Hot Zone (Elite Force #2)(17)
Author: Catherine Mann

The way she’d left the cafeteria without saying good-bye should have kept him away. Their time together was over. Mission complete. And yet he’d still been unable to scrub thoughts of her from his mind. Normally music offered him an escape, and now she’d invaded even that corner of his life.

Which brought him right back here. Searching for closure? A wise man would. But then he wasn’t known for his levelheaded thinking.

Already making his way into the library-turned-infirmary, he absorbed the look of her, relaxed in sleep. His eyes fell to the plump curve of her naturally pink lips. The floor seemed to vibrate under his feet and he knew there was no aftershock this time. The humming came from deep inside him.

Shit. He was screwed.

***

“Hello, Amelia.”

Hugh’s voice whispered through her mind so tangibly, she could have sworn he spoke from inside her dreams again. And if so, she wanted to stay asleep a little longer, even as reason intruded. Images of him in a hammock at her Alabama condo didn’t make sense but felt so right. Just lazing in her backyard, soaking up the clean air, the bright sunshine…

And munching on a huge hamburger.

Okay, now she really knew she was dreaming. Her stomach grumbled.

“Amelia?” Hugh said again, louder this time, from behind her.

Joshua stirred against her chest before settling his cheek into the curve of her neck again with a baby sigh and a bit of drool. Blinking through the layers of foggy sleep, she secured her hold on her nephew and looked over her shoulder.

As if conjured from her dreams, she saw Hugh waiting a few feet away by a shelf of reference books. She blinked fast, and sure enough, he stood a hand stretch away. His face was cast in shadows, the lights dimmed for the dozen sleeping children.

“What are you doing here again and so late?” she whispered as he moved to her side. “Is something wrong? Did you find out something about my brother and his wife?” Her throat closed up.

“No, I just—”

Nurse Gable shushed them both as she patted a sleeping baby girl on the back.

Amelia smiled an apology before turning back to him. “Let’s talk outside in the hall.”

He nodded and sidestepped the vigilant nurse on his way toward the door.

Slowly, Amelia stood, careful not to wake Joshua as she returned him to his playpen. Kissing her fingers, she pressed them to his forehead and swept a hand over his tight curls before turning back toward the open room.

And the man who’d filled her life so completely so quickly.

Hugh had come back. The first visit she could chalk up to curiosity and following through on his mission. The fact that he’d come a second time moved her more than it should. She’d sworn never to let a man’s presence matter so much again. Damn it all, she felt too vulnerable, too exposed and raw after her ordeal. That had to be the reason for her out-of-control reaction to this man.

She stepped into the hall where he waited, the brighter lights bringing into sharp focus his face—his eyes that burned with a wild and untamed look. Her stomach took a tumble.

His gaze held hers for another of those lightning-crackle moments, which felt all the more powerful in the night quiet of the hospital.

She wished she’d brought her water bottle to wet her dry mouth. “Why are you here? Did you find out something about my brother?”

“I’m sorry, but no.”

Disappointment stung, then shifted to confusion. “Then why are you back?”

“How much longer are you stuck in here?” He crossed his arms over his chest, big, unapproachable, and all the more confusing.

“I’m no longer a patient.” She crossed her arms defensively as well. “The doctor said Joshua can leave in the morning. I begged my way into the nursery so I could stay with him.”

“They probably welcome the help.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the occasional whimper from a baby or the subdued shuffle of distant feet. Finally, she blurted, “Why are you here in the middle of the night?”

“Why did you walk out of the cafeteria without saying good-bye?”

She blinked in surprise. “You’re here because I hurt your feelings?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then what would you say, exactly?” She stepped closer, frustrated by whatever game he was playing but unable to walk away from him again. She clenched her fists by her side to keep from reaching for him. To keep from indulging in the crazy need to find out if his chest was as solid as she remembered from when he’d covered her body during the shooting.

He scooped up one fist, his thumb sketching over the bandage on her cut hand. “I’m here because I owe you an apology.”

Now that wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “I’m not sure I understand.”

She didn’t pull away. Yeah, it was silly, but she needed the comfort of human contact. Of contact with him.

“It’s the real reason I’m here, I guess. Unfinished business with you.”

Unfinished business. The two words hung in the air between them, filling the space with possibilities until she could have sworn their bodies shared a link.

His dark eyebrows pinched together and a shiver skipped down her spine, pooling in her stomach. They weren’t flirting exactly, but she was fast realizing they were engaging in a dance of sorts here. She was not alone in feeling this draw, in needing something tangible to hold on to in a world turned upside down.

“Hugh? And this unfinished business would be?”

“I apologize for doubting you earlier when you told me Joshua was alive.”

She exhaled hard and hadn’t even known she was holding her breath. “I imagine you’ve seen so much in your job, you would get jaded. The worst-case scenarios would be more vivid for you.”

“You could say that. I’d think your job would do the same to you.”

“Sometimes… Mostly when it comes to trusting adults with a history of larceny, armed robbery, and so forth, but you get the idea. I could have just as easily been wrong about Joshua.” The truth of that clogged her throat for a second. “Reality was questionable down there. I had no idea I was trapped for two days—which you were wise not to clue me in about, by the way. My mind obviously was playing tricks on me so I wouldn’t panic.”

Was her brain toying with her now? Leading her to imagine what it might be like to explore every inch of that muscled strength that had saved her today.

“Your mind was doing its job helping you survive, and if your brother is half as tough as you, I predict he will be fine.”