"Try not to be so distracting," she ordered. "I have an idea that might help Hollister. Being here, in this house, should provide relief for all of you. The walls are extra thick and each individual room is soundproof." She looked at him soberly. "That's the other flaw, you know, Ryland. I'll never be normal. I need this house in order to survive. Everything here is designed to keep my world protected. The amount of land surrounding the house. The day staff is in and out in a matter of a couple of hours and I never come into contact with them."
Ryland caught her face in his hands. "I don't care what you need to exist, Lily, as long as you do. That's all that matters to me. We're all counting on you to teach us how to live in the world again. You have a job, you're a contributing citizen. We're hoping you can do that for us. Allow us to live again."
She looked at him, completely unaware her heart was in her eyes. "I hope so, too, Ryland."
Lily had expected rejection. It made him crazy to think that she wouldn't know her worth. He could feel her pain simmering just below the surface and his heart ached for her. She had just lost her father and she was discovering more about him and about her life than she could handle all at once. And he had brought her even more trouble, allowing her to risk everything by hiding fugitives in her home.
He swept a hand through his hair, turning away from her. "I'm sorry, Lily, I had nowhere else to bring them." He sat heavily on the bed, reaching for his shoes.
Lily dropped her hand onto his head, her fingers tunneling in his damp hair, connecting them. "Of course they have to be here. I'm going to lay out exercises that must be done several times a day. I have all the recordings of the earlier work done with the girls, with me. I think that's a large part of the problem. They were all so eager to use you in the field, they didn't prepare you properly for the assault on your brain. They opened the floodgates and didn't give you even the flimsiest of barriers to protect you. You all relied on your anchors. And once you were separated only the anchors could exist without continual pain."
He was listening to the tone of her voice. She had switched on him again, almost musing aloud rather than conversing. Her mind was turning over the problem, examining it from every angle and coming up with solutions at a rapid rate. It made him smile. His Lily. He savored that. His. She belonged to him in every way.
"Depriving you of your anchors set all of you up for continual trips to the hospital. I have to get in there and look over the records, see if the same people were working each time."
"Wait now, Lily." She was walking briskly out of her room toward the kitchenette that seemed to accompany every wing of the house. Ryland followed in her wake, his heart in his throat. "You damn well aren't going back to that place."
She looked at him with cool eyes. "Of course I am. I work there. I own stock in the company. The research I've been working on for the last four years could save lives." She stalked across the marble tiles to the gleaming refrigerator. "Whoever murdered my father is at Donovans and I'm going to find them." There was no challenge, no defiance, only a calm, quiet statement. She handed him a glass of milk, drank one herself.
There was no point in arguing with her when she was in her present mood. Ryland quirked an eyebrow at her. "This is it?" He stared at the white liquid. "No coffee? No breakfast? I give you a night of unbelievable sex and you give me a glass of milk?"
Lily smirked at him. "Get it straight, Miller. I gave you an unbelievable night of sex and I don't cook. Not ever."
"Oh, I see how it is. The incredibly intelligent woman doesn't know how to cook. Admit it, Lily."
Lily rinsed her glass in the sink. "I was given gourmet cooking lessons by one of the top chefs in the country." She waved her hand at the cupboards. "Feel free to fix yourself something. Rosa keeps it stocked with things in hopes I'll eat more."
"I'm intrigued. You really can cook?"
Lily found the mosaic tile on the counter interesting. "I didn't say that, exactly. Only that I had the lessons. The man may as well have been speaking Greek." She grinned at him. "Well, not Greek, I can speak Greek, but I couldn't understand a word the man said. It's an art form and I have no creative talents whatsoever."
He put his arm around her, pulled her beneath his shoulder. "Fortunately I'm a great cook." He kissed her temple, a mere brush of his lips but he felt the answering tremor in her and it pleased him. "I think you have the potential to be very creative," he whispered suggestively. "You just chose the wrong art form."
Lily found herself blushing. Even his tone of voice slipped under her skin and heated her blood. She suddenly found she was a lot more creative than she had ever imagined. She shook her head firmly. "Stop trying to tempt me. I have work to do with Hollister and the others."
His hand slipped from her shoulder, trailed down the neck opening of her silk blouse to skim along her bare flesh. Lily sucked in her breath against the trail of flames he left behind on her skin. "Am I tempting you, Lily? You always look so cool. I always have a mad desire to melt the ice princess."
She never felt cool around him. She didn't reply, forcing her mind to consider the facts. "Ryland, maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. Let's turn it around. Let's say the experiment had a high degree of success. There were several deaths and the men were suffering seizures and brain bleeds."
"I'd say that wasn't a high degree of success." He kept pace with her, a scowl on his face. "Don't go scientific on me. These men are human beings with families. They're good men. We're not just writing them off as lab rats."
Lily sighed. "You're too close, Ryland. You have to learn how to step back. They're expecting that reaction. It's human nature. A few deaths, call it off. The results aren't worth the price."
"Damn it, Lily." He could feel his temper rising. His palms itched to shake her. Her tone was impersonal, a computer calculating. "A few deaths aren't worth the price."
"Of course they aren't, Ryland. Put emotion aside for just a few minutes and consider other possibilities. You said yourself that the first year everything went fairly smoothly. You were used in training missions and your team performed well."
"There were problems," he said, reaching past her to open the door to Jeff Hollister's room.
Lily could see the gathered men, still holding vigil over then-fallen companion. It wrenched at her heartstrings the way they guarded him. Big, tough men, capable of being lethal should the occasion call for it, but talking soothing nonsense to a friend when he was down and sitting up when they had comfortable beds, just to see to his needs.
"Any change?" she asked Tucker Addison. In the light of day, the man looked like a linebacker to her. She couldn't imagine him going unnoticed in an enemy camp, but his hands, as they tucked the blanket closer around Jeff Hollister, were gentle.
"No, ma'am. Last night, on and off for about ten minutes he seemed restless, but then he settled back down again."
Lily made a second examination of Jeff Hollister, paying particular attention to his skull. "Feel this, Ryland, he definitely has evidence of surgical scarring."
"Well, he did have surgery. He was rushed to the hospital to relieve swelling about three months ago," Ryland said. "They drilled a hole in his head."
Lily's gaze was cool and assessing. "I doubt they were relieving pressure in his brain; more than likely that's when the electrodes were planted." She stood for a moment looking at Ryland. "I know you did it yesterday, Ryland, but if no one minds, I'd like to examine all of the men. I want to be absolutely certain."