Читать книгу Let Me In - Donna Kauffman - Страница 8

Tate leaned on the doorjamb and watched him sleep. At least it seemed as if he was sleeping now. He was resting more peacefully, at any rate. Far better than the fitful, twitchy, complete-with-delirious-rambling unconsciousness that had passed for sleep the last time he’d checked out on her.

She tried not to think about some of those ramblings. In his drug-induced delirium, her name had been on his lips more than once. And not in a professional, teamwork kind of way.

She shifted her weight, crossed her arms more tightly, as the echo of those feverish, highly sexually-oriented ramblings made her body twitch in ways it hadn’t in a very, very long time. And had absolutely no business twitching now.

All the rest of her parts, however, ached with fatigue. And yet, she knew another cup of coffee was going to be necessary, as sleep was a commodity she wasn’t going to be able to indulge in quite yet. She could smell the fresh pot she’d put on as it began to percolate. The rich scent alone was enough to both perk up her brain synapses and make her feel a bit queasy, all at the same time. She’d really rather just close her eyes for a few hours. “Dream on,” she murmured, still standing in the doorway, watching him.

She found her gaze once again roaming over his body. He’d always been well-muscled, but not big or bulky. He moved quickly, economically, always in control, and light on his feet. More panther than lion. He generally slipped into whatever space he chose to occupy, rather than stride his way into it. He was stealthy with his dominance, rather than overt or kingly, despite his leadership position.

So it surprised her how overly large he seemed to her now, in the way he dominated the space in her bed. It was a big bed. A sea of bed, actually. She didn’t like small spaces, didn’t like to feel limited in her range of motion, even if she didn’t use it or need it. She needed to know it was there, the room, the space.

She knew quite well that need was tied directly to her time spent in captivity and didn’t really give a flat damn what that said about how well and thoroughly she’d healed. She’d healed more than she’d ever expected possible. So if she wanted to sleep spread-eagled on a mattress the size of Kansas, she wasn’t going to apologize to anyone about it.

She covered her mouth with her fist as a yawn overtook her, which made her feel every tense fiber in her neck and shoulders. She was exhausted from the lack of sleep, but hauling his half-dead weight into her bedroom—and away from that giant picture window in her living room—before the sun came up hadn’t exactly helped matters. He’d been back in her world less than twenty-four hours, and she needed him to wake the hell up so he could help her come to terms with exactly what his intrusion was going to do to her.

Her innate training had kicked in whether she wanted it to or not, and she realized she’d been subconsciously making damage-control lists almost from the time he’d collapsed on her floor. First order of business was to make sure he was stabilized and secure. He was still fighting off the effects of his injuries and whatever drugs had been pumped into him, but he was no longer bound, he’d been given sips of water, and he was as comfortable as he could be. She still needed to strip him and clean up whatever wounds he might have, do a more thorough investigation of his injuries, but getting him into bed had been an epic struggle, done in fits and spurts whenever he was lucid enough to help her maneuver his weight. At the moment, that was going to have to be enough.

Moving him off the floor had been a risk, as she couldn’t be a hundred percent certain there weren’t life-threatening internal injuries, but given his continued improvement, and the fact that she couldn’t haul him into the nearest emergency room no matter what shape he was truly in, she’d done what she thought was most important.

Which was to make him comfortable and get him out of any possible public view. There were windows along the back wall of her bedroom, but as the rear of her cabin jutted out over a steep hill, someone would have to either be sitting on the deck which circled the back of her home, or have shimmied very high up into some skinny pine trees, to get into binocular—or scope—range. Not that there weren’t agents who could pull that off, but it was unlikely. She’d done a thorough visual scan of the rear area anyway. Because unlikely didn’t mean impossible.

As soon as she could be relatively certain he wouldn’t do anything to further harm himself—or her—she needed to get outside and repair the obvious signs he had to have left in his drugged and disoriented trek to her front door. They might not be obvious to a neighbor or casual passerby, not that she had any of those way out here, but anyone who was actually looking for him would find a trail as easily as if he’d left bread crumbs.

If they hadn’t already.

“What in the hell did you think you were doing?” she murmured, tucking suddenly cold hands deeper under her arms. It was little comfort. It was frustrating, the lack of progress she’d made so far in information gathering. She knew he’d been watching her, that he might have even been in the cabin at some point. What she didn’t know was why. She did know that someone had found out, or found him, and beaten and drugged him. And that it might have something to do with CJ being alive. It made her heart clutch and her mind flinch every time she allowed her thoughts to go there. So she did her damndest not to. She’d get to all that eventually, process it, deal with it, but to do that she had to get to him first.

And he was still mostly out of it.

Her coffee-maker beeped from the kitchen. She still didn’t lever her weight off the door frame right away, despite needing caffeine like a bleeding person needed a transfusion. If she had any hope of figuring things out enough to get them both through the next couple of days without unwanted visitors and the very unwanted consequences that would follow, she needed to be as alert as possible at all times.

