Читать книгу Killer Body - Elle James - Страница 7

“I have a court case at ten,” District Attorney Young said. “I left an officer at her door, but he knows he can leave as soon as you arrive. I’m counting on you to keep the woman safe. Can you handle it?”

Despite his self-doubt, Dawson nodded.

The D.A. handed him a business card. “As soon as she’s coherent, give me a call. I’ll be here. Hopefully she’ll wake up soon, this time with her memory intact so we can get down to the business of catching a killer.”

A killer who could be very anxious to finish the job. Dawson accepted the card and turned it over in his hand as the man in the suit walked away.

Okay, so he had his work cut out for him. One witness to a murder, one drug lord on a mission to kill the person who killed his son. A stroll in the park, no doubt.

He walked to the corner in the hallway. As he turned and spotted an empty chair outside the room Ms. Jones was supposed to occupy, the skin on the back of his neck tightened. Where was the cop? Had he gone in to check on the patient? Had he left his post?

Dawson jogged the remaining distance to the door, his hand raised to knock against the wood. He probably worried for nothing. The cop had to be inside.

A muffled thump carried through the solid door. Dawson shoved the door open and raced inside, his first impression one of an empty bed.

His first day on the job and he’d already lost his client.

Movement caught his attention on the floor around the other side of the bed. A figure wearing blue-green scrubs hunched close to the floor, a pillow in his hands, devils and a dragon tattooed on his forearm. Beneath him slim, curvy legs flailed and kicked.

“Hey!” Dawson grabbed the man by the shoulder and yanked him off balance. He threw the guy to the floor, away from the woman he assumed to be Savvy Jones.

Savvy shoved the pillow aside and gasped for air, her face red, her eyes wide. “He tried to k-kill me!”

The man masquerading as a member of the hospital staff rolled to his feet and swung a tree-trunk-size arm, backhanding Dawson.

Dawson raised his hand to block, but the force of the man’s swing sent him slamming against the wall. He stumbled and righted himself, but not soon enough to stop the attacker from racing for the door. Nor did he get a good look at him; his face was covered in a surgical mask. Dawson threw himself at the man, catching him by the ankle before he cleared the door.

The big man tripped, fell into the swinging door and out into the hallway, crashing into a nurse passing by with a cart filled with medication. The cart upended, the nurse hit the floor and pills scattered. The perpetrator scrambled to his feet. In one awkward leap, he cleared the nurse and ran for the stairwell.

Dawson followed, skirting the nurse and cart. Before he got halfway down the hallway, he realized he couldn’t go after the man. If he did, that left Savvy Jones unprotected. He stopped just past the spilled cart, his fists clenched, his heart pounding. Then he turned and helped the nurse to her feet. “Call the police. Tell them someone just tried to kill one of your patients. The man is headed down the stairwell.”

The woman nodded and limped toward the nurses’ station.

A man dressed in a Laredo police uniform rounded the corner and ground to a stop, his eyes widening. Then he ran toward Dawson, pulling a pistol from his holster. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Anger surged through Dawson and he advanced on the man.

The man’s eyes widened and he pointed the gun at Dawson’s chest. “I’ll shoot.”

“Then make it count.” In a flash, he knocked the pistol from the cop’s hand, sending it clattering across the floor. His next move had the cop slammed face-first against the wall, his arm locked behind his back in a painful grip. “Were you the officer assigned to guard Savvy Jones?”

“Yes,” he gasped. “Let me go, or I’ll bring you up on charges.”

“And I’ll have your badge,” Dawson said. “I’m the bodyguard the D.A. hired to do the job you obviously couldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“You left your post.”

“I got called away to handle a shooting in the E.R.” He didn’t struggle. “It turned out to be a false call.”

“And you left Savvy Jones unprotected.” Dawson jammed the man’s arm up higher. “She was almost killed.”

“I’m sorry.”

Dawson shoved the man away. “Get out of here.”

The officer retrieved his weapon, holstering it. “I’ll have to clear this through the D.A.”

