by Lori Wilde
“Here we are.”
She opened her eyes, dissipating the ridiculous fantasy before it had time to take root and grow. Tyler helped her on with the coat, then led her outside. The air was damp and cool. The setting sun hovered just above the horizon, casting the ice blue ocean in a tangerine glow. She swallowed and wished sentimentally that she could stay here forever.
When Tyler reached to take her hand, she did not resist. They walked without talking down to the rock pier jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico. They had no need for conversation. Words were merely words, and the communication between them went far beyond speech.
It was a strange sensation, the realization that he understood her. He had not pressed her for more information. He let her keep her secrets.
Tyler Fresno was a rare man. Patient, kind, trusting. It was a shame that she would not get to know him better.
But she had now, this moment and Hannah reveled in it, savoring his touch, the feel of his long fingers laced through her own, the reassuring smile he gave her each time she hesitated.
He guided her slowly after him, picking the way over the slippery stones. The wind stung Hannah’s cheeks, and blew her hair back off her face. The air smelled fresh and new with twilight. Stars sprinkled the sky. Hannah went quiet inside. Cut off from her past, insulated from the future, for this fraction in time, she was happy.
She studied Tyler as they walked, admiring his tall silhouette, his broad masculine shoulders. He still wore his green hospital scrubs and white-leather running shoes. Dark hair curled around his ears in a boyishly endearing manner. She shocked herself by wondering what he was in like in bed. He looked as if he could be either wildly passionate or exceptionally controlled. Then she wondered why she was wondering.
They reached the end of the pier just as the sun settled against the lip of the earth and side by side they stood looking out to sea. Tyler wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.
Her shoulders were pressed into his chest, her head resting against the hollow of his neck. To a casual observer, they must have looked like an affectionate couple in a Hallmark greeting card. It was an illusion, this picture of domestic tranquillity. There was nothing tranquil or loving about Hannah’s world.
And she was the cause of her own problems. If she hadn’t been so determined to discover a cure for Ebola in the wake of her parents’ deaths, she would never have stumbled across Virusall. Persistence was not always a virtue.
They watched until the sun was almost gone and the emptiness in Hannah widened to a gaping chasm. She did not belong here. This wasn’t right.
“I must leave,” she said. “I’ve already stayed far too long.”
“Will I ever see you again?” Tyler murmured, hooking an index finger under her chin, tilting her head and forcing her to look at him. His dark eyes were murky, disturbed.
“Probably not.”
“Then this is goodbye.”
“Yes.”
The word brought a grimace to his handsome face. She had the strongest urge to reach up and wipe the pain away with her hand.
“This may sound illogical but in a very short time I’ve come to care about you a great deal, Hannah.”
“It’s an illusion, Tyler. What you’re feeling isn’t real. We’re caught up in this craziness together but if we’d met in a different context, would you have been attracted to me?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I didn’t meet you in another context and I can’t deny the way I feel right now. Whether it’s real or not, who can say?”
“And how do you feel?” she asked, curious and yet dreading to hear his answer. All her life she had suppressed the quiet internal stirrings that whispered to her that she was not like her parents. She wasn’t meant to stay cloistered in some lab, forever peering down a microscope. She had wanted nothing more than to live a normal life, to have friends, go to parties and yet, she had never acted upon these buried desires.
Because deep down inside she was afraid that she could never belong in the ordinary world. That she would always be on the outside looking in. She feared she did not possess the social skills to have a regular life. She’d spent so many years living in the safety of her own mind, she had no idea how to break free.
“I feel like kissing you,” he whispered.
“Oh.” The sudden heat pushing from inside her contrasted with the cool ocean air blowing against her skin.
“Would you mind if I kissed you, Hannah?”
His dark eyes burned with a feverish intensity. An intensity that raised the hair on her arms, and dried her throat. Her pulse hopped. Mind? Would she mind a drink from heaven’s cup? Would she mind an eternity in paradise? Would she mind flying to the stars?
“I don’t know if a kiss would be prudent,” she said rather primly while her thoughts raced in the opposite direction. She ached for him to scoop her into his arms and kiss her so hard that she forgot about Lionel Daycon, Virusall, her spontaneous healing and all the strangeness. She forgot about everything but the taste of Tyler’s lips and the feel of him pressed against her.
“Do you want to be prudent when we might never see each other again?” The wind snatched at his clothing, billowing the tail of his white lab coat around him.
“What would be the point?” she asked, knowing she spoke like a true scientist, detached and analyzing everything to death, but that’s not what she felt. Yet for so many years she had been trained to ignore her emotions and focus only on facts. How did one go about changing their entire personality? If only she could.
“Pleasure. A deadening of the pain, a filling of the emptiness you carry here.” He lightly tapped her chest. “My gift to you. A parting kiss. Something to remember me by.”
“I couldn’t forget you if I wanted to.”
“Nor I you.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand and lowered his head. The sun had gone completely and only the silvery moonlight illuminated them.
His lips were warm. Much warmer than she had expected. And buttery soft. Rocked by incredible sensations, Hannah closed her eyes and tilted her head farther back.
