Gone (23 page)

* * * * *

Clare opened her eyes. Her surroundings were a blur. And she hurt. She closed her eyes again.

“Clare. Clare.”

The male voice was unfamiliar. This time when she opened her eyes, she saw a pale man bent over her. Tufts of gray hair stuck up from his head. He had a crease in his right cheek from being pressed against a pillow for an extended period of time. The man appeared to have been awakened from sleep very recently.

He smiled. “Welcome back.”

“Where—?”

“You’re in the Farley Clinic. I’m Dr. Beverley.”

Beverley shone a light in her eyes. Clare squinted then turned her head away from it.

Beverley turned her chin back and then held the light to her eyes again. “Sorry, I need to take a look.” He peered into her eyes briefly, then flicked the light off. “Can you tell me your full name?”

“Clare Marshall.” Her voice sounded raspy.

“Do you recall what happened, Clare?”

Her head felt hollow and hurt as if it were being stabbed by ice picks, but her memory was intact. “Fire.”

“Where?”

“The house I’m renting. I fell—from the trellis. How badly am I hurt?”

Beverley was about to answer when a female voice called out from behind the blue privacy curtain of the small cubicle.

“Dr. Beverley, have you finished examining the patient?”

Beverley responded that he had and the curtain slid back. A nurse entered the area with Jake on her heels. He took in the scene, his gaze locking on her. By the concern in his eyes, Clare figured she must look as bad as she felt.

Dr. Beverley turned to Jake. “Been a while, Jake.”

“Glad to say that it has, Joe,” Jake said, his focus still on Clare.

Beverley chuckled.

“How are you?” Jake asked Clare.

Beverley spoke up. “I was just about to tell you, Agent Marshall, that you have a concussion, and multiple contusions. We treated you for smoke inhalation, but it was minimal. Several of the bones in your left ankle sustained fractures. We were able to set them well. I don’t expect any problems. Your bloodwork showed you had a few drinks tonight. No alcohol for the next few days. Because of the concussion, I’m sending you to Columbia General for the night for observation. We’re not set up for overnight stays.”

“No Columbia,” she said. She shook her head to illustrate her point, then sucked in her breath at a sudden, sharp pain. She rode it out, then said carefully. “I’ll go back to the house. I can take care of myself there.”

“Maybe tomorrow, but for tonight, I really can’t release you into your own care in your present condition,” Beverley said. “An ambulance attendant will be in shortly to transport you to Columbia. I don’t anticipate any complications. You should be well enough to be discharged in the morning.”

“I’d prefer to be discharged now, Doctor.”

“I’d prefer that you weren’t alone for the next twenty-four hours.”

“You can stay with Sammie and I, Clare,” Jake said. “As long as Joe doesn’t think you need more care than I can provide.”

Dr. Beverley was scribbling something on a page on a clip board, and humming. “That should be fine. I can talk you through what she’ll need, Jake. Mostly, you need to wake her every two hours tonight, just to make sure she’s lucid. No strenuous activity. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem with her ankle in a cast. If she has someone to observe her tonight, I’m willing to allow her to forego a night in the hospital.”

Clare chewed her lip. It was either Jake’s place or the hospital in Columbia.

“I’ll stay with you, Jake,” she said softly.

* * * * *

On the way to Jake’s place, she asked him to stop by the rented house. She’d wanted to see for herself how extensive the damage was. She intended to spend no more time than was absolutely necessary at Jake’s—preferably this one night—and planned to sleep in her own, albeit rented bed by tomorrow night, if possible.

But one look at the place and she knew that wouldn’t be happening. She recalled seeing the house collapse, and hadn’t been sure if it had been real or if she’d imagined it before she’d blacked out. She hadn’t imagined it. Fire had gutted the house. All that remained were charred, random pieces of the wooden frame. Clare shivered at seeing the devastation, and realized just how close she came to losing her own life.

Jake gave her time to look her fill and when she nodded to him, they drove on to his house.

He pulled up and parked in his driveway. The hospital had provided Clare with a crutch. Jake came around to the passenger side of his vehicle.

He crouched. “Put your arms around my neck.”

Clare would have preferred to walk, but even turning her head caused it to swim and a wave of dizziness swamped her. She swayed against Jake.

