Anne Stuart's Out-of-Print Gems

by Anne Stuart

  She looked up at him, into his dark, brooding eyes, and that dreamy, spacey place danced over her once more. “Eventually,” she murmured. And felt herself begin to slide into a graceful faint.

  Chapter Two

  Daniel caught her as she fell. His lab was now an inferno, the flames belching forth from the broken door, and he realized if Suzanna Molloy hadn’t distracted him, he would be a dead man right now. And he wondered why.

  The paramedics took her away from him, and he let her go, noticing at the time that he didn’t want to. He filed that unlikely reaction in the back of his brain, to be considered later, as he reluctantly allowed himself to be bundled onto a stretcher. While he had every intention of walking out of the building, of driving himself to the hospital if and when he deemed it necessary, the strength in his legs seemed to give way, and his entire back was burning and throbbing from the green goop that had covered him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Osborn leaning over Jackson’s collapsed form, and there was no mistaking the air of collusion between the two men. Daniel added that to his mental file. He was about to lift his head to look more closely, when he felt the prick of a needle in his arm, too late for him to protest. With one last glance at Suzanna Molloy’s unconscious figure on the adjoining gurney, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

  He’d spent some time in pre-med, when he wasn’t busy with his other studies. As he lay facedown in the emergency room, while a group of physicians dealt with his back, he decided he was well to be out of that branch of science. For one thing, he didn’t seem to have the requisite sadism. They were scrubbing the skin on his back with what felt like steel wool and talking about sports, for God’s sake! They assumed he was still knocked out from whatever they’d pumped in his arm, but he had always been resistant to drugs, and he’d regained consciousness just as some helpful female had stripped off what remained of his pants.

  “He doesn’t look in such bad shape,” a female voice observed, while someone took what felt like a razor to his shoulder blades. He didn’t move.

  “Actually he looks quite luscious,” another female said. “What happened to him?”

  “Lab explosion,” a male voice, the one interested in football, chimed in. “He’s in worse shape than the patient in L-4. She only got the stuff on her hands. What do you suppose this junk is?”

  “Slime,” a woman said with heartless cheer. “Don’t you think we ought to turn him over and see if his front’s affected?”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Sophie. His front’s just fine, and it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” More scrubbing along his backbone, the feel of it like raw coals being dug into his skin. He didn’t even quiver, interested to hear how this conversation was going to continue.

  “Oh, I don’t know. He’s pretty cute. Lab explosion, did you say? Does that mean he’s going to turn into the Incredible Hulk every time he gets angry?” Sophie asked.

  “Very funny. We’re almost finished with him. Why don’t you check his pupils while I see about getting him upstairs for observation?”

  He felt her walk around him. Her hands were cool on his face. She started to pull open his eyelid, and he glared at her. “Get your rubber-gloved hands off me, woman,” he snapped.

  She jumped back with a startled shriek. She was just the kind of woman he usually found attractive—blond and pretty and stupid. He wondered how Suzanna Molloy was faring.

  “You’re awake,” she said needlessly.

  A white-coated doctor pushed Sophie out of the way, trying to look efficient, as if he hadn’t been obsessed with football a few moments ago. “That dose of morphine must have worn off too quickly. Are you in much pain?”

  “Not when you keep your hands off me,” he snarled. “Where are my clothes?”

  “Er—we had to cut them off you. Someone from Beebe Systems was going to see about getting you some new ones. You won’t be needing them for a while. We’re admitting you for observation.”

  “The hell you are.”

  “Dr. Crompton, you’ve been through quite an ordeal. We need to make sure you’ve suffered no head trauma, that the goop on your skin won’t cause a reaction. We need—”

  “I need my clothes. If someone doesn’t provide me some within the next two hours, I’m walking out of this place naked.”

  The doctor looked at him warily, trying for a cheerful smile, only to have it fade again. “You’re kidding.”

  “You can’t keep me here against my will, and you know it as well as I do.”

