Her heart pounding in her chest, she took off at a dead run, stumbling over the invisible rises and falls in the dark night-shrouded grass. The peaceful park had become a hell for her, with trees looming like menacing ghosts, the silence and darkness ominous and terrifying. Across open lawn, under trees, over paved walkways, she dashed-all of it seemed endless. Unconsciously, she held her hurt arm as she raced, and she kept the pace until her side ached so badly she could hardly breathe. At last she reached the long boulevard that led to Chicago’s business loop. A single car passed and then another. If they saw her, they didn’t slow down.
Finally, on the other side of the street, she saw a yellow taxi let someone out, and she fled across the shiny black asphalt, mindless of any other traffic that could have been coming. Gasping, she raced in front of the cab before the driver could take off again.
“You’ve got to help me-”
The tall black cab driver seemed startled, and for an instant Sonia realized how odd she must look-filthy and grass-stained and wild-eyed and running out from the middle of nowhere.
“Help me. You’ve got to help me. My husband is hurt-he’s lying out there-” She motioned frantically to the dark shadows of the park.
“Look, lady-”
“For God’s sake-”
Wary black eyes pierced hers. “Like, take it easy, okay? You want me to call a cop, is that it?”
“An ambulance. No…” She ran a frantic hand through her hair. “I want an ambulance, but I need a blanket now. Or a jacket or sweater. Anything. Couldn’t you come? You’re big enough…The thing is, I can’t move him. He’s lying in the grass…”
She could read forget it in his eyes. The man was street-smart, not necessarily unkind. How did he know she wasn’t trying to lead him to some setup where he might get mugged? She could read his mind in that instant, and couldn’t blame him.
She couldn’t blame him, but frustration bubbled over like an insane rage she couldn’t control. She slammed her fist on the roof of his cab when she felt the next round of hysterical tears starting. “Yes, you are! You are going to help me!” Both hands fumbled at the handle and wrenched the door open before he could anticipate her move. “You’re going to help me. You are. You are…”
Chapter 3
A carpenter was hammering. No, not a carpenter. His apprentice. Drive and miss. Drive and miss.
Craig dug his elbow into the chair arm just so. With the side of his head supported by the heel of his hand, the hammering pain lessened. When he first woke up, the pressure inside his skull had made him almost violently ill. He could get out of bed in a day or two, the nurse had told him. Until then, he was to stay quiet.
He’d waited until the woman had finished her long list of orders and left to deliver more general-like commands to the rest of her patients. She really didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, anyway.
He’d made it to Sonia’s room. Walking up a flight of stairs and down a corridor hadn’t been the easiest project he’d ever taken on, but it was hardly impossible.
Sonia’s black curls were nestled on the pillow; stark white sheets were tucked under her chin. Her bed was right next to the chair he had collapsed into. Pale morning light was gradually infiltrating the hospital room; in another hour the rays would reach her curled-up form on the bed.
She was curled up, her knees nearly touching her chin, cocooned under the sheet in the fetal position. The position where one was safe…
Craig tried to shift and couldn’t. Whoever had kicked his kidneys should enter a competition for skill at the craft. The two cracked ribs weren’t bad. They only hurt when he breathed. The broken nose he found almost humorous. When he’d looked in a mirror, he’d found that his whole face had been rearranged. The flesh around one eye was vaguely purple; a spot on the opposite cheek was green and swollen.
None of that was of any serious concern to him. His post-concussion head was another matter. He couldn’t think, and he needed to think, but that carpenter’s apprentice kept hammering. If he moved too fast, he was annoyingly aware he would be sick.
Sonia shifted just slightly, her eyes fluttering open and then closing again. Her face was lovely in sleep, flushed and soft and vulnerable.
Vulnerable…the word twisted like a new pain, this one not in his head. Guilt and rage lanced his heart. The same picture kept materializing in his mind. A tall, lanky blond punk with strange light eyes, wearing dark, filthy jeans and a dark shirt. Young. Thick jowls and not much of a chin, a thin, arched nose.
He’d been working on a mental picture of the bastard for the past two hours, until it was exactingly clear, until he was positive of every detail. Yes, it had been dark, but the moon had been full and the park had had lights. Craig was sure he would know the filthy bastard again. Pianist’s fingers, long and thin. For the rest of his life, he would remember the shape of that hand on Sonia’s stomach, her horrified cringe at the cur’s touch, the sick helplessness in her eyes.
Craig closed his own eyes. He was the one who had let it all happen. Skipped out on the bodyguard. Taken Sonia where he knew there was potential danger. A city park, dammit. Charming in the daytime but-he should have known-risky at night. But he’d had it with the asphalt jungle, and had been hungry for grass and trees and privacy. The lake had beckoned…
No excuse. He had no excuses for himself.
His mother had died when he was nine; his father when he was seventeen. Craig had fended for himself and fought tooth and nail to make the ranch solvent. Shale, rich in oil, lay under his grazing land, and at the time he found it, the government had been willing to back anyone who could develop a process for extracting oil from shale. Craig knew as much about oil extraction as every other rancher in the area: nothing. Hard and fast, he learned. Hard and fast, he’d learned everything. For years, he’d needed no one, though the tough, hard veneer had worn off once he was old enough, and experienced enough, to no longer need a protective wall around himself. He’d never been able to define precisely his attitude toward Sonia. He’d played a long, wide field before he met her. With no other woman had he ever felt such intense, instinctive surges of protectiveness.
Sonia was vulnerable. He loved that in her. She believed in people, in their basic goodness; she had such perception and compassion and love in her. The first time he’d touched her, he’d felt a violent urge to destroy anyone who would hurt her, who would dare to harm her. She delighted in teasing him that she’d “been around.” She’d been around like a newborn kitten without claws. Her trust-that gut trust that came from the sweetest core of her-she’d never given to anyone before him.
He’d failed to earn that trust last night.
“Craig.”
His eyes blinked open. Her sleepy ones met his, soft and shadowed, wrenching his heart.
“Good morning,” he whispered. He had to use both hands to get up from the chair, and ignored the apprentice going wild in his head at even slow-motion efforts. He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Fine. Maybe a little sore. Everything’s…fine, except that I feel pumped full of drugs.” She smiled groggily, and then frowned. “Honey, what on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be flat on your-”
He motioned to the empty bed next to her, his choice of where he preferred being flat on his back totally clear.