His to Cherish (12 page)

"Even that young, I knew Evan liked making people miserable." I turned toward the bed, realizing I had answered the wrong question when his gaze grabbed mine.

"I meant Florida." Collin tried to sit up again, grimacing as he pushed at the tray and looked for the locks on the safety rail.

I moved the tray back in place. The redness on his face had faded already and I didn't know where else I could safely touch him, so I placed my palm against his forehead and forced him back against the mattress.

I wanted to tell him he didn't deserve an answer, but that rang hollow after he had saved my life. I couldn't tell him the truth, though. The truth made me feel even more hollow. I had been able to spend four miserable months bouncing around the question of whether the doctors had lied to me in Dubai, but I couldn't stand another day at Stark International after I saw his new secretary touch him and heard the lurid speculation in the voices of the men around me.

"You need another bag for these." I gestured at the items on the tray, my gaze and outstretched finger avoiding the ring. I returned to the cabinet I had found the red bag in and located a smaller, clear bag marked "valuables." Returning to the tray, I started to put them inside until my finger brushed against the ring.

I dropped the bag onto the tray without finishing. "That second man on the team, the one they didn't admit to the hospital, he'll be able to get you fresh clothes."

I turned toward the door and managed one step away from the bed before Collin captured my wrist. "I told you, Kane cut me off."

His strength too worn down to contain me, I twisted my wrist free. "Clearly, he hasn't or we'd both be dead."

Collin reached again, his IV tube tangling so that I was forced to turn back and push against his forehead a second time. He gave me that look, the one he'd given the nurse, for all of a second before his gaze softened.

Snatching the call button, I paged someone to the room. He was their patient, they could sit on him or sedate him. I needed to escape before I left my heart on the floor.

"He cut me off until things were settled between you and me." His hand moved restlessly along the safety rail, but he didn't make another attempt to grab me. He drew a long breath in and released it just as slowly, the effect of the chemicals still audible from the rattle in his throat. Finished, he blinked then looked at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before and couldn't hope to interpret.

"Are they settled?" he asked.

No tears escaped as I nodded. "Yes, they are."

********************

I walked out of the lion's den and down the hall to find myself staring at a few more lions. Trent Kane stood at the desk of the same receptionist who had turned me away, the heat simmering on his face indicating he'd made no more progress with her in finding out Stark's condition than I had. Beyond him, bodies tense as they talked into their cell phones, were Reed Henley and the woman who had wrapped her hand around Collin's shoulder at the security conference in Miami.

Seeing me first, Reed stopped talking into his phone and jostled Kane. Sucking a deep breath in, I braced myself. Three long strides brought Kane to me. His hands gripped my shoulders. He didn't shake me, but his hands seemed to flex with the desire to do so.

"How is he?"

I looked over Kane's shoulder to the woman as I answered. "Well enough to give the nurses a hard time."

Her face relaxed enough for a half smile to creep up one side. Raising my hands, I brushed at Kane's arms. I appreciated his concern for a friend, but the time limit for him grabbing and holding me like that had expired five seconds after it started.

"He'll need clothes brought to him." I stepped left. Kane, no longer holding my shoulders, stepped with me.

"Hold on..." He started to reach for me again then raised his hands, his palms open and facing toward me. "Just answer a few questions for me. Please, Mia."

Four months ago, the entreaty would have worked. But Collin hadn't been the only one to flip switches inside me. Kane had flipped at least one on the plane ride out of Dubai and the first forty-eight hours in Florida as he detailed my new position within the company. The anger and disgust I had seen in Collin's face before I passed out in Dubai had been reflected in Kane's in Florida. So, too, had the remote indifference I would come to associate with Reed. A request from Kane meant nothing, just as my pleas to him had fallen on deaf ears.

I turned to the receptionist who stared at us, her chin in her hands, her lips slightly parted as she watched our improvised theater. "Mr. Stark is awake. I'm sure if you give him a message, he'll authorize these visitors."

I couldn't help but look at the woman as the final word left me. I spun, hoping I had done enough for Kane to let me pass, but he held his hands up again.

"Just give me a minute? Please?" He grabbed the woman by the arm and walked her several feet away to the set of windows that looked over the parking lot. He leaned in, whispering to her as he pulled something from his wallet. He handed it to her and she nodded, her hand coming up to cup his cheek as her lips met his.

Shocked by the unexpected intimacy, I looked to Reed. He looked incredulous for a moment, then confused then blank as he realized I was watching him instead of Kane and the woman. Something was off. I didn't know what, but I didn't need to. I just had to realize that I couldn't stay in an environment where I had to second guess everything and everyone.

That was Collin's world -- not mine.

Taking advantage of the distance Kane had opened up, I started down the hall, walking as fast as I could without looking like I was running. The next hand I felt on me wasn't Kane's, but Reed's.

"I need to apologize to you, Mia."

That slowed my steps. Someone at Stark International wanted to apologize? Not move me around like a chess piece or demand that I give them something after months of being invisible? Of course Reed could be playing his own game, softening me up.

I shook my head. "The receptionist will--"

"I don't care about that," Reed persisted. "Trent will get in and you're not in any state that would indicate Collin is in terrible shape."

"He was shot," I relented. "In his bicep. Some chemical burns and fumes..."

"We know that." Reed punched the button on the elevator then spotted Kane stalking our footsteps and waved him away. "I said I want to apologize."

"He had pulled his IV out and was trying to get dressed." I was babbling by that point, confused by Reed's earnest tones and ready to cry. "But the pants were ruined and the chemicals were on everything."

