She headed for the door. “I’ll just wash your supper dishes and then we’ll be out of your way so you can sleep again. I’m leaving your pain pills right here by the bed. Use them, Mr. McKinnon,” she said sternly. “As Estelle said, if you don’t stay on top of the pain, it’s only that much harder to get it under control again.”
She stood and reached across the bed for the dinner tray then carried it out of the room, leaving behind a tantalizing hint of the sweet, spring-like smell of violets.
* * *
Just past midnight, Allie sat up in bed again, hugging her knees tightly as she gazed at the glowing light of the baby monitor by her bed.
Stubborn man. Why didn’t he have the good sense to take something for his obvious pain?
The monitor was just too sensitive. Sounds came through loud and clear. She could hear blankets rustling and the bed creaking under his weight as he shifted restlessly, and every once in a while she heard him mumble something low and tortured, then a sharp intake of breath that probably indicated he had moved wrong.
She had a feeling he wasn’t really conscious. He never would have betrayed his discomfort if he were awake.
She knew she would never be able to sleep until she could be confident her patient rested comfortably. But shy of shoving the blasted pills down his unconscious throat, she didn’t know how she would ever be able to accomplish that.
She had to do something, though. She wasn’t sure she could take much more of this.
The hardest part of her job as a nurse had been seeing people come into her emergency room in agonizing pain and knowing there were limits to how much of that pain could be controlled. In this case she knew Gage would sleep far more deeply and comfortably if he would only take some pain medication.
He made another one of those raspy sounds in his throat, and she knew she couldn’t ignore it any longer. With a sigh, she slid from her bed to the cool wood floor.
Pale moonlight shimmered through the curtains of her cozy little bedroom as she quickly threw on shorts under the T-shirt she slept in and slipped into her sneakers. After a quick peek into the girls’ room where she found them both sleeping soundly, she grabbed her keys and walked outside, locking her house behind her.
The night was cool, scented sweetly from the hundreds of blooms growing next door. She paused on her steps to inhale some of that fresh air into her lungs. Something about the night reminded her of summer evenings on her grandparents’ farm in western Pennsylvania with frogs peeping in the pond and fireflies flashing over the hay fields and a barn owl swooping silently through the night sky in search of prey.
She had never lived anywhere but Pennsylvania but she was finding she enjoyed life in the Rocky Mountains. The air was thinner and drier than she was used to and everything seemed to move at a different pace here but she and the girls seemed to have settled in.
For how long, she didn’t know. If only she could shake this fear that hounded every stop, that left her anxious and uneasy.
Allie jerked herself back to her responsibilities and hurried up the steps to Gage McKinnon’s house. After she found the key and unlocked the door, she stood inside trying to get her bearings in the dimly lit house. Before she left, she had turned the light on over the stove in the kitchen, but that provided the only illumination in the house except for the pale moonlight spilling in through the windows.
Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure exactly what to do. She suddenly realized she couldn’t just burst into his bedroom to check on him. Not when the man was a trained law enforcement officer who slept with an ugly black revolver under his pillow.
After a moment’s indecision, Allie hurried to the bedroom door and knocked softly. “Mr. McKinnon? Gage?”
She heard nothing for several long moments, then a sleepy growl answered. “What?”
Maybe coming over here wasn’t the greatest of ideas. He didn’t exactly sound thrilled about the nocturnal visit.
“It’s me. Al—” She caught herself just in time before she blurted out the wrong name. “Lisa Connors. I’m coming in. Don’t shoot,” she tried for a joke, then pushed open the door.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. In the dim light she could see that he had pulled himself up to a sitting position in the bed. His hair was messed and the muscles of his bare chest gleamed.
Oh, mercy.
She cleared her throat. “You were moaning in your sleep. I was worried about you.”
He glared at her. “Worry about yourself. You’re hearing things. I’m doing fine. Or I was, until a few moments ago.”
Despite his insistence, she could see lines of pain around his mouth, and she thought he looked a shade or two paler than he had when she left earlier in the evening, but that could have been a trick of the moonlight. “You know you would have a more restful sleep if you took something.”
“I’d have a more restful sleep if my nosy neighbor didn’t come poking around, waking me up.”
She deserved that, she supposed. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve done your job and checked up on me. As you can see, I’m fine.”
There was clear dismissal in his tone but she wasn’t quite ready to leave until she’d had some chance to assess his condition for herself. “While I’m here—and since you’re up now, anyway—I would feel better if I could check your vital signs.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“You met Estelle. Do you think either one of us wants to be on her bad side?”
He only grunted in answer, which she took as assent. After she turned on the low lamp by the bed, she found the equipment she needed on the dresser. He didn’t protest when she shoved the thermometer in his mouth then wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his upper arm, trying fiercely to ignore the little sizzle of awareness that sparked inside her as her hands wrapped around his powerful biceps.
Her fingers quickly found his pulse at his wrist, a reassuring strong, steady beat, then she inflated the blood pressure cuff and put the stethoscope to her ears, conscious of him watching her movements out of those steely gray eyes.
