A Reclusive Heart

by R. L. Mathewson

  her the next morning and that as far as you know she didn’t handle the CD.”

  Nick shook his head. “She was supposed to leave that day. I don’t think she was around the next morning.”

  Detective Michaels pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and flipped through several pages before he found what he was looking for. “She caught the ten a.m. flight to Los Angeles, California the next morning.”

  “Of course she did,” he said, rubbing his hands down his face and feeling like an idiot. “She had to be there the next morning to drop the envelope off at our room.”

  “Do you know where Miss. Harris is at the moment? I need to speak to her while my men look for Miss. Johnson.”

  “She’s probably looking for a fix,” Nick said.

  “She has an addiction problem?” the detective asked, looking less than pleased with the announcement.

  “Yeah, she’s a sugar addict and if we don’t find her soon she’ll probably be too wired to answer your questions,” he said, sighing as he gestured for the man to follow him.

  ******

  “The key to what?” Jamie found herself asking as she desperately tried to ignore the sharp pain in the back of her head and the hot liquid seeping over her scalp.

  Holly slammed her against the wall, again. This time Jamie gave up her useless struggles to push the woman off since it was clear that the woman was clearly stronger than her and focused all of her attention on kicking the woman. She got in one good kick and was instantly rewarded with another shove into the hard wall behind her before she moved her legs out of kicking distance, leaving Jamie with no way to protect herself. How in the heck did the woman get so freakishly strong?

  “To get to the top. What else?” Holly asked with a mocking smile. “It shouldn’t have been too hard. The man seemed to fuck anything and everything.

  When I first came here I waited for him to make his move and when he didn’t I had to initiate it, but apparently the male whore has a rule about fucking co-workers.

  My initial plan was to let him fuck me and then manipulate him into putting a good word in for me and if that didn’t work I was going to threaten to sue for sexual harassment, but I couldn’t get the bastard to ignore his rules and fuck me.”

  “Well, he’s not desperate,” Jamie found herself saying and was of course rewarded with another slam against the wall, but it had been worth it.

  “When you signed on I knew you were going to be my big break. All the senior editors were busy and I’d been kissing ass for months. I should have been placed as your editor. Never in a million years would I have suspected that Nick wanted you.

  He didn’t need you, not the way I needed you. I tried to talk Rick into placing me with you, but the bastard wouldn’t listen.”

  “So, you sent me death threats?” Jamie guessed.

  The woman looked insulated. “No! I didn’t send you death threats, but I will admit that when I found out about them I thought they would be enough to send Nick running. He doesn’t like drama or complications and having some psycho after you should have scared him off, but it didn’t.”

  “Let me go,” Jamie bit out as she tried to shove the woman’s arms away, but it was like pushing against steel. The woman would not budge so much as an inch.

  “I thought to push the whole stalker angle when I first found out about it when Rick told me that I was going to be tagging along as an assistant.” Her expression turned cruel as she spat out, “I’m too good to be anybody’s assistant.

  Rick should have handed you over to me, but instead he insisted that I tag along and play gofer to the bastard.

  She gave Jamie another shove against the wall that caused black spots to dance around her vision. She sucked in a breath as she fought against the urge to vomit. Her head was killing her and she was pretty sure that a few more well placed slams would knock her out and she was truly afraid of what this crazy woman would do to her then.

  “As you can imagine I was not happy at all about the situation, but then I walked in on the two of you kissing in the break room and I was sure that I found my key to getting Nick to step aside and let me take over. When we got to the hotel I planned on blackmailing the bastard, but he gave me the brush off and decided to openly spend the night with you and taking away my hope to blackmail him. If he didn’t care enough to hide it I knew he wouldn’t care if Rick found out so I tried to convince you that he was only using you, but instead that bastard called Rick and had me sent home.”

  Her hands tightened around Jamie’s shoulders, moving slightly closer to Jamie’s neck when she gave her another forceful shake. “I knew Rick was going to fire me or worse, demote me to handle nobodies that wouldn’t get me anywhere so when I heard Nick make his little pool plans I took a chance and it worked,” she said smugly. “Granted, I thought he’d quit to save his own ass, but him getting fired worked in my favor.” Her expression turned murderous once again as her eyes zeroed in on her. “That is until I discovered that you fulfilled your contract and weren’t going to sign again. I couldn’t have that. Not after all my hard work.”

  Jamie tried to shove the woman away when her hands came around her neck and gave a warning squeeze. “Now listen to me, you bitch. I haven’t worked my ass off all these years for you to wreck me. You’re going to sign the contract if you know what’s good for you and you’re going to beg Rick to assign me to you.”

  “And if I don’t?” Jamie asked as she desperately tried to remove the hands tightening around her neck.

  “There’s no ifs about this, bitch,” Holly said, tightening her hands around Jamie’s neck until it became a struggle just to breathe. “Do you understand? From now on you will do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  Jamie shook her head as she struggled desperately for air and freedom. “No, I won’t!” she said on a choked whisper.

