It made no more sense to him than did the way he felt when she leveled those indigo-blue eyes at him and finally answered his question in a low, almost toneless voice. “No, only when things look really hopeless.”

Outmatched she may have been, but he felt in no way victorious.

Instead, he found himself remembering what she’d said, about the idea of Cisneros touching her making her feel sick. They’d talked quite a bit since then, exchanged a few tidbits of personal history, even shared a secret or two. But nothing had been said that would change the fact that sometime soon Eve Waskowitz was going to have to find a way to resume convincingly the role of loving fiancé to a man she now abhorred. He suddenly realized that what he was looking at was a terrified woman. And that what she was doing was simply whistling in the dark.

He felt his belly clench, and something flare white-hot inside him and then go cold and still.

Hopeless? Not if he had anything to say about it.

“What’d the nurse want?” he asked gruffly.

Eve shrugged and turned, clutching her gown together where it mattered most, but giving him an unnerving glimpse of the back he remembered from when he’d undressed her in his bedroom-the creamy smooth skin, the delicate indentations of spine.

“Just routine stuff. They keep a pretty close eye on you, I guess, when you’ve been bumped on the head. She also said breakfast will be here soon, and she wanted to know if I wanted to ‘freshen up’ before visitors start arriving. Which I do,” she added pointedly as she sat on the edge of the bed and leveled a look at him. Her eyes were shadowed and dark, impossible to read, and for the first time he thought she looked her age. “I’m sure you’d like some breakfast yourself-a cup of coffee, at least. Better make your escape while you can.”

“Yeah, I will…” But he went on staring at her, his mind spinning furiously, hating to leave it like that. Hating to leave her, it shocked him to realize. Hating to leave her with that look of hopelessness in her eyes, and the thought of her and Cisneros in bed together twisting a knot in his belly.

He lifted a hand, palm out, and said with a voice full of gravel, “Listen-it’s not hopeless. Okay? I’m workin’ on it. Just…do me a favor, huh? Remember to act injured?” Her only reply was a very small snort.

He opened the door a crack, looked up and down the corridor, waited for his moment, then slipped through the door and closed it gently behind him. As he made his way, scowling, through the awakening hospital, bustling with the routines of morning, with the clank of breakfast trays and the ding of elevators and the swish of footsteps and voices on the intercom, he wondered when his first priority had changed from nailing the bad guy to keeping Eve Waskowitz out of the bad guy’s bed.


Eve’s day progressed in predictable hospital fashion. People popped in and out of her room on various errands, most of them involving indignities to her person. Out of sheer boredom, she dozed until the arrival of breakfast, an excitement relative in its anticipation to Christmas morning. Shortly after that, her mother and sisters arrived, bringing with them her small overnighter. She was so glad to see them, it was hard to remember to act feeble and wan.

“I’m not sure what’s in here,” Summer said as she laid the overnight case on the foot of Eve’s bed. “I think it’s mostly makeup and toiletries. I wanted to bring you something to wear-a nightgown, but it all looked like…you know-honeymoon stuff.”

“Sweetheart, are you in pain?” her mother asked anxiously.

“A bit,” Eve lied in a faint voice. “My head, mostly.”

Her mother’s cool hand touched her cheek. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

“What does the doctor say?” Mirabella demanded, showing her concern in her own pushy way. “Have you seen him yet this morning? Do they know how bad the concussion is? How much longer are they going to keep you here?”

“I don’t know,” Eve said. “A doctor stopped by earlier this morning, just long enough to read my chart and huddle with the nurse for a few minutes. He seemed very busy…” Remembering Jake’s parting words, I’m workin’ on it, she added in a vague tone she hoped would cover all bases, “I think they’re still doing tests…looking at X rays-stuff like that. They have to be sure…”

“Of course,” Summer murmured, stroking her arm. Mirabella subsided, looking not in the least satisfied.

“So-where are the menfolk this morning?” Eve asked brightly, just as her mother was saying, “Have you heard from Sonny this morning?” Before either could answer the other, the phone on the bedside table trilled. Eve stared at it in surprise.

“Well. That’s probably Sonny now,” her mother said.

“Oh-yeah,” said Eve, with what she hoped was a smile. She picked up the phone and ventured a tentative “Hello?”

“Get rid of them,” Jake’s voice growled in her ear. “Sorry to break up the family gathering, but we need to talk. Now. ”

Chapter 7

Eve’s mind was spinning like a bogged-down wheel, going absolutely nowhere. “Uh…” was all she could think to say.

