Eve’s Wedding Knight

Chapter 9

Eve really hadn’t known what to expect; although she didn’t know much about Dr. Matthew Shepherd, she was fairly sure he wasn’t really a practicing G.P., at least not in Savannah, Georgia.

But as it turned out, she’d reckoned without the resources of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dr. Shepherd’s offices had been set up in a busy, modern medical complex not far from the hospital, where she’d spent her first two nights as a Bureau undercover informant, and not even the most suspicious and critical eye could have found anything to suggest he hadn’t been in residence there since the day the complex opened.

Quite a few heads turned as the white stretch limo wove its way through the parking lot and eased to a stop at the main entrance. People walking by on their way in and out of the building tried hard to look without seeming to as Sergei, six and a half feet tall and built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, emerged from the driver’s seat and walked around to open the passenger door.

They must wonder who in the world I am, Eve thought as she took Sergei’s gloved hand and allowed him to help her out of the car. Exiled royalty? Rock star? Or more likely, just somebody with wa…ay too much money. The possibilities didn’t exactly amuse her, but they did provide distraction from her quickening pulse and the nervous knots accumulating in her stomach.

She paused in a breezeway to check the directory. “I’m not sure where it is-he just moved here recently,” she explained to Sergei, waiting impassively at her shoulder. It had occurred to her that he would almost certainly report to Sonny the fact that she’d had to look up the location of her own doctor’s offices. “Oops-there it is.” She pointed to the letters that spelled out Matthew Shepherd, General Practice, with a suite number on the ground floor, then turned her whole body so she could look Sergei in the eye. “I’m sure I’ll be okay from here on, if you need to go and park the car.”

He stared back at her, unblinking. “The car will wait.”

Damn. What was he going to do, follow her right into the exam room? She drew a resigned breath.

God, she felt nervous; her teeth all but chattered. Why, because somewhere in this place, only a few doors away, now, Jake would be waiting for her? Because in a few more minutes, for the first time in more than a week she’d be seeing him face-to-face? What was the matter with her? Why was she like this, scared as a virgin bride on her wedding night?

Ah-there it was, the door, like all the other doors, with a plaque like all the other plaques, identifying this as the office of Dr. Matthew Shepherd, General Practice. Eve pushed open the door and went in, Sergei trudging right behind her.

Maybe that’s what it is, she thought-just the idea of the doctor’s office. She hated going to the doctor-always had. Her supposedly annual checkup was an ordeal she dreaded, and usually managed to postpone at least a few months past the due date.

This doctor’s office was like any other she’d ever visited, down to the last detail-a huge lighted tank filled with tropical fish along one wall, a child-sized table littered with children’s books and play blocks in one corner, tweed-covered chairs and racks filled with well-thumbed copies of News-week, Woman’s Day, Reader’s Digest and’ Sports Illustrated. From the other side of a counter a cheery and efficient-looking receptionist greeted her and invited her to “sign in” on a roster attached to a clipboard, then please take a seat. She then looked around Eve at Sergei and said, “May I help you?”

Sergei’s cold blue eyes swept the waiting room, narrowly scrutinized its only other occupant, a burly man in a plaid wool shirt-jacket and an Atlanta Braves baseball cap who was deeply engrossed in Sports Illustrated. “I’ll be back,” he rumbled, and turned and walked out of the office.

The receptionist waited until the door had closed completely. Then, eyes sparkling with unmistakable amusement, she murmured, “Did he really say that?”

Eve let go of a breath of relieved laughter. “I’m afraid so.” The man in the baseball cap lowered his magazine and winked at her, and her mouth popped open with surprise as she recognized Jake’s partner, Agent Poole.

Before she could say a word, however, the receptionist pointed to a door next to the counter and said quietly, “You can come on back.”

Eve’s heart pounded beneath the weight of her collar as she reached for the knob and turned it. Would he be there waiting for her, she wondered, just on the other side of the door?

But when she opened the door and walked through, into the corridor beyond, it was the receptionist who met her. She identified herself as Agent Franco, then led Eve down one hallway, around a corner and into another, past several closed doors and finally ushered her into a large exam room.

