Undercover Mistress

tray, and put a kettle on the stove to heat more water for tea. All the while she was doing that, her mind was replaying every word the stranger had spoken during the long dark night. She was used to memorizing pages and pages of script at a time, and she remembered every horrifying, improbable detail.

Could it possibly be true? In the middle of the night, in the fog, it had been easy to get caught up in fantastic scenarios. It had seemed, as Doc had suggested, rather like watching a movie thriller on DVD. Today, with the sun shining, and the injured man awake and lucid in her bed…

What if it’s true?

The tray in front of her blurred. She saw instead a pair of eyes…the wounded stranger’s eyes. She’d wondered what color they’d be. Hadn’t expected them to be so dark. Dark…like unsweetened chocolate. Like coffee. Something strong and heady and not at all sweet. They seem to her impenetrable, like the night. Full of danger. Full of secrets…

The ding of the microwave’s timer scattered her musings like so many sparrows. She snatched the steaming mug out of the oven and was placing it on the tray when the tea kettle went off like a factory whistle, startling her. She swore under her breath as she licked scalding bouillon from one hand and grabbed at the shrieking kettle with the other-efficiency in the kitchen had never been her strong suit. Boiling water was, in fact, about the limit of her expertise and for the next several minutes she was forced to concentrate on the task at hand, clamping down on the strange excitement simmering inside her as she got out tea bags and another mug, poured hot water and added a sugar bowl to the assortment on the tray.

But as she carried the tray down the hallway to her bedroom, she felt a warmth in her cheeks and a quickening in her pulse, a fire in her belly that could only be one thing: desire.

Not the usual kind of desire-Celia couldn’t remember the last time anyone had kindled those particular fires in her. No, this was the kind of yearning, burning desire of her actor’s soul that consumed her whenever she got her hands on a really great script, one that had a really great part in it for her. The kind of part she’d give her very soul to play. There’s a part in this for me, I know there is.

She could feel the tension the moment she walked into her bedroom. The way it feels, she thought, when you walk in on a conversation right after somebody’s dropped a big bombshell. There was Doc, standing with his hands in his bathrobe pockets, frowning down at the man in Celia’s bed. The man himself had his eyes closed, and his face was like a death mask.

She halted inside the door, both shoulders and tray sagging with disappointment. “Don’t tell me. He’s out cold again?”

“So it would seem,” Doc said, with a particular lilt in his normally dry British voice that Celia happened to know meant he wasn’t pleased.

“So…you haven’t found out anything? What about a name?”

Looking frankly frustrated, Doc shook his head.

Celia settled herself on the edge of the bed with the tray on her lap. Head tilted, she studied the rugged, unresponsive features. Fascinated in spite of herself, she noted scrapes and hollows, shadows of bruises that had escaped her notice before.

They worked you over good, didn’t they?

She remembered the strange and overwhelming protectiveness and sense of ownership that had come over her in the night, and felt an unsettling desire to touch those shadowed places…

“Well, then,” Doc said grumpily, “since he seems in no danger of kicking off right away, I think I’ll leave him in your nurturing hands. I’ll leave you some painkillers-the OTC kind, of course,” he added dryly. “As for antibiotics, even if I had any, I’d be a bit leery of giving him those, in case he might be allergic. Infection’s going to be the main thing to watch out for, and if that wound starts showing signs of it, I’m afraid you’re going to have to get him to a hospital whether he wants it or not. Aside from that, he just needs time to recover from the hypothermia and blood loss-time, and plenty of rest and nutrients, fluids and so on. Which I’m quite sure you are capable of providing.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face as he turned and made for the door. For the first time since they’d carried the stranger into her house, Celia felt a pang of guilt. Doc had been a good friend to her in her darkest hours and, come to think of it, had been through quite a lot of darkness himself.

“Doc-thanks,” she said softly. “For…everything. I appreciate it-I really do.”

“No problem.” He dredged up one of his bitter smiles. “I’m afraid I don’t do all-nighters as well as I once did. So-I’m off to bed. I don’t think you will, but if you need me for anything, anything at all-give me a ring.” He gave a wave and left her.

Celia brought her gaze back to the man in the bed-and felt a small jolt, like a zap of electricity, when she saw the eyes that had been closed before were now open. Watching her. Eyes…like the night…full of danger…full of secrets.

“So,” she said in a light and breathy voice, while her heart thumped in contrabass, “you’re awake after all.”

“More or less.” His voice reminded her of blowing sand, while his eyes clung, hard and cold as limpets, to her face.

Tearing hers away, Celia aimed them instead at the tray in her lap. “Do you think you could eat something? Doc says you need to. You have lost a lot of blood.”

“Maybe…water…”

“Broth,” she countered, giving her head a determined shake as she picked up the mug and spoon. “It’s mostly water. Plus, it’s warm. Here-open up.” She leaned toward him, humming inside with a curious high, a mixture of excitement and anticipation, confidence and…not exactly fear-more like stage fright. Like opening night on Broadway-if I should ever be so lucky.

The man’s brow furrowed in a frown of reluctant acquiescence. She clamped her teeth on her lower lip, holding back the tumult of her feelings as she watched the parched lips open…followed the spoon’s unsteady path toward them…saw the spoon hover…the lips purse…sip…and the amber liquid disappear.

She heard his soft sigh and responded with a single bright bubble of laughter. “See? That wasn’t so bad. Have some more.”

He didn’t answer, not with words, but the eyes that flicked toward her held a spark she hadn’t seen there before and his lips, before they opened to accept the spoon, seemed to carry at least the promise of a smile.

“I thought you were going to die, you know,” she said in a conversational way as she watched the spoon make its journey from the mug to his mouth and back.

“Yeah, me, too.” The voice was sandy, still, but seemed to her to be getting stronger.

“Well, I’m very glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

She laughed again. “I’m sure. Really, though. I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d died. I’d sure have had some ’splainin’ to do. Doc and me both.”

“Yeah?” He let his head relax back against the pillows, as if the effort of swallowing had exhausted him, though his eyes still studied her warily from under lowered lashes, like some wild thing watching from shadowed woods. “Why’s that?”

“For bringing you here, obviously. Instead of-”

“Where, exactly, is here?” His voice, less whispery, less sandy, now, had a gruff and growly quality that made Celia’s own throat feel in need of clearing.

“My house, of course,” she said, pausing the spoon just shy of its target. “My bedroom. Actually, that’s my bed you’re in.”

“How?” He growled the question, then watched her with narrowed eyes as he opened his mouth like an impatient nestling for the tardy spoonful.

“We carried you,” Celia said as she delivered it, watching her hand to avoid meeting his eyes. “Doc and I did. Let me tell you, you weren’t exactly light, either.”

“Umh.” It was his only comment, since a trickle of broth was making its way down his chin.

Unthinkingly, Celia snatched up the napkin from the tray and dabbed at it…and in the next instant her hand was slowing…pausing…as a strange little frisson of awareness raced across her skin. She felt frozen in time and place, unable to move her hand, the napkin or her eyes away from the place where it touched his mouth and chin.