Dangerous to Love

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  Those were the only lights in the room. She glanced back toward the windows and realized the entire area was dark and finally quiet.

  The odd air of expectancy had dissipated, and she took stock of her surroundings. Dan had his arm around her shoulders, held her head down as well, and their legs were still tangled together, their bodies intimately entwined. Both of them were still breathing heavily, still heavily aroused. He eased himself off her and to the side, used the arm he had around her back to turn her onto her side and toward him.

  In the dark, she felt rather than saw the smile on his face, then heard him laughing softly. She hid her face against his neck and shoulder, feeling more than a little embarrassed. In another minute, another second, he would have been inside her. The only thing that stopped them was the reflexes that had them both diving for cover, from what she thought must have been lightning hitting a transformer nearby and setting off an explosion inside it.

  “So,” he said, “have you ever been with a man who literally made the Earth move for you?”

  She blushed furiously. He was still laughing softly when he brought his face down to hers and took her mouth in a soft, slow, steamy kiss. She shivered and wrapped her arms around him tightly, because it felt so good. Because she knew somehow they weren’t going to finish what they started and she wasn’t ready to let him go.

  When he broke the kiss, he pushed her face against his shoulder again and held her firmly with a hand tangled in her hair. Her pulse was still pounding. She could feel the blood rushing through her veins in a hard, heavy throb; every nerve ending in her body was on alert and begging for his touch.

  He held her until their breathing slowed, until the feverpitch of arousal had dimmed to a dull ache. His lips trailed soft kisses down the side of her face, stopping just short of taking her mouth again.

  Jamie wanted him so badly. The only redeeming factor to the whole thing was that she was still in his arms. She wouldn’t leave willingly this time. She put her hand to the side of his face, against a jaw that was rough and abrasive against her palm, and pulled his stubborn mouth back to hers. He groaned, but gave her a searing kiss in return.

  “I’ve dreamed about you,” she confessed. “About this.”

  “Jamie,” he groaned. “We can’t.”

  “Why not? And don’t even think about trying to convince me you don’t want me,” she warned. “I’ll call you a damned liar.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.

  “You should be,” she shot back, thinking of how very much he’d hurt her with what he said that day.

  She wasn’t ready to address what she thought was an equally ridiculous claim of his—that it wouldn’t mean anything to him if they did make love. For the moment, it was enough to let him hold her some more.

  Wrapping those gloriously strong arms around her, fitting their bodies together as best he could, he used his hand to rub at the knot of tension in her lower back. The other brushed her hair back from her face. He kissed her softly, his touch soothing and comforting.

  She snuggled against him, reveling in a tenderness he’d never shown her before and in the newfound ease between them. “I thought the building was going to come down around us,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest. “You think a transformer blew?”

  He nodded. “Bet every soldier in this building took a dive when it exploded.”

  She went to sit up, but one of her legs was caught beneath his, which were lying at an awkward angle. “I’m stuck.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  He braced one hand on the back of the sofa, the other on the cushion and with effort hoisted himself into a sitting position once again. She watched grim-faced as he used one hand to reposition his legs. It was too late by the time she looked up and realized he’d been watching her, as well.

  “You forgot?” he asked.

  Jamie nodded, trying to wipe all expression from her face, shivering once again.

  “Me, too,” he admitted

  She remembered, too, that he had major surgery a few weeks before, that she’d been literally sitting on top of him moments before. But she didn’t ask if he was all right, because she knew he’d hate that.

  Her heart rate kicked into high speed as he reached for her again. The back of his hands brushed against her breasts, and she realized he was merely dressing her. He hooked her bra, rebuttoned her blouse. He dug down between the cushions of the sofa and pulled out her gun, tucked that into her shoulder holster and pulled her sweater back into place.

  There was another flash of light behind her, and even though she was braced for the thunder that time, she still jumped a little when it came. She jumped again when his fingertips brushed across her forehead, smoothing back her hair and tucking it behind her ear.

  “Shh,” he said in a soothing voice, letting his hand linger, his fingers spread wide and threading through her hair, his palm against her cheek. “You’re trembling again. Is it London? Did the blast remind you—”

  “No.” In London, she’d been on the ground, a cunous ringing the only sound in her ears, her body being pelted by debris before she realized how close she’d come to being blown to bits.

  “Tell me,” he insisted.

  “It’s the storm. Ever since the night you got shot... It stormed the whole night. I stood in the doorway to my patio watching it, heard something that sounded like a Huey taking off around three in the morning, and I swear it had to be the one that brought you here. I just stood there listening to it, and when Josh came to the door, I knew. I knew it was you.”

  Dan caught her hand in his and held it.

  “And the next three nights,” she said, “when you were unconscious and fighting off the infection and shock, it stormed the whole damned time.”

  Now, if there was thunder and lightning during the night, she woke up screaming, reliving the whole nightmare.

  “So,” she said, forcing a smile. “Now you know. I’m like a little kid who’s afraid of the thunder.”