  “It’s my professional opinion—”

  “I don’t give squat about your professional opinion. Two hours.” He lay back down again and closed his eyes. Damn them and their drugs! As if his body hadn’t been through enough, he still had to fight off the effects of the narcotic they’d pumped through his system. “Get me Osborn,” he said.

  “I’m not sure if Mr. Osborn is still at the hospital.”

  “He’s here,” Daniel said grimly. “Tell him he’s got five minutes.”

  He was there in less than three, and he didn’t come alone. Daniel didn’t bother to lift his head, but he knew that Osborn had at least two people in tow. Doubtless General Armstead, and either Jackson or maybe one of the Green Beret types that mysteriously wandered the halls at Beebe. He didn’t care—he was too busy concentrating on the strange feelings that were sweeping over his body. Not unpleasant, they seemed to be seeping through his abraded back, sending little electrical charges through the surface of his skin.

  “How are you doing, Dan?” Osborn’s hearty voice boomed. “You gave us quite a scare.”

  Daniel considered his options for a brief, satisfying moment. One of those included throttling Osborn, a sorely tempting fantasy but one which, in the end, would avail him nothing. He’d never been a man who was prey to his emotions, and he wasn’t about to become one now.

  “What happened?” he asked in a deceptively neutral voice, opening his eyes. He’d been right. Retired General Jack Armstead stood a few feet away, his bulldog face creased into a look of concern, one that was belied by the alert, dangerous expression in his colorless eyes. The Green Beret type was a man named Cole Slaughter, and he didn’t look any friendlier. Daniel wondered idly what happened to Jackson.

  “One of your experiments must have gone awry,” Osborn was saying. “Unlike you, of course, but you must have forgotten what you were doing. Jackson said he smelled something burning. If he hadn’t alerted security, we might not have been able to get you out in time.”

  “Ah, yes, Jackson. A useful man,” Daniel murmured, not bothering to deny Osborn’s convenient theory. “Where is he?”

  Daniel wasn’t a sensitive man, but he was an observant one, and even in his current state he recognized the quick shift of communication between Armstead and Osborn. He filed it away for later examination.

  “Slaughter drove him home,” Armstead said. “He was pretty shaken up this afternoon after you attacked him.”

  Daniel didn’t bother to deny it. “How is Ms. Molloy?”

  “The woman who was with you? No one knew who she was—she didn’t have any identification on her, apart from a Beebe tag, and that was phony. What’d you say her name was?”

  “Suzanna Molloy.”

  Henry Osborn swore with more emotion than he’d shown since Daniel’s lab had blown apart. “The reporter? What the hell was she doing there?”

  “What’s going on here, Osborn?” Armstead demanded. “Your security sucks. I’ll have that woman arrested for trespassing.”

  “No, you won’t.” Daniel levered himself up to look at his three visitors. “She was there at my invitation.” He wasn’t quite sure why he lied—it merely seemed the next logical step.

  “You invited her?” Osborn said. “But why? We don’t want the press involved in our work. She’s too nosy as it is. How do you know she didn’t set the explosion?”

  “Was it set?” Daniel asked pleasantly.

  Osborn recovered quickly. �
�Damned if I know. Industrial sabotage isn’t unheard of, and you’re not the type to make careless mistakes.”

  “No,” said Daniel. “I’m not.”

  “We’ll have the security staff question her as soon as she regains consciousness,” Armstead announced. “Slaughter, see to it. I want answers.”

  “You’ll leave her alone,” Daniel said evenly.

  “Daniel, be reasonable,” Osborn pleaded.

  “I always am. Ms. Molloy is a friend of mine. An intimate friend of mine. She was there to spend time with me, and for no other reason.” It was a flat-out lie, but for the time being his only defense against Osborn’s trickiness was to lie, and sex was the one thing the man would find believable.

  “Do you think it’s wise to sleep with someone in her position?” Osborn asked with great disapproval.

  “It depends which position she’s in.”