“Then clear it. I have a job to do,” Dawson said.

“As do I. Step aside.” A man in green scrubs, with a stethoscope looped around his neck hurried toward Savvy’s door.

“Stop right there.” Dawson’s tone brooked no argument.

The man in scrubs held up his badge. “I’m Savvy Jones’s doctor.”

Dawson scanned it, his eyes narrowed. “No one goes in here without my permission.”

The doctor crossed his arms over his chest. “And what clearance do you have?”

He patted his chest where his Glock usually rested in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and moved to block the doorway. “I’m Ms. Jones’s bodyguard. If you need any more clearance than that, contact the D.A.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” The doctor performed an about-face and marched toward the nurses’ station. A gathering of orderlies and nurses keeping at a distance from Dawson’s threatening stance, parted to let the doctor through.

Dawson had been away long enough. He entered Savvy’s hospital room and dodged around the end of the bed to find a slim young woman lying on the floor, gasping for air. Her hospital gown had hitched up in the struggle, exposing a significant amount of peaches-and-cream skin and a silky slip of forest-green panties. Strawberry-blond hair spilled down her back and across the floor in long wavy strands. A bandage covered the left side of her head with a white band of gauze wrapped around her forehead to keep it in place.

“What’s going on?” She pressed a hand to her eyes, dragging in deep breaths.

“Someone doesn’t like you much.”

She groaned. “I don’t think I ever want to see another pillow. Especially if it’s over my face.”

“Are you okay?” Dawson squatted next to her. “Want me to call the nurse?”

“No, as long as I can breathe, I’m okay.” Deep green eyes blinked open and widened. “Who are you? You aren’t armed with a pillow, are you?” She leaned to the side to peer around him.

“No pillow, just me, Dawson Gray.” He held out his hand. “I’m your bodyguard, and if anyone asks … your fiancé.”

“Bodyguard? Fiancé?” Her green eyes widened. “Which one is it?”

“Officially, your bodyguard.”

Savvy shook her head. “And I didn’t think this day could get weirder. Well, thanks for coming to my rescue.” Her forehead crinkled into a frown and she winced. “Ouch. Remind me not to frown. It hurts.” She looked at the outstretched hand, but didn’t take it. “Should I know you? I mean, you being my fiancé and all.”

“No. We’re meeting for the first time.”

“Good, because I don’t remember you. Still, how could you be my fiancé if I’ve never met you? Am I a mail-order bride or something? I’m confused.” She pushed up on her elbows and closed her eyes. “Is it me, or is the room spinning?”

“It’s definitely you.” He nodded toward her head. “You’ve got a head wound and someone just tried to smother you. I’m sure neither is helping. Other than that, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I think so. Although my legs didn’t give me any warning before they gave out.” Her lips twitched.

“Give yourself a break. You’ve been through a lot by the looks of it.” He shook his head. “If it’s all the same to you, maybe we could get you into the bed.” He scooped his hands beneath her legs and lifted, straightening. For as tall as she was, she couldn’t weigh much over a hundred pounds.

“Hey!” Her eyes widened and she wrapped an arm around his neck. “Not so fast.”

“Sorry.” He laid her back against the pillows and adjusted the hospital gown around her, his fingers brushing against the silky skin of her thigh. What was he doing? Dawson snatched his hand away and stuffed it into his pocket.

Savvy lay still, her face pale. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

The urge to protect hit him so hard, he stepped away. He had no right to be her protector. Qualifications for this job included a proven success rate.

His record stunk. He’d lost his wife, lost a soldier and almost lost his mind. Dawson turned toward the door, retreat foremost in his mind. “Excuse me. I have a call to make.”

“Please,” she called out in a small, scared voice.

The one word halted his forward progress and made him turn back. Big mistake.

She leaned toward him, her wide-eyed gaze darting from him to the door. “Do you have to leave me—” her voice faded, and she shrank back against the sheets “—alone?”

With his hand in his pocket already fishing for his cell phone, he paused. “I’ll be right outside the door. I won’t let anyone past me.”

