Blackwell 2 - Timeswept Rogue

by Amy J. Fetzer

  His back throbbed mercilessly, reminding him of the conse­quences of his recklessness, though the impact of hitting the ocean's surface was a small price for the chance to begin anew. Prying up the brass tongs, Ram flipped open the envelope and froze, a sense of repetition claiming the moment. He turned the packet over in his hands. Twas a larger version of the one Tess possessed, once filled with colored diamonds. His gaze glazed over his surroundings again, ending on the glass filled

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  T1MESWEPT ROGUE

  porthole. Be I in your century, lass, he wondered, drowning his excitement and dumping the contents on the examining table. Graves leaned closer, but Ram's glare sent him back.

  Ram held his time piece up to his ear, shaking it. Water filled and ruined. Slipping it into his pocket, he sheathed his knives and decided not to bother loading the pistol; The powder was wet, the shot jammed, and what remained in the horn and pouch were damp. After shoving the gun in his waistband, he fingered his jacket lining, surprised to feel the heavy coins, then donned the chains.

  "Where did you get those?" Graves asked, gesturing to the matte gold chains as Ram secreted them beneath his shirt.

  "A prize from the turn of a card, puppy." Ramsey didn't mention the Spanish bastard tried twice to regain possession and ended up bleeding all over Ram's finest blade. Dropping onto a stool, he pulled on his boots, his chest tight, the air slow going in.

  "Well, I see you're calmer now."

  Ram glanced up, then leapt to his feet, smiling broadly, unreasonably pleased she was still aboard. The woman leaned against the hatch frame, eyeing him from head to boots, then shifting her gaze to the sailor.

  "The skipper would like to see you, Mister Graves." '

  'Aye-aye, Miss." The sailor nodded, flushing a bit too much, Ramsey thought, as he slipped past the woman.

  They stared, unchanged, unmoving, and Ramsey experienced an exciting tension flickering atween them. Twas his first opportunity to gaze at her without the confusion of drugs or people about him and he let his eyes roam freely. Her garments shaped her body, defining where hip ended and thigh began. God love the fashions of this century, he thought, for he knew he could gaze upon her willowy legs for an eternity. She was as lovely as he first imagined, slender grace and feline seductive. Aye, a fine piece of woman, he thought. Truly fine.

  "M'lady." Ram bowed from the waist, holding her gaze, his sizzling look driving goosefiesh across her bare arms.

  Penny masked his effect by shifting her position, resisting

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  the urge to check if her clothes were burning off her. Those eyes were just too seductive to be legal.

  "Now you really look like a pirate." Yo he ho, she thought.

  He grinned, and something flittered in her stomach.

  " 'Tis not the image I wish to leave in your memory, lass."

  His voice was deep and rumbling, and though she knew she should leave, Penny remained, curious. ' 'Where are you from, Mister O'Keefe?" •

  "I once hailed from Lexington, mistress, yet the sea is my home."

  She laughed shortly. "You liked it so much you tried to drink half of it?'' His smile sweetened, and the churning in her belly quickened.

  " 'Twas not my intention, I assure you. From whence do you hail, m'lady?"

  Her brows rose. He honestly didn't know who she was. Well, for heaven sakes. Penny wasn't conceited, yet rather keenly aware of the publicity usually following her. Movie buffs wanted to know where she dined, who she was seeing, where she shopped, anything—which was one reason why she cher­ished her privacy.

  Yet here was a man who genuinely didn't know her from Adam. What a kick.

  "Florida. Were you stranded on a deserted island or what?" She was trying to reason out his clothes and speech when she ought to keep her mouth shut.

  "Mayhaps." He shrugged, slowly crossing the room, his head feeling drugged again. "Or mayhaps shipwrecked." He stopped inches afore her, his gaze lingering over her delicate features, his words low and raspy. "Or even dropped from the heavens just for you?"

  She rolled her eyes, her tone flat. "Right." A practiced flirt, she thought again, noticing his flushed skin. "Keep it to yourself," she sighed, "that's your business, anyway."