Reed tugged me into the elevator, waiting until the doors closed to thumb away a tear that had escaped me. He punched one of the elevator buttons, but I couldn't read which one through the remaining tears that were seconds from spilling down my cheeks.

"There's a cafeteria in the basement. Let me get you a coffee."

I shook my head and pointed at my throat. "They gave me a list, nothing that hot..."

"Right." He rubbed his fingers against my shoulders, not grabbing me like Kane had. "You almost died today. Trent wasn't thinking."

That was wrong. Kane had been thinking -- about Collin.

Despite the comfort flowing through them, I didn't want Reed's hands on me any more than I had wanted Kane's. I shrugged them off and pushed the button for the main level before the elevator had a chance to take us down to the basement.

"Mia..." He gripped my elbow as the doors started to open onto the hospital lobby. "I lost a baby, too."

That stopped me cold, my feet so frozen to the floor it would have taken a blow torch to unstick them. The doors closed, we stayed on and the elevator carried us down to the basement, where I heard the heartbreaking story of Reed's wife, Katherine.

His voice cracked with each word. His hands shook too much to drink the coffee. By the time he finished, I was able to wrap my arms around him in a hug. I understood why he had been so distant. I understood Kane's aversion to me after Dubai.

And, at least a little, I understood Collin.

Overflowing with understanding and tears, I still walked out of the hospital intent on never seeing any of them ever again.

********************

With Evan dead, I had no idea what would happen with the horse farm. I spoke with an attorney who assured me my life estate in the guesthouse would remain intact, but the farm itself would go to the bank, which might sell it whole or break it up into parcels. So I went to the bank where I met with the loan officer to discuss taking over the mortgage.

That conversation lasted less than ten seconds. It started with his "no" after finding out I worked for Mr. Keppler and had a savings account no bigger than a quarter of the remaining mortgage. It ended with my "no" after he inquired whether I wanted to relinquish my life estate for an amount little more than what I had in said savings account.

The answer to my pressing question of what would happen to the farm started to materialize a week after I had left Reed Henley crying in his coffee in the hospital cafeteria. Leaving for work, I saw the loan officer, Mr. Richards, standing outside one of the remaining stables, his car blocking the lane so that I would have to drive on the grass to get around him.

I would have done just that except for the woman with Richards. Kane's woman -- or maybe Collin's. I wasn't sure what I had witnessed at the hospital. If it was an act, and it half looked that way, then Kane had been trying to hide something between her and Collin.

Reminding myself I didn't care whose woman she was, I stopped my car anyway and got out because her presence at the farm could mean one thing only -- Stark, for whatever reason, wasn't done torturing me.

As soon as he saw me, Richards' spine went stiff. By the time I was within speaking distance, sweat had popped out along his top lip and brow.

"What's going on?" I didn't intend to sound like a bitch, but I did. Richards had all but laughed in my face at the bank and now he was about to sell my family home to the man who had broken my heart, all but crushed my spirit and had me second guessing every last thing I thought I knew about myself.

Richards snorted and turned away, his gaze on the stable as if it had turned into a painting by Picasso. "I explained to you already, your offer was ridiculous and you aren't credit worthy."

Shocked by his bluntness, I stood there for a few seconds, my mouth slightly ajar. Next to him, the blonde straightened. She gave him a smile that was all teeth. The red-tipped fingers she had wrapped around Collin's shoulder found Richards' bicep. This time, when they dented the fabric, they seemed to go deep, searching to make an impression on flesh.

"Start over," she said through the smile.

Richards blanched and from what little I could see of his expression, I was certain the man's balls had shriveled up inside him. He looked at me, his imperious gaze gone and replaced with a pleading look.

"It's just...you see...the bank has the right to sell the property at market value," he started, stumbling at the edges of the words when he tried to pull away from the blonde and she tightened her grip. "That's...uhm...one-point-five million even with your possession of the guest house."

I repeated the sum and he nodded.

"Are you interested in a competing bid?"

I shook my head although we both knew his question hadn't been asked in earnest but in fear of the woman standing next to him. I looked at her, still uncertain what to think. My first impulse, fueled by the footage of the Miami conference, was to hate her. But she was sticking up for me, something a rival wouldn't do.

I closed my eyes for a second, reminding myself I had no rival for Collin's affection because I was through with him. Except I wasn't because he seemed intent on buying the property.

Ignoring Richards, I looked at her. "Does Mr. Stark intend to be in residence?"

Letting go of the man's arm, she shrugged. "He didn't say anything."

"Kane--" I started, but she cut me off with a shake of her head.

"Not the type of pillow talk we share." The smile came up again, not frightening as when she had turned it on Richards, just final. She tilted her head, her gaze studying my face for a second before her smile thawed completely. "He's getting discharged today if you want to ask him. Room 322b."

She wanted me to see him?

My head moved along a path that started as acquiescence before it faded to rejecting the idea of a visit to Collin Stark. Without saying another word, I returned to my car, jammed the key in the ignition and took off, my tires chewing the grass along the lane as I maneuvered around Richards' vehicle.

Not thinking, I drove until I realized I was five miles past Keeling's city limit, which meant I was more than five miles past my destination of the hardware store. Digging my phone out, I called Mr. Keppler and asked him for a few hours off as I visited the hospital.

I found Collin in 322b just as he finished changing into street clothes, his hands busy loading his wallet and cell phone into his pockets.

"You're buying the farm?" I blurted as soon as I stepped into the room.

Slow to respond, he studied my face for several long seconds before he gave a short nod.