The Artisans (13 page)

“No. Don’t!”

Cole? “What’s going—?”

A firm shove against my back propels me forward. Too surprised to cry out, the image of me lying on the ground with a broken neck flits through my mind. Unable to stop myself, I crash against the limbs below me. My ribs scream. Stars burst from behind my eyelids when I whack the side of my head on a branch. Sticks scratch my arms and legs. Several more limbs block my path and my body smashes through like a boulder. My arms scramble as I try and grab onto something, anything, but my momentum is too fast. I free-fall until I hit the earth with a thud. Lungs on lockdown, I can’t breathe. When I try to adjust my legs, they’re numb and won’t respond.

I lose track of how long I lie there, trying to absorb the pain, process what happened. My ribs and head ache, but my fingers move. Below my chest, my muscles tingle painfully with pins and needles. Whether that’s good or bad, I can’t say. Air trickles down my throat as my lungs slowly reopen.

“Raven?” Cole stands at the base of the tree a few feet from me.

“I fell.” What a stupid thing to say. He can see that for himself, can’t he? I need help. I’m formulating the words when someone steps out from behind him. It’s a woman in a white, chenille dress. The fabric flutters in the breeze behind her. She’s beautiful, blond. Even in the dim light, I see enough of her features to recognize her.

Desiree. Gideon’s stepmother.

Cole and Desiree stare down at me from their lofty positions at my feet. If Desiree is here, wearing the same dress I’d seen her wearing in the photo in the east wing of the Maddox mansion, she’s a ghost. Not missing as Dane suggested, but dead.

A scowl darkens Cole’s face, but it’s not directed at me. He’s staring at her. I’ve never seen him angry before, and I’m confused. Their verbal exchange takes place in harsh whispers. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but the stiff body language and sharp hissing suggests an argument.

“Raven …”

My name floats across the grounds. I crane my neck around. “Here!” My answer is a hoarse croak. The effort drains the air from my lungs. I pant, suck up more oxygen, and cry out again. “Hello?”

“I’m coming.”

Gideon. Thank God. Three words I never thought to use together. My body goes limp with relief, knowing he’s on his way. My gaze flits over the ground in front of me. The two ghosts are gone, but I hardly care. The static of snapping twigs and brush tells me Gideon’s close.

“Almost there.” I feel the thud of his boots on the ground through my back. He’s running.

“Raven, good God what’s happened to you?” He kneels, glides his hands all over my body with definite purpose. His touch on my face is feather light yet filled with an electric charge. I start to protest and stop. The panic in his tone surprises me. “Can you move your feet? What about here, can you feel this?” He squeezes my toes, pushes behind my knee, on the inside of my thigh.

Another shiver runs through me and not from the cold. “I don’t know. I think I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay. You are a damn fool.” His fingers press against the pulse at my neck. “Do you mind telling me what you were doing out here?”

Edgar! “My cat,” I say. “I found him.”

“
I
found him. He came racing into the house, soaking wet and screeching like a monkey. When I went to your room to inform you his highness had returned, you were missing. I’ve been looking for you for the past half hour.”

I’m speechless. For a second, I’m shocked he bothered trying to find me. “He was stuck in the tree,” I offer lamely.

“So you thought you’d shimmy up and cart him down all on your own, did you?”

Well, yeah, sort of. I didn’t say it was a smart plan. His expression is stormy as his face hovers over mine. I don’t like his tone. He’s scolding me like I’m a little kid. He continues to work ascertaining my injuries with his strong hands, which I try and fail to ignore. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand a lot more than you think I do, woman.”

“Edgar is important to me.”

“You’re important to me!”

That shuts me up.

“Are you aware how dangerous this part of the property is? The pond is treacherous, and that tree is forty feet tall. You might have been killed.” I swallow as he grinds out the last word between clenched teeth. His head hangs a moment, eyes closing with his exhale. “Let’s get you home.” His arms slide beneath me. He stands, lifting my body against his chest.

Cradled in Gideon’s arms, I feel a definite limp in his step. My head hurts and my side throbs, but I’m acutely aware of him. His warmth, the firm muscles beneath his dark T-shirt. He smells woodsy, with a hint of spice, like autumn. “I’m good to walk,” I say.

