Johnston - Heartbeat (6 page)

She had cleared a path for herself from his living room to his bedroom through the clutter of single male paraphernalia. You could supposedly tell a lot about a person by what they surrounded themselves with, but so far all Maggie saw was a mass of contradictions.

The saddle leather couch would have been an easy guess, but she had been surprised by the home-made wooden rocker. She had been drawn to it from the first moment she laid eyes on it.

“My father made it,” he said. But he didn’t offer any more information, just made sure she knew where the kitchen and bathroom were and retired to his bedroom.

His place was neater than she’d expected, but plenty dusty. Jack obviously read books, but just as obviously got distracted easily, because he had a lot of them scattered around the living room, all of which seemed to have places marked. By now she could find her way around his place in the dark, but he’d insisted she leave the hall light on so she wouldn’t run into something.

Maggie eased Jack’s bedroom door open and let the light from the hall spill inside. The bedroom had been a surprise, too, since it was filled with more hand-made oak furniture like the rocker. Maggie wondered if Jack always slept as restlessly as he had for the past twelve hours. He had stripped down to a pair of gray sweatpants, and tangled up half naked in the plain white sheet, one pillow tucked under his head and the other at his feet, he looked both imposing and approachable.

As Maggie watched, she realized the noise she had heard before, the one that had scared her, had been Jack, muttering in his sleep. She crossed to the bed and carefully sat down beside him.

“Shh. It’s all right, Jack. You’re home. Nobody’s going to take you to the hospital.” She didn’t resist the urge to brush the damp black curls from his forehead or to soothe the racing pulse at his throat with her thumb. “Everything’s going to be all right,” she crooned.

“Don’t shoot,” he said.

At first, Maggie thought she’d misunderstood him. Nobody at the picnic had threatened to shoot Jack or anybody else.

“I’ll put down my gun. Just don’t shoot,” Jack muttered.

When he cried out in agony, Maggie jerked her hand away and leapt to her feet, staring at Jack as though she’d just discovered she’d been caressing Stephen King’s man-eating dog.

When he began muttering again, she leaned down and heard him whisper, “Jesus. She killed the kid. I made her kill the kid.”

Alarmed, Maggie shook him hard. “Jack! Wake up! Wake up!”

Jack sat bolt upright, chest heaving, eyes wild. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

“You were having a nightmare,” Maggie said.

“I wish the hell it were!”

Her eyes went wide with horror.

He saw the look on her face and snarled, “Get the hell out of here! Get out! Leave me alone!”

Maggie backed away, then turned and ran.

Chapter 4

Jack stayed where he was until he could get the trembling under control. When he tried to stand, his knees threatened to buckle, and he slumped back down on the edge of the bed.

“Maggie!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Too late he realized his headache wasn’t gone yet. He heard the ringer clang as the phone hit the floor in the living room, along with several books. “Don’t leave,” he called out. “I can explain.”

“Don’t bother,” she shouted back at him.

Jack lurched off the bed, moving faster than his head would allow. “Maggie, I’m going to pass out and hit my head on the floor if you make me run after you.”

She reappeared in his bedroom doorway, without his chambray shirt and wearing her shoes, bringing him up short. “If you’re well enough to start yelling at me, you’re well enough to take care of yourself. I promise to forget all this ever happened when I see you on Monday.”

“How are you getting home?” he asked, figuring she’d forgotten she had no car of her own.

“I called a cab,” she said. “I’ll wait for it outside.”

That meant she didn’t have anyone—another man or a girlfriend or a relative—she felt comfortable rousing in the middle of the night, Jack thought as he followed her to the front door. She was alone. Like him.

That didn’t necessarily make her vulnerable, Jack realized. In fact, so far she’d handled everything he’d thrown at her like a trooper. Which made sense, he supposed, if there wasn’t anyone around for her to lean on. Jack was ready and willing to offer a comforting shoulder, if only he could get her to use it. “I promise not to yell at you again,” he said. “Please stay.”

She hesitated with her hand on the front doorknob, her back to him. “You’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s better if I go.”

