by JB Lynn
His gaze flicked back to mine. Seeing my disgust, he threw back his head and laughed, the sound bouncing off the hospital walls, the echoes mocking me.
“You….you…” Too angry to come up with an appropriate response, I spluttered wildly, clutching my spoon. It was the only weapon I had, but I had the distinct urge to plunge it into his winking eye.
“Easy, Maggie,” he soothed. “We’re at the opposite end of the building from the emergency room.”
“Good,” I spat. “You don’t deserve their help.” I jabbed the spoon in his general direction for emphasis.
“Me?” He looked at my death-grip on the utensil and suddenly looked slightly alarmed. Rocking back on the rear legs of his chair, he held up his hands in surrender. “I meant you. You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”
Considering I could feel my pulse pounding behind my eyes, he probably wasn’t far from the truth.
“I was just kidding about the girl,” he added hurriedly.
I eyed him suspiciously, but something in his tone made me lower the spoon. “Sure. That’s what you say now.”
Sensing the immediate threat to his safety was gone, he tipped forward, resting all four legs of his chair on the ground. “If I was interested in chasing after the girl, why would I want to sit with you?”
“Maybe you’re playing hard to get.” That was a weak argument, even to my ears.
“Someone’s gotten burned,” he murmured quietly.
Instead of dignifying that with a response, I continued on the offensive. “Even if it was a joke, it was in bad taste.”
He dipped his head, accepting culpability. “This is not how I wanted this to go.”
Against my better judgment, I asked curiously, “How did you expect it to go?”
“Hold that thought a sec?” he asked, jumping up.
I watched him go up the counter, pick up his tray of food, and pay the giggling girl.
“That’s a lot more than the usual portion,” I said when he returned to the table.
“Jealous?”
“Annoyed.”
“I’ll share.”
While he slathered butter on the bread, I reminded him, “You were going to tell me how you expected things to go.”
“I thought I’d walk over and be all cool with a ‘fancy meeting you here’ vibe.”
My shoulders tensed. “Are you saying that it’s not a coincidence our running into each other?”
He shrugged. “I may have stopped in here every hour for the past four hours hoping to see you again.”
I could practically hear Patrick lecturing in my ear, “Don’t get caught.” It couldn’t be a good thing that a reporter was looking for me.
“Some women would find that flattering,” Jack suggested, interrupting my thoughts.
“Some women could find it stalkerish,” I snapped.
“Stalkerish isn’t a word,” he replied mildly, struggling to open a plastic container of syrup.
I frowned at him.
“But I get what you’re saying,” he added.
“Why are you stalking me?”
Putting down the unopened condiment, he stared at me. “Wow. Somebody really burnt you.”
Fighting the urge to look away from his scrutiny, I muttered, “You have no idea.”
His dark eyes softened. “Tell me about it,” he invited.
For a moment, I thought he really wanted to know. That he cared. That I should welcome the chance to unburden myself. Then I realized this could be some devious interviewing technique he’d perfected.
I shook my head, silently refusing his offer.
Shrugging he returned to fighting the syrup. “So after happening to run into you again, I was going to smoothly tell you that I’d like to see you again. Maybe in a place that doesn’t reek of antiseptic and all the food isn’t covered with a film of plastic.”
Tired of watching him struggle with the container, I plucked it from his hand. “And you thought I’d go for that?”
“I’d hoped so.”
I peeled the lid off and handed it back to him.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So what do you think, Maggie? Will you take me up on my offer?” He poured the syrup over his food.
Instead of answering, I asked, “You never said why you’re here in the first place.”
He cut a mouthful of food and tasted it. “I told you. I was looking for you.”
Under other circumstances, that kind of answer would have been flattering, but my life wasn’t normal, so I found it evasive.
“I meant at the hospital.”
“I’ve been visiting an old friend.” His tone remained even, but a sudden flatness came into his eyes.
Thinking of his visit with Mrs. Mulligan, I frowned.
“Try it,” he urged, lifting a forkful of French toast toward my mouth.
“No.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t like men who I barely know trying to feed me,” I retorted.
The corners of his mouth twitched with amusement. He spun the fork around, so that the handle faced me. “So feed yourself.”
“I—”
Sensing I was about to refuse, he held my gaze, “Unless you’re afraid.” The challenge in his tone was unmistakable.
Impulsively, I grabbed the utensil and jammed the food into my mouth.
He watched me chew like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen and a bolt of sexual awareness exploded in my core. “Good, isn’t it?” he murmured.
Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.
Before I realized what he was doing, his thumb stroked along the bottom of my lip. “Sticky.”
Ignoring the tingling that spread from my lip to every cell in my body, I slapped his hand way and sat back in my chair. “What the hell are you doing?”
Even though he was able to keep his expression pretty bland, his gaze hardened. “You had a drop of syrup on your mouth.”
“That’s what napkins were invented for.” I rubbed the back of my hand across my mouth childishly.
He didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “I was just trying to help.”
“I’m not like her,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the hapless cafeteria attendant. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to charm me.”
“That’s becoming obvious,” he murmured.
“And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your hands to yourself. I’m not a fan of being manhandled.”
He raised his hands signaling his surrender. “I wasn’t trying to manhandle you.” Distaste dripped from every word.
Hating the way my body still hummed from the brief contact with his, I pushed my chair away from the table, needing to put some distance between us. I leapt to my feet, intent on beating a speedy retreat from something I didn’t quite understand, but instinctively knew was dangerous.
In a low, intimate voice he confessed, “I was trying to seduce you.”
That stopped me in the tracks. My body practically screamed that it wanted to be seduced while my heart reminded me that Patrick was lying in a bed in this very building, and my brain argued that Jack was a reporter and therefore a threat to my safety.
“But nothing I’m trying is working,” Jack continued, unaware of the internal battle waging within me. “And to be honest, I don’t get it. I mean, I thought you felt what I did yesterday.”
I shook my head in denial.
“Since nothing else seems to help, let me just try the honest approach.”
“That would be novel,” I sniped.
He had the good graces to wince. “I like you, Maggie. I’ve liked you from the moment I met you, which is why I paid Sarah over there”—he jerked his head in the direction of the cafeteria worker—“to call me when you showed up.”
“I thought you said you’d shown up every hour,” I reminded him.
“I did. And the rest of the time I wandered the
se hallways, hoping to catch a glimpse of you, but I was afraid I’d miss you, so I enlisted her help.”
“So she’s your paid informant?” I felt pretty clever coming up with that one. After all, reporters aren’t supposed to pay their sources for information, are they?
“She is,” he admitted hanging his head.
Turning, I began to walk out. The last thing I needed in my already crazy life would be to add a nosy reporter with stalker tendencies to the mix. Even though his unabashed pursuit was kind of flattering.
“Maggie, wait!” I heard his chair scrape against the floor in protest as he jumped to his feet.
He strode past me, blocked my path, and stopped. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it.
“I’m sorry,” he reiterated. “I acted like a Neanderthal male trying to strong arm you into agreeing with what I want.”
“And what’s that?”
“I want to get to know you.”
“That’s not a good idea,” I told him firmly. “I have too much going on in my life. I don’t have the time or energy for a relationship.”
“How about a friend? Could you use a friend?”
I was going to tell him to take a hike, but then I remembered the old saying, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” If he was a reporter and he was talking to Patrick’s wife, he could very well be an enemy.
“I could use a friend,” I admitted grudgingly.
I expected him to grin triumphantly, but he surprised me by saying solemnly, “Me too.”
Chapter 9
As soon as I was sure that Jack Stern was remaining in the cafeteria and not following me, I hurried to Patrick’s room. If anyone asked what I was doing there, I’d just tell them I was looking for Stacy.
I hovered nervously outside his door, hearing voices inside. He was deep in conversation with another man.
I certainly couldn’t burst in and tell him about his wife’s miraculous recovery and affair if someone else was there, so I made my way to Katie’s room.
She was playing Go Fish with Aunt Susan.
“Hey there, baby girl.” I greeted her with a big hug and kiss.
“It’s bad enough your sister couldn’t decide on a name for the poor child,” Susan grumbled. “I don’t know why you insist on using that nickname.”
The little girl glared at my grumpy aunt over a handful of playing cards. “Mommy gave me a name. It’s Katie.”
“That’s right,” I soothed, shooting Aunt Susan a look of reproach. She should know better than to badmouth Teresa in front of her daughter.
“I concede.” Susan threw her cards down on the bed. “You win. You all win.”
“Yay!” Katie cheered.
I didn’t share her happiness. Susan never gave up, something must be really wrong.
“Do you wanna play, Aunt Maggie?” Katie asked.
“Sure do,” I told her with a wink and grin. “You deal.”
Turning my attention back to my aunt, I asked, “Are you okay?”
She leveled flinty eyes at me. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Struggling to keep my inner ten-year-old from caving, I forced myself to not look away. I even managed to come up with a weak smile. “The whole thing with Bob and Griswald must be challenging.”
“Do not mention that man to me.”
“Which one?”
“Robert.”
She looked away, staring out the window.
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought her lower lip was quivering a tiny bit.
“Do you have any fives, Aunt Maggie?” Katie asked.
Scooping up the cards she’d dealt me, I handed over a five.
“Do you have any queens?”
I had to hand one of those over too.
“I am the champion!” she declared.
“Not yet,” I told her.
“Do you have any fours?”
“Go fish.”
“Look,” I said to Susan who was still looking out the window, “I know it’s none of my business, but—”
“Exactly,” she interrupted. “It’s no one’s business and so I’d appreciate it if everyone could just keep their thoughts to themselves.”
“I wasn’t going to offer an opinion. I was just going to say that if you need someone to talk to, I’m willing to listen.”
