Secrets Rising

by Sally Berneathy

  Useless fools. Couldn't they see she wasn't okay? And they weren't doing a damned thing to help.

  He ignored them.

  And Rebecca coughed.

  The cap on his emotions blew then, and intense relief burst over him like hot lava exploding from a volcano. Only then did he allow himself to realize how terrified he'd been, how devastated he would have been if Rebecca hadn't survived. But he didn't have time to think about the implications of that right now.

  He turned her on her side and held her hair back while she coughed and choked and vomited chlorine water, took in deep, gasping, beautiful gulps of air, then coughed and choked some more.

  He looked up at the fascinated bystanders. "Can anybody stop gawking long enough to call 911?"

  A couple of people moved away, and he could only hope they would make the phone call.

  Rebecca lifted a hand to the side of her head. "Hurts," she rasped.

  He moved her hand and looked at the spot. An angry red welt was already forming. "What happened?"

  She shook her head and coughed some more.

  He rose, lifted her into his arms and carried her back into her room.

  She moaned when he laid her on the bed. She was shivering...from shock and from being wet in the air conditioned room.

  He stripped off her soggy clothes, pulled the covers from under her and threw them over her then went to turn off the air, close the broken door and get a towel for her hair.

  When he came back, she'd curled into a ball, and her teeth were chattering. He dried her hair as best he could, flinching with her pain when he hit the sore spot on the side of her head causing her to wince and groan.

  She was still shivering when he finished. He could think of only one way to warm her.

  If somebody had called 911 as he asked, an ambulance, police, firemen...maybe half the town...were on their way. But Rebecca's well-being was what mattered.

  He tossed the towel onto the floor, pulled off his own wet clothes and crawled in bed with her, holding her body against his, trying to infuse her with his warmth.

  She no longer smelled like summer flowers. Now they both reeked of chlorine and fear and dampness and because it was a part of Rebecca, he drank it all in as greedily as if it were expensive perfume.

  She was alive. She was still with him, solid and real and breathing.

  She burrowed her head against his chest, and he was amazed at the surge of protectiveness that swept over him. When she'd come to his room earlier, she hadn't seemed vulnerable anymore. She'd been strong, giving and taking in equal proportions, and he'd told himself that was what he wanted.

  Now she needed him, and he desperately wanted to take care of her, so desperately it scared him. Just as his terror at the thought of her not emerging from that pool alive scared him.

  Of course he didn't want anyone to drown, but his distress had gone beyond that.

  He didn't want to lose Rebecca. He cared about her.

  He groaned at his own stupidity. How the hell had he let that happen? Over the years he'd known plenty of women, liked them, enjoyed being with them, then one or the other of them had moved on, and he had never given it a second thought.

  Tomorrow Rebecca would be moving on, and he had a horrible feeling he was going to be having lots of second thoughts about her. Third, fourth and fifth thoughts, for that matter.

  Well, he'd just have to deal with it. It wasn't like he hadn't had plenty of practice in getting over people who came into his life long enough to make him care, then left. But all that had been years ago when he was young and dumb and still believed that love was forever. He knew better than that now.

  So how come he'd let himself get emotionally entangled?

  A loud knock came from the broken front door. "Police!"

  "Coming!" he shouted. "I'll be right back," he assured Rebecca as he slipped out of bed and struggled into his wet jeans.

  She looked up at him and gave him a weak smile. Something inside him spilled over, warm and sweet and wonderful...and damned scary.

  The knock came again, louder this time.

  Jake opened the door to find two police officers and two paramedics.

  He pointed to Rebecca. "She almost drowned, and she took some kind of a hit on the side of her head."

  While the paramedics checked her over, Jake talked to the officers, Johnson and Turner. Both were young, couldn't have been out of the academy more than a year.

  "I heard a gunshot, kicked down her door, ran out to the pool and found her. She'll have to tell you the rest."

  "Do you know who fired the shot?"

  "I have no idea. You might ask some of those people in rooms around the pool if they saw anybody. A bunch of them came out."

  Turner left to take care of that part of the investigation.

  "What were you doing at her door at this time of the night?" Johnson asked.

  "She called and asked me to meet her at the pool."

  Johnson lifted an eyebrow. "I see. Did she say why?"

  "No. She just said, This is Rebecca. Come to the pool. I figured she'd tell me why when I got here."

  "When had you last talked to her?"

  Before Jake could ask the kid why he was asking stupid questions instead of getting to the bottom of things, one of the paramedics left Rebecca's side and came over to where he and the officer stood.

  "As far as we can tell, she's all right," he said. "She's got a trauma to the head that we'd like to check for possible concussion, but she refuses to go to the hospital."

  Jake turned to see Rebecca propped up in bed, clutching the covers to her breast. Her face was the color of the sheet, her eyes dark by contrast, but she seemed alert. "I'm okay," she croaked.

  "It won't hurt you to go to the hospital and at least spend the rest of the night," Jake urged.

  "I'm okay," she repeated, her tone weak but firm.

