by Diana Palmer
“I know that, but you don’t understand the situation. She’s not what she seems,” he added, and left it there. “Take my word for it, there are going to be fireworks when they know the truth about each other.”
“Callie and I had our own fireworks,” he said reminiscently. He grinned. “Now we think she’s pregnant again.”
“Congratulations,” Hunter said, grinning. “We think Jennifer is, too.”
Micah whistled softly. “Must be the water,” he mused.
Hunter chuckled. “Maybe it is!”
IN COLBY’S BEDROOM, Bernadette sat with her mother until Hunter came back inside, alone. She kissed her father softly on the forehead and went to get her books, because Hunter was going to drive her to his house, to stay with Jennifer and Nikki until her mother was home again. Sarina wasn’t leaving, despite Hunter’s belated assurances that he could take care of Colby if she’d rather go home.
“You have other things going on,” she reminded him firmly. “I nursed Colby’s father and worked at the same time. I can be spared for a couple of days easier than you can.”
He gave her a knowing look. “And your interest is totally indifferent?”
She swallowed, avoiding his knowing gaze. “He was my husband once,” she said softly.
“In his mind, he still is,” Hunter said surprisingly. He met her shocked eyes with a smile in his. “Don’t believe it? Mention Rodrigo around him and wait for the explosion.”
She cleared her throat. “They just don’t get along.”
“Bull. He’s jealous. That’s part of what’s wrong with him.” He was serious again then. “Listen, the fact that he met what had to be a major crisis in his life without turning to the bottle should tell you something. Years ago, a bad day was enough to put him on a roll with a bottle of neat whiskey. He won’t risk addiction again, because of you and Bernadette. He’d rather die.”
“He won’t…?” she asked quickly, the fear in her eyes.
He grinned. “Not Colby,” he replied. “He’s just discovered a reason for living. Lately all he talks about is Bernadette.”
“Really?” Bernadette asked from the doorway, wide-eyed.
“Really,” he told the child. “You can draw and sing like an angel and speak Spanish. He’s very impressed.”
Bernadette grinned.
Sarina hugged her. “Be good for Jennifer,” she told her. “I’ll take care of Daddy. Okay?”
“Okay,” Bernadette replied.
“Got your breather and your rescue inhaler?” she added.
Bernadette nodded.
“Off you go, then.”
“Good night, Mama,” she said.
“I’ll be back as soon as I get Bernadette settled,” Hunter told her.
“I can manage the next few hours,” Sarina said gently. “You have to work. They can do without me. I’m not that essential at Ritter Oil. And I’m not that essential for the other reason just yet.”
Hunter grimaced. “Okay, then, we’ll take it in shifts. If it gets really bad, I’ll call Cy and have him come up. Or I could call Rodrigo…”
She raised an eyebrow. “He’d sponge Colby down with boiling water and give him hemlock to drink.”
Hunter chuckled. “Rivals to the bitter end.”
“We’re partners,” she emphasized.
“That’s what you think. Come on, Bernadette, let’s go. I’ll be back in the morning. Need me to pick up anything on the way back?”
“Yes,” she said. “Some orange juice and aspirin.”
“Will do.”
HE AND BERNADETTE left, and Sarina sat down in a straight chair beside Colby’s bed. He was tossing and writhing on the bed, his powerful body wet with sweat, his hair limp with it. His eyes opened, but they were sightless. When she got up and put a gentle hand on his shoulder to test his temperature, he groaned. High fever seemed to create pain with the lightest touch. She frowned, worried. Everybody said he’d be fine, but it was terrible to stand by and watch him in such agony. She felt responsible. He’d had so many blows, in so small a space of time. Long ago, she’d dreamed of hitting him in the head with the truth of his cruelty. But now that it had happened, she took no pleasure from it. He hadn’t told Maureen to say that he wanted nothing to do with Sarina and her unborn child. He hadn’t even known about the phone call. Her eyes closed in pain. Maureen had lied. The woman had destroyed lives and walked over bodies without a hint of compassion or regret.
