Undercover Mistress

Chapter 3

The man was stirring again. And muttering. Not the wild litany of horror Celia had listened to with chilled fascination for most of the night, but a single word, repeated with choked and pitiful desperation:

“Cold…c-cold…”

“I know…” she whispered against his back, tightening her arms around him, her hands unthinkingly stroking. “Shh…it’s okay…it’s okay…”

“C-cold.” He turned suddenly, reaching for her.

She gave a gasp as his arms came around her, folding her against his naked body in a shockingly intimate embrace. Her face was trapped now in the hollowed curve of neck and jaw, held there by the weight of a bony masculine chin, her lips pressed against a tickling thread of pulse. “Doc!” she squeaked in panic. “Doc-help!”

The loud snores coming from the direction of the armchair continued unabated.

Oh, God. What now? She squeezed her eyes shut and held herself still, holding even her breath. Okay…okay. Don’t panic. He’s unconscious. Delirious. This is okay. You’re fine.

Willing herself to the discipline of slow, deep breaths, she felt calm gradually overtake her. And with the quieting of her own mind and body, became aware that the man was shaking again. Not the terrible, racking shudders of hypothermia, but something gentler, and oddly rhythmic. She held herself utterly still, listening…and came to a stunning but inescapable realization: the man was crying.

Incredible, but yes, it was true. Though still less than fully conscious, the man in her arms was silently weeping.

The feeling that came over Celia then was unlike anything she’d ever known, an emotion she could neither name nor describe. It awoke from somewhere deep inside her, rippled through her chest and shivered over every inch of her skin. She felt almost frighteningly fierce and primitive and powerful…and at the same time incredibly soft and gentle and nurturing.

“So…cold,” the man whispered.

“I know…” Celia answered, her throat husky with the new emotions, “I know…but it’s okay…you’re safe…I’ve got you.”

In that moment, in some strange way, she felt he belonged to her.

When the first slithery something brushed his skin, he felt it like the sting of a whip. Fresh adrenaline slammed into his exhausted body. His mind shrieked, Shark! Every muscle, nerve and sinew braced for the jolt of teeth tearing into his flesh.

Instead, there it was again-that light, slithery touch, almost like a caress. Like cold, clammy fingers drawn flirtatiously along his torso…his arms…his legs. Sick with horror, it was several long seconds before the truth penetrated his tired brain: Not sharks. Nor any kind of fish, in fact.

It was seaweed.

It came to him that he must have drifted into one of the vast beds of giant kelp that lie off the coast of Southern California. But what did that mean for his chances of survival? He knew next to nothing about kelp, his entire experience limited to the rubbery tangles he’d seen washed up on the beaches, smelling of brine and dead sea creatures. Good thing or bad thing?

In the end, he supposed, it probably didn’t matter much, one way or the other. He was so cold…so weak…and still so far from the lights. So far…

Keep moving…stay awake…stay alive…

Something bumped him. Definitely something big, this time. Something heavy. Definitely not seaweed.

He struck at it weakly, still fighting for life, out of raw instinct, to his last living breath. Take that, shark!

But whatever it was didn’t seem at all impressed by his futile gesture of defiance. It didn’t bother to move away from him. It didn’t move in for the kill, either. It merely dipped sluggishly into the flattened slick between waving fronds of kelp, then surfaced and nudged him again. And again. As if, he thought, it was trying to get his attention.

Vaguely annoyed-Either finish me or get the hell out of my way, damn you!-Roy pushed at the object again. Again it dipped and bobbed, in what seemed to him almost like a friendly invitation. And on the very edges of consciousness, his reason flashed the word: driftwood.

Instinctively, without even knowing why, with the last remnants of his strength and will, he grasped the floating log and hitched himself onto its gnarled length. Clinging to it, he gave in once more to the darkness and the cold.

It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be, dying. Rather a relief, in fact, after the cold and the pain and the constant, unrelenting struggle to keep swimming…keep moving…stay alive.

He couldn’t very well be expected to keep moving, keep swimming, could he, when he couldn’t feel his arms and legs. Couldn’t feel much of anything, in fact. He seemed to recall knowing this was because his body was concentrating its remaining resources, bringing everything into its core to keep the vital organs alive. Soon, even those would quit functioning. Heart or brain…which would be the last to go? His heart, probably. He could already feel his brain shutting down-at least, he assumed that was what was happening, since he was having such weird fantasies-pictures and sounds and sensations that made no sense to him. Voices-strangers’ voices. One in particular, a woman’s, crooning to him as if he were a child. A little baby. He found it unexpectedly comforting.

