His Every Word (5 page)

He kissed her back, his lips warm and soft and completely, totally his—nothing had changed, despite everything he’d been through. He still smelled like Hunter, tasted like Hunter—and his touch made everything all right once more.

“Thank God,” she whispered, crying softly.

“Hey now,” he said, stroking her hair as she cried against his neck. “It’s okay,”

he told her. “I’m right here, Kallie. I’m right here.”

“I thought I was going to lose you,” she said, finally looking at him.

His beard stubble had come in bristly on his face, and she touched it lovingly, smiling through her tears.

“You’re not going to lose me. You couldn’t lose me if you tried, baby.”

She hung her head and tried hard not to break down. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

“I’ve felt better. It’s not exactly a day at the beach.”

“Dumb question,” she said.

“But I’m alive. The pain tells me I’m alive, because I’m pretty sure dead people don’t feel pain. Like Terrence isn’t feeling pain right now.”

“That’s true,” she agreed.

“Well then, I guess we know who got the worse end of the deal.”

Kallie had a chance now to catch her breath. She turned and looked at the men who were standing nearby. One of the men was a complete stranger—a middle aged black man with a trimmed mustache and closely cropped hair. He smiled at her briefly and nodded his head.

The other man was no stranger at all. It was the detective who’d been assigned to her case, the one who’d been so suspicious of Hunter.

“Detective Phillips?” she said, shocked to find him here.

He was dressed in a beige suit and bright yellow tie. His blue eyes stared directly at her as he nodded his head slightly. “Hello, Kallie.”

“I was hoping never to see you again,” she said.

He nodded. “I just want to tell you that I apologize for failing you and Hunter in my police work.”

“You didn’t fail me,” Hunter rasped.

Kallie felt her blood boil at seeing the detective in the room with them, despite his apology. “Of course he failed you,” she said. “He thought you were the dangerous one, and he ignored our warnings about Terrence!”

Hunter laughed jaggedly, as if it was painful to make that sound. “Now, Kallie, that’s not completely true. That phone call I took at the bar was from Detective Phillips, and he was trying to warn me about Terrence.”

“He was?” Kallie looked back to the detective, who shrugged his shoulders.

“I was about three minutes too late with my warning,” the detective said. “Three minutes that unfortunately made all the difference in the world.”

Hunter glanced at him. “If you hadn’t called me, I would have been sitting right in front of Terrence when he came into the restaurant, and I’d probably be dead right now.”

“I appreciate you saying that, Hunter,” the detective said softly.

Kallie was stunned. Could the day get any stranger? First, she came in and found Hunter awake and alert, and then she found the jerky detective hanging out in his hospital room. And to top it all off, they were giving one another compliments and getting along.

What next? She wondered. Would it be raining cats and dogs?

“I should continue the introductions,” Hunter said. “After all, I hate to be a rude host. Andy Johnston, Attorney-at-law, meet Kallie Young.”

The black man with the neat mustache smiled and extended his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Hunter’s spoken very highly of you.”

Andy’s hand was cool and dry.

Kallie shook his hand. “You’re a lawyer?” she asked.

He smiled and his eyes radiated mirth. “It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it, and unfortunately, I wasn’t good enough at baseball to play for the Yankees.”

“He’s on retainer with my production company, and he’s very, very good. I’ve brought him in to handle some pressing legal matters,” Hunter told her.

“What kind of legal matters?” Kallie asked, feeling some strange anxiety arising as she tried to figure out what these two men were doing here.

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but I’m not in top form right now,” Hunter smiled—his smile turned into a grimace. “Christ, that hurts.”

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked, her heart suddenly racing.

“It’s okay. It’s just that sometimes if I move even a little bit a certain way, my chest hurts.” He took a shallow breath or two and tried to grin again, but Kallie could tell that his discomfort was intense. “Anyway, it passes quickly,” he finished.

“You should rest,” she told him. Turning to the detective and the lawyer, she decided to put a stop to this nonsense. “I know Hunter has things he wants to discuss with each of you, but I think right now he should spend his time recovering, not handling business affairs.”