Colby had loved his second wife. She knew that knowledge of Maureen’s cruelty had added to the emotional scars he was already carrying. It hurt her to see what a price he’d paid for his infatuation with the other woman, because it was patently infatuation. Perhaps raging desire had played a part in his devotion to Maureen, or pride that wouldn’t admit the terrible mistake he’d made in marrying her.
He rolled over onto his back and groaned again, his eyes half-closed, his lips parched. “Thirsty,” he choked. “So…thirsty.”
She went to the kitchen and added water to crushed ice from the refrigerator. She went back into the bedroom, sitting beside him to gently lift his dark head from the pillow and let him sip the cold water. He moaned, swallowing thirstily. She let his head back down and put the glass aside.
The pillow was slipping. She slid her hand under it and froze. Quickly she pulled out the pistol and opened the bedside table’s top drawer. She checked to make sure the safety was on, and put it inside the drawer. It was a .40 caliber Glock, probably the one he carried at work, and it was loaded. She hadn’t suspected that he might sleep with a weapon under his pillow, but it wasn’t overly surprising. Many ex-military men and police officers did.
She went to get another basin of water and a clean washcloth and towel. She bathed him with cool water, pausing to towel him dry so that he didn’t chill. She drew the cloth over his broad, muscular, hair-roughened chest and down to his stomach. He arched sensuously and moaned. She noticed a sudden change in the contours of his body. Her own skin felt hot. She waited a minute, and then switched her attentions to his arms and neck.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered, clenching his teeth. “Didn’t know…!”
She dabbed at the wetness on his forehead with the wet cloth. “It’s all right, Colby. It’s all right.”
He moved restlessly, his breath coming quick and hard. “Damn Ramirez!” he bit off. “He can’t…have her…she’s mine!”
“Colby,” she whispered, faintly shocked.
His eyes opened and looked up into hers blindly. “I’ll never let go,” he said harshly. “Never again! My child…my baby…she should hate me—!” His voice broke, and he arched again. “Damn me!”
“Oh, Colby, don’t,” she groaned softly, reaching down to touch his lean cheek.
All at once she was lifted, rolled, flung onto the bed beside him. He threw a long leg across her hips and looked down at her, blinking. “Sarina?” he whispered, dazed.
“You have malaria,” she whispered back, reaching up to touch his chin.
“Malaria.” He hesitated, breathing deliberately. “Malaria.” His eyes closed. “I’m so weak…”
“You’ll be all right,” she promised. “A doctor came. He gave you more medicine. It will pass.”
“So…hot.” He let go of her and rolled onto his back. “So thirsty.”
She scrambled off the bed on the opposite side and went back around it to grasp the glass of water. “Here,” she said, sitting down on the bed to lift his head again and offer the water.
He sipped it slowly. He shivered, as the chills bit into him again. “Cold,” he groaned. “So cold.” His eyes opened and he watched her put the glass down. “Warm me,” he whispered. “Lie with me.”
She hesitated, but again he reached up and coaxed her down onto the bed with him, wrapping her up against the length of him. He shivered again, a harsh ripple of motion down his body. “Hold me.”
It wasn’t wise. But then, when had she ever been wise? With a long sigh, she s
lid down against him, hoping that the embroidery on her neat jeans wasn’t going to be too abrasive on the bare skin of his thighs. She let him fold her close and she slid her arms under his and around him, pillowing her head on his shoulder. He shivered one last time and then relaxed with a long, shuddering sigh. Seconds later, his breathing became regular and she realized that he was asleep. She should get up at once, she reasoned. She meant to. But the warm, tender clasp of his arms, the novelty of lying against him, was too much for her. She closed her eyes and slept, too.
THERE WAS A MUFFLED LAUGH. Sarina’s eyes slid open. There was a broad, hairy chest below her eyes and a wall beyond it. She wasn’t at home in her own bed. She was…where was she?
