Heartbreaker (27 page)

"Is there any chance the bullet could be
in the upholstery?"

"Probably not. The trajectory wasn't
angled enough."

"Maybe I can find the cartridge. I'm
coming up with a big zero from the airlines, but I have another angle I can
check. If he flew in, he'd have come in at Tampa, which means he'd have gotten
his rental car at the airport. If I can get a match on his description, we'll
have his license plate number."

"A blue Chevrolet. That should narrow it
down," John said grimly.

"I don't even want to think about how
many blue Chevrolets there are in this state. It was a good idea to keep
Michelle with you in Tampa; it'll give me a few days to get a lead on this guy.
I can get a buddy in Tampa to put surveillance on the hospital, if you think
you'll need it."

"He won't be able to find her if the
doctor here keeps quiet and if my file is a little hard to find."

"I can arrange that." Andy
chuckled.

Michelle didn't wait to hear more. Quietly
she walked back down the corridor and rejoined Nev. He was reading a magazine
and didn't look up until she sat down beside him. "Feeling better?"
he asked sympathetically.

She gave some answer, and it must have made
sense, because it satisfied him. She sat rigidly in the chair, more than a
little stunned. What she had overheard had verified her suspicion that Roger
was behind John's "accident," but it was hard for her to take in the
rest of it. John not only believed her about the phone calls, he had tied them
in to the blue Chevrolet and had been quietly trying to track Roger down. That
explained why he had suddenly become so insistent that she tell him exactly
where she was going and how long she would be there, why he didn't want her
going anywhere at all. He had been trying to protect, her, while she had been
trying to bait Roger into the open.

She hadn't told him what she was doing
because she hadn't thought he would believe her; she had learned well the
bitter lesson that she could depend only on herself, perhaps learned it too
well. Right from the beginning John had helped her, sometimes against her will.
He had stepped in and taken over the ranch chores that were too much for her;
he was literally carrying her ranch until she could rebuild it into a
profitable enterprise. He had given her love, comfort, care and concern, and
now a child, but still she hadn't trusted him. He hadn't been tiring of her;
he'd been under considerable strain to protect her.

Being John, he hadn't told her of his
suspicions or what he was doing because he hadn't wanted to "worry"
her. It was just like him. That protective, possessive streak of his was bone
deep and body wide, defying logical argument. There were few things or people
in his life that he cared about, but when he did care, he went full measure. He
had claimed her as his, and what was his, he kept.

Deputy Phelps stopped by to chat; Michelle
decided to give him an opportunity to talk to Nev, and she walked back to
John's room. The ambulance had just arrived, so she knew they would be leaving
soon.

When the door opened, he rolled his head
until he could see her with his right eye. "Is everything okay?"

She had to grit her teeth against the rage
that filled her when she saw his battered, discolored face. It made her want to
destroy Roger in any way she could. The primitive, protective anger filled her,
pumping into every cell in her body. It took every bit of control she had to
calmly walk over to him as if she weren't in a killing rage and take his hand.
"If you're all right, then I don't care what Edie packed or didn't
pack."

"I'll be all right" His deep voice
was confident. He might or might not lose the sight in his eye, but he'd be all
right. John Rafferty was made of the purest, hardest steel.

She sat beside him in the ambulance and held
his hand all the way to Tampa, her eyes seldom leaving his face. Perhaps he
dozed; perhaps it was simply less painful if he kept his right eye closed, too.
For whatever reason, little was said during the long ride.

It wasn't until they reached the hospital
that he opened his eye and looked at her, frowning when he saw how drawn she
looked. She needed the bed rest more than he did; if it hadn't been for his
damned eye, and the opportunity to keep Michelle away from the ranch, he would
already have been back at work.

He should have gotten her away when he'd
first suspected Beckman was behind her accident, but he'd been too reluctant to
let her out of his sight. He wasn't certain about her or how much she needed
him, so he'd kept her close at hand. But the way she had looked when she saw he
was hurt…a woman didn't look like that unless she cared. He didn't know
how much she cared, but for now he was content with the fact that she did. He
had her now, and he wasn't inclined to let go. As soon as this business with
Beckman was settled, he'd marry her so fast she wouldn't know what was
happening.

Michelle went through the process of having
him admitted to the hospital while he was whisked off, with three—
three
!—nurses
right beside him. Even as battered as he was, he exuded a masculinity that drew
women like a magnet

She didn't see him again for three hours.
Fretting, she wandered the halls until a bout of nausea drove her to find the
cafeteria, where she slowly munched on stale crackers. Her stomach gradually
settled. John would probably be here for at least two days, maybe longer; how
could she hide her condition from him when she would be with him practically every
hour of the day? Nothing escaped his attention for long, whether he had one
good eye or two. Breeding wasn't anything new to him; it was his business. Cows
calved; mares foaled. On the ranch, everything mated and reproduced. It
wouldn't take long for him to discard the virus tale she'd told him and come up
with the real reason for her upset stomach.

