Secret Agent Affair

by Marie Ferrarella

  “He’s a patient, not a man,” she reminded herself. But a torso like that was difficult to ignore.

  Taking several cotton swabs, she soaked them in alcohol, then started to clean the area around his wound. The moment she touched the swab to his skin, she saw his muscles contract. The next second he grabbed her wrist. Hard.

  It took Marja a full minute to push her pounding heart back out of her throat. Her eyes shifted to his face. He was most definitely awake. And scowling like dark storm clouds over the prairie.

  “Welcome back.” Marja did her best to sound flippant.

  Taking a breath, trying to get his bearings, Kane released the woman’s wrist. His eyes moved quickly around the area. It wasn’t familiar in the slightest. Where the hell was he?

  His eyes shifted back to the woman sitting on the edge of the sofa. There was something white and wet in her hand. “What happened?”

  Setting the swab aside, Marja looked at him. She almost wished he was still unconscious. This next part was going to be a lot more painful for him awake. “You fainted.”

  Kane sneered at the mere suggestion. “Men don’t faint.”

  Oh God, he was one of those. Macho with an extra doze of testosterone. She should have known the second she caught a glimpse of his abdominal muscles. “You passed out,” she rephrased, then waited. “Better?”

  He shrugged. The movement caused him more than a small amount of discomfort. He felt as if he’d gotten hit by a truck. No, wait, a Mustang. Her Mustang.

  “Better,” he rasped. And then he saw the array of things on the table. He honed in on the scalpel. “You planning on using those on me?”

  “Unless I can get you to change your mind about going to the hospital, yes.” Maybe if she was lucky, he’d pass out again.

  Kane shook his head. The room tilted slightly, then righted itself. “No hospital.”

  She didn’t think so. Though she knew nothing about him, she had a feeling he was as stubborn as hell. But then, most men thought they knew best—even when they usually didn’t.

  Going over to the liquor cabinet, she found a partially empty bottle of whiskey. Tony had brought it over the other week to celebrate something. At the moment, she couldn’t recall what. Crossing back to the sofa, she offered the bottle to him. “This is going to hurt,” she said simply.

  But Kane declined the drink. As far as he was concerned, he was still on duty, still needed a clear head. Alcohol made people stupid. It had certainly evaporated his uncle’s brain.

  “Go ahead,” he ordered.

  Well, he wasn’t a coward, she thought. Faced with having a bullet dug out sans anesthetic, most men would have grabbed the whiskey with both hands.

  Picking up the scalpel, Marja inserted it into the wound. She kept one eye on her patient as she began to slowly probe the wound, listening for the sound of metal on metal. His face reddened. She looked for something to distract him.

  Coming up empty, she finally asked, “Why don’t you want me to take you to a hospital?”

  Kane took in slow, small breaths, struggling not to tense up. Trying to focus on her question, he gave her an excuse he thought she’d believe.

  “I’m between jobs. How easy do you think it’ll be—” sweat was oozing down his brow as she probed deeper “—to get one if they look into my background and see that I was shot? I—” he took a deeper breath, as if that could somehow stand between him and the fiery pain “—don’t want to have to deal with a lot of suspicious, annoying questions.”

  She raised her eyes to his for a second, pausing. “Like why were you shot?”

  “Yes, like that.”

  And then she heard it. That slight noise that told her she’d found her quarry. Metal against metal. Very carefully she went deeper, digging beneath the bullet until she managed to draw it out of the hole it had made. The stranger hadn’t made a single sound. What the hell was he made of?

  She realized she was holding her breath and let it go as she deposited the bullet onto the cotton swab on the table. “Why were you shot?”

  Pain undulated through him like a marauding snake. Kane took in a deep, shaky breath before answering her.

  “Unsuccessful mugging,” he finally managed to say.

  “I didn’t have anything to mug. Guy got mad. I pushed him and ran. And he shot me. I kept on running. Until you stopped me with your car.” It had gone down differently, all except the last part. But for his purpose and her curiosity, he felt it would do. He looked at the bullet on the table. The bullet she’d removed. He raised his eyes to hers. “I’d say we’re even.”

  Chapter 3

  His eyes met hers, held her captive, so that she couldn’t look away.

  Before Marja could respond to his comment, strains of a popular song came out of nowhere, filling the air.

  Her cell phone was ringing.

  An alert expression instantly came into the stranger’s eyes. But he didn’t tell her not to answer, or try to stop her when she took the phone out of her pocket and flipped it open.

  Marja had a feeling she knew who was calling even before she glanced at the L.E.D. screen to read the number.

  Tania. True to her word, it was approximately fifteen minutes since she’d left. Marja placed the phone to her ear.

  “This is Marja,” she announced. And then she smiled patiently. She glanced toward the other occupant in the room. “Yes, I’m still alive. And yes, he’s still here.” She paused, listening and then nodded even though Tania wasn’t there to see. “Fine, you do that. Bye.”

  With one finger against the lid, Marja snapped the phone closed again, aware that the stranger had been watching her closely the entire time. His gaze seemed to delve beneath her skin, as if taking inventory of all her veins and capillaries. It made her feel as if she owed him some sort of explanation, even though she knew she didn’t.

