Darkness Dawns

Chapter 3

Pressing two fingers to Roland’s tanned throat, Sarah was relieved to feel a slow, steady pulse.

She straightened and stared down at him, filled with equal parts of awe over his beauty and the utter perfection of his body, and compassion for the agony his injuries must be inspiring. He looked extremely uncomfortable.

Moving to stand at the other end of the futon, she bent down, tucked her hands under his arms, and pulled until his head rested only a few inches from the metal arm on this side and only his calves hung over the other. A simple endeavor, one might think, yet it took her half an hour and, by the time she finished, she was sweating and out of breath.

All of those movies she had seen in which women her size dragged unconscious men his size across the floor, hoisted them up, and tossed them in the backseat of a car or across the back of a horse were very misleading. She exercised and lifted weights six days a week and had barely been able to move him two friggin’ feet.

It hadn’t helped that he weighed a lot more than the futon, which had insisted on moving with him every time she pulled. Her shins were going to be every shade of the rainbow tomorrow.

After carefully tucking a pillow beneath his head (his hair was so soft), she went into the bathroom and retrieved all of the first aid supplies she could find.

There were quite a lot of them. When she had moved up here from Texas last summer, she had cut her hand badly on a broken glass while unpacking. (Thinking of how much the small, though deep, cut had hurt, she couldn’t imagine what Roland must be experiencing.) She had been unable to get it to stop bleeding, and the box containing her first aid stuff had remained stubbornly elusive. Since she hadn’t had health insurance at the time (she could barely afford it now), a trip to the emergency room would’ve proven too costly, so she had wrapped a washcloth around her hand, held it in place with a tight layer of duct tape, driven fifteen miles to the nearest Walmart, and bought enough gauze, nonstick pads, first aid tape, butterfly closures, and antibiotic ointment to take care of the cut and any other gashes the moving boxes’ contents might inflict during the next few months.

Fortunately for Roland, there had been very few.

Dumping the gauze and other paraphernalia on the coffee table, she went back for washcloths and two bottles of witch hazel, swung by the kitchen to grab a couple of bowls, then added them to the pile.

Sarah seated herself beside Roland on the futon, her hip touching his. Her gaze fell to his groin and lingered wickedly. The towel remained where it had fallen on the kitchen floor, leaving him bare.

He was very impressive. She felt guilty for noticing, considering the condition he was in, but … how could she not?

Forcing her gaze away, she poured witch hazel into a bowl, saturated a washcloth, wrung it out, then carefully began to bathe away the blood and dirt that coated Roland’s skin.

His face had escaped much of the devastation to which the rest of him had been subjected. On the left side of his high forehead was a pink mark that would be a large bruise tomorrow. Another darkened the opposite cheekbone, disappearing into the coarse stubble. His full lower lip was split. Other than that, his face was flawless. No swelling marred his lowered eyelids or the skin his crescent-shaped lashes shadowed. His straight nose, neither too long nor too short, was unbroken.

He really was handsome. Not a soft, pretty-boy, male model handsome, but an overtly masculine, smoothly angular, I’m hot, but can kick ass handsome.

His hands made her want to cry. Again. And she was not one to cry easily. If she weren’t so exhausted, she would have held it together much better earlier. But two nights of little or no sleep had taken their toll. (Damned students, stressing her out. Thank goodness the spring semester had finally ended.)

His fingers were long and tapered, his nails neatly trimmed … and a hole the width of a nickel went all the way through each palm. It was despicable, the atrocities some people could commit without a qualm.

Sarah rinsed the first hand well with witch hazel (she had chosen witch hazel over alcohol to clean his wounds because it would hurt less), applied thick sterile nonstick pads to both sides, then wound gauze around and around it, topping it off with first aid tape. The other hand received the same treatment.

She opted not to use antibiotic ointment because she thought she had read somewhere that it wasn’t supposed to be applied to the insides of puncture wounds. She did spread the ointment over the numerous lacerations on his arms, torso, hips, and thighs, though. Some of those were shallow. Some were so deep she had to use the butterfly closures to hold the sides together.

Witch hazel. Antibiotic ointment. Butterfly closures if necessary. Gauze. First aid tape. She really didn’t know what else to do.

