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  No paperwork. No delay. Green coats surrounded them and yanked Molly out of his arms.

  A hypodermic seemed to come out of nowhere and plunge into her arm. Then another. Someone shoved him aside and he stumbled backward.

  They virtually threw her onto a gurney and wheeled her behind a curtain. Damien followed.

  “Cuff her! More epi, five cc’s! Stat! Get a trach kit ready!” Shouts, demands for meds and equipment rang out, interspersed with curt reports on her respiration, blood pressure and pulse.

  Damien remained as close as he could get to the circle of bodies working to save her.

  “Get him out of here!” Someone shoved him again.

  Damien shifted back a few feet, his heart in his throat, and watched the haste and purpose with which they moved, grateful as hell for it, hoping against hope it made the difference and kept Molly alive.

  “Don’t die,” he whispered rapidly, over and over. Prayer, mantra or whatever it was, finally worked.

  “Almost gotcha back.” Short pause. Another voice. “C’mon, girl, suck in that oxygen! Oops, mask off… Off, now!”

  Molly threw up. “Good girl!” the doctor crowed, high-fiving one of the nurses without touching. “She’s back. Hook her up and stand by.”

  Back. Back from death. Damien almost retched himself as he listened to Molly gasp and heave. He leaned against the wall of the cubicle and slowly slid to the floor, his head in his hands, his own breathing labored.

  God, he’d almost lost her. To bees, for God’s sake!

  One of the nurses squatted beside him. “How ’bout you? You okay?”

  Damien uncovered his face and found it wet. Then he brushed his fingers over his hands and wrists, feeling three painful mounds. “I’m fine. How…how is she?”

  The woman looked over her shoulder at the three still attending Molly. “Close shave, but she’ll be fine now. Did you know she was allergic?”

  “She was swelling. I saw someone die from it once. How many stings?” he asked, imagining that the devils had practically eaten her alive.

  “Just a few, but sometimes one’s enough,” the nurse said, giving him her hand and indicating that he should get up now. Damien wasn’t certain his legs would work.

  He’d been shot a couple of times and held up better than this. But this was Molly. Sweet Jesus, he was shaking. In shock. And it wasn’t from the stings. At least not his stings. Why was he affected this way? He’d seen people he liked near death before. He’d seen them die. But like didn’t quite cover what he felt for Molly, did it? Her vulnerability touched him, of course. And he did feel responsible for her. Even those things did not explain his reaction to nearly losing her, however.

  The nurse pushed him into a plastic chair and gave him juice.

  A half hour passed. Only when he saw the steady rise and fall of Molly’s chest, only when the edema in her limbs and features decreased, did his heart stop pounding and his own breathing regulate.

  He took care of the bill with his credit card and then impatiently cooled his heels in the waiting room. They were keeping her around for a few hours to make certain there were no secondary reactions to the venom or the antidote.

  Without asking permission, Damien reentered the cubicle, stood next to her and kept close watch himself. He couldn’t stand to think of her lying there all alone with only periodic checks by the nurses.

  Monitors beeped. Machines hummed. And Damien kept a close eye on the digital readouts as if he were the only one aware of them.

  He wished he could call Brenda. It would be a comfort for Molly to have her mother here. Yet Brenda had no way to get from Clarkston to Nashville tonight and Damien was not about to leave Molly to go get her.

  Probably best not to call her, he thought, imagining how a mother would worry when there was nothing she could do for her child.

  Gently, he held Molly’s hand, the one she’d offered him in her terror, measuring it with his eyes every few seconds to check for further swelling. He watched her face, hating the puffiness, willing it away.

  He’d had no idea whether Molly had medical insurance when they’d asked him. He knew nothing about her medical history other than that she had borne a child and that she was allergic to bee stings. How could he care so damned much about someone and know so little about her?