He padded on bare feet the short distance that separated them and put his hands on her hips from behind. He slid them up her body to her waist, then under her T-shirt. His thumbs caressed the center of her spine, while his fingertips eased up her bare midriff, settling along the elastic edge of her bra. If he moved his hands an inch or so higher, he would be cupping her breasts in his palms.

Sexual tension arced between them. The intensity of the feeling surprised him, and he wondered if she felt it, too. “Maggie,” he whispered. He brushed his lips against her nape to one side of her ponytail. “Maggie.”

It was a plea. And a promise.

She made a keening sound in her throat, a yearning sound, a desolate sound, and manacled his wrists with her hands. “No, Jack. I can’t.”

“Can’t?” He kissed his way across her shoulder, then up her throat to the shell of her ear. He caught the lobe in his teeth and nibbled gently. He could feel her trembling. He squeezed his eyes closed, fighting the headache that throbbed at the base of his skull.
Not now. Not now,
he pleaded.

She let go of his wrists to cover his hands as they closed over her breasts. “Jack.”

Jack heard longing. And regret. He understood one, but not the other. Maggie would have nothing to be sorry for. He would make sure of that. He turned her slowly in his arms and captured her body between his own and the door, settling himself in the cradle of her thighs, reaching behind her bare upper thighs and inching her legs apart. He was hard, and her soft flesh yielded to his.

“You feel good, Maggie,” he murmured against her throat.

She smelled of strawberries and woman, and he wanted to taste them both. He wanted to stake his claim, to put himself inside her hard and deep.

And they hadn’t even kissed yet.

Jack thought about what her lips would taste like, how soft and supple they would be, how wet and hot her mouth would be once he was inside it. He kissed the left side of her lips, then the right, to let her know what he intended, to let her know what was coming.

“No.”

It wasn’t a murmur or a sigh or a groan.

Any of those Jack would have taken for reluctance, but they wouldn’t have slowed him down. Maggie had said no with serious conviction. Jack lifted his head and looked into her face.

In the shadows created by the old-fashioned standing lamp beside the rocker, Jack saw panic in her eyes—-and the remnants of desire. Her jaw was rigid, as though her teeth were clenched, and the trembling he had thought was the result of sexual excitement, he now saw was something else entirely.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you, Maggie?” “Of course not!”

“What is it, then?” he asked, confused, wanting to understand.

“This isn’t going to happen,” she gritted out. “I refuse to let it happen.”

More evidence—verbal this time—that she wanted him, but had no intention of indulging herself.

“No slumming, is that it, Maggie?”

“Who you are has nothing to do with this!” she retorted. “I’m not like Victoria Wainwright. I don’t choose my friends for their blue blood or the size of their bank balances. No matter who you are, I have the right to say no, Jack.”

“Your body isn’t saying no,” he accused, staring at her erect nipples beneath the thin cotton T-shirt.

She closed her eyes, bit her lip, then opened her eyes again. The turmoil was gone, and with it, he suspected, a great deal of her susceptibility to his lovemaking. What he saw now was determination—a squared jaw and a militant stance and defiant eyes.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want you,” she explained matter-of-factly. “I would be a fool to try and deny my physical response to you. What I said was that I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want to get involved with you or any other man.”

“Why not?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Jack stared at her. Maybe he had rushed things a little. All right, maybe he had rushed things a lot. Maybe she needed a little time to get used to the idea of the two of them. He could wait. He knew where to find her. Now that he knew Maggie Wainwright’s wealth and social status weren’t an issue, he wasn’t going to let a little thing like her unwillingness to get involved stand in his way. Hell, he didn’t want to get
involved,
either.

“All right, Maggie,” he said. “I can slow this down if you want.”

“I don’t want it slowed down,” she said in a sharp voice. “I want it stopped.”

“For now,” he said, reluctantly easing his hips away from hers.

“For good!” Her fisted hands pressed against his chest.

He backed up and let her go. “What’s got you so spooked?”

“For one thing, I hardly know you,” she said. “That wasn’t a dream you were having, was it, Jack? It really happened, didn’t it?”

Jack felt a stab of unease. “What is it you want to know, Maggie?”

“Nothing. I just want to leave.”

“Will you let me explain?”