None of his wounds were still bleeding, which was good.

But weird.

Her hand had bled for hours, stopping only while she had kept pressure on it. When she had later removed the duct tape and towel to replace them with bandages, it had started to bleed all over again and had done so off and on for a couple of days.

Yet Roland didn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere. Not even his hands.

How was that possible?

Was it part of his illness? Did whatever caused his photo-sensitivity also make his blood clot faster? The news segment about the photosensitive children hadn’t mentioned anything about that.

Even the stab wounds in his eight-pack abs no longer bled. It was a little unsettling.

Okay, majorly unsettling. It just didn’t seem natural. If his chest weren’t rising and falling with each breath, she would think he was dead.

Sarah rinsed out the bowl and filled it with more witch hazel. Amid a great deal of unladylike grunting, she managed to roll Roland onto his side away from her so she could inspect his back.

It, too, sported long, deep gashes and what appeared to be more stab wounds, all of which were encrusted with blood, dirt, grass, and weeds. And, like those in front, these wounds no longer bled.

Sarah went to work, cleaning and doctoring them, starting at his wide, strong shoulders. His back was broad, muscular, naturally tanned like the rest of him. A long slash began where his neck met his right shoulder and sliced down toward his left armpit. It took the rest of her butterfly closures to secure it. Another looked as though the weapon that had carved it had glanced off his ribs down on his left side. A third slit his narrow waist on the right.

It all seemed a little off.

Didn’t most criminals sport guns now? Even petty criminals?

She would think that whatever enemies Roland had acquired posing as an illegal arms dealer would have shot him, not attacked him with knives.

Sarah mulled that one over for several minutes while she ministered to him.

Maybe they hadn’t wanted to attract attention? Sound did tend to carry out here, echoing through the countryside.

But there wasn’t much gun crime in this area. At least not compared to Houston, where she had been born and raised. She would think if someone heard a gunshot way out here, they would attribute it to hunters, target practice, a truck backfiring, or someone shooting off fireworks.

Plus, there were always silencers.

Sarah blushed as she bathed the dirt and blood from Roland’s lower body. He had the sexiest butt she had ever seen. While every guy she had dated in the past had had no butt, Roland’s was firm and muscular. And his legs …

Like the rest of him, they were well-muscled and honed to perfection (that perfection broken by a cut where one of his attackers had tried to hamstring him).

It felt decidedly intimate, touching him like this while he slept. She tended to be a little shy around men and had never taken sex as lightly as her peers. (Most of the women and girls she had known had treated sex like a recreational sport and were insanely unconcerned about disease.) Consequently, she had only had two lovers thus far, both of whom had been long-term relationships.

Her first lover had been reed-thin. The second had been similarly thin when they had begun dating and a good fifty pounds overweight by the time their three-year relationship had fizzled out. Neither man, as far as she knew, had ever so much as touched a weight, let alone lifted one.

Roland, on the other hand, was built like an Olympic athlete and, for just a moment (okay, maybe two or three … or four), made her wish he was uninjured and she was easy.

Shaking her head, Sarah decided she had drooled over the poor guy long enough and set the damp cloth and bowl of witch hazel on the coffee table. The black material of the futon where he had lain was smeared with as much dirt, blood, and plant materials as his back had been. She had no idea how she was going to clean it later and, for now, did not want any of that sneaking back into his wounds.

Rising, she strode to the narrow linen closet next to the bathroom and withdrew two white sheets. The first, she shook out, folded in half, and spread across every inch of the futon’s seat that Roland didn’t cover. Then she eased him onto his back and covered him with the second.

Her work done, she stood, staring down at him for several minutes.

He seemed at once a stranger and not a stranger to her. Strong yet vulnerable.

Sarah bit her lower lip.

The rise and fall of his chest was barely discernible.

He had told her to wait until an hour before sunset to call Marcus. Though she wanted to do otherwise, she decided to respect his wishes.

For now.

In the basement of a large, isolated farmhouse, a pair of russet eyes opened. Bastien perused the darkness briefly to ensure no one had encroached upon his sanctuary.

When he had confirmed that all was safe and secure, a malevolent smile rife with triumph stretched across his handsome features.