  “She’s just checking to see if you killed me yet,” she told him, and saw his eyebrows rise with a silent question. Marja realized that she was getting ahead of herself again. There were pieces missing out of her narrative. “My sister,” she explained. “Tania. She helped me bring you up here. You were out, so I couldn’t really manage—”

  “Are you alone here?” he cut in gruffly, stemming the flow of more words.

  She didn’t answer immediately, torn between lying to him in the interest of possible self-preservation or telling him the truth, which, if he was a homicidal maniac, could prove dangerous.

  Marja decided to settle for something in between.

  “At the moment, yes. But that’s subject to change.” Especially if Tania decided to send in the cavalry no matter what she’d said to the contrary. “Besides, you’re here, so technically—” she smiled up at him disarmingly “—I’m not alone.”

  Her answer earned her a scowl.

  The stranger sat up and then swung his long legs off the sofa without any warning. Marja had to jump to her feet to avoid getting knocked off.

  He glared at her. “Don’t you have the sense you were born with?”

  She drew herself up, squaring her shoulders with a touch of indignation. It was bad enough that her parents and sisters took turns lecturing her. She didn’t need this from a stranger, especially one she was trying to help.

  “I believe that the appropriate thing for you to say here is ‘Thank you,’” she told him hotly, “not try to ascertain whether or not I’m a candidate for MENSA.”

  “MENSA?” he echoed with a dismissive snort.

  “You’re more of a candidate for the morgue.” He looked at her as if she only had a tenth of her brain functioning. “Don’t you know better than to bring a man you don’t know anything about into your apartment?”

  If she hadn’t, he might have bled to death on that side street before anyone found him. Where the hell did he get off, shouting at her? “Only the ones who’re bleeding when they faint—sorry, pass out—” she corrected sarcastically “—at my feet.”

  He continued glaring at her.
This was New York City, people who lived here were supposed to be cautious. Murders were currently down but the overall stats on that were still high. Young, attractive women were supposed to know better than to invite trouble into their homes. “I could have been a murderer.”

  “Are you?” she asked in a deceptively mild voice that hid her jumping nerves. It was in response not to what he was saying, but to the way he was looking at her, almost through her. Making her feel as if she were completely naked and vulnerable.

  Maybe, despite her gut feeling, bringing him here was a mistake.

  He’d killed people, but only in self-defense. By definition, that wasn’t a murderer, so his conscience allowed him to answer. “No, I’m not.” His eyes narrowed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I could have been and you took a hell of a chance on bringing me into your home.” Still sitting on the sofa, he gingerly slipped his shirt back into place, pulling down his T-shirt over the dressing.

  This was going to hurt like a son of a bitch by morning, he judged. It didn’t exactly feel like a blissful walk in the park now.

  Finished, he glanced in her direction. “You said I passed out in the car.”

  Slowly, she nodded her head. “You did.”

  Kane still couldn’t fathom how someone who seemed to be reasonably intelligent could actually do something so foolhardy. “Then why didn’t you just take me to the hospital? If I was unconscious, I sure as hell wasn’t in any shape to give you any trouble.”

  Marja lifted her chin defensively. “Because you asked me not to.”

  “And that’s enough?” he asked incredulously.

  Either this woman was very, very good, he thought, or she was just plain stupid. But she didn’t look stupid to him. Naive, maybe, but not stupid. And, his eyes slid over her, he had a feeling that if she was very, very good at something, sainthood had little to do with the matter. Even in his present state, Kane wasn’t so far gone as to not notice the woman was drop-dead gorgeous.

  Marja nodded in response to his question. “I felt responsible for you,” she told him. “So, yes, that was enough for me.”

  “How old are you?” He wanted to know.

  She had no idea why he’d want to know, but she wasn’t about to blurt out a number like a suspect being interrogated.

  “Older than I look,” she informed him.

  She was a doctor, but she didn’t look as if she was even thirty. There was a freshness to her, despite the smart mouth. He would have hated to see something happen to her because of her generosity—or naïveté.

  “You want to live, you’d better learn to be more suspicious,” he told her matter-of-factly.

  “Fine, next time I hit somebody with a bullet wound in his side, I’ll call the police.”

  “You do that.” Subtly drawing in a breath, Kane carefully rose to his feet. The floor beneath them shifted. He paused, waiting for his equilibrium to kick in. It proved to be in no hurry to do so.

  The feisty doctor was at his side instantly, lending her support and holding on to him in case he was going to fall.

  He didn’t pull away immediately.

  Kane was aware of her small hands pressed against his body, aware of the scent of her hair—something herbal—shampoo. Aware of her presence, which was too damn close to him. He didn’t like it weaving into his system.

  “I’m okay,” he stormed.

  Marja lifted her hands away from him, holding them up like a captured robber surrendering to the police to indicate that she was backing off. “Just don’t want you passing out again,” she told him.

  “I won’t.” It sounded more like a vow to her than a statement. And then he looked at her.

  “Marja.” He repeated the name he’d heard her say when she’d gotten on her cell phone. “What kind of a name is that?”

  She continued watching him, worried that he might pass out again. “A good one.”

