To the Limit (38 page)

"Are you saying you'd still be married?"

No. That's not what he was saying. He and Angie never should have been married in the first place. "I'm saying I might still have my daughter."

"Or you might not," she said quietly. "It's sad, but sometimes that's just the way things work out. Bad things happen to good people."

OK. This was getting to be too much. "From rat-bastard to good people. Amazing what a little murder and mayhem has done to elevate my less than sterling character."

"And let's not forget the great sex," she added.

Ah. Point for her. She'd just managed to minimize the import of her statements. Couldn't have him start to think she'd begun to like him too much.

And that stung a little more than it should have. Why? Because he liked—genuinely liked—this woman. Maybe even more than liked her. Something about her had gotten to him, dug in deep, and wouldn't let go. Strength coupled with compassion. In-your-face toughness paired with vulnerability. A funky sense of humor that had him grinning as often as growling. And of course—let's not forget the mind-blowing sex.

He couldn't afford to think about what it all meant. He knew there was no future for them. Hell. He wasn't a good bet for the long haul. Besides, she'd made it clear. He was merely a means to an end—help to find Tiffany—and a temporary outlet for her sexual tension. When this was over—if they got out of it alive—they would end their tentative partnership without a long look back.

And he had a sneaking feeling that he was going to regret it for a long, long time.

This was so, so bad, Eve thought, making herself stare straight ahead as they drove west, slowly chasing a sunset that rivaled any she'd seen on Mallory Square at Key West.

She was in a life-or-death situation, aching from head to toe from the beating the bombing had given her, and now she had another ache to deal with. The one in her heart. The one that made her want to reach across the seat, draw that rat-bastard jerk into her arms, and ease the loss he felt, fill the void.

Yeah. This was bad. She was falling for him.

Again.

Mr. Bad Bet on a Good Day. Mr. Already Lost at Love. And everybody's favorite, Mr. Love 'Em and Leave 'Em.

God. What else could she think of to get things back in perspective?

For one thing, he called her cupcake. That in itself ought to be enough.

He was an emotional cripple. A triple-A.

And he bought her M&M's. No one but her dad had ever bought her M&M's.

And the man made love to her like there was no one he'd rather be with and no place on earth he'd rather be than inside of her.

OK. That did it. Slipped things right back into focus. She was running on adrenaline and lust. Things looked different when seen through glasses tinted with generous amounts of both.

Just because she caught herself enjoying not only the sex but also waking up next to him in the morning ... just because they thought alike on so many levels and she found herself smiling more often than frowning over something he said or did, or some look he threw her way, didn't mean there was more to it than sex. And adrenaline.

To think otherwise would be insane—she didn't even like the man. And yet... she didn't like the idea of not seeing him again when this was over.

Her phone rang, saving her from another rewind of exactly the same limp rationality.

"I came up with nothing on Katrina or Sven," Ethan stated, all business, no hello. "They seem arrow straight."

Which was the same thing Eve had already decided. "Did Bob Gleason call you?"

"Yeah. We're all working on it. Sit tight, sweetie. I'll call as soon as I have something more—on anything. In the meantime, be careful, you hear?"

Yeah. She heard.

"What's up?"

She thought for a moment before turning to McClain. His dark eyes were brooding, lined with fatigue and very clear signs of pain. He needed some rest. And some attention for his knee.

"Pull into that motel up there. You need some ice for that knee. Then you need to soak in a hot tub—then I'll fill you in."

"I'm good to go," he said stoically.

Oh, right. She forgot. Macho mania ran rampant through this man's blood. Which meant she was going to have to grin and bear it if he was going to give himself a chance to recover. "OK, then
I
need some ice and a hot bath."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" He pulled up in front of the motel, brows furrowed with concern.

She rolled her eyes and bit back a comment about knights in tarnished armor.

"Sit down," Eve ordered when, stiff-legged, McClain limped over to the bed, then tried to get out of his jeans.

When she could see it was going to be a challenge for him, she bent over and removed his shoes, then tugged the jeans down his legs.

"Oh my God," she gasped. His knee was as big as a basketball. "You need medical attention."

He shook his head, his face gray with pain. "It'll be all right in a little while. Just like it did in the Keys, the swelling will go down, and I'll be good to go."

She was weary of hearing that phrase. He wasn't anywhere near
good to go,
but she wasn't about to say as much. "What, exactly, did you do to injure it in the first place?"

"Tore the meniscus and the ACL. Also broke the kneecap."

She winced. "You're thorough, I'll give you that."

"Anything worth doing's worth doing right," he added with a pained grin.

"And they couldn't fix it?"

"They tried. Seven hours of surgery, flat on my back for weeks and on crutches for several more. They threw in a shitload of physical therapy and a knee brace. When they turned me loose it was with a glowing prognosis that I'd never walk without a limp again. Words every man wants to hear."

She couldn't imagine the pain involved then. Or now. A thin film of perspiration had broken out on his forehead.

"Well, I'm the closest thing you've got to a medical expert now, so I'm going to call a few shots. Lay down."

