by Lori Wilde
So what was she supposed to do about this vibrant electric current running between them?
“Do you feel it?” Tyler asked, his voice a low rumble invading her ears.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“My hand’s melting into yours.”
“Flowing,” she said, articulating the word that leapt to her head.
“It’s so hot. As if you have a fever.”
“I don’t.”
“What does it mean?” Tyler asked, stopping just short of the house and drawing her into the moonlight. His eyes searched her face. “Tell me, Jane, what’s going on?”
Had he guessed that she was lying about her amnesia?
“I can’t. Not now. Not yet.”
“But soon?”
She shook her head. “It’s safer if you don’t know.”
He raised their joined hands above their heads. “We’re connected, you and I, whether we like it or not.”
Fear vaulted through Hannah. What he said was true. She felt it. He felt it. And the feeling was almost as terrifying as the knowledge that Daycon and a renegade CIA agent were planning on using her miracle drug as a deadly weapon in a foreign country.
“No,” she denied.
She could not be united with this man. She was in this alone. Only Marcus Halpren could help her. Only her ex-partner would understand what was at stake. Tyler was an innocent bystander, sucked by his big heart into something he could not comprehend. She would not allow him to wade any deeper.
With a twist, she jerked her hand from his. It felt as if her arm had wrenched from its socket.
Panic descended upon her. An anxiety so sharp in its intensity she was left breathless. Her chest refused to expand to full capacity. She yanked in small swallows of air and sweat beaded her brow.
“Jane!” he cried.
She dropped to her knees, sand filling her penny loafers. Hannah clasped her hand over her chest and tried to speak, to tell him she was all right, but the words would not come. How could she say she was fine when she obviously was not?
A roaring noise sounded in her ears. Her vision blurred and her stomach burned.
What was happening?
A reaction to Virusall?
Hannah knew the drug was volatile, unstable and had some serious side effects, but she couldn’t tell Tyler about it.
Without hesitation, he bent and scooped her into his arms. “I knew something like this was going to happen,” he muttered under his breath. “I knew that you weren’t well.”
Her chest still encompassed by an invisible band that squeezed tighter with each inhalation, Hannah leaned her head against Tyler’s shoulder. Even though she weighed only a hundred and twelve pounds, he was much stronger than she had anticipated. For a lean man, he was quite stout. He carried her as if she weighed no more than thistledown, holding her aloft as he stalked up the stairs toward the house.
If Hannah had thought holding hands with this man had been an earthshaking experience, it was nothing compared to what zinged through her body now.
Desire.
Quick and hot.
Never had she wanted any man the way she wanted this one. Suddenly, the woman who disliked being touched, who hated being kissed, could think of nothing but this man’s lips upon hers, his hands tracing a brush fire across her body.
What would he do if she were to kiss his cheek? Why was she thinking like this? She wasn’t the sort of woman who fell willy-nilly into relationships. She was cautious, practical, sensible.
Maybe she had a head injury from the accident. Or perhaps she was shell-shocked. She longed to cling to the explanation but she feared her attraction to this man was due to much more than trauma.
And yet, she had waited all her life to feel like this, had waited for someone to unlock her passion. No matter what her parents had told her, deep down inside Hannah had secretly believed in the Cinderella fable. She had hoped against hope that it was true.
Now that she felt these unfamiliar stirrings, she was terrified. This couldn’t be happening. Not at this juncture in her life. Not with so much at stake. Not with her future so uncertain. Not when she could drag him down with her.
She clung to Tyler’s neck, tossed helplessly by her emotions, more frightened of what she was feeling than the increasing tightness twisting through her chest. Were the two connected? Her emotions and her physical distress?
Tyler sat her on the porch, then reached into the pocket of his scrub pants for the key, keeping one arm curled around her waist.
The door sprang open at his touch. He reached inside, fumbling for the lights. They came on with blinding brightness. Hannah shielded her eyes with her forearm.
Picking her up again, he then hurried inside and kicked the door closed with his foot.
He was right. The house did smell musty. She crinkled her nose against the odor of mildew. Her head ached. The living room furniture was covered with sheets that made it appear like squat, silent ghosts.
Carefully, he deposited her on the sofa, and then disappeared into another part of the house. He returned seconds later with a small black medical bag. He popped an old-fashioned glass thermometer under her tongue and strapped a blood-pressure cuff around her right arm. Hannah peered up at him. His eyes were so filled with concern she experienced an unexpected urge to cry. She was not given to displays of emotion and she fought against the tears.
His bare arm brushed her hand and she lost her breath. She stared at him, unable to look away. He compelled her in a way nothing, beyond her work, ever had.
The green of his scrub suit contrasted nicely with his tanned complexion and straight white teeth. Most people looked blah and shapeless in scrubs, but Tyler Fresno looked astonishing. The cotton scrub top lightly grazed his chest, coyly hinting at the streamlined muscles lurking under the material. Even though he was slim, the man was built like the Rock of Gibraltar.
She felt herself blush. The heat burned her cheeks. What was this? She never blushed. She’d been trained to be passionless, clinical, in control of her emotions.
