She brushed aside the memory and opened the money section of the wallet. Enough bills to make her cringe. Did I really leave him destitute in a strange city?
Suddenly moved by someone’s plight besides her own, Eve gathered her strength. By concentrating, she rocked forward and slowly rose to one knee. Using the coffee table for support, Eve made it to her feet. After the initial dizziness passed, she unlocked the dead bolt lock that had been installed at eye level so no one could use the mail slot to secure entry.
The big brass doorknob would require both hands, she decided. She looked for a place to put the wallet. Her grungy cotton sweats lacked pockets; the waistband was so loose it barely kept them from falling to the floor. Shrugging, she put the wallet between her teeth and bit down.
Gripping the decorative knob with both hands, she slowly turned it. To her immense surprise and horror, someone—something—was waiting outside the door. A weight pressed inward with such force, Eve toppled backward, her feet getting tangled in the avalanche of accumulated mail. Graceless as a clown, she windmilled back, landing butt first atop a stack of cardboard packing boxes, which sent the whole column and its neighbors cascading down around her ears.
When all was quiet, she braved a peek.
Crouched like a martial arts warrior ready to take on an army of villains, the man across from her scanned the foyer with eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
“What the hell…?” His voice was deep and rich with an accent she’d grown to like during her stay in New York.
Eve watched him take in the stacks of boxes; his eyes widened at the mess in the kitchen. He was just starting to rise out of his defensive stance when his gaze zeroed in on her. For some reason, his right knee suddenly wobbled and he seemed to lose his balance for a moment.
His recovery was so smooth Eve wondered if she’d imagined it. Then she looked into his eyes and her brain forgot how to think. Her heart sped up in a way that made her feel more alive than she had in weeks, perhaps months.
His eyes—a warm shade of brown—widened. Eve tried to interpret his look. Repulsion? Disbelief? Suspicion. “Who are you?” he growled. “Where’s Eve Masterson?”
Curling into a protective ball, Eve whispered, “I wish I knew.”
MATT PRIDED HIMSELF on being a man of action. In a crisis, people turned to him. Maybe it was his experience in law enforcement that gave him the confidence to make tough, split-second decisions and shoulder the repercussions afterward. But, for once, Matt felt poleaxed.
Her four little words were all it took to confirm what his mind tried to deny. “Eve?” He almost choked on the word. She curled up tighter, like one of those little roly-poly bugs Ashley used to play with in the garden.
Oh, my God! How? How did this happen?
Her whimper made Matt realize he’d spoken out loud. He would have kicked himself if his knee weren’t throbbing like hell. Bad enough he’d fallen asleep on the job, but his instinctive reaction to the door opening was a holdover from his karate training and not something he’d tried since his accident. And now I know why, he thought bitterly.
Moving gingerly, he looked around the apartment. As big a mess as he’d seen in a long time, but no booze bottles or drug paraphernalia in sight. What, he wondered, could have caused this transformation?
Baffled, he approached Eve—curled in a fetal position at the base of a jumbled stack of packing boxes. Thin to the point of emaciation, dark circles shadowed the hollows under her eyes. Her honey-almond skin was now geisha white. Her blue-black hair was knotted and partially held back in a fat, unkempt braid.
“Eve? Are you sick?”
She didn’t answer.
He hunkered down in a squat, ignoring the shaft of pain in his knee. “Are you stoned? Coming off an ecstasy binge, maybe?”
“Screw you,” she muttered, but her eyes remained closed.
“Have you seen a doctor? If it’s not drugs or booze, then what the hell’s the matter with you?”
She tucked tighter, as if trying to disappear. “Tired. Just tired.”
Although heartened by her ability to answer his questions, Matt didn’t like the way each response got fainter and fainter as she spoke. Was she losing consciousness?
“Eve,” he said, reaching for her wrist. “Don’t fade away. I need some help here. Do I call 911 or what?”
“No,” she cried, batting his hand away. “Just leave me alone.”
Of course he couldn’t do that. She needed medical help. Matt had promised Sara he’d handle things as diplomatically as possible, but Eve was obviously very sick.