“I’ll take that collar,” Agent Franco said in a brisk but not unfriendly tone as she followed her in and closed the door.

Numbly, Eve undid the fastenings and handed it over.

The crushing weight of her disappointment was an eye-opener. It also both appalled and humiliated her. What had she been thinking? When had she forgotten, if indeed she’d ever really realized before, the fact that it wasn’t simply Jake Redfield who wanted Sonny brought to justice? This wasn’t Jake’s operation, it was the FBI’s. What had given her the notion that it was…somehow personal?

And the worst of it was, though she didn’t want to, she still had to ask. “Is Jake-I mean, Agent Redfield…?” She stopped, cheeks flaming.

Agent Franco was speaking to the pocket of her uniform. “We’re clear,” she murmured, then nodded at Eve. “Just have a seat.” She went out, carrying the collar.

Eve muttered aloud to herself, “This is ridiculous.”

With her fantasies supposedly disposed of, why on earth was she still so nervous? It wasn’t as if it was a real doctor’s appointment. And yet, as she gave the examination table-not, thank heaven, one of those short ones with the stirrups at the end-a sideways and wary glance, she felt as vulnerable as if she were perched on its slick paper covering wearing nothing but one of those tissue paper napkins. Her neck, completely bare for the first time in more than a week, felt fragile and exposed, her head too heavy for it to support. Tremors rippled through her in waves, almost as if…

But, she thought, I’m not afraid. Why would I be?

Why indeed, when she was surrounded here by FBI agents, in the middle of an operation so efficient, they made it look routine? They must do this sort of thing all the time. She was in absolutely no danger. She knew that. So why was her heart pounding and her breathing quick and shallow? Why were her hands so clammy and cold?

Because, her truthful soul insisted on answering, you are afraid. There’s all kinds of fear-your body’s just not programmed to know the difference. It’s not your life you fear for, dummy. It’s your-

No! Oh God, no. Don’t even go there.

At that moment the door opened and Jake walked in. Eve’s stomach flip-flopped, her mouth opened and air rushed out in a soft, helpless gasp.

See? Aha-I told you so!

Shut up. No sir, no way.

“Eve.” Jake’s nod was brief and impersonal, and of course unsmiling, as he moved aside to make way for Dr. Shepherd, who pushed into the room after him like a big, wet, friendly dog wallowing through a crowd.

“Hey, there, Eve-honey, how we doin’ today?” The doctor loomed in front of her, his white coat and FDR grin blocking her view of Jake, who was looking unexpectedly handsome, she thought, in his FBI uniform of dark gray suit, crisp white shirt and blue-and-navy-striped tie, with jaw freshly shaven and his thick, unruly hair neatly tamed.

Okay, that’s all it was, she told herself, drawing a careful, relieved breath. Just a little bit of physical attraction. Nothing you can’t handle.

“Well, you’re lookin’ pretty good,” Dr. Shepherd mused, giving her cheekbone a cursory brush with his thumb. “Little yellow here, still, but that’ll be gone in a day or two, and you’ll be your gorgeous self again. How you doin’ with that collar? Doin’ okay? Gettin’ a little bit uncomfortable?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” said Eve, flicking a glance at Jake, just visible beyond the doctor’s shoulder, leaning against the door in his familiar brooding stance-arms folded on his chest, one ankle crossing the other.

His examination completed, Dr. Shepherd stood back, folded his arms and frowned. “Don’t really like the idea of you wearin’ that thing all the time, young lady, especially since we’ve got no way a’knowin’ how long you’re gonna have to keep up this charade. Tell you what-I believe it’s time we started you on some physical therapy. What do you think? Three days a week? We can set it up somewhere out there on the island so you don’t have to come all this way. That way we can keep those neck muscles toned. Jake-that okay with you?” He turned to ask the question as Jake straightened and pushed away from the wall.

“Long as you don’t bring her along too fast,” he said in his expressionless, federal agent’s voice. He came, arms still folded, to stand beside the doctor. “Don’t want her graduating out of that collar before she’s done what she needs to do, do we?” His dark eyes studied her, heavy-lidded and surly.

