by Dana Marton
Was Dan shooting at Cole? Had Cole caught up with him?
Or did Dan think that Annie was holed up somewhere nearby and he wanted to flush her out?
The second shot sounded louder than the first. He was coming in her direction. And she was trapped, unable to get away from him. When he got here, it’d be—literally—like shooting fish in a barrel.
She switched tactics and tried to pull herself up by the fallen tree’s roots, but she couldn’t hold on. Everything was way too slippery with mud and rain.
“Annie!”
Cole?
“I’m here!” He wouldn’t hear her, but she couldn’t stop screaming. “Cole! I’m here!”
She ripped off her sweatshirt. White. Maybe Cole would see it. The wet fabric wasn’t keeping her warm anyway. She tossed the shirt on the root ball then spread it out as much as she could, like a white flag. She would have taken off her flannel shirt too, but it was dark green.
She slipped back in, slipped under. God, she was cold. And so incredibly tired. She clawed her way to the surface anyway. This time, it took forever. She kept slipping back.
Then Cole was there, barreling forward.
“I’m here.” He fell to his knees next to the hole and grabbed her with his left hand, yanked her out like a kid yanking a frog from a puddle. He didn’t let her go, his arms tightening around her. His voice was rough and gravelly in her ear. “Taking the tree-root meditation a little too far, aren’t you?”
She was gasping for air, her whole body trembling.
“Are you all right?” He lay her gently on the ground to examine her and brushed her soggy, matted hair out of her face. “Nod your head.”
She nodded, but she stayed flat on her back. She didn’t think she could get up if the fate of all the rain forests in the world depended on it.
Until lightning lit up the sky, and she saw the blood on Cole’s shoulder.
She sat up and reached out. How bad was the injury? No way for her to ask in the sudden dark. But she’d seen enough to know that he needed immediate help. She struggled to her feet and reached for him.
She glanced in the direction of the earlier gunshots. Where was Ambrose? He had to be incapacitated, or Cole wouldn’t have shouted for her. He wouldn’t have risked drawing Ambrose’s attention.
Then Cole turned, and Annie saw Ambrose’s gun tucked into the back of his waistband. So Ambrose and Cole had had a confrontation, and Cole had won. For now, Annie didn’t need to know more than that. She’d worry about the details later.
Now her only goal was to get Cole to help before he collapsed.
Which way?
As if he heard her silent question, he grabbed her hand and pulled her forward without hesitation. She went with him.
A whole hour passed before they reached the edge of the woods.
Annie couldn’t believe Cole was still upright. He simply kept going, refusing to let her wedge herself into his armpit and take some of his weight. He just kept asking if she was all right.
The lights from the facilities lit up the night. Annie and Cole staggered in through the back door.
Libby was the first person Annie saw, at the end of the long hallway.
The reflexologist ran toward them. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“We need a first-aid kit and 911.”
Libby was dialing her phone even as she spun around and took off running for the kit.
Cole leaned against the wall, his face pale.
He had a belt cinched around his shoulder. She hadn’t seen that before. She tested it. Tight, although blood was still seeping out. The question was, how much blood had he lost before he’d gotten that belt in place?
“Sit,” she told him. “Help is almost here.”
Blood covered his entire side. He had to be standing through sheer will.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you why I was here.” He held her gaze, his voice weak. “That’s the way undercover ops go.”
She wanted to cry. Instead, she snapped at him. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? You’re shot, dammit.”
Bleeding. He could die. The thought cracked her heart in half. “I forgive you. But I reserve the right to still yell at you later when you’re fully recovered.”
“Deal.”
Annie tugged on his left arm. “Sit down.”
He slid to the floor, leaving a wide smear of crimson on the white wall behind him.
Her stomach tumbled at the sight. She shook off the nausea and pressed her hand against the still-bleeding wound. She refused to pass out. Cole needed her.
People came running, Libby first, then Kate.
Libby was carrying a first-aid kit and set it on the ground next to Cole. “An ambulance is on its way.”
Kate dropped onto the floor next to Cole. “Holy mocha brownies. Don’t worry. I have this.” She began administering first aid with the confident efficiency of a woman who knew that every second counted.
Annie removed her hand from the wound and leaned against Cole. She wouldn’t look at her fingers that dripped with red. She hadn’t lost any blood, but she felt as if she might pass out before Cole did.
Libby ran off again, then returned a few minutes later with blankets and wrapped them both up, careful not to get into Kate’s way.
“Bullet didn’t come out on the other side,” Kate told them. “It’s still in there.”
“I can feel it.” Cole rasped the words.
Under the blankets, he took Annie’s hand and squeezed. He let his head drop against the wall and closed his eyes, drawing slow and measured breaths against the pain.
“What happened?” Libby couldn’t hold her curiosity back any longer. “Murph is out with the police looking for Dr. Ambrose. Did Ambrose have anything to do with this?”
“Dan kidnapped me,” Annie said, the words beyond surreal. “He was my stalker.”
She couldn’t tell them about Cole’s mission, so she fell silent.
