Читать книгу The Complete Red-Hot Collection - Ким Лоренс, Kelly Hunter - Страница 51

‘STUBBORN, ISN’T HE?’ Rowan said to the hovering bride, in an attempt to put her at ease, while a local doctor recently persuaded to make house calls ordered the groom and one of her agents to lay Jared West on his back on the bed.

The bedroom décor was a mix of rainbow meeting Venetian chic, and the unconscious Jared looked decidedly out of place in it—never mind his hastily cobbled together wedding attire. Once a wolf, always a wolf … no matter what clothes he wore.

‘You have no idea,’ Lena said glumly. ‘I should have let you escort him to hospital the minute he got here.’

Jared’s eyelids lifted mere millimetres—just long enough for him to glare at them momentarily before they lowered again.

‘What’s his name?’ asked the doctor.

‘Jared West,’ said Lena. ‘Pain in the arse extraordinaire.’

The doctor grabbed a small flashlight and bent towards the patient. ‘Jared? You with me?’

Jared grunted what might have been a yes.

‘I’m going to check your pupils for responsiveness to light. This won’t hurt.’

‘Not concussed. Concussion was three days ago. I’m over it,’ Jared mumbled, but he proceeded to co-operate.

‘Glad to hear it. Does that diagnosis come with a medical degree as well?’

‘Comes with experience.’

‘Is he always this argumentative?’ Rowan asked Lena from the end of the bed.

‘Yeah, that’s him. He prefers to call it persuasion.’

‘Got any bumps on the head?’ the doctor asked his newest patient.

‘Couple.’

Jared let the doctor examine them.

‘What about your neck? Any stiffness there? Movement okay?’

Jared had his eyes closed when he answered. ‘My neck’s okay. Shoulder’s wrecked.’

So much for the busted eardrums theory, thought Rowan with a sliver of relief. If Jared could answer the doc’s quiet questions without watching the older man’s lips, he wasn’t deaf.

‘You’re not deaf,’ she said, and was rewarded by the faintest curve of Jared’s lips. ‘There goes a week’s wages for at least half of my agents.’

‘Yeah, but the other half will be richer for it.’

‘What’s he like when he really smiles?’ Rowan asked.

Maybe it wasn’t an entirely appropriate question to voice, but it never hurt to be well informed and armed for the battles ahead.

‘I haven’t seen it for a while,’ Lena said. ‘But historically it tends to be pretty lethal. Nations fall. Angels weep. That sort of thing.’

‘Amen,’ Jared mumbled.

‘See, if he wasn’t all beat up I’d thump that arrogance out of him,’ offered Lena. ‘Because I love him.’

Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away before her brother could open his eyes and see them.

The doctor picked it up, though, and his next words were soothing. ‘He’s conscious, he’s coherent—’

‘No blood coming out of any orifices. I’m perfect … Got any painkillers?’ the patient said next.

‘For what?’

‘Ribs.’

‘Sit up and let’s have a look at them.’

Jared moved to a sitting position on the edge of the bed with a little help from Trig. He also accepted help when it came to the removal of his borrowed suit jacket, but he unbuttoned the shirt beneath it himself.

He took his time, but Rowan figured that the delay had more to do with Jared’s current lack of fine motor skills than with any real desire to delay the process. Finally the shirt came off, to reveal a sweat-stained bandage held in place with silver electrician’s tape.

‘I dislocated my shoulder at one point as well. But I got it back in.’

‘Yourself?’

‘A bathtub helped.’

‘Jared, can you raise your arms above your head?’

‘Last time I tried that I woke up two hours later, facedown on the deck.’

‘When was that?’

‘Three days ago.’

‘Any additional problems since then?’

‘A crucifying lack of sleep.’

‘Jared, I’m going to check your lungs and heart. Then you’re going to raise your arms for me while I do it all again, and then you’re going to lie back down while I examine your ribs more thoroughly.’

Jared nodded.

Rowan tried to afford the man some privacy, but it was hard not to stare at the spectacular bruising that bloomed across his sculpted chest as the doctor unwound the bandage. He’d taken a beating, this man. And then some.