  He shouldn’t be caring this way. Instead he ought to be treating her as he would anyone else who was under his protection. Yet Molly was different in so many ways. Maybe because she was not part of an official assignment. Maybe because this was personal. He could not force himself to disassociate if he tried. The bad thing was, he didn’t even want to try.

  She appeared to be asleep, likely a result of shock. He turned to the nurse who had spoken with him earlier and was now adjusting the machine near Molly’s head. “Why not settle her into a regular room for the night?”

  “No need. We aren’t too busy down here right now and she’s already hooked up to the monitors. She can go home in a little while if her vitals remain stable.”

  “Thank God,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair as he clenched his eyes shut. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, but somebody ought to keep a close eye on her for the next twenty-four hours. Just be with her in case.”

  “I will. I’ll be the one,” he informed her. “She won’t be alone.”

  “Great. If the swelling starts again, or she gets to feeling tingly, you bring her on back.”

  Damien nodded. And waited.

  What he really wished he could do was get back to her house and determine how that damned beehive had wound up in her garage. However, if Molly had already known she was allergic and Jensen knew it, too, the incident didn’t need that much investigation. This would be attempted murder.

  Besides, he couldn’t take her there, not after what had just happened. She might never want to go there again, and he could hardly blame her.

  Damien looked down at Molly’s face again. The light freckles that he found so endearing were even more prominent in contrast to her paleness, but at least the dreadful swelling had subsided. Her colorless lips were devoid of their rosy fullness and mobility. “My sweet girl,” he whispered.

  “Not sweet, not a girl,” she rasped, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly.

  “Molly? How do you feel? God, I was so worried! I still am,” he admitted, then thought how that sounded. “But you’ll be fine. They said you’d be all right very soon now.”

  “Get a grip, Perry.” Her eyes didn’t open. “Break me out of this place and take me to Clarkston, will you?”

  “As soon as I’m sure. We can’t have you relapsing. We’ll go as soon as they tell us you’ve recovered,” he promised.

  “I’m okay now, just exhausted from tossing my cookies,” she assured him, looking up at him now. “Attractive, huh?” Her lashes were wet and her eyes were bloodshot, making the green irises seem even greener, if that were possible.

  “Beautiful,” he declared, meaning it with all his heart. “And beautifully alive.” The strength of his relief stunned him. It made him wonder what kind of devastation he would have suffered if Molly hadn’t lived. Damien quickly dismissed the thought as too dangerous to consider at the moment.

  “I need to see Syd,” she murmured. “And Mama.”

  “Of course you do, but we’d better wait a few more hours,” he said gently. “Then we’ll go. This time you’re staying there with your mother and the baby, no argument.”

  He held up a finger to silence her protest. “Sleep a bit longer, the time will pass faster that way.”

  She did. Damien left the cubicle, consulted the doctor, who promised the crisis was over and Molly would definitely survive.

  Vastly relieved, Damien found the bank of phones down the hall and made a call to arrange for the delivery of another rental car. He ordered something as totally different from the Lexus as he could get.

  Jensen could be watching the Lexus, which Damien had left illegally pa
rked near the emergency entrance with its doors standing open. He hadn’t returned to see about it. Maybe they’d towed it away by now, not that it mattered.

  “Mr. Perry? She seems to be stable now and in very little distress. If you’d like to take her home, we’ll let you sign her out.”

  Take her home? Not under any circumstances would he take her there. She was eager to leave the hospital and see her mother and daughter. He understood her need to be with her family, so they would go to Clarkston.

  Then Damien considered what they would do there if Molly had a reaction so far away from emergency services. He’d have to convince her to stay in Nashville somehow.

  As soon as he had done the necessary paperwork and the nurse had Molly situated in a wheelchair, Damien pushed her through the entire length of the hospital, up one floor and out the main entrance.

  The Explorer he’d ordered was waiting. He paid the delivery man an extra hundred to wait two hours before approaching the Lexus parked on the other side of the building to drive it back and turn it in.