“Please …” Her fingers plucked at the hospital gown, bunching it, causing the hem to inch up her legs. “I don’t even know how I got here.”

Dawson clutched his cell phone, his brain telling him to leave. Now. But his misguided instincts pulled him back toward the bed and its occupant. “You don’t remember how you got here because you were unconscious.”

Savvy shook her head slowly and winced. “No, it’s worse than that.” Her full, bottom lip trembled and she turned away from his gaze.

Dawson’s chest squeezed tight and he forced himself to hold back—not to reach out to her. The woman needed someone to talk to. That someone was not him. “How so?”

“I don’t remember where I was.” She looked to him with those trusting green eyes. “Can you tell me?”

Dawson sighed. He couldn’t leave her when she looked at him like a lost puppy. Calling himself every kind of fool, he retraced his steps to the foot of her bed. “You were found in an alley behind a bar.”

She reached up to brush away a tear slipping from the corner of one eye, her shoulders straightening. “What bar?”

“The one where you worked.”

A frown lined her forehead and she pressed a hand gently to the bandage on the side of her head, closing her eyes. “I don’t remember working. Are you sure I worked at a bar?” Eyes as green as a forest of pine blinked up at him, the shadows beneath them making her appear more like a waif than a fully grown young woman.

“So they say.” Dawson tore his gaze away from those eyes and glanced toward the door. God, he didn’t want to be responsible for another living soul. The way things were going, Savvy would threaten more than his confidence. The curves of her calves, the swell of her thighs peeking out from the edge of the cotton hospital gown, the way her eyes glittered with unshed tears, spelled disaster to everything male and primal inside him.

She leaned forward and touched his arm. “Tell me something, please.”

“What?” he growled, anxious to get outside the room, away from Savvy and her green-eyed gaze. He had to make a call to Audrey before he made the biggest mistake of his life.

A soft sniff made him freeze.

Two fat tears rolled down Savvy’s cheeks and plopped onto the sheet. “I know your name is Dawson Gray.” Her fingers tightened on his arms convulsively. “Do you know mine?”

She held her breath and waited for his answer.

Dawson’s gaze dropped to where her hand clutched at his sleeve. “Savvy,” he said, his voice hoarse, gravelly, as though he had to strain to say the one word. He cleared his throat. “Your name is Savvy Jones.”

“Savvy.” She let go of his arm and lay back against the pillow, her frown deepening. “Savvy.” She rolled the name off her tongue, closing her eyes and willing her memory to return. The more she tried the more her head pounded. At last she dragged in a deep breath and admitted, “I can’t remember.” She opened her eyes and stared at him through a glaze of moisture. “I can’t remember anything before waking up in the hospital.”

“You’ve had a head injury. The memory lapse could be temporary. At least you didn’t forget the basics.”

She snorted softly. “Basics? I don’t remember my entire life? How old am I? Are my parents alive? Where did I grow up? Am I—” Her gaze dropped to her ring finger and her breath caught in her throat. Was the skin around her ring finger a shade lighter than the rest of her hand? Or was it her imagination? She stared up at him, her heart a big lump in her throat. “Am I married?”

Dawson shrugged. “I don’t know. The D.A. didn’t mention it.”

“The D.A.?” She stared up at him.

“District Attorney Frank Young.” Dawson frowned, clearly uncomfortable with her questions. “The man who hired me to protect you.”

“Why is the district attorney interested in me?”

“He should fill you in when he comes to see you.” He reached in his pocket. “He asked me to call him when you came out from under the sedative.”

“Do you think he’ll know all about me?” She twisted the fingers of her right hand around her left ring finger as though she’d done it before when a ring had been there. “I could be married and not remember it.” Her hands shook and she could barely drag air into her lungs. “I might have family out there worried about me.”

“The D.A. should know.”

Savvy shook her head. “What if he doesn’t?”

“You worked in the bar. Someone there would have to know your family. They would need to be notified about your condition.”

