TEMPTED BY HER BOSS (14 page)

Donovan turned round. He had the strangest expression on his face. ‘What’s wrong?’ His voice was snappy and sounded even stranger as it came through the speaker and echoed around the cave.

‘I...I...’ Her brain wouldn’t work. She couldn’t figure out the words she wanted to say. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Donovan she was scared of the dark. It made her sound like a five-year-old.

Already the hairs were standing up on the back of her neck. The lights didn’t reach around the corner they were about to turn and the shadows around her were disappearing rapidly.

It took a few minutes to realise that Donovan hadn’t moved. His feet seemed just as stuck to the floor as hers.

‘Hey!’ The call came from the state ranger, who hadn’t wasted any time reaching the back area of the caves. ‘Are you two coming?’

She gulped. Was she? Her hand reached up automatically to catch a lock of her hair and wind it around her finger. Impossible. Layer and layers were in the way.

Donovan’s face changed. Was that a hint of a smile? Followed by a nervous laugh?

Her shoulder was itching uncontrollably. She had absolutely no chance of being able to scratch. She turned her back to the wall of the cave and pressed herself against it, trying to avoid the lumpy oxygen supply strapped inside her suit, while rubbing gently on the wall.

He was looking at her oddly.

She took a deep breath. ‘I’m not good with caves.’ Her eyes skirted around her surroundings. She was trying not to let her feelings envelop her. ‘I’m not good with being in the dark. I was attacked a few years ago in a dark parking lot. Ever since then I’ve slept with the light on.’ The words rushed out of her mouth before she could stop them. She didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want to see the disappointment on his face.

Silence. All she could hear was her own breathing. Then one word came out of the darkness. The one she least expected.

‘Snap.’

* * *

This was the worst feeling in the world. He’d never felt so exposed as he did right now.

Trouble was, Grace’s expression was pretty much mirroring his own right now—and it wasn’t because she was reflecting off his plastic hood.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘Do you want to leave, Grace?’

He was the team leader. He had to ask the question. He had to look out for his staff member. To be honest, if she said she wanted to leave right now it would give him an excuse to leave too.

The thought of having a panic attack around his colleagues was more than he could bear. But the prickling feeling on his skin, thudding heartbeats and rapid breathing couldn’t really be anything else.

But he couldn’t think about himself right now. His own sensations of panic were being overtaken by a whole load of rage. ‘Is that what the scar is on your shoulder?’

He flicked on the torch he had in his other hand. The darkness hadn’t bothered him at all. He’d had the flashlight but just hadn’t flicked the switch. He’d been too busy focusing on the entrance to the caves that was about to disappear from his line of sight.

The cave around them was illuminated in the light from the torch. There was a tear rolling down her cheek. His hand lifted to her visor. Too many layers, too many things in the way. All he wanted to do right now was wipe away her tear with his finger.

‘You were stabbed in the attack?’

She nodded. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and pull her close to his chest. The feelings were overwhelming. He’d known from the second he’d seen the angry scar that there must be a story behind it. He just hadn’t banked on his reaction to that story.

He bent his knees so he was face to face with her. ‘What were you doing in a dark parking lot at night, Grace? And why didn’t you just give them your bag? It was only a bag. Things can be replaced. You can’t.’

As he said the words he almost felt a hand around his heart, squeezing tightly. He hated the thought of someone doing that to her. He couldn’t stand the fact she’d been attacked, let alone what outcome there could have been.

Her voice was shaky. ‘I was working, Donovan. It was my last shift at Atlanta Park Hospital. I stayed a bit later to make sure my charts were up to date and by the time I got outside the lights were out in the parking lot.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t fight him. I’m not that stupid. But he didn’t care. He made a grab for my bag and just stabbed me anyway.’

He could see her whole body trembling inside the thick suit. ‘That’s why I don’t like the dark. I get nervous. I have trouble dating now. I hate being alone with a man. It brings back a whole lot of memories I can’t deal with. It doesn’t matter that it’s irrational. I know that. They’re just still there.’