He tasted unique and when his tongue skimmed over her lips she became a part of his taste, blending with him until they were a flavor unto themselves. He held her tightly, one palm pressed against the back of her head, the other resting at her waist. This was pleasure of the most remarkable kind.
Unbidden, her arms reached up and wrapped around Tyler’s neck, drawing him closer. She hadn’t meant to do it but she could not seem to halt her mad rush toward intimacy with this man.
In the past, she had always found kissing rather distasteful, but, then again, she had never kissed Tyler. Instead, Hannah wanted more. She wriggled impatiently, going up on her tiptoes, opening her mouth wider, egging him on.
He groaned and increased the tempo. He seemed as hungry as she.
Kissing him was foolish, rash, an action that simply begged for trouble and yet, once started, she could not stop.
She sank against him, melting, wielding, gluing her mouth to his. Mine, she thought greedily. Mine.
“Sweet,” he whispered. “You taste so damned sweet.”
He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her chin and jaw. He ran his mouth up and down her neck, over her forehead, nibbled her earlobes. He feasted on her neck with wet, burning, openmouthed bites. The need was savage, driving, and she ached for him.
Finally, Hannah drew in a wobbly breath. She was burning up inside, her body a virtual pressure cooker of desire. Never, ever had she suspected that sexual passion could feel like a thunderous waterfall tumbling headlong into rapture. She had secretly dreamed of such passion, had prayed for and fantasized about it, but now that it was within her grasp, she could not keep it.
She had to pull away. Had to put a stop to this while she still could.
“Tyler,” she said panted, “I have to go.”
He stopped kissing her and just held her tightly. “Are you sure?”
�
�Yes.”
They could have been Cathy and Heathcliff on the windswept moors or Rick and Ilsa at the airport hanger, so tragically bittersweet was their parting. She was Hannah Zachary, a dying research scientist who didn’t know how to love and he was Tyler Fresno, a dedicated doctor who wanted to help her but couldn’t; a man who was still in love with his dead wife. The scenario didn’t bode well for a happy ending.
She looked at him. Were those tears shimmering in his eyes? Hannah’s heart wrenched and she felt her own tears swell close to the surface.
“I’ll never forget you,” she said softly.
Lifting his hand, he pressed his fingertips lightly against her lips. “Shh. You’ll come back to me,” he murmured softly, but in their hearts they both knew it simply wasn’t true.
Chapter 6
Hannah looked away from him and gazed toward the sea. While she still had the courage, she had to leave before she begged him to kiss her again. Turning, she hurried back down the pier, heedless of the treacherous rocks beneath her feet.
Her mind raged with thoughts of all she had lost, all that she could not have. She and Tyler would never be lovers. They would not court, they would not fall in love, they would not get married and have children. Hannah would never find out if she was even capable of sustaining an intimate relationship.
Who was she kidding? She didn’t have the vaguest idea about how this man-woman thing worked. And if her relationship with Tyler was taken out of this current context, what were the chances they’d feel the same way toward each other?
Slim. Very slim. She knew their parting was for the best. No sense pining for something she could never have.
“Hannah!” Tyler called. “Please, be careful. Wait for me to guide you.”
She ran. She’d never needed anyone’s help. Never wanted it. Her entire self-image was based on her deep-seated desire to be competent, capable, self-contained. Her soft-soled shoes smacked against the wet rocks. The evening tide rose and slapped against the pier, splashing her with cold, salty water.
Hurry. Run. Go. Forget about Tyler. Forget about these feelings that will only betray you in the end. Concentrate on Marcus.
If she could find Marcus and replicate Virusall, perhaps they could reverse the damaging effects she had suffered by creating an antidote for herself and the people in the clinical trials who’d been given the drug. Maybe then she could return to Tyler, see where they stood.
Face facts. You’re really very good at seeing the truth, the niggling voice in the back of her head insisted. You and Tyler were never meant to be. He was a temporary port in a crazy maelstrom and that was all. Anything else was pure wishful fantasy. And how often had her parents ridiculed fantasy?
“Hannah!” He sounded father away, his voice muted by the rushing wind.
Don’t listen to him, don’t think about him, she urged herself but it was an impossible task, especially when her mouth still burned from the power of his kisses and her blood sang with the heat of his embrace.
She ran on, urgency pushing her into a dim future, away from the man who stirred her in alien and wondrous ways. She hit the beach. Sand flew from beneath her feet and shifted into her shoes. His porch lamp glowed up ahead in the darkness, lighting her way.
Behind her, she heard Tyler mutter a curse but she did not look back. She could not afford to entertain the sentimental sensations growing inside her.
Disassociate. Disconnect. Disengage.
She chanted the lifelong mantra, a technique her mother had taught her for controlling her emotions. But this time, it proved ineffective. She thought only of Tyler’s kisses, his lips.
Forget it. Their relationship wouldn’t last. Even if she wasn’t being chased by a megalomaniac bent on filling the world with drug-induced assassins. Even if she wasn’t slowly dying. Tyler was still longing for his dead wife. She still had no confidence in her femininity. She was his rebound woman. He was her stopgap man.