The doctor listened to his lungs and heart with a stethoscope and then poked and prodded around his stomach and lower still while everyone else stood and watched. And then, as the patient began to raise his arms and the doctor began to press on his ribs, he passed out again.

‘May as well keep going,’ said the doctor as he caught him and eased him back onto the bed with impressive nonchalance.

Jared came round moments later but stayed right where he was, encouraged to do so by the doctor’s hand on his shoulder.

The examination continued and the doctor finally made comment. ‘Without access to X-rays, I’m thinking he has four substantially cracked ribs.’

‘Show-off,’ muttered Lena, her voice ragged with worry. ‘What else?’

‘Soft tissue damage—as you can see. Probably some compression damage. Do we know what hit him?’

‘We know there was a series of explosions on board a yacht, and we can reasonably assume that Jared was thrown around by them. He also drove a truck through a warehouse wall and rolled a four-wheel drive in the desert.’

That was all the detail a civilian doctor needed.

‘All of which happened two to three days ago.’ She looked at the physician. ‘He’s been travelling ever since. Does he need a hospital?’

‘No,’ said West. Conscious again. ‘I’ve already been to one.’

Not by my reckoning. ‘Where?’

‘In … um …’ His voice drifted off. ‘Might have been Budapest. X-rays. Strobe lights. Everything. They gave me pills.’

‘Sure it wasn’t a disco?’ she offered dryly.

‘I like you,’ he said.

‘Can you remember the name of the pills?’ the doctor asked.

Jared snorted. ‘No. They were good, though. Kept the packet for future reference. Pocket.’

The doctor leaned down and rifled through the shirt on the floor, pulling out a small container. ‘How many did they give you?’

‘Five.’

‘Two to three days ago, yes? It says here one a day. Where are the other two? And don’t tell me you doubled up on them.’

So the patient said nothing.

‘What are they?’ asked Lena.

‘Cocaine derivative. Explains his ability to keep going, perhaps. And why he’s crashing so heavily now.’

‘Yep,’ Jared muttered. ‘Sleep.’

And then abruptly he tried to sit up again, with limited success.

‘Why are there strawberries? Am I in the bridal suite?’

‘No,’ Lena told him. ‘You’re in the spare room.’

Jared subsided somewhat, but kept eyeing the strawberries warily. ‘And those? Growing in the giant stripy teacup?’

‘What about them?’

‘Why?’ His voice conveyed vast layers of confusion and a complete inability to comprehend such a thing.

‘Her house, her rules,’ offered Rowan. ‘Don’t over-think it.’

His eyes opened to slits. ‘Does your spare room have strawberries in it?’

‘I don’t have any room to spare.’

‘You probably let people crash in your room instead.’ His lips quirked. ‘I like it.’

‘Jared,’ said Lena sternly. ‘Director on deck, remember? Less flirting—more respect.’

‘Why are you still here?’ Jared asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be at your wedding reception? All I’m doing right now is going to bed.’ His voice softened. ‘It’s okay. I’m okay. I made it here, didn’t I? Don’t make me regret the effort.’

‘If you need a hospital, Jared, and you’re lying about having been to one already, I swear on my new husband’s soul that I will make you regret it.’

‘She’s vicious,’ Jared told his best friend. ‘I hope you factored that in?’

The groom smiled, wide and warm. ‘Get some rest.’

‘I would if you left.’

The bride and groom made their exit, with Lena glancing back over her shoulder and warning her errant brother to be good just before the door closed behind them.

Only then did Jared allow his face to reset into a grimace of pain. ‘Hey, Doc? About those painkillers …’

‘On a scale of one to ten—one being zero and ten being unbearable—how much pain are you in?’

‘If I lie perfectly still I can get it down to about a seven.’

The doctor told him to stay in bed and rummaged through his black medical bag for two little blue pills. He got a glass of water to wash them down with.

‘This is going to knock you out. You may shower in the morning when you wake. No sudden movements. Preferably no more boat explosions or motor vehicle incidents.’

He looked at the patient and expanded his list.

‘No surfing, boxing, skydiving or martial arts training. No weights, rock-climbing or kayaking. Getting the picture?’

‘Loud and clear.’

