“Oh,” she said, swallowing. “Good. I’ll…” She lowered her voice to try to sound sexy. “I’ll wear my new gift from you.” Maybe if she reminded him of black silk, he’d get his mind off—
“Like hell you will! I’m going to put you inside a cardboard box while I talk to you. But afterward we can have a little show-and-tell.”
She looked at her watch. “I think I better leave now. And don’t forget the yellow roses.” She was trying to sound lighthearted.
“Sure. Lots of ’em. Call me the second you get back.”
“Yeah, sure, and talk to your machine.”
“He loves you nearly as much as I do.”
“The feeling is mutual. Bye.”
For a moment, Emily stood looking at her suitcase in indecision. She should obey Donald and get out of there. Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do. But the next second, her hand was on the doorknob, her suitcase on the floor by her feet. She had to find him and warn him!
She never got a chance. When the door flew open, nearly hitting her in the face, there stood Michael Chamberlain—and it didn’t take much to see that he was enraged.
He looked from her to the suitcase then back to her face again. “You were going to leave me, weren’t you?” he said under his breath.
Emily backed up. “How did you get in here? That door was locked.”
“Making doors open seems to be one of my powers,” he answered in dismissal as he advanced toward her, his jaw set. “It’s bad enough that you don’t recognize me, don’t remember me, but you were going to leave me as well.”
“You are insane, you know that?” Her back was against the dresser and he was still coming closer. “And for your information, I was planning to find you and warn you.”
Just as he got so close that she could feel his breath on her face, he turned away. “I saw this body on your—”
“Television.”
“Yes. Someone wants to kill me.”
“No, they have already killed you,” she said, then couldn’t believe what she was saying. “But you’re innocent. I talked to Donald about you and—”
“You did what? You told someone about me?”
“Only Donald. Listen, I can draw you a map and tell you how to get to an abandoned cabin up in the mountains. I’ll even give you my car, and you have money so you can buy yourself groceries and you can hide out there.”
“And how long do you think it will take your police to find out that you were with me? Ten minutes? Fifteen?”
For a moment he ran his hand over his face as he tried to calm himself. “Look, Emily, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here on Earth, but it has something to do with you and I’ve spent all the time I can spare in courting you so—”
“Courting me! Is that what you call this? You threatened to charge me with drunk driving if I didn’t let you—”
She broke off because Michael, in one swift movement, grabbed her in his arms and put a hand over her mouth. Emily tried to squeal in protest but his grip was too strong. A second later, a knock sounded on the door. Squirming with all her might, Emily tried to get away, but Michael held her tightly.
“Miss Todd,” came a man’s voice.
Michael started pulling Emily toward the window as though he meant for her to climb out of it, but she grabbed the sides of the frame.
“They think you’ve helped one of the ten-most-wanted criminals,” he said into her ear. “What do you think they’ll do to you?”
As soon as Emily thought about those words she quietened. Neither she nor Donald wanted the publicity that would be generated by her being found with this man. Michael removed his hand from her mouth to push the window up higher.
“But I’m innocent!” she hissed, then tried to push past him to get to the door.
“So was Michael Chamberlain,” he said into her left ear.
Emily hesitated only a second before she climbed out the window onto the tiny balcony, Michael right behind her.
“Now what?” she asked, her back pressed to the wall. “Do you spread your wings and we fly to the ground?”
“Wish I’d brought them,” he said seriously, as though she hadn’t made a joke. He was looking at the building. “No wings, but we can go down that,” he said, nodding toward a drainpipe that ran down the side of the building.
“If you think—”
But Michael had already lifted her to the balcony rail and was bending her backward as he studied the drainpipe. “Put your foot there and hold onto that ledge.”
“And then what?”
Looking back at her, his eyes twinkled. “Then you pray very hard.”
“I hate angel jokes,” she said under her breath as she stuck out her foot. Getting over the balcony was easier than it looked, thanks to the building’s fancy carpentry, which was a veritable lacework of beading, molding and curlicues that seemed to protrude everywhere.
However, when Emily was on the ground, she found that she was shaking so much she had to sit down on a large stump to steady her knees.
“Catch!” she heard, and looked up in time to miss being hit in the face by two full laundry bags.
Within seconds Michael was on the ground beside her and he had another bag in his hand. “I couldn’t carry the suitcase so I put everything in these.”
Opening one bag she saw her clothes and toiletries jammed inside. For a suspected killer he certainly could be thoughtful.
“Let’s go,” he said, then grabbed her hand and started running toward the parking lot.
As soon as they reached her car, Emily panicked because she didn’t have her handbag. “I’ll find it,” Michael said, dumping first one then another laundry bag out onto the back seat.
Emily was so annoyed at his reading her mind that she didn’t protest the mess he was making, but just got into the car and waited until he got in beside her and handed her the keys. “Where to?” she asked angrily. Her ankle was hurting and there were three bleeding scratches on her hand from some thorny branch that grew alongside the hotel. Besides that, she was tired and very frightened.
“It will be all right,” Michael tried to reassure her as he reached for her hand, but she jerked away from him.