Well, the gap stopped here. Before either one of them got hurt.
She sprinted up the steps and into his house. Frantically, she grabbed her change of clothes, Tyler’s car keys and the rest of the money he had given her that morning. Whirling on her heels, she turned to escape but his looming presence in the doorway stopped her.
“Hannah,” he said, breathing heavily, “don’t leave like this.”
“Tyler, I…”
That’s when she saw the blood streaming from his right hand. His surgeon’s hand, cut wide open at the juncture between his thumb and index finger.
“What happened?” she cried, dropping everything and springing to his side.
He stared at the cut, at his own blood, as if noticing for the first time that he was injured.
“I fell on the rocks,” he said, “and I cut my hand on some broken glass, but that’s not important.”
“Not important! You’re gushing like a waterfall.”
Tyler blinked and Hannah realized he was in shock. Oh, God, and she had left him out there alone in the dark.
Quickly, she scanned the room for something to stanch the bleeding and spied a clean dishtowel draped over the oven door handle. Springing into action, she pushed him into a chair before his legs buckled, and then snatched the towel from the door handle. She sank to her knees before him and twisted the makeshift bandage around his hand.
There was a lot of blood, on the floor, on his clothes. Tyler’s face was pale, his breathing shallow.
“It didn’t hurt at first,” he said. “Now it’s throbbing like hell. I’m going to need stitches.”
Hannah wrapped her hand over the bulky towel, applying pressure. The bleeding slowed immediately.
An odd heat flooded her palms and radiated out through her fingertips. Then the tingling started.
First it was just in her hands. Then both arms. In a matter of seconds the tingling accelerated, engulfing her entire body in a white-hot hum. She felt like a high-voltage wire vibrating with raw energy. Hannah inhaled sharply.
Exhilaration built in her solar plexus and tickled her insides with an unbelievable dynamism. She wanted to laugh, but was too startled to do so. She felt breathless, excited and uncertain. Looking at Tyler’s hand she saw blood no longer oozed through the towel.
“Hannah?” His voice sounded strange, dreamy.
Her gaze met his. Tyler’s eyes widened. She smiled shyly, as if she had the most awesome secret.
“What’s happening?”
Her elbow rested on his thigh. She felt his leg muscles tense. She shook her head, her hand still pressed firmly against his wound. “I don’t know.”
“I feel…” He hesitated as if unable to fully express what he was experiencing.
“Hot?”
“Sweltering.”
“Light?”
“Like a helium balloon.”
“Tingly?”
“Electric.”
“Dizzy?”
“Tilt-A-Whirl muzzy.”
“I know.” She smiled again, knowing she must look like the crazed Cheshire cat but unable to stop herself.
“You feel it, too?”
Their gazes were locked. She could hear him thinking. He was astounded, caught off guard and nervous. She had never felt so connected to anyone.
“Yes.”
“My hand doesn’t hurt anymore.” His tone was incredulous.
“It’s stopped bleeding.”
“You’re not going to believe this,” he murmured.
“What?”
“It feels as if my skin is actually growing back together.”
A knot of trepidation formed in Hannah’s stomach pushing aside her earlier euphoria.
“Shall we look?”
His breath warmed the nape of her neck as she leaned over his hand. Fear clutched her heart. She sat back on her heels. Slowly, she peeled back the towel soaked with drying blood.
And gasped.
The wound was completely healed. All signs of damage gone. No cut. No blood. Not even a s
car. Simply smooth, uninterrupted skin.
Dubiously, Tyler raised his hand before his face, staring at the wound that wasn’t. His jaw dropped.
He looked at Hannah and held her eyes prisoner with his bewildered stare. “Just what the hell is going on here?”
Panic bloomed in her chest. Shaking her head, she rose to her feet and backed away from him, not believing what she was seeing.
Tyler was healed.
Just as she’d been mysteriously healed of a broken bone and a ruptured spleen.
The implications hit Hannah dead center between the eyes.
Her touch had cured him.
But how? She could marginally buy into the spontaneous regeneration theory in her own body—she’d been exposed to a volatile drug and radioactive particles. But healing Tyler’s wound was something else entirely.
He stalked across the floor and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Tell me, dammit. What’s happening? I’ve got a right to know.”
It was a mind-boggling concept with no answer based in her scientific experience.
She, Hannah Zachary, had the power to heal with a single touch.
“No more evasiveness, Hannah. You’ve got to tell me everything.”
The look in Tyler’s eyes was like flint. She hadn’t known he could be so determined. His fingers dug into her shoulders, not hurting her but firmly insistent nonetheless. Her own knees quaked at the magnitude of what she had just done and her pulse hammered.
“I can’t.”
“I won’t accept no for an answer.”
She tried to move away but he blocked her with his powerful body, pinning her beside the kitchen cabinet, his pelvis pressed flush against her hips.
“Please,” she begged.
“The issue is nonnegotiable.”