She started to lift her head, and Colby’s fever bright eyes were above her.
“If you have plans to ravish me, I’d enjoy it more if you’d wait until the worst of the chills and fever pass,” he said in a husky tone, studying her with dark intensity.
She pursed her lips. “I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” she began.
“In the apartment, or in my bed?” he asked with a feeble attempt at humor.
“Well, both, I guess.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “I got chilled,” he recalled. “Do I have malaria again?”
“Yes,” she said. “Hunter and I are taking turns nursing you. I took his place early this morning with your treatment.”
He lifted an eyebrow and looked down their bodies, locked together under the sheet. “Has he been sleeping with me, too?” he mused.
“Stop that,” she muttered.
He smiled slowly. “I never liked mosquitos before,” he murmured, tracing a path down her cheek to her full mouth. “But malaria seems to have at least one unexpected benefit.”
“You were cold,” she began quickly.
He cocked an eyebrow, glancing toward the covers rolled down to the end of the bed.
“Don’t look at me,” she protested. “You jerked me down here and refused to let go!”
“Am I complaining?” He bent and kissed her nose. But the aching misery came back with a vengeance when he moved. He groaned, shuddering. “For a minute, I felt better,” he said roughly.
She pulled out of his arms and got up. “Could you eat something?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “The fever seems to be better, but the aching and nausea is back.” He closed his eyes, shivering.
“Maybe some milk?”
“I can’t drink milk,” he replied. “I’m lactose intolerant.”
“So is Bernadette,” she said without thinking.
“Bernadette. My child. My little girl.” He groaned again as the emotional pain came back full force.
She grimaced, not certain what to say.
His eyes opened, bloodshot but penetrating. “Why do you live in the projects? And don’t hand me any bull about discrimination.”
“Bernadette has asthma,” she said bluntly. “Until just recently, any upset has involved trips to the emergency room. They have her on a new medicine that seems to prevent attacks. At least, so far. Medical bills have crippled my budget.”
He studied her quietly. “I had asthma as a boy. I grew out of it. Perhaps she will, too.” He searched her eyes. “Upsets. Like the ones she had with me, when I first went to work at Ritter’s company?”
She flushed.
He groaned again. “My God, the sins just keep piling up, don’t they?”
She sat down on the bed beside him, her eyes quiet and soft. “You’ve had too many shocks. You have to stop looking back. Bernadette cares for you a great deal. She’s looking forward to having a father of her very own. You have to look ahead.”
His chest rose and fell heavily. “Coals of fire, Sarina.”
She smiled gently. “You’re not as bad as you make yourself out to be. You didn’t know what was going on. I did try to tell you,” she added.
“I should have gone looking for you, just to make sure you were really all right,” he said. “But Africa changed me. Afterward, I drank so much…”
“But not anymore,” she pointed out. “If any man ever had a valid excuse to look for a bottle after last night…”
“I’m tired of crutches,” he interrupted. “I have responsibilities now.”
Her eyebrows arched.
He glowered up at her. “The first order of business is to get you out of that hellhole you live in. Then we go shopping, for both of you.”
She put her fingers across his mouth. “First you get well,” she corrected. “Then we can argue about whether or not you’ll take over my life and Bernadette’s.”
His eyes twinkled. “Look out,” he mused. “I like arguing with you.”
“You think you know me, dear man,” she teased. “But you don’t.”
“Think so?” He swallowed another burst of nausea and shivered again. “Damned disease. I picked it up about the time you were carrying my daughter. There are several different kinds of malaria, but I got landed with the one type they can’t cure. I’ll always have recurrences if I do stupid things like standing in the cold rain without a coat.”
“You won’t do it again,” she promised him.
He liked that assertiveness. He smiled through the misery. “I would have walked all over you seven years ago, Sarina,” he said softly. “Do you realize it now?”
He was strong-willed, and she’d been submissive and worshiping in her youth. She nodded. “Yes. I think I do.”