“Easy,” he said softly.

She placed her arms around him and Jake carried her into the house. He took her to his bedroom. Clare braced, expecting a fresh assault to her pounding head from bright ceiling light when Jake flicked the light switch. Instead, he made his way across the room guided by moonlight and light from street lamps that filtered in through a separation in the taupe curtains.

He set her on the bed then switched on the lamp on the nightstand. The room was bathed in a soft glow. The room was furnished with the pieces he’d had in his apartment in New York—heavy dark wood armoire, nightstand, his massive bed.

Clare settled slowly onto the mattress. The bed was unmade, but the sheets were fresh and cool. The mountain of pillows looked as fluffy as clouds, but she refrained from resting against them. She and Jake had a history in this bed that Clare found intimidating.

“I can sleep in the spare room,” she said.

Jake went to the window and lowered a blind. “This room’s bigger. You’ll have more room to move with the crutch.” At the armoire in a corner of the room, he removed a T-shirt. “You can sleep in this, if you like.”

She was wearing green hospital scrubs, the only clothes available to her, since her own shorts and tank shirt were torn and filthy from the fall and the fire, and all of her other garments had perished along with everything else in the house. The nurse who’d provided them had also shown Clare where to bathe, so the stench of smoke from the fire no longer clung to her.

She didn’t want to sleep in the hospital scrubs and accepted the T-shirt from him.

“Do you need help changing?” he asked.

The skin on her palms, torn and abraded from the trellis, was coated with salve and covered with gauze that made her hands as awkward and stiff to maneuver as catcher’s mitts. Regardless, she shook her head, refusing him.

It wasn’t modesty that had her rejecting the offer; it was a bid to retain a fragment of her independence in a situation that had made her dependent on him.

“Need anything before I go?” Jake asked.

What she wanted was another of the little blue pills Dr. Beverley had prescribed for pain, but she wasn’t due for more medication yet. “I’m fine.”

Jake nodded and left the room.

* * * * *

She looked good asleep, Jake thought. At peace. He remembered thinking the same on other occasions, times when they’d shared a bed and he would lie awake just looking at Clare while she slept. He’d thought that whatever had been haunting her wasn’t present when she slept. He’d always known that something was driving her—dogging her. He hadn’t wanted to pry, hadn’t been invited to ask questions, to share her worries, her concerns, her hurts, and he’d kept his distance.

Maybe, he’d known all along that if he breached that distance, he’d lose her. As it turned out, he’d lost her anyway.

His plain blue T-shirt never looked that good on him, he mused. A stray lock of hair lay against her cheek. Jake had to resist the urge to brush it back from her face, resist touching her.

A small frown marred her brow. Caused by pain? Or a residual affect from the experience she’d just had?

She’d been drinking. In the time they’d been together, he’d never known her to drink much. He thought it was her need to be in control at all times that had her swearing off booze. Something had set her off. He wanted to know what that was, but now wasn’t the time to ask her.

It was time to wake her.

“Clare.” He tapped her cheek gently with the back of his hand. “Clare.”

Her frown deepened. She mumbled something he didn’t catch. Out of annoyance he thought, and smiled. The first smile he’d had tonight. The call about the fire had scared ten years off his life.

“Clare.”

She batted his hand away and opened her eyes, squinting at him through the light coming from the bedside lamp.

“Jake?”

“Yeah. Time for your wake-up call.” Her eyes were heavy, but the pupils weren’t enlarged. He held up two fingers. “How many?”

“Two. What time is it?”

“Early. Three a.m. How’s the head?”

“Mmm,” she mumbled with a frown.

He took that to mean it hurt.

“Have you been to bed at all?” she asked.

“I’m not tired.”

The truth was he was too wired to sleep.

“Is that coffee I’m smelling?” she asked.

He was holding a steaming mug. “Yeah.”

Clare pushed against the mattress, trying to hoist herself into a seated position.

“Hold on,” he said. “Let me give you a hand.”

He placed the mug on the bedside table and put an arm around her waist, bringing her close. He smelled her, that sexy blend of whatever fragrance she wore and Clare herself, that never failed to make his mouth go dry.