By the time she finished touching all that warm, sexy male skin and pulled the thermometer from his mouth, she was feeling jittery, light-headed. Maybe she ought to check her blood glucose while she was awake. Or maybe she should just avoid touching Gage McKinnon in a moonlit bedroom in the middle of the night.
“You’ve done this before,” he said after she noted his vital signs on the chart Estelle had left and returned the equipment to the dresser.
“Yes,” she acknowledged after a moment.
“Are you a nurse?”
She thought about lying to him. But he was too sharp-eyed, too astute. He would know she wasn’t telling the truth and would be suspicious as to what possible motive she might have for the lie.
“Yes,” she finally said again.
She would have left it at that—better not to muddy things with unnecessary explanations—but he only waited, watching her out of those intent gray eyes, and she knew she had to add more.
“I’m not licensed in Utah yet. That’s why I agreed to take this job, because technically I didn’t need to be licensed for it.”
“What were you doing until yesterday?”
“Cleaning rental units for Ruth.”
She could see by his puzzled look that he was wondering why a registered nurse would be content scrubbing toilets and making beds.
“I guess it was a lucky day for you that I was stupid enough to get my legs broken then, wasn’t it?” he finally said.
“Oh, yes,” she said dryly. “You’re a real answer to prayer.”
To her surprise, he actually unbent enough to respond with a small smile. She blinked. It was only a smile. Nothing to get all twitter-pated about, even though he certainly didn’t seem to have many of them to spare.
Still, she had to admit that simple, momentary lightening of his expression changed him from a stern, unapproachable FBI agent to a gorgeous, bare-chested
male.
To cover up her reaction, she finally ventured to ask the question she’d been wondering about for the last hour, since hearing his unconscious mutterings on the baby monitor. “Was someone else injured in your accident?”
He gave a rough laugh. “Let me tell you something, sweetheart. When a suspect trying to evade arrest deliberately crushes you against a brick retaining wall with a three-ton pickup, accident isn’t exactly the best word choice.”
She winced at the mental image he conjured up. “Sorry. Was anyone else with you?”
“A dozen other FBI agents and local cops were there. None was lucky enough to receive the same special attention. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “While you were sleeping, I thought I heard you call out for someone named Charlie. I thought it might have been another FBI agent who had been hurt along with you.”
His expression went instantly cold, so cold she shivered, regretting whatever crazy impulse had led her to bring up the subject. “I must have been having a nightmare.”
She knew she should just let it drop but something made her push. “Is Charlie a friend?”
“Charley was short for Charlotte.”
Someone he had loved very much, she suspected, at least judging by the raw pain in his voice. She thought he would let the matter drop but after a moment he went on, his face without expression and his eyes focused on the curtains fluttering in the night breeze.
“Charlotte was my kid sister. She was kidnapped from our front yard when she was three years old. We never saw her again.”
CHAPTER 6
With a swift intake of air, her face went slack with shock. The woman didn’t hide her emotions worth diddly. It was all there in her features—horror and compassion and disbelief.
“Kidnapped! How awful for you and for your parents! How old were you?”
“Twelve,” he answered tersely, cursing himself for bringing the whole thing up.
He wasn’t sure why he did. He never talked about it. Never. He was sure Charlotte’s case history showed up in his file at the Bureau—the intensive background check done on him before he was accepted at Quantico would have turned up the whole grisly story. But none of his superiors ever brought up the kidnapping and he never volunteered the information.
So why tell Lisa Connors? A woman he barely knew, a woman he suspected had enough secrets of her own? Maybe because her columbine eyes had looked all soft and concerned and because it had been so long since someone had worried about him.
Or maybe because on some subconscious level, he still felt about as low as that imaginary garter snake he’d been thinking about earlier for the warning he’d given her to keep her daughters away from him.
Maybe he wanted her to make the connection he hadn’t been able to spell out—that seeing her daughters, listening to their innocent laughter, was a painful reminder of the guilt he carried inside him over his sister’s disappearance.
In the light spilling into the room from the bathroom he could see the brightness of unshed tears in her eyes. Damn, he hoped she didn’t cry. Not over him.
“It happened a long time ago. I’m not sure why I would have said her name in my sleep. Like I said, I must have been having a bad dream.”
He didn’t like explaining himself and he especially didn’t like feeling responsible for those emotions swimming in her eyes.
“Look, I appreciate you coming to check on me,” he said gruffly. “But as I told you, I’m fine. I was sleeping and I would like to get back to it, if it’s all the same to you.”
She looked as if she wanted to say more about Charlotte—how could he expect otherwise?—but after a moment she followed his lead and let the subject drop.
“Are you sure you won’t take something for your pain?” she asked.
That dead horse again. He sighed heavily. “If I do, will you leave me alone at least until the sun comes up?”
“Yes. If you take a pain pill, I promise I won’t bother you again until morning.”
