“What are you doing?” she demanded in a squeaking whisper as an arm insinuated itself between her bare back and the seat cushion. A hand pushed roughly under her knees.
“Dammit, what do you think I’m doing?” His voice was so low, its vibrations were felt rather than heard, so near her ear, the breath that carried it was a gauzy stirring of warmth on her skin. “You’re barely conscious-what are you gonna do, walk in?”
“Oh…God.” That was all she could manage. Eve was not a small and dainty woman-five foot nine in her stockinged feet, at least; she hadn’t been carried since she was six years old.
“Holy…” Jake’s blasphemy hissed past her ear, raising goose bumps all over her body and contributing dangerously to her giddy impulse to giggle. “What do you want me to do, drop you? Put your head down on my shoulder, dammit. And relax-my God, would you just please trust me?”
Relax… trust me… With few or no other options open to her, what else could she do? She closed her eyes and buried her face in the FBI man’s warm, masculine shoulder and thought of carnival rides…roller coasters. For all her daredevil nature, she had never liked roller coasters-something to do with the surrendering of control. She hated being strapped m, powerless to do anything but go along for the ride. Like now, at this moment. She felt frightened, helpless. The sensation of motion, of being carried through space, made her queasy.
But… with her face pressed in the hollow of Jake’s neck and shoulder, as she breathed in his warmth, felt the rasp of his beard against her temple, the beating of his heart against her breasts, a certain scent began to invade her nostrils… a scent somehow familiar to her. She’d smelled it just this evening, in Jake’s bathrobe. It was the smell of safety, and she inhaled it like a drug, pulled it deep inside herself. While around her footsteps hurried and voices questioned and strangers’ hands took control of her fate, she wrapped it around her panicked soul like a security blanket. When Jake’s arms relinquished her to the cold and sterile efficiency of a gurney, she felt bereft.
“You okay?” she heard a deep voice murmur.
She opened her eyes and found Jake’s gazing down into hers, darkly brooding and only inches away. She looked into them for a long time before she nodded. “Showtime,” she whispered.
Like it or not, she was on the roller coaster. Nothing to do now but buckle herself in for the ride.
Chapter 5
The Waskowitz family’s vigil was taking place in Pop and Ginger’s hotel room in downtown Savannah. Everybody was there except for Charly, who, under her obstetrician’s strict orders to stay off her feet, had gone to her own room down the hall to lie down, taking the three older children-Summer’s two and Mirabella and Jimmy Joe’s eleven-year-old J.J.-with her. Their baby, Amy Jo, was also sound asleep, snuggled up next to her daddy on one of the two double beds with her thumb in her mouth and her bottom in the air.
Everyone else was wide-awake. However, only Mirabella was up and pacing, so when the phone rang, although everyone jumped reflexively, she was the one who got to it first.
She snatched it rather rudely from under her mother’s hand, barked a breathless “H‘lo?” into the mouthpiece, then listened for about three seconds in frozen stillness. Then she thrust the instrument at her sister, stalked angrily into the bathroom and shut the door. Whereupon she burst into tears.
When she ventured forth a few minutes later, tear-blotchy but belligerent still, Summer was sitting tense and roused on the bed with the phone pressed to her ear and one hand upraised in a futile effort to fend off the barrage of questions and instructions being lobbed at her from all sides. Her side of the conversation consisted of nods and an occasional “Uh-huh.”
While Summer was hanging up amidst a chorus of protests and raising both hands in a plea for patience, Jimmy Joe erased away from Amy and got up off the bed. He came over to Mirabella and gathered her into his arms.
“Hey, darlin’,” he murmured gruffly to the top of her head. “She’s in the hospital, but she’s gonna be okay.”
“That part I got,” said Mirabella in a testy voice.
