He shifted slightly, and the warm feeling evaporated, replaced by a pain so intense, he couldn’t distinguish between hot and cold.
Maybe he was in hell after all.
“McCullough?”
No, he thought. No way. His mind refused to accept it. And yet, he knew that voice, would never forget it. There was no way Rae Gannon would ever end up in hell. She could commit the most heinous crime of the century, and still make heaven on the basis of past performance.
“I know you’re conscious,” her voice went on. “It’s been two days now, three if you count the day I found you. And God knows how long before I found you. You’re too stubborn to die, or you already would have. So open your eyes and let’s get on with it.”
The tone was the same: blunt, direct, and to the point. That was Rae Gannon in a nutshell. If a woman like her could ever really be categorized. But there was something else.…
Three days?
Vague recollections swam into his mind. A loud bang, then a car—his car?—careening off the road. Stumbling, then a white-hot sensation piercing his upper thigh. Mud, snow, cold. Blood. A wolf. Wolf? Yes, yes, he was hallucinating. A wolf pup. He had to silence it, but couldn’t. Got free. Ran. No energy to chase it. Had to reach a safe place. Walking, dragging himself, crawling. Sticks, trees, dirt, more snow. Blacking out. A rough tongue … licking? Licking his face. Cool darkness, safety, sanctuary.
He heard a noise, a groan. He realized it was his own voice and instinctively tried to stifle the sound. The images continued to assault him. Hands on his legs and arms, pulling, dragging. Endless. And the pain. Dear God, the pain. Another groan. Was it a memory, or was he making the sound now?
Jarrett worked hard to put his chaotic thoughts into order, commanding his brain to switch off this track and get back to the voice. Rae’s voice. Or had that been a hallucination too?
Was she really there? He tried to speak, but his mouth felt cemented shut, his throat too dry even to moisten his tongue, much less his lips.
“It’s bad enough,” she continued, her soft, steady voice a far more effective torture than the most demented terrorist could have dreamed up, “that I’ve been hijacked into helping you again. But next time, if you have to bring along a sidekick, could you at least house-break him first?”
Two words opened his eyes. Hijacked and sidekick.
He shut them again immediately. The light was too bright, too white. He’d seen enough, though. It was Rae.
He tried again to speak as a dozen questions sprang to mind. There was important information he had to know right away so he could make plans, formulate a strategy, complete his mission.
All he managed to get out was a grunt.
An instant later a straw touched his lips, quickly followed by cool water. He was proud of his restraint as he let the craved liquid wet his tongue and trickle down his throat. It was followed by something bitter and pasty. He swallowed that too.
“Crushed aspirin,” she said. “You’ve been running a pretty good temperature and you wouldn’t swallow them whole.”
A cool cloth was placed on his forehead, which until that moment he hadn’t realized felt hot and feverish.
“Hi—” That was all he could manage. He worked hard to repress the frustration he felt at the discovery of his limitations.
“Hi?” There was anger and impatience in her tone.
He started to shake his head, but caught himself at the last moment. He had no intention of blacking out again. At least not until he got some information. “Jack,” he forced out, not recognizing the rough voice as his own.
“Jack who?”
He felt the surface he was lying on—a bed?—dip down, as if someone—Rae?—were leaning on it.
“I didn’t see anyone else,” she said. “No tracks. Just you and the puppy.”
Puppy? Jarrett frowned, then spent the next few seconds smoothing his expression. Even his skin hurt. He shut out the questions the mention of a puppy brought to mind and focused instead on his original concern.
Another sip of cool water. He swallowed several times, then again after the straw had been taken away, just to see if he could make his throat work. It was still scratchy and raw, but already it felt better. And the pounding in his head was no longer louder than his thoughts. He rested for a moment, then tried once more. “Hi … jack?”
He heard a sigh of disgust. “No, I—we—haven’t been hijacked. Sorry. Poor choice of words. I just meant that I found you out there dying, and since it was unlikely anyone else would happen by to rescue you, I felt compelled to undertake the task.”
The now tepid cloth on his forehead was replaced with another cooler one. He waited a minute or so, absorbing the mild relief it brought, then chanced opening his eyes again. He stopped at a squint, and her blurry frame came into view.
“What happened, McCullough? Were you trying to get yourself killed on my mountain?”
She was sitting to his right. There was light behind her, which he realized was muted by blinds and gathered curtains. Carefully, he turned his head a degree or two. He could see the corner of a table by his side, in front of her knees. A nightstand. He must be on a bed. Where, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. That bothered him too. He’d never considered himself a coward.
“On second thought,” she went on, “don’t answer that. I don’t want to know anything except when I can get you out of here.”
Jarrett knew she had every right to be upset. He should count himself fortunate she hadn’t just shot him and put him out of his misery—and hers.
“Tell me,” he managed.
“You’ve been shot,” she said blundy, rightly assuming that was what he wanted to know. “Nasty exit wound too. In the right thigh. No sign of infection, which is a miracle considering how I found you. But you lost enough blood to keep you out of it for a few days. You’ve also managed to cut, scrape, or bruise most of your body. And I’m pretty certain you’ve banged up a couple of ribs and maybe dislocated your shoulder.”