  They didn’t even crack a smile. “This isn’t like you, Daniel,” Osborn said.

  Crompton considered it as the door swung silently shut behind the three men. No, it wasn’t like him at all. And he was feeling oddly playful for a man who’d just survived a murder attempt.

  He had no doubt whatsoever that that was what it had been. He wouldn’t have left a volatile compound simmering if the pope had summoned him. He’d had his share of lab explosions in the past—what research scientist hadn’t?—but what he was currently working on involved nothing more dangerous than potential eyestrain and carpal tunnel syndrome. He’d been glued to his computer for months now, checking and rechecking. The only work he’d done under the hood had been to keep the legion of spies off the scent.

  He sat up gingerly, staring around him at the sterile examining room, flexing his sore muscles. Maybe it was something as elemental as surviving death that was making him feel so unnaturally energetic. The sense of well-being was thrumming through him. God, he almost felt like smiling.

  First off, he needed to find Molloy, to see what kind of shape she was in. Now that he’d identified her, he didn’t trust Armstead and his goons not to harass her. Besides, even though he’d taken the brunt of the explosion and the green slime, apparently she was still unconscious. He wanted to see what she felt like when she woke up. Would she have the same sense of well-being? The same tingling, burning sensation in her skin?

  And he wanted to see if she still had the same inexplicable effect on him, a combination of fury and attraction. No one was going to stop him from finding out.

  AT LEAST THE ROOM was relatively dark. Suzanna could hear the sounds of the hospital behind the curtained alcove, the quiet hush of rubber-soled shoes on polished vinyl floors, the hiss and thump of medical equipment, the muffled murmur of voices. She’d been awake for a while, alone in this anonymous room, but no one had come to check on her.

  Just as well. She felt odd, disoriented, and she wanted time to herself, to consider what had happened to her.

  She’d fainted, like some damned Victorian heroine. She’d collapsed gracefully in Daniel Crompton’s arms, and it wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d dropped her on the ground. The man was not equipped with the most advanced set of social graces.

  But she didn’t think he had. She could still remember him holding her, she could still feel that strange, wrenching sensation, when they’d taken her away from him. He hadn’t wanted to let her go.

  Now where did that absurd thought come from? If Crompton hadn’t wanted to let her go, it was because he’d wanted to shake the truth out of her. Hadn’t he practically accused her of sabotaging his lab? Brilliant the man might be, but when it came to common sense he seemed to be lacking. If she’d set him up, she wouldn’t have waited around, arguing with him. She would have gotten the hell out of there.

  Her hands were burning. She glanced down at them. They looked the same—strong, long-fingered, with no jewelry. She’d seen those hands all her life, and yet suddenly they looked different to her.

  The door opened silently, and a shadowy form stepped into the dimly lit room. She recognized that shape, even before he stepped into the light, and she let out a sigh of relief.

  “Uncle Vinnie,” she whispered, holding out her hands to him.

  He advanced into the room, a short, squat figure, no more than five feet three inches tall and almost as round, wearing a suit that probably cost more than the entire contents of Suzanna’s closet. It didn’t help. His thinning gray hair was pasted across his scalp, and his own rings made up for Suzanna’s lack of jewelry.

  “I blame myself,” he said morosely, taking her hands in his.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Uncle Vinnie,” she protested, ignoring the pain his grip caused her. “You gave me a tip. I followed up on it. It just goes to show you were right—there is something funny going on at Beebe.”

  “You might have been killed,” he protested, releasing one hand and heaving his bulk into a seat beside the bed.

  Suzanna managed a wry smile. “Only the good die young.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, cara. You may be able to fool the others, but you’ve never been able to fool your Uncle Vinnie.”

  “You’re not my Uncle Vinnie,” she pointed out. “You’re Francesca’s Uncle Vinnie, and I’ve told you a hundred times I really don’t need you to watch out for me.”