“Why? Where is he?”
“The police found an old woman in Dan’s basement,” Kate put in without looking up from her task. “Murph texted. She was in bad shape. She had to be taken to the hospital.”
Annie’s thoughts were a hopeless jumble. “She’s his mother.”
The two women stared at her. Kate said, “I thought—”
“He found her.”
“Where is Ambrose?” Libby asked.
Cole, because his eyes were closed, didn’t see the question and remained silent.
Annie closed her eyes too. “I don’t know.”
She just needed to breathe there for a minute. If Dan was out there in the storm, frankly, she didn’t care, as long as he couldn’t hurt them.
She leaned her head on Cole’s shoulder, wrapped her arms around his torso, and refused to worry about what anyone might think.
The ambulance came first, then Harper Finnegan arrived while the medics were loading Cole in the back.
“Ambrose is tied to a tree, five hundred feet east of the deer blind,” Cole told the detective before his eyes rolled back in his head.
The medics started an IV. They wanted Annie in the second ambulance pulling into the yard, but she wouldn’t let go of Cole’s hand.
Cole was no longer unconscious but still close to it. Blood loss was a bitch. It got you, no matter how tough you were.
He kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to deal with the hundred questions the medics would throw at him if they knew he was awake. He had Annie’s hand. Annie was all he needed. Annie was safe. He could relax.
When the ambulance stopped at the hospital and he opened his eyes, Annie had an IV too and was wrapped in enough blankets to look like a mummy.
The back of the ambulance opened. Four men unloaded Cole’s stretcher. Another tried to walk Annie away. She resisted.
Cole couldn’t see their lips, but he had an idea what they were arguing about. Family members only.
He rumbled, “She’s family.”
He felt the blackness close in on him before they administered anything. He was passing out again. He didn’t care at this point. Annie was safe. And she was his.
Annie was dry, in a hospital gown, wrapped in a blanket, holding Cole’s hand. She’d been by his side since they’d rolled him out of surgery.
She wasn’t a fan of macho posturing, but she couldn’t stand seeing him weak like this. She’d rather have him strutting around, going on about how SEALs were invincible. “If you die, Cole Makani Hunter, I’m going to kill you.”
She ignored the chuckle from a nurse walking by the open door.
“In what kind of combat?” Cole asked in a rusty voice, his dark eyes open to a crack at long last.
She dropped her head onto his chest and said a prayer of gratitude.
“Naked wrestling?” he suggested, his chest rumbling under her forehead.
She pulled back. Something wet tracked down her face. Ah, dammit. Now she was crying?
She sniffed. “I told you we won’t be doing anything naked together. Therapist-patient relationship.”
“I told you I’m not your patient.”
“Then what are you?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
This time, his voice was stronger. “I’m the man you’re going to marry.”
Her heart squeezed. “Are all Navy SEALs this bossy?”
“Pretty much.” He offered a faint smile. “But you don’t have to worry about any of the others.”
She sniffed again. “You don’t even know me.”
“I knew everything I needed to know when I walked into your garage and saw those stupid skunks.”
“Don’t call my skunks stupid.”
“Exactly. You’re the kind of person who stands up for a skunk.” He paused. Smiled. “I’ve been falling in love with you since you ordered me into that gas-station bathroom to wash my bloody knuckles.”
Her breath caught. I’ve been falling in love with you . . . Her heart broke into a mad rhythm. “We barely know each other.”
“You can get to know me during our long engagement. I’m reenrolling at Hope Hill. I’m going to get my act together.”
When she smiled, he added, “Except for ecotherapy. I can’t do that. I’m planning on seducing the ecotherapist at the first opportunity. I’m planning on doing things to the ecotherapist that would make Freud faint.”
She felt the smile taking over her face.
“Say, do you know what that deer blind needs?” he asked. And when she didn’t respond, he told her. “A good mattress.”
He shifted over in the bed and opened his good arm. “Climb in.”
When she didn’t move, he added quietly, “I need to hold you, Annie.”
Annie climbed onto the bed and lay on her side next to him, putting her head on his shoulder as his left arm came around her. She gave silent thanks for having each other to hold. They could have died tonight in the woods, in the storm.
Heat rolled off his large body. She relaxed against that warmth, tilting her head to his so he could read her lips. “I feel like I’m snuggled against a grizzly bear,” she said. “Minus the fur.”
He wasn’t wearing anything on top except for the bandages over his right shoulder, so she had a lovely view.
“You have a chest-hair fetish?”
She didn’t think she could laugh today, but she did. “Not really.”
“Good. Because what you see is all you’re going to get.”
Was she? Was she really going to get him?
She tucked in her chin and snuggled deeper into the crook of his arm.
He pressed a kiss on the top of her head. “We are both too smart to let go of what we have between us, aren’t we?”
Since he couldn’t see her mouth, she simply nodded.
She stayed with him all day while he slept.
He woke as the sun was going down outside.