Her body rigid, her back to the door, she met his gaze. “Can you? I don’t know many hospital insurance investigators who carry guns and get shot at, Jack.”

She had him there. Jack thought about making up a story but realized he didn’t want to. He planned to be spending a great deal of time with Ms. Wainwright, and he didn’t see how he could hide the truth from her for very long if she spent as much time as he hoped she would in his bed.

The main object working undercover was to keep the bad guys from finding out who you were while you found out everything you could about them. As far as Jack could see, telling Maggie his secret wasn’t going to compromise his situation. The captain might have a fit, but what the hell.

“I’m not an insurance investigator, Maggie. I’m a Texas Ranger.”

Most people were impressed when they found out what Jack did for a living. A select few were chosen from the ranks of the Texas Department of Public Safety to become Texas Rangers, and the elite force was small—no more than 106 Rangers
to
cover the entire state. A certain mystique had grown around the Rangers over the century and more they had been catching outlaws, and Jack was proud to be a part of that history. So Maggie’s reaction to his revelation was a disappointment.

Her eyes narrowed, her face got stony, and she asked, “What were you doing at the Wainwright & Cobb picnic, Jack? What is it you’re investigating that you have to work undercover?”

She sounded like a lawyer. Which, of course, she was. “Look, Maggie, I don’t see why we have to get into that right now.”

“Why not? You brought it up. I think I have a right to know whether I’m the object of some sort of investigation. If that’s why you dragged me over here tonight—”

“Whoa! Whoa!” he said. “Rein in those horses, counselor. If I’m not mistaken, you volunteered to see me home. Nobody held a gun to your head. And for the record, I don’t usually make a habit of inviting suspects home with me.” He paused. What had Maggie Wainwright done that she thought might be worth a Texas Ranger investigating?

About the time Jack started searching Maggie’s gaze to see what she was hiding, she lowered her lids.

“Secrets, Maggie?” he murmured.

“None that would interest you,” she said, staring at her knotted hands.

Jack felt queasy. What had he just done? It was a little late to close the barn doors now. He might as well finish what he’d started. “I’m posing as an insurance investigator so I can ask questions at the hospital about a suspected murderer.”

“Who?”

She still wasn’t looking at him, which worried Jack. “Roman Hollander,” he said.

Her chin shot up, and her eyes opened wide. “Roman?” She gave a startled laugh. “A murderer? You must be joking! I’ve never known a more gentle, caring man. He’s a doctor, for heaven’s sake!”

Jack was surprised at her strong reaction. “You’re well acquainted with Hollander, I presume.”

“I know his wife, Lisa, very well. She works with me at Wainwright & Cobb. We met when she clerked for the law firm I worked for in Houston, and I put in a good word for her when she came looking for a job in San Antonio. I’m her mentor, if such things exist between women professionals. I’ve been to their house for dinner. I attended their daughter Amy’s third birthday party last week.”

Maggie shook her head. “Roman, a murderer? I don’t believe it. Who is he supposed to have killed?”

“Laurel Morgan, an eight-year-old accident victim with head trauma that he operated on a year ago,” Jack said. “Somebody injected an overdose of potassium chloride into the kid’s IV, causing her heart to stop. If her parents hadn’t made a stink, it would have gone on the books as a case of heart failure following surgery.”

She frowned. “Why would Roman save the child on the operating table if he planned
to
kill her later?”

“I give up. Why?”

Maggie snorted and crossed her arms. “There is no why, because Roman didn’t kill that child.”

“We think he did,” Jack said, leaning his palm on the wall beside her. It had the effect of hemming her in, but he did it because he was starting
to
get dizzy.

“My turn to ask why,” Maggie said, edging past him and crossing to pick up a book from the floor and set it on the coffee table.

Jack turned to face her, leaning back against the door to stay on his feet. “The way the Morgan child died last April—heart failure in the ICU after a serious accident and surgery—doesn’t look suspicious until you realize that an insurance investigator for MEDCO, the corporation that owns San Antonio General and a dozen other hospitals in Texas, discovered that at least five other children have died the same way over the past seven years in Houston and Dallas. We’re not sure yet how many other victims there might be in hospitals around the state.” Jack headed for the sofa as he said, “We’re still investigating.”