Revenge was so sweet.

At last, his enemy was dead.

The Immortal Guardian who currently went by the name of Roland Warbrook had killed four of Bastien’s men when they had ambushed him the previous night, but Roland had paid for that with his life.

Paid for that and so much more.

Bastien closed his eyes, savoring his victory. How the bastard must have suffered as the sun rose and baked him like an oven.

He wouldn’t have burst into flames the way vampires did in movies. No, he would have blistered, then charred like meat left too long on a grill. His body, already damaged, would have been unable to heal itself. Deprived of blood, thanks to the large sample Bastien himself had extracted, the parasitic virus that infected them all would have turned on its host, devouring him from the inside out until there was nothing left upon which it might feast.

It was an agonizing death.

And one Roland had richly deserved. He and all of those like him.

Rising, Bastien donned the black clothing that allowed him to blend in with the night and topped it off with a long black coat. Once he had armed himself with his usual weaponry, he unbolted the door and left his chamber.

The ground beneath his farmhouse was riddled with catacombs painstakingly created by himself and his followers. It was a place where they could all rest without fear. Safe from sunlight. Safe from humans. Safe from Immortal Guardians who thought them too stupid to devise such.

He let a smirk curl his lips.

Would the immortals still sneer at them when the vampires began to pick them all off, one by one? Or would they realize they were outnumbered and beg for mercy, as so many vampires had in the past?

Bastien stepped out into a winding tunnel that, like a maze, branched off into numerous dead ends. He had dug and paved this wing himself and he alone knew the way to and from his chamber. Anyone else who tried to find it would inevitably end up lost and answer to him when he heard their pitiful cries for help and hunted them down.

Upon reaching the central hall, which was an expansion of the original basement, he scaled the stairs that led into the house itself. Though the house was dark, all windows carefully covered, the sun had not yet set. His brethren would sleep awhile longer. As the oldest vampire in their midst, he tended to rise before them.

His human servants, however, were up and about.

Tanner, the highest-ranking human, awaited him at the top of the steps. Roughly six feet tall with short blond hair and glasses, he looked, dressed, and sounded more like an accountant than the devoted employee of a vampire.

“They’re in your study.”

Bastien nodded, anticipation thrumming through him. With two wounded vampires he had needed to get below-ground, he had ordered Derek and Bobby to remain behind and collect whatever was left of Roland after the sun had risen. They would be here now to deliver it.

Several men lounging on the living room sofas scrambled to their feet as he walked past. Bastien acknowledged the humans with a short nod and continued on, thinking with some amusement of ways he might display Roland’s remains.

That amusement died as soon as he entered the study.

Something was wrong. Something Derek and Bobby apparently thought would spark his dangerous temper. He could smell their fear, see the tension in their stiff postures, their nervousness in the bobbing knees they couldn’t keep still as they shifted in the chairs positioned in front of his desk.

“You have something for me.”

They leapt to their feet and spun around at his words, faces paling. These two would do just about anything for him in hopes of earning a taste of the vampire’s gifts. It was why he had chosen them to complete this task.

“Where is it?” he demanded.

The twenty-somethings exchanged a terrified look. Bobby had a large bruise in the center of his forehead.

Derek, the one with the bolder nature, girded his loins and spoke. “He, uh … he escaped.”

A haze of fury instantly filled Bastien’s vision, painting the world around him red. In a heartbeat, both men were lifted and slammed to the surface of the desk. His hands tightened around their throats, restricting their airways and pinning them in place.

“He was completely immobilized and at your mercy when we left,” Bastien snarled at the quivering lumps. “What did you do?”

“It wasn’t us!” Derek cried hoarsely as Bobby whimpered and wet himself. “We were watchin’over him like you told us to and were attacked!”

“By whom? He had no way of contacting his fellow Guardians.”

“I don’t know.” He gagged and coughed until Bastien loosened his hold minutely. “I didn’t see who it was. Bobby said it was some crazy bitch with a shovel. She knocked us both out and helped the Guardian get away.”

“A woman?” he growled furiously. “A mortal woman armed with nothing but a gardening tool bested you?”