He frowned. “How did you know I was sick?” he asked suddenly.
“Bernadette woke me out of a sound sleep at three in the morning,” she replied solemnly. “She said that you were very sick and we had to come see about you. She charmed the security guard into letting us through the gate, and then she came like a homing pigeon to your front door. He let us in and I called Hunter. Bernadette’s with Jennifer and Nikki for the foreseeable future.”
“I would have let me lie here and die,” he pointed out, “if I were you.”
She touched his tanned, muscular shoulder. “Not with Bernadette crying her eyes out, you wouldn’t. She sat here and sang to you while Hunter and I got the doctor.”
“Chanted?”
“Have you forgotten? Her grandfather was a shaman,” she pointed out. “He taught her healing skills. Or do you really think that quinine alone got you through the night?”
He chuckled. “Did you ever know where she got that beautiful singing voice from?” he murmured. “My mother sang like an angel. She used to sit beside me when I was sick and chant healing words. She died when I was six,” he recalled huskily. “My father drank to excess and didn’t realize that she had pneumonia. She died while he slept off a three-day bender. I helped my cousins gather her possessions and burn them, after she was buried. My father crawled back into the bottle and I went to live with a cousin. We were enemies my whole life after that.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “He told us all about it. He knew why you never contacted him. He said,” she added huskily, “that he deserved it, for letting her die and deserting you. He also said that maybe what he did for Bernadette would make up for it, a little.”
CHAPTER NINE
COLBY DIDN’T SPEAK. His eyes closed. He was fighting chills again, and trying not to show how Sarina’s explanation hurt him. He’d never made time to make peace with his father. Now, he wished he could change that. But it was far too late.
Sarina let him drift off to sleep, and when Hunter came back later that morning, she went back to her apartment long enough to take a bath and get a change of clothes to carry back with her.
Colby’s seeming recovery was a false start. By afternoon, his fever was up again and he was having chills and aches again. Sarina and Hunter kept the vigil between them. He went to work briefly, to make sure the man he’d left in charge at work was doing what he was supposed to. He gave in to Sarina’s refusal to leave Colby. She took catnaps at the foot of his bed, and ladled medicine and orange juice in
to him, bathed him when the fever went up, and worried incessantly. He moaned and talked in his sleep. There was a lot about Africa and some firefight he’d been in. There was more about Bernadette. He raged and cursed as he lived through some sort of interrogation with what sounded like a terrorist. None of it made sense, unless he was remembering his government work.
Sarina talked to Bernadette on the phone, reassuring her that everything was going to be all right. She only wished she could believe it. She’d never seen a major attack of malaria in her life. She knew she’d never forget it.
But on the fourth day, Colby suddenly rallied and the fever went down. He was past the crisis, Hunter said with relief. Now, it was just a matter of rest and food.
Colby became aware of the grunginess of his hair and body and he groaned. He had to have a shower. It reminded him too much of the way he’d been when alcohol had taken its toll on him, when he didn’t care if he lived or died, or stank. Now things were different. He had a family that he was responsible for.
He dragged himself to the side of the bed and stood up, wobbling. He hadn’t realized how weak he was until his long, powerful legs started shaking.
He made it to the bathroom and turned on the shower, leaning against the tiles to stabilize himself while he took deep breaths and cursed his own weakness.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” Sarina exclaimed, pausing at the open door with a cup of coffee and a plate of buttered toast in her hands. “I was bringing you coffee and toast!”
“It can wait,” he said huskily. “I have to have a bath. Can you change the bed linen for me?” he added. “Sheets are in the linen closet.”
She went past him and turned off the shower, put the seat on the toilet down, and coaxed him to sit on it. “You stay right there while I do it.” She turned off the shower and went to work.
Colby sat quietly, amused at her assertiveness. When she came back, his dark eyes were gleaming with craftiness, although he didn’t let her see it.
“I’ll wait outside the door,” she began, “in case you’re not as strong as you think you are…”