She could have been discussing the weather, for all the concern in her voice. Still, she had taken him in. Jarrett slowly shifted his head back and chanced opening his eyes a bit more. Finally, he looked at Rae.
She appeared exactly the same as she had during the five years she’d worked for him. Until he saw her eyes. No, he decided. There wasn’t anything familiar in those pale blue eyes. There wasn’t anything there period.
“Where am I?” He closed his own eyes, the effort too much. Whether it was talking to or looking at Rae Gannon for the first time in two years, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—guess. “How …?” he added, his voice a mere rasp.
“You’re in my home.” She slid the towel off his forehead. After a long pause he felt the soft jab of a thermometer being stuck into his mouth. “And you don’t want to know how.” A minute or two passed in silence, then she slid the thermometer out and made a noncommittal grunt. The bed dipped again, and when she spoke, it came from farther away. “Suffice it to say, your type of training doesn’t seem to disappear.” There was a pause and the sound of a door opening. This time her quiet voice barely reached him. “No matter how much I might have wished it to.”
Jarrett struggled to open his eyes again, but even after making himself turn his head several degrees right and then left, he couldn’t find her. She’d left him. He let out a careful sigh. His ribs felt tight, probably taped. They ached and his shoulder was a steady burn. He vaguely remembered slamming it against a tree to knock it back into place after he’d stumbled from the wreckage of his car. It wasn’t the first time he’d knocked it back into place. He carefully probed his torso. It was hard to tell with the tape, but he didn’t think he’d fractured anything there. He’d done that enough times too. That left the bullet wound.
He wiggled his toes, more to take his mind off the rush of unwanted feelings that the unplanned return of Rae Gannon to his life had brought on than because he really feared he’d lost the use of any of h
is extremities.
He ran a few other checks on his person and decided he was better off than he felt. The loss of blood had been his worst enemy. A few days, a week or two at the most, and he’d be able to do what had to be done. Unfortunately, he barely had a week.
That was how much time the people in Bhajul had. The only problem was, unless he made his contact, they wouldn’t know the danger they were in. They wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from the lethal, merciless attack Jarrett knew was coming. Only Jarrett. The first two men he’d sent in were dead, the third had disappeared.
He heard the sound of running water coming from the next room, or close by at any rate. The bathroom probably.
How in the living hell had he ended up in the last place on earth he’d ever wanted to be? Even physically battered and resisting the knowledge that was chipping away at his newly reclaimed control, he knew his range of options were gone. There was only one. And from the sounds of it, this particular option was, at that moment, taking a shower.
TWO
Rae closed her eyes as the warm water sheeted over her face. She turned and dipped her chin to let it beat at her back, then squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden shock of unwanted tears. Calling herself several harsh names, she forced her eyes open and watched the water cascade off the tips of her breasts as she allowed herself to confront the chaos she’d been blocking out for the last several days.
As long as McCullough had been unconscious, she’d been able to contain her thoughts and activities to the necessity of doing what she could for his wounded body. But he wasn’t unconscious anymore, and she’d worked for the man long enough to know he would regain his health quickly. She had to get a grip now, make some hard, fast decisions that she would be ready and willing to stick to. No matter what.
If anyone had told her a week ago that she’d find herself struggling with decisions regarding her former life, she’d have laughed at the person, and then told him he was crazy. Although who would have been telling her this, she didn’t know. She had no contact with anyone from that life. The few people who inhabited her world now knew nothing about her except that she was a jewelry artisan making a moderate income and that she bordered on the fanatic about her privacy.
Privacy that had been effectively destroyed three days ago. She shut the water off and threw the curtain back. Angry, hurt, and far more scared than she’d ever wanted to be again, she grabbed a towel and indulged in some good old-fashioned swearing directed at the man lying in her bed in the next room. It didn’t help.
She dragged on a pair of green sweats and a baggy green-and-white-striped sweater, then took the hallway exit to postpone seeing him again for at least another few minutes. After checking on the puppy, whom she’d finally sequestered out in the garage with a bowl of water, some old towels, and a safely perched space heater for company, she went to the kitchen and tested the chicken broth she’d set to simmering. It was warm. She poured some into a tall cup, plopped in a straw, and after taking a deep breath, walked back to her room.
It shouldn’t have surprised her to find him with his eyes wide-open and his head elevated by a pillow he’d bent in half beneath his neck. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
The sight of his chest caught her attention. It was bare except for the tape that peeked above her sheet. The forest-print fabric was draped halfway between his well-developed pecs and the taut tanned skin surrounding his navel. Skin that was covered by tape now, but since she was the one who had wrapped him, she knew just about all there was to know about it. Where it was tight, where it was scarred, where it dipped, where it hugged muscle, where it was covered with fine swirls of dark hair. Where it wasn’t. Details she could have gone the rest of her life without ever knowing, but that for some strange reason would pop into her mind at the oddest moments.