He dreamed a face to go with the voice-an angel’s, naturally. This angel, though, had a body like a Playboy centerfold, which was definitely something they hadn’t told him about in Sunday School. The angel snuggled her voluptuous body next to his, warming him. Soothing him with her voice…warming him with her body.

Yeah, he thought, this dying business isn’t so bad…

Resurrection, though, was hell.

Protesting, he came rocketing up out of black oblivion and into a blinding, thundering artillery barrage of pain. Pain was everywhere. It pounded behind his eyeballs and stabbed the muscles of his arms and legs like a thousand tiny, vicious knives. It seared through his chest and yawned cold and empty in the pit of his belly. His skin burned. His molars ached. He hurt so badly he retched, which was not only humiliating, it made everything hurt more than ever. The urge to throw up was incredibly strong, and it was only because he couldn’t stand any more of that pain that he managed to fight it back down.

At first, he thought he wanted to go back to the nice darkness and stay there, even if the darkness was death. Then he thought maybe he had died, that those Sunday School teachers years ago had been right about where he was destined to end up.

The notion scared him enough so he dared to open his eyes, and that was when he figured out he was most likely alive after all. At least, he was unless the hereafter looked a lot like somebody’s den, and God or the devil was a chubby guy wearing a purple silk bathrobe, sound asleep in a big ugly armchair and snoring like a buzz saw with his mouth wide open.

Reassured, Roy gave in to the lead weights attached to his eyelids and let them sink down…down.

A moment later they fluttered up again. His heart beat a wild tattoo against his ribs. What the hell? Am I delirious? Dying after all?

Breathing slowly and deeply, he took stock. Nope. Not delirious. There was a woman in bed with him. He could feel the humid warmth of her breath on his skin, the dove-soft tickle of her hair. Her arm lay draped like a strap across his torso, and one of her legs had overlapped and slipped intimately between his. With the utmost care, he turned his head. A deliciously feminine scent drifted to his nostrils. Ignoring the shooting pains rocketing through his skull, he tensed his face and neck muscles and aimed his eyes downward. A vision of tumbled blond met his gaze-winter grass touched with sunshine.

He thought, My God, it’s my angel. I didn’t dream her. She’s real.

The body snuggled against him tensed, suddenly. The cloud of blond hair parted, and he found himself gazing into a single wide-awake eye-an eye of the clearest, most vivid blue he’d ever seen. The eye, surrounded by thick, sooty lashes, stared back at him-for about two seconds. Then, with a flurry of movement that reminded him of an uncoiling spring, the arm, the leg, the eye, and all the various body parts that went with them, separated themselves from him and retracted into a blanket-wrapped bundle. The bundle was topped by a face befitting an angel, an oval flushed with the loveliest shade of pink, like the insides of some seashells, and dominated by two of those smudgy blue eyes.

“You’re awake.” The words, breathless and husky, issued from lips so lush and full that, gazing at them, he felt twinges at the back of his throat, as if he’d just caught the scent of something delicious, like bacon frying or bread baking. And that, more than anything, finally convinced him he truly was, against all odds, alive.

“Lord, I hope so,” he murmured. But the sound he’d intended, the voice he’d expected, wasn’t there. Instead, he heard only a stickery whisper.

To his bemusement, the eyes gazing down into his grew luminous and shimmery. “Oh-God. Oh, God, you’re awake.” A hand emerged from the blanket mound, wavered toward him, then stopped. “Wait-wait-it’s okay. It’s okay.” Her voice was trembling, though there seemed to be a note of laughter in it, too. “Don’t move, okay? Doc!” She threw that over her shoulder, in the general direction of the sleeping man in the armchair. “Hey! Doc! Wake up! He’s awake. He’s alive. He’s okay.”

Alive? Okay? Doc? Where in the hell am I?

He couldn’t bring himself to ask, because Where am I? sounded too much like a bad movie script. And as for whether he was okay, he had some serious doubts on that score. He’d never felt less okay in his life.

He hissed in a breath when he felt something cold touch his skin. Another barrage of shooting pains assailed him as he forced his eyes to focus on the shape bending over him. A hand was doing something under the heap of blankets that covered him to his chin. A masculine hand. Recognizing both the chubby man from the armchair and the stethoscope dangling from his ears, he thought, How ’bout that-he really is a doctor.

But this isn’t a hospital I’m in.

