“I’m sure I will, too.” He walked toward the street, not looking back at Caleb, his gaze searching for a taxi.

Dammit, he didn’t like the idea of not leaving Jane in safe hands. Caleb had always been an unknown quantity, and what they did know was vaguely terrifying. But Jane had never been afraid of Caleb, and she was the one who had brought him back into their lives. She was going to have to take care of herself until he found out what had happened to Eve.

After that, he could concentrate on monitoring the actions of Seth Caleb and trying to keep him from harming Jane either physically or emotionally.

Blood on the grass.

He hailed a cab and jumped into the backseat. “Airport.”

*   *   *

CALEB …

Jane’s eyes focused on him sitting in a chair across the hospital room. It was dim in the room, and he was more shadow than substance. It didn’t matter. She could never mistake Caleb for anyone else. The grace, the leanness, the explosive vitality that was present even when held in leash.

“What … are you doing here?” she asked drowsily.

“Being bored. You’re not being very entertaining.” He got to his feet and strolled across the room. “I told Quinn that I didn’t want to unduly stimulate you, but I thought you’d at least be awake part of the time. You’ve been asleep for hours. How do you feel?”

“Like hell.” There was a sharp, nagging pain in her shoulder. But she didn’t feel drugged as she had before. She’d take the pain over that fuzziness anytime. Her senses were sharp and alive. “You don’t have to be here. Go … away.”

“In a few more hours. I’m guarding you. Can’t you tell?”

“No.”

“I arranged for a local security company to send a couple men to watch your room, but until then, you’ve got me.” He was close enough now for her to see his smile. “Aren’t you lucky?”

“Don’t need you.”

“I don’t think that you need watching either. If that sniper really wanted you dead, he’d have tried to do it before you started to leave the island.” He reached out, and his forefinger touched her cheek. “But I can’t be sure, and I’m not going to give you up because of a mistake in judgment.”

“Then be quiet and let me go to sleep.” There was heat beneath that finger on her flesh and she couldn’t decide if that heat was pleasant or hurtful. Perhaps it was both.

But she didn’t want him to take his hand away, she realized.

“You’re hurting.” He rubbed his finger gently over the curve of her cheekbone. “Why don’t you relax, and I’ll make it go away? I can do it, you know.”

She didn’t doubt that he could. She had experienced a little of that weird talent that Caleb seemed to possess. It was all connected with the pulsation of the blood, but that pulsation appeared to control everything from thought processes to sexual responses. “It’s not necessary. If I want to get something for the pain, I’ll call the nurse.”

“But you won’t do that. You’re too spartan.” His thumb touched the corner of her lips. “When I donated blood for you, I was too tense to think about it at the time, but now I’m beginning to appreciate the nuances. I believe I like the idea of having my blood running through your veins. It’s rather provocative. As you know, there are all kinds of weird stories in my family about the power of our blood. It’s interesting that we’ll have a chance to test their truth.”

And Jane was sure that she didn’t like the idea at all of having Caleb’s blood. Those stories were no doubt nonsense, but he could use them to make her feel uneasy. “I don’t need you,” she repeated.

“And you don’t trust me. Not me, not Mark Trevor. No one but Joe Quinn. Actually, it makes me feel better that you didn’t trust Trevor, either. It kind of puts us on an even keel. I’m usually working at a disadvantage on that score.”

“Of course I don’t trust you. I don’t think you want me to trust you. It would shackle you.”

“Wise Jane. You may be right.” He chuckled. “Having you need me would be much more entertaining.” He asked softly, “Shall I make you need me? I can do it, Jane.” He bent forward and his lips touched her own. “Oh, how I’m tempted. But you’re wounded, and you’d hold it against me.”

“You bet I would.”

“First, I’d take away the pain, then I’d make you feel … exceptional. I wouldn’t even touch you, but you’d have a truly incredible experience … and so would I.” She could feel the curve of the smile on his lips as he brushed them back and forth on her own. “Quinn would try to kill me for doing this. Everyone would say what a complete bastard I am to even contemplate victimizing poor Jane. But then we both know that I don’t have the same moral standards as other people.” His tongue outlined her upper lip. “You’re wary of that little talent of mine, but controlling the flow of blood can be fantastically erotic. This doesn’t hurt, does it? You’d push me away if you didn’t like it.”

Why wasn’t she pushing him away?

Because all pain was gone.

Because every gentle, light touch was hypnotically pleasurable.

Because she felt as languid and sexual as an animal in heat.

“Get away from me, Caleb.”

“I don’t think you mean that.” He lifted his head and sighed. “But you might convince yourself you did later.” He straightened. “So I’ll bow to conventional morality and my own belief that it will probably be better if I wait.” He went back to his chair across the room. “It was good touching you at least. I think about it all the time, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“I believe you did. You choose to ignore it. I don’t mind.” He dropped down in the chair. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here to make sure the pain doesn’t come back.”

She watched him settle in the chair, and he was once more blending into a barely defined outline in the half darkness.

A shadow figure.

She was feeling no pain at all.

But her lips were burning, tingling.

Her breath was short, her pulse rapid.

Heat was pounding through her body.

Her breasts were taut and ready.

He was no shadow.

CHAPTER

7

BUMPING.

Thunder.

The sound of the rain on the metal roof.

Eve sluggishly opened her lids. Heavy. So heavy.

Her entire body felt terribly heavy beneath the coarse red blanket.

She tried to push the blanket aside.

She couldn’t move, she realized with panic.

She tried again, but her body wouldn’t obey the command.

Bumping again …

Why?

Truck. She was on the floor of a truck, wedged between the backseat and the front.

And there was someone in an orange cap and camouflage rain gear driving the truck.

Familiar …

She should remember who he was, but she couldn’t make any connection with her memory any more than she could with her reflexes.

He was speaking, she realized vaguely. But not to her; she could see the gleam of a computer screen through the space between the front seats. The driver was talking to a freckled, red-haired man who was staring defiantly out of that screen.

Skype? She used it sometimes when Joe was out of town. What did it matter what computer program …

Tense—the red-haired man staring out of the screen was tense, maybe even afraid. It was obvious in every line of his expression.

“You’ve failed me, Blick,” the man driving the truck said regretfully. “You’ve failed both of us. You said that I could trust you, that you’d do what I told you. Kevin would be so disappointed in you.”

“No, he wouldn’t, he’d understand.” Blick moistened his lips. “I had to do it. You told me I had to keep her on the island. You said it was important that she didn’t get in your way.”

“I didn’t tell you to shoot her.”

“She was going to leave the island. She was almost at the plane. I didn’t know what else to do, Doane.”