She didn't know if it was a good sign or a bad one that he didn't so much as shoot her a glare of protest. She helped him lift his leg onto the bed, then carefully propped it on a pillow.

"I'm going for ice and aspirin."

"Ibuprofen," he said quietly, and slung his forearm over his eyes. "Helps with the swelling."

"Ibuprofen it is," she said, and went in search of both, praying that he wasn't blowing smoke and his leg would get back to some semblance of normalcy soon.

Normalcy. Now there was a word, one she hadn't made passing acquaintance with since McClain had shown up in her life again.

Mac was almost asleep when Eve returned to the motel room about a half an hour later. She was loaded down with Band-Aids, ointment, ibuprofen, analgesic rub, an elastic wrap, and a plastic ice bucket full of motel ice.

"My very own Florence Nightingale," he said, hitching up on his elbows to watch her.

"Were I you, I'd be thinking more in terms of Nurse Ratched."

"
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
I read that book. Saw the movie. Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. She was one demented angel of mercy."

"Speaking of mercy."

He groaned and lay back down.

She grinned at him as she returned from a quick trip to the bathroom with a towel. "I take it you saw what Kathy Bates did to James Caan in that movie, too?"

He lifted the arm he'd used to cover his eyes and peeked out at her. "I'm not going to end up with two broken legs here, am I?"

"Only if you don't do what I say."

He felt the grin crawl up his face. "Are you going to make my day and break out a little leather and a whip?"

"You wish."

"Oh man, do I. I will
never
forget the way you looked that night we went to Oracle."

"How's that?" she asked, ignoring him. She'd poured ice in the towel, then folded it into an ice pack of sorts and, lifting his leg, settled it under his knee on the pillow. "Better?"

Yeah. It was better. When she added another pack to the top of his knee, it actually felt good.

"Missed your calling," he mumbled absently around the three ibuprofen tablets she'd held out to him along with a glass of water.

"Not hardly. This is foreign territory for me. I'm a Band-Aid, McClain. You need a hospital."

He snagged her wrist when she started to move away from the bed. "Thanks," he said simply when her blue eyes, startled by his sudden capture, met his. "Been a long time since anyone took care of me like this."

"Don't worry. Everything has a cost. I'll bill you."

She was actually embarrassed, he realized, to have him see that she was worried about him. "How about we work out some other form of compensation? You've got some bumps and bruises of your own. Maybe I could make you feel better, too."

Her gaze drifted from his face to the tenting action going on beneath the fly of his boxers. She smiled. Shook her head. "I don't recall anything from my Girl Scout first-aid manual that mentioned sex as a treatment."

"Well, there you go. That particular method of treatment is only in the Boy Scout manual. Chapter ten. Page sixty-nine."

Her eyebrows went up at the reference to sixty-nine. "You were never a Boy Scout."

"And you were a Girl Scout?"

"OK. So you got me on that one. Doesn't mean I'm going to take advantage of your invalid status—"

He cut her off by tugging her down onto the bed beside him. "Take advantage," he whispered as he knotted his fingers in the silky thickness of blond hair at the back of her head.

Sexual heat flared in her eyes. He drew her slowly toward his mouth. "If you have an ounce of compassion in you, you'll take advantage."

Turned out, she had more than an ounce. And she liked page sixty-nine of the manual every bit as much as he did.

Chapter 25

"I'm thinking we've bowed to optimism
long enough," Eve said, spreading a map out on the stained tabletop in a corner booth of the Parowan Cafe the next morning.

After an incredible session of lovemaking, which she absolutely did not want to think about today, they'd slept for a sold eight hours. It was the first real sleep they'd gotten in days.

Maybe it had been the sound of the rain splattering against the motel room windows. It had started sometime during the night and continued this morning at a light but steady rate, packing the dust, streaking the restaurant windows.

"How about we simply start canvassing the area within a hundred or so miles?" she suggested, determined to stick to business. "There aren't that many paved roads in the area. Not that many gravel roads, for that matter."

She watched as McClain finished off his breakfast coffee and leaned back in the bench seat. He looked rested and refreshed. And very, very sexy with his freshly shaven face and some of the pain gone from his eyes.

"Sounds good to me," he said. "We can forget about north. If they were headed north, they wouldn't have gotten off here, agreed?"

"Unless they ran out of money and this was as far as they could get a bus ticket."

"Too early in the day to blow holes in my theories," he said, looking grim. "Don't make me cranky."

Eve couldn't help but grin. Through all of this, the only time she'd seen McClain "cranky" was when he'd been worried the bomb had taken her down. Funny how memories came back with such clarity at the oddest times. But as she sat in that booth two days later, she remembered, for the first time and with vivid detail, the look on his face when he'd finally spotted her. It had been feral. The touch of his hands on her shoulders had been viciously rough. She doubted that he'd even realized how he'd handled her. Adrenaline spikes being what they are, she'd been fairly numb to the full brunt of his touch. Adrenaline must have dulled his pain, too, because he'd barely limped when they'd taken off.

Speaking of his knee, as he'd predicted, it had looked much better this morning. The swelling was down and he seemed to be moving better on it.