Fated Hearts (21 page)

“He did, baby. He hit you over the head and hit you hard. He also blew out the pilot light and turned on the oven.”

“That’s why you mentioned gas.”

“One little spark and the whole building would’ve gone up like a Roman candle.” She didn’t want to speak. Other people could have been hurt, could’ve died, because of her. What could she say that would put that kind of horror into perspective? “It’s gotta be the same guy. No one else got hurt, but no one saw anything either.”

The doctor interrupted any further conversation. Henley gripped Carter’s hand tighter as the unfamiliar man approached. He asked the same questions the nurse had. Checked the same things. Gave her the same noncommittal answers.

“When can I go home?”

“It’ll be a couple days, Miss Elliott. We need to be sure you’ve no adverse reactions to the gas you inhaled, and we want to observe that head wound, although your CAT scan was beautiful.” He left when Henley glared at him. But the nurse came right back, wielding a large syringe.

“You’ve been approved for pain medication.” Henley decided she hated Nurse Williams.

“I’m not baring a cheek.” She wasn’t trying to be difficult. She wanted the drug; her head hurt badly, her throat was on fire, which she now realized was a result of having inhaled gas for a couple of hours, her lungs ached, and she was nauseated. But she didn’t want to suffer further humiliation.

“No need. The injection is going in the IV line.”

“How long until she’s asleep?”

“Depends. I’d guess not long.” The nurse patted Henley’s shoulder and extinguished the light as she left. Henley sighed in gratitude.

“You should sleep, Carter. You look tired; were you up all night?” The narcotic muddled her mind but had a nearly instant numbing effect on the pain. She could feel the drug pulling her back into the darkness, but she wasn’t afraid. Her eyes drifted shut.

“I wanted to be here when you woke. Wanted to be the first person you saw. I didn’t want you to be alone.” She felt his fingers on her face. She thought she heard him say, “I’ve never been that scared,” as she slid into slumber.

When next she woke, filtered sunlight bathed the empty room, and low voices reverberated outside her door. She hurt all over but not as acutely. The nausea had been replaced with a gnawing hunger. She tried to sit. The room shifted and swayed. She closed her eyes and laid back. She heard the voices taper off, the door open, and rapid footsteps grow near. When she dared open her eyes, the room was stationary. Carter stood beside her.

He’d shaved, showered, and changed his clothes. He looked more like himself. She felt like hell. She bet she looked worse.

“What’s up, Doc?” He grinned. She felt the corners of her mouth tug. “Want to sit?”

“Yes, please.” He used the buttons on the sides to raise her head and knees until she indicated she was comfortable. “You went home?”

“No, I didn’t. I slept for a few hours, and Maggie stopped by with a goodie bag for me. Deodorant, toothbrush, hairbrush, clean underwear, stuff like that. She brought you one, too. The nurse said I could use your shower and voila! I’m human again.”

“Does that mean it’s my turn?”

“You have to get doctor’s approval first. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with sponge baths. I volunteer to be of any assistance in that regard.” He waggled his brows and leered at her. She chuckled. And braced her head as the room spun. “Dizzy?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I doubt you’ll get the okay for a shower today, babe.” Her stomach gurgled. “Let me see if I can get them to bring some decent food.” He sauntered from the room, a charming smile already in place. She put her head back. She could do this. It would only be a couple of days; they wouldn’t put her in restraints. Her world wasn’t falling apart. She wasn’t alone. Carter was here.

“I’m guessing that sappy little grin means you’re awake.”

Henley lowered her chin and smiled at Maggie. The writer looked awesome in cut-off denim shorts, a Myles Kennedy tee shirt, and black cowboy boots. “Does everyone around here look better than I do?”

“Yep. They rolled a corpse past me while I waited, and he looked better than you do right now.” Henley grimaced, and Maggie laughed. “Have you seen yourself? Or are you making gross assumptions?”

“I prefer to call it educated guessing.” She felt awkward. “Carter said you brought me a bag from home. Thank you, I appreciate it. You didn’t have to do that. Not after what happened to your cabin.”

“Don’t be stupid. It’ll piss me off, and if Carter catches me yelling at you in your debilitated state, he’ll pitch a fit.”

