Roger.
What a fool she had been! She had considered him as a danger only to herself, not to John. She should have expected his insane jealousy to spill over onto the man he thought had taken her away from him. While she had been trying to draw him out, he had been stalking John. Fiercely her hands knotted into fists. Roger wouldn’t stand a chance against John in an open fight, but he would sneak around like the coward he was, never taking the chance of a face-to-face confrontation.
She looked down at the two carry-ons Edie had packed for them and put her hand to her head. “I feel a little sick, Nev,” she whispered. “Excuse me, I have to get to the restroom.”
Nev looked around, worry etched on his face. “Do you want me to get a nurse? You do look kinda green.”
“No, I’ll be all right.” She managed a weak smile as she lied, “I never have been able to stand the sight of blood, and it just caught up with me.”
She patted his arm and went around the partition to the public restrooms, but didn’t enter. Instead she waited a moment, sneaking peeks around the edge of the partition; as soon as Nev turned to sit down while waiting for her, she darted across the open space to the corridor where the examining rooms were. The door to John’s room was closed, but not far enough for the latch to catch. When she cautiously nudged it, the door opened a crack. It was on the left side of the room, so John wouldn’t be able to see it. Phelps should be on John’s right side, facing him; with luck, he wouldn’t notice the slight movement of the door, either.
Their voices filtered through the crack.
“—think the bullet came from a little rise just to the left of me,” John said. “Nev can show you.”
“Is there any chance the bullet could be in the upholstery?”
“Probably not. The trajectory wasn’t angled enough.”
“Maybe I can find the cartridge. I’m coming up with a big zero from the airlines, but I have another angle I can check. If he flew in, he’d have come in at Tampa, which means he’d have gotten his rental car at the airport. If I can get a match on his description, we’ll have his license plate number.”
“A blue Chevrolet. That should narrow it down,” John said grimly.
“I don’t even want to think about how many blue Chevrolets there are in this state. It was a good idea to keep Michelle with you in Tampa; it’ll give me a few days to get a lead on this guy. I can get a buddy in Tampa to put surveillance on the hospital, if you think you’ll need it.”
“He won’t be able to find her if the doctor here keeps quiet and if my file is a little hard to find.”
“I can arrange that.” Andy chuckled.
Michelle didn’t wait to hear more. Quietly she walked back down the corridor and rejoined Nev. He was reading a magazine and didn’t look up until she sat down beside him. “Feeling better?” he asked sympathetically.
She gave some answer, and it must have made sense, because it satisfied him. She sat rigidly in the chair, more than a little stunned. What she had overheard had verified her suspicion that Roger was behind John’s “accident,” but it was hard for her to take in the rest of it. John not only believed her about the phone calls, he had tied them in to the blue Chevrolet and had been quietly trying to track Roger down. That explained why he had suddenly become so insistent that she tell him exactly where she was going and how long she would be there, why he didn’t want her going anywhere at all. He had been trying to protect her, while she had been trying to bait Roger into the open.
She hadn’t told him what she was doing because she hadn’t thought he would believe her; she had learned well the bitter lesson that she could depend only on herself, perhaps learned it too well. Right from the beginning John had helped her, sometimes against her will. He had stepped in and taken over the ranch chores that were too much for her; he was literally carrying her ranch until she could rebuild it into a profitable enterprise. He had given her love, comfort, care and concern, and now a child, but still she hadn’t trusted him. He hadn’t been tiring of her; he’d been under considerable strain to protect her.
Being John, he hadn’t told her of his suspicions or what he was doing because he hadn’t wanted to “worry” her. It was just like him. That protective, possessive streak of his was bone deep and body wide, defying logical argument. There were few things or people in his life that he cared about, but when he did care, he went full measure. He had claimed her as his, and what was his, he kept.
Deputy Phelps stopped by to chat; Michelle decided to give him an opportunity to talk to Nev, and she walked back to John’s room. The ambulance had just arrived, so she knew they would be leaving soon.
When the door opened, he rolled his head until he could see her with his right eye. “Is everything okay?”
She had to grit her teeth against the rage that filled her when she saw his battered, discolored face. It made her want to destroy Roger in any way she could. The primitive, protective anger filled her, pumping into every cell in her body. It took every bit of control she had to calmly walk over to him as if she weren’t in a killing rage and take his hand. “If you’re all right, then I don’t care what Edie packed or didn’t pack.”
“I’ll be all right.” His deep voice was confident. He might or might not lose the sight in his eye, but he’d be all right. John Rafferty was made of the purest, hardest steel.
She sat beside him in the ambulance and held his hand all the way to Tampa, her eyes seldom leaving his face. Perhaps he dozed; perhaps it was simply less painful if he kept his right eye closed, too. For whatever reason, little was said during the long ride.
It wasn’t until they reached the hospital that he opened his eye and looked at her, frowning when he saw how drawn she looked. She needed the bed rest more than he did; if it hadn’t been for his damned eye, and the opportunity to keep Michelle away from the ranch, he would already have been back at work.