  Vinnie waved a plump hand, dismissing her protests. “You let me be the judge of that. A young girl like you, on your own in a man’s world…”

  “I’m not that young. Twenty-seven,” she pointed out.

  “You’re young for your age. Now my Francesca, she marrried right out of that high-priced college the two of you attended, and she’s got her husband and her husband’s family to look out for her. I’m a lonely old man with too much time on my hands. I need someone to fuss over, you know that as well as I do.”

  “Uncle Vinnie,” she said gently, “you are neither old, nor lonely, and you certainly don’t have too much time on your hands. I don’t understand why you persist in thinking I need watching over.”

  “I promised Francesca. Besides, since I’ve retired, I need something to keep me busy.”

  “You haven’t retired, Uncle Vinnie,” Suzanna said.

  “I haven’t been down to the restaurant in more than a month,” he protested.

  “You may have retired from the restaurant business, but you haven’t retired from your career. Let’s face it, Uncle Vinnie, you’re a crook.”

  “I’m a businessman,” he corrected, not the slightest bit offended. “My friends and I, we have investments—”

  “Rackets,” Suzanna supplied.

  “And we look after our own.”

  “I’m not your own, Uncle Vinnie.”

  “Once you became Francesca’s best friend and college roommate, you became family. And nothing’s going to change that. You won’t let me help you, but at least you’ll let me warn you. And what do you do? Instead of keeping away from danger, you walk right into it with open arms.”

  Suzanna managed a tired grin. “I’m hopeless.”

  “I don’t like what’s going on at Beebe, Suzanna. Even with my connections, I can’t find who’s behind the organization, but it doesn’t look good. You need to keep away from them.”

  “At least I don’t need to worry about BBCSI being run by organized crime,” she said.

  “Very funny,” he said stiffly. “There are worse things than our little fraternal organization. You’re out of your league, there, Suzanna. Leave it to the experts.”

  “I don’t even know what it is I’d be leaving.”

  “It’s big,” Vinnie said.

  “I imagine so, considering the way people are reacting. Someone tried to kill Dr. Crompton today.”

  Vinnie’s pouchy eyes narrowed. “You’re sure of that?”

  “Reasonably sure. They almost sent me with him.”

  Uncle Vinnie muttered something in Italian he assumed Suzanna was too innocent to understand. Fortunately Francesca had taught her every dirty word she knew, and the force
of that expletive did more to convince Suzanna how desperate things were than anything since the lab had first exploded. “So it’s gone that far already,” he muttered, half to himself. “And now everyone knows it.”

  “Everyone knows what?”

  “That whatever he was working on, he’s succeeded. No one would risk that man’s life if he hadn’t come up with something worth vastly more. You know what his reputation is, don’t you? America’s secret weapon? And if they’re ready to sacrifice him, rather than let him cause trouble, then he must have come up with an even more effective weapon.”

  “Weapon?” Suzanna echoed, shocked. “You think he was working on some kind of weapon?”

  “Everything nowadays can be used as a weapon. If he was working for the good of mankind, do you think someone would have tried to blow up his lab, with him in it? No, Suzanna,” he said sadly. “What about a little trip? Have you ever been to Venice?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “It’s not just up to me. I’ll protect you if I can, but even I have bosses. People to answer to, and they’re all far too interested in what’s going on at Beebe. I can’t be sure I can keep you safe. The stakes are too high.”

  “And exactly what are the stakes?”

  Uncle Vinnie shook his head slowly. “I don’t even want to guess. My people will look out for you, cara. To the best of their ability. But if you have any sense at all, you’ll stay as far away from Dr. Crompton as you can. The man’s living on borrowed time. Whatever he’s discovered has already fallen into the wrong hands, and he’s too knowledgeable, too dangerous, to let live.”

  “Wouldn’t that be killing the goose that laid the golden egg?” she argued.

  “Not when they’ve got the formula for making those golden eggs. Who needs a goose that you have to feed and take care of?” Uncle Vinnie said philosophically. “What about Paris?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”