Summer, who was on her feet now, along with everyone else, cleared her throat. “She was too groggy to say very much, but I talked to the police officer who was there-I guess to take her statement.” She flicked a sympathetic glance toward her mother, who had made a small, stricken noise. “It looks like-they think she was mugged.” Somebody-one of the men-made an outraged growling sound. Quickly Summer went on. “Somebody hit her and knocked her unconscious, took her diamond ring and her pearl necklace, then dumped her in a trash bin in the alley. Behind the church, you know? Later on-it must have been while we were all inside the church waiting for her-they think she crawled out of the bin and somehow wandered off in confusion. Anyway, she apparently crawled into a utility company van and passed out. The guy just found her and took her to the emergency room, which happens to be close to where he lives-somewhere south of here, near the airport?” She made the last of it a question.
It was Riley who answered her. “I know where it is.” He had the keys to his Mercedes in his hand, already taking charge, as seemed to be Riley’s way-something to do with being such a successful lawyer, Mirabella supposed; he was used to telling people what to do. “Pop, you and Ginger come with us. Jimmy Joe, you want to follow me, or shall I give you directions? Troy-okay if we leave the kids here with you and Charly?”
Troy said sure, and to go on ahead.
“Wait.” Summer, who’d been shaking her head and trying in vain to get someone’s attention, now succeeded in breaking into the bustle of departure without noticeably altering it. “Do you think we should go running over there now? She sounded really out of it. She said they were doing tests and things, getting her stitched up and cleaned up. They probably – aren‘ t even going to let us in to see her, and even if they do, she’ll probably be too groggy to notice. Maybe we should wait till morning.”
There was a slight break, a brief cessation of sound and motion while that option was considered, and then universally rejected. Ginger simply shook her head and began buttoning the coat Pop had settled on her shoulders; others resumed interrupted searches for jackets, purses, car and hotel room keys. “Don’t worry about the kids,” Troy sang out.
The exodus was well underway when it was again halted by a word. This time it was Ginger who said, “Wait!” and turned in the doorway to cast a concerned look upon her husband, her daughters and sons-in-law, all crushed in around her. “Shouldn’t we call Sonny?”
There was another silence, broken by Mirabella’s snort Summer elbowed her hard in the ribs, so it was Pop who answered, in his brusque way, “Hon, I imagine she’s already done that.”
“But,” his wife argued, “Summer said she was out of it, and they were running all those tests. What if she didn’t? It would be terrible, wouldn’t it? To let him go on thinking…”
Mirabella heaved an ungracious sigh. “All right-anybody have his number?” Everybody looked at everybody else.
“Evie’s probably got it in her purse,” said Summer. “It was with her things we brought from the church. It’s all still in the car. You don’t want us to look for it now, do you?”
Ginger gave in with a shrug as she moved on through the doorway. “We can call from the hospital, once we’ve seen Evie.”
In the hallway, Riley and Jimmy Joe took the lead, setting a brisk pace which Mirabella, short-legged and pregnant, didn’t even try to keep. Summer lagged behind with her, and as soon as they were out of hearing range of their parents and spouses, caught at her hand and hissed, “What’s the matter with you? I know you don’t like Sonny, but the man is practically a member of the family. You don’t have to love him just because Evie does, but you don’t have to act like he’s some kind of evil villain. What have you got against him anyway?”
“I don’t know,” moaned Mirabella, so dejectedly that Summer half turned, stopping her there in the middle of the hallway.
“Bella?�
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Mirabella couldn’t look at her sister’s face. How could she explain to a face so full of compassion, love and finally, finally happiness, that whenever she looked at Sonny Cisneros she felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach? That when he spoke to her she got the shivers? That all she wanted for their sister was the same kind of love and joy they had each already been blessed with, dammit, and she knew-somehow she just knew-that this wasn’t going to be it! That in some vague, formless way, she was frightened. She could not explain, because it made no sense even to her.
And because Mirabella’s temper had a tendency to rise in direct proportion to her levels of fear and frustration, she lashed back at her sister with a furious “I don’t know! I’m worried for Evie. Something’s not right. It’s just not right.”
To her great surprise and even greater unease, Summer didn’t say a word as they walked on together toward the elevator, holding hands as they had when they were very small children, and afraid of the monsters in the dark.
“How do I look?” Eve asked in a low voice.
