed. “All the time.”
He hesitated a moment before answering, eyes watching hers. To see how she’d react? “Yeah. Except for bathroom and shower breaks. Nicole brought me some food from time to time. But mostly, yeah, I was here.”
Wow. Four days and four nights, on a chair. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t necessary. I don’t think that I was in danger of dying or anything. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I did.” His eyes bored into hers, that fierce light brown reflecting the light from the windows. “At times you were…restless. You had nightmares. You’d wake up terrified, panting. I couldn’t leave you alone to wake up in the dark in a place you didn’t know.”
Now, now she remembered. The dreams that turned so quickly into nightmares, waking up terrified in the dark, a strong steady hand holding hers.
Warmth and strength, in the night. Not alone, in the night.
It was the reason she was feeling…refreshed. When she’d slept, when the nightmares weren’t chasing her, it had been deep.
She hadn’t slept one night through to morning this whole past year.
She put herself into a shallow sleep, alert in some part of her brain to the noises of the night.
A barking dog, a car’s exhaust, a fighting couple, a slamming door—they’d all been enough to wake her, gasping for breath, grasping for the knife she kept under her pillow.
The knife that was still under her pillow in her miserable little studio apartment which she’d never see again.
These past nights, there had been stretches of real sleep. At some deep level, the animal part of her had known she was safe.
For now, there was no danger to her at all, unless you counted starvation. She opened her mouth to ask for some food, but he beat her to it.
“Okay. I’m going to get you some breakfast now.” One last, intense glance, as if to make sure that she was okay, and he stood, hand still on hers.
She remembered he’d had on a dress shirt in his office, then he’d had a gray tee shirt, then a polo shirt, and now he was wearing a black tee that hugged his huge chest, the sleeves almost too small for those bulging biceps.
He had an unusual figure—absurdly broad through the shoulders with big arms, very lean and narrow through the waist.
He lifted his hand and she immediately felt the chill, which was ridiculous. Warm wind was blowing in through the open French doors.
Ellen watched him walk away, tall, enormously broad-shouldered, tee shirt and jeans rumpled, and she felt bereft.
Which was crazy. Her body might be sending frantic it’s all okay, don’t worry signals, but she didn’t know this man at all.
Granted he might not be Satan’s spawn, a spy for Gerald, but he could be anything. Mean, violent, even crazy.
Though as she was telling herself this, even she didn’t take herself seriously. A violent crazy man didn’t spend four days and four nights on a chair in case a woman he didn’t know woke up alone and afraid.
There were clattering noises and more good smells. Of bread and cinnamon, the dark chocolaty notes of coffee underlying them.
Ellen looked down at herself. Her shoulder itched, but it didn’t hurt at all.
She lifted her arm and sniffed. Someone had given her a sponge bath.
She smelled fresh, of soap. She shifted the nightgown and looked at the neat bandage on the upper right chest. The bandage looked freshly applied.
Curious, she lifted the tape and saw a wound with small neat black stitches. The scar wouldn’t be that big.
The skin was clean and clear around the wound. No infection.
Underlying all of that there was something else. A—a lack of something. Fear. She wasn’t afraid.
Fear had been her constant companion this past year, day and night, expecting at any moment the incursion of masked men, the punch of a bullet or the hot slice of a knife across her throat.
She’d been afraid and lonely every single second of the past year.
Right now, she wasn’t afraid and she wasn’t alone. For a small space of time, she was utterly safe. She didn’t even question it, this switch inside her that had been thrown. The switch from Harry Bolt is dangerous to Harry Bolt is safe. As crisp as an electrical switch. Darkness to light.
She couldn’t stay long, of course. His business, and the business of his partner, Sam Reston, the one married to the beautiful Nicole, and presumably of the other partner she’d never met, Mike, was to spirit her away.
Set her up in a new life. So as soon as she was completely recovered, they’d put some new documents in her hands and point her on a new road.
Alone, of course. There was no question of that.
There was no doubt in Ellen’s mind that as long as Montez was after her, she’d be alone. And that might possibly hold true for the rest of her life.