  “Things will calm down,” he said. “They’ll get back to normal. I know sometimes it seems like it won’t. But it will.”

  “Maybe. But I’m not going to forget this,” she said firmly, daring him to tell her he’d forget her. “I’m through letting you push me away.”

  “Jamie,” he groaned.

  “I want to be with you. You want to be with me,” she said, trying to keep it simple, when what she wanted was so much more complicated. “We’re both adults. We’re free to do as we please. So what’s the problem?”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Get real. I can’t even stand up.”

  “Not now. That doesn’t mean you never will.”

  He frowned, getting that look in his eyes that said she was seriously annoying him. “There are no guarantees I ever will.”

  “I don’t recall asking for a guarantee about anything. I just want to be with you.”

  “Jamie, I can’t even make love to you the way I want to.”

  She glared at him, getting seriously annoyed herself. “You’re trying to tell me you were somehow disappointed by what just happened here?”

  “No.”

  “It didn’t feel good enough? It wasn’t exciting enough?”

  “No.”

  “Or there’s something so much more satisfying we could do, if only your legs worked the way they used to? You have the nerve to think that matters to me? To think it’s more important to me than the two of us finally being together?”

  “No,” he shouted. “I’m telling you it matters to me.”

  Damn. She’d been so sure he was finally through fighting her.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know how long I’m going to be in rehab. I don’t know whether I’ll walk out or crawl. I can’t make any promises about how ugly my whole attitude’s going to be when this is finished, and I won’t put you through that.”

  “You couldn�
�t get away from me now if you tried,” she boasted. “You’re going to be moving a little slowly for a while, remember?”

  Dan swore. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’re strong and whole, and you haven’t been sucked into this whole business the way I have. You can still get out, still have a life that doesn’t involve chasing after the scum of the earth and risking your neck and seldom being in the same city for more than a month at a time. You deserve—”

  “Don’t you dare presume to tell me what I want or what I need. Don’t treat me like a little girl and tell me you know what’s best for me.”

  He backed off physically, retreated emotionally behind a cool, distant stare. “All right,” he said. “I won’t.”

  “Dan,” she pleaded, recognizing the determined look in his eyes. “Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out.”

  “Jamie, I don’t have anything to give you right now. I don’t know if I ever will.”

  “And if you did? What would happen if you did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Fuming, she vowed, “I won’t give up on you.”

  “And I won’t give in. Not on this.”

  She was angry enough not to try to see him again for five days, and she hoped he spent the entire time having the same terribly erotic dream that she was—the one where they finally finished what they’d started in the solarium in the middle of the blackout.

  But she was irritated with herself to find five days was all she could take. He hadn’t called, of course. He never would. Damned stubborn man that he was.

  When Jamie walked down the hall and into his room, prepared for a nasty fight, she found the room empty. When she walked into the solarium, it was empty as well.

  She rushed back to the nurses’ station, found a woman she’d never seen before on duty. “Dan Reese?” she said, trying to sound calm. “Do you know where he is?”

  “Let me check for you.” She tapped a few keys on her computer. “Mr. Reese...here we go. He was discharged. Last week.”

  Discharged? Without a word to her?

  Jamie thanked the nurse, told herself she was in a panic over nothing. She knew Dan was going into rehab. She walked outside, pulled out her cell phone and keyed in the number for the rehab hospital where Geri had been transferred. The person who answered the phone said they had no patient by the name of Dan Reese.

  She called Division One, talked to three different people, none of whom knew where Dan was.

  Moving more quickly now, her sense of unease growing every moment, she went back into the hospital, flashed a lot of ID around, and with considerable effort persuaded one of the nurses to tell her which doctor had signed Dan’s discharge papers. It was Dr. Richardson. She’d dealt with him before, and he remembered her.

  Jamie trailed him through the hospital and ambushed him in the hall. “Dan?” she said. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know, Ms. Douglass.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I mean I don’t know.”

  “I don’t understand. How can you not know?”

  “He’s an adult. I’m just his doctor. I can make recommendations about how long he should stay here and where he should go for treatment when he leaves. But ultimately, those decisions are his to make.”

  “You didn’t want to release him?”

  “No. I would have preferred to have him here another week or so, but he didn’t want to stay and we’re not running a jail here.”

  “But he’s going to be okay? I mean...he’s able to be out of the hospital now? Medically...”

  “He still needs medical care. But at this point in his treatment, there are other places where he can get that care.”

  “I...I have to find him.”

  The doctor sighed. “Ms. Douglass, he left here with a complete copy of his medical records in his hands. He wouldn’t let us arrange to transport him to wherever he was going, wouldn’t let me send his medical records directly to his new doctor. He didn’t want me to consult with that doctor by phone or letter or any other means of communication. For some reason, he wanted a clean break from this place.”

  “All right, but—”

  The doctor’s expression changed, that look of professional detachment gone, a compassionate man in his place. She’d broken through the reserve, and she could tell the doctor knew exactly what she was leaving unsaid.

