* * *
THEY FLEW HOME later the next week. Jade was up and swearing she was fully recovered. But despite her protests, Zafir insisted on carrying her suitcase.
Now they were halfway home.
“I imagine this may be the easiest assignment we see in a long time,” Jade said with a soft purr as she ran a finger down Zafir’s chest. “At least it started out easy.”
“I don’t know about easiest. Maybe the most deceptive might be a better description,” he said with a laugh. “Did I tell you I was elated when the case was upgraded and terrified for you at the same time?”
“Elated?”
“Chance to work with you, my love,” he said with a contented growl as he pulled her into his arms.
The case had been one of the most challenging, but only because the growing attraction between them had been a distraction. His hands ran the length of her. His fingers were gentle as they moved down the silken skin over the sweet curves that had him hot and hard without the suggestion of anything but her nakedness beneath him. They had won this case together. And in the weeks that she had fought for her life, he had realized what she meant to him, and more importantly, what it would mean to lose her.
“You’ve got to quit doing that,” she said.
“What?”
“Worrying, and worse, protecting me. We won’t be able to work together otherwise.”
“I’m not sure if I can do that, but maybe I can camouflage my feelings.”
She laughed, the sound a light tinkle that stirred something deep in his heart.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“I’ll try,” he said, and was surprised that he meant it. He knew how much Nassar meant to her, as it did to him. It was just that she meant so much more.
Now she leaned against the jet’s butter-soft leather recliner seat and sighed at the feel of Zafir’s fingers massaging her feet.
“Heaven,” she murmured.
“Ah, my dear. Not quite, but one day I’ll show you heaven, at least here on earth.” He let go of her foot and stood up, leaning over to offer her a gentle kiss that only hinted at passion.
“Is it always going to be like this between us?” Her words were a throaty whisper, her breath hot and seductive against his neck.
His lips again met hers, this time claiming them as his own with a passion that he’d held back in that first kiss.
“I can’t see it any other way,” he said thickly as he lifted up on one knee and his caresses drifted to other places.
Her phone whistled, the sound signaling a new case. And despite his protests only a day ago, she’d taken her physician’s last advice before she left Morocco and declared herself ready to work.
His phone whistled in unison.
“Timing,” he muttered as his hand lingered on her breast, feeling the hardening of her nipple that offered so much more.
“Is always off,” she finished.
Below them, as the company jet streaked across the remaining miles, the crystal blue of a Wyoming spring sky was alight with a promise that paled against the feel of her skin beneath his fingers.
And as she rose up to meet him, they both knew that no matter where this new case might take them, home was here, in each other’s arms.
* * * * *
Ryshia Kennie’s miniseries
DESERT JUSTICE
continues next month with
SON OF THE SHEIK.
You’ll find it wherever
Harlequin Intrigue books are sold!
Keep reading for an excerpt from LUCAS by Delores Fossen.
Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!
Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards
http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010003
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Intrigue story.
You crave excitement! Harlequin Intrigue stories deal in serious romantic suspense, keeping you on the edge of your seat as resourceful, true-to-life women and strong, fearless men fight for survival.
Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Intrigue every month!
Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!
Other ways to keep in touch:
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com
Join Harlequin My Rewards & Instantly earn a FREE ebook of your choice.
Earn points for every Harlequin print and ebook you buy, wherever & whenever you shop.
Turn your points into FREE BOOKS.
Don’t miss out. Reward the book lover in you!
Register Today & Earn a FREE BOOK*
*New members who join before December 31st, 2017 will receive 2000 points redeemable for eligible titles.
Click here to register
Or visit us online to register at
http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010001
Lucas
by Delores Fossen
Chapter One
Texas Ranger Lucas Ryland stared at the bed in the room at the Silver Creek Hospital.
It was empty.
He touched his fingers to the sterile white covers, already knowing they wouldn’t be warm. According to the doctor, no one had been in that bed for at least the last fifteen minutes.
Maybe longer.
Mumbling something that Lucas didn’t catch, Dr. Alfred Parton paced across the room. The doctor had already told Lucas that he wasn’t sure how long the patient had been missing. That was one of the first things he had told Lucas when he called him. Of course, first Dr. Parton had dropped the bombshell.
Hailey Darrow is gone.
Lucas had rushed to the hospital to see for himself. And now that he had seen the empty bed with his own eyes, it didn’t help with the jolt of adrenaline he’d gotten.
“How the hell did this happen?” Lucas demanded.
“No idea.” Dr. Alfred Parton scrubbed his hand over his balding head, something he’d been doing a lot since Lucas had arrived. “I’ve asked everyone on the staff, and no one knows. But Hailey must have had some help. She wouldn’t have been able to get up and just walk out of here.”