What would he say if she told him? She closed
her eyes, her heart pounding wildly at the thought. He deserved to know. She
wanted him to know; she wanted to share every moment of this pregnancy with
him. But what if it drove him to do something foolish, knowing that Roger not
only threatened her but their child as well?

She forced herself to think clearly. They
were safe here in the hospital; this was bought time. He wouldn't leave the
hospital when staying here meant that she was also protected. She suspected
that was the only reason he'd agreed to come at all. He was giving Deputy
Phelps time to find Roger, if he could.

But what if Phelps hadn't found Roger by the
time John left the hospital? What evidence did they have against him, anyway?
He had had time to have any damage to the Chevrolet repaired, and no one had
seen him shoot at John. He hadn't threatened her during any of those phone
calls. He hadn't had to; she knew him, and that was enough.

She couldn't run, not any longer. She had run
for two years, fleeing emotionally long after she had stopped physically
running. John had brought her alive with his fierce, white-hot passion, forcing
her out of her protective reserve. She couldn't leave him, especially now that
she carried his child. She had to face Roger, face all the old nightmares and
conquer them, or she would never be rid of this crippling fear. She could fight
him, something she had always been too terrified to do before. She could fight
him for John, for their baby, and she could damn well fight him for herself.

Finally she went back to the room that had
been assigned to John to wait. It was thirty minutes more before he was wheeled
into the room and transferred very carefully to the bed. When the door closed
behind the orderlies he said, from between clenched teeth, "If anyone else
comes through that door to do anything to me, I'm going to throw them out the
window." Gingerly he eased into a more upright position against the
pillow, then punched the button that raised the head of the bed.

She ignored his bad temper. "Have you
seen the eye specialist yet?"

"Three of them. Come here."

There was no misreading that low demanding
voice or the glint in his right eye as he looked at her. He held his hand out
to her and said again, "Come here."

"John Patrick Rafferty, you aren't in
any shape to begin carrying on like that."

"Aren't I?"

She refused to look at his lap. ''You
shouldn't be jostled."

"I don't want to be jostled. I just want
a kiss." He gave her a slow, wicked grin despite the swelling in his face.
"The spirit's willing, but the body's tired as hell."

She bent to kiss him, loving his lips gently
with her own. When she tried to lift her head he thrust his fingers into her
hair and held her down while his mouth molded to hers, his tongue making
teasing little forays to touch hers. He gave a sigh of pleasure and let her up,
but shifted his hand to her bottom to hold her beside him. "What've you
been doing while I've been lying in cold halls in between bouts of being stuck,
prodded, x-rayed and prodded some more?"

"Oh, I've been really entertained. You
don't realize what an art mopping is until you've seen a master do it. There's
also a four-star cafeteria here, specializing in the best stale crackers I've
ever eaten." She grinned, thinking he'd never realize the truth of that
last statement.

He returned the grin, thinking that once he
would have accused her of being spoiled. He knew better now, because he'd been
trying his damnedest to spoil her, and she persisted in being satisfied with
far less than he would gladly have given her any day of the week. Her tastes
didn't run to caviar or mink, and she'd been content to drive that old truck of
hers instead of a Porsche. She liked silk and had beautiful clothes, but she
was equally content wearing a cotton shirt and jeans. It wasn't easy to spoil a
woman who was happy with whatever she had.

"Arrange to have a bed moved in here for
you," he ordered. "Unless you want to sleep up here with me?"

"I don't think the nurses would allow
that."

"Is there a lock on the door?"

She laughed. "No. You're out of
luck."

His hand moved over her bottom, the slow,
intimate touch of a lover. "We need to talk. Will it bother you if I lose
this eye?"

Until then she hadn't realized that he might
lose the eye as well as his sight. She sucked in a shocked breath, reaching
blindly for his hand. He continued to watch her steadily, and slowly she
relaxed, knowing what was important.

"It would bother me for your sake, but
as for me… You can be one-eyed, totally blind, crippled, whatever, and
I'll still love you."

There. She'd said it. She hadn't meant to,
but the words had come so naturally that even if she could take them back, she
wouldn't.

His right eye was blazing black fire at her.
She had never seen anyone else with eyes as dark as his, night-black eyes that
had haunted her from the first time she'd met him. She looked down at him and
managed a tiny smile that was only a little hesitant as she waited for him to
speak.

"Say that again."

She didn't pretend not to know what he meant,
but she had to take another deep breath. Her heart was pounding. "I love
you. I'm not saying that to try to trap you into anything. It's just the way I
feel, and I don't expect you to—"

He put his fingers over her mouth. "It's
about damn time," he said.