“Like hell,” Jake replied in his federal agent’s monotone.
She was incomprehensibly annoyed that he didn’t bother to look at her when he said it, his edgy frown trained instead on the hustle and bustle in the corridor outside the treatment room curtain, and the uniformed police officer pacing nearby. But she muttered a dry “Thanks-I think” as she shifted her eyes and their silent question first to the doctor standing with folded arms at the foot of her bed, then to the intern at her elbow.
Their answering smiles seemed tentative, for which Eve could hardly blame them. Supposedly this was a routine mugging, but there were undercurrents… A bride in her wedding dress? And the guy who’d brought her in-who was he? Definitely not the groom, supposedly just a Good Samaritan, but she’d asked-begged-for them to let him stay… Obviously they weren’t being let in on the whole story.
“You’ll do fine.” The doctor, prematurely balding, impossibly young and trying hard to hide his baby face behind a wispy goatee, came around the bed and leaned close to inspect the bandage wrapped around her head. “Linda does good work. Shouldn’t be any scarring, but you might have a little bit of a black eye, here. Hard to say. And,” he added in a warning tone, “once the Novocain wears off, that lip is going to be a little uncomfortable. Now-that bump on the head… Since you were unconscious for a pretty considerable amount of time, we’re gonna want to admit you for a day or two, okay? Just to be on the safe side. And we’re gonna want to get some X rays, probably a CAT scan.” He started to say something to the intern, then said, “Oops,” in response to something he’d evidently heard over the loudspeaker, and instead nodded abruptly to her and went out Beyond the curtain Eve could hear running footsteps, the swish of opening doors, voices calling incomprehensible instructions in tensely efficient tones.
The intern, a stocky woman-also impossibly young-with wiry, cinnamon-colored hair, freckles and a wicked glint in her green eyes, winked at Eve as she rolled back her stool and stood up, taking her tray of instruments with her. “Don’t worry, hon, you’re gonna be fine. Right now you look like you just went a couple rounds with Mike Tyson, but that’ll pass. Your poor mama might have a heart attack when she sees you, though.”
Eve’s eyes flicked to Jake’s somber face. “Is she here?” And suddenly, for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom, she was dangerously close to tears.
“She sure is,” the intern answered cheerfully. “Your whole family, it looks like. They’re out there in the waiting room.”
“Can I… see them?”
“Don’t see why not-looks like it’s gonna be a little while before we can get those X rays. Just had an MVA come in-multiple victims. I’ll go tell ‘em they can come in for a few minutes.”
“Thanks…” Eve felt unnervingly trembly. She caught a breath and held it, trying to steady her voice. “Is Sonny-”
The intern’s eyes were bright and curious. “Sonny-is that your husband? Uh…fiancé? I don’t believe he’s here yet, but I’ll let you know the minute he gets here, okay?” Eve nodded; her throat had locked up tight. “I’ll send your family right on in,” the intern said, and was on her way out when Eve stopped her with a hoarse sound that was meant to be “Wait!” The intern paused and looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“Could I just have a few minutes?” Eve whispered. Her eyes slipped away, found Jake and then came back to the woman again. “I’d like to…you know, say goodbye to him. He’s been with me through all of this…” And inexplicably, now she was crying.
The intern’s freckled face held nothing but compassion. “Sure, hon,” she said gently. “He can just let the desk know when he leaves, and they can have somebody send your folks on in. How‘ll that be?”
Eve murmured, “Thank you,” and the woman went away.
Seconds ticked by. Then Jake came slowly toward her, hands in his pockets, brows lowered, darkening his somber gaze to a frown. “Helluva performance,” he said dryly. “And you were worried about being a good enough actor?”
Eve just looked at him. She felt as if something heavy had come and sat on her chest.
He gazed down at her, and she glared back at him, furious with herself for crying in front of him, indefinably hurt that he’d so cynically dismissed her tears, and completely bewildered by the contradiction.
“What about it? Ready to take a test drive?”