She sniffed derisively. “I should take advice from you?”
“You have to ask for a card, Aunt Maggie,” Katie prompted.
“Do you have any aces?”
“Go fish!”
I pulled a card from deck. “I wasn’t going to give you advice, I just—”
“You are the one who dated that cop who tried to kill you and your sister, right?” Susan steamrolled. “And you are the one who won’t give Zeke the time of day even though it’s clear he’s crazy about you, aren’t you?”
“Do you have any fours?” Katie asked.
“You already asked me that,” I told her while handing over the four I’d just picked up.
“Do you have any aces?”
I handed that over too. The kid was already down to one card. I was starting to suspect she’d fixed the game while I’d been distracted.
“Do you have any sevens?”
I handed one over.
Thrusting her hands overhead she shouted, “I am the champion!”
“And you’re such a gracious winner.”
“I have to pee.”
I helped her out of bed and held her hand as she wobbled toward the bathroom. She still hadn’t regained her full strength or balance, but I was struck once again by her incredible improvement.
I glanced at Delveccio’s grandson, Dominic, still as could be in the other bed, and wished him the same kind of recovery.
“I can do this myself,” my niece declared. Closing the bathroom door on me, asserting her independence and right to privacy.
“Amazing.” Susan sighed as I returned to my seat. “There was a time when I thought she’d never…” Tears dampened her eyes.
Feeling the same way, my throat closed up, so all I could do was nod.
“Zeke and I are complicated,” I told Susan quietly, after I’d regained some of my composure.
For one thing, my childhood friend is a conman and I’m a paid assassin. For another, we’re both being blackmailed by a mysterious organization headed up by a woman I call Ms. Whitehat. And then there’s my whole obsession with Patrick. Zeke and I are complicated.
“Your sister managed to find a nice enough young man,” Susan lectured.
“You like Doc?”
“You don’t?”
“I barely know him. I don’t have much of an opinion. But since when did you become the sister who worries that her nieces haven’t found a man? That used to be Loretta’s job.”
“I’m not,” Susan denied. “I…”
“You’re just deflecting the attention away from you and Bob and Griswald,” I finished for her.
Susan tilted her head to the side and gave me a long assessing look. “I forget sometimes.”
“Forget what?”
“That you’re not like the rest.”
“The rest.”
“You see beyond your own agenda. You care more. You’re more like me than I’d prefer to recognize sometimes.”
I was pretty sure there was a compliment or two buried in there, but she sounded so sad, I wasn’t sure. “There are worse people to be like,” I told her with a gentle smile.
She nodded. “But it would be more fun to be like almost anyone else.”
Katie burst out of the bathroom and stumbled across the room.
“Did you wash your hands?” I asked. Realizing how many times my aunt had asked me that very question over the years, I found myself smiling self-consciously. Glancing at Susan I saw that she had picked up on the similarity too and was smiling.
“All washed.” Katie tottered precariously.
&n
bsp; I jumped up, ready to catch her, but she steadied herself and made the way to her bed under her own steam.
“I’m sleepy, Aunt Maggie,” she murmured as I lifted her onto the bed and tucked her in.
“Maybe it’s a good time for a nap, baby girl.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll stay for a while,” Susan offered as Katie’s eyes drifted closed.
I pressed a kiss to my niece’s forehead and mouthed “thank you” to my aunt.
“I’m avoiding going home,” Susan confessed on a whisper and a wink.
Leaving Katie in Susan’s care, I once again returned to Patrick’s room. This time, while standing in the corridor, I didn’t hear any voices from inside, so I stepped in.
Imagine my disappointment when I saw his bed was empty.
I sighed heavily. This seemed to be indicative of how things went with Patrick and me. The timing was never quite right.
Still, I needed to tell him about his cheating wife and how she might have motive to kill him, so I rounded the bed, looking for something to use to jot down a quick note.
“Hey, Mags.”
Gasping, I turned around to find him standing behind me. Dressed in a hospital gown, he’d obviously emerged from the bathroom.
“Great timing.” He waved the cellphone I’d hidden for him. “I was just about to call you.”
I nodded, wishing my heartbeat would slow down a bit.
He shuffled toward the bed, stopping on the way to place a chaste kiss on my cheek.
“How are you doing?” I finally managed to ask as he lowered himself onto the mattress.
“They should discharge me tomorrow.” He groaned slightly as he swung his legs up.
I looked away, worried that the hospital garb might reveal more than it should. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
“Getting out of here? Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“Someone tried to kill you,” I reminded him.
“I’ll be more careful.” He patted the sheet beside him, indicating I should sit next to him.
I hesitated. “What about Rule Number One?”
“You can jump off if someone walks in.” Leaning over, he grabbed my hand and tugged me over.
I held my ground, worried that whatever drugs he was being given were messing with his mind. Rule Number One is Don’t Get Caught. Sitting on his bed in a place where anyone could pop in at any moment was definitely in violation of that.