Letting out a long sigh, he stood up. “Where’s the phone? You need to be in a hospital.”
The word triggered an unexpected response. Eve bolted upright as if a puppeteer had suddenly jerked her strings. Swaying slightly, she pinned him with an icy glare. “I said no. I have no intention of becoming fodder for the evening gossip shows. And if you do anything to contribute to that, I will sue you into perpetuity.”
Matt wasn’t even sure what perpetuity was, but it didn’t sound fun. He lowered himself to one knee—his left. “Eve, whatever’s wrong with you isn’t something I can ignore. Sara and Ren Bishop hired me to find out what happened to you. They’re worried sick about you. I can’t tell them I found you but you’re wasting away to nothing and I went off and left because you threatened to sue me.”
Some of the fire left her eyes. “Don’t you understand?” she pleaded, her voice bordering on hysteria. “I can’t be seen like this. If word gets out—and it will, I’ll never work in this industry again. I’ll never get another chance like this to do my show, to help…” Her voice drained away like a wind-up toy.
Matt shook his head. “You’d put your job ahead of your health?” he asked, his tone dripping with incredulity.
“My job is my life,” she answered.
Suddenly, the irony of his question hit him. In a way he’d done the same thing. Once that junkie had taken off, Matt hadn’t thought twice about what might happen if anything went wrong.
Chagrined, he took a deep breath. As long as she was talking—arguing—he figured he could take the time to assess the situation rationally. Talk some sense into her. “How ’bout I help you stand up then we talk about this calmly.” He gently placed his hand on her shoulder. He jostled her softly.
Again, the puppet master jerked her into action. She sat up, her arms flailing wildly. The back of her hand connected with Matt’s nose. Not hard, but enough to make him react as he would with any troublesome suspect. He subdued her by wrapping his arms around her shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides.
She was sideways in his arms. As she started to lower her chin toward his bicep, Eve warned with a growl, “I’ll bite.”
Matt fought back a grin. His leather jacket could take it, but he didn’t want to see her waste her energy. “Relax,” he said. “I want to help you to the couch. You’re shivering. I’m afraid you might go into shock.”
With a small sigh, she slumped against him. “Okay,” she said. “To the couch. Not the emergency room. I hate emergency rooms.” She shuddered as if haunted by something too grim to recall.
Matt had seen his share of emergency-room traumas, too. Maybe there was a way he could get her to a hospital but spare her the chaos that would follow a call to 911.
He slowly rose, assisting Eve as much as she would permit. Despite her obvious weakness, she seemed determined to do as much as possible for herself. Her grit earned his grudging respect.
“My mother is a nurse in New York City. She has a friend who works in Atlanta. What if I call my mother and ask her to find out the name of the most discreet hospital in town?” he suggested as they neared the couch. “You know, one where celebrities go.”
She didn’t answer until she was seated. “I have to think about it,” she said, her voice trembling with fatigue. “Don’t do anything until I say it’s okay.”
Her order lacked force but something in the way she said i
t made Matt realize she expected him to honor her wishes. No questions asked.
Before he could argue, she sagged like a balloon with a leak. When her head hit the rounded leather bolster, her lips parted in a sigh. And she was asleep.
Debating his options, Matt poked around for clues to Eve’s condition. Judging by the size and shape of the living room and adjoining kitchen, the apartment was fairly large—twice the size of his old place. Glancing down the hallway, he saw three open doors, one closed.
Eggshell walls. High ceilings. Oak trim around the windows that were cloaked with shades but no curtains. Not a single painting or picture was in sight—not even a calendar. Just stacks of boxes surrounded by clutter. Magazines, juice boxes, used tissues, both opened and unopened mail—scads of it.
This was so not how he’d pictured Eve’s life. It has to be drugs, he decided, choosing the only explanation that made any sense. Bending over, he poked through the litter on the floor looking for proof. The closest thing he found was an amber plastic prescription container filled with white pills. The lack of a label raised his eyebrows.
