Logic and people who subscribed to conspiracy theories were often strangers to each other.
Suzanne BrockmannWhat the hell was she doing on the nonhostage side of a handgun?
Suzanne BrockmannMots clés romance humour funny romantic-suspense military-romance
Although my elephant is different than yours. Mine's bright purple and I like to lead him around on a leash and introduce him to people by name.
Suzanne BrockmannYou know, Savannah, if you cry, I won’t tell anyone,’ Ken said quietly. ‘I promise.
Suzanne BrockmannMots clés romantic romance romantic-suspense military-romance
Here." Sam came over, stripped down to his boxers. "Hunch forward and put your head down."
Robin looked at him. "My safe word is monkey.
Mots clés humor
Blood pressure check!” The doorknob rattled, as if the nurse were intending just to walk in, but the lock held, thank God. The nurse knocked again.
“Oh, shit,” Gina breathed, laughing as she scrambled off of him. She reached to remove the condom they’d just used, encountered . . . him, and met his eyes. But then she scooped her clothes off the floor and ran into the bathroom.
“Mr. Bhagat?” The nurse knocked on the door again. Even louder this time. “Are you all right?”
Oh, shit, indeed. “Come in,” Max called as he pulled up the blanket and leaned on the button that put his bed back up into a sitting position. The same control device had a “call nurse” button as well as the clearly marked one that would unlock the door.
“It’s locked,” the nurse called back, as well he knew.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, as he wiped off his face with the edge of the sheet. Sweat much in bed, all alone, Mr. Bhagat? “I must’ve . . . Here, let me figure out how to . . .” He took an extra second to smooth his hair, his pajama top, and then, praying that the nurse had a cold and couldn’t smell the scent of sex that lingered in the air, he hit the release.
“Please don’t lock your door during the day,” the woman scolded him as she came into the room, around to the side of his bed. It was Debra Forsythe, a woman around his age, whom Max had met briefly at his check-in. She had been on her way home to deal with some crisis with her kids, and hadn’t been happy then, either. “And not at night either,” she added, “until you’ve been here a few days.”
“Sorry.” He gave her an apologetic smile, hanging on to it as the woman gazed at him through narrowed eyes.
She didn’t say anything, she just wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his arm, and pumped it a little too full of air—ow—as Gina opened the bathroom door. “Did I hear someone at the door?” she asked brightly. “Oh, hi. Debbie, right?”
“Debra.” She glanced at Gina, and then back, her disgust for Max apparent in the tightness of her lips. But then she focused on the gauge, stethoscope to his arm.
Gina came out into the room, crossing around behind the nurse, making a face at him that meant . . .?
Max sent her a questioning look, and she flashed him. She just lifted her skirt and gave him a quick but total eyeful. Which meant . . . Ah, Christ.
The nurse turned to glare at Gina, who quickly straightened up from searching the floor.
What was it with him and missing underwear?
Gina smiled sweetly. “His blood pressure should be nice and low. He’s very relaxed—he just had a massage.”
“You know, I didn’t peg you for a troublemaker when you checked in yesterday,” Debra said to Max, as she wrote his numbers on the chart.
Gina was back to scanning the floor, but again, she straightened up innocently when the nurse turned toward her.
“I think you’re probably looking for this.” Debra leaned over and . . .
Gina’s panties dangled off the edge of her pen. They’d been on the floor, right at the woman’s sensibly clad feet.
“Oops,” Gina said. Max could tell that she was mortified, but only because he knew her so well. She forced an even sunnier smile, and attempted to explain. “It was just . . . he was in the hospital for so long and . . .”
“And men have needs,” Debra droned, clearly unmoved. “Believe me, I’ve heard it all before.”
“No, actually,” Gina said, still trying to turn this into something they could all laugh about, “I have needs.”
But it was obvious that this nurse hadn’t laughed since 1985. “Then maybe you should find someone your own age to play with. A professional hockey player just arrived. He’s in the east wing. Second floor.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Lots of money. Just your type, I’m sure.”