“Sure it will,” she said as she backed out of the parking lot. “I’m about to be arrested for harboring a fugitive but everything will be just fine.”
She didn’t look at the man beside her as she pulled up to the entrance of the hotel, and she didn’t bother asking him which way he wanted to go. No doubt he’d start that angel business again and tell her he only traveled north and south.
Emily drove east, the opposite direction of her hometown, down what looked to be a farm road. Immediately, she began to think how much she hoped she’d be able to go to work on Monday. Beside her, the man sat quietly, not saying a word. But she was very aware of his presence.
Emily’s mind was moving rapidly, filling with thoughts of how to get rid of him. Had that been the FBI at the door of her room? Or was it room service? Had she ordered anything? Maybe Donald had called someone. For all she knew, the person behind the door had been her savior, not her enemy as this man had made her think. Maybe—
“Stop here,” Michael said softly.
Glancing at him, Emily saw that he was frowning deeply. There wasn’t much light, but she could see that he was deeply worried. Ahead of them were the lights of what looked to be a terrifically sleazy motel/cafe. Maybe he wanted to get something to eat.
“No! Here,” he said forcefully. “Let me out here.”
“But—”
“Now!” he said, and Emily nearly screeched to a halt by the side of the road, then watched as he got out of the car. “You’re free, Emily,” he said softly. “Free to go. Tell anyone who asks the truth, that I kidnaped you and forced you to go with me. Tell them I did it at gunpoint. You mortals love guns. Good-bye, Emily,” he said, then shut the door.
Emily didn’t waste even a moment getting away from him. A great rush of
relief filled her as she pulled back onto the pavement. But she made the mistake of looking into her rearview mirror and saw him standing there by the side of the road, watching her drive away. He was all alone in the world. How long would it take the FBI to find him? Or would the Mafia find him first?
As she watched, he turned away and started walking down the side of the road in the opposite direction she was going.
Even as Emily turned onto the gravel of the motel, she was cursing herself. “Damn, damn, damn,” she said under her breath, using the strongest language she allowed herself. A doormat, Irene called her. And Donald laughed about her “stray cats,” referring to the aimless people she got involved with.
She drove slowly along the road, but Michael was nowhere to be seen. Had he gone into the woods that lined both sides of the road?
When she’d traveled about a mile and a half, she turned around and headed back, this time more slowly, her eyes searching the dark night for any sign of him. Had she not been looking so hard, she wouldn’t have seen his crumpled body lying in the gravel not more than a couple of feet from where she had let him off.
She pulled the car to a halt just in front of him, then jumped out and ran to him. “Michael,” she said, but he didn’t answer. Bending, she touched his face. When he still didn’t respond, she put both her hands on his head and said louder, “Michael!”
At that she saw his smile, illuminated by the car taillights. “Emily, I knew you’d come back. You have the biggest heart in the world.” He didn’t open his eyes and he made no effort to get up.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded, using anger to cover her fear. Fear of what, she didn’t know, since the man was nothing to her but a great nuisance.
“My head hurts,” he whispered. “I hate mortal bodies. Oh, no, you don’t like that word. Human bodies? Is that better?”
Emily ran her hand over his head as though she could feel the cause of his headache. She had some aspirin in her bag but she’d need water and—
Just then she noticed a round, hard object protruding from Michael’s head. Had he fallen when he got out of the car? But she felt nothing wet to indicate blood.
“I have to get you to a doctor,” she said as she started to help him up.
“They will kill me,” he said, smiling. “That will make it two times.”
There was truth to his words: Donald had said the man on the news was a walking dead man.
Putting her arm under his shoulders, she commanded him to help her get him into the car. He did the best he could, but she could tell that he was in too much pain to give her much help.
Once he was in the car, the only thing to do was to get him somewhere safe. Maybe she could call Donald and—And hear him tell her to leave the man and get out as fast as she could, she thought.
She pulled into the parking lot of the motel, then drove to the back where her car couldn’t be seen. Inside, the place was even sleazier than outside and the man watching TV from behind the desk looked as though he hadn’t had a bath in a while.
“I’d like a double room, please,” Emily said, and for a moment the man just stared at her without speaking. He was looking her up and down and taking in her clothes, making her feel as though she were wearing couture at a drag race.
“Only people stay here are people that cain’t afford no better, local high school kids, and….” He smirked. “And ladies like you that’s doin’ somethin’ she ain’t supposed to be doin’ with somebody she ain’t supposed to be doin’ it with.”
Emily didn’t feel like talking to the man or explaining anything. What could she say anyway, except that he was right? “How much to keep your mouth shut?” she asked tiredly.
“Fifty cash.”
Without another word, Emily paid the money, took the key to a room at the back of the motel and left. Minutes later, she had Michael in the ugly motel room stretched out on the none-too-clean double bed.
As far as she could tell, Michael was still near to being unconscious, but as she straightened up he caught her wrist. “You have to take it out,” he whispered.
“What?”
“The bullet. You have to take the bullet out of my head.”