“Yeah …” She eased back against the pillow, her heart slowing to a regular pace, the lump in her throat still a problem. “They would have notified my family … if I had any.”

“Maybe you should rest.” He glanced toward the door.

Savvy wasn’t ready to let him leave, she had so many questions needing answers she refused to let Dawson out of her sight. “How did I get injured?” She touched her fingers to the bandage on the side of her head. “What happened?”

Again, he glanced toward the door. “Let me get the doctor.”

“No!” She grabbed for his sleeve. “Stay with me. Tell me what you know.”

“Look, lady, all I know is that I was hired by the district attorney to play bodyguard to you until you could remember what happened.”

“Did the D.A. tell you what happened?”

“Only that you shot—” Dawson clamped his lips shut for a second before continuing “—received a gunshot wound to the head. You should ask him for the details.”

Savvy gasped, her heart slamming against her chest, beating so fast the wound at her temple throbbed. “Gunshot?” She tried to remember, tried to picture herself in an alley, but couldn’t. She didn’t think she’d ever worked in a bar. And to be shot in an alley behind one? It didn’t feel right. “Who shot me?”

Dawson shifted ever so slightly, but just enough that Savvy could tell he didn’t want to respond. “I don’t know.”

“You know something, or you wouldn’t have hesitated when you answered.” What was he hiding?

Dawson dug in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “I really need to make a call. Do you mind?”

“Yes, I do mind.” She pinned him with her stare. Now, that felt natural, as if she’d been in some position of authority at one time. “Are you or are you not my bodyguard?”

He hesitated. “The D.A. hired me to protect you.” He glanced down at his phone. “But I’m not the right guy for the job.” He stared at her with chocolate-brown eyes she could fall into. A thick, dark strand of coffee-colored hair fell down over his forehead.

She wanted to reach out to push it back. Instinctively, she trusted him. She had to, she didn’t know anyone else, and he didn’t want to be her bodyguard. “Why?” she asked, her voice softening. Something had him tied in a knot. Worrying about him helped keep panic about herself at bay. “Why do you think you’re the wrong man for the job? You managed to save me from being smothered.”

His hand tightened on the cell phone, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles twitched. “That guy should never have made it into your room.”

“But then you weren’t here yet. And once you got here, you took care of him.” She raised her brows, challenging him to come up with another excuse, which she was certain he would.

“I’ve never been a bodyguard.”

That didn’t matter to her. He knew how to fight and defend. He had to have learned it somewhere. “Were you ever a cop, FBI agent, in the military?”

“Military,” he said tightly.

Savvy pressed on. “Soldier or staffer?”

“Soldier.” He dragged in a deep breath and huffed it out.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “If you were a soldier, you know how to use a gun. You know how to defend yourself and others.”

He grunted, his brown eyes darkening to an inky black. “I’m not the right man for the job.”

“I ask you again, why?” She waited, refusing to let him leave without a reasonable answer, and to her, there wasn’t one.

“Because, damn it, I’m no good at it!” He swung away and stomped toward the door.

“Dawson,” she called out. Savvy’s voice caught on his name, her stomach flip-flopping as the only man she felt she could trust was leaving.

His hand smacked against the solid door, absorbing the force needed to swing it open. “I’m not the right man for this job.”

“Please,” she whispered. “You’re the only person I can trust in a world of strangers.”

“Why me?” he said, his back to her.

“Because you’ve already proven yourself. You’ve saved me once.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can do it again.”

“Maybe not, but I know you’ll try.” Why wouldn’t he turn and face her? What made him so certain he couldn’t handle this job? “I don’t know anyone else,” she said, not too proud to plead.

He turned toward her, his face blank, emotionless. “You don’t know me.”

“Right now, I don’t know anyone.” How could she convince him? The thought of Dawson walking out the door and leaving her alone left her feeling so scared she couldn’t think straight. “I’ll take my chances with you.”

For a long moment, he stared at her, his eyes fierce, his body stiff. Finally, he shrugged. “It’s your life.”