Disassociate. Disconnect. Disengage. But her favorite mental chant failed to stop the alien sensations from tumbling over her.
His prying fingers were strong yet tender as he examined her. He raised her scrub top, exposing her chest, slipped a stethoscope into his ears and placed the cold bell against her rib cage, his warm hand skimming over her skin. She closed her eyes and battled the hot yearning sensation that surged through her. She ached for him to drop that stethoscope and cup her breasts in his palms.
Why? She had never hungered for anyone’s touch.
Tyler told her to take several deep breaths and then cough. Avoiding his eyes, she did as he asked.
He took her blood pressure, then removed the thermometer from her mouth and held it up to the light. “Temp and BP are normal,” he proclaimed, his relief unmistakable. “Your breath sounds are clear. How do you feel?”
“Better.”
“That’s good.” He lowered her scrub top and patted her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t know what happened back there on the beach. Or why I collapsed.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he soothed. “You’ve had a rough day. I think it’s past time that you got some sleep. Give me a few minutes and I’ll put sheets on the bed in the guest room.”
Hannah nodded. She was so touched by his kind heart she couldn’t speak. A few minutes later, he returned to lead her upstairs and into the guest bedroom.
The room contained a canopied bed, a white wicker chair and a full-length mirror. There was a dressing table with a round-faced clock sitting on it and a small a.m./f.m. radio. Plain white curtains hung at the windows and several pastoral photographs of the beach adorned the walls. It was an understated but elegant room. Had his late wife decorated it?
Her own domestic genes were nonexistent. She’d been a scientist for so long she had no idea how to simply be a woman.
“You can wear one of my T-shirts
,” Tyler said, tugging her from her disturbing reverie and handing her a white cotton T-shirt.
She thanked him and when he left the room a forlorn emptiness overcame her. She pressed his cotton shirt to her nose and breathed deeply. It smelled nice and she was surprised to discover the scent comforted her. She took off the borrowed hospital scrubs and pulled the T-shirt over her head. It came to her knees, hugging her in a cloth embrace. Startled, she realized she had never worn a man’s garment before.
Hannah tried to sleep but her mind whirled. She closed her eyes and willed her disturbed thoughts away. She dozed for a while, but then the nightmares came. Vivid ugly dreams in which she relived the car crash again and again. Above it all, she kept seeing Lionel Daycon’s cruel twisted face laughing at her.
At five o’clock, she jerked awake to the sound of rain hitting the window. Her chest tightness returned along with her labored breathing. She had an awful premonition that something terrible had happened to Marcus. She had to speak to him. Now. He should be home at this hour. It was 4:00 a.m. in New Mexico and although she would probably wake him, she didn’t care. She had to know he was safe, plus, she was desperate to get his opinion about the bizarre things that had been happening to her.
Easing out of bed, she tiptoed downstairs, running her hand along the wall to guide her. In the strange house, she was lost and found herself stumbling through the living room before realizing she didn’t know where the telephone was located.
Her pulse rate increased. She padded through another room and skipped her fingers along the wall searching for the light plate. Eventually, she found it and flicked the switch, bathing the kitchen in a fluorescent gleam.
It was a nice kitchen. Open, airy, done in blues and yellows, with a wide picture window that looked out over the ocean. She paused a few moments to get her bearings. Cocking her head she listened for sounds of movement upstairs and prayed she hadn’t awakened Tyler. She didn’t want him involved in this.
A phone was mounted on the wall over the bar. Relief poured through her, and she grasped for the receiver. Sitting down on a bar stool, she punched in the number of her telephone calling card with trembling fingers.
An automated voice came on the line telling her the calling card number was no longer valid. Certain that she had punched the number in wrong, Hannah hung up and tried again.
The same monotone recording greeted her ears.
Damn! Daycon Laboratories issued her calling card and Daycon had probably canceled it the minute she’d left Austin. He had not been idle in the hours she was infirm. She wondered if he could somehow trace her through the card. Terrified at the prospect, she slammed down the phone. She regretted the company phone card, corporate bank account and car they’d leased for her.
Oh, no, what if Daycon had frozen her checking account, as well? A sharp pain rippled through Hannah’s chest, then disappeared.
Don’t panic, calm down, think. What next?
She couldn’t risk dialing direct and having Marcus’s phone number appear on Tyler’s telephone bill. She would call collect. Hannah dialed again and gave her name to an automated operator. Nervously she drummed her fingers on the counter.
“Hello,” a sleepy male replied.
Relief shot through her, and she unclenched her fists. Marcus was safe.
“Hannah?” he said once the call had been patched through. “Is that you?”
“Listen Marcus, listen to me very carefully—you’re in grave danger.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Something very strange is happening,” she whispered. “It’s about Virusall.”
“What’s the matter?”
“The drug is amazing. Much more effective than we guessed. It eradicates every virus I’ve tested it on. HIV, Ebola, hepatitis, influenza, even the common cold.”
“You’re kidding! That’s world-changing news.”
“I know, but wait, here’s the bad part. There are serious side effects. Everyone with type O blood that took the drug during the clinical trials eventually had psychotic breaks. They all became extremely violent.”
