Arresting Developments. Lena Diaz
An incredibly hot one, even when he wasn’t running a temperature, but still a stranger.
He frowned. “Why are you all wet?”
She choked at his unintended double entendre and coughed to cover her embarrassment.
“We’re, ah, both wet. From the spring.” She waved her hand toward the water behind them. “You had a fever and I put you in the cold water to bring it down. Now, if you’ll please—”
“If you insist.” He yanked her against his chest and brought his mouth down on hers.
She was so startled she didn’t immediately pull back. And by the time she thought to do so, he was kissing her senseless and her brain shut down. She slid her hands up his bare chest and around his neck, pressing herself against him as she opened her mouth for his searching tongue. He groaned and fell back against the bank, pulling her with him, deepening the kiss.
A sinfully long time later they broke apart, each of them gasping for breath.
He framed her face in his hands. “You’re so beautiful.”
“So are you.”
He laughed and they reached for each other again.
Kissing him was insane. Crazy. Stupid. And wonderful. She’d never, ever been kissed like this before. Every tug of his lips on hers, every swirl of his tongue inside her mouth sent an answering pull straight to her belly.
Stop. This isn’t just crazy, it’s wrong. He’s probably still delirious. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
She whimpered, hating her conscience but knowing it was right. If the roles were reversed, she’d be appalled and feel that he’d taken advantage of her.
Shoving against his chest, she broke the kiss and sat back. “We have to stop. This isn’t—”
His eyes closed and he collapsed onto his back.
“—right,” she finished, then frowned. “Dex?” She shook him. “Dex?” When he didn’t respond, she scrambled off his lap and checked his breathing. He was breathing deeply, evenly. His pulse was strong. But he was definitely unconscious.
Alarmed, she pulled his right pant leg up again and drew a sharp breath. “Oh, no.” The red streaks were worse, much worse. And they extended well past his knee now.
She shook him. “Dex, wake up. Come on. Dex.”
He moaned, as if in pain, but his eyes stayed shut.
Amber sat back, chewing her bottom lip. There was only one thing she knew that might help him, a potion she could make by mixing mud and two specific plants together into a poultice to draw out the poison. But what if she remembered wrong? What if she did more harm than good?
He moaned again, his handsome face scrunching up in a grimace.
If she didn’t help him, he’d die. Of that she was sure. The poultice was his only hope.
Please help me remember how to mix it right.
She shoved to her feet, grabbed her knife from the pile of belongings on the bank and took off running.
Dex twisted against the sheets, fighting through the darkness.
A delicate face leaned over him, her long, brown hair forming a curtain, her brow furrowed with concern.
“Sleep, Dex. Don’t worry. I’ll watch over you. You’re getting better.”
He reached for her. “Don’t go, Canoe Girl.” But she faded away like a ghost.
He cursed and tried to roll over, but every movement was painful. His entire body ached, as if he was back in college and had been in a drunken fraternity fistfight—and had lost.
A cool cloth stroked his arms, his forehead, driving back the awful heat that seemed to constantly surround him. Voices he didn’t recognize whispered close by. Footsteps echoed and a door slammed. A glass was held to his lips. He drank greedily and the cool water soothed his parched throat.
Canoe Girl leaned over him again. No, she was sitting this time, raising her arms, then lowering them, over and over, her muscles bunching with strain. She raised her hands, pulling something up into the air. Water dripped from it onto his pants. An oar? Why was she holding an oar? She moved it to the other side and dipped down again.
And then she was on her knees in front of him, her cool fingers brushing against his brow. That worried frown a constant twin to the look of concern in her eyes. Sad eyes. So, so sad.
She slid her arms around his neck and hugged him close. “Don’t tell them about me, Dex. Please. Don’t tell.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
He thrashed against the sheets, seeking relief from the heat. Hot. He was always so hot. He couldn’t remember not being hot.
The darkness called to him again and he gratefully surrendered.
* * *
DEX OPENED HIS EYES, blinking at the light.
“Well it’s about time you decided to rejoin the living. I was beginning to think the doc was wrong.”
He turned his head on the pillow to see a woman nearly as brawny as him, probably well over twice his age, with falsely bright red hair, sitting in a ladder-back chair beside the bed. He looked around the room but she was the only one there. “Where am I?”
“Callahan’s Watering Hole, in the extra bedroom in my apartment upstairs. I’m Freddie Callahan.”
“From Mystic Glades?”
“Either I’m famous and didn’t know it or our buddy Jake told you about me.”
He frowned. “How would you know that I know Jake?”
“I saw your last name on your ID, in your wallet. Figured it was too much of a coincidence for you to be named Lassiter and not be from Lassiter and Young Private Investigations. Called Jake—which was a pain since I had to leave town to get reception—and sure enough, he vouched for you.”
He started to scoot up in the bed but stopped when he realized he was naked beneath the sheet. He yanked it higher before sitting up. The room was small, with only the narrow bed, a dresser and a single window. A collection of shot glasses and empty whiskey bottles sat on a shelf along the far wall. And a pair of open doors beneath them revealed a closet and a small bathroom. He tried to remember how he’d gotten there, but his mind was a haze of confusing images and impressions.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t—”
“Remember what happened?” Freddie patted his hand. “No worries. We pretty much pieced everything together with Jake’s help after I called him. You crashed your plane into the Glades. The airplane folks done packed up what was left of it onto some fancy barge and took it with them to Naples for some kind of investigation. You got an infection and have been unconscious for a while. I had Doc Holliday come out and check on you to make sure you were coming along okay. You’re gonna be just fine.”
“Doc Holliday?”
Her mouth cracked open in a gap-toothed grin. “I’ve called him that for so long that I don’t remember his real name anymore. He’s a city slicker, comes out to the Glades when we have an emergency. He wanted to take you back to town, but Jake and I told him you were family and I kept you here in Mystic Glades. Jake said he’d call your people in Saint Augustine and tell them where you were. Ain’t nobody been by to check on you yet, though, which just proves we made the right decision keeping you here.”
She crossed her arms and gave him a crisp nod, as if to let him know she wasn’t impressed with his family’s lack of concern. Of course, she had no way of knowing