He should have gotten her away when he’d first suspected Beckman was behind her accident, but he’d been too reluctant to let her out of his sight. He wasn’t certain about her or how much she needed him, so he’d kept her close at hand. But the way she had looked when she saw he was hurt…a woman didn’t look like that unless she cared. He didn’t know how much she cared, but for now he was content with the fact that she did. He had her now, and he wasn’t inclined to let go. As soon as this business with Beckman was settled, he’d marry her so fast she wouldn’t know what was happening.
Michelle went through the process of having him admitted to the hospital while he was whisked off, with three—three!—nurses right beside him. Even as battered as he was, he exuded a masculinity that drew women like a magnet.
She didn’t see him again for three hours. Fretting, she wandered the halls until a bout of nausea drove her to find the cafeteria, where she slowly munched on stale crackers. Her stomach gradually settled. John would probably be here for at least two days, maybe longer; how could she hide her condition from him when she would be with him practically every hour of the day? Nothing escaped his attention for long, whether he had one good eye or two. Breeding wasn’t anything new to him; it was his business. Cows calved; mares foaled. On the ranch, everything mated and reproduced. It wouldn’t take long for him to discard the virus tale she’d told him and come up with the real reason for her upset stomach.
What would he say if she told him? She closed her eyes, her heart pounding wildly at the thought. He deserved to know. She wanted him to know; she wanted to share every moment of this pregnancy with him. But what if it drove him to do something foolish, knowing that Roger not only threatened her but their child as well?
She forced herself to think clearly. They were safe here in the hospital; this was bought time. He wouldn’t leave the hospital when staying here meant that she was also protected. She suspected that was the only reason he’d agreed to come at all. He was giving Deputy Phelps time to find Roger, if he
could.
But what if Phelps hadn’t found Roger by the time John left the hospital? What evidence did they have against him, anyway? He had had time to have any damage to the Chevrolet repaired, and no one had seen him shoot at John. He hadn’t threatened her during any of those phone calls. He hadn’t had to; she knew him, and that was enough.
She couldn’t run, not any longer. She had run for two years, fleeing emotionally long after she had stopped physically running. John had brought her alive with his fierce, white-hot passion, forcing her out of her protective reserve. She couldn’t leave him, especially now that she carried his child. She had to face Roger, face all the old nightmares and conquer them, or she would never be rid of this crippling fear. She could fight him, something she had always been too terrified to do before. She could fight him for John, for their baby, and she could damn well fight him for herself.
Finally she went back to the room that had been assigned to John to wait. It was thirty minutes more before he was wheeled into the room and transferred very carefully to the bed. When the door closed behind the orderlies he said, from between clenched teeth, “If anyone else comes through that door to do anything to me, I’m going to throw them out the window.” Gingerly he eased into a more upright position against the pillow, then punched the button that raised the head of the bed.
She ignored his bad temper. “Have you seen the eye specialist yet?”
“Three of them. Come here.”
There was no misreading that low demanding voice or the glint in his right eye as he looked at her. He held his hand out to her and said again, “Come here.”
“John Patrick Rafferty, you aren’t in any shape to begin carrying on like that.”
“Aren’t I?”
She refused to look at his lap. “You shouldn’t be jostled.”
“I don’t want to be jostled. I just want a kiss.” He gave her a slow, wicked grin despite the swelling in his face. “The spirit’s willing, but the body’s tired as hell.”
She bent to kiss him, loving his lips gently with her own. When she tried to lift her head he thrust his fingers into her hair and held her down while his mouth molded to hers, his tongue making teasing little forays to touch hers. He gave a sigh of pleasure and let her up, but shifted his hand to her bottom to hold her beside him. “What’ve you been doing while I’ve been lying in cold halls in between bouts of being stuck, prodded, x-rayed and prodded some more?”
“Oh, I’ve been really entertained. You don’t realize what an art mopping is until you’ve seen a master do it. There’s also a four-star cafeteria here, specializing in the best stale crackers I’ve ever eaten.” She grinned, thinking he’d never realize the truth of that last statement.
He returned the grin, thinking that once he would have accused her of being spoiled. He knew better now, because he’d been trying his damnedest to spoil her, and she persisted in being satisfied with far less than he would gladly have given her any day of the week. Her tastes didn’t run to caviar or mink, and she’d been content to drive that old truck of hers instead of a Porsche. She liked silk and had beautiful clothes, but she was equally content wearing a cotton shirt and jeans. It wasn’t easy to spoil a woman who was happy with whatever she had.
“Arrange to have a bed moved in here for you,” he ordered. “Unless you want to sleep up here with me?”
“I don’t think the nurses would allow that.”
“Is there a lock on the door?”
She laughed. “No. You’re out of luck.”
His hand moved over her bottom, the slow, intimate touch of a lover. “We need to talk. Will it bother you if I lose this eye?”
Until then she hadn’t realized that he might lose the eye as well as his sight. She sucked in a shocked breath, reaching blindly for his hand. He continued to watch her steadily, and slowly she relaxed, knowing what was important.
