Colder Than Ice. Maggie Shayne
She didn’t know where she was, and when she tried to think about who she was, or what had happened to her, a yawning black hole opened up in her mind. She felt close to panic at that gaping hole in her mind. It felt as if she were teetering on its edge, as if she might fall in and be swallowed up by its darkness, so she chose not to look there anymore. Instead, she focused on the sensation of a warm, strong hand that surrounded one of hers.
And from that point her senses opened wider, to admit the soft, tormented voice that spoke to her.
I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.
She wondered what he was so sorry about. Was he somehow responsible for whatever had happened to her? But he held her hand, and he sounded so kind….
I don’t even know your name. No one does.
Not even me, she thought.
But believe me, I’d switch places with you if I could. I’d rather it were me in that bed than you.
She liked the man who held her hand. She wished she could find a way to tell him that it was all right. That she was all right. And then she realized—she wasn’t. She couldn’t wake up. Maybe she never would.
I’d give anything in the world if you would just open your eyes. I want to see them. Their color—I want to see that more than anything. He squeezed her hand a little tighter. Come on. Open your eyes for me. Open them.
Then there was a woman’s voice. She told him he had to leave. And on the way out, she said, “It wasn’t your fault, we all know that. She was in the line of fire. Any one of the agents could have been the one whose bullet hit her.”
And then she went on. “There’s really no point in your coming back here, you know. She doesn’t know you’re here. And besides, she’s not going to last out the week.”
Then I’m not sure how the hell I’m supposed to.
God, his voice was so familiar. And so filled with regret!
A telephone rang, shrill and sharp. It cut through the dream, and Beth sat up, looked at her bedroom around her and sagged in relief when knowledge filled her mind. She knew who she was. She knew where she was. She was all right after all.
But that dream—it had been a long time since she’d had that particular dream. She’d all but forgotten about the man who had come to sit with her while she wasted away, a comatose Jane Doe in a hospital bed.
The phone rang again. She turned toward the nightstand, reached out for the telephone, the night-light making it easier. Then she brought it to her ear.
“Hello?” No one was there. “Hello? Who is this?”
When no one answered, a chill slid up her spine like an icy finger. The memory of Mordecai crossed her mind, and she reminded herself that she had always known he would find her sooner or later. Maybe tonight was the night.
Then she frowned, because she could hear voices. She pressed the volume button on the side of her phone, clicking it up as many notches as it would go. It sounded like…it sounded like Maude, speaking to someone else. It was muted, distant.
Beth flung back her covers and got out of bed, going into the living room, where the caller ID box was, and looking at the digital readout. Maude’s phone number showed on the screen. She listened, heard nothing more, then depressed the cutoff and dialed it back.
A harsh busy signal was her only reply.
“Hell.” Something was wrong over there. She didn’t know Joshua Kendall well at all—and the fact that he’d stirred some kind of insane attraction in her should probably be taken as a bad sign rather than a good one. The last man she’d been attracted to had turned out to be an insane mass murderer.
Beth shoved her feet into her running shoes, simply because they were near the door. She yanked a coat off one hook and her car keys off another as she went out the door and into the brisk chill of an autumn night in Vermont.
Joshua had been dreaming about hot, wet, frantic sex with Beth Slocum when something woke him up—and at the worst possible moment.
He groaned, wondering when the hell he’d started having dreams worthy of a seventeen-year-old, then rolled over and glanced at the clock. The time—5:06 a.m.—glowed at him in neon green. Then he heard footsteps and was on his feet and pulling his gun out of the holster on the bedpost before another thought had time to cross his mind.
He yanked a bathrobe—one Maude had laid out for him that was not his own—from the footboard and jerked it on, then headed barefoot into the hallway, the gun in his hand, his hand in the robe’s pocket.
At Maude’s room, he paused, because her door was opening. He stepped back a little. She poked her head out. “Is that you, Joshua?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Something woke me.”
“Me, too.” She swung her door wider and turned around, shaking her head. “I could have sworn I heard someone in the kitchen.”
“Why don’t you stay right here and let me go check?”
“My goodness. Yet another benefit to having a young man around the house, I guess. All right, I’ll force myself to let you wait on me. After all, ‘A woman who says she dislikes chivalry is both dishonest and a fool.’”
“That’s a good one. I’m gonna write that down.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze, then took hold of her door and told her to get back inside. She did, and he pulled it closed. Then he closed his hand around the grips of his .38, tiptoed to the stairway and down it.
There was someone in the kitchen. Even now, he heard movement. Soft, barely audible, but there.
He crept through the house, through the dining room and into the kitchen. Reaching inside, he flipped the light switch and raised the gun.
A large black cat sat on the counter, glaring at him with eyes that seemed more irritated than startled.
Sighing, he lowered the gun.
“Well, I’ll be…” Maude said from behind him.
He frowned, turning to face her. “I thought I told you to stay upstairs.”
“Oh, Joshua, don’t be silly. I’ve never obeyed a man’s orders yet, and I don’t intend to start now, chivalry or not.” She nodded at the cat. “That’s Frankie’s beast. Comes in here any time I leave a window open more than a quarter inch, looking for a snack. I swear he’s made of rubber. Aren’t you, Siegfried?”
“Siegfried?” He shook his head. “Don’t tell me—Frankie has another cat named Roy?”
“Dog. Bluetick. Dumb as a rock, but twice as friendly.” She moved to the fridge, pulled it open and reached in to straighten the row of tiny brown vials of insulin before grabbing a small carton of cream. As she poured some into a bowl for the cat—who weighed fifteen pounds if he weighed an ounce—headlights invaded the house from the front, and then footsteps raced across the porch and someone pounded on the door.
Maude paid no attention. She was looking at the cordless phone that lay on the counter beside the feasting cat, bringing it to her ear and frowning at it.
Joshua went to the door and, after a cursory look outside, opened it.
“What is going on?” Beth asked. “Where’s Maude?”
“Um…” His brain was not processing her questions, because she was standing there in an unbuttoned denim jacket with fake fur at the neck and sleeves, and a T-shirt. Aside from the sneakers on her feet and the goosebumps on her legs, he wasn’t sure she was wearing anything else, and that idea sort of lodged in his brain and wouldn’t let go. “Uh…”
She snapped her fingers in front of her chest, then raised them to point at her eyes. “Up here, Josh. Hello? You with me now?”
He nodded. His gaze faltered, started