“But—”

“Seriously, Doc. I mean it.” Maggie hurried to her bedside. Henley didn’t think the woman ever walked. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But Carter better hope he finds this guy before I do. Between jacking you up and burning my place down, I’ll castrate the bastard. No one messes with me and mine. No one.”

“Now you’re calling me Doc, too?”

“If the stethoscope fits … ” Maggie shrugged.

“What time is it?”

“Around three in the afternoon.”

“I slept all day?”

“Carter said they gave you the good stuff. You even slept through a breathing treatment.” Henley looked up sharply. Maggie must have sensed her anxiety. “Your breathing was labored from the gas poisoning. They said the albuterol should help,” she explained.

Now that Maggie mentioned it, Henley noticed it didn’t hurt as much when she took a breath. But she still wore the hated cannula.

“Do you know what happened? All I know is Carter found me unconscious in a gas-filled apartment.”

Maggie launched into the tale with the verve of a veteran storyteller. “And he rode in the helicopter with you.”

“He did?”

“Oh yeah. I heard from Ma Stevens that he carried you out in his arms, Dublin at his side, barking orders. Carter, not Dublin. She said if it hadn’t been frightening, it would’ve been crazy romantic, and regardless of the scare factor, it was heroic. Half the town crowded the parking lot and watched.”

“Who has Dubs?”

“We do. Dr. Tucker held on to him until Aidan got there to oversee the investigation on Carter’s behalf.”

“Why wouldn’t Doug do that?” She felt her eyes drooping. But they snapped wide. “He wasn’t hurt, was he? Carter said no one else was hurt.”

“He wasn’t hurt. He’s a suspect.”

“That’s enough, Mags. She’s in recovery.” Carter carried a tray of food. “Okay, they have you on a light diet: broth, gelatin, ice cream, and graham crackers. And they said there’s still a good chance you’ll vomit.” He adjusted her bed, allowing her legs to straighten enough for the tray to balance across her thighs without tipping.

“Thank you.” The broth smelled delicious. The last thing she’d eaten was the awful, rubbery food on the flight close to twenty-four hours ago. By the time she’d finished eating, she was exhausted and the nausea had returned.

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sound of Carter’s voice talking to Maggie near the foot of the bed. At one point he said, “She’s sleeping again, is that okay?” An unfamiliar voice responded, “It’s fine. It’s a good sign that she can sleep without medication.” She felt the tray lift off her legs and the bed recline. Without opening her eyes, she called out to Carter. Her voice was weak, but he had heard her. She felt someone at her side. She knew it was him.

“You should go, too. Get some sleep. Play with the dog. Find out who wants to hurt me.” She felt his lips brush her forehead. The sensation was fleeting, but she absorbed his conviction.

“No one’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

With the Jeep’s windows rolled down, a concession for which she’d had to campaign, she reveled in the sun and fresh air on the long, flat road connecting Brandwyne to Trappers’ Cove.  Henley looked over her shoulder and smiled. Dublin had his head out the window behind her, his tongue waving in the breeze. She felt the same way after a week in the hospital.

“Are you tired?” Carter asked.

“Nope. I am great. Was going stir crazy in there.” She laid her head back and rolled it on her neck to face him. “I think I was spoiled by my nomadic years.”

“I feared it was bad memories.”

“It was at first. You helped with the worst of it. But, oh, maybe half an hour into my second day, it was the being cooped up and coddled. I still wanted to scream and run, but for all different reasons.” She put her hand on his thigh. It amazed her how easy it had become to touch him, how addictive. The passion always simmered below the surface. But it had become much more than that; her feelings were deep-seated. She hadn’t thought herself capable, after Jacob, of this type of attachment. “If I haven’t said, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Thank you.”

To her disappointment and consternation, he politely smiled and patted her hand. He lifted it from his leg with an impersonal, “No problem.”

“You haven’t mentioned the investigation in days, and you were evasive then. What’s going on?” She braced herself. “Was it Doug?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why was he a suspect?”

“He had your spare keys. He was right behind me, but I didn’t hear him climb the stairs. It felt, at the time, reasonable to investigate his possible involvement.” Carter had already explained how Doug had gotten her keys. And that Doug had sealed the keys in an envelope he’d placed in her mailbox as he hadn’t known what time her flight was due to arrive. But Doug had been in the diner eating in plain sight of half the town when Carter had sped down Main Street. It was the lights and sirens that had drawn the deputy to her apartment. “Not Doug.”