And yet she continued to watch him for a few more moments, turning things over, sorting, analyzing. Hating. She still had some work to do on the detached and unemotional thing. Had he been telling the truth about CJ? Or was that just a hallucinatory effect of the drug? Except where in the hell would that have come from? And if this wasn’t about CJ, what else on earth could bring him, literally, to her doorstep, or anywhere even remotely close?

He’d seemed somewhat certain when he’d told her that much, but then he’d also commented on things like how incredible she would taste, and how long he’d wanted to do just that. “Come on,” she demanded angrily, tightening her arms even further as she finally shoved away from the door, hating how her body continued to respond so readily to even the mere thought of his garbled ramblings. “Wake up, dammit. Tell me the things I need to know so I can keep us both breathing. Because when it’s all over, I really want the satisfaction of kicking your ass myself.”

She turned toward the kitchen and the freshly brewed transfusion that awaited.

“I wouldn’t blame you.”

She turned back around to find him blinking his eyes open, but making no effort to move. Which was a good thing, since a lot of his movable parts really shouldn’t be for the time being. “For?”

It took him a moment, during which he blinked a few more times, apparently trying to clear the mental haze, then turned his head fractionally, almost experimentally, in her direction. “Kicking my ass,” he said, sounding more groggy than alert. “Least I deserve.”

She stepped into the room, but didn’t go near the side of the bed. This was the most alert he’d sounded since he’d conked out after dropping the CJ bomb on her. She had no idea how long he might have been awake, or what was going through his mind. Or, for that matter, what state his mind was in. Which was why she maintained a safe distance.

In the past, they’d always been on the same side, with the trust that naturally comes from playing on the same team. Now it was different. Completely different. Something had gone terribly wrong somewhere. For him to be out here, attacked, drugged, and presently in the bed of a former agent who’d buried her previous life in favor of a brand-spanking completely anonymous new one—one which only he’d known about…yes, something must have gone horribly wrong. Better damn well have.

“I’ll agree with that,” she replied at length. She drew close enough to see his eyes, which looked clear, or clearer, anyway. Still, she stayed on his weaker side, where he’d sustained most of his injuries. If he’d made it to her door, from God knew where, in the condition he was in, there was no telling what he was still capable of. Or what, in his delirium, he might think he needed to do.

You would taste so damn incredible, do you know that? Do you know how badly I’ve wanted to know that?

She blinked away the memory. Of his face turning toward her, pressing into her breast, as she hauled his semi-lucid self onto her bed. She hadn’t been intentionally burying his face in her chest, it had been happenstance, as she’d tried to minimize any further damage to his very damaged self.

His eyes had been glassy, overly bright, and his smile far too sexy, as he’d sprawled on his back in her bed, keeping her pinned on top of him with a fist of her shirt in his hand. He’d used it as leverage, but hadn’t released it—or her—even when he didn’t need leverage any longer. She’d been an inch from his face, had clearly seen the unfocused look in his eyes…and yet her skin had gone all tingly, her nipples hard as rocks, and the muscles between her thighs tight to the point of aching.

She’d levered herself off of him immediately, or as immediately as she could, while simultaneously disengaging his fisted hold on her shirt and trying not to hurt him any further. It was ridiculous, letting herself get jumpy over a guy who was clearly half out of his mind and saying things he’d never remember, much less ever mean.

He wasn’t glassy-eyed now, despite still sounding a bit groggy. He seemed to know where he was, and who she was. Which would hopefully preclude his ever discussing any fantasy that involved taste tests of any kind. If he did remember. Which she hoped he didn’t.

“How long have I been out?”

Her gaze darted from his mouth back to his eyes. “You arrived in a heap on my foyer floor approximately thirteen hours ago. That was around three in the morning, which makes it almost four o’clock now.” She stepped closer. “Your turn. How long have you been watching my cabin?” Watching me.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them, blinked twice, then slowly shifted his head until his gaze found hers. “What day is it?”

“Tuesday. Twentieth of May.”

She saw his jaw tighten, and his throat work. “Ten days, then.”

He was angry, upset, she assumed with himself. Get in line, she wanted to tell him. “And how many of those did you spend drugged, unconscious, and trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey?” She’d asked him before, but, as a gauge, she wanted to see how accurate his assessment had been when he’d been mostly out of it.

His gaze narrowed on hers then, but he didn’t otherwise react. “I was tranq-darted approximately sixty hours ago.” He cleared his throat again, trying to get the rest of the gravel out.

She could have offered him more water, and she would, but now that he was more awake and alert, she wasn’t approaching him that closely. Yet. She was close enough to see the frustration in his eyes as clearly as she could hear it in his voice. A man like Derek Cole was rarely, if ever, caught with his guard down. It made her wonder how they’d found him. And who the hell “they” were. At least his assessment of the length of time that had passed while still fighting the effects of the drugs had been spot on, which was good. She hoped his other training had been working subconsciously as well. “Of that time, how long did whoever tranq’d you have you?”

