by Tami Hoag
Shane had despised them for what they were. By the end of the case he had nearly come to despise himself. He had gotten too close, lost his focus, lost his edge, and nearly lost his life because of it. He could still see Adam Strauss’s face twisted in rage, still hear the hoarse cry as the man realized Shane was the one who had betrayed him and the organization he worked for. Once again Shane felt the bullet slam into his shoulder.
The dream became even more disjointed then. There were bits and pieces of memory from the emergency room and the hospital. He listened again to John Banks’s slow monotone explanation of Strauss’s escape, and to reassurances spoken in the same emotionless tone of voice.
“He’ll never find you, Shane. We covered your tracks so well, it looks like you vanished into thin air.”
Then he saw himself floating through the black void of space, touching nothing and no one.
Faith dipped the washcloth into the pan of water again, wrung it out, and lifted it to Shane’s forehead. He tried to push her away and twisted restlessly on the sheets. Dodging his arm, she shushed him and pressed the cool cloth to his brow.
Matthews had diagnosed the problem as an infection to the gunshot wound in Callan’s shoulder. The necessary medications had magically appeared and been administered. He had assured Faith all they had to do now was wait for the drugs to kick in. Shane would be fine in a day or so. This wasn’t anything he hadn’t gone through before.
A gunshot wound. That ought to tell you something, Faith Kincaid, she thought with a sigh, as she sat back in her chair beside his bed. This was a man to steer clear of. He wasn’t a part of the world in which she wanted to exist. She was an ordinary woman with ordinary needs and dreams.
At any rate she wasn’t the sort of person who craved a lot of excitement. She didn’t need to get involved with people who took getting shot in stride as a normal hazard of their everyday lives.
But when Shane moaned in his sleep, she bent over him to stroke a soothing hand along the hot, rough, beard-shadowed plane of his cheek. The action was as automatic as breathing. She responded to him on an instinctive level. Just as she had turned to him when she had been stricken with fear, she could not turn away from him while he was stricken with fever.
Fever wasn’t all that was plaguing him, she thought, as she tried to quiet him. He moaned and mumbled protests, his head snapping from side to side on the pillow. Sweat beaded again on his forehead as he struggled with some hidden demon. Faith thought of the emotions she had heard in his music—the longing, the loneliness—and wondered if there was any connection to what haunted his dreams.
Romanticizing again, Faith, she scolded herself, and nibbled on her lip.
In all fairness it was difficult not to fantasize, considering the circumstances. She felt like the heroine of a historical novel, a damsel nursing a fallen knight—who happened to be more handsome than the devil himself. With a sigh she sat back and studied him as he settled into a deeper sleep.
Again the lines of his face struck her as being aristocratic—the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the finely chiseled mouth. Even in sleep it was a strong face. And the strength continued down the corded muscles of his neck to his broad shoulders. Whorls of black hair adorned the planes of his chest and swirled down in a line bisecting his abdomen, disappearing beneath the sheet he kept trying to kick off. Faith’s cheeks bloomed fuchsia as her imagination rushed to picture the half of him covered by eyelet-edged ecru linen. If the top half of him was anything to go by, the bottom half of him had to be breathtaking.
Who was he, she wondered, trying frantically to get her mind off his anatomy. Where was he from? What was his family background? How could she be so attracted to him without knowing these vital bits of information? She wasn’t the sort to fall for a man based on looks alone.
Her gaze wandered around his room, taking in every detail that might give her some clue to the enigma that was Shane Callan. He was neat. His clothes hung in the armoire rather than over the furniture. What few personal items he left out were on the oak nightstand. There was a silver flask, a pack of cigarettes, two guns, and a book of poetry.
Smith and Wesson, and William Butler Yeats.
He was a riddle inside a puzzle inside an elegantly handsome facade.