“W-we didn’t hear her coming,” he blurted. “She was … she was crazy quiet.”

One of the immortals’ Seconds, perhaps?

If so, why hadn’t she been better armed?

Bastien lifted the men and slammed them back down again hard enough to crack the heavy wooden surface of the antique desk. “Damn you! We had him!You say you want to be one of us, but when I give you a task—one simple task—you fuck it up!”

Incensed, his wound from the previous night still paining him, he roared his fury so loudly he woke the slumbering vampires below.

Fangs exploded from his gums.

Derek and Bobby began to scream.

Uncaring, Bastien bent and sank his teeth into Derek’s throat.

Hunger clawed at Roland with razor-sharp talons as he slowly came awake. The need for blood was strong. His wounds had not healed as he slept, as they would have if he had had a few units on hand. He should have taken a minute to feed on the punk who had stabbed him.

But then Sarah would have been afraid of him.

Sarah.

Eyes flying open, Roland saw her in the kitchen. She was closing the oven door and reaching over to return a pot holder to its hook on the wall.

Her bloodstained clothing had been replaced with pale blue, low-riding jeans and an olive green T-shirt that hugged her shapely figure, emphasizing a small waist, full breasts, nicely rounded hips, and a tempting ass. Her hair was still damp from a shower and spilled in thick waves down her back.

He frowned. Was one of her elbows scraped? Had that happened when she’d saved him?

She glanced at him over her shoulder, looked away, then did a double take. Face brightening, she spun around. “You’re awake.”

“Yes.”

Brow furrowing, she crossed to his side. “How are you feeling?”

“About the same.” May as well be honest whenever he could. “How long have I been out?”

“Almost four hours.”

It wasn’t until then that he realized the blood and dirt that had coated him had been washed away. He now sported numerous neat white bandages and was covered with a sheet.

“Did you do all this?”

“Yes.”

He tested the bandage wrapped around his left hand. “Nice field dressing. Are you a doctor?”

She offered him a wry smile. “Not the medical kind. I have a doctoral degree in music theory and teach over at UNC Chapel Hill.”

Beautiful and smart. A marvelous combination. “Well, you did an excellent job. Thank you.”

Her kindness continued to astound him. Even a Second wouldn’t have cleaned him up and made him more comfortable. He would have just bitched and moaned over his sleep being disrupted and given him blood.

Roland’s imagination temporarily soared with images of her touching his bare body while he had slept.

If only he could have remained conscious.

Sarah worried her lower lip and clasped her hands in front of her, suddenly appearing uncertain.

He frowned. “What is it?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out a tactful way to ask you something….”

Oh shit. Had his fangs descended while he was unconscious? A hasty feel with his tongue reassured him that they were receded, as they should be. But if she had seen his fangs earlier, it would explain why she seemed so uneasy.

“Forget tact,” he told her, wondering how he would respond if she asked him if he were a vampire. “Just ask.”

Nodding, she drew in a deep breath, then blurted out, “Are you HIV positive?”

His eyebrows flew up. Not what he had been expecting. “No.”

“Are you sure? Because a lot of people who have it don’t know they have it.”

“I’m 100 percent sure. No HIV. No hepatitis. Nothing. I’m clean.”

The tension left her as she gave him a relieved smile. “Thank goodness.”

Considering how much contact she had had with his blood, he could understand her concern, especially if she had any open wounds of her own.

Again he frowned. “Were you injured, Sarah?”

Wrinkling her nose, she held up her hands to show him scratched and abraded palms. It also allowed him to see her scraped elbow. “I forgot all about it until after I finished cleaning you up. And when I saw it … I admit I got a little worried.”

Roland slowly sat up, clenching his teeth when the movement made it feel as if he were being stabbed anew in the stomach.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he swiveled and lowered his feet to the floor, ensuring the sheet continued to cover him to the waist.

Once the pain had subsided enough for him to unlock his jaw, he motioned to the empty space beside him. “Sit with me for a moment.” It was more a question than an order.

A sweet shyness entered her features as she obligingly sat next to him.

Roland took her hands in his and turned them palms up so he could study the angry red marks. “What happened?”