‘Gentle swimming … floating, paddling. Pretend you’re three again. Shouldn’t be too hard, by the sound of it.’

Rowan liked this elderly smalltown doctor.

‘Listen to what your body is telling you and you might just come out of this in better shape than you deserve.’

Rowan liked this doctor a lot. ‘You’re not looking for casual work on an as-needed basis, are you? Because your bedside manner could really work for us.’

‘I’m two years away from retirement and I’ve seen everything I want to see and then some when it comes to medical emergencies. I don’t need to see any more of those.’

Pity.

‘Hey, Doc …’ the patient mumbled. ‘Do you think she’s got a funny face? I think so. But I really like it.’

The doctor sighed. ‘That’ll be the painkillers kicking in.’

‘Great voice too,’ Jared told them next. ‘Makes me think of sex. Does it make you think of sex?’

‘Son, you need to get some rest. Stop fighting it.’

The doctor slid Rowan a glance, his smirk in no way hidden.

‘You might want to leave before he proposes.’

‘I might want to hear it for blackmail purposes.’ Come to think of it, she might just want to hear it for her own selfish reasons.

But it was a moot point. The man on the bed was already asleep.

‘Do we have the all-clear to fly him elsewhere in the morning?’

The doctor nodded. ‘Get him X-rayed as soon as you can … keep him hydrated, keep an eye on him.’

‘Thank you for your co-operation.’

‘Not a problem—no matter what my wife says. Always a pleasure to help our special intelligence service.’ The doctor smiled his charmingly distinguished smile. ‘Who do I bill?’

Jared woke in a bed that didn’t rock with the rhythm of the ocean. It wasn’t his bed—he knew that much. His bed for the past two years had been a narrow bunk beside the engine room of Antonov’s super-yacht. It had been a floating fortress, locked down so hard that no one had been able to get near it undetected, and it had been more than capable of sinking anything that tried.

His bed hadn’t been soft, like this one, and his bunkroom sure as hell hadn’t contained a chest of drawers beneath a wooden window. Was that a pot full of strawberries sitting on top of it? He thought he remembered being puzzled by them last night as well. Because … why?

He opened his eyes a little more, turned his head and discovered lime-coloured sheets and a floral magenta and green comforter. If this was a motel he was clearly in the lollipop suite—but he didn’t think this was a motel.

He rolled over onto his back and winced at the pain that seared through his body. There’d been a doctor at some point last night. The doctor had told him that his estimate of two cracked ribs had been a little under. There’d been pills last night too, and then there’d been blessed oblivion.

He was at Lena’s farmhouse. He remembered now.

And he could use a couple more of those painkillers.

He heard a door open and then footsteps that seemed to stop at the end of the bed. He opened his eyes a little more. Pretty was his first thought. Funny was his next.

It was the woman from last night. He remembered her mouth and her ears. He didn’t remember her eyes being quite such a tawny vivid gold.

‘You awake?’

He also remembered her voice. His body heartily approved of her voice. ‘Mmm …’

She wasn’t just any woman. She was a director of counter-intelligence and he was in deep trouble. She wore a white collared shirt, dark grey trousers and a thin silver-coloured necklace that looked as if it would break the minute someone tugged on it. She was older than him by a few years and then some, and he was attracted to her, aware of her, in a way that he hadn’t been aware of a woman for a very long time.

‘We met last night,’ he offered, in a voice still thick with sleep.

‘So we did.’

No rings on her wedding finger. No rings anywhere on those slender, expertly manicured fingers.

‘Not sure I remember who you are, though. Memory’s a little fuzzy.’

Could be he was winding her up—just a little. Could be he wanted to see if her eyes would flash with irritation at having to introduce herself again, section director being such a forgettable position and all.

But her eyes did not flash with irritation. Instead, crinkles formed at the edges of them as she smiled, slow and sure. ‘Oh, you poor darling man. I knew you were confused last night, but I didn’t know you were that far gone. I’m your sister’s wedding caterer.’

‘I see.’

He really didn’t see.