“But only people with type O blood?”
“As far as we know. The effects seem permanent.”
“My God, Hannah, that’s catastrophic.”
“It gets worse.”
“How much worse can it get?”
“I went to Daycon with my findings.”
“That unscrupulous bastard.” There was no love lost between Marcus and Daycon. “What did he do? Try and doctor the clinical trials?”
“He’s more unscrupulous than you ever dreamed.”
“Tell me.”
“I found out he was attempting to sell Virusall to overseas terrorists. He wants to create made-to-order assassins.” She gripped the receiver hard.
“Did you call the police?”
“I couldn’t.” She lowered her voice. Paranoia had her thinking Tyler’s phone was tapped, even though she knew it wasn’t possible. “He has a rogue CIA agent making the contacts for him.”
“Hannah!”
“I knew I had to destroy the drug but I also knew I had to find an antidote for those poor test subjects. I packed up a few samples, e-mailed an encrypted version of the formula to you and then I torched Daycon Laboratories to the ground. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. The fire was all over the news.”
“I don’t even have a television up here, Hannah, and I haven’t checked my e-mail in a few days.”
“That’s why you’re in danger. If Daycon even suspects I sent you the formula…” She let her words trail off. “You’ve got to download it, put it in a safe place and then eradicate that e-mail.”
“I’ll take care of it. In the meantime, where are you?”
The tender note of concern in his voice almost had her losing her control. She had to stay calm and not give herself away. While Tyler’s phone probably wasn’t bugged, Marcus’s definitely could be.
“I’m safe for now. It’s better if you don’t know where I am, but I’ll be headed in your direction as soon as I can.”
“You sound odd. Is there something else you’re not telling me?” he coaxed. Her old friend knew her too well. She was trying to be brave, but it was so tempting to let down her guard just a bit with someone she trusted.
“Daycon’s men found me.” She gulped, then briefly told him about the accident.
“My God, Hannah, are you okay?”
“Marcus, I’m really scared. Some very bizarre things have been happening to my body.” Gingerly, she reached down to rub the leg that had been fractured and then traced her fingers over the right-upper quadrant of her abdomen. “And I think it was because the vials of Virusall broke during the accident and burned my skin.”
“The drug is toxic?”
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly? Talk to me. I want to help.”
Deciding to tell him everything, Hannah took a deep breath and related her suspicions that absorbing Virusall through her skin had cured her injuries.
“That’s amazing,” he said.
“But how would it be possible?”
“You said the drug was very unstable and that it did have miraculous healing properties.”
“We’re talking spontaneous regeneration here, Marcus. It’s the stuff of science fiction. And nothing of this magnitude occurred during the clinical trials.”
“Did any of the test subjects have AB negative blood like you do?”
“No, but would my blood type actually make that big a difference?”
“Look what Virusall did to the people with type O.”
“I can’t believe it’s simply the drug and my blood type responsible for my healing. There’s got to be something more.”
Marcus’s tone dropped an octave. “I know what it is.”
Her heart thundered. She couldn’t even believe they were having this conversation. The discussion flew in the face of rational scientific evidence, but she could not deny what was
happening to her.
“What?” she whispered, bracing herself for his theory.
“Remember when we were experimenting with radioisotopes last summer?” he said. “And there was a radiation leak at the lab? Daycon hadn’t installed the proper safety ventilation and we both got sick.”
“But he assured us the exposure was minimal. We were even tested for chromosomal changes and we came up clean.”
“And you believed him? You’ve already learned how ruthless he is. The man would lie about anything to serve his own nefarious purposes.”
Hannah sucked in air as the reality of the situation hit her. Inexplicable as it seemed, with the triple combination of her rare blood type, the topical absorption of Virusall and her recent exposure to radiation, she’d become her own human guinea pig. While the womanly part of her was horrified at the realization, the clinician in her recognized what an amazing opportunity she’d been given.
“But, Marcus, what does it all mean?” she cried.
And that was when the line went dead.
Chapter 4
Tyler couldn’t sleep.
No matter how hard he tried to quiet his turbulent thoughts, his mind stayed hitched on that fascinating woman sleeping in his guest bedroom right down the hall. It had been an eternity since anyone had entranced him, much less set his soul ablaze.
And he was scared spitless.
He recalled the way her skin had felt beneath his fingers when he had examined her—smooth, cool, creamy. He remembered the way her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths as he had placed his stethoscope above her breasts. He recollected the manner in which she had peeped surreptitiously up at him from behind those long, pale eyelashes.
He thought of the way she’d looked swaddled in his T-shirt that was five sizes too big for her. Her eyes wide and round as she’d studied him. Her blond hair floated softly about her slender shoulders. Her feet were bare, her toes appearing childishly innocent in their unpainted state. She’d looked china-doll fragile, except for the hard set of her determined chin.
Who was this mysterious Jane Doe? More important, why was he so drawn to her? And most interesting of all, how could he explain her instantaneous recovery from life-threatening injuries? Concern for her welled up in him from as far south as his feet and throbbed through his chest.