“Something knocked me down in the meadow before I found you,” she answered. “It was so big and moved so fast I thought it was a bear, but …” She tilted her head to one side, drawing his gaze to hers. “Was it you? And the others?”

It must have been. He didn’t recall seeing her or bumping into her. But, when fighting three vampires (he had already dispatched four at that point) and traveling at preternatural speeds, the details of one’s surroundings could sometimes blur.

“I don’t know. I was focused on my opponents and saw little else.”

Spying what was left of her first aid supplies on the coffee table, he released her hands, picked up a half-empty bottle of witch hazel, and snagged a clean cloth.

“Did I miss a wound?” she asked, her eyes roving his exposed skin.

Roland gave his chest and arms a cursory inspection. “Not as far as I can tell.” Thanks to her ministrations, he would heal more swiftly when he fed.

The lid came free easily. Dampening the cloth, he returned the witch hazel to the coffee table.

“Then what are you …?”

Her words faltered as he reclaimed one of her dainty hands and gently cleansed her palm.

“Oh. Oh, no. No, no, Roland, you don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do,” he responded, quiet but determined.

This woman had knocked out two men bent on torturing him to death, unstaked him, helped him up, dragged him a hundred yards uphill, welcomed him into her home, given him shelter for the day, and cleaned and bandaged his wounds.

He wanted to do this for her.

Sarah’s heart turned over as she watched him painstakingly tend her abrasions. Her hand looked so small cradled in his.

She really had forgotten about the scratches until she had washed his blood off her hands. The water had stung and, when she had seen the raw, red marks, they had immediately begun to throb and burn.

Dropping the cloth to his lap, Roland located the tube of antibiotic ointment and struggled to remove the cap. A muscle leapt along his jaw.

It must be killing him to move his fingers like that. She thought it fairly miraculous that he could move them at all. A hole that size must have broken bones and damaged nerves and tendons, too.

She reached for the tube with her free hand. “Let me …”

He sent her a warning glare.

Sarah swiftly withdrew. “Okay.”

At last succeeding, he squeezed a generous dollop of clear goo onto his index finger and applied it to her palm with a featherlight touch that made her pulse race.

As if he heard her heartbeat pick up, he raised his dark brown eyes, meeting hers.

She wanted to look away but couldn’t.

What was it about this man that affected her so?

His fingers resumed their slow strokes. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, his voice as smooth as melted chocolate and just as appealing.

Unable to find her own, Sarah shook her head.

The ache in her palm receded beneath his touch, replaced by a warm tingling.

Roland gently covered the scratches with a nonstick pad and wrapped some of the remaining gauze around her hand, just as she had done for him.

Her other hand received the same careful treatment. When he was finished, Roland held both of her hands in his.

“We match,” she teased.

His dark eyes lightened with amusement as he drew her attention to the fact that the whole of one of her hands barely filled his palm. “Not quite.”

She smiled.

“Sarah, there is something I must ask you.”

Sobering at his earnest expression, she leaned forward. “What?”

He shifted infinitesimally closer, his eyes boring into hers. “Is that pizza I smell? Because I am famished.”

The corners of his lips twitched.

Sarah laughed. “Yes, it’s pizza.” She glanced at the clock on the DVD player. “And it should be about ready.”

Roland smiled up at her as she rose, his raven hair falling forward across his bruised forehead and lending him a boyish charm.

“I was hoping you would wake up,” she said as she headed for the kitchen, “and tried to think of something you could eat that wouldn’t require hurting your hands with the use of utensils. I figured you would balk at my spoon feeding you.”

“You were right. I would. Pizza is perfect. Thank you.”

Grabbing a pot holder, she hoped he wouldn’t change his mind when he saw it. Heat blasted her as she opened the oven door, removed the pizza, and set it on the stovetop. For some reason, most of her fellow Americans seemed to think any food that didn’t contain chemicals that had been banned in every other industrialized nation or that didn’t increase their risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other debilitating illnesses must taste like crap and turned their noses up without even trying it.

If Roland was like that, too bad for him. He was going to go hungry.

She sighed and closed the oven door. Who was she kidding? No, he wouldn’t. She’d just fix him something else and be pissed about it.

“Would you like tea or water with it? The tea is decaf.”

