The Crush (35 page)

"I'm catching a buzz, all right," he said about midway up. "My ears are ringing. How long before this wears off?"

"Depends on the patient."

"That's not an answer."

On the second floor a wide gallery overlooked the living room. Several doors opened onto the gallery. She led him through one of them into a bedroom. The bed was unmade. "Is this your room?" he asked.

"It's the only bedroom that's furnished."

"I get to sleep in your bed?"

She propped him against an armoire. "Lift your arms." He did and she pulled his T-shirt over his head. Then she knelt and helped him out of his shoes. "Now take off your pants and lie down."

"Why, Dr. Newton, I would've thought you'd be more subtle. That you'd ... What's that?"

She'd taken something from the bottom drawer of the armoire.

"That is a syringe." Coming to her feet, she held it up and tapped the clear plastic tube.

"And you're about to get a butt-load of antibiotic."

"I don't need it."

"We aren't going to argue about this, Wick."

No, she didn't appear to be in any mood to argue. He couldn't have argued with her anyway.

His tongue had become about as nimble as a walrus. His legs had turned to columns of jelly. It was a struggle to keep his eyes open.

He unbuttoned his fly, dropped his jeans, and stepped out of them. She probably had expected him to be wearing underwear. Well, too damn bad, Dr. Newton. He strutted--as much as he could strut in his drugged state--to the bed and lay down.

"On your stomach, please."

"You're no fun at all," he grumbled thickly.

Rennie swabbed a spot on his hip with alcohol, then jabbed the needle into his muscle.

"Son of a--"

"This might hurt."

"--.bitch! Thanks for the damn warning." He clenched his teeth and waited out the injection, which seemed to take forever.

Laying the empty syringe on the nightstand, she said, "Stay where you are. I'm going to clean your incision."

He thought of something clever to say, but forgot it before he could form the words. The pillow was feeling awfully good.

He was vaguely aware of her bathing his incision with cold liquid, then applying a fresh bandage.

It dimly registered when she covered him with a sheet and light blanket. The room seemed to grow gradually darker. He opened his eyes only long enough to see her at the windows where she was closing the shutters. For a millisecond before she shut the louvers, he saw her in silhouette against the bright outdoor light. It detailed her shape.

She wasn't wearing a bra.

He groaned, Sweetjesus.

Or maybe he didn't.

When he woke up he was lying on his back, favoring his right side. The room was empty, but light was leaking from beneath the closed bathroom door.

He checked the windows. The shutters were still drawn.

God, what had she given him? How long had he been asleep? All day? Two days?

Three?

Just then the light went out beneath the bathroom door. It was eased open soundlessly.

Rennie stepped through, bringing the smell of soap and shampoo with her. She looked toward the bed and saw that he was awake and watching her.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have used the hair dryer. I was afraid it might wake you up, but you were sleeping so soundly I took the chance."

"What time is it?"

"Going on six."

Her bare feet made whispering sounds on the hardwood floor as she moved to the edge of the bed.

"How are you feeling?"

When she bent down to take a closer look at him, her hair fell forward to curtain both sides of her face. She swept it over one shoulder to keep it out of her way. "Can I bring you anything?"

Hair, eyes, skin, lips. She was a beautiful woman. He had thought so the first time he'd laid eyes on her in Oren's eight-by-tens. That's when the desire took root and the lying began. He had lied to Oren and to himself, first about his opinion of her, then about his objectivity. It had died when she turned to him at the wedding reception. He had known in that instant that his professionalism was done for. It sank right along with him into the depths of her green eyes.

During his career he had dealt with all types of women, from hookers to homemakers. Cheats and liars and thieves and saints. Women who dressed in power suits and made it their mission in life to symbolically de-ball every man with whom they came into contact, and women who undressed for the amusement and entertainment of men.

Oren had been right when he said that he'd never had an unremarkable encounter with a woman. All had been memorable for one reason or another, from his adoring kindergarten teacher, to the policewoman who had pronounced him the biggest asshole she'd ever had the displeasure of knowing, to Crystal the waitress. He never failed to make an impression.

Good or bad, he had an innate awareness of females that was reciprocated. It was just one of those things, a component of himself that he'd been born withand more or less took for granted, like his palm print or his crooked front tooth.

He had slept with some of those women--he had slept with a lot of them. But he had never desired one as much as he desired Rennie Newton. Nor had one ever been so forbidden.

She had meant trouble to him from the start, and she would mean trouble to him from here on.

None of that mattered, though, when strands of her hair brushed against his bare chest. Common sense and conscience didn't stand a chance.

"Ah, hell," he growled. Curving his hand around the back of her neck, he drew her head down to his.

It was a full-blown kiss from the start. No sooner had his lips touched hers than he pressed his tongue between them. He probed her mouth lustily. Her breath was warm and rapid against his face, and that urged him on. He tilted her head, found more heat, more sweetness, wet delight.

His hand moved up from her neck and spread wide over the back of her head. His other hand settled on her rib cage. Against his thumb he could feel the soft weight of her breast. Then the center of it, growing firm at his touch, responding, becoming harder beneath his stroking.

"No!"

Backing away, she shook her head furiously. She stared at him for several ponderous seconds, then turned and fled--the only way to describe the speed with which she left the room.

