“More,” he said, his teeth clenched, his eyes empty.
She leaned forward to grab the cup and angle the straw in his mouth. He drank his fill, but didn’t hold her wrist this time. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. His steady regard was easily as disturbing as his touch had been.
He took a moment for the broth to go down, then said, “I don’t have a choice in this.”
The first taste of fear entered her mouth.
With supreme effort, she kept her tone casual. “You said you didn’t come to my mountain on purpose. Just because you ended up here doesn’t change anything. But I do have a choice, McCullough. I made it two years ago. I don’t work for you any longer.” She kept a close watch, but his gaze didn’t soften. There wasn’t even a hint of what had passed between them the last time they’d seen each other.
“I know that,” he said. “You were very clear on that point, and several others, the last time we spoke.”
Bastard, she thought, careful to keep her expression blank. “Yes,” she said calmly, “I suppose I was.”
Because she knew he expected her to retreat physically, she leaned over and removed the cool cloth from his forehead. Inexplicably, she had to curl her fingers against the sudden urge to brush away the damp black curls clinging to his forehead.
“Gannon—”
“Listen, McCullough,” she cut him off. She had to lay it out straight now, before he got any stronger. “I found you, I got you here, I took care of you. My choice. I could have left you to die. It doesn’t give you a claim on me.”
“Why didn’t you leave me?”
Her control slipped a notch. “Because I didn’t need another death on my conscience.”
“Not even mine?”
She drew in a sharp breath and studied him, but he revealed nothing of what he was feeling. “Not even yours,” she answered.
“Water.” She helped him take a sip without comment. He watched her set the cup down and lean back in her chair, then said, “The last time I saw you, I wasn’t too certain about that.”
“The last time I saw you, I wasn’t armed,” she shot back, wondering where he was heading with this. His body may have been damaged, but she knew his predatory instincts were still in fine working order. “If you recall, I was strip-searched before I was allowed to enter your office and your presence.”
“You make it sound like I ordered it for my own personal enjoyment.”
Caught off guard, she stiffened and knew her eyes had widened. Despite his emotionless and often ruthless command, he’d never once made a single comment to her that could have been construed as sexual. He’d been way ahead of his time on the issue of harassment and women’s rights. Of course, for McCullough, affirmative action meant equal opportunities for women to get killed in the line of duty.
“And we both know,” he went on, “that the lack of a gun or knife didn’t exactly render you weaponless.”
The added roughness to his already deep voice grated on her nerves. Her pulse was racing. He was getting to her, dammit. “True,” she said. “But I thought I made it clear that day that I would not—could not—be responsible for any more …” She faltered and wanted to kick herself for doing so at such a crucial moment. She strove quickly to regain her control. “Be responsible for any more violence,” she went on, her voice stronger than necessary. “No matter how good the cause.”
“Patching me up helps even the scales, then?”
Her eyes narrowed, her uneasiness vanished. Anger and hurt filled her voice and she didn’t give a damn. “Nothing could ever ‘even the scales,’ McCullough. But then, I never expected you to understand that.”
Surprisingly, his response was to let his eyes drift shut. Power still radiated from him, but his having his eyes closed helped her to regain control. She was suspicious of his apparent retreat. He couldn’t have simply backed off.
When he didn’t say anything for several minutes, Rae realized he must have drifted to sleep, and she felt a twinge of guilt for badgering him as she had. After all, he’d been out of it for a good while and had just awakened.
The guilt disappeared quickly. McCullough didn’t need her sympathy. She’d do damn well to remember that.
She waited a few more minutes, watching his chest rise and fall, trying to empty her mind. That was another skill she’d acquired under his command. It had been her salvation in captivity, her solace in isolation.
She leaned over, meaning to pick up the empty cups, but instead found herself reaching for him. Rationalizing that she was merely checking for fever, she placed her palm on his forehead. Her fingers seemed to move of their own accord, smoothing back the damp hair as she’d wanted to do earlier. Only when her fingers began to trail down past his temple did she realize what she was doing.
Guilty and not a little unnerved, she pulled her hand away, expecting him to open his eyes that very second and deal her a verbal blow. McCullough never missed a chance to exploit a person when he—or she—was at his most vulnerable. But his eyes remained shut.
Allowing a sigh of relief to ease past her lips, she grabbed the cups and the near-empty water pitcher from the bedstand and headed for the door.
Just after the door clicked shut, Jarrett opened his eyes. He stared at the door for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to the ceiling. He tried hard not to picture how she must have looked as she bent over him, caressed him.
It had been a caress, a touch profoundly different from the ministrations she’d performed up to that point.
Her angry accusation—that he wouldn’t understand her—played over and over in his mind.
“You’d be surprised, Rae Gannon,” he whispered. “I understand far more than you think.”
Shadows were creeping across the bedspread when Jarrett woke up. He ran a quick update of his injuries and lifted his head, telling himself to be satisfied that the dizziness and fever seemed to have gone, even if the pain hadn’t.
That was just too bad, because he had to find the bathroom. He wasn’t about to call for help, his earlier confrontation with Rae be damned. He refused even to consider how she had managed that caretaking chore over the last few days.