  "And may I be so bold as to ask what a—" Ram paused to draw in air—"lovely lass is doing aboard this rescue ship?"

  Her expression clouded, an imprint of haunted pain, and Ramsey regretted his prying.

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  "We were searching for a friend of mine, lost at sea," came tiny and sad.

  His voice gentled. "I offer my deepest sympathy, m'lady." He bowed slightly, but it took a second to right himself.

  Penny straightened, lowering her arms and looking him over. "Are you okay?"

  He frowned at her, her voice distant.

  "Mister O'Keefe?" His skin turned a horrible shade of pur­ple and she didn't hesitate, pushing the emergency call button. The alarm sounded, and she grabbed his arm when he tottered. "Here, sit down." Foot steps thumped down the passageway. Ramsey's knees wobbled. ' 'Mister O'Keefe. can you hear me?''

  Hunched, Ram looked to the side, his swelling face inches from hers. "Ohh, aye, lass, and a damn sweet—" he struggled to fill his lungs—"sound it is, too." Suddenly his eyes rolled back, his limbs slackening and unable to support his weight, Penny slid to the floor with him just as the doctor raced in.

  "He can't breathe!'

  A crewman pulled her from the deck and Penny staggered back against the bulkhead, panic charging through her veins. The doctor slid to the floor, stripping off Ramsey's coat to examine him, issuing orders and preparing a syringe as a tech administered oxygen. "Allergic reaction to the penicillin," he

  told them, injecting his patient. The ship thumped against the dock as a crewman spoke into the intercom, ordering a chopper.

  "Take mine," Penny offered into the chaos, his laborous wheezing clawing at her composure. ' 'It should already be on the warf."

  The doctor nodded thanks as the techs slid Ramsey's uncon­scious form onto a stretcher, strapping him in. "Bring a trache-pac. We may have to cut him open."

  A tracheotomy, Penny thought, touching her throat.

  Dear God.

  He was dying. Again.

  Someone thrust a bundle into her arms, and she clutched Mister O'Keefe's possessions to her chest as they maneuvered the stretcher through the hatch. For an instant she remained frozen, staring after the medical team as they negotiated the

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  narrow corridor til the skipper nudged her, handing over her hat and oversized hand bag, then urging her to follow. Stuffing the bundle in her bag, she jammed on her hat and climbed the passageway, emerging on deck in time to see them lift him into the chopper. Beneath the flood lights, the craft rose in a swirl of sand and pebbles the instant the door shut. Heedlessly Penny raced to the rail, clutching iron and watching the chopper lights fade before tearing down the gangplank. Please don't die.

  Cameras flashed and popped in her face, lighting the dark, and instinctively she turned away, a swarm of photographers and reporters shoving microphones beneath her chin.

  "Was that Tess Renfrew in the chopper, Miss Hamilton?"

  "Was she alive?"

  "Reports state she jumped off the Nassau Queen, was it suicide?''

  "What condition did you find the body?"

  Penny shielded her face with her bulky bag as the skipper put an arm around her shoulder, gesturing heatedly to his men. Sailors pushed the media back, clearing a path to a waiting car.

  "Vultures!" he muttered, dropping into the seat, cameras flashing beyond the glass. "The airport, please," he told the driver, then looked at Penny as the sedan pulled away.' 'I gather you want to go to the hospital?"

  "No. My hotel first." His brows rose. "I can't help Mister O'Keefe now, and I need to change into something less obvious. If anything,"
she inclined her head toward the rear window and the reporters hounding beyond—"to distract them. The last thing he needs is the press grilling him, too."

  If he lives, she thought, staring out into the night, the memory of his teasing^smile hanging bright amidst her grief.

  Ramsey would rather die than admit to anyone he was terri­fied out of his mind. He couldn't move. Mind and muscle refused to cooperate. Faces loomed in his field of vision, then

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  receded. He felt as if he'd smoked opium, having tried it one, afore and thought it useless to be so incoherent.