After days of the sort of intimacy she hadn’t indulged in for a very long time, she couldn’t say why she was reacting to the sight of his naked body in a way that was far from clinical.
Realizing she was standing in the doorway, staring, she put one foot in front of the other … and eventually she was at his side. Again.
“Thank you,” he said, staring at the cup in her hand.
Those were two words she’d never thought to hear from him. She bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. His voice was still rough, but she could already hear the change. Yes, if he had anything to do with it—and of course, he had everything to do with it—his recovery would likely set medical records. She knew how he was.
Controlling. Calculating. Cold. Unfeeling. Mechanical. And always and forever in charge. From the moment they were introduced, over seven years ago in the cramped quarters of her college counselor’s office, and every single moment since, he’d been in charge. Yes, she knew how he was.
She could recall with perfect clarity their first meeting. How he’d listed, in that carefully controlled voice of his, always so damnably devoid of emotion, the reasons why her combination of personal traits made her the ideal courier for his private firm. No family or relatives. No contact with any of her foster families. No tendency to form close or lasting relationships. The sort of person no one seemed to notice. He did not mention her academic achievements, but since he’d been holding her school file in his hand, she was certain he was aware of her excellent record, as well as her interest in world history and political science.
No, the things he’d mentioned weren’t found in any school file. They were the sort of things only someone close to her could have known, and the one person that could have been was her counselor. The older woman had gradually worn down Rae’s natural resistance to discussing herself or her own feelings. Rae had confided in the woman, telling her about her childhood, and about how her growing fascination with the grand scale of world politics was somehow helping her to sort out her own mixed-up past. Her most recent confidence had concerned her desire to work in the government, to get involved firsthand with the secret dealings between her country’s leaders and those of foreign nations.
Rae remembered how betrayed she’d felt, and how quickly that sense of betrayal had faded in the face of the undeniably intriguing world this dark, emotionless stranger was offering her. This person who wanted her specifically because of who she was. That fact alone had been almost intoxicating.
And in all that time this was the first thank-you she’d ever heard from him.
“You’re welcome,” she said, her voice as blank as his had ever been. “You should try to get some of this down.” She sat and aimed the bent straw at his lips. She took great pride in the steadiness of her hands under his watchful gray eyes.
He lifted his right hand and took hold of her wrist, guiding the straw the last inch past his lips. Any pride she’d taken in her control vanished at the immensity of his.
His skin was hot. The fever, she told herself. But that didn’t explain the frisson of awareness that raced all over her body at the scrape of his calluses on her skin and the latent strength she detected in his grip.
This was the man who wanted you dead, she reminded herself needlessly. Yet it did nothing to lessen the impact of his touch.
Several silent minutes later a good portion of the broth was gone. He finally let his hand drop, and Rae tried hard to keep her sigh of relief inaudible. She wasted another thirty or so seconds making space for the half-empty cup on the bedstand between the water pitcher and water cup and changing the cloth on his forehead. She felt his gaze on her and was thankful he wasn’t touching her anymore. In the five years she’d worked for him, he’d been nothing more than her boss. Nothing more, and yet he had been everything. He was a private man with an astonishing ability to draw out of each of his operatives exactly what was necessary to accomplish each mission, all without ever divulging anything of himself.
His code name had been Enigma, and that was precisely what he’d always been.
She’d never been this close to him before. And certainly not with him naked. His weakened state
should have made a difference. It didn’t.
His eyes were the same, though, their intensity every bit as daunting. His injuries only underscored their power.
“There are things we have to discuss,” he said.
Her time was up. Three days hadn’t been enough. Hell, who was she kidding? Obviously two whole years hadn’t been enough. She couldn’t even allow herself the luxury of anger, indignation, or most of all, panic. It would only make her vulnerable to him. So she took refuge in the old and familiar, hoping he wouldn’t see the fear behind the bravura.
She worked up a sardonic smile and leaned back in the chair. “Yes, let’s skip right past the small talk, why don’t we? That gee-it’s-nice-to-see-you-again-how’ve-you-been-and-oh-by-the-way-thanks-for-saving-my-life crap gets downright maudlin, doesn’t it?”
He stared at her in silence, not a shred of embarrassment or shame on his face. That shouldn’t have surprised her either. If he hadn’t cared the last time she’d faced him, all bloody and ravaged, nothing she said now was likely to elicit any emotion.
“I didn’t plan on coming here,” he said finally.
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“You’re the last person I would have come to, Gannon. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m here.” His voice was still raspy and his last sentence hadn’t been much more than a growl. After a long tense silence he purposely shifted his gaze to the cup of broth, then back to her.
She stared at him, willing herself to be unaffected. The task was impossible and she retreated behind a wall of words. “You’d ask me to give my soul for the good of the cause, but you’d die before asking me to help you personally, wouldn’t you?” she said quietly. When he didn’t respond, she simply stared him down. She didn’t dare give him the slightest edge. She already felt she was holding on by her fingertips as it was.
Surrender the Dark Page 2