“Great. Let’s have it, then.” He held out a hand and waited while she opened the prescription bottle and poured out two of the blasted things. She poured him fresh water from the pitcher she’d brought in earlier in the evening and handed him both.
Though he felt about as mature as a four-year-old, he concealed the nasty-tasting pills under his tongue and made a big show of pretending to swallow.
She bought it, apparently, because her features softened into a smile. “Anything else I can do for you before I go home?”
“Yeah. Turn off the monitor. To be honest, I’m not at all comfortable having you listen to me while I sleep.”
“Agent McKinnon—”
“Don’t you think you could call me Gage by now?”
“Gage, then. You need some way to reach me if something were to happen to you.”
“I have the phone right here. Since one of those pills makes me loopy enough, I’m sure two of them will knock me into next week.”
“Are you sure?”
“I like my privacy. That’s why I left the hospital in the first place. How would you like it if you had to try to sleep knowing somebody was listening to your every move?”
Gage was relieved to see that soft compassion give way to exasperation. He could cope with annoyance far easier than he could handle tender-hearted sympathy.
To his relief, she crossed to the baby monitor and switched it off. While her back was still turned, he spit the pain pills out into his hand and hid them beneath his blanket with a maneuver that was as slick as it was sneaky, if he did say so himself.
When she turned around, he tried for an expression as innocent as he could make it.
Maybe he was spreading it just a little too thick because she narrowed her gaze suspiciously. He thought she might be on to him but she only sighed. “Has anyone ever told you, Agent McKinnon, that you could give lessons in stubborn to a whole barnyard full of mules?”
He managed a smile. “Not in those exact words but I’ve been called worse.”
“Just make sure you remember who’s to blame if you fall out of bed and end up spending a cold, miserable night on the floor.”
“Not you, of course.”
“And don’t you forget it.” With crisp, efficient movements, she reached out to straighten his blankets one last time, leaning close to him as she did and sending another sweet hint of that clean, honest violet scent washing over him.
In a demoralizing moment of self-discovery, Gage forced himself to face the horrible realization that maybe a warped corner of his psyche secretly enjoyed her fussing over him.
No, he just liked her. He could count on one hand the number of people he genuinely liked but there was something about Lisa Connors he found refreshing and decent. She represented a whole host of things that were missing from his life—things he never even noticed weren’t there, like kindness, gentleness, compassion.
Beyond that, he had to admit he was physically attracted to her. With that short, wispy haircut and her delicate features and those big blue eyes, she reminded him of some kind of mystical creature out of a novel. A wood sprite or something.
If he didn’t feel so lousy, Gage would have been tempted to check if that curved bow of a mouth tasted like violets, to skim his fingers over that skin to see if it could possibly be as soft as it looked.
If he tried, would she push him away or would she welcome him into her arms?
Gage cut off the crazy line of thought when he felt his body stir to life under the blankets she had just straightened.
“I need to get back to my girls,” she said, deflating his fledgling interest faster than backing through a tire ripper.
She wasn’t his kind of woman at all. As appealing as he might find her on several different levels, she had a couple of major shortcomings that would keep him from ever pursuing anything with her—two little girls.
He had a strict policy against becoming involved with women who had children, a policy he wasn’t a
bout to bend, even for someone as attractive as Lisa Connors.
“Right,” he muttered. “Good night, then.”
“Be sure to call if you need me.”
“I will,” he lied.
After she left, he pulled the pills from their hiding place beneath his blanket and tossed them into the trash, trying not to notice the soft, sweet scent that lingered in the air behind her.
Yeah, he might sleep better with the damn things. But he would be far more comfortable knowing he had all his faculties about him.
Besides, since she turned off the monitor, he could sleep free from the worry that he might call out the names of any more of the ghosts that haunted him.
* * *
“You can tell me the truth now, girl. How are you and our favorite grouchy hottie really getting along?”
Allie paused in the middle of pouring a glass of Estelle Montgomery’s favorite diet soda after the home care nurse’s daily check on Gage.
In the week since her patient had returned to his house and she had begun caring for him, she had come to savor these few moments with Estelle after a full day of tending to a churlish man who made no secret of the fact that he didn’t want her there.
Still, as much as she enjoyed visiting with the nurse, she absolutely did not want to have this particular conversation with her.
“I…fine,” she lied. “Just fine.”
“Really?”
Allie debated her answer while she added a slice of lemon to the lip of the glass. She had a feeling Estelle could see right through her polite lie. She should just tell her the truth, that Gage McKinnon and his dark temper and gorgeous looks made her more nervous than a whole room full of yellow jackets.
If she entertained any misconceptions that their encounter that first night might have been the beginning of a wary friendship, Gage quickly quashed them. He didn’t really complain about anything, he was just abrupt and brusque and deflected any of her attempts at conversation.
None of this could be easy on him. She could sympathize with him on that score. She always hated the times she had to be in the hospital, even though she’d been dealing with the medical complications of her diabetes since childhood.
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