“I’m glad; it would have been awful if it were. But at the same time, we’re no better off than we were.”

“Right. That’s why you’re going to stay with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I took the liberty of packing a few things for you. If I missed anything, or there’s something specific you want, I’ll grab it later. Make me a list. You’re all set up in one of the spare bedrooms.”

“At what point were you planning on mentioning this?”

“I’m mentioning it now.”

“I’m not moving into your house, Carter.”

“Yes, you are. You heard the doctor’s instructions when you were discharged—they were reluctant to release you, and you need to be monitored for a least another week. May I remind you your condition was guarded? You don’t have an extra bed. I do.” Henley noticed how he gripped the wheel. And that he’d yet to make eye contact with her. “I’d insist on this, regardless. Whoever your attacker is, he still has your keys.”

“As efficient as you’ve proven, you didn’t have the locks changed?”

He worked his jaw. He ground his teeth. A vein pulsed in his temple. The silence was heavy.

“Yeah, you had the locks re-keyed already. It was the first thing you did after your vigil at the hospital. I can be monitored from home, thanks to Alexander Graham Bell. There is no need for us to cohabitate.”

“I’m not angling for sex, Doc. I told you, I set your stuff up in a spare room. You can drop that tone.”

“What tone? The pissed-off tone? Stop being a Neanderthal jerk, and I’ll stop being pissed off at you for it.”

“Neanderthal?” She knew he was angry, though he kept his voice even.

“You heard me. I’m not staying with you. And for your information, I’d be more agreeable if you were angling for sex. I’d still refuse, but I wouldn’t be as mad.”

“I gave my word.” He slowly enunciated his argument as though she were a child who didn’t understand. “I gave my word that I would take care of you.”

“And that means I’ve lost all free will?” She could feel the hysteria bubbling, recognized the rising tide of panic but was helpless to prevent it. “I won’t be locked up in that hospital. And I won’t be locked up in your house. Goddammit! There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“I promised—”

“I don’t care,” she interrupted, her voice shrill.

“I can’t lose you, too!” His shout echoed in the small enclosure. Dublin stuck his nose between the two seats and whimpered. Carter rubbed the dog between the ears. When he spoke next, he had regained control. “You don’t know what it did to me, finding you. For a second, I froze, locked in the nightmare of Justin’s death. But the terror of thinking I’d gotten there too late, that you were dead, made that night in Philly pale in comparison. I can’t risk losing you. I can’t. I don’t know that I’d come back from that.

“I need you to stay with me, Henley.”

She let the import of his words register. She’d thought his attentive yet distant behavior was a rejection shaded by guilt and kindness. It hadn’t occurred to her that his behavior was based on fear of losing her. He’d pulled back in an act of self-preservation. But when pushed, he’d opened himself up to rejection.

“You could’ve led with that explanation.” Her words broke an uncomfortable silence. “You could’ve told me why it was important and asked me to stay with you. I can’t be locked up in your house, secluded from the world against my will, any more than I could stand being in that hospital for much longer. I’ve been locked up before, you know that. The experience was traumatic.”

He looked at her, finally. And his eyes held such compassion that a lump of hot, salty tears wedged in her throat. She swallowed over it and regained her voice.

“I can’t go back to living that way, Carter.”

“I wouldn’t ask it of you.” He reached out, and she didn’t hesitate to weave her fingers with his. “I hope I’m not overstepping here, but you talk as though you’re still ill. Except for those first few minutes when you woke up in the hospital, you’ve appeared healthy to me, Doc.”

“I haven’t had a serious episode since I got to the Cove.”

“I’d like to submit for your consideration, Doctor Elliott, that emotionally and mentally you’re quite well. At least as healthy as the rest of us. And while you’re mulling that over, please stay with me for the time being. You need to be monitored, you’re still in danger, and I have a spare room you can use.”

“I had a lot of time to think this past week. Each time there’s been an incident I’ve been with you. While I may be the target, you’re the trigger. And I think it’s a question of when you become a target too, not if. Eventually he’ll want to remove what he perceives to be an obstacle to the fulfillment of whatever fantasy drives him. Or if you’re the object of obsession, I’m the one in the way.” She glanced at him. “I see you’ve figured this out as well. It stands to reason that if I’m staying with you, this nut could go off the deep end. We’d likely both be safer if we kept our distance.”