  "She's probably fine," the second paramedic said. "But she shouldn't be left alone tonight. If you can't wake her up, if she gets dizzy or disoriented, if her pupils become fixed and dilated, if anything changes, you get her to emergency right away."

  Jake nodded. The paramedics left and Johnson pulled the chair over to sit beside the bed. "You feel good enough to tell us what happened?"

  She nodded. "I was sitting at the pool. Something—somebody—pushed me in."

  "Somebody pushed you?" Jake exclaimed, then let loose a string of swear words, strode across the room and back then sat on the bed beside her, resisting the impulse to pull her into his arms. "Who?"

  Johnson glanced at him, unperturbed, then returned his attention to Rebecca. "Who pushed you, Ms. Patterson?"

  "I don't know. It happened so fast. I thought it was—I thought I was a kid—I mean, it was like when I was a kid." She paused to cough again.

  "You thought you were a kid," Johnson repeated. "Do you often think that?"

  Jake couldn't believe the man was asking such asinine questions.

  "I didn't think that, not really. Just for a minute. Then I thought it was Jake."

  "You thought Mr. Thornton pushed you into the water?"

  She lifted a shaky hand to her face. "He had on black. Jake wears black. But then he grabbed my hair and held me under."

  "Mr. Thornton?"

  She scowled. "No. Not Jake. The man."

  "So you saw him, you can describe him."

  "He was all distorted from the water."

  "Then how do you know it was a man?"

  "Big hands. Strong fingers. I couldn't get them off. I bent his little finger back."

  "I see. And then what happened?"

  "I must have hurt him. He let go for a second. I came up and heard a noise and something hit my head. I thought I'd been shot."

  "No, ma'am. You weren't shot."

  She touched the place on her forehead that was already beginning to swell then looked at her hand. "No blood. I wasn't shot."

  "No, ma'am. Did you hit your head when you fell in the pool?"
<
br />   Jake clenched his teeth and his fists. The man was an idiot. Wasn't he listening to anything she told him?

  "No, the bullet hit me." She shook her head. "No, it didn't, did it? Something hit me. The man. His fist. I don't know."

  "You sound like you're a little confused about what actually happened, Ms. Patterson."

  "Damn it," Jake said, "of course she's confused! She almost drowned. Somebody tried to kill her. Wouldn't you be a little confused?"

  Johnson stared coldly at Jake. "We understand Ms. Patterson has been under a lot of stress lately."

  "Yeah, I'd classify attempted murder as pretty damned stressful."

  "I mean before that."

  "What, exactly, do you mean?" Jake asked slowly. Something wasn't right. "Where did you get the idea that Ms. Patterson has been under a lot of stress?"

  Johnson gave Rebecca a look of pity then turned back to Jake. "The Edgewater police department called to tell us you two were headed our way."

  Jake shot up, looming over the officer. The man flinched and eased one hand toward his gun. "Why?" Jake demanded. "What do you care if we come to town? We haven't broken any laws. What did the police in Edgewater tell you about us?"

  "As a professional courtesy, they thought we ought to know that the motel owner down there had to evict Ms. Patterson after her suicide attempt."

  "Suicide?" Rebecca squeaked.

  Jake clenched his fists. If he could get hold of Charles Morton or Farley Gates right now, he'd smash their lying heads together until they cracked like Humpty Dumpty. "There was no suicide attempt in Edgewater, and there hasn't been one here. Is that what you think happened? That Rebecca hit herself on the head then held herself under water? And let's not forget the shot. How did she manage to fire a gun at the same time?"

  "Do you own a gun, Mr. Thornton?"

  "Sure I do. And I've got a permit to carry it."

  "Where is that gun right now?"

  "In Dallas. I don't normally bring along a weapon when I'm investigating a civil matter." Though he was beginning to think he should have this time.

  "Everything all right in here?"

  Jake turned to see that Officer Turner had come back in through the patio door. "Yeah, it's fine." He sank onto the bed. No point in losing his temper with these guys. Of course they'd believe another police officer rather than him. The Brotherhood of Blue.

  "Someone tried to kill me," Rebecca insisted, her voice sounding more normal though still pretty hoarse. She was starting to regain a little color.

  "Did you find anything?" Johnson asked of his partner.

  "Nothing. A loud noise woke up some of the people. They said it could have been a shot, but nobody was certain."

  "I'm certain," Jake said. "You don't mistake that sound when you've heard as many as I have."

  "Where did you hear all these shots, Mr. Thornton?" Johnson asked.

  "I used to be a cop in Dallas."

  Turner shrugged. "I didn't find any evidence of a shot. Nobody hurt. Nothing broken. Several of them saw Thornton run out of this room, haul Rebecca out of the pool and resuscitate her. That's all they know."

  The officers stayed for a few minutes longer, asking more inane questions, but Jake could tell they thought Rebecca had tried to kill herself. There'd be no investigation.

  Finally they left.

  Jake stood for a moment leaning against the door, wanting to kick it, to smash his fist through the wall, do something to vent his anger...and knowing all that would be pointless.