“Can’t be sure. But not very long. If they’d had time, they’d have kept me clearheaded and worked me that way. Tortured what they needed out of me, make sure it was the truth.”

“Looks like they did a pretty good number on you anyway. Maybe you weren’t all that responsive, even drugged.”

“I think the method they used and the act itself was as much a message being delivered as whatever they got out of me, or really wanted to know.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t escape as, given your condition and being bound, you wouldn’t have been that hard to retrieve. So, why do you think they left you alive, but trussed up?”

He didn’t answer that. Instead, he asked, “Have you been outside? Tracked?”

She shook her head. “You haven’t exactly been stable. It took me awhile to assess your injuries, get you out of sight. I’m still not sure I can really assess how bad off you are.”

He turned his head very slowly, just enough to take in the room around him. “Yours?”

She wanted to ask him if he was being disingenuous. He’d mentioned being here. Perhaps he hadn’t been inside the cabin itself, which made her feel slightly better, both from a security position—though that was clearly an illusion—and, pride forced her to admit, from a personal one of having had someone in her home and not detected it. “I only have one. Don’t get used to it.”

His gaze tracked back to hers, but again he remained enigmatically silent. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure about anything.

“I found the dart mark on the back of your left shoulder. Pressure syringe marks on your neck.”

“Plural?”

“Yes.”

He just grunted at that. “Explains why it’s taking so long.”

She assumed he meant to get over the effects of the drugs. “Apparently you’re just as hard-headed drugged as you are lucid.”

He gingerly moved his legs, then immediately stopped. “Apparently,” he ground out. “How bad off am I? What do you know? I assumed you did some kind of check before moving me.”

“Given my lack of X-ray vision, I don’t know what the internal situation is, but you’re not running a fever and you seem to be recovering rather than getting worse, so my guess is whatever damage you sustained, you’ll live.”

“Until you kick my ass, anyway.” The corner of his mouth kicked up the tiniest of fractions, which still made him wince.

“True.”

He held her gaze for a moment longer, then let his head relax back into the pillow more deeply, and closed his eyes. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Possibly run over by one as well. And that’s not counting the pharmaceutical fun I’m having.”

“Well, I wouldn’t rule out the run-over part, but there were no tread marks, so maybe they stopped just shy of that. I think you have some bruised ribs, a seriously wrenched shoulder at best—”

“Dislocated. It happens. They didn’t dislocate it. I did, trying to loosen my bonds. I got it back in. Sort of like a trick knee.”

“Yeah,” she said, staring dubiously at him. “You’re tricky all right.” She had to actively keep from rubbing her own shoulder, as she imagined the contortions he’d put himself in, trying to regain his freedom. “If they’d broken a rib, you could have punctured something, trying that stunt.”

“Considering I’d been left for dead, I figured it was a risk worth taking.” He opened his eyes again, turned his head so he could look at her directly. “I would have done whatever I had to. I knew I had to get here.”

“You give me too much credit if you assumed I’d give you safe haven. You’re only still here because I don’t know why you were watching me in the first place.”

“I told you. At least, I think I did.”

She folded her arms, resisting the urge to rub at the gooseflesh that now covered them. But she waited for him to say it again.

“I told you, about CJ.”

All she could do was nod.

“Tate, I wouldn’t have compromised—”

She lifted her hand, effectively silencing him. “I don’t want apologies. It’s too late for that. I want answers. You’ve already been here too long, leaving me in the dark for too long. With someone out there who knows you’re here.”

“Not here—”

“Here,” she reiterated. “Just how good could you have been in covering your tracks from where they left you, to my front door? A child could track you here. A blind child at that.”

He let out a long breath and closed his eyes. For a moment, she thought he’d either passed out again, or fallen back asleep. Then he said, “Storm was coming.”

“And you thought that would hide your trail?”

His eyes remained closed, and he was sounding groggy again. “Best shot I had. Had to warn you. Tell you.”

“If you wanted to keep me safe, you could have dragged your beaten ass anywhere else in this valley, drawn them off me, away from here.”

“Too late for that.”

A cold chill raced down her spine. “Why? What do you think you told them?”

“Doesn’t matter what they know. What matters is what I know.”

She stalked over to the bed and it took all her willpower not to shake him. “What do you know, Derek? What the hell do you know that was worth putting my life in jeopardy? Haven’t I done enough for you and the agency? Don’t answer that. I know damn well I have.”

He opened his eyes, found hers unerringly. “Your life was already in jeopardy before I got here.”

“You’re the only one who knew where I was.”

“CJ is trying to make contact with you. If she couldn’t do it through me, I’m assuming she’d have tried other means. I’m not entirely sure she hasn’t, or that my visitors a few days ago aren’t a result of her digging.”

Tate froze. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? And why, if she’s alive, would her knowing my location put me in any kind of danger? She was my partner. She wouldn’t—” Tate choked down the sudden hot rush that stung the back of her eyes. “She died for me, Derek.”

“That’s just it, Tate.” Derek’s gaze burned brightly into her own. “She didn’t die, did she?”