  He laughed shortly. “I meant, what nationality is it?”

  “I’m Polish.” Since they were exchanging information of a sort, it occurred to her that she didn’t even know his name or anything else for that matter. “You?”

  “I’m not.”

  She should have expected nothing less. “Not exactly talkative, are you?”

  He took a tentative step, like a sailor getting back his land legs. “The less you say, the less can be held against you.”

  She took a step with him so that she could remain in front. “Valid enough point,” she agreed, “but I’d like to know your name.”

  She saw suspicion enter his eyes again. Rather than make her uneasy, it just made her wonder all the more about her unorthodox patient.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged carelessly. “I like knowing the names of people I take bullets out of.” He eyed her sharply.

  “I’m funny that way.”

  Did he have something to worry about, after all? “So you can report this?”

  If she’d wanted to report this, she would have driven him to the hospital. “I thought we’d gotten past that.”

  Kane paused a moment. She had a point, he thought. And in a few minutes he was going to walk out the door and, most likely, he’d never see her again. He supposed there was no harm in giving her his first name. “Kane.”

  The moment he shared that small piece of information with her, Marja’s eyes lit up. It made her more sensual, he noted. Damn, he’d been so wound up in laying the groundwork for this case, he’d neglected a very basic need. He’d been too long without a woman. The oversight had to be the reason he was reacting to her. Otherwise, he didn’t understand where this pull, this attraction, was coming from.

  “As in Cain and Abel?” she asked. “Or as in candy?”

  “Neither.” He saw that the woman was waiting for something more. “If you’re asking me how to spell it, it’s K-A-N-E.”

  “Well, K-A-N-E, do you have a last name?”

  He was a suspicious person by nature, having learned early on to volunteer nothing because you never knew when something could come back to bite you on the butt. And she was asking too many questions.

  “Yes.”

  Obviously nothing came easy with this man. It really did make her wonder exactly what his story was. And who had wounded him, not physically but emotionally. Because, assuming he wasn’t hiding a criminal past, he was far too reticent not to have a reason for his attitude.

  “Is it a state secret?” she prodded.

  “No.” The doctor with the all-intrusive bedside manner waited for the rest. He blew out a short breath and gave her the rest of it. “It’s Dolan.” At least, for the time being, he added silently.

  Irish. Maybe that was where the green eyes had come from. Marja nodded. “Well, Kane Dolan, it’s nice to meet you.”

  That was a hell of a strange thing to say, considering the way they’d met. With a grille and iron between them. “Why?”

  Didn’t he accept anything at face value? She decided it had to be tiring, being Kane Dolan. “Is everything a challenge to you?”

  “Pretty much,” Kane heard himself saying.

  He’d meant it as a flippant retort, uttered to make her back off. But in reality, his answer was pretty dead-on. Since the day he’d come home from second grade to find that his heroin-addicted father had shot and killed his cocaine-inebriated mother and then turned the gun on himself, leaving their tiny, dirty kitchen hopelessly splattered with blood, everything about his life had turned into a challenge. He took nothing on faith, expected nothing to be what it seemed. Because it usually wasn’t.

  Kane came to a stop by the front door. He needed to get going before she had someone show up and start asking awkward questions.

  “Thanks for patching me up,” he muttered, reaching for the doorknob.

  She felt as if she was releasing a wounded bird, not yet fully healed. “When was the last time you ate?” Marja asked suddenly.

  He’d just expected her to say goodbye, to be relieved that he was on his way.
The question, coming out of nowhere, caught him off guard and he turned to her. Maybe he hadn’t heard right.

  “What?”

  “When was the last time you ate?” Marja repeated, enunciating each word slowly, as if she was talking to someone who was submerged in a tank of water and had trouble hearing.

  “Today,” was the best he could do. “I don’t look at my watch when I eat.” He tacked the latter on dismissively. Maybe that was uncalled for, he thought. She seemed to be an irrepressible do-gooder. The woman was in for some major disappointments in her life. He tried to set her straight, at least about the person he was supposed to be. “Look, I’m not homeless and I’m sure as hell not your personal crusade—”

  She had her doubts about the first part. He wasn’t dirty and his face wasn’t leathery and worn from the elements, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t down on his luck. There was plenty of that going around these days, she thought.

  “You said the mugger had nothing to mug,” she reminded him.

  So that was it. She thought he had no money, no place to stay. No regular meals. “That’s because I left my wallet at home. I find that if you don’t carry it, they can’t steal it,” he told her very simply.

  “You’ve been mugged before,” she guessed.

  “Yeah.” In reality, there was no “before.” This was the first time. And it would be the last, he silently promised himself. No one was going to get the drop on him, ever.

  Again, Kane reached for the doorknob and this time he actually managed to take hold of it and pull the door open before the doctor said anything else.

  “What kind of work are you out of?”

  More questions. But it was a small world and you never knew how things ultimately played out or whose path you were going to cross in the near future. So he sighed and faced her and her endless barrage of questions. He knew he could just walk out, but the bottom line was that she had helped him when she was under no obligation to do so. Maybe he owed her a little courtesy—as long as she didn’t push it.