‘You don’t remember begging me to give you a lift to the nearest motel?’ She looked so guileless. Damn, she was good. ‘Because I did. Take you to the nearest motel, I mean. But the night manager took one look at you and remembered that he didn’t have any vacancies. I was a little sceptical, but he was very certain. He figured you were either going to puke all over the room or die in your sleep, or both, and apparently that’s bad for business. Also, you had no ID. He didn’t like that either.’

Jared smiled. He had no idea where she was going with this story, but he figured he might as well let her run with it. Or maybe he just liked hearing her voice.

‘What happened after that?’

‘I offered to take you to the hospital.’ She leaned her forearms over the slatted wooden bed-end. ‘To which you said an emphatic no. You then told me I had the sexiest mouth you’d ever seen.’

‘I did?’ He might have thought it. He didn’t think he’d said it.

‘I was swearing at you at the time. Trust me, I was surprised too.’

Jared let his gaze slide to her mouth, all shapely and tilted at the corners as if she was always ready to smile. “You shouldn’t have been that surprised.’

‘And then …’ she said, and followed those words with a very long pause. ‘Then you said that if I gave you a bed for the night you’d give me an orgasm I would never forget.’

‘I— What?’

‘I know. An offer too good to refuse, right? I mean … I have this mouth, you have that face … I think you’ve cracked a rib or four, but we could have worked around them. So I brought you here and offered you coffee, but you said if it wasn’t Turkish you didn’t want it. That’s when I got my first inkling that we might not be soul mates.’

We might not be wha—?

He was almost awake, and thoroughly confused, and, okay, he might have offered her a good time at some point—it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility—and the coffee line sounded like him, but still.

‘And then you told me that the ripples in my hair reminded you of deep ocean waves—in the moonlight, no less—and I figured we might just be soul mates after all. I’ve been wrong before.’

‘I did not say that. I would never say that. Your hair’s too short for ripples. It’s unrippleable.’

‘I gave you a glass of milk and three prescription painkillers and you groaned your gratitude. It was a deep and growly groan. Very sexy. I still had faint hope of an exemplary orgasm. Ninety seconds later you were asleep.’

She was better at this game than he was. He was playing injured, for starters. But maybe, just maybe, she was the better player.

‘You can stop now, Director. I know who you are.’

‘Of course you do.’ She shot him a very level gaze. ‘You need to stop playing me for a fool, Mr West. You need to stop looking at my mouth. And then you need to pay attention to what I’m about to say.’

He eased into a sitting position, wincing as he slung his legs over the side of the bed. At least he still had his trousers on. He remembered bandages too, but maybe they’d been coming off rather than going on. Either way, they were nowhere to be seen. Neither were any of his other clothes. Possibly because they’d been filthy.

He eyed the suitcase in the corner with interest. ‘I’m listening.’

‘You need to know that there’s no record that you were working for us during your time with Antonov. No one’s going to claim you as their dark pony. You’re on your own.’

That got his attention. He dragged his gaze from the suitcase back to the section director standing at the end of the bed. ‘So you’re throwing me under a bus?’

These things happened when you came back covered in filth rather than glory.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, but she didn’t deny it.

‘I want to talk to my handler.’

‘Then talk. Because right now the closest thing you have to a handler is me.’

‘No offence, but I don’t know you.’

‘No offence taken, but I do hope there’s someone in-house that you’re willing to talk to. I’ll be in your sister’s kitchen, Mr West. As for you, it’s time to get dressed. My people are almost ready to leave and you’re coming with us.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes. Either willingly or not.’ She smiled gently. ‘We don’t care.’

‘You know, they never mentioned that in the brochure.’

This time she laughed. ‘Maybe you should have read the fine print.’

If Jared had figured to slip quietly out of the farmhouse unnoticed, he’d been sadly mistaken. A big breakfast cook-up was in progress by the time he emerged from the bedroom, with his brother, Damon, wielding the tongs and his sister Poppy presiding over the flipping of fried eggs. The director was there too, sitting on a stool, sipping coffee and reading something on her computer, looking for all the world as if she had a place in his family—as if she was comfortable there.

He headed for the coffee machine. Looked at it and sighed. It was shiny, spanking new, and he had no idea what half the knobs on it did. ‘Does this do double-shot espresso?’

‘Only if you ask nicely,’ said Damon’s very pregnant wife.