“Eve, what’s going on here? Cocaine?” he asked softly. She was thin enough, he decided, but no telltale jitters. Heroin? He didn’t think so. Her emaciation just doesn’t fit, he thought, studying her. Tiny, fragile. A lotus flower, some foolish voice said inside Matt’s head.
Gently, Matt placed two fingers on the pulse point in her throat. She flinched but didn’t try to pull away. Her skin was soft and cool. Dry to the touch, like rice paper. Not flushed or moist from a fever.
An odd jolt of energy passed through his fingers. He couldn’t explain it since she seemed completely oblivious to his presence. With great care, Matt raised one lilac-colored eyelid, outlined by long, curly black lashes. She resisted his efforts by dropping her chin.
A soft moan slipped from her lips.
Perfectly shaped lips, he noticed, although her full bottom lip was cracked in places. Her lips, like the rest of her skin, showed signs of dehydration.
Matt’s heart twisted in pity. He lifted his chin and looked around. The place was a pigsty. It stank of unwashed dishes and dirty clothes. She looked like a pathetic urchin. He’d seen cleaner homeless people. He knew how the scandal sheets would interpret this.
Torn between what he felt he should do and what Eve wanted him to do, Matt went in search of a phone. When in doubt, call Bo, he thought. After all, he was an envoy of Bo’s company. If anybody was getting sued it was Bo.
EVE’S NOSTRILS TWITCHED.
Something was different. She sniffed, trying to place the smell. Food.
Her mouth suddenly filled with saliva and she had to swallow or choke. Her throat was dry and out of practice. She coughed.
“Beef bouillon.” a voice said. “It’s all I could find.”
Eve’s eyes snapped open. It wasn’t a dream.
She raised her head to look around and get her bearings—hoping against hope she wasn’t in a hospital room.
The sight of her four unadorned walls brought tears of relief. He hadn’t turned her in. “Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking.
“For what? Not calling 911?” he asked, walking to the edge of the vinyl flooring in the kitchen. From that vantage point he could look directly at her lying on the couch. Did he carry me here? For some reason, the idea of being held in those big strong arms made her a little light-headed.
“You won’t thank me if you suddenly go into shock,” he said sternly. “I know you asked me to hold off calling my mother, but I couldn’t wait for you to wake up. Mom gave me all kinds of grief for not taking you straight to the emergency room, but I told her you were a litigious fool who would sue her if word of this got out.”
Eve flinched. Did she really come across as that desperate and bossy?
He went on. “Mom said it’s absolutely vital we get some fluids in you as soon as possible. I was just about to wake you up.”
He wiped his hands on a towel and picked up a glass from the counter. It appeared to hold some kind of juice.
“Everything in your fridge had expired,” he said, walking toward her. “I remembered seeing a market on the corner so I ran down and picked up a few things. This is one of those high-energy drinks. Mom said it’ll help replenish your electrolytes.”
Eve’s heart struck up a wild tune the closer he got. He sort of loomed over her, and she wasn’t sure if her panic attack stemmed from his maleness or his size. Or both.
“Can I help you sit up?”
His tone was so gentle some of her anxiety eased. “Yes, please,” she said, nodding.
He placed the glass on the coffee table, which Eve noticed was now clear of clutter. Her comforter was neatly tucked around her, and the heap of magazines and junk mail on the floor was gone from view. Lowering himself to a strip of cushion beside her, he grabbed one of the couch pillows from the far end of the sofa and placed it behind her. To facilitate the move, he looped one arm behind her shoulders and drew her forward.
Her nose just inches from his shoulder, Eve smelled spray starch. The scent evoked a memory of her father going off to work.
He eased her back. Eve was certain his hand spanned the entire breadth of her back. “You’re big,” she said.
He’d turned to pick up the glass but stopped and looked at her. A smile danced at the corner of his lips. She saw a faint dimple in one tanned cheek. His skin tone was a healthy, natural bronze, not the machine-groomed color Barry favored.
“I’m an inch shorter than Ren Bishop. ’Bout the same weight, though, Bo said.”
