Shadow Game (31 page)

"Bring him into the back. I recently closed my small clinic so I have all the equipment we need on hand." The doctor led the way through the spacious rooms. "I've prepared a room at the very back of the house and I gave my staff a few days off. Lily said to get him back to her as soon as possible."

"Did she tell you we'd be staying?" Ian asked. "We'll take turns sitting up with him."

"Suit yourself, but I doubt if that will be necessary. I think he'll do fine."

The room was large and airy with a tremendous view. Ian walked over and pulled the heavy drapes. Sam opened the closets and all adjoining doors. "It's very necessary, Doc, but don't worry, we won't get in your way. We're self-sufficient," Ian said as he put his pack on the table. "We brought our own rations."

Lily had made certain to send along more than enough food when she heard the men were going to be staying. She had also insisted they keep working on their exercises.

"We'd like to secure the house," Ian said. The doctor's eyebrows shot up. "I don't know what that means."

"Your locks are standard issue," Sam pointed out. "A child could break in."

"I have a dead bolt on the front and back doors." The doctor was not really paying attention to the conversation. He bent over Jeff Hollister, leaning close to peer into his eyes. His voice was unconcerned. Dr. Adams had no interest at all in the subject of security.

"You don't mind if we beef up your security, do you, Doc?" Sam asked.

Adams waved his hand vaguely. "Do whatever you feel you need to."

The knots in Ryland's stomach loosened. Dr. Brandon Adams had a mind similar to Lily's. She understood him. He was interested only in his subject. Not Jeff Hollister, only his brain and what it could reveal to him.

It's all yours, Nico. We're clearing out.

Ryland gave the signal to the others and they left the house with the same stealth they'd used when entering. The doctor never knew they had even been there.

Thirteen

THE house was still being watched. Arly had security guards patrolling, but the men hiding in the shadows were no civilians. Ryland was uneasy having his team split. And he was disturbed over Lily. He had reached out to her over and over in the last few hours, but she hadn't responded. He hadn't realized how much he counted on that connection between them and it was disturbing that he couldn't touch her. Once he had gotten Jeff Hollister to safety, he had concentrated on Lily, but he had been unable to establish any kind of bridge.

Throughout the long afternoon and evening, Ryland had become increasingly worried. Ian had come to him twice, saying he "felt" danger but couldn't say why. Ryland tried to put it down to the obviously military team guarding the house. It didn't help that he couldn't touch Lily.

Frowning, Ryland moved as a GhostWalker, slipping through the lines to get a fix on the positions of their enemy. Once a radio crackled, the sound loud in the crisp night air. A guard lit a cigarette, shielding the red glow with his hand, but the smell floated on the wind. Ryland watched them for some time, observing their boredom. The night was going to be long and cold for the watchers.

Finally. He saw the headlights and then Lily's car come up the winding drive. She was home and his world was right again. The day had been far too long, his heart pounding in his throat every time he thought of her alone at Donovans. Those people had managed to murder her father, and Ryland feared, as time went by and they could find no trace of the GhostWalkers, Higgens would begin to panic.

Satisfied, Ryland moved like the wind, silent, deadly. He blended into the mottled patterns of the trees and shrubbery along the high fence line. Arly had told them the fence was wired with sensors and throughout the grounds motion detectors crisscrossed the area. He gained the treeline just behind the estate, using the larger tree trunks as cover as he moved into deeper woods. Ryland slipped easily past two guards holding a bored conversation near the entrance to the closest tunnel.

The long-stemmed rose he held in his hand was devoid of thorns, he had seen to it personally. He wished he had dozens of them for Lily, but he had done the most he'd felt it safe to do. Bypassing security, he had entered a flower shop on his way back from seeing Jeff, and left the money for the single perfect rose on the counter to be found by a puzzled employee. He didn't think taking a dozen would have allowed him to sneak past the watchers unnoticed.