Ruby was her name, and Jared eyed the bright green bow atop her head warily. She opened the lid of the coffee container and the aroma of freshly ground beans assaulted his nose and sent him straight back to a little coffee house in Istanbul.

Ruby obligingly waved the container beneath his nose. ‘We can put this in a pot and make it Turkish-style, if that’s your preference?’

‘I’m beginning to understand why Damon married you.’

‘You mean, it didn’t instantly dawn on you?’

‘Um …’ Why was his world suddenly so full of beautiful smart-mouthed women? ‘Turkish coffee would be great. I can make it.’

Ruby favoured him with a pretty smile. Jared risked a glance in Damon’s direction before taking a careful step back. He liked women with pretty smiles. He did. He’d never before been scared of one, but there was a first time for everything.

‘I … uh … I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back for your wedding.’

‘Play your cards right and you can be Damon’s plus-one at the birth.’

Oh, dear God. She was probably joking. Hopefully she was joking. But he figured a change of subject wouldn’t hurt. ‘Anyone seen the newly happily married couple this morning?’

‘They’re still in bed.’

Jared winced. There was another image he really didn’t want in his head.

‘You don’t approve?’ asked Poppy.

‘I do approve. I just don’t want to think about it.’

‘Very healthy,’ his new sister-in-law murmured.

‘If I whimper will you back off?’

‘I didn’t think terrorist-hunters whimpered.’

‘This one does.’

He shuffled around to the kitchen side of the bench, opened a couple of cupboards before finding a saucepan and dumping some water in it. Surprisingly, Ruby carefully shook a damn near perfect amount of ground coffee into it before putting the coffee tin back on the counter.

‘How are you feeling?’ asked Poppy.

‘Good.’ As if a rhinoceros had rolled on him. ‘Peachy.’

And then Poppy was beside him, worming her way beneath his arm and hugging him carefully, and he closed his eyes and rested his cheek on her head as he gathered her in—because it was good to be home, and they had no idea how much he’d missed this, missed them, and for what?

He’d brought down the Antonov operation. So what? Another arms dealer would take Antonov’s place. He’d exposed a few moles in high places, but he’d be a fool to think he’d exposed them all. He knew he hadn’t exposed them all.

He opened his eyes to find Rowan Farringdon staring at him with puzzled eyes. He knew he was showing his weakness for family but he just didn’t care any more. He closed his eyes and hugged Poppy tighter.

‘Do I get one of those?’

The voice came from the doorway. Jared opened his eyes and looked straight at Lena. She looked well, if a little tousled, and her pretty floral sundress suited her. She looked happy.

‘If you want,’ he offered gruffly.

‘I do want.’

Lena started towards him, a slight hitch in her step—no way was he going to call it a limp—and then he had his arms full of Lena and Poppy both.

‘Got to do something to take that look off your face,’ said Lena.

‘What look?’

‘The faraway one. You need to come back to us, Jare.’

‘I am back.’

Lena stared at him intently for what felt like a very long time before silently shaking her head and stepping away and turning towards the director.

‘When does he have to leave?’

‘Five minutes ago.’

Poppy’s big blue eyes were grave. ‘How much trouble are you in?’

‘Don’t care.’

‘Will you stay working for them?’

‘Don’t know.’

Poppy didn’t care that they were having this conversation in front of Rowan Farringdon. Neither did Jared.

‘Do you want to?’

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know.

Damon shoved a dripping bacon and egg sandwich in his hand. Jared extricated himself from Poppy and bit into it with relief. He didn’t need a plate—he was an old hand at eating on the go.

‘Ready when you are, Director.’

‘I haven’t finished my coffee yet.’ You haven’t even had yours, her look said. I’m cutting you a break, here. Take it and shut the hell up.

He shut the hell up.

He bit into his sandwich more slowly this time. Coffee appeared and he reached for it gratefully. One minute passed. Two minutes. They left him alone. They asked no more questions.

And then two suited men darkened the doorway and Rowan Farringdon shut her little silver computer and stood up.

‘Agent West,’ one of them said, and there was a measure of respect in the man’s voice that Jared had never heard before. ‘It’s time to go.’