Eve’s Wedding Knight

Again he paused, then said slowly, “Oh, yeah, she worked. In an office. Nothing she was very excited about. Nothing you could call a career.”

“So,” Eve murmured, “she just had… you. And you had-”

“My job.” He shifted restlessly and said with a sardonic snort, “And thank you, Dr. Brothers, for pointing that out.”

Her lips parted and a look of dismay darkened her eyes, and he realized too late that there’d been nothing but compassion in them before. The knowledge added to the burden of his guilt and made him feel even lousier than he already did-not angry, certainly not with her, not resentful, just…bad. As if a blanket of melancholy had settled around his shoulders.

“I didn’t mean-” she began.

But he stopped her there, shaking off the mood of introspection and silencing her with the same swift motion. Swearing with sibilant vehemence under his breath, he dove into the bathroom and pulled the door closed just as the outer door clicked open to admit a hideously cheerful voice trilling, “Well, are we wide-awake already this morning?”

And there he lurked-feeling about as foolish as he ever had in his life and asking himself whether this was any way for an experienced agent of federal law enforcement to be spending his time, for what seemed like hours. It was, in fact, by his own watch, scarcely five minutes before there came a soft knock on the bathroom door. After a barely respectable pause, it opened, and there stood Eve in her short hospital gown, rooster tail waving jauntily above her bandages, one finger to her lips.

“You can come out now,” she said in a hoarse and exaggerated whisper. “The big bad nursie is all gone.”

Damnation, how was it possible, annoyed as he was with her, that he could still feel that bumpy, deep-down urge to laugh?

He limited himself instead to the small satisfaction of explaining to her, in his driest, most professional manner, about the realities of hospital gossip. “How would it look,” he said coldly, “if it got back to your… fiance… through hospital personnel that a man was keeping company with you in your room?”

As he was saying that, he watched her face, fascinated by the conflict so clearly written there. He could see part of her wanted to joke about it-laugh it off-but that part of her knew he was right.

She waited until he’d finished, then cocked her head like that cheeky little bird she reminded him of, and in a light but quiet voice-a compromise, he thought-inquired, “Are you always so depressingly suspicious and pessimistic?”

In a voice just as quiet, he shot back, “Are you always so annoyingly cheery and optimistic?”

Then for a few moments tension crackled in the quietness while their eyes waged their silent tug-of-war. But while Jake recognized the battle of wills, darned if he could figure out what the stakes were. If it was a matter of dominion, or authority-some kind of control thing-she had to know she was outmatched. Maybe in her own world she was the one that got to call the shots, but she was in his world now, and in that world she was vulnerable and clueless as a newborn baby. She wasn’t a stupid woman, she had to know that. So why was she standing there bandaged and bruised and barely decent in that hospital gown, toe-to-toe with a federal agent in full battle armor?

It made no more sense to him than did the way he felt when she leveled those indigo-blue eyes at him and finally answered his question in a low, almost toneless voice. “No, only when things look really hopeless.”

Outmatched she may have been, but he felt in no way victorious.

Instead, he found himself remembering what she’d said, about the idea of Cisneros touching her making her feel sick. They’d talked quite a bit since then, exchanged a few tidbits of personal history, even shared a secret or two. But nothing had been said that would change the fact that sometime soon Eve Waskowitz was going to have to find a way to resume convincingly the role of loving fiance to a man she now abhorred. He suddenly realized that what he was looking at was a terrified woman. And that what she was doing was simply whistling in the dark.

He felt his belly clench, and something flare white-hot inside him and then go cold and still.

Hopeless? Not if he had anything to say about it.

“What’d the nurse want?” he asked gruffly.

Eve shrugged and turned, clutching her gown together where it mattered most, but giving him an unnerving glimpse of the back he remembered from when he’d undressed her in his bedroom-the creamy smooth skin, the delicate indentations of spine.

“Just routine stuff. They keep a pretty close eye on you, I guess, when you’ve been bumped on the head. She also said breakfast will be here soon, and she wanted to know if I wanted to ‘freshen up’ before visitors start arriving. Which I do,” she added pointedly as she sat on the edge of the bed and leveled a look at him. Her eyes were shadowed and dark, impossible to read, and for the first time he thought she looked her age. “I’m sure you’d like some breakfast yourself-a cup of coffee, at least. Better make your escape while you can.”

“Yeah, I will…” But he went on staring at her, his mind spinning furiously, hating to leave it like that. Hating to leave her, it shocked him to realize. Hating to leave her with that look of hopelessness in her eyes, and the thought of her and Cisneros in bed together twisting a knot in his belly.

He lifted a hand, palm out, and said with a voice full of gravel, “Listen-it’s not hopeless. Okay? I’m workin’ on it. Just…do me a favor, huh? Remember to act injured?” Her only reply was a very small snort.

He opened the door a crack, looked up and down the corridor, waited for his moment, then slipped through the door and closed it gently behind him. As he made his way, scowling, through the awakening hospital, bustling with the routines of morning, with the clank of breakfast trays and the ding of elevators and the swish of footsteps and voices on the intercom, he wondered when his first priority had changed from nailing the bad guy to keeping Eve Waskowitz out of the bad guy’s bed.

Eve’s day progressed in predictable hospital fashion. People popped in and out of her room on various errands, most of them involving indignities to her person. Out of sheer boredom, she dozed until the arrival of breakfast, an excitement relative in its anticipation to Christmas morning. Shortly after that, her mother and sisters arrived, bringing with them her small overnighter. She was so glad to see them, it was hard to remember to act feeble and wan.

“I’m not sure what’s in here,” Summer said as she laid the overnight case on the foot of Eve’s bed. “I think it’s mostly makeup and toiletries. I wanted to bring you something to wear-a nightgown, but it all looked like…you know-honeymoon stuff.”

“Sweetheart, are you in pain?” her mother asked anxiously.

“A bit,” Eve lied in a faint voice. “My head, mostly.”

Her mother’s cool hand touched her cheek. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

“What does the doctor say?” Mirabella demanded, showing her concern in her own pushy way. “Have you seen him yet this morning? Do they know how bad the concussion is? How much longer are they going to keep you here?”

“I don’t know,” Eve said. “A doctor stopped by earlier this morning, just long enough to read my chart and huddle with the nurse for a few minutes. He seemed very busy…” Remembering Jake’s parting words, I’m workin’ on it, she added in a vague tone she hoped would cover all bases, “I think they’re still doing tests…looking at X rays-stuff like that. They have to be sure…”

“Of course,” Summer murmured, stroking her arm. Mirabella subsided, looking not in the least satisfied.

“So-where are the menfolk this morning?” Eve asked brightly, just as her mother was saying, “Have you heard from Sonny this morning?” Before either could answer the other, the phone on the bedside table trilled. Eve stared at it in surprise.

“Well. That’s probably Sonny now,” her mother said.

“Oh-yeah,” said Eve, with what she hoped was a smile. She picked up the phone and ventured a tentative “Hello?”

“Get rid of them,” Jake’s voice growled in her ear. “Sorry to break up the family gathering, but we need to talk. Now. ”