“Tea, please.”

She smiled. Roland had said “please” and “thank you” more times in the hours she had known him than Tom, her ex-boyfriend, had in the entire last year they were together.

Carrying two glasses and a pitcher of iced tea over to the coffee table, she set them down, then went back for plates and napkins and finally the pizza.

Roland stared down at it as she sliced it. “That pizza is organic.”

Here we go. “Look, I know it doesn’t contain artificial crap, genetically modified organisms, irradiated vegetables, recom-binant artificial bovine growth hormone, pesticides, or other harmful chemicals, but if you’ll just give it a chance—”

“I don’t have to give it a chance,” he interrupted. “I eat this all the time. It’s delicious.”

As Sarah gaped at him in astonishment, he grabbed a goat cheese– and vegetable-laden slice and practically swallowed it whole.

Ho-ly crap! This man might very well be perfect! He was handsome, kind, brave as hell, loyal to his friends, fought bad guys for a living, and ate natural?

If he didn’t ask her out when the danger was over, she was damn well going to find a way to overcome her shyness long enough to ask him!

A second piece of pizza disappeared as quickly as the first.

“You know, I have another one of these in the freezer,” she said, trying not to laugh. “Would you like me to heat it up, too?”

“Yes, please,” he said as eagerly as a boy who had just been offered a piece of double-decker chocolate fudge cake.

Sarah gladly popped another pizza into the oven, then seated herself beside Roland again and, having eaten nothing since dinner the previous evening, dove into pizza heaven herself.

Roland, she soon learned, was even a sweetheart when he ate.

“Here, take this one,” he said as she finished her first piece. “It’s the cheesiest.”

He ate the pieces with crust that was a little too brown himself and saved the best pieces for her. Whenever the level of tea in her glass dipped, he refilled it. And he was fun to talk to. Now that they’d discovered they had something in common beyond the fact that both their lives had been in danger a few hours earlier, they chatted like old friends.

“Have you tried the baked waffle fries?” she asked him.

“Not only have I tried them, I am addicted to them.”

“What about soy ice cream?”

“There are three flavors in my freezer right now.”

“Tofurky?”

“Poor tofurky. It’s gotten such a bad rap.”

They both laughed.

Sarah even liked that about him. The deep rumble rolled up from his chest and seemed to catch him off-guard as if he didn’t laugh very often and was surprised to be doing so now.

It wasn’t long before both pizzas were gone, the pitcher of tea was empty, and the two of them were slumped against the back of the futon, shoulders touching, sleepy and sated.

* * *

Roland watched Sarah hide a yawn behind a small, bandaged hand. She looked as exhausted as he felt and, with a full belly, was probably as close to conking out as he was.

This all seemed so surreal … almost like a dream induced by eating a heavy meal right before bedtime. He hadn’t hurt this much physically since he had been transformed; yet he had actually enjoyed the past hour, laughing and talking with a beautiful woman, sharing a meal and a warm camaraderie with her as if they weren’t an immortal and a mortal.

As if he weren’t 937 years old to her, perhaps, twenty-eight or thirty.

As if he were still capable of trust. Of friendship. Or more.

In his mortal life, before he had been transformed, he had treasured moments like this. Sharing a trencher with his wife at the high table in the great hall. Offering her the choicest morsels. Winning her smiles and tinkling laughter.

But, if that treacherous bitch had accomplished nothing else, she had taught him that things weren’t always what they seemed.

“I think I’ll call Marcus now, if that’s all right with you.”

“Sure.”

Sarah dug through the napkins and assorted litter that had collected on the coffee table until she found the tablet with Marcus’s number on it.

“Here you are.” She handed him the tablet and the phone.

“Thank you.”

Her smile broadened, then turned into another yawn. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep last night.”

Roland frowned. “Why?” Had the vampires who had lured him out there been terrorizing her before he arrived?

She grimaced. “The spring semester just ended and one of my spoiled Fundamentals students went whining to the department chair, claiming he got a D because I didn’t like him. I’ve only been teaching there for two semesters, so I wasn’t sure how the chair would react.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“No. The student hadn’t turned in half of his assignments and had failed most of the exams. The whole department knew he was full of crap and leapt to my defense. It just really ticked me off.”