  Not only did she not want to be within a hundred miles of this psychotic woman or her nauseating perfume, but her pushover days were long gone. She would never let anyone boss her around again or belittle her in anyway. Thanks to Nick she knew she deserved better than that.

  Holly released a screech as her hands tightened impossibly further, cutting off the rest of Jamie’s air. As her vision flickered in and out she slapped, pushed, yanked, and even dug her nails into the woman’s arm to get away, but her efforts only seemed to infuriate the woman. She just resigned herself to this being the end when she realized that Holly had moved closer to her in order to keep her hold on Jamie. It gave her an idea that she wasn’t sure would work, but she needed to try anyway.

  Gathering her last reserve of energy as her lungs burned and her world began to fade around her, Jamie brought her knee up hard between the much taller woman’s legs and nearly jumped for joy when the woman let out a surprised gasp and a groan of pain. Her hands loosened somewhat around her neck. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to allow her to suck in a lungful of air.

  Jamie didn’t waste any time in shoving the surprised woman away. She stumbled to the side, giving Jamie a chance to run for it. Unfortunately the crazed woman was blocking the only exit in the room so Jamie settled for running to the other side of the small office and putting the desk between them.

  “You’ve ruined everything!” Holly screeched as she slammed her fists against the desk. “Everything!” When Jamie saw the woman’s glare drop down to the sharp letter opener lying in its case near the computer she decided that it was past time to make a run for it. She took off running, thankfully taking the woman by surprise and managed to run past her.

  Her hand fumbled with the door as adrenaline surged through her body. She couldn’t stop shaking as she tried desperately not to think about the insane woman coming after her. After a few failed attempts she managed to grip the doorknob and open the door with a loud bang. She ran into the hallway, not sure where to go or what to do when she heard him.

  “Jamie!”

  She turned around and spotted Nick running her way with Rick ho
t on his heels and what appeared to be several officers. A sob broke lose as she ran towards him, happy to have this nightmare finally over. She couldn’t wait to hold him, to kiss him and tell him how much she loved him. She realized with dismay that she’d never told him that. It was silly and stupid and she should have told him the second that she realized what he meant to her, but she’d been tooSomething slammed into her, knocking her into the wall. She barely had time to register the thought when she found the heavy weight yanked away and Nick pulling her into his arms.

  “Baby, are you okay?” he asked, cupping her face with shaky hands.

  “Fine,” she lied in a hoarse whisper with a wobbly smile. Her head was killing her. Her neck ached and her throat burned with every breath she took. As Nick pulled her to her feet she idly wondered if she could use this as an excuse to drown her sorrows in ice cream.

  “Jamie, you’re bleeding,” Nick said with an edge of panic laced in his voice.

  She reached up and carefully touched the back of her head and winced at the slight sting. “It’s fine. Just a little cut.” She hoped at least. He’d probably think that she was a big baby, but she really didn’t want any stitches. The idea of a needle sliding through her skin was enough apparently to make her stomach hurt. Not that she was surprised considering the one and only time she had stitches she’d passed out on the doctor when he pulled the needle out of the sanitized package.

  “Oh shit,” Nick muttered, drawing her attention.

  Frowning, she followed his glance down to her stomach. It took a moment for all the blood to register in her mind. When it did the pain decided to make its presence known. She looked up in time to see the officers wrestle the bloodied letter opener from the still screeching Holly as she was slammed to the ground.

  “Oh, that can’t be good,” she heard herself say hollowly as her legs gave out and everything went black.

  Chapter 31

  “Chocolate,” Jamie whispered and Nick couldn’t remember ever hearing a more beautiful word in his life. He chuckled in relief as he left his chair, ignoring the aches and pains that came along with sitting in the chair for three days straight and went to his little recluse’s side.

  He cupped her face in one hand, careful of her oxygen tube, as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her dry lips. “Welcome back, sweetheart,” he said softly.

  “Did I go somewhere?” she asked sleepily, giving him a soft smile.

  “It’s not important right now,” he said, unable to stop smiling. The last couple of days had been the worst days of his life. A few times it had been touch and go, but she pulled through. His little recluse was a fighter.

  “I’m tired,” Jamie muttered around a yawn even as her eyes closed.

  “That’s fine, baby. Go to sleep and I’ll be right here waiting when you wake up,” he whispered, pressing another kiss to her lips.

  “Okay,” she mumbled. “With chocolate,” she added barely with it thanks to the pain killers in her system, he assumed.

  Chuckling, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “A huge basket of chocolate, Jamie.”

  ******

  “You lied,” Jamie said accusingly as the nurse fussed with her tubes and wires, but that adorable little glare never left his face.

  “The doctor hasn’t cleared you for solids yet, but the second she does I’ll have a truck full of chocolate delivered,” he said, hoping to appease his grumpy little recluse.

  Five days without sugar and she looked close to killing someone. Maybe he should sneak her in a chocolate milkshake or a Coke or something before she tried to escape from her bed, again. Her doctor thought he was kidding when he suggested she pump pure sugar into her body. He hadn’t been. In fact, he was pretty sure that she’d be a very pleasant patient once she got sugar into her system.