  Needles pierced his arm. Firm hands tried to suffocate him with the masks, forcing him to breath in foul-tasting air. A half dozen men and women in green shirts asked him questions he couldn't answer; half because he couldn't understand what they meant, half because he couldn't form the words. His breathing was painfully slow and wheezy, and he couldn't begin to follow the conversation beyond the urgency in their voices.

  God almighty.

  He regretted taking the risk; regretted leaving the comfort and familiarity of his own time. He wanted to go back. Desper­ately. To lie bare-assed afore strangers was humiliating, then to have them do things to his body he couldn't stop only served to heighten the disgusting sensation. He closed his eyes, trying to block the debasing feel of the man's hands on his prick. A catheter, he said. Whatever the deuce that was.

  You be an arrogant fool, O'Keefe. You're in a strange time,

  a hellish place, with tubes and needles stuck in you like some pagan sacrifice. You're penniless, weaponless, and you dying, man, alone.

  Bloody hell.

  Bloody friggin' hell!

  Chapter 6

  Penny stood before the glass window, staring at the man lying in the hospital bed, the gray-cased monitor by his bedside pulsing his steady heartbeat. He was just a stranger, arriving in her life when she sought only Tess and answers. But watching him go from flirt to dead man made her uncharacteristically vulnerable. And she didn't like it one damn bit, didn't want to get involved with anyone, especially Robinson Crusoe here. Her emotions were back under control now, and she cursed herself for allowing him to get to her, for even the thought of men and relationships were out of the question in her career. Especially in an industry that was fertile ground for breeding scandal and invasion and backstabbing hatred. She needed her seclusion too much, and though maintaining it was an every day task, her life was just fine as it was.

  Keep saying that and maybe you'll believe it, a voice pestered, sounding far too much like Tess, and she shifted her shoulders as if to nudge it away.

  Admit it bud, you 're the loneliest woman on this planet.

  There's a difference between alone and lonely.

  Coward.

  Penny rubbed her forehead, a headache starting. She hadn't

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  slept and though a tiny part of her would like to blame him, nightmares kept her awake. I ought to be used to it after so many years, she thought, wanting to leave and be done with him. Yet, holding the man's possessions forced her to pay him a visit. Five minutes and that's it, she decided. No concern, no attachment. No emotion.

  Yet she watched him, memorizing his features, something breaking open in her chest and flooding through her blood stream every time she looked at him. It pulled, this sensation and it made her wary. Ramsey O'Keefe recJined, half-sitting, his chestnut-brown hair side-parted and shielding his face, flowing beyond his shoulders. Her gaze lowered to the white hospital gown, the taut fabric defining the muscles of his chest and folded arms. Nice arms. He didn't move a fraction and stared off into space, pitifully forlorn.

  Stop it. Don't care. Don't! That's what gets you hurt. Just deliver the goods and split!

  "Miss Hamilton?"

  Penny turned, the man's white coat marking him the doctor, as did the stethescope slung across his neck and no doubt, the illegible notations he jotted on a chart. ' 'Are you a friend of Mister O'Keefe's?" He gestured with the top of his pen to the window, then wrote some more.

  "No. Yes. Well, not really."

  The doctor shot a skeptical glance between his patient and the actress, then continued making notations.

  "I happen to be on the rescue ship when he was found."

  "I see."

  No, you don't, she thought, glancing at his name tag; DR. MARKUM. "What's our acquaintance have to do with any­thing?" '

  He scribbled, dotting i's and crossing t's. "Have you spoken to him?"

  "Only briefly," she said, frowning, recalling his definitely archaic speech.

  Markum straightened, giving her his complete attention for the first time. "I'd hoped you could help me, Miss Hamilton." He gently pulled Penny away from the nurses' station. At four-

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  thirty in the morning the halls were dark, silent, yet his low tone sounded loud. "There are things about Mister O'Keefe that cannot be explained."

  She adjusted her overloaded shoulder bag. "Such as?"

  Her cool attitude made him hesitate for a second.' 'He hasn't been immunized against any childhood diseases."

  "Not one?"

  He shook his head. "Not even the standards for a toddler, DPT, HTB, polio. And his teeth are a puzzle in themselves. Two have been pulled."