What he couldn’t seem to get out of his head was her quiet voice harshly criticizing while her callused hands tenderly caressed him. She’d even entered his dreams. He scowled and clamped his jaw hard as he rolled onto his aching shoulder. She wouldn’t be any more thrilled with that knowledge than he was. Not that he ever intended to tell her.
The pain cleared his head immediately, but his gratitude was minimal. When his breathing was steady, he pushed himself upright and carefully shifted his legs over the edge of the bed. His thigh was well wrapped and there was no sign of bleeding.
He gripped the heavy wooden chair beside his bed and levered himself to a stooped-over stance, careful to keep his weight on his good leg. The shock of being upright again caused the shadowy room to dip precariously into blackness and sparkles to dance around the edges of his dimming vision.
At that point the idea of not calling for help started to seem more than a little foolish. But he gritted his teeth and pushed through the dizziness until he was reasonably sure he was seeing only one of everything.
Relying heavily on the furniture for support, Jarrett made his way to the old oak bureau. Breathing became a chore, partly due to the pain, the rest to the tightness of Rae’s wrapping of his ribs. If he’d had any spare strength at all, he’d have torn the tape off.
Congratulating himself on his progress, telling his bladder that five feet per minute was plenty fast enough, he bent his head and took several stabilizing breaths. It was at that moment that the door behind him swung open.
He instinctively looked in the mirror atop the dresser he was leaning on. Two things were immediately apparent. One, Rae had entered the room without knocking; and two, bandages aside, he was totally naked.
“What in the hell are you doing out of bed?”
“Going to
the bathroom,” he answered, disturbed to find his voice still had a rusty, unused sound. “You always enter a room without knocking?”
Casually, as if staring at naked men were a daily routine, Rae leaned against the door frame and loosely crossed her arms. “You’re on my turf now, McCullough. I come and go as I please.”
Jarrett noticed she kept her gaze trained on his face without seeming to flinch. It occurred to him then that she had in fact been looking at one banged-up naked man on a daily basis: himself. And she didn’t appear all that impressed by the sight.
That he’d even considered this jerked his attention back to the matter at hand.
“Fine.” Without another glance, he braced himself and moved another foot toward the bathroom.
She remained silent as he struggled, never making a move to help. It took all of his strength not to grunt or groan as he shuffled along, but he’d be damned if he’d give her any more of a show than was absolutely necessary. Jarrett didn’t doubt that the sight of him in his current disabled condition gave her a measure of satisfaction. God knows she deserved to feel all that and more. Still, it didn’t mean he had to like it.
He had to stop, braced in the doorway, and take a few shallow breaths. Sweat had beaded across his upper lip and forehead, and what little strength he’d had was gone. But he wasn’t about to quit now.
“I’m not enjoying any of this, McCullough,” she said to his back. “I didn’t spend three days patching you up for kicks. But I’m not going anywhere until I make sure’ you don’t undo all my work because you’re too damn hardheaded to ask for help.”
Jarrett let his head drop forward as he braced himself for the last few steps. Every time she spoke, he felt the tension inside him jack up another notch. He reminded himself again that the only thing that mattered was the Bhajul mission. Though he now faced the nasty task of convincing Rae to become involved, that didn’t mean he had to get ensnared in the tangled web of their past. At least not any more than absolutely necessary.
He straightened his shoulders and edged his way into the bathroom. The dizziness was returning. “Give me a few minutes,” he said without turning. “Then I’d appreciate an assist back to the bed.” He didn’t wait for her to answer, but bumped the door shut with his elbow.
Mouth hanging open, Rae stared at the door for a full minute, half expecting—hoping—to hear a loud thud. It had been tougher than she’d imagined to keep her post by the bedroom door. McCullough’s skin had been pasty white and beaded with perspiration. She’d told the truth about not taking any satisfaction in his suffering, but she had expected to feel at least a small sense of vengeance at watching him struggle.
Lord knew she’d wished far worse on him during the interminably long months she’d sat chained in that cell. She’d certainly had plenty of time to conjure up fantasy vendettas. This was a hollow victory, though. In fact, it was no victory at all.
She knew McCullough was going to do as he damn well pleased. His reappearance in her life told her better than anything that there truly was no escape from her past. A welcome surge of resentment had her pushing away from the door frame, and she stalked to the hall to grab some clean linens.
She had yet to come to terms with the thoroughness of his destruction of her sanctuary. That was the other reason she’d left him alone. The harder he pushed himself to get well, the faster he’d leave her.
Yanking the sheets from the bed, she made quick work of changing linens. She worked just as swiftly on shoring up her defenses. Defenses McCullough seemed to be chipping at steadily with nothing more than a battered body and an occasional touch.
A week, she decided as she rolled up the dirty sheets. Ten days max. Then he’d be gone. This calculation made it easier for her to focus. She took a deep breath and headed for the hall, feeling stronger and more in control of the situation than she had since the moment she’d stepped inside that cave.