He adjusts me in his arms. I like the way his biceps roll and harden against me, though I’d sooner die than admit it.

“I like a positive, if delusional, attitude in my patients,” he says. I can’t see his face, but I hear the smile in his voice. “It makes their recovery time so much faster.”

“What?” My gaze travels upward to Gideon’s strong jawline.

“I appreciate your offer, but I’m afraid it’s out of the question.”

“Oh.”

I say no more as he carries me across the lawn and through the front door, but as he nears the stairs, his limp becomes increasingly pronounced. When I open my mouth again to protest, he silences me with a ferocious glare. My guilt is only surpassed by my weariness. It’s comforting being held like this, even if it’s Gideon that’s doing the holding, and I really do feel like crap.

By the time we cross the threshold of my room, the only sign of Gideon’s exertion is his accelerated breathing. He lays me gently on my bed with strict instructions not to move or argue. Next he pulls out his cell and dials.

“Dave? It’s Gideon. Yes, I know what time it is, but I’ve got a situation here. No. A guest, no broken bones, but I’m concerned about a concussion or internal bleeding. Yes. What? Fell from a tree. Seventeen. Female. We’ll be there in twenty minutes, and Dave? Keep it quiet.”

***

Soft purring wakes me. When I crack my eyelids open, Edgar’s lounging on a pillow near my head, warm and dry. My heart lifts. His whiskers shoot out on either side of his nose, a white spray of fireworks against the black backdrop of his fur. “Little brat,” I croak.

“How do you feel?” Gideon’s smooth voice greets me. My heartbeat catapults.

I roll to face him. My back screams with pain. Neck muscles are stiff, but thankfully, I can move. The x-rays Doctor Dave ordered during my secret exam last night proved I’ll live. We didn’t go to the hospital like normal people. We went to some emergency walk-in clinic—through the back door. No nurses, no paperwork, everything as abnormal as can be. That’s what comes of practically kidnapping a person. Gideon couldn’t exactly get me help through normal channels, could he? Good thing he’s connected. The guy even has a doctor is his pocket.

My host has pulled a stuffed chair to the edge of my bed. His ankles are crossed on the mattress next to me. I shiver as he shifts, bare feet brushing my leg over the blanket. He wears a sexy, sleepy half-smile. His eyes are hooded, hair disheveled in an underwear model photo shoot sort of way that’s making my pulse race. No one should wake up looking so effortlessly hot.

I hate his guts.

“I feel awesome, thanks for asking. You?” Sarcasm drips from my words, but I’m not crazy about his close proximity. While thankful for his help, if he hadn’t blackmailed me, my cat wouldn’t have been stuck up that tree, and I wouldn’t have been forced to rescue him and, and, and … “You didn’t need to stay.”

“I disagree. Since you have a slight concussion, I’m not taking any chances with your health.”

I rise up on both elbows, testing my mobility. Everything hurts. “Where’ve you been, anyway? I haven’t seen you in days and then you pop up out of nowhere—first to shout at me and then come to my rescue.” Again, I was glad when he discovered Edgar, but it’s not something I’d planned to say.

“Rescue you? I did, didn’t I? You can thank me later.”

I wish my eyes were flamethrowers.

“I was in Katunayake.”

“Where?”

“Sri Lanka.”

And …? I’m hoping my blank stare will help.

“We deal with a clothing manufacturer there.”

“Ah.”

“Did you miss me?” The stiff smile is back. I answer with an incredulous stare. “I can ring Jenny when you’re ready to eat. Dave said you should try to move around a bit and work the soreness out of your muscles, but don’t overdo it. Your ribs are badly bruised.”

Who is this guy? And when did he become so chatty? He lowers his feet to the floor, stands, and stretches his arms toward the ten-foot ceilings. I’m envious. He makes it look so easy, and pain free. His T-shirt rises above his navel while his jeans sink lower revealing smooth hip bones that disappear below the denim waistline. Taut muscles ripple under his golden skin. I glance away, but not before he notices me noticing him. Damn.

