Quietly, she peeked through the window again. The EMT was so engrossed in her book, she didn’t look up. Eve’s gaze slid over the interior of the vehicle and locked on the fob hanging from the key ring. A remote locking system she could work with.
She moved back to the camper and gently eased the door open.
Archer pushed up on his elbows and peered in her direction. “That was fast.”
Dammit, he was just as handsome as ever—more so now, all rumpled from their run across the waterfront and scruffy from days without shaving. She faltered coming up the two steps into the camper, and more questions raced through her mind, but these had nothing to do with what she needed to do next. They had only to do with him—where he’d been this last year, what he’d been doing, and with whom.
She knew his background, not because he’d told her long ago in Beirut, but because she’d investigated him thoroughly before being stationed there. His father had never really been in his life. His mother had come from old Southern money. He’d been raised primarily by his mother and maternal grandparents in Savannah, though his mother had instilled a strong work ethic in him and taught him what it meant to be successful without the help of her parents’ wealth. He had no siblings, had excelled in school, and in the summers, instead of hanging out on his grandparents’ estate with his friends, he’d manned the register in his mother’s small bookstore. He’d gone to college on an academic scholarship, and after graduating from Duke University at the top of his class, he’d joined the CIA.
Their backgrounds weren’t the same, but their single-minded focus on success was. He was a lot like her, she realized now. A loner who’d been more fixated on his career than on marriage. And maybe that’s why she’d been drawn to him from the start. Because with him she’d felt a compatibility—a closeness she hadn’t felt with anyone since Sam. With him she’d been able to push aside memories of the past and everything she’d lost the day Sam had died and just focus on the moment. And with him she’d started to feel again.
But that feeling had only gotten her into trouble, hadn’t it? Just like it was threatening to do here, by making her wonder who he’d turned to after he’d been injured in Guatemala and who warmed his bed at night now.
Off-limits . . .
She gave her head a swift shake. Even if he didn’t hate her guts, he would forever be off-limits, and she needed to remember that fact before she did or said something to make this entire situation worse.
She closed the door slowly at her back. “We have a slight hiccup. I’m going to need your help to get past it.”
His hazel eyes narrowed in speculation. “What kind of hiccup?”
“A pretty blonde, from what I can see. About five foot eight and one hundred and thirty pounds. Should be no problem for you, Superman.”
Zane stood in the shadows at the rear passenger side of the ambulance and swiped the sweat from his forehead. He’d let Juliet—correction, Eve—talk him into this only because he wanted the narcotics on that vehicle. Not because he was letting her run the show.
Superman . . . He sorta liked that she’d called him that. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been anyone’s hero.
He ground his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and the stupid thoughts running through his head. No way was he giving her any kind of control over where they went or how they got there, and he definitely wasn’t letting her get under his skin. She wanted to be all cute and sassy? Well, tough. She was still his prisoner whether she thought so or not.
Reaching for his cell phone from his pocket, he pulled it out and then frowned at the blank screen. No sense turning it on right now. The insides were probably waterlogged. He’d need to pick up a new one soon.
A tapping echoed from the far side of the ambulance. Zane shoved the phone back in his pocket and went still.
“May I help you?” The EMT’s question to Eve drifted through the open door.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Eve said in her sweetest voice. “The lock on the trunk of our Honda keeps sticking, and my boyfriend hurt his hand trying to get it open. I was wondering if maybe you could come help me. He’s bleeding.”
Fabric rustled, followed by boots hitting the car deck. Seconds later, the back end of the ambulance swung open, triggered by remote. “Show me where,” the EMT answered.
Well out of view of the driver side door, Zane darted into the back of the vehicle.
A muffled grunt echoed from outside, and the locked storage cabinet in the ambulance popped open, indicating Eve had hit the fob.
“Be fast,” Eve hollered from beyond the ambulance wall. “You’ve got about nine seconds before she wakes up.”
Perspiration slid down Zane’s spine. Pain radiated from both his injured arm and leg. The sleeper hold worked wonders at immobilizing and knocking a person out, but the effects lasted mere moments. He thanked his shitty luck for remote locking mechanisms.
He pulled the tub in the compartment open and pawed around until he found the vials. Then nearly cheered when he discovered it was Dilaudid and not morphine. After grabbing four vials, he swiveled and opened a drawer. Grasping whatever bandages he could wrap his hand around, he shoved the drawer closed with his hip, closed the narcotics compartment, and darted out of the back of the ambulance.
He paused in the shadows on the passenger side of the ambulance, hidden behind the back door, and breathed deep. The pain in his shoulder and leg throbbed, but he pushed it from his mind and waited.
“Miss?” Eve said. “Miss? Are you okay?”
“Wh-what happened?” the EMT responded in a dazed voice.
“I don’t know. You were about to help me with my friend, but you passed out as soon as you got out of the ambulance.”
Zane fought from smiling. The sleeper hold shut down blood flow to the brain, which left a person with memory gaps, and as he remembered, Eve was good at administering it. He’d been on the receiving end of it a few times when they’d been killing time, sparring in Beirut. This poor girl would never know what hit her.
When he heard shuffling, he darted around a parked car so he’d be out of the view of the ambulance’s mirrors.
“Here,” Eve said. “Why don’t you sit down? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m . . . I’m fine,” the EMT replied. “Wow. That was weird. I don’t remember anything except getting out of the vehicle.”
“You could have low blood pressure. You might want to get that checked.”
Zane found it mildly ironic that Eve was giving the EMT medical advice, but then, Eve had always been confident in everything she did. The woman could fake it with the best of them. His lips turned to a frown when he thought about how she’d used those incredible acting skills to play him from the start. And that only reminded him of just why they were here in the first place.
He waited while Eve helped the EMT around the back of the ambulance so she could sit. From his position, he couldn’t see much of the EMT except her boots perched on the bumper. But he could see Eve, standing next to the open back doors, looking concerned and . . . stunning in that ridiculous outfit and wild blonde hair.
Blondes had never really been his type, but at the moment he wouldn’t mind taking that one for a test drive.
Dammit. He ground his teeth when he realized where his fucked-up thoughts were going. She still got to him, after all this time. Even after everything she’d done. But he wasn’t a moron. People had died because of her. He’d almost died because of her. And he wasn’t about to forget that.