“Excuse me?” Gina wasn’t going to let one go past. She may not have been wearing any panties, but her Long Island attitude now waved around her like a superhero’s cape. She even assumed the battle position, hands on her hips.
Debra pointed her purses lips in Max’s direction. “Overnight guests are forbidden. No exceptions.”
“Did you just have the audacity to judge me?” Gina blocked the nurse’s route to the door. “Without knowing the least little thing about me?”
Debra lifted an eyebrow. “Well, I have seen your underwear, dear.”
“Exactly,” Gina said. “You’ve seen my underwear—not my personality profile, or my resume, or my college transcript, or—”
“If you think for one second,” the nurse countered, “that anything about this situation is even remotely unique—”
“That’s enough,” Max said.
Gina, of course, ignored him. “I don’t just think it, I know it,” she said. “It’s unique because I’m unique, because Max is unique, because—”
Debra finally laughed. “Oh, honey, you are so . . . young. Here’s a tip I don’t usually bother to tell girls like you: If I find one pair of panties on the floor, it’s only a matter of time before I find another. And I hate to break it to you, hon, but the girl who comes out of the bathroom next time, well . . . She isn’t going to be you.”
“First of all,” Gina said grimly, “I’m a woman, not a girl. And second, Grandma . . . You want to bet it’s not going to be me?”
“I said, that’s enough,” Max repeated, and they both turned to look at him. About time. He was used to clearing his throat and having an entire room jump to full attention. “Ms. Forsythe, you took my blood pressure—you have the information you needed, good day to you, ma’am. Gina . . .” He wanted to tell her to untwist her panties and put them back on, but he didn’t dare. “Sit,” he ordered instead, motioning to the desk chair that could be pulled beside the bed. “Please,” he added when Nurse Evil smirked on her way out the door.
He swore sharply, David Jones’s still-so-familiar voice coming out of that stranger’s body. “Do you have any idea how unbelievably hard it’s been to get you alone?”
Had she finally started hallucinating?
But he took off his glasses, and she could see his eyes more clearly and . . . “It’s you,” she breathed, tears welling. “It’s really you.” She reached for him, but he stepped back.
Sisters Helen and Grace were hurrying across the compound, coming to see what the ruckus was, shading their eyes and peering so they could see in through the screens.
“You can’t let on that you know me,” Jones told Molly quickly, his voice low, rough. “You can’t tell anyone—not even your friend the priest during confession, do you understand?”
“Are you in some kind of danger?” she asked him. Dear God, he was so thin. And was the cane necessary or just a prop? “Stand still, will you, so I can—”
“No. Don’t. We can’t . . .” He backed away again. “If you say anything, Mol, I swear, I’ll vanish, and I will not come back. Unless . . . if you don’t want me here—and I don’t blame you if you don’t—”
“No!” was all she managed to say before Sister Helen opened the door and looked from the mess on the floor to Molly’s stricken expression.
“Oh, dear.”
“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” Jones said in a British accent, in a voice that was completely different from his own, as Helen rushed to Molly’s side. “My fault entirely. I brought Miss Anderson some bad news. I didn’t realize just how devastating it would be.”
Molly started crying. It was more than just a good way to hide her laughter at that accent—those were real tears streaming down her face and she couldn’t stop them. Helen led her to one of the tables, helped her sit down.
“Oh, my dear,” the nun said, kneeling in front of her, concern on her round face, holding her hand. “What happened?”
“We have a mutual friend,” Jones answered for her. “Bill Bolten. He found out I was heading to Kenya, and he thought if I happened to run into Miss Anderson that she would want to know that a friend of theirs recently . . . well, passed. Cat’s out of the bag, right? Fellow name of Grady Morant, who went by the alias of Jones.”
“Oh, dear,” Helen said again, hand to her mouth in genuine sympathy.
Jones leaned closer to the nun, his voice low, but not low enough for Molly to miss hearing. “His plane went down—burned—gas tank exploded . . . Ghastly mess. Not a prayer that he survived.”
