Eve opened her eyes in the hospital’s perpetual twilight and knew at once that she wasn’t alone. From her curled-on-her-side position she let her eyes roam as far as they would, but saw only the stark walls, the bedside cabinet and visitor’s chair, the graying rectangle of a window.
And yet she’d definitely heard something…someone…the stealthy brush of cloth on cloth… the whisper of an exhalation. The nurse, perhaps, coming to check on her yet again? But no, there’d been no footsteps, no sounds of an opening or closing door, no subtle swirls and eddys of air currents stirred by a passing body. Her mother, then, or one of her sisters, unable to stay away, come to sit quietly and wait for her to awaken? The thought made her feel deliciously warm and loved, and at the same time near to weeping.
She turned carefully onto her back and stretched her legs beneath the thin hospital covers, and the dark shape slumped in a chair near the door stirred to instant alertness.
Her heart gave an odd bump. “Jake?” she said on a rising note of surprised laughter. “Is that you?”
The FBI man leaned forward from the waist, arms extended above his head, stretching out stiffness. “Yeah, it’s me.” His voice sounded as if he’d stifled a yawn.
“What on earth are you doing here? When did you come back?” She felt the strangest all-over prickling, the tiniest shower of shivers, almost like goose bumps. It was the most pleasant feeling she’d had in quite a while actually, and it was hard to keep the smile out of her voice, even as she supplied the answer with its grim reminder, “Are you my bodyguard?”
His eyes regarded her from deep in their shadowed sockets. “You could call it that. Keeping an eye on my star witness.”
“I take it you don’t trust Sonny’s ‘All is forgiven’ act?”
She heard a noise that she might have taken for a laugh, except she remembered that Agent Jake Something wasn’t capable of laughter. “Just taking no chances.”
“How long have you been here?” Now that she thought about it, the idea that he’d watched her sleep was disconcerting; she wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or appalled.
His shoulders casually rose and fell. “Couple hours. I got tired of lurking in the hallway. When the nurse wasn’t looking, I ducked in here. Hope you don’t mind.”
To cover the ambiguity of her emotions, she gave a dry snort.
She sat up and twisted half around and began lifting up bedclothes and pillows as she added sardonically, “By the way-Sonny plans to assign me a bodyguard. Isn’t that nice? Dammit, where in the-”
“What’re you looking for?” He rose, a silent, fluid motion that diminished the space between him and her bed by half.
Her heart gave another of those strange little bumps. To distract herself from that she pretended an irritability she didn’t feel. “Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of button to push when you want to crank this thing up?”
He pointed. “That it?”
“Where?-oh yeah, there it is.” And he was close enough to her to evoke memories of how warm his body had felt as he’d carried her into the E.R., and the comforting smell of his bathrobe. Somehow those memories made the space between them seem emptier and the air chillier by comparison. A shiver wafted through her as she added a breathless “Thanks.”
“Where are you going?” He’d perked up like a watchdog catching a whiff of an unauthorized scent when she threw back the covers and swung her bare legs over the side of the bed.
She raised her eyebrows at him, feeling with her feet for the floor. “To the bathroom. You want to check it out first?”
He frowned, ignoring the sarcasm. “Shouldn’t you, uh…you sure you should be out of bed?”
Amusement rippled through her, but she kept her tone lightly sardonic. “You’re really getting caught up in this, aren’t you? Might I remind you that I was not
Now it was Jake’s eyebrows that arched, then almost comically pulled together in the middle of his forehead as his mouth formed a silent “Oh” of comprehension. Eve thought his discomfiture amusing, even rather sweet, until she heard what he’d muttered under his breath as he turned.
“I beg your pardon?” she demanded, halting with one hand clutching her hospital gown together behind her.
“Nothing I haven’t already seen, and packaged a whole lot prettier,” he repeated, his voice only slightly more audible and with a strange little burr in it that caused an answering vibration deep in her own chest.
So he’d actually noticed? And was that…amusement? Mr. Deadpan?
“Mention that fact again and you’re dead meat, buddy.” And as she pulled the wide, heavy bathroom door closed behind her, she heard a sound that sent a jolt of.wonder through her.
Jake had it under firm control, though, by the time Eve emerged from the bathroom. He’d gone to stand by the window and was waiting for her, arms folded on his chest, one ankle crossing the other. He waited until she’d settled herself in bed with the covers chastely arranged across her middle, then said without stirring, “Lady, you pull that in the wrong place, the wrong time, you wind up dead.”
She lifted a hand to touch the bandage around her head, closed her eyes and let a breath out loudly. Impatience tightened his chest and thickened in his throat, but he kept his voice low and even. “I mean it. In undercover ops, you get in the role and you stay there. Every second, every minute, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week-you live it, breathe it, think it,
“Yeah.” She sighed and leaned her head back against the pillow. “I’m sorry.” But then her smile flicked on again, like one of those trick birthday candles you can’t blow out. “Undercover ops-how exciting. Like something in a TV script.”
It was only when her eyes slid past him, reflecting the graying darkness beyond the window glass, that he saw the smile and the remark for the valiant subterfuge they were. Saw that the smoke screen of banter and easy flirtation had cleared out and left her face-to-face with the reality of her situation. And the odd thing was, he was sorry; without her smile in it, the room already seemed colder.
Difficult as it was, he clamped down hard on the sympathy he felt for her, clenching his teeth together so that his voice came as a growl. “You’re gonna have to think it, feel it, believe it if you’re gonna make Cisneros believe it.”
Still staring at the window, she mumbled, “When he touches me, I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
Unexpectedly, it was anger, not sympathy, that flared inside him. He made a disbelieving sound and shook his head.
“What?” Her eyes were on him, defiant and wary.
The spark of resentment within him glowed hotter, brighter. It’s none of your business, Redfield, he reminded himself. It’s got nothing to do with you. Keep your distance. But he knew he wasn’t going to. For some reason he couldn’t figure the woman out, and he had to know. Just this one thing. He had to.
With deceptive quietness he said, “Just like that? Yesterday you were going to marry the guy. Before this happened, you were ready to jump his bones, wedding dress and all. Today he makes your stomach turn?”
She stared hard at him for a few moments, then shrugged and looked away. “I guess that’s just the way I am,” she said distantly, leaving him more frustrated than before.
Jeez-
But of course he wouldn’t ask her that; it wasn’t his place, or his business. And at the same time, something in him wasn’t ready to let it go. After a pause he said casually, “I’m curious. How did you ever hook up with a guy like Sonny, anyway?”
He could see that she wanted to hang on to her pique a while longer. And she tried; leaning back against her pillows and heaving a put-upon sigh, she looked at the ceiling and began with pointed reluctance, “How did I hook