Unable to stop herself, Faith reached out with one finger and traced the length of his arm. It was a trail that followed the hills and valleys of muscle of a man who used his body as well as his mind. The hair on the back of his forearm rasped gently against her fingertips, and tingles of awareness shot through her. She pulled her hand away as if his fevered skin had singed her. Her gaze jerked back up to his shoulder, where a fresh bandage covered the bullet wound that was giving him such grief.
She wanted a simple life, a quiet life.
“No, Faith,” she whispered to herself. Even now attraction tugged between them, but she denied it. “You don’t want to get involved with this man.”
FIVE
“YOU LOOK LOTS better.”
Shane’s brows shot up as he opened his eyes and slowly turned his head on the pillow to see little Lindy planted beside his bed, staring up at him with an expression of almost adult certainty on her cherubic face. Remnants of her bout with the chicken pox dotted her cheeks and forehead, but her dark eyes glowed with energy.
“Me and Mama are taking care of you,” she informed him, lifting a small red plastic case onto the bed. Opening it, she revealed an array of miniature doctor’s tools and a stash of candy. “It’s my turn now ’cause Mama’s busy. We have to see if you have a temp’ture. Open up!”
Obediently Shane opened his mouth and let Lindy stick a toy thermometer between his teeth. She pulled a pint-sized stethoscope out of her case, stuck the ends in her ears, and pressed the business end to his muscular biceps.
“Hmm …” she mused, pursing her lips, her eyebrows pulling together in thought.
“Well, nurse,” he asked soberly, “what do you think?”
Lindy beamed a smile at him, dimples cutting into her rosy cheeks. “I think you’re all better enough to color for a little while, but Mama will probably make you take a nap after that.”
Pushing her doctor’s bag aside, she scrambled up on the bed beside him with a coloring book and box of crayons clutched to her.
Keeping a discreet hold of the quilt that covered him, Shane eased himself up so he could lean back against the headboard. He tucked the blankets tightly around his waist, and Lindy settled in against his good side, as content and trusting as if she had known him her whole life.
A mysterious knot lodged itself in Shane’s throat. He swallowed it down and told himself he was just thirsty. He wasn’t in the least affected by this sweet, innocent darling with the unruly blond curls. Not in the least.
“This is the color book Aunt Jayne gave me for having the chicken spots,” Lindy explained as she opened the book to a fresh page and offered Shane his pick of the crayons. “I’m sharing it with you because I think you’re nice.”
Oh, hell, Shane thought, selecting a stubby blue crayon, of course he was affected. He and little Lindy were from opposite ends of the spectrum. She was everything good, and he had seen everything evil, yet Faith’s daughter cuddled against his side in her fuzzy pajamas, completely unconcerned. How could that irony not bring out all his protective instincts?
“Aunt ’Laina gave me that nurse game,” Lindy explained as she started in enthusiastically on a picture of the Care Bears. “She said I could grow up to be a doctor, and she would chase the am’blances.” She scrunched up her little pixie face and giggled. “Isn’t that silly?”
Shane chuckled. He should have been hauling himself out of bed and seeing to the case, but somehow the idea didn’t appeal to him as much as sharing these few moments with this child.
You’re losing it, Callan, his little inner voice muttered. For once he managed to ignore it.
Faith froze in the doorway, then sagged against the jamb. Nothing had prepared her for the
sight before her or for the effect it had on her heart. Shane, sitting up in bed, bare-chested, black hair tousled, looking impossibly masculine and sexy and in need of a shave. And Lindy curled up against his side in her pink pajamas, jabbering away a mile a minute as the pair of them colored.
“Lord, don’t do this to me,” Faith whispered despairingly. She was too exhausted, too emotionally drained right now to fight off the wave of feelings that assaulted her on seeing that big tough cop coloring with her four-year-old daughter. Wearily she closed her eyes.
In a flash every memory she had of Shane Callan passed through her mind—his initial arrogance, the intense sadness of his music, his vulnerability as he’d lain sick with fever and whatever memories tortured his sleep. She thought of the book of poetry she’d found on his nightstand. She thought of the incredible physical magnetism that drew her to him. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him again as he bent his dark head and murmured something that made Lindy giggle.