Ren. Her friend. At least, she’d done something right to have friends like Ren and Sara. “Is Sara okay?” Eve asked.
He picked up the glass. He hesitated as though debating whether or not she could hold it. In all honesty, Eve wasn’t sure. Her hands didn’t feel totally connected to her body. “Finish this and we’ll talk,” he said, lifting the glass to her lips.
Eve concentrated on the job before her—swallowing. It should have been easy, but nothing was easy these days. She opened her mouth and let the cool, refreshing liquid run down her throat. She made three successful swallows before the communication link got mixed up and she breathed in by mistake. Liquid went down her air pipe and something bitter went up her nose.
Sputtering, she arched back. His left hand slipped from the pillow, causing him to fall against her. Fighting for a breath and feeling smothered, Eve cried out in panic. Her futile struggles lasted two or three seconds at best before she’d used up all her reserves.
Instantly apologetic, he pulled back, his features showing dismay and concern. He set the glass on the table and whipped a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket. “I’m sorry. Are you okay? Did it go down the wrong pipe?” He carefully wiped her face and nose.
“Blow,” he said.
“Absolutely not.”
His lips quirked. “Oh, come on. I’m a dad. I’ve done this before.”
“You’re not my dad.” Reaching deep for the energy she needed, Eve took the hankie in both hands and blew her nose. Then spent, her hands dropped to the blanket.
“You know what we need? A straw. I bet you could handle a straw. Do you have any?” He rose without waiting for her answer. A good thing, since Eve couldn’t begin to predict where to find one.
After banging a few cupboard doors, he returned. “I can’t believe it. I actually found one. Must have been left over from some delivery meal. Anyway, here it is.” He sat down again, stripped off the paper cover and put it in the glass. “Let’s try again. You have to finish this. Mom said if you don’t drink it all, I have to take you straight to the hospital.”
Eve wasn’t sure she believed him, but the threat worked. Despite the urge to sleep, she focused on drinking and slowly finished the glass. Her stomach made ugly rumbling sounds that would have embarrassed her if she had the energy to care.
“Tell me your name again,” she said as he started to rise.
“Matt. M
att Ross. Like I said, I’m Bo Lester’s cousin from New York.” His tone seemed to question whether or not she was mentally competent.
His brown eyes looked worried. He had beautiful eyes. The color of a fine cigar. Barry smoked fancy cigars—the more expensive the better, he liked to say.
At one time Eve had half-jokingly told Ren any child of their’s would probably have dishwater-gray eyes. Looking into Matt’s eyes, she thought, If we had a child, it would have pretty brown eyes.
His eyes widened—in alarm or surprise Eve wasn’t sure which. What she did know was she’d spoken her thought out loud. To save him the embarrassment of having to reply, she turned her face to the side and closed her eyes.
What a fool! Men didn’t want to marry her and give her babies when she was beautiful—why would any man want her now?
ONCE MATT WAS SURE Eve was asleep, he walked to the extension phone in the kitchen and called his mother again.
“Eight ounces down her gullet,” he reported without preamble.
“Good. But keep a bucket handy. She might not be able to keep it down,” Irene Ross told him. “Is she sleeping?”
Matt leaned around the upright post to view his patient curled serenely on the couch. “Uh-huh. Like a baby.”
There was a slight pause then his mother said, “In twenty minutes, I want you to wake her up and get her to try some broth. She sounds malnourished if she’s as thin as you say she is.”
Matt shuddered to think how thin Eve was. When he’d placed his hand behind her back to help her sit up, he’d felt every knobby vertebrae.
“If I can get her to eat, then what?” Matt asked his mother. “She seems weak, but out of nowhere up pops attitude like you wouldn’t believe.”
Again, there was a pause. “If I remember right, she’s quite beautiful, too,” Irene said, a certain tone in her voice. Matt knew his mother well enough to stifle a groan. Irene Ross was an inveterate matchmaker who was convinced Matt was bordering on depression because he lacked a woman in his life.
Something About Eve Page 5