  Rebecca could see the anger in Jake's posture, in the bunched muscles of his shirtless back, of his forearms, in the way the cords in his neck stood out. She could feel it in the vibrations that came from him.

  He was angry on her behalf, and that aroused odd feelings in her. In fact, this entire experience had her completely confused about Jake Thornton, just when she'd thought she had her feelings for him all straight and nonthreatening.

  He'd saved her life. Though she didn't remember him pulling her from the pool, his recitation of events to the police officers had painted such a clear picture of his breaking down her door, diving into the pool and rescuing her that she almost thought she'd seen it. She did remember him carrying her into the room, tucking her in bed, drying her hair, then crawling in with her and sharing his own body heat. This was not the cynical Jake Thornton who'd warned her not to expect too much from people.

  Ironic that she'd see that side of him just when she'd accepted that he was right, at least about most people...Jake definitely included on that list.

  Ironic that he was angrier than she about this latest incident. Maybe tomorrow she'd be more upset. Maybe her lack of reaction came from the fact that she was completely exhausted, drained from her physical ordeal as well as the reality that somebody wanted her dead. Unlike the brake line incident which could have been an accident, this time there could be no doubt that someone had tried to kill her.

  Or maybe she wouldn't be angry tomorrow. Maybe she had become numb from so much rejection that even the ultimate rejection...attempted murder...had no effect on her.

  But one part of Jake's story bothered her.

  "Why did you tell him I called you and asked you to come to the pool?" she asked. Had he found her missing from his bed and come after her then lied to preserve her reputation or was there something else going on?

  He turned to look at her, a frown creasing his forehead. "Because you did."

  "No, I didn't."

  He came back to sit in the chair beside her bed. "Sure you did. Don't be concerned. Lots of times people forget things that happen just before an accident. You called me and you said, This is Rebecca. Come to the pool. Something like that. I don't remember exactly. I was asleep when the phone rang, and I expected to find you in bed beside me, not on the other end of the phone."

  "I did not call you."

  He smiled and took her hand. "Relax. You've been through a lot and you're a little confused."

  She pulled her hand away from him. "Don't patronize me. I remember distinctly what I was doing before somebody pushed me into that pool, and I wasn't calling you or even thinking about calling you."

  Jake stared at her silently for a moment. Slowly the implications dawned on her and, apparently, on him, too.

  "Somebody called me," he amended quietly. "I thought it was you."

  "So it was a woman."

  "I don't know. I was asleep. She—the person—was talking softly, almost in a whisper. It could have been a man."

  "Whoever it was got you down here and saved my life."

  "And shot at you."

  "Or shot at the man trying to drown me. There must have been at least two people. The one who called you and the one trying to drown me. My attacker couldn't have made that call or fired a gun. He had both hands in my hair."

  "You're right. Guess that means we're back to the two person conspiracy theory." He grinned without humor.

  "One trying to kill me and one trying to scare off my attacker or maybe scare me with a shot? Then it must have been dear old dad doing the drowning and mom or grandmother with the gun. Gee, I can't wait for the family reunion."

  Jake blew out a long breath and plowed his fingers through his hair, looked at her then looked away.

  "Why don't you get that white robe you had on earlier and let's go up to my room?" His tone was soft with an edge of forced teasing.

  "Why don't I not?" She'd already let go of that element, left his arms and walked away from him. She didn't want to have to do it again...wasn't sure she had the strength to do it again, not after tonight, after he'd held her naked body against his, comforting and soothing her with no sexual intent...after he'd shown her another facet of himself and added another level to her desire for him.

  He stood, his eyes darkening, his brow furrowing in irritation. "Fine. Why don't you stay here in this room with a broken front door so the guy with the big, strong hands can get to you easily and finish you off tonight?"

  He t
urned away, took two steps toward the door, then strode back, leaned down, yanked the covers off her, slid his arms under her and lifted her off the bed. "Or why don't I just carry you, buck naked, up to my room? Give everybody here a little more entertainment."

  The way he looked at her, with a combination of hunger and gentleness and anger, tugged at her, made her want to wrap her arms about his neck and let him carry her away. The anticipation of having Jake's arms wrapped around her, holding her securely all night, with or without sexual context, was entirely too tempting.

  "Why don't you put me down and let me get on my clothes and I'll ask the manager to move me to another room." She forced herself to retreat, to make her voice cold.

  Jake's eyes went as cold as her voice, and he deposited her back onto the bed. "In case you've forgotten what the paramedic said, you can't be alone tonight. So it's either me or the emergency room."

  She pulled the sheet around her. "I'll get my robe."

  If only she wasn't so pleased about losing the argument. If only she didn't remember quite distinctly that her last thought, when she'd believed she was dying, had been thankfulness that she'd made love with Jake.

  Love and let go.

  An easy resolution to make and such a hard one to keep.

  But she would.

  She would spend the night with Jake, face Doris Jordan tomorrow and let go of both of them, then get on with the rest of her life.

  "After I have my car towed, I'm going home," she said.

  "I know."