At least, he’d sure as hell never heard of any hospital putting a naked woman in a patient’s bed.

Wait a minute! Why am I not in a hospital? Who the hell are these people?

The mystery of that, and the mental energy required to solve it, became too much for him. Overwhelmed by pain, weakness and other physical discomforts, only one thing seemed of vital importance to him now.

“Thirsty…”

The man called Doc nodded curtly and retracted the stethoscope from under the covers. As he straightened he lifted his eye-brows at the blanket-wrapped bundle perched next to Roy. “I think we’re ready for that broth now, Celia, dear.”

Roy watched in mute fascination as the head atop the bundle made a slight but definitely negative motion, and every strand of that blond hair seemed to dance and coil as though it had a separate life of its own.

The doc looked startled, but before he could say anything, the woman’s lips tightened and her blue eyes narrowed to flinty chips. “Close your eyes,” she said in a voice to match the look.

The doctor, with a much-put-upon sigh, did as he was told. The woman shifted her glare to Roy. “You, too.”

In that moment, gazing into those incredible eyes, all he could think about was how close he’d been to never looking upon a woman’s body-naked or otherwise-ever again, and his mind said, No way.

The doc said, “Celia, love…”

For a long, unmeasurable moment she stared back at Roy. Then, with a muttered, “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she got up off the bed with a flounce, throwing down the blanket.

There followed a profound and respectful silence as the two men-she couldn’t seriously have expected the doc to keep his eyes closed, could she?-watched her leave the room…blond hair bouncing on a smooth, gently curving back…tapering to a rounded bottom not so much covered as nicely framed by wisps of pale blue fabric…anchoring a pair of long, well-muscled legs.

When she was gone, the silence extended for another second or two before the doctor cleared his throat. Roy said, “Your wife?” in a careful voice that sifted from his throat like sand.

The reply was a sharp bark of laughter, and then, in a British accent, “Dear boy, not even in my wildest dreams.”

“Ah,” Roy said, and fell silent, pondering the fact that he felt less weak and pitiful than he had only minutes before. Sex, he thought-the male imperative-was evidently a more powerful life force than he’d ever imagined.

“I dreamed she was an angel,” he said after a moment, in his new, scratchy whisper of a voice.

“An angel?” The doc seemed to find that amusing. “Hardly. Though, I am quite certain you owe her your life.” He peeled back the blankets in an offering sort of way.

Avidly interested in seeing what had been uncovered, Roy tried to raise his head to look at himself. Then he thought better of it and lifted an exploring hand instead, wincing when his fingers encountered a heavy layer of gauze and tape. Well, he’d suspected as much. “I’m shot, right?”

The doctor nodded. Roy closed his eyes and exhaled carefully. “How bad?” And why am I here and not in a hospital?

“Through and through, my boy.” The doc’s voice had perked up several notches, as if plugged into a new source of energy. “You were lucky. Looks to me like the bullet entered here-” Roy felt a light touch, low on his side “-and my guess is, it grazed the first couple of ribs and fractured them, but was deflected enough that it then plowed up through chest muscle, and…came out here.” The hand brushed the bandages high on Roy’s pectoral, then described a line in the air that barely missed his jaw and earlobe. “Continuing on the same trajectory… Damned odd trajectory, that is…I can’t…quite figure out-unless you were above, and the shooter was…”

Roy opened one eye and saw the doctor making wild gestures and contorting his purple-robed body while he tried to reconstruct the shooting scenario. He stopped when he saw Roy watching him and lifted one bristly eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell us, uh…”

“Sorry,” Roy mumbled, closing his eyes, “can’t help you there. Don’t remember much.”

“Ah. No. I suppose not.” The doc drew a disappointed-sounding breath. “Well, then. Can you at least tell us who you are? Your name? Is there someone we can notify?”

Roy didn’t reply. In spite of his racing heart and a desperate and overwhelming sense of urgency, he knew he couldn’t fight anymore, knew he couldn’t have lifted a finger right then to save his own life. But weak as he was, his survival instincts were still strong, and at the moment there was no way in hell he was telling anybody anything. Not until I know who you people are, and what in the hell I’m doing here!

It wasn’t much of a stretch for him to pretend exhaustion and slip back into slumber.

Celia stopped off in the bathroom across the hall long enough to put on a bathrobe, and while she was at it, splash some water on her face and drag a brush through her hair. While she was doing that, she stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink, at the watercolor wash of pink on her skin, at the mark on one cheek left by a crease in the pillowcase, and felt her body grow warm inside the lightweight robe. No matter what, she thought, I can always manage to look good.