“Unless…” he murmured, “you’ve changed your mind about staying out of your fiancé’s bed?”

“No,” she answered him, the word soft but emphatic. “I haven’t changed my mind-about anything.” And suddenly she found her gaze locked with his in a struggle she could neither fathom nor escape, a struggle some buried instinct evidently considered vital, because it focused on it all her physical and emotional energy, every sense and perception. Dr. Shepherd simply disappeared; the room around her faded into darkness and shadow. She saw nothing except Jake’s eyes, lit from within by that strange, angry glow; heard nothing except the sound of his breath, poised to form words that he didn’t utter. She felt nothing except the energy from his body that seemed to flow across the space between them like an electrical charge.

“Well, then, I’ll get on it-see what I can set up for you.” Dr. Shepherd’s jovial voice released her from the spell.

She jerked her head toward him and answered breathlessly, and with more than a small measure of guilt, “Yeah, okay, that’d be great. Thanks…” She returned his wave, waited until the door had closed behind him, then jerked herself half-around and took two steps away from the man who still stood gazing at her, motionless and silent.

The movement had been instinctive, an attempt to escape the attraction that still held her like the grip of some powerful magnet, but with that increased distance came, not release, but instead a jangled, off-balance feeling as if her entire being had been knocked off its axis. Her throat felt raw and raspy as she tried a careless laugh. “What the hell was that? You decided not to trust me?”

Jake made a soft, hissing sound. “It’s got nothing to do with you. It’s Cisneros I don’t trust.”

“Yeah, right,” Eve muttered without turning. She lowered her voice an octave, mimicking his cynical tone. “‘So, you’ve changed your mind about staying out of your fiancé’s bed?”’

“Your fiancé can be very persuasive.”

Something shivered through her, though she couldn’t have said whether it was anger, hurt or fear-or perhaps a little of all three. “Please,” she said, throwing him a sharp, bitter look, “give me some credit.”

Silence thundered between them. But if she’d expected-hoped for-an apology, none came. Instead, after a long pause, he abruptly asked, “Neck bothering you?”

She realized only then that she’d been rubbing it. Still royally miffed, she waved her hand and said coldly, “A bit of a crick-it’s nothing I can’t-”

“-handle… yeah, I know.” There was an odd thickness to his growl that perhaps should have warned her, but didn’t.

So it was with a jarring sense of unreality that she felt the warm weight of his hands on her shoulders. So unexpected, it was-and so unexpected a pleasure-that her entire body responded from the top of her head to the tips of her toes with an all-over tingling that was like the hot-cold prick of sparklers on a sultry Fourth of July. And at the same time she could feel the warmth melting into her shoulders and spreading through her insides, and it was like being a little girl and drinking hot cocoa on a cold frosty morning.

“Relax, Waskowitz.” His voice, raspy and soothing as a cat’s purr, stirred the air near her ear.

Relax? Redfield, if I were any more relaxed, you’d have to pick me up off the floor.

But that was only her body. Her mind was sputtering like a bad electrical connection, alternating between dead blankness and shooting out useless sparks. What’s this, what’s this? Oh…that feels good… Don’t react-don’t make a fool of yourself! It’s not personal-remember that. This is his job…his job…

But her body wasn’t listening. Jake’s fingers were pressing into her cramped trapezius muscles, his thumbs stroking upward along the sides of her spinal column and pushing under her hair to probe the base of her skull… and her head dropped forward, her eyelids drooped, her knees grew weak and her nipples shivered and hardened.

“You’re too high,” he complained, and Eve blamed her own fuzzy-headedness for the fact that his voice seemed slurred and thickened. “I can’t reach you. Here-lie down.” He patted the table with one hand while he guided her to it with the other.

Oh, how she wanted to say something clever and witty, fire off some wisecrack double entendre that would show him how sophisticated and cool she was. Unfortunately, her mind was a blank; if he’d led her to a bed of fire ants and poison ivy, she’d have laid herself sweetly down. She thought, And he’s worried about Sonny’s powers of persuasion?