“Did you hear what I said?” Jake growled again. “There’s some things we need to go over before your fiancé gets there. It’s important. Capish?”

Smile, she thought. Let them think it’s Sonny. “Can’t you come now? I mean, why…”

There was an impatient exhalation. “Look-your sister Summer knows me. We met during that business with her ex-husband last summer. If she sees me, she’s gonna know something’s going on. Is that what you want? You want your family in on this?”

“God, no.” Smile, dammit. Remember to smile. “Okay, then, I guess I’ll see you in a little bit. Yeah…bye for now, darling. Mnun-hmm…me. too…” She made sickening kissy sounds into the phone, taking great pleasure in imagining Jake’s face as she did so, and hung up on the ambiguous hiss of his exhalation.

“That was Sonny,” she announced, and smiled widely for the benefit of the three pairs of eyes that had been trying their best to watch her avidly without appearing to do so at all. “He’s coming over in a little while. Hey, guys-I really hate to ask it, but I’d kind of like to, you know…clean up a little bit before he gets here? Would you mind terribly…?”

“Of course not, dear,” said her mother, patting her shoulder. “We’ll go, and let you get yourself spruced up.”

Mirabella exchanged a look with Summer and complained, “We just got here.”

“And we can come back later.” Her mother leaned over to plant a kiss on the undamaged portion of Eve’s forehead. “There’s a nice mall just up the road. We can kill a few hours there. Anything we can get for you, honey? Some pj’s, maybe?”

Eve made an attempt to hitch herself up on her pillows and tried to look pitiful. “Maybe you could pick me up something casual to wear…everyday stuff, you know? Something that buttons in front, so I don’t have to pull it on over my head?”

There was a brief knock on the door, and a nurse stuck her head in. After smiles and a cheery “Well, hi, there!” for the visitors, she turned the smile on Eve. “Miz Waskowitz, your doctor’s here to see you.”

My doctor? Eve had never been sick a day in her life-not counting the occasional tropical bug or spider- or snakebite-and except for her gynecologist out in California, did not have a doctor. However, before she could think of an appropriately noncommittal response, the door opened wider and a man she’d never seen before slipped past the nurse and into the room.

He was tall and thin and looked very fit, with hair that Eve suspected was prematurely silver, although it might have been his jovial manner that made him seem ageless. He seemed to bound into the room, rather like an overly friendly greyhound, with that slightly stooped-over gait very tall people often use in an effort to seem less so. Tucking the large brown envelope he’d brought with him under one arm. he beamed at her and said in a thick Georgia accent, “Hello there, Miss Eve. Well now-you don’t look s’bad.”

“Uh…hi. Mom, everybody-this is…my doctor. Dr.-”

“Dr. Shepherd-good to meet you.” He lunged forward to pump all three hands with immense enthusiasm, and added in the polite Southern way, since it was apparent they were about to, “Don’t rush off.”

“Yeah, Mom, maybe you guys should stick around.” But her voice was faint and breathless, and went unnoticed in the flurry of polite assurances and hasty goodbyes.

Eve kept her smile rigidly in place until the door had closed behind her mother and sisters. Then she filled her lungs with air and whispered, “Okay, you’ve got about two seconds to prove to me you are who you say you are and tell me who sent you, before I start screaming bloody murder. One…two…”

Instead of answering, Dr. Shepherd held up a hand, asking for-demanding-silence. Moving with surprising quickness for one so angular, he went to the door and opened it a crack, looked through, then opened it a little wider. As if he’d been waiting for a signal, Jake stepped into the room.

Eve let out the breath she’d been holding, in one great gust. “Okay, you want to tell me what in the hell’s going on? Who the devil is this? First you spend the night guarding my room ‘just in case,’ so I’m seeing bogeymen under the bed, and then you send some strange guy in here without warning me? For all I know, he’s some kind of hit man, for God’s sake!”

From mild pique, the anger level in her voice had escalated with each sentence until the last three words were delivered in a splutter of full-blown outrage. Most of her annoyance, she acknowledged, was due to the absurd little surge of joy she’d experienced at her first glimpse of the FBI man’s glowering face. A ray of sunshine he definitely wasn’t, and she couldn’t imagine why she should be so happy to see him. The only reason she could imagine was so ludicrous and unlikely, it didn’t even bear acknowledging, must less thinking about.