And in that instant Faith fell hopelessly, totally in love.
It wasn’t a pleasant thing. It wasn’t flowers and church bells and bird song. It was a long hard fall down a bumpy hill to the rocks of reality. She was in love with a man who distanced himself from people. He kept to himself behind a wall of cynicism and distrust. She didn’t want to be in love with him. Any woman with an ounce of common sense would have taken one look and known Shane Callan was nothing but a heartbreaker.
That had to mean she didn’t have a shred of intelligence then, because she was looking at him now, and all she wanted was to go join him on that bed and have him take her in his strong arms and hold her.
The fingers of her left hand curled around the smooth wood of the door frame as if to keep her from giving in to that desire. It seemed she didn’t have the strength or the sense to keep from loving the wrong man. First William Gerrard, now Shane Callan.
“Darn it all,” she muttered on a sigh of resignation. Why did she have to be such a blasted romantic? Bryan had always counseled her to hang on to that trait. He’d said the world needed more romantics. Maybe that was true, Faith thought, but why the heck did she have to be one of them?
“Hi, Mama!” Lindy chirped, shooting her a grin that was lacking a tooth on the upper right-hand side. “Me and Shane are coloring!”
Faith gathered herself together and stepped into the room, trying to look unruffled. “Lindy, sweetie, you shouldn’t be in here. Mr. Callan needs his rest.”
“But he’s all better,” Lindy said earnestly. Twisting around to look up at Shane, she said in a loud whisper, “Told you she’d make you take a nap.”
“Scoot, pumpkin.”
Lindy crumpled against her oversize playmate and sent her mother her most plaintive look. “Can’t we color a little more? Please, Mama. Shane’s real good. He stays inside the lines.”
Shane lifted the book for her perusal, looking up at her with smoky eyes as a lock of night black hair tumbled across his forehead. “See, Mom?”
His voice was low and rough, more so than usual. This was probably what he sounded like first thing in the morning or just after making love. Faith’s skin blossomed with heat at the images that thought evoked.
“Very nice.” She shot him a wry look and motioned her daughter toward the door. “Lindy, go on and see what Aunt Jayne is watching on TV.”
Pouting, Lindy gathered her toys together and climbed down from the bed. A disgruntled frown marred her forehead as she grumbled, “All she ever watches is movies, and I fall asleep ’cause I’m too little.”
Faith shook her head as she watched her daughter shuffle dejectedly out into the hall.
“I’ll have to have a talk with her about wandering into people’s rooms before the inn opens for business,” she said. “That could be a very embarrassing habit for her to get into.”
“Not to mention prematurely educational,” Shane quipped, enjoying the color that rose in Faith’s cheeks. He had to admit he found her modesty refreshing and sweet, and damned if it didn’t turn him on. Desire stirred lazily inside him as he wondered whether or not she would be shy with him in bed.
“I’m sorry if she woke you.”
“She didn’t bother me at all,” he said, a little surprised that it was true. It had been so long since he’d had the chance to be around small children, he’d forgotten how much he enjoyed their company. “Anyway, I have a feeling it’s time I got up.”
“You’re in no condition to get up,” Faith protested, planting her hands on her gently rounded hips and giving him a look of maternal command, even though maternal was the last thing she felt when she looked at him.
“That never stopped me before.” He actually found the makings of a smile to send her. Unconsciousness had done wonders for his temperament.
If he had looked sexy before, Faith thought, he looked doubly so now, alone in the bed with the covers riding low on his flat belly. Darn it, why couldn’t the government have sent her a fat, balding toad of a special agent?
Breathlessly she asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” His brain felt like steel wool, his shoulder throbbed, and his skin hurt all over, but these complaints seemed minor enough to fit under the heading of “fine.” By the look of her Faith wasn’t able to make the same claim.