  “Ms. Douglass, he doesn’t want anyone to know where he is. He was very clear about that.”

  Not just anyone, she thought.

  Her.

  Damn him.

  He didn’t want her to know where he was.

  Chapter 8

  Six weeks later, Jamie met her mother for a quick breakfast before work. They ordered, found a seat, but before Jamie had taken the first sip of her coffee, her mother got to the heart of the matter.

  “Well? What did he do to you now?” Mary Ann Douglass asked.

  “Nothing,” Jamie said.

  She loved her mother very much and worked hard to shield her from the dangers involved with her job, but Jamie told her a great deal about the people with whom she worked. The name Dan Reese was a familiar one to her mother especially after he was hurt, in an accident, she claimed. A month ago, Jamie had tearfully confessed the more personal nature of their relationship, including the way Dan had pushed her out of his life. Now, she had to pay the price for her confession—keeping her mother upto-date on what was happening between them.

  “You did find him?”

  “With enough time, I could find the man in the moon,” Jamie bragged. “He knew I’d find him eventually.”

  “And?”

  “He’s at this ritzy rehabilitation facility in suburban Maryland, about ninety minutes away.” It had taken her three weeks to track him down, and by then she was furious. “I couldn’t even bawl him out over the phone. He left instructions with the switchboard not to put any calls through to his room. At least, not any of my calls.”

  “You didn’t let it go at that?” her mother guessed.

  “No, I didn’t.” One thoroughly humiliating day, she’d gone to see him. “There’s a huge, brick wall around the place, a guard gate at the entrance, a private security force on site. Apparently, they cater to celebrities, politicians and foreign diplomats, and they have a drug and alcohol treatment program, too. Some of the people who check in are quite serious about maintaining their privacy.”

  “My daughter couldn’t get inside the gate?”

  “I tried,” Jamie said evasively.

  In truth, she’d been mad enough, and determined enough, that she’d flashed a government ID and tried to brazen her way through the guards, who informed her she couldn’t go in without a court order or an arrest warrant, no matter what kind of government ID she produced. And Jamie had an amazing array of government IDs that she’d used to bluff her way into vast numbers of places.

  “That man was unforgivably rude to you, and at the very least, he owes you an explanation,” her mother decreed.

  “I considered scaling the walls or checking in as a patient, but I found I do have some pride left where he’s concerned.” Who knew how long that would hold out, but for now, she’d managed to resist the urge to see him at any cost. “He doesn’t want to see me, Mom. I don’t know how much clearer he could make it.”

  “Then the man is a fool.”

  Jamie smiled, feeling better and thinking she’d send her mother to chew Dan out on her behalf. “He’s so stubborn.”

  “Every man I’ve ever known is stubborn. You just have to explain to them the error of their ways. Eventually, the smart ones get it.”

  Jamie laughed out loud then. “I knew I could count on you to make me feel better.”

  Mary Anne Douglass got up and moved around the table to give her daughter a hug. Jamie felt tears stinging her eyes, and knew her mother saw them, too, when she pulled away.

  “I keep thinking of Sean and what he went through, and then I imagine
Dan going through that all by himself. I don’t know what to do,” Jamie confessed. “He’s sure I’m better off without him because of what’s happened to him, and he’s not even willing to consider how I feel about it. He’s made his decision, and he thinks he knows what’s best for me. I think he’s being noble, in some twisted sort of way.”

  “Oh, honey. All men have their faults. And there’s nothing wrong with having an old-fashioned man who wants to take care of you and protect you. It can be annoying at times, but kind of sweet at others. You’re strong enough that you’re not going to let any man walk all over you. But you said he’s spent his whole life alone, except for a marriage that didn’t last long and ended badly.” Her mother sighed. “How old is he?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  Her mother nodded. “Men tend to get set in their ways. If he’s never let anyone get that close to him, I don’t think he’s going to change now. He may not be able to change, even if he wants to. But I do know one thing for certain—you can’t change him. Love him, if you can’t help yourself, but don’t ever let yourself think you can change him into the man you want him to be.”

  “I don’t want to change who he is. I just want him to let me be a part of his life. He needs me now, Mom. I know he does. This has got to be the hardest thing he’s ever gone through.”

  “I’m sure it is,” her mother agreed. “But think about what you’ve just said. This is the hardest thing he’s ever had to face, and he’s doing it all by himself. He knows you’re here, Jamie. He knows you want to see him, and he won’t let you. What does that tell you?”

  “Well, that he’s been alone too long—that things get bad, and he puts up those walls of his and doesn’t let anyone near him.”

  “I’m sure that’s all true,” her mother said, as gently as possible. “But there’s more to it than that. I think it says he doesn’t know how to let anyone into his life. I know that’s not what you want to hear, and I’m sorry. But you have to consider the fact that he may never be able to let you or anyone else truly be a part of his life.”