  Even then, Damien took the most circuitous route he could devise before turning in the direction of the highway toward Clarkston. At least he could have them on the way there when morning came and the danger of Molly having a secondary reaction had passed.

  If Jensen planned to follow them this time, he would bloody well need magic, he thought as he made yet another detour.

  Molly reclined as far back as the passenger seat of the Explorer would allow. Her lethargy worried him, even though he knew to expect it.

  Damien stopped at a gas station to get her a sugary soft drink and some coffee for himself. His current caffeine high was about to crash.

  While they were stopped there, he noticed a small motel down the street. “Molly, would you mind terribly if we stopped to sleep for a few hours? I’m not certain I can make Clarkston in my current condition.”

  Exhaustion made it unsafe for him to drive, but the other reasons for not leaving were even more important. He didn’t want to be very far from the hospital if her symptoms returned.

  Also, if they arrived in the wee hours and woke Brenda, Molly would want to tell her everything about meeting Jensen at breakfast and then what had happened to her with the bees. She needed to rest, not talk the rest of the night.

  And, last but far from least, he needed to hold her, just for a little while. He needed that so badly he actually ached from it. The urge felt alien to him. He’d never needed this. It had to be a by-product of burnout or something, this latching on to someone emotionally. He knew better than to do that.

  She offered him a sip of her soft drink. “I’m sorry, Damien, I didn’t think. You must be beat. It would probably scare Mama to death if we rolled in there at this hour, anyway. Morning will be fine with me.”

  Though he could see her disappointment, he let it go. For her own safety and his peace of mind, they couldn’t leave Nashville yet.

  Damien returned to the convenience store where he purchased a few toiletry items and an I Love Tennessee T-shirt for Molly to sleep in.

  He got them a room on the back side of the hotel and pulled the Explorer around to it.

  Only after Molly was in the shower and he was stretched out on one of the queen-size beds did Damien realize that he’d left Molly’s house wide open. Not only had he not closed the door from the kitchen into the garage, he’d left the garage door up, as well.

  However, Jensen obviously could get in there whenever he wanted to, anyway. And burglars were the least of Molly’s problems at the moment.

  Useless for him to worry now. He certainly wasn’t taking her back there only to lock the house. If anything was stolen in the meantime, he would be more than happy to replace it.

  Just then she emerged from the bathroom wearing the shirt he’d bought her. The bright orange of it barely skimmed the tops of her thighs.

  Instant arousal. “My God, what legs!”

  “Thanks, I think,” she replied, laughing as she raked her hair around to one side of her neck.

  Damien hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud. “Sorry. It’s only that I haven’t seen them before.” He puffed out a little breath. “Spectacular.”

  “Are you a leg man, Perry?” she asked, teasing him.

  No, he never had been, he thought. Not until now. He took a deep breath and hoped she wasn’t looking at his lap.

  He’d always been a breast man, if she really wanted to know. He didn’t think she would.

  With difficulty, he resisted settling his gaze on his favorite female parts and jerked his attention away from her altogether before he said something even more stupid. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Pretty good, actually, considering I almost died. Thanks for saving me, by the way. I didn’t have sense enough left to tell you where to find my kit.”

  “Kit? Syringe kit for the allergy?”

  “Yep. It was in the house, in my purse. Lot of good it did me there, huh?”

  He sat up on the edge of the bed and clasped his hands together between his knees. Molly was on the bed opposite him, wielding the hairbrush he’d purchased.

  “Jensen knows about your allergy?” Damien asked.

  “He knows,” she affirmed. Her eyes met his in perfect understanding. He didn’t need to tell her anything. She had already guessed.

  It wasn’t hard to see why, when she added, “Jack’s grandfather kept beehives as a hobby. Jack worked with them as a 4-H project when he was a kid. He mentioned it once soon after we married, when a honeybee zapped me in the yard.”

  “Did you have the same reaction then?”