She made a swipe at her cheeks and looked away. He came closer, bracing his hands on the bed as he leaned down and looked into her eyes. His voice was soft and very near; she had to stop breathing in order to hear it. “You have to be ready for this. I know this is just your family, but it’s as important to convince them of what happened as it is Cisneros.”
“I know,” Eve muttered, “I know…”
“You’ve got to believe this. Live it.”
“I know.” One more tear surprised her by escaping over the barrier of her lower lashes and sneaking away like a thief down her unmarked cheek. She slapped at it furiously. “I know what I’m supposed to do. Don’t worry about me. I said I’m ready.”
Jake’s eyes had shifted dispassionately, first to watch the tear“s progress, then to travel over her face, touching briefly on each of her injuries. It struck Eve that there was something oddly intimate, almost proprietary about the scrutiny. As he straightened, he brushed the tear’s track with an index finger, and she felt a flash of something almost like disappointment. A sense of something glimpsed but not quite realized.
He paused to look down at her once more. “The tears-it’s a nice touch. You’ve been through a trauma. You’d be expected to show some emotion.”
And Eve, furious, surprised herself by thinking, What about you, Mr. Jake Something-Mr. Iceman? Do you ever show emotion?
Already turning to leave her, he paused as if she’d spoken the words aloud. He looked at her for a moment, then away, as if there was something more he ought to say to her if he could only remember what it was.
What about telling me it’s going to be all right? Eve thought. What about a big ol’ thumb’s-up? A “Break a leg” and a smile for luck? Hey, Mr. FBI-are you even genetically capable of smiling?
She touched the strips of butterfly bandage that crisscrossed the bridge of her nose. “Where’re you gonna be?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be watching you. Out of sight, but I’ll be watching.” His gaze was heavy-lidded, veiled.
It occurred to Eve that his lashes were unusually long and thick, that his eyes slanted down slightly at the corners, and she wondered if that was what gave him that melancholy look. Maybe, she grudgingly thought… but only partly.
“Hey, Jake-” It had also occurred to her that she knew almost nothing about him-not even his last name. How old he was. Whether he had a wife… children. The town house he lived in was definitely a bachelor’s quarters, and probably temporary at that, the only personal items anywhere in evidence being the old-fashioned turntable, the crat
e of LP’s and the cardboard box she’d spotted under the coffee table, containing an assortment of paperbacks. A lonely existence, she thought. But did he have a home somewhere? A wife and a dog, a lawn waiting to be mowed?
He was waiting now, one hand on the curtain, for her to finish it. But with all she would have liked to ask him, she limited herself to a smile, lopsided and apologetic-a peace offering he wouldn’t even know she owed him-and a lightly curious “When do you sleep?”
There was no answering smile, not even one of irony. No chuckle, not even the dryest snort, heavy with sarcasm. Instead he replied, very softly, “When Sonny Cisneros is behind bars.”
Then he slipped out of the room like a shadow, leavmg her with the chilled feeling that he’d meant it literally.
Sonny… behind bars. Sonny-the man she’d planned to many, the man she’d…well, if not exactly wildly loved, at least chosen to be the father of her children-was a vicious crimmal.
There was no one to distract her now-no doctors and nurses with their needles and bandages and slightly off-color banter, no dour FBI man with his somber warnings and instructions, nothing to keep the reality of that from crashing in on her. For the first time since waking half-naked in a strange man’s bed with her soiled wedding gown on the floor beside her, she was alone, just her and her thoughts. And since there was no one to see, instead of pushing her thoughts away in instinctive, gut-level defensive panic, she gave them the okay to come and stay in her mind, and let the full horror of them seep into her soul.
Fear and loathing enveloped her, like the nightmare terrors of long-ago childhood when the miasma of nameless evil rising from under her bed, seeping in from under doors and out of closets and cupboards would send her, shivering with fear, to seek comfort in one of her sisters’ beds. What a time of sheltered innocence that had been, when terror could be banished by a warm body, the smell of baby shampoo and a sleepy “Evie’s havin’ a bad dream?”
Eve’s Wedding Knight Page 7