Chapter 24

He showered. He shaved with one of Rennie's pink razors. In the mirror above the bathroom sink, he didn't look quite as frightening as he had before the long sleep. The dark rings under his eyes had lightened and the sockets weren't as deep.

But he was no Prince Charming. His hospital pallor emphasized the discoloration on his cheekbone. And when was the last time he'd had a haircut? "Screw it," he said to his reflection as he left the bathroom.

Rennie was in the kitchen. She glanced over her shoulder when he walked in. "You found your duffel bag?"

"Yeah, thanks." She had placed it at the foot of the bed so he would have a change of clothes.

"How do you feel?"

"Better. Thanks. For everything. Except the shot. My butt's sore."

"I'm sure you're thirsty. Help yourself to anything in the fridge." She was dredging boneless chicken breasts in seasoned breading and placing them in a Pyrex dish.

He took a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator, shook it, and twisted off the cap.

"Okay to drink from the carton?"

"Not in this house."

"I used your toothbrush."

"I have extras."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Glasses are in the cabinet just behind you."

The juice tasted good. He drained the glass and refilled it. "What did you do with the bobcat?"

"Called the game warden. He came out and picked him up. He congratulated me."

"You provided a valuable community service."

She gazed into near space for a moment. "It didn't feel like that. It felt like killing." She washed her hands, moved to the oven and turned it on, then went to the vegetable sink and picked up a chopping knife. She used it to gesture toward a cell phone lying on the counter. "It's rung several times."

"Jeez, I don't even remember where I last had it."

"It was in your truck."

"Where's my truck?"

"In the garage out back."

He looked through the window and spotted the building. It was a smaller version of the barn. The double doors were closed. "How'd you manage to get it here?"

"I rode Beade over, carrying the gas can.

Then I tied him to the tailgate and drove back slowly."

"It would have been easier if you'd waited on me to go with you."

"I didn't think you wanted anyone to know you were here."

He studied her for a moment. "That's not quite accurate, is it, Rennie?"

She stopped slicing tomatoes and looked across at him.

"You didn't want anyone to know I was here."

She returned to her task. "Do you like tomatoes in your salad?"

"Rennie."

"Some people don't."

"Rennie."

She dropped the knife and confronted him. "What?"

"It was only a kiss," he said softly.

"Let's not make a big deal of it, all right?"

"I'm not, you are. You're the one who went tearing out of the bedroom like it had caught fire."

"So you would stop mauling me."

"Mauling you?" he repeated in a raised voice. "Mauling you?"

"The night we met--no, the night you arranged for us to meet--I told you then, straight out and in language a child could understand that I wasn't interested in ... all that."

Masculine pride kicked in. Wick rounded the work island so it would no longer be between them.

"Well that's a switch for you, isn't it? One kiss and I'm mauling you, but back in Dalton you were quite the party girl. What did you call it then?"

She recoiled as though he'd struck her, but that initial reaction lasted only a second before her facial expression turned hard. "You must have had a locker-room chat with your pal Detective Wesley."

"Only after I heard all about you from folks in Dalton. You're remembered there, Sweetcheeks. Because you used to do a lot more than kiss the locals, didn't you?"

"You're so well informed--why ask me?"

"You did considerably more than kiss."

She backed down and looked away. "I'm not like that now."

"Why not? Seems to me like you were having one hell of a good time. Tongues in Dalton are still wagging about your topless cruise through town in your red Mustang convertible. But I get your nipple ripe and you freak out."

She tried to go around him, but he executed a quick sidestep and blocked her path. "You had all those horny cowboys at the rodeo panting after you.

And their daddies, and their uncles, and probably even their grandpas."

"Stop it!"

"And you knew it, too, didn't you? You liked keeping 'em steaming in their jeans."

"You don't know--"

"Oh, yeah, I do. Guys know. We have ugly names for girls like you, Rennie. Doesn't stop us from wanting what you advertise, though. How many hearts were broken when you set your sights on Raymond Collier?"

"Don't--"

"Then when that affair went south, you shot and killed him. Is that what turned you off mauling?"

"Yes!"

Her shout was followed by a sudden, reverberating silence. She turned away from him and leaned forward against the counter. She put her hand to her mouth and kept it there for several moments. Then, very unsurgeon-like, she seemed at a loss what to do with her hands. She crossed her arms over her midsection and hugged her elbows; she wiped her palms on her thighs; she finally picked up the baking dish of chicken and placed it in the oven.

After setting the timer, she returned to chopping tomatoes.

Wick continued to watch her with the single-mindedness of the buzzards that had circled the carcass of the bobcat. He refused to drop this subject.

He felt entitled to peel away just one of her multiple layers. He wanted at least a glimpse of who she was and what had made her so compulsively neat, what had made her so disinclined to touch another human being except in the sterile security of an operating room. He wanted to see, if only for an instant, the real Rennie Newton.

"What happened in your father's study that day?"

The knife came down hard and angrily on the chopping block. "Didn't Wesley share the details with you?"

"Yes. And I read the police report."

"Well then."

"It didn't tell me shit. I want to hear what happened from you."

She finished with the tomatoes and rinsed off the knife. As she dried it on a tea towel, she looked at him sardonically. "Prurient curiosity, Wick?"