“Kallie,” Hunter said. “Hold on. You can’t just send them away.”

“Why can’t I? It’s not good for you to be conducting business from your hospital bed. You might not realize this, Hunter, but you were nearly killed.”

“Believe me, I realize it.”

“So, you need proper rest.”

“I know that, but certain things need to be handled first. I can’t rest if I’m worried about my business and who’s going to run the day-to-day operations until I get back.”

That put things in a new light. Kallie felt foolish for trying to step in and take over when she hadn’t really known the full situation. “Oh. Okay,” she said, chastened.

He held out his hand for her to take again, and she did so, gladly. “Listen, I need you to be strong for me right now,” he told her. “Because I’m planning on giving you a lot of responsibility while I’m in the hospital.”

“Of course. I’ll do anything you need me to do.”

He nodded at her. “Good.” Hunter then turned his attention to Andy. “Did you bring the papers we discussed?”

“I did,” Andy said, opening a fancy leather satchel and pulling a binder from inside. “This is everything you’ll need in order to assign Ms. Young power of attorney and executive powers with your company.”

“Great.”

“Wait—what?” Kallie asked. “Power of attorney?”

Hunter looked at her. “I heard that you weren’t able to come and visit me or speak with doctors about my condition. Since we’re not married, the only way I can truly make sure that you’re able to be involved in every decision is to grant you power of attorney. This way, if anything should happen to me—“

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” she said. “The worst is over.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not taking any chances. I can’t afford to have anything come up that prevents you from making the important decisions if I’m unable to make them myself.”

This statement chilled her. Of course he would be able to make the important decisions, now that he was awake and out of surgery. There was no reason to do any of this unless he was expecting something bad to happen to him again. “I don’t like this, Hunter,” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t think you should talk like that and think like that. You’re improving.”

His eyes met hers and she saw no fear there, nothing he was doing was motivated by anxiety or paranoia. He was, in fact, calmer and stronger than she was right now. “I might be improving, but I’m still bedridden. I need someone I can trust as a surrogate, to make choices and continue to run the business while I concentrate on healing.”

“And you want me to do that,” she clarified.

“You’re the only one I trust,” he said, simply.

The lawyer handed her the binder. “In a moment, we’ll ask you to sign this series of contracts and forms,” he said. “I can go over them with you in as much detail as you need, in order for you to feel comfortable about what you’re agreeing to. And of course, nobody says you have to sign if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll sign anything that Hunter wants—I don’t need any explanations in order to agree to do it.”

Andy’s eyebrows arched. “That’s mighty noble of you, but still, we should be clear on what your obligations will be, in a legal sense.” Andy flipped to a signatory page of the contract. “Essentially, Mister Reardon is handing you control of his entire estate, his bank accounts, his business, and you’ll have the power to do all of the things that Mister Reardon can do. This includes making decisions about his medical care, should he be unable to make the decision himself.”

A pen was thrust into her hand. She glanced over at Hunter, who was watching her with hooded, unblinking eyes.

“You really want this?” she asked him.

“I really want this.”

She shook her head once and signed. And then, as Andy explained further, she signed again and again and again, initialing and dating and signing, while Andy droned on and one in legalese about trusts and wills and estates and liabilities and she began to tune him out, simply putting pen to paper and writing her name wherever he pointed.

Finally, it was done. Andy straightened, closing the enormous binder and inserting it back into his attaché. “Excellent. I’ll be making copies in triplicate and sending them to both of you electronically. Anything else I can do, Mister Reardon?

Miss Young?” the lawyer asked.

Hunter shook his head. “That’s enough lawyering for today,” he sighed, his voice sounding very weak now, as if it was coming from deep inside his chest.

Andy shook both their hands again and then exited the room, leaving his business card on the table as he left.

“Now it’s just the three of us,” Hunter smiled.

Kallie folded her arms and glanced at the detective. “Why is he still here?”

“Don’t be so hard on him.”