Though, why should she care whether she did or not, when it was only Doc and some half-dead stranger?

Stranger. As the word flashed through her mind she felt a lifting beneath her ribs, a sudden surge of excitement, anticipation and an indefinable yearning. What does this mean? she wondered as she swept down the hall, the ends of her robe separating and flapping in the breeze she made. All that stuff he talked about. Is it true? What does all of it mean…for me?

Entering the kitchen, Celia checked in surprise when she saw, across the serving island and the creamy-carpeted living room, beyond the expanse of glass framed by the curtains she’d forgotten to draw the night before, the Pacific Ocean glittering in the morning sunshine like a vast field of molten gold. A glance at the clock above the stove told her it was early for the fog to have burned off, a sure sign a Santa Ana or another storm was on its way. She felt a shivering in her scalp and down the back of her neck, as if the wind had stirred the fine hairs there.

Once again, she went through the motions of getting a mug out of the cupboard, filling it with water and two cubes of bouillon and setting it in the microwave. While it was heating, she arranged a spoon and a napkin on a tray, and put a kettle on the stove to heat more water for tea. All the while she was doing that, her mind was replaying every word the stranger had spoken during the long dark night. She was used to memorizing pages and pages of script at a time, and she remembered every horrifying, improbable detail.

Could it possibly be true? In the middle of the night, in the fog, it had been easy to get caught up in fantastic scenarios. It had seemed, as Doc had suggested, rather like watching a movie thriller on DVD. Today, with the sun shining, and the injured man awake and lucid in her bed…

What if it’s true?

The tray in front of her blurred. She saw instead a pair of eyes…the wounded stranger’s eyes. She’d wondered what color they’d be. Hadn’t expected them to be so dark. Dark…like unsweetened chocolate. Like coffee. Something strong and heady and not at all sweet. They seem to her impenetrable, like the night. Full of danger. Full of secrets…

The ding of the microwave’s timer scattered her musings like so many sparrows. She snatched the steaming mug out of the oven and was placing it on the tray when the tea kettle went off like a factory whistle, startling her. She swore under her breath as she licked scalding bouillon from one hand and grabbed at the shrieking kettle with the other-efficiency in the kitchen had never been her strong suit. Boiling water was, in fact, about the limit of her expertise and for the next several minutes she was forced to concentrate on the task at hand, clamping down on the strange excitement simmering inside her as she got out tea bags and another mug, poured hot water and added a sugar bowl to the assortment on the tray.

But as she carried the tray down the hallway to her bedroom, she felt a warmth in her cheeks and a quickening in her pulse, a fire in her belly that could only be one thing: desire.

Not the usual kind of desire-Celia couldn’t remember the last time anyone had kindled those particular fires in her. No, this was the kind of yearning, burning desire of her actor’s soul that consumed her whenever she got her hands on a really great script, one that had a really great part in it for her. The kind of part she’d give her very soul to play. There’s a part in this for me, I know there is.

She could feel the tension the moment she walked into her bedroom. The way it feels, she thought, when you walk in on a conversation right after somebody’s dropped a big bombshell. There was Doc, standing with his hands in his bathrobe pockets, frowning down at the man in Celia’s bed. The man himself had his eyes closed, and his face was like a death mask.

She halted inside the door, both shoulders and tray sagging with disappointment. “Don’t tell me. He’s out cold again?”

“So it would seem,” Doc said, with a particular lilt in his normally dry British voice that Celia happened to know meant he wasn’t pleased.

“So…you haven’t found out anything? What about a name?”

Looking frankly frustrated, Doc shook his head.

Celia settled herself on the edge of the bed with the tray on her lap. Head tilted, she studied the rugged, unresponsive features. Fascinated in spite of herself, she noted scrapes and hollows, shadows of bruises that had escaped her notice before.

They worked you over good, didn’t they?

She remembered the strange and overwhelming protectiveness and sense of ownership that had come over her in the night, and felt an unsettling desire to touch those shadowed places…

“Well, then,” Doc said grumpily, “since he seems in no danger of kicking off right away, I think I’ll leave him in your nurturing hands. I’ll leave you some painkillers-the OTC kind, of course,” he added dryly. “As for antibiotics, even if I had any, I’d be a bit leery of giving him those, in case he might be allergic. Infection’s going to be the main thing to watch out for, and if that wound starts showing signs of it, I’m afraid you’re going to have to get him to a hospital whether he wants it or not. Aside from that, he just needs time to recover from the hypothermia and blood loss-time, and plenty of rest and nutrients, fluids and so on. Which I’m quite sure you are capable of providing.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face as he turned and made for the door. For the first time since they’d carried the stranger into her house, Celia felt a pang of guilt. Doc had been a good friend to her in her darkest hours and, come to think of it, had been through quite a lot of darkness himself.