  "An every day occurrence."

  "I don't mean surgically extracted, they've literally been yanked from his head. And from x-rays we've determined his jaw was cracked in the process." Her eyes widened a fraction. "The rest are fine, a bit crooked for the loss of the molars, and a few cavities need to be filled." He shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Our resident DDS reports that Mister O'Keefe has had several hairline fractures in his chin and cheek and his nose has been broken at least five times."

  Penny's face ached by the time he'd finished. "What does he," she inclined her head toward the ICU unit, "have to say about all this?"

  ''Nothing. He won't answer a single question and has refused any further testing."

  "He has a right to privacy, Doctor Markum."

  For an instant the diagnostician had forgotten he was speak­ing to America's most reclusive actress. "Aside that the police need answers he won't give, I can't administer any medication without more information and tests." The physician slipped his pen in his coat pocket, leaving a mark. "According to a medical records search, Ramsey O'Keefe has never been treated, at least not by a licensed physician in the Grand Islands, nor the U.S

  Penny arched a brow. "Perhaps he's just done without."

  "Then he has the strength of an ox, for that man owns enough scars to warrant being a cop or a war hero." Markum hesitated then, shifting the aluminum chart to his other hand and staring at his patient. ' 'No, he's had treatment. And beyond

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  Amy J. Fetzer

  his medical needs, he has several scars on his back. And I'd bet my stethescope," his gaze shifted back to her—"they're the result of a whipping."

  "An abusive childhood?" she rushed to suggest, the horri­fying image of him restrained as the skin was stripped from his back forming in her mind. It had to be childhood. The incident in the infirmary said he'd never allow such a barbaric crime without a fight.

  ' They' re too... fresh,'' he said grimly. ' 'Regardless, I can' t treat him further, nor release him, not after what he's been through. I need more information, Miss Hamilton, and he won't talk." His tone implied she could get the answers he needed.

  Penny doubted that.

  Shielding her eyes, she was rubbing her temples, thinking she ought to stay out of hippie's business, when she heard the unmistakable sound of a camera shudder. She started to slip into the room, then halted, catching a glimpse of O'Keefe through the glass.

  He shouldn't be subjected to this because of me, she thought. Especially if what Markum said was true. Turning on her heels, she brushed past the doctor and crossed the half, arms reac
hing, her body briefly disappearing into a darkened alcove.

  "Come on, Miss Hamilton, just one picture," Dr. Markum heard and moved closer, frowning into the shadowed corridor. Miss Hamilton stepped back, yanking a slender blond photogra­pher none-too-gently by his camera strap until he was beneath the fluorescent light.

  "Somehow I knew it was you, Maxwell." Tired, almost amused.

  "Who else?" He smiled, unashamed. "You're my life's work, Miss Hamilton."

  "I bet that really disappointed your mother." Penny turned the camera back-side up.

  "Nah, she's a big fan. Hey, you can't—"

  She slapped his hand away. "Yes, I can. This is a private hospital." Penny easily flipped the lock and with tapered nails, plucked out the roll. "Private." She jerked on it, exposing the film.

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  Doctor Markum, along with several hospital staff, watched the exchange as he picked up the phone and dialed security.

  "But you're famous," the photographer said.

  Penny's eyes narrowed as she undipped the camera strap and turned away.

  "And the public has a right to know." He followed, groping for his Nikon.

  "Get lost before I*call the cops." She elbowed him aside.

  "Who's the long hair in ICU, Miss—?"

  ''Drop dead, Max.'' Penny reached for the knob to O'Keefe's door.

  "He sure doesn't look like be needs intensive care." Max shifted behind her, trying to take back his camera, but she blocked him like a linebacker. Finally he gave up. "Why all the secrecy? Is he your latest lover? It has been a while> ya know. And I hear he's a real space case." His tone was snide. "Or is he Tess Renfrew's killer?"

  Penny faced him, head tilted. "You know, Max, 1 might disregard the fact that you work for a cesspool magazine and give you the exclusive on this. Since you've always managed to report the truth." His face brightened. "But that crack just cost you any chance."