Emily stared at him. “You’ve been watching too many cowboy movies,” she said. “I’ll take you to a doctor and—”
“No!” he said, lifting his head with the force of his voice, then falling back on the pillow in agony. “Please, Emily. In remembrance for the things I have done for you.”
“For me?” she gasped. “And what would that be? Making me climb down a drainpipe? Putting me on the Most Wanted List? Or—”
“When you fell in the pond, I called your mother,” he said softly.
At that Emily backed away from him, for the story was one of the great ones in her family. Even though she had been forbidden to go, Emily had been collecting tadpoles by the edge of the pond and had fallen in. Within seconds her mother had been there to fish her out. Later her mother had sworn that “someone” had told her to go get her daughter.
“Who are you?” she whispered, backing away from him.
“Right now I am a man and I need your help. Please, Emily, I do not think this body can stand this much pain for very long. I do not want to be recalled before I have done what I was sent here to do.”
“I…I don’t know what to do. I have no knowledge of medicine. I know nothing.”
“Those things you use on your eyebrows….” he said, his voice very weak and his eyes closed.
“Tweezers. But a pair of tweezers couldn’t remove something as big as that…that thing in your head.” She sat down on the bed beside him and smoothed his hair back from his face. “I would like to help you but only a doctor can do what you’re asking. A person can’t just take a pair of pliers and pull a bullet from someone’s head. There would be blood and infection and….” She smiled down at him even though he couldn’t see her. “Your brains would leak out through the hole,” she said, trying to make him smile. “I must get you to a doctor now; we’ll worry about the FBI later.”
“Yes, pliers,” he said. “Yes. You have them in your car. You must get them and remove this thing.”
Emily started to get off the bed. There was no phone in the room and she knew that it would take an ambulance longer to find this place than it would for her to drive him back into the town to the clinic. Or maybe she should take him into the city to a proper hospital.
Michael grabbed her hand. “You must, Emily. You must remove this thing. To take me to a doctor means taking me to my death.”
Once again she had that feeling of calm that seemed to come over her whenever he touched her. As though she were in a dream, she got up, picked up her keys, went to the car and got the pouch of tools that she kept there. Back in the room, she unrolled the pouch and extracted a pair of flat-nose pliers.
It was almost as though she weren’t in her own body as she moved to sit on the bed, her back against the headboard, and then pulled the man’s head onto her lap. The bedside lamp was all the light there was in the room, but she couldn’t see much anyway, for her eyes didn’t seem to focus clearly. Some part of her knew that if she weren’t in this odd trance-state she would never be doing what she was. How in the world could she, a librarian, pull a bullet from a man’s head?
Using her fingertips more than her eyes, she easily found the bullet and put the end of the pliers against it, then pulled. The first time, the pliers slipped off, so the second time she used all her strength to hold them together and pull. It was as though she suddenly had the strength of a dozen strong men, and when she pulled the bullet came out.
Lying across her outstretched legs, she felt the man’s body go limp, and she knew he had fainted. She could not let herself imagine the kind of pain she had just caused him.
Part of Emily expected blood, but another part of her knew that there would be none. And she was glad, for she didn’t think she had the energy to cope with more trauma than she’d already exper
ienced in the last couple of days.
With her head back against the wobbly headboard, the man still sprawled across her, the pliers still in her hand, she fell asleep.
Chapter 5
WHEN EMILY AWOKE SHE DIDN’T AT FIRST KNOW where she was, but she did know there was something she didn’t want to remember, so she snuggled back under the covers and closed her eyes.
“Good morning,” came a cheerful male voice that Emily instantly recognized. And it made her bury herself even deeper under the thin covers.
“Come on, get up. I know you’re awake,” he said again.
She turned her face toward the wall. “Head all right?” she mumbled.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”
She knew very well that he heard her perfectly but he was pretending not to. “Is your head all right?” she shouted without turning to look at him.
When he didn’t answer she turned over and glared at him. His hair was damp and he was wearing nothing but a towel about his waist. It made her even more infuriated that she couldn’t help noticing that his broad chest was well muscled and his skin was a lovely honey color.
Michael grinned. “They did a good job in choosing a body for me, didn’t they? I’m glad you like it.”
“It’s too early for mind reading,” she snapped, pushing the hair out of her eyes.
He sat on the bed and looked at her. “Sometimes I can understand the attraction you mortals have for each other’s bodies,” he said softly.
“Touch me and you die.”
At that he chuckled but he didn’t move off the bed. “Look at this,” he said, then ran his hands over his chest. “I didn’t see all that on your TU but—”
“TV, short for television.”
“Ah, yes, TV. Anyway, didn’t they say this body was shot in the chest?”
“I really wish you’d stop referring to yourself as ‘this body’,” she said, looking away from him.
“I am making you uncomfortable,” he said, but he didn’t seem to have any real remorse for doing so. “You know, Emily, if we’re going to work together, we must make some earth, ah, ground rules.” He looked at her as though he wanted praise for having remembered something she’d taught him, but Emily wasn’t going to give him anything. “You can’t fall in love with me,” he said.