No. Not after being in a coma for three months. She wouldn’t have been able to stand on her own, much less get out of the bed and leave the building.
Of course, that only brought on a boatload of questions for Lucas—had she awakened and managed to talk someone into helping her leave? It was a valid concern, because the last time Lucas had seen Hailey conscious, she’d been nine months pregnant with their child and running. Not just from some guy who’d been chasing her.
But also running from him.
He’d found her, finally, unconscious from a car accident. She’d plowed into a tree, and a limb that’d come through the windshield had given her a nasty head injury. She’d also had a fake ID and enough cash for Lucas to know that she had planned on disappearing.
Even now, three months later, that felt like a punch to the gut, but a “punched gut” feeling pretty much described his entire relationship with Hailey for the year he’d known her.
“We have some security cameras,” the doctor explained, “but none back here in this part of the hospital. They’re at the front entrance, the ER and the pharmacy. We’re still looking, but she’s not on any of that footage.”
Which meant she might still be inside the place. It wasn’t a huge hospital, but there were clinics, storage closets and probably some unoccupied rooms.
“You think she’ll try to go to the Silver Creek Ranch?” the doc asked.
Luc
as cursed and yanked out his phone. He’d been so shocked by the news that Hailey was missing that he hadn’t even considered the next step of how this might play out.
But, yeah, if she was capable of moving, she would almost certainly try to get to his cousins’ ranch, where Lucas now lived. Hailey would try to get to the baby.
Camden.
His three-month-old son.
But he was Hailey’s child, too.
And Hailey would go after him. Or rather, she would try. As far as Lucas was concerned, Hailey had given up her rights to their precious little boy when she’d gone on the run before Camden was born. Hailey had endangered herself and the baby in that car wreck.
“Search every inch of the hospital,” Lucas ordered the doctor, though that was just the frustration talking because the staff was already looking for Hailey. “And let me know the second you find her.”
Lucas headed out the door, hurrying, but he didn’t call Camden’s nanny because he didn’t want to alarm her, yet. Instead, he called his cousin, Mason Ryland. Mason was a part-time deputy in Silver Creek, but since it was nearly 8:00 p.m., he’d already be home, and his house was just up the road from Lucas’s new place.
“I’m not coming into the office,” Mason said instead of a greeting. His cousin wasn’t the friendliest of the Ryland clan, but he would protect Camden with his life.
Lucas prayed it didn’t come down to that, though.
“Hailey’s missing from the hospital,” Lucas tossed out there. “I’m on my way home now, but make sure she doesn’t get anywhere near Camden.”
Mason cursed, too, and it was ripe enough that Lucas heard Mason’s wife, Abbie, give him a scolding about saying such things in front of their two young sons.
“You can explain when you get here,” Mason said. “I’ll head over to your place now.”
Lucas thanked him and hoped he did indeed have something to explain—like Hailey’s whereabouts and how she’d managed to escape. Right now, he didn’t know nearly enough.
He ran out of the building and across the parking lot to his SUV. The November wind swiped at him, but he didn’t duck his head against it. Lucas kept watch around him. A habit that had saved him a time or two while he’d been a Texas Ranger. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The moment he was behind the wheel, Lucas started the engine. However, before he could throw the SUV into gear, he caught the movement from the backseat. Lucas whirled around, already reaching for his gun.
But it was too late.
Hailey was there.
She was sitting right next to the baby’s empty car seat, and thanks to the security lights, he could see that she had a gun pointed right at him. His gun. The one he kept as a backup in the glove compartment. Since he hadn’t seen her when he first approached the vehicle, it likely meant she’d ducked down out of sight. Hiding from him so she could—well—do whatever the heck she was doing.
“Leave your weapon in your holster,” she ordered, and it was indeed an order.
That was a hard look Hailey gave him. But the hardness didn’t mesh well with the beads of sweat on her forehead. It was chilly, definitely not warm enough weather for sweating, so this must have been from exertion. There was no color in her cheeks. She looked weak, and no doubt was, but she didn’t need much strength considering the gun she had in his face.
Lucas had no idea if she’d actually shoot him, because she clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Couldn’t be. Or else she wouldn’t have him at gunpoint. Then again, she had run from him three months ago, so it was obvious she hadn’t trusted him.
Still didn’t, apparently.
The head injury that had put her in the coma had healed with the exception of a thin scar near her scalp. Her blond hair was pushed back from her face now so the scar was easier to see, but in another month or two, it’d be practically gone. No signs of the trauma that had nearly killed her and the baby.
No visible signs, anyway.
Lucas would always remember. Always.
“Start driving,” Hailey insisted. “We can’t stay here.”
Because the hospital staff would look in the parking lot. But that didn’t explain why she was hiding and clearly trying to escape.