“I’m sorry I blamed him, especially if he called and tried to warn you. But I want to spend some time alone with you.”

“First, I should just explain why he’s here,” Hunter replied.

She waited for his explanation. “Go ahead.”

“I need a little water first,” Hunter rasped, motioning to a paper cup on the tray next to his bed. The way he moved his arm, it seemed like it took almost all of his energy just to lift it slightly.

Kallie quickly bent and grabbed the cup, eager to help him in a tangible way. She moved the cup to his lips and held it there while he slowly sipped. It didn’t take much for him to quench his thirst, apparently. “That’s good,” he said, grimacing.

“Are you in pain?”

“That’s a silly question. Look at me. I’d have to be Ironman to not be in pain right now.”

“I know that. But is it getting worse? Should I go and get a nurse?”

He shook his head. “A nurse will be along shortly. They don’t give me much time to myself around these parts.”

Kallie placed the cup back on the tray and glanced again at the detective. “So why is he here?” she said to Hunter.

Hunter grinned a little, his eyes meeting hers once more, sending that same old spark of electricity through her body. Only now, on top of that spark, she felt a searing agony of love for him—something so deep that she couldn’t even name it. This man had given up almost everything for her, and she knew that he would do it all again this instant if he needed to. Nobody had ever made her feel this taken care of, and she was frightened of losing him.

“Detective Phillips is here because I asked him to be here.” Hunter swallowed, closed his eyes briefly, and then continued speaking. “Because there is still real danger for you and for me.”

“What kind of danger?” she said, a strange numbness creeping up her arms and legs.

“I figured out who Levi is,” the detective piped in from the corner of the room.

“That’s how I finally realized that you’d been telling me the truth about Terrence, and that’s how I realized the two of you were in danger in L.A.”

Kallie didn’t understand. “You figured out who Levi is? What does that mean?”

“The man you knew as Levi is actually Trevor Craven, Terrence Craven’s son,”

Detective Phillips told her.

She looked to Hunter, who nodded slowly. “I know. Shocking, isn’t it?” Hunter said.

“How did you figure out who he was?” Kallie asked.

“Some good old fashioned police work,” Phillips answered. “I’d looked into your case and felt like things just didn’t make sense. Initially, that caused me to be suspicious of Hunter, but then that didn’t sit right with me either. So I went and talked to Terrence’s first wife, Rita. They were divorced nearly two decades ago, but I found out that she lived in Western Mass, so I tracked her down and we talked—strictly off the record.”

“I can’t imagine what he must have put her through,” Kallie said, shivering at the thought of marriage to that man.

“I don’t think Rita very much enjoyed thinking back on those times. She said that Terrence was a cruel man who could be outwardly charming, was highly intelligent and driven. She also told me that the great regret of her life was allowing him to take her son, Trevor, from her. She’d been so intimidated and afraid of what Terrence would do if she refused him, that she basically gave up her parental rights to the boy.”

“So now we know how that ended up,” Hunter joked.

“When I asked her if she kept in contact with either of them at all, she said no.

Shortly thereafter, our meeting ended, and the first thing I did was a check on Trevor Craven in our database. Unlike the old man, Trevor has a rap sheet a mile long.”

Kallie gasped, thinking how she’d been alone with Levi—or Trevor--and what he’d done to her that night at the movie theater. The memory of him rifling through her purse and checking her eyes to see if she was still alive—it made her legs weak, like rubber.

“Are you okay?” Hunter asked, craning his neck to see her better.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Go ahead,” she said, sitting down in the chair at the foot of Hunter’s bed. “I just need to sit for a second.”

The detective glanced at Hunter, who nodded for him to continue.

“Anyway,” Phillips said, “Trevor seems to have been groomed as his father’s enforcer. He seems to have a knack for getting his hands dirty, and it shows. His arrests started when he was still a teenager and go all the way up to recent times. They include everything from petty theft to assault to arson. He’s a fresh-faced young guy who’s about as cold-blooded as they come.”

“Great,” Kallie laughed. “A chip off the old block.”