“Doc-thanks,” she said softly. “For…everything. I appreciate it-I really do.”

“No problem.” He dredged up one of his bitter smiles. “I’m afraid I don’t do all-nighters as well as I once did. So-I’m off to bed. I don’t think you will, but if you need me for anything, anything at all-give me a ring.” He gave a wave and left her.

Celia brought her gaze back to the man in the bed-and felt a small jolt, like a zap of electricity, when she saw the eyes that had been closed before were now open. Watching her. Eyes…like the night…full of danger…full of secrets.

“So,” she said in a light and breathy voice, while her heart thumped in contrabass, “you’re awake after all.”

“More or less.” His voice reminded her of blowing sand, while his eyes clung, hard and cold as limpets, to her face.

Tearing hers away, Celia aimed them instead at the tray in her lap. “Do you think you could eat something? Doc says you need to. You have lost a lot of blood.”

“Maybe…water…”

“Broth,” she countered, giving her head a determined shake as she picked up the mug and spoon. “It’s mostly water. Plus, it’s warm. Here-open up.” She leaned toward him, humming inside with a curious high, a mixture of excitement and anticipation, confidence and…not exactly fear-more like stage fright. Like opening night on Broadway-if I should ever be so lucky.

The man’s brow furrowed in a frown of reluctant acquiescence. She clamped her teeth on her lower lip, holding back the tumult of her feelings as she watched the parched lips open…followed the spoon’s unsteady path toward them…saw the spoon hover…the lips purse…sip…and the amber liquid disappear.

She heard his soft sigh and responded with a single bright bubble of laughter. “See? That wasn’t so bad. Have some more.”

He didn’t answer, not with words, but the eyes that flicked toward her held a spark she hadn’t seen there before and his lips, before they opened to accept the spoon, seemed to carry at least the promise of a smile.

“I thought you were going to die, you know,” she said in a conversational way as she watched the spoon make its journey from the mug to his mouth and back.

“Yeah, me, too.” The voice was sandy, still, but seemed to her to be getting stronger.

“Well, I’m very glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

She laughed again. “I’m sure. Really, though. I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d died. I’d sure have had some ’splainin’ to do. Doc and me both.”

“Yeah?” He let his head relax back against the pillows, as if the effort of swallowing had exhausted him, though his eyes still studied her warily from under lowered lashes, like some wild thing watching from shadowed woods. “Why’s that?”

“For bringing you here, obviously. Instead of-”

“Where, exactly, is here?” His voice, less whispery, less sandy, now, had a gruff and growly quality that made Celia’s own throat feel in need of clearing.

“My house, of course,” she said, pausing the spoon just shy of its target. “My bedroom. Actually, that’s my bed you’re in.”

“How?” He growled the question, then watched her with narrowed eyes as he opened his mouth like an impatient nestling for the tardy spoonful.

“We carried you,” Celia said as she delivered it, watching her hand to avoid meeting his eyes. “Doc and I did. Let me tell you, you weren’t exactly light, either.”

“Umh.” It was his only comment, since a trickle of broth was making its way down his chin.

Unthinkingly, Celia snatched up the napkin from the tray and dabbed at it…and in the next instant her hand was slowing…pausing…as a strange little frisson of awareness raced across her skin. She felt frozen in time and place, unable to move her hand, the napkin or her eyes away from the place where it touched his mouth and chin.

The lips moved, forming a single word. “Why?”

She jerked, cleared her throat, and dropped the napkin back on the tray. “Why what?”

He spoke slowly, separating each word. “Why…bring…me…here?”

She shrugged. Her hand shook slightly as she picked up the spoon again. She could feel those eyes… Black coffee or chocolate…not at all sweet… “It was the closest place.”

He accepted a spoonful of broth, licked his lips, then murmured, “Why not a hospital? You didn’t call paramedics?”

Celia took a breath, placed the spoon and mug on the tray. She felt herself bracing as if to meet a physical force. “You asked me not to,” she said finally. “Begged me…actually.”

She thought, as a shiver of nameless excitement raced through her: Here’s where it begins.