“I would imagine so.”

“That’s actually why I was in the meadow this morning. I figured several hours spent turning over the soil for a veggie garden would tire me out enough to rid me of my insomnia and let me sleep tonight.”

He winced. “Sorry I spoiled the plan.”

She smiled. “No apologies necessary.”

Assuming Sarah wanted to listen in as she had before (he would, but then the other immortals claimed he was paranoid), Roland pressed the speakerphone button and dialed Marcus’s number.

On the fourth ring, an irritable voice hoarse with sleep answered. “What?”

“Marcus, it’s Roland.”

“Roland?” He sounded understandably surprised. It had been a decade or so since the two had last touched base. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”

“Actually—”

“Wait. You only call me when you’re desperate. What happened?”

Roland looked askance at Sarah.

She smiled and whispered, “I’m beginning to see a pattern.”

“Who the hell was that?” Marcus demanded, shocked no doubt that Roland would have anyone, particularly a woman, with him during daylight hours.

“An innocent who came to my rescue.”

“You needed rescuing?”

“Yes, I’ll explain it all later. Right now I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“I need you to bring me some medical supplies,” he said meaningfully, then asked Sarah for her address and relayed it to Marcus.

“How badly are you injured?”

As Roland opened his mouth to respond, Sarah blurted out, “Badly.”

He raised his eyebrows.

She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I know that was rude, but I was afraid you were going to downplay it again.”

“How much blood have you lost, Roland?” Marcus pressed.

“A lot,” he admitted.

Sarah beamed her approval and patted his arm, making him smile.

“Can you hold out until evening?”

“Yes.”

She frowned.

“Okay. I’ll bring you everything you need tonight.”

“Great.”

Leaning forward, Sarah whispered, “Don’t forget clothes.”

“Right,” he said, distracted by her nearness. “I’m also going to need some clothes.”

There was a long silence.

“Clothes?” Marcus repeated.

“Yes.”

“Should I ask?”

“No.”

“Okay then,” he said, clearly amused. “Medical supplies and clothing. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Roland pressed the speakerphone button and returned the phone to the coffee table.

Sarah was watching him with a slight smile, her hazel eyes twinkling with merriment.

“I’m not antisocial,” he said. He really was, but it suddenly seemed important that she believe otherwise.

Her smile widened. “You just want to be left alone?”

“Not always,” he countered with a smile of his own. “Not today.”

“You’re just saying that because I baked you pizza,” she teased.

“In part,” he teased back and she laughed. “I don’t suppose you have any clothing that might fit me, do you? Marcus will never let me hear the end of it if I’m wearing nothing but a sheet when he arrives.”

“No. Yes. Well … nnno. I thought maybe the long-sleeved shirt I had on when I found you might fit you, but you’re a lot bigger than my ex.”

“Ex-husband?”

“Ex-boyfriend. And everything else I have is my size.”

Nodding absently, he couldn’t resist asking, “Is there a current boyfriend I should worry about coming home and finding me naked on your futon?” Subtle.

“No. What about you? Is your wife or girlfriend going to give you grief when she finds out you spent the day with me?”

“No wife or girlfriend,” he responded automatically, surprised she would ask.

Was she interested in him?

If so, why? He was a mess and she could very well have gotten killed trying to help him.

“I had a friend in Houston who was with HPD, and he said women always seemed to react badly when he told them he was a policeman. I guess the whole relationship thing must be even harder for you since so much of what you do has to be kept hush-hush.”

You have no idea. “It does tend to complicate things.”

She stifled another yawn.

“Would you like to go lie down?” he asked. “I’m fine now that you’ve patched me up.”

“You are not fine,” she protested with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re in pain. You’re miserable. And there’s no way I’m going to leave you alone. Until your friend comes by tonight, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

He smiled. “Quite a pleasant fate, I admit.”

She smiled back and started gathering their napkins onto the pizza tray. “Why don’t I clear some of this mess away? Then we can watch a movie or find something on TV to help pass the time.”

“Sounds good.” Heart light despite the many aches bombarding him, he watched her carry the tray to the kitchen.