  She looked up at him, pouting as she allowed her little chin to quiver as she said, “But I love you, doesn’t that mean anything?”

  Grinning like a fool, he leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. “It means everything, but until your doctor clears it you’re not getting any chocolate.” When she opened her mouth, probably to argue, he added, “Or sugar.”

  “Big jerk,” she mumbled under her breath as she dropped back against the pillows.

  “Yeah, but you love me,” he said, sitting next to her on the bed so that he was facing her. He carefully took her hand in his, nervous that he’d hurt her if he accidentally touched the IV’s in her hand.

  She sighed heavily. “I suppose I do.”

  “Does your stomach hurt, sweetheart?” he asked, raising her hand to his lips to press a soft kiss to her thankfully now warm skin. For a little while there it had been ice cold and he’d been scared to death that he was going to lose her. Thanks to surgery and donated blood she was going to pull through. Several times he had to fight back the urge to go hunt down the blood donors and get on his hands and knees and thank them. They’d never know what a precious gift they’d given him.

  “Just sore,” she said, shifting her hand in his until she could entwine their fingers together.

  He watched her look around the room curiously. “Are these all for me?” she asked, sounding unsure and shy and absolutely perfect.

  “Yes,” he said, smiling when her glance turned predatory as she looked over the flowers, bowls of fruit, teddy bears and hundreds of cards that were taped all over the walls. “I had the nurses lock up the chocolate,” he said, chuckling when her bottom lip jutted out.

  For a moment she didn’t speak and he was content to just sit there and enjoy being with her. He still couldn’t believe how close he’d come to losing her. If it hadn’t been for the fast thinking of the police officers she probably wouldn’t be here now. While he’d been too busy begging her to wake up, an officer applied pressure against her stomach and bought her a little more time.

  When they loaded her into that ambulance he felt as though his heart was being ripped out of his chest. He wanted to ride with her, to hold her in his arms, but they wouldn’t let him. Rick and a few officers had to hold him back when they drove off with her. He would have killed the bastard, but he needed the man to take him to the hospital.

  Once he made it to the hospital no one would tell him a damn thing because he wasn’t family. They ended up throwing him out a few times when he flipped out, but he came back each and every time demanding to see her. She was his and he’d be damned if he let anyone tell him otherwise.

  When they called her ungrateful family in he’d had a hell of a time keeping it together. Thankfully Edward and Rick had the presence of mind to grab a hold of him before he could beat the shit out of her lying heartless father. The only one who seemed shaken was Jamie’s brother-in-law, which appeased him somewhat until he realized that the man had feelings for his little recluse. That was confirmed when he shook his head in disgust when her sister made a cruel comment that set Dana off.

  Dana was one of the best women he knew. She was kind, considerate, liked everyone and everyone loved her. It took a lot for someone to upset her never mind piss her off, but Jamie’s sister had his best friend seeing red and going for her throat. Edward barely managed to grab his wife around the waist and yank her back, but that didn’t stop Dana from telling the woman in minute detail what she thought of her.

  The only decent thing her father did as far as he was concerned was sign over Jamie’s medical proxy to him. Nick calmly thanked the man before he walked him outside. Once they were in the parking lot he decked the son of a bitch, breaking his nose in the process. He did it for all the years the bastard happily ignored his little recluse. While the man’s wife had treated Jamie like nothing because Jamie was the reminder of her husband’s infidelity her father had ignored her because she was the reminder of what he’d done to a sixteen year old girl who sure as hell didn’t know better. He also did it for keeping Jamie’s mother out of her life.

  “Did my family visit while I was sleeping?”

  She asked the same question every
day and every day it nearly broke his heart. They only came once and that was to see how bad she was and to sign over her care to him while she was unable to do it for herself. Other than that they didn’t visit or call. They were done with her and it was all because of him.

  He’d given bastard the choice of telling her the truth or getting the hell out of her life. He’d chosen to get out of her life and save his own ass. It was his loss.

  Jamie was a beautiful person inside and out and brought nothing but joy into his life. If the son of a bitch had looked at her, really looked at her for even one moment he would have realized what a precious gift he’d been given.

  “No, baby, I’m sorry,” he said, wishing like hell that things were different for her. She deserved a family to love and take care of her, but that didn’t seem to be in the cards for her.

  At least not yet.

  “It’s okay,” she said with a forced smile as she peered around the room. “Do you know if my doctor’s here yet?”

  “I haven’t seen her yet.”

  “She’s very pretty,” she pointed out conversationally.

  “I guess,” he said slowly, wondering where she was going with this.

  “I, um, think she might be interested in you,” she said quietly while she looked down at their entwined hands.

  Shit.

  His little recluse was jealous. Was she worried that he was interested in her doctor? He wasn’t and he hated the idea of her being hurt because some woman was showing him interest. Not that he was bragging, but it happened a lot and if they were going to give this a chance she was going to have to realize that he wanted her and no one”Do you think you could maybe flirt with her a little bit? Maybe take her out for a coffee?” his little recluse asked, sounding hopeful as she shot him a quick glance.