“It would bother me for your sake, but as for me… You can be one-eyed, totally blind, crippled, whatever, and I’ll still love you.”
There. She’d said it. She hadn’t meant to, but the words had come so naturally that even if she could take them back, she wouldn’t.
His right eye was blazing black fire at her. She had never seen anyone else with eyes as dark as his, night-black eyes that had haunted her from the first time she’d met him. She looked down at him and managed a tiny smile that was only a little hesitant as she waited for him to speak.
“Say that again.”
She didn’t pretend not to know what he meant, but she had to take another deep breath. Her heart was pounding. “I love you. I’m not saying that to try to trap you into anything. It’s just the way I feel, and I don’t expect you to—”
He put his fingers over her mouth. “It’s about damn time,” he said.
Chapter Twelve
“YOU’RE VERY LUCKY, Mr. Rafferty,” Dr. Norris said, looking over his glasses. “Your cheekbone seems to have absorbed most of the impact. It’s fractured, of course, but the orbital bone is intact. Nor does there seem to be any damage to the eye itself, or any loss of sight. In other words, you have a hell of a shiner.”
Michelle drew a deep breath of relief, squeezing John’s hand. He winked at her with his right eye, then drawled, “So I’ve spent four days in a hospital because I have a black eye?”
Dr. Norris grinned. “Call it a vacation.”
“Well, vacation’s over, and I’m checking out of the resort.”
“Just take it easy for the next few days. Remember that you have stitches in your head, your cheekbone is fractured, and you had a mild concussion.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Michelle said with a note of warning in her voice, looking at John very hard. He was probably planning to get on a horse as soon as he got home.
When they were alone again John put his hands behind his head, watching her with a distinct glitter in his eyes. After four days the swelling around his eye had subsided enough that he could open it a tiny slit, enough for him to see with it again. His face was still a mess, discolored in varying shades of black and purple, with a hint of green creeping in, but none of that mattered beside the fact that his eye was all right. “This has been a long four days,” he murmured. “When we get home, I’m taking you straight to bed.”
Her blood started running wild through her veins again, and she wondered briefly if she would always have this uncontrolled response to him. She’d been completely vulnerable to him from the start, and her reaction now was even stronger. Her body was changing as his baby grew within her, invisible changes as yet, but her skin seemed to be more sensitive, more responsive to his lightest touch. Her breasts throbbed slightly, aching for the feel of his hands and mouth.
She had decided not to tell him about the baby just yet, especially not while his eyesight was still in doubt, and had been at pains during the past four days to keep her uneasy stomach under control. She munched on crackers almost constantly, and had stopped drinking coffee because it made the nausea worse.
She could still see the hard satisfaction that had filled his face when she’d told him she loved him, but he hadn’t returned the words. For a horrible moment she’d wondered if he was gloating, but he’d kissed her so hard and hungrily that she had dismissed the notion even though she’d felt a lingering pain. That night, after the lights were out and she was lying on the cot that had been brought in, he had said, “Michelle.”
His voice was low, and he hadn’t moved. She’d lifted her head to stare through the darkness at him. “Yes?”
“I love you,” he had said quietly.
Tremors shook her, and tears leaped to her eyes, but they were happy tears. “I’m glad,” she had managed to say.
He’d laughed in the darkness. “You little tease, just wait until I get my hands on you again.”
“I can’t wait.”
Now he was all right, and
they were going home. She called Nev to come pick them up, then hung up the phone with hands that had become damp. She wiped them on her slacks and lifted her chin. “Have you heard if Deputy Phelps has found a lead on Roger yet?”
John had been dressing, but at her words his head snapped around and his good eye narrowed on her. Slowly he zipped his jeans and fastened them, then walked around the bed to tower over her threateningly. Michelle’s gaze didn’t waver, nor did she lower her chin, even though she abruptly felt very small and helpless.
He didn’t say anything, but simply waited, his mouth a hard line beneath his mustache. “I eavesdropped,” she said calmly. “I had already made the connection between the phone calls and the guy who forced me off the road, but how did you tie everything together?”
“Just an uneasy feeling and a lot of suspicions,” he said. “After that last call, I wanted to make certain I knew where he was. There were too many loose ends, and Andy couldn’t find him on any airline’s overseas passenger list. The harder Beckman was to find, the more suspicious it looked.”
“You didn’t believe me at first, about the blue Chevrolet.”
He sighed. “No, I didn’t. Not at first. I’m sorry. It was hard for me to face the fact that anyone would want to hurt you. But something was bothering you. You didn’t want to drive, you didn’t want to leave the ranch at all, but you wouldn’t talk about it. That’s when I began to realize you were scared.”
Her green eyes went dark. “Terrified is a better word,” she whispered, looking out the window. “Have you heard from Phelps?”
“No. He wouldn’t call here unless he’d found Beckman.”
She shivered, the strained look coming back into her face. “He tried to kill you. I should have known, I should have done something.”
“What could you have done?” he asked roughly. “If you’d been with me that day, the bullet would have hit you, instead of just shattering the windshield.”