  “Not really. I nearly died once several years before that, so I had the kit with me. I was all right by the time I got to the hospital, just a little shaky. They just observed me for a while, warned me again never to be without the epinephrine and let me go.” She laid the hairbrush on the nightstand between the beds.

  “This time he’s gone too far,” Damien said, moving across to the other bed. Molly held out her arms and he pulled her close, burying his face in the curve of her neck, pressing his lips to the pulse there.

  “I almost lost you,” he whispered, sliding his hands over the softness of her curves, relishing the reassuring warmth of her body. It could have grown cold by now.

  She could have been cold. Dead. He shuddered.

  Why did he feel this insurmountable rage? Training and experience had taught him the importance of retaining objectivity, keeping a cool head. You feel this way because you’ve allowed a personal involvement to cloud your reason, fool. Damien nodded in response to the inner voice he always heeded, the one that had kept him alive so many times. It spoke to him again. Words he didn’t want to hear. You love her. “Yes,” he whispered.

  “It’s a strange way to threaten me, don’t you think? The stings could have killed me, but he knew I had a way to prevent that. He went to an awful lot of trouble to do this, and took a big chance of getting caught, when he couldn’t even be sure it would work.”

  “A damned near thing,” Damien said darkly. “Too bloody close for comfort.”

  “Jack’s daring us, Damien. Daring us to prove he did this,” she said. “Maybe we can.”

  “If not, then I have to kill him. I can’t let him hurt you again,” Damien said, meaning every word.

  He had never killed a man before without the reason of self-defense. But he could kill in defense of her, and of little Sydney, who was part of Molly. If that’s what it took to protect them, he would terminate Jack Jensen and never feel a second’s remorse.

  He tightened his hold on Molly and closed his eyes to savor her escape from death.

  It troubled Damien that he felt so strongly, especially in so short a time. What if Molly were meant for him right from the first? Suppose his parents’ accidental death had thrown some cosmic plan out of kilter. A fanciful thought, that, and he wasn’t usually given to those. However, if he had remained in the States, they might have met sooner, somehow.


  He would have been different, Damien was certain, had he not been torn out place and plunked down in a different country. If his mother and father had lived, if they had been able to show him a normal sort of existence, he would have the knowledge and skills he needed to make Molly happy.

  About the best he could do for her now was to keep her alive so that her daughter would not have to grow up without her. What a tragedy if little Sydney had no opportunity to learn mothering skills from the best teacher available. And perhaps Molly would remarry someday and provide a two-parent home for her.

  Damien didn’t like to think of another man assuming that place in Molly’s or Sydney’s life. It was a place he would love to have himself, yet it was one he wouldn’t seek because he wasn’t qualified.

  Sleep deprivation must be affecting him more than usual, he decided. At the moment he should be dwelling on the threat to Molly, determining how to ensure that she had a future for him to worry about.

  His fingers sought Molly’s wrist and pressed gently as he felt her pulse. Her respiration seemed a bit unsteady, yet not really erratic or labored. They probably shouldn’t be discussing Jensen at all since it must be upsetting her.

  “You are not going to kill him!” she announced.

  Damien could not bring himself to promise he wouldn’t. But he had to say something to calm her down.

  “Only if it becomes necessary.”

  Chapter 8

  Molly could tell that Damien meant every word of what he said. He held her tighter, his hands on her sensitized skin driving her wild.

  She pushed him away. “Will you listen to me?”

  “I heard you,” Damien said, looking her straight in the eyes. “But all we have is the fact that he knows something about bee-keeping. That’s not enough to tie him to this, to prove he intended to kill you. You know as well as I do he would have worn gloves to handle that wooden hive. And if he has any sense at all, he stole the thing.”

  Molly threw up her hands and fell backward onto the pillow. “Leave, then,” she said, furious at his hardheadedness. “Go back to Florida or wherever you came from and forget about it.” She knew he wouldn’t, but wished he would. “I don’t want you in trouble over this, Damien.”