Molly buried her face in her hands, hardly able to think.
“Bill was worried that she might’ve heard it first from someone else,” he said. “But apparently she hadn’t.”
Molly shook her head, no. News did travel fast via the grapevine. Relief workers tended to know other relief workers and . . . She could well have heard about Jones’s death without him standing right in front of her.
Wouldn’t that have been awful?
I’m very glad,” Jones continued fervently, sounding like a card-carrying Colin Firth impersonator. “So very glad. You can’t know how glad . . .” He cleared his throat. “I hate to be the bearer of more bad tidings, but your . . . friend was something of a criminal, the way I heard it. He had a price on his head—millions—from some druglord who wanted him dead. Chased him mercilessly, for years. I guess this Jones fellow used to work for him—it’s all very sordid, I’m afraid. And dangerous. He had to be on the move constantly. It was risky just to have a drink with Jones—you might’ve gotten killed in the crossfire. Of course, the big irony here is that the druglord died two weeks before Jones. He never knew it, but he was finally free.”
As he looked at her with those eyes that she’d dreamed about for so many months, Molly understood. Jones was here, now, only because the druglord known as Chai, a dangerous and sadistic bastard who’d spent years hunting him, was finally dead.
“It’s entirely possible that whoever’s taken over business for this druglord,” he continued, “would’ve gone after this Jones, too. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have searched to the ends of the earth for him . . . Although, when dealing with such dangerous types, it pays to be cautious, I suppose.”
Message received.
“Not that that’s anything Jones needs to worry about,” he added. “Considering he’s left his earthly cares behind. Still, I suspect it’s rather hot where he’s gone.”
Yes, it certainly was hot in Kenya right now. Molly covered her mouth, pretending to sob instead of laugh.
“Shhh,” Helen admonished him, thinking, of course, that he was referring to an unearthly heat. “Don’t say such a thing. She loved him.” She turned back to Molly. “This Jones is the man that you spoke of so many times?”
Molly could see from the expression on Jones’s face that Helen had given her away. She might as well go big with the truth.
She wipes her eyes with a handkerchief that Helen had at the ready, then met his gaze.
“I loved him very much. I’ll always love him,” she told this man who’d traveled halfway around the world for her, who apparently had waited years for it to be safe enough for him to join her, who had actually thought that, once he arrived, she might send him away.
If you don’t want me here—and I don’t blame you if you don’t—just say the word . . .
“He was a good man,” Molly said, “with a good heart.” Her voice shook, because, dear Lord, there were now tears in his eyes, too. “He deserved forgiveness—I’m positive he’s in heaven.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy for him,” he whispered. “It shouldn’t be . . .” He cleared his throat, put his glasses back on. “I’m so sorry to have distressed you, Miss Anderson. And I haven’t even properly introduced myself. Where are my manners?” He held out his hand to her. “Leslie Pollard.”
Even with his glasses on, she could see quite clearly that he’d far rather be kissing her.
But that would have to wait for later, when he came to her tent . . . No, wait, Gina would be there. Molly would have to go to his.
Later, she told him with her eyes, as she reached out and, for the first time in years, touched the hand of the man that she loved.
Vic, of course, clasped Max’s hand, obviously sizing him up, doing that macho squeeze thing that drove Gina nuts. “He’s younger than I remember,” he said to Gina. Perfect. Thank you so much, Victor. Then, back to Max, “We met—very briefly—a few years ago. Looks like being shot has agreed with you.”
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Gina told the man who had just moved into first place as the most stupid of her three very stupid brothers.
“What?” Vic shrugged as he dragged over a chair. “I’m just saying—Max looks good. You know, for an older guy. What’d, ya lose weight while you were in the hospital?”
“Yes, Victor,” Gina said. “They call it the Almost Dying Diet.” She turned to Max. “My brother is an idiot.”
“It’s all right,” he said, flexing his fingers—no doubt checking to make sure Victor hadn’t broken his hand.
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