Hell, it didn’t explain a lot of things.
Lucas did drive. Not far, though, and only after he hit the child safety button to lock all the doors so that Hailey wouldn’t be able to get out. He drove out of the parking lot and went two blocks up before pulling over.
He purposely didn’t choose a spot in front of any businesses in case something went wrong when he wrestled that gun away from her. Instead, he stopped in front of the town park. Since it was already dark, the park was empty.
“All right. Now talk.” Lucas had a string of questions but went with the easiest one first. “How’d you get from your room to my SUV?”
“I walked.”
“Impossible,” Lucas fired back. He glanced around to make sure someone wasn’t out there ready to help her with more than just getting out of that hospital bed. “People who’ve been in a coma for three months just don’t get up and walk.”
She nodded. Dragged in a thin breath. That’s when he noticed she was shaking. “I’ve been out of the coma for nearly a week now, and I’ve been exercising my legs when no one was watching.”
Nearly a week.
Damn.
“And none of the medical staff noticed?” he snapped.
“I was never in a vegetative state, just a deep coma, so the monitor already showed plenty of brain activity for me. The activity increased when I woke up, but I tampered with the machine so that it looked as if it malfunctioned. I kept doing that, and the staff thought they had faulty readings.”
A nurse had indeed told him about the readings, and the hospital had called in someone to repair the machine. The Silver Creek Hospital wasn’t big or modern by anyone’s standards so they hadn’t had another monitor to use on Hailey. That’s why the nurses had been keeping a closer watch on her. Obviously, they hadn’t watched nearly close enough.
“How’d you know how to tamper with the monitor?” he pressed.
She glanced away. “I’m good with computers and such.”
This was the first Lucas was hearing about that, but it didn’t matter. Not when there were so many other things they needed to talk about.
“When I was trying to regain my strength, I made sure no one else saw me,” she added.
Obviously. Just as she’d made sure he hadn’t noticed her before he’d gotten in his vehicle.
Her gaze dropped to her stomach for just a second. “I listened to try to find out if I’d had a boy or a girl, but no one mentioned it. Not even you when you visited me on Monday.”
Clearly she’d known he was there. Lucas had indeed visited her, something he did a couple of times a week. Why, he didn’t know, because he couldn’t get answers from a woman in a coma. It riled him to the core, though, that she’d been awake during that visit and hadn’t said anything.
But what had he said?
Lucas wasn’t even sure—maybe nothing—but he’d almost certainly glared at her. He still was glaring now.
“So, you faked being in a coma for the last week, built up your strength, and just walked out of the hospital?” he asked, going through the probability of that as he said it.
He was skeptical.
Hailey nodded. “I ducked into a supply room, and when I heard the doctor call you, I knew you’d be arriving soon. I made my way to the parking lot and hid behind some shrubs.”
“And then you broke into my SUV,” Lucas snarled.
“The back door was unlocked,” she answered as if that was something she did all the time. To the best of his knowledge, she didn’t, but then, he really didn’t know much about this woman.
“Why didn’t you let me know you’d come out of the coma?” Lucas demanded.
Hailey stared at him a long time. “I’ll tell you that if you’ll tell me what I had—a boy or a girl?”
He debated bargaining with her. Even with that gun aimed at him. But it was probably best to give her the information so they could move on to something else. Something that involved his ripping that gun out of her hand.
“You had a boy,” he finally said. “He was born three months ago.”
“Three months?” she repeated. It sounded as if she had to choke back a sob. “That long.”
Yeah, that long. “The doctors had to deliver him by C-section because you weren’t conscious when you went into labor.”
She shook her head, her breath shuddering. “I don’t remember.”
“Comas are like that,” he said, and he didn’t bother to sound even marginally sympathetic. “I named him Camden David. But I have sole custody of him,” Lucas added.
Not a lie, exactly. He did have custody of him and had tried to make it permanent, but the judge had refused on the grounds that Hailey might come out of the coma and her parental rights could be reinstated.
Could be.
Lucas would make sure that didn’t happen.
Something went through her pale green eyes, and Hailey made a sound, part groan, part gasp. At first he thought maybe the reaction was due to his custody comment, but the tears proved otherwise. It was the reaction of a woman who’d just learned she had a son.
But she was a mother in name only.
“And he...Camden’s all right?” Hailey asked, still blinking back those tears. “There were no problems with the delivery?”
“Yeah. No thanks to you.”
“Is he safe?” she asked before Lucas could finish what he was about to say.
“Of course he is.” Lucas couldn’t stop himself from cursing. “What the hell were you thinking when you went on the run like that? And what happened to you? Were you driving too fast? Is that what caused the accident—and that?”
Sheik's Rescue Page 18