When a nurse came in to check his vitals and bring him food, Annie went to use the bathroom, then left to find her own meal in the cafeteria. While she was eating her soup, Kelly called to let Annie know that she was feeding the animals. She was coming to the hospital later and bringing clean clothes for both of them.
Annie thanked her, then went back upstairs. She climbed right back into bed with Cole.
“You haven’t said it yet,” he whispered against her lips.
“What?”
“That you love me.”
“I thought snipers were patient.”
“I’m a former sniper. Also, Navy SEALs want what they want, and they always get it. Very stubborn.”
“I haven’t noticed.”
His dark gaze held her captive. “The words, Annie.”
“I love you, Cole Makani Hunter.”
His kiss was as thorough as a military campaign.
Saturday
When Annie woke, the hospital outside the door was buzzing with morning activity. The sun was shining through the window. The storm had moved on.
Cole was awake already. When he realized that her eyes were open, he pulled her closer and brushed a kiss over her lips.
A cart rattled in the hallway.
Annie jumped from the bed and had barely settled into the chair next to it when a nurse shuffled in. The older woman checked Cole’s vitals and removed the IV, praising him for his speedy recovery.
“I want to take a shower,” Cole said after the woman left. He reached for Annie. “I’m going to need your help.”
He was using his I’m-a-Navy-SEAL-and-what-I-think-should-happen-will-happen voice. He was barely twenty-four hours out of surgery, and still he was as imposing as he’d ever been. How was that even possible?
But she let him pull her up.
They began by brushing their teeth together, like an old married couple. The warm intimacy of that small, insignificant act made her smile.
“You look sexy in scrubs,” he said as he put his toothbrush into the glass. Then he stepped behind her and began easing up her green top.
“They’re going to kick us out of here, I hope you know that.”
He reached around her and locked the door. “I’m ready to get out of here anyway.”
He tugged off her top. Since he only had on pants to start with, now they were even.
His gaze dropped to her chest and heated. He pressed her back against his front and lifted his left hand, watching in the mirror as he ran his thumb over one nipple first, then the other.
Her nipples tightened. The self-satisfaction on his face was something to see.
“It’s from the cold,” she said.
“Then let’s get you under some warm water.” He reached to her waist and pulled down her pants.
There was nothing for her to do but step out of them. She didn’t have underwear on. The ones she’d come in with had been soaked from her midnight swim, along with the rest of her clothes.
Cole turned on the water, then chucked off his own pants. Annie just tried to keep from fainting. Because—Holy Mother of Skunks—Cole Makani Hunter was completely naked. With her. With her!
She stepped into the water for some breathing space, not that it worked. Because Cole was not only completely naked, he was completely hard. Everywhere.
She closed her eyes. “How is this even possible? You lost a ton of blood. Do the laws of hydraulics not apply to Navy SEALs?”
His laugh was a low rumble near her ear. “I’d say it’s the miracle of IV fluids, but I’m pretty sure it’s the miracle of Annie Murray.”
His warm lips brushed over hers just as she was opening her eyes. She closed them again on a helpless groan. No feeling on earth compared to Cole kissing her, the hot steam rising around them.
He kept a careful couple of inches between them, but she stepped forward, into his arms. One strong arm went around her,
naked skin pressed against naked skin, soft parts pressed against parts extremely firm. Hard. Steel.
“We can’t,” she groaned against his lips.
“I could.”
“I won’t be responsible for a relapse.”
He kissed her again and again, owning her mouth. He grew harder, if possible. When he broke away, it was on a strangled groan, as if he was stopping himself at the last second.
His voice was hoarse, his gaze all consuming, as he said the single word. “Turn.”
She obeyed.
His hand left her for only a few seconds before returning to the middle of her back, soapy and slippery. He gently scrubbed her back, her bottom, her legs, the outside on the way down, the inside on the way up. Then he slid his hand to the front of her body.
He got lost on her breasts for a while. He pressed himself against her back, his erection pressing against her. “Lean back against me, and loop your arms around my neck.”
She did, and he moved his head over her shoulder to better see what he was doing.
He tortured her breasts until her knees trembled, then his hand slid down her belly and his palm covered her sex. His breathing became more ragged, rasping in her ear.
“Annie?”
She tilted her head back so he could read her lips. “Yes.”
His mouth descended on hers at the same time as his fingers slipped inside her.
He . . .
He . . .
She pulled away from the kiss and bit her lip, hard, because she didn’t think hospital rooms were soundproof enough to handle the sounds she needed to make.
Then she came in a warm rush of tingling sensation, a melting warmth of pleasure and well-being that didn’t want to stop.
Cole kissed her again, and he kept kissing her long after her orgasm had faded.
He shut off the water and dried her while she stood there, stunned and limp. That last part was pretty much the opposite of Cole. But he didn’t push for more. He toweled himself off too—his shoulder dressings miraculously still dry—then he grabbed two clean hospital gowns from the bench next to the shower.
“Let’s go back to bed.” He pressed a kiss to the middle of her forehead.
She was still barely conscious, the only thought in her head: What just happened?
Chapter Twenty-Eight