“I wouldn’t presume to say, sir.”
“Well, I didn’t have that option. I couldn’t walk away. There was no one else who could make this right. This upended my life, too, you know, not just hers.” He sighed. “Try to relax, Henry. If I get taken off to prison, I’ll make sure you’re not implicated.”
“That wasn’t my concern, sir.”
“Once you get a serious night’s rest, I want you to fly back to South Bend. I have a list of things you need to do. We’re going to set up a communication base so her friends and family have an email address for her, a cell phone just for those communications. I’ll deal personally with any and all lawyers. But her place is going to need some maintenance. She’ll be with me for several weeks-”
“Several weeks?” Harry tugged at his button-down collar.
“Maximum. I’m hoping no more than two weeks, but we could have to extend it to three. Which is why I need you to get back to her place as soon as you’ve rested up from this flight. Nothing huge to do, just details. See if she has plants to water, empty her fridge of perishables. Call me with a list of personal items in her medicine cabinet, cosmetics, medicines, that kind of thing. Put her heating at a nominal temperature-sixty. Like that.”
“No problem.”
“I don’t know what mail she’ll have come in. If there are bills, I want you to pick them up, route them to me. Personal mail, forward. Catalogs or junk, just heap up. This is too much to be telling you off the cuff. I’ll give you a list when you’re ready.”
“You don’t need me at the lodge with you?”
“I could. But when she wakes up, first thing she’s going to freak about is all the personal life she’s left hanging. So we have to take care of that, number one. Beyond those obvious life details, I won’t know more than that until she wakes up and starts talking.”
“Sir?”
“Henry. Quit doing that careful ‘sir’ thing. Whatever’s bothering you, just get it off your chest before you drive me nuts.”
“Yes, sir. What if she wakes up and wants to go home? What if she doesn’t want to stay with you?”
“Henry.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Of course she won’t want to stay with me. She doesn’t know me from Adam. But it’s my problem to build her trust. To make this work. Not yours.”
“Yes, sir.”
Maguire sighed. “What’s the ‘but’ now, Henry?”
“It’s just… she’s young. And very, well, pretty. Very pretty.”
“Henry.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Have I ever struck you as the kind of man who’d take advantage of a wounded woman?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you noticed that I have any lack of attractive women in my life?”
“No, sir.”
“And here’s the punch line, Henry. I kidnapped her. That means I have the power over the situation. And that means there’s no way I’d touch a hair on her head. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If I were burning in hell, Henry. If she begged me. If she were my last chance to have sex in my entire life. Some things are plain wrong, and the line here is crystal clear. While she’s under my care, she couldn’t be safer.”
“Got it, sir.”
“Now, are there any more questions, or can I go back and catch an hour of shut-eye?”
“Absolutely no questions, sir.”
About every three months or so, Henry revealed a sense of humor. Otherwise it was like having an old-fashioned aunt around, always underfoot, worrying whether he had an umbrella in the rain, whether he’d eaten, whether he was hot or cold or tired. Damn good employee. But exhausting sometimes.
Maguire headed back, grabbed a blanket from an overhead bin and dropped into the oversize lounge chair closest to her. He considered turning on the tube, or switching on his computer, or opening his briefcase. Instead, he found himself staring at Carolina again.
Everything about her was soft. Skin. Hair. Mouth. There wasn’t a single hint of toughness in her.
He could well believe she’d risked her life to save his little brother, even though Tommy was a relative stranger to her. He could well believe she wouldn’t think, before leaping in, to help someone else.
He couldn’t imagine her being tough enough, resilient enough, to handle the pressure that had been heaped on her in the last two months. She’d never had the training for it, the upbringing that could have prepared her.
His father, so typically, had impulsively left her a gift that was supposed to be generous and wonderful. It would never have occurred to Gerald that he’d thrown a young woman into the deep end with no life raft in sight.
Maguire had to be the life raft.
There was no one else.
And that meant exactly what he’d told Henry. It didn’t matter, about her soft skin, or that silky blond hair. It didn’t matter that those small, perfect lips challenged a man to want to take them, to mold them, to see exactly what kind of passion might be awakened there. She was a sweet woman. A giver. Those were the facts Maguire already knew.
But whether there was more under that surface, he had to find out. Without touching her. Without harming her in any way.
No matter what it cost him.
Chapter Two
Carolina opened sleepy eyes and abruptly frowned. You’d think she had a wild love life, considering how many strange beds she’d woken up in lately.
Waking up in strange beds was kind of interesting, but waking up feeling drunk-drugged was getting mighty old.
Memories from the last two days came back to her in patches. She remembered her mysterious stranger having a fight with her doctor in the hospital-she couldn’t hear it-but remembered them both shaking their heads, stomping around, in each other’s faces.
Then…she had no recollection of leaving the hospital, but of waking up on an ultra-fancy private jet on a cushy leather couch. Her kidnapper showed up from time to time. She remembered his hand on her cheek, remembered his finger brushing her hair. Then a landing in a tiny private airport in the dark. At some point there’d been soup. Wild rice. Chicken with basil and cilantro. Incredible cilantro. Then an omelet. Or maybe she’d had the omelet before? And wasn’t there another man there? Kind of a little guy, youngish, with thin hair and old-man worried eyes.
The whole thing was so darned blurry. It seemed as if she’d slept for days on days, so how could she still feel so exhausted?
Yet her pulse rate eased as she started looking around. The window view to her right was the stuff of soul smiles. She was definitely nowhere near home. South Bend had no mountains, much less such gorgeous sharp peaks scarfed with snow. At home, the hardwoods would all be reds and golds by this time in October, but not this dramatic mix of huge, droopy pines and sassy yellow aspens.
And then there was the bedroom. Granted, her own place was on the slightly untamed side-all right, all right, she was downright messy. But by any criteria, this one was a gasper.
A copper bed of coals crackled in the corner fireplace. Past a white marble hearth was an Oriental rug, thicker than a mattress, colors in a swirl of black and creams and corals and mustards. The same smoky mustard matched the silk blanket covering her, the muted hue of the walls, and the mustard leather couch in front of the giant window.
And that was when she noticed him again.
Her kidnapper.
He was sitting on the couch, facing the mountains, not her. His fingers were crossed behind his neck. Her attention latched on to what little of him she could see-the tousled head of blond hair, straight and thick. The clipped-short fingernails. He wasn’t wearing formal attire this time, but exactly the opposite. The sleeves of his sweatshirt were yanked up, frayed at the cuffs near his elbows. Hair sprinkled his forearms. Not a caveman amount. But enough.
He was such a total guy in every way.