The dating stuff started circling around his brain. Grace was nervous around men? Why hadn’t he noticed? He’d kissed her, for goodness’ sake!

But it was the other words that struck a chord. The irrational fears. They resounded around his head. ‘I can relate to that, Grace.’

She looked confused. ‘But you’re Donovan. You’re not scared of anything. You managed to tackle a guy with a gun.’

He took a deep breath. He’d never revealed this part of himself to anyone. He hadn’t wanted to. He didn’t want gossip circulating about him that could affect his position at the DPA. He’d never been prepared to take that risk.

But this was Grace. Someone he felt a connection to. And she’d just put herself on the line for him. He had to be honest with her. He had to let her know that she wasn’t alone. He could ask her about the dating stuff later.

‘Irrational fears are a funny thing. You’re right. Apart from a few jittery nerves, I wasn’t that scared of the guy with the gun. I knew if the timing was right, I could overpower him.’

‘Then I don’t get it. What are you scared of?’

He pointed to the light streaming in from the entry point. Even saying the words made the little hairs stand up on his body. ‘I need to know I can get out of places. I had a bad experience as a kid. I was trapped in an elevator for hours. As long as I can see the way out, I’m fine. And in most circumstances I can. Take the exit route out of my line of sight and a whole host of things start churning around in my head.’

She looked horrified. ‘That must have been awful. What age were you?’

‘Six.’

‘And how long were you in the elevator?’

He gave a big sigh. Talking about it brought it all back to him. The feeling of abandonment. The silver walls all around him. Needing to pee so badly it hurt. Crying so hard it made his chest sore. Wondering if he would ever see his mother again.

‘Six hours.’

‘Six hours? For a six-year-old?’ The pitch of her voice rose in obvious shock. This was why he didn’t tell people. He didn’t want sympathy. He didn’t want to relive the horror. He just wanted to put this all in a box and forget about it. Too bad his subconscious wouldn’t let him.

‘So how do you expect to collect samples at the back of a cave, hundreds of feet away from the exit?’ It was the obvious question.

‘The same way you expect to collect samples in a cave with no lighting,’ he countered.

They looked at each other. For the first time it seemed okay to admit to a fear. They were on an equal footing. One fear overlapped the other.

The temperature in his suit was rising—and it wasn’t just down to the suffocating Florida heat. It wasn’t quite so stifling in the caves. The air was damper, more humid, but those were probably contributing factors to the spread of the virus.

No. The temperature was rising in his suit purely because of the way Grace was looking at him and the inappropriate thoughts that were clouding his brain. This was what he’d feared. Romantic entanglements with a colleague meant your mind wasn’t on the job. And right now his certainly wasn’t.

He wanted to run his hands through the tangled waves of her hair. He wanted to feel her skin beneath the palms of his hand. He wanted to feel the warm curves of her body pressed against his.

The hazmat suits made them look like spacemen on an Apollo mission. Nothing sexy. Nothing revealing. And yellow probably wasn’t his colour. But Grace? She made anything look good.

She was still staring at him. There were the tiniest beads of sweat along her brow. It just made him want to touch her all the more. Last time she’d had water on her brow had been in the sea, in that orange bikini.

And then she did it. She ran her tongue along her dry lips. It was almost the end of him. He let out a moan that resembled a little growl. Thank goodness there was no one near them. He shook his head inside the hood. ‘Grace, don’t.’

She lifted her hand, palm open, and held it up facing him. She ran her tongue along her lips again. ‘Why, what am I doing?’

She knew. She knew how ridiculous this was. But the buzz of electricity was giving them both the distraction that they needed. Who knew hazmat suits and bat caves could be sexy?

She moved her hand again. ‘Okay, Mr Team Leader. We can do this. Together.’

He took a deep breath, willing his body to stop reacting to her every move. For a few seconds at least his childhood fears had been forgotten. He lifted his gloved hand to press against hers. ‘Together.’ He smiled. ‘Wanna hold hands?’

She leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘That’s not really what I want to hold. But let’s just get this over and done with, okay?’

No. His body was definitely not playing fair. Thank goodness for padded body suits.