The paper-covered table was cool under her cheek. But her body felt trembly and hot, and her heart was beating so hard, she could feel it pushing against the table’s resilient surface. He must feel that, she thought, panic-stricken. He must!

She couldn’t let the silence go on. She had to think of something to say, something that wouldn’t humiliate her…

So she groaned, laughing a little, and said, “Oh, that does feel good.” That seemed safe enough. Anyone would say it. Wouldn’t they?

There was no answer from Jake-not in words. But his fingers played over her back as if he were a musician and she his instrument, lightly stroking the delicate cords of her neck, pressing deep into the thicker muscle along her spine, gentling the thin, ticklish places over her ribs and finding with unerring precision the sensitive pressure spots hidden among the complex bones of her shoulders.

Her mind wandered… She remembered the music she’d heard playing in Jake’s apartment that first crazy night, and thought of the old blues guitar man she’d interviewed for the music piece…rheumy-eyed and toothless, he’d been, wasted by a life of booze and poverty. But it had been his hands the camera had homed in on, and it was his hands she saw now in her mind’s eye, caressing the strings of that old acoustic guitar as if they were the body of a beautiful woman…

“Where’d you learn to do that?” she asked weakly.

Jake grunted. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist.”

No, she thought, just an extraordinarily gentle man. She’d been given massages before, by men who thought they were being gentle. Probably they’d thought they were being seductive, too, but invariably they’d be too rough, press too hard, and instead of relaxing, she’d feel the reflexive urge to tense her muscles to protect her tender places. Usually she’d been relieved when they’d abandoned the attempt at subtle seduction and switched to the more direct approach. But never before in her life could she remember feeling like this in a man’s hands-so relaxed, so pampered, so utterly and completely safe. And at the same time-ridiculous, for a woman just turned forty-three-so dreadfully, terrifyingly vulnerable. It was a contradiction she couldn’t begin to unravel.

“By the way…” It was his quiet, even-toned cop voice, as his hands, stroking lightly up and down her back, signaled an end to the massage. “A day late, but…happy birthday.”

And pleasure burst inside her as if he’d switched on a floodlight, pouring warmth and light and happiness into every corner of her being. She felt warm-cheeked and lightheaded, as if she’d been gulping champagne.

She sucked in air, and as she rolled over and into a sitting position, tugging her blouse back into place, gave it back, sparked with laughter. “How did you…? Oh, right-I guess you heard us last night-Sonny and me.” And was puzzled by the shadow of annoyance-and could it have been disappointment? -that flashed across his face as she said those words.

What now? she wondered, indefinably frustrated, sorry without knowing why she should be. What an enigma he was, this man from the FBI. Like a river of contradictions: deep dark pools and sweet, sunny shallows and just when you least expected, treacherous, nonnegotiable rapids.

“Thank you,” she rushed on, trying with her smile to tell him the secret she’d never reveal with words-that his words, just the acknowledgment, had given her more joy than all Sonny’s diamonds and pearls. “And thanks for the massage-best present I ever got.” She said it lightly, jokingly, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t believe it.

He grunted and muttered, “The massage is on the house.” Then he reached into his inside jacket pocket, giving her glimpses of a holster harness, and pulled out a plastic audiotape case. “I did get you something, though,” he said as he handed it to her. “Just a bunch of stuff I pulled off my albums that I thought you might like. There’s a pretty good mix-Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey… Billie Holiday, of course. B.B. King. I think there’s even some blues harmonica…” He gave a quick, almost negligent shrug. “You said you hadn’t had time to listen to music before. I thought maybe now you might.”

For perhaps the first time in her life, Eve fully understood the word speechless. There were feelings inside her-tremendous, enormous feelings-but no words at all. There were no words even in her mind, like the ones that formed sometimes but which she couldn’t quite bring herself to say. Without them she felt strangely defenseless…unarmed and exposed. She stared down at the cassette in her hand and waited for words to come to her rescue, and when they didn’t, finally lifted her eyes to Jake’s. His dark eyes gazed back at her with that inexplicable melancholy, and she felt her cheeks warm with a schoolgirl’s flush…

A breath sighed between her lips and she heard herself say, “Thank you…this is nice of you.” Thank God for habits and conventions, for the saving grace of manners. “I will play it.”