He winks. “Glad to see all the neurons are still clicking. That’s a very good sign.”

I blush, then groan. I still hate him. There are little trolls in my head with sharp objects poking at my cerebral cortex. “Are you always this chipper in the mornings?”

He lifts a brow. “Only when I do good deeds the night before, now get up. I want to talk about the sketches I found.” He rises from his chair and saunters off toward my work area.

I imagine my face, my hair, good Lord, and my breath are all varying shades of humiliating. Self-conscious, I ask for a minute.

“Sure, sure,” he yells from my sewing room. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

“I do?” Dang it. I know I do, and sleepwalk, too.

“Hope you don’t mind, I showered in your bathroom, brushed my teeth about an hour ago. I thought it unwise to leave you for too long.”

“Ugh, gross!”

“Not with
your
toothbrush. Be serious.”

“Whatever.” I ease out of bed and gimp my way to the bathroom. As I wait for the water to heat, I strip down and glance at myself in the mirror. My hair is a riot of black waves, falling to my elbows. I’m pale without a scrap of makeup. Nights of broken sleep make my wide eyes wider, my cheekbones sharper. If my body is a crossword puzzle, the answers are one down, ‘bruises’, and two across ‘cuts and scrapes’. Lovely.

I’m sure a shower will help, and it does. Getting clean always perks me up, and the hot water is a balm to my battered muscles. “Edgar,” I say to the cat-shaped outline waiting on the other side of the steaming shower door. “If I didn’t love you so much, you’d be roasting on a spit right now.”

“Raven?” Gideon calls through the door.

“Gah! Shower. I’m in the shower!”

“So?”

“So, get the hell out! I’ll be another minute.” Pervert.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, stop overreacting. I need to ask you about these designs.”

“Well, you haven’t seen mine!” Crap, have you? “Gideon, get out,” I order. “I’m not kidding.” I’m trying to remember how I got in the T-shirt and shorts I woke up in with growing alarm.

I peek out the door. No one’s there but Edgar. Fifteen minutes later, I’m brushed, dried, and dressed in a pair of black yoga pants paired with a red, chenille sweater. Not so much my style, but it’s about all I can stand next to my tortured skin.

When I hobble into my workroom, Gideon’s already reclining in my desk chair. Okay, technically I guess it’s his chair, and he’s examining my drawings. He makes even holey jeans and a white T-shirt look hot.

“Finally.” His tone’s impatient. When he rolls his mismatched eyes, my temper flares. Maybe he can be nonchalant about walking in on me in the nude, but I’m not that girl. “Can you—”

“Don’t you
ever
invade my personal space again or I’ll …” Panic seizes me, my mouth stops working. I’ll what? Too angry to think through my threat, I know better than to make one I can’t keep.

“Yes?” His eyes flash a challenge. A smile plays at the corner of his mouth. He appears anything but worried about my warning, and my hesitation makes it seem like I’m bluffing.

His smirk gives me an epiphany. “I’ll set Dane on you.”

“That won’t be necessary, Raven.” He leans forward. “As delightful as ravaging your body sounds, I like my victims less ready for the ICU. I have no intentions toward you, at present, other than to pick your mind clean of more of this …” He raises my sketchbook in the air. “Can we talk now, or would you like to punch me first?”

I consider it. “Fine, so long as we understand each other.”

His lashes shield his eyes, and he’s all business again. “What was your inspiration? It appears you did absolutely nothing for nearly three weeks and then …” He flips through several pages. “Here, you began designing and didn’t stop.”

My eyes narrow. “How do you know all that?”

He taps the bottom right corner of my notebook. “You date your drawings, Ms. Weathersby.”

Oh. I blow out a breath.

“Sit.” He rises, vacating his seat, and takes the chair on the far side of the table.

He barks orders like a marine expecting obedience, and I’m too sore to quibble. “I discovered your greenhouse. The place has a kind of magic to it. Honestly, I love the time I’ve spent in there, and I don’t know …” I click a nail on the tabletop. “Outside the windows, it’s green and lush and alive, but inside, the place is forgotten, withered. I liked the contrast—the idea of sleeping or dead things being brought back to life. Rejuvenation. Redemption.”