Shadows hung under her dark eyes in violet crescents. The pallor of her skin was a sharp contrast to the soft pink sweater she wore above a mauve cotton skirt that was gathered at the waist and hung down well past her knees. She was unquestionably as nervous as a cat and looked as if she had never even heard of a good night’s sleep, let alone enjoyed one.
“How long have I been out?” Shane asked, scratching at the stubble that covered his lean cheeks.
“About nineteen hours,” she answered as she flitted about his room like a hyperactive butterfly, straightening things that had already been straightened a dozen times and had never needed it in the first place. She could have told him how long he’d been out to the minute, but she didn’t think it would be a wise thing to reveal, considering how it would reflect on her.
“Agent Matthews says the wound in your shoulder is infected.” She started leaning in the direction of the door, eager to make her escape. “I should go get him. He’ll want to see you.”
Shane’s right hand snaked out and closed quickly but gently around her delicate wrist, snaring her alongside his bed. Her eyes rounded in alarm.
“That can wait,” he said. “I want to talk to you first. What happened?”
“You passed out.” Somehow Faith knew it wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but it was the only one she wanted to give him.
He shook his head impatiently. “While I was out, what happened?”
She frowned at his suddenly wary look. “You didn’t reveal any state secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about. You growled and snarled and were generally unpleasant, but that wasn’t anything I hadn’t already experienced.”
“What else?” he prodded.
“Nothing, really.”
She was a terrible liar. Her teeth dug into her lower lip, and her gaze darted around the room, landing everywhere but on him. She was keeping something from him. Even if it hadn’t been written all over her lovely face, Shane could sense the tension in her.
Instead of wanting to shake the truth out of her, he found himself wanting to pull her into his arms and coax it out of her with gentle kisses. That was a bad idea, but he was darn near beyond caring about job ethics where Faith Kincaid was concerned. Just looking at her, even now when he was only at half strength, he wanted her. He was beginning to think they were simply going to have to deal with that desire sooner or later, because it obviously wasn’t going to go away.
At the moment, though, his first concern had to be finding out what had happened while he’d been dead to the world.
“Faith?”
She trembled as his smoky voice caressed her like velvet. His thumb gently rubbed circles at the paper-thin flesh on the
inside of her wrist. She felt faint from trying to fight her own emotions. Darn him anyway, what did he want to know? That she had sat beside him during the worst of his fever trying to comfort and soothe him? That she had just fallen in love with him because he had stayed inside the lines when he colored Bedtime Bear? That she was so stressed out, all she wanted to do was find a quiet place, curl into a ball, and cry?
“Did you get another call?”
“No,” she said too quickly. “And Agent Matthews is handling everything, so you don’t have to worry—”
Shane cut her off with a virulent expletive. “The bastard called again. Get me my pants.”
Faith jerked her arm from his grasp and retreated two steps but faced him with a look of determination. “I will not get you your pants, Shane Callan. You are going to stay in bed at least another day.”
“The hell I am.”
Without warning or compunction he tossed back the covers and hauled himself to his feet, absolutely, magnificently naked.
Faith’s jaw dropped. He was everything she had imagined he would be and then some. Six feet, four inches of beautifully sculpted, elegantly built man. Someone should have bronzed him and put him on display in a museum. His powerful chest tapered to gracefully slim hips that led to muscular thighs and impressive evidence of his gender.
“Sweetheart,” he said in a voice like raw silk, “if you keep looking at me that way, neither one of us is going to need clothes in a minute.”
As impossible as it seemed, Faith was certain she blushed an even deeper shade of red. The heat in her cheeks rose another million degrees. Arrogant, presumptuous man! Never mind that her insides were melting like ice cream under a hot July sun, he needn’t have commented on it.
Quickly she turned and reached into the wardrobe. She yanked out one of the fresh bath towels she had stocked it with and thrust it at him.
“You are not leaving this room,” she announced, refusing to look at him another second for fear that she’d faint dead away. It seemed all her bones had turned to butter.