“I’ll know if you do.” One corner of his mouth lifted, in what might have been a smile. Yes! It was…definitely a smile.

Once, in Brazil, she’d caught a glimpse, just the smallest glimpse of a jaguar as it slipped away into the shadows of the rain forest. And her breath had stilled then and her chest had tightened in just this way, in homage and in awe of something miraculous and rare. Something wonderful.

Laughter hovered, balanced on her lips, the effervescence of pure joy. But at that moment the door opened, and instead of letting the joy flow forth, she swallowed it in a guilty gulp as Dr. Shepherd bounded into the room, carrying the collar over one arm. He looked them over from one to the other and back again and lifted one eyebrow, but if he’d felt any unusual tensions or undercurrents he wisely-in view of Jake’s black and forbidding glare-did not comment.

“There you go-all recharged, restocked and ready to go,” he said as he handed the collar over to Jake, who gave its cargo of listening devices a cursory inspection before he passed it on to Eve. “Now, this here-” and the doctor took a sheaf of papers from his lab coat pocket “-is all your documentation. Here’s your bill, with copies for your insurance company, and this here’s the order for your physical therapy. Now, there’s several different ways we can do this, but in the interest of keeping curiosity and medical community gossip to a minimum, you’re going to in effect be assigned a personal therapist who’ll have regular appointments with you at a local health club out there on the island. The therapist is gonna be one of our agents, and since this isn’t going to be happening at a medical facility, nobody else needs to be brought in on what’s going on. That okay with you?” He looked at Jake, who nodded. “So, if you need to get in touch with her, you’ll find a way to do it during her sessions.” Jake nodded again.

“All right, then, young lady, it looks like you’re good to go,” said Dr. Shepherd, turning his toothy smile back to Eve. “Shall I tell Agent Franco to have your driver bring the car around?”

“Give us a minute,” said Jake softly.

Dr. Shepherd nodded, gave Eve a jaunty little half wave, half salute and went out.

As the door clicked shut, Jake said abruptly, “Here, let me help you on with that.” He took the collar from her and hefted it impatiently while she slid down off the table, then helped settle it into place around her neck, all the while frowning with that curious combination of edginess and melancholy she’d come to accept as normal for him.

There was no need for anyone to say anything, and she was glad for that. Speech would have felt awkward and artificial just then, and silence without the activity to fill it infinitely worse. But she knew without being told the moment it was time to turn and give him access to the Velcro fasteners at the sides of the collar, and he seemed to know without asking whether it was too tight or too loose, instead gauging its adjustment with fingers slipped between the collar and her neck while she tried without success to still her own pulse.

When the collar was in place she turned again to face him, and found that his hands were on her shoulders still, and those grave and speculative eyes so close to hers, she couldn’t focus on them both at once.

For her, the world seemed to stand still and the moment stretch and swell and take on a stature far beyond a casual leave-taking. Because, for her, at least, it wasn’t just a casual leave-taking. Suddenly she knew that something had happened in that tiny room, between the moment of Jake’s walking in and now, this moment, the moment of his going. Something had happened to her, something had changed, and she was not the same person she’d been when she’d entered this room. It’s what’s between us that’s changed. It’s what I feel… what I know.

“Thank you,” she murmured, searching his eyes.

He returned the look, measure for measure, then said with unexpected harshness, “Don’t take chances. Screw the bugs.”

“But I thought-”

He shook his head with controlled violence, started to say something, then stopped. He closed his eyes briefly and drew in a breath and then, giving her shoulders a little shake to emphasize each word, growled, “Just…don’t…get… caught-capish?”

“I won’t.” Her heart hammered against her breastbone.

For a moment longer she felt the scorching weight of his eyes, and then he was gone.

Alone in the silence, Eve heard a faint sound, and looking down, discovered that the audiocassette he’d given her was rattling in her shaking hands.