He pulled his shoulders back. He had a job to do. Irrational and unreasonable fears be damned.

As for the sexy distracting chat—they could talk about that later. Alone. Naked. Undisturbed. And Grace could hold any part of his body she wanted.

He took long strides towards the back of the cave, turning and following the path far away from the entrance. He didn’t think about it. He had a clear way out behind him. He had a torch in his hand to show him the way.

He sensed a little movement at his back. The light pressure of a hand resting on his suit. Grace was matching him step for step. She was just holding on for the ride.

A flicker in front of him showed him where the ranger had stopped. He pointed his torch in the direction of the bats roosting on the curved roof. The ranger’s brow was furrowed. ‘What kept you? Did you two get lost?’

Donovan didn’t answer. He swung round and held a hand out to Grace. ‘I’ll collect some samples from the cave floor. You swab the sides of the cave.’

The ranger swung his torch to one corner, lighting up the corpse of a dead bat lying on the cave floor. ‘What about that? Do you want to take a specimen?’

Donovan nodded. ‘I’ll bag it and seal it.’ It didn’t really matter what had caused the death of the fruit bat. David would still be able to test it and see if it carried the virus. He turned and handed his torch to Grace, waving his arm towards the ranger. ‘Can you light up the area for her while she collects samples?’

She shot him a grateful glance. He didn’t mind fumbling around in the dark. It only took a few minutes to collect the samples of bat droppings he required for the lab and to bag and seal the dead bat. Who said this job wasn’t glamorous?

‘All right, Grace?’

Her hood, lit up by the torch next to it, was casting an impressive range of shadows around the cave. Her outline looked like a monster from a kid’s book. The stalagmites and stalactites were all over the deep part of the cave here. In any other circumstances it would be a perfect setting for a horror movie.

She glanced at him. ‘What is it?’ Her voice wasn’t trembling any more. She didn’t seem so rattled.

He smiled. He was trying not to think about how he couldn’t see the way out from here. It was much easier just to look into Grace’s eyes and think about a whole host of other things.

‘I was just imagining you in one of those kids’ storybooks. You know, the monster in the caves kind of thing?’

‘You’re just all charm, aren’t you?’ she shot back. She gave him a little wink. ‘I’ll make you pay for that later.’ His distraction techniques were working.

He stood up and pushed the double-bagged bat into the sample case. ‘Are we done?’

She breathed an obvious sigh of relief and nodded. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

He turned back towards the way they’d entered and gave a little start. Darkness. Nothing in front of him. No obvious way out. Sealed in a million tonnes of rock along with some deadly bats.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He was Donovan Reid. He couldn’t do this. In any other lifetime this would be described as a wobble. He couldn’t let that happen.

Then he felt Grace lay her hand on his arm. She held out the torch in front of her. He could see she was taking some long, slow breaths. She glanced sideways at him, aware that the ranger was watching them both. ‘Let’s go.’

She walked first, letting the thin torch beam ahead of her be the beacon lighting the way out. She moved briskly, without talking, until they reached the bend in the cave that revealed the entrance ahead.

He felt all the pent-up air rush out of his lungs. He hadn’t even realised he had been holding it. As they neared the entrance his phone beeped loudly. It was inside his suit, it would have to wait.

It took a few minutes to reach the outside of the caves. The decontamination unit was set up outside and they all stripped off their gear and headed for the showers. This time there was no sharing of cubicles. No untoward views of a naked Grace. It was almost disappointing.

He towelled off his hair and picked up the phone. The screen was steamed up and he wiped it clean and stepped outside.

No.

‘What is it?’ Grace appeared beside him, towel-drying her hair too.

He held up the phone. ‘Just what we don’t want to hear. Two adult fatalities in the last hour. One at our hospital, another, a late diagnosis, at a hospital in Mexico. He visited the caves last Thursday. John found him during the visitor follow-ups. We need to step up a gear.’

‘But what else can we do?’

His eyes skimmed over her body. She was wearing simple clothes. A T-shirt and a pair of fitted trousers. All he could think about was what lay beneath.