She barely made it to the door when a grunt sounded from behind the bathroom door. Before she could do much more than pause, a loud crash, followed quickly by the thud she’d been expecting earlier, resounded from the bathroom.
“Damn his stubborn hide,” she muttered. Dropping the laundry, she ran to the door, but stopped just short of opening it. Five minutes ago she’d stared him down when he was buck naked, without so much as a flinch. Yet now … Maybe it was the disturbing realization of how strong her need was to rush to his aid that made her hesitate.
A low string of expletives issued forth from behind the door. Rae released a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “At least you didn’t knock yourself out.” Squaring her shoulders and blanking her mind, she rapped twice on the door. “Incoming,” she called out. “Prepare accordingly.”
Get him well, get him out, she reminded herself as she twisted the knob. Nothing could deter her.
Rae gasped audibly as the door swung wide.
Nothing, that is, except the sight that greeted her on the floor of her bathroom.
THREE
“Haven’t you wasted enough blood?” Rae’s tone was curt, but more from the return of the spine-tightening tension than from real annoyance. “I know I’m not the greatest hostess in the world, but I’ve never had anyone try to kill himself over it.”
Jarrett was lying on his side on the floor, a thick turquoise towel haphazardly tucked around his hips. Blood ran from a cut somewhere on his hand or wrist and pooled on the aquatic-print bath mat. Fragments of glass lay on the sink and the floor by his legs.
“Most people have plastic cups,” he said, gripping his hand to stanch the flow of blood.
Rae quickly yanked a small towel from the rack and knelt by his side. She took his hand firmly in hers and wrapped the terry cloth around his palm. “Put pressure here,” she said, placing the fingers of his other hand around the towel. “And you should know better than anyone that I’m not most people.” She stood, saying, “I’ll be right back. I think I have some gauze left out in the studio.” She looked down at him as she passed the door. “Roll over on your back before you hurt your shoulder again. And try not to drip any more blood on my rug, okay?”
Jarrett opened his mouth to tell her just what he thought of her instructions, but she was gone. He sighed and rolled onto his back. Damn, but she was tough. But then, he acknowledged grimly, to survive what she’d undergone, she had to be tough and a whole lot more.
Scowling at the unwanted prick to his conscience—a conscience that her every word seemed to be reminding him he still had—he shifted over onto his good leg and awkwardly worked his way up until he could sit on the closed lid of the commode. The towel was barely more than a sop to modesty, and not a very convincing one, but that was the least of his concerns. She’d made it perfectly clear that his big naked body posed no threat to her female susceptibilities.
He spent a moment wondering if Rae had ever been the modest type. He had no idea. It shouldn’t bother him that until that moment he’d only thought about her in a professional sense; he was that way with all of his employees. Security, along with personal choice, dictated this stance. Rae had been top-notch, his best courier. Her specialty had been delivering sensitive information in terrorist situations. She was efficient, quick thinking, highly trained, and single-minded about completing each and every mission successfully.
He knew what he’d read in her school file, the information provided by her counselor, and what the more in-depth follow-up background report had revealed. But beyond that, he knew nothing personal about the woman.
When he’d first met her, he remembered thinking that despite their strikingly dissimilar upbringings, they were remarkably alike. She’d been orphaned young, while he’d been raised as far as his teens by a father who had loved him very much and whom Jarrett had idolized. Jarrett had followed in his deceased father’s footsteps by serving his country, first in the military, then as a courier of sensitive information. Rae’s school record had shown she had an acute understanding of world politics, and
her counselor had mentioned that her interest was somehow related to her childhood. Like Jarrett, Rae was perfectly suited to the life of a courier. A loner with no family and no close ties, self-contained and completely self-reliant. Eager to learn and a quick study. Dedicated and tireless.
Yes, she’d proven to be all of those things, but he’d never looked past them. He had never cared to. He would have never let himself care. If he had, he might have been able to avert some of the pain she’d suffered—at least the part he was responsible for.
Beating himself up over that still didn’t explain why he was now struggling not to wonder about all sorts of unnecessary things about her. Like, why had she chosen the mountain and not the beach? How did she spend her days? What did she do during the long winter nights?
And did she spend them all alone …?
Jarrett swore under his breath and carefully unwrapped his hand. Damn stupid thing to do. He’d been trying to clean up a little with cool water when a wave of dizziness had overtaken him. He’d knocked the glass over, and when he’d gone to catch it, he’d ended up smashing it between his hand and the edge of the sink. Then he’d lost his balance, resulting in the very thing he’d wanted to avoid: summoning Rae to the rescue.
God knows he hadn’t done the same for her the one and only time she’d needed him to.
“I didn’t have any more gauze, but I found some large bandages and a few butterfly strips.”
Jarrett looked up to find her in the doorway, and he was instantly assaulted by vivid images of the day, two years before, when security had escorted her to his office. He’d barely contained his shock when they’d notified him that she’d broken into the compound and had been taken into custody. His first thought should have been how in the hell had she gotten past his supposedly impenetrable security system? Instead it had been, thank God, she’s alive! And that thought had been accompanied by a deep sense of joy that had caught him completely off guard.
Surrender the Dark Page 3