Ryland went swiftly through the twists and turns in the narrow tunnel. The passageway came out in the upper halls. The day staff was long gone. Even so, he went through the door cautiously, ready for anything, all senses alert. Darkness greeted him. Even the night-lights were off. It didn't matter; he moved unerringly toward his goal.

Ryland went from shadow to shadow, gliding through the enormous house quickly. He found himself directly under the staircase leading to the upper stories and the wing of the house where his men were waiting. He walked up the stairs but veered to the right, toward Lily's private quarters.

Standing just inside her bedroom, the sound hit him first. Soft. Muted. Lily,
his
Lily, was weeping. He stopped moving, so shaken he trembled. The sound of it tore out his heart. His fingers curled around the rose, a tight fist against such a wrong. He drew a deep breath of air into his lungs, held it, let it out slowly. Her crying was almost more than he could bear. It made him weak and it turned his insides to mush. He reminded himself every day it was a loss of control, not very macho for a Special Forces man, and most of all that Peter Whitney might really have manipulated him in some way, but none of it seemed to matter.

More than anything he respected courage and integrity and loyalty, all of which Lily had in abundance. Not wanting to startle her, Ryland eased his way close. "Lily," he said her name softly, tenderly, with a blend of heat and smoke.

Lily's gasp was audible. She buried her face in the pillow, turning away from him, humiliated to be caught in such a vulnerable moment. "What are you doing here, Ryland? Arly told me you were gone, that you had gone to check on Jeff." There was an edge to her voice. He heard it in spite of the sound being muffled by the pillow.

"Lily, you weren't worried about me, were you? You can't be crying because you were afraid for me." The idea alarmed and pleased him at the same time. He reached for the bedside lamp.

"No." She caught his wrist to stop him. "Please don't."

Ryland stood for a moment hesitating, unsure how to handle her mood. He brushed the velvet flower petals along her tear-wet cheek before laying the rose carefully on the pillow beside her.

Lily shivered with awareness, turned her head to look at the rose, then shifted her gaze to his face. There was so much sorrow in her blue eyes it beat at him, weakened him. "I'm so sorry about your father, Lily, I know how much he meant to you." He sat on the edge of her bed, carefully removed his shoes, and then dropped his shirt on the floor beside the bed. Very slowly, so as not to alarm her, he stretched his length out beside her. With infinite gentleness he pulled her into his arms. "Let me hold you, honey, just comfort you. That's all I want to do right now. I never want you to cry like this again."

Lily burrowed close to him, buried her face against his broad chest, her body relaxing into the shelter of his. She put her mouth against his ear, her breath warm on his skin. "It isn't my father, Ryland. It's everything. A moment of weakness. Nothing."

Something in her voice warned him. Everything male and warrior deep inside him went still. Waited. He inhaled sharply and smelled… blood. "What the hell?" His hands tightened possessively. "What happened to you? Where are you hurt?"

Lily clung to him. "I was in my father's office, looking around, and I found a small voice-activated recorder. Someone came in and hit me hard. I fell backward and they nailed me again as I was going down. They took the recorder."

He stiffened, a tremor running through his body. Rage was swift, volcanic. He swore very softly beneath his breath. "I'm going to light a candle and look at you. How bad were you hurt and where the hell were those idiot security guards?" He hissed the question at her.

When she didn't answer, Ryland reached around her to find the matches on her nightstand. The flare was small, a soft hissing as he lit the aromatic candle. He dropped the match in the holder and caught her chin firmly in his hand, turning her face this way and that inspecting the damage. His gut tightened; something very dangerous welling up deep inside him roared for release.

"Damn it, Lily, did you see who did this?" he persisted.

"I was just turning when he hit me. I had a brief impression of him and then I was on the floor." She traced his frown with the pad of her finger. "I'm fine, a little stiff, but I'll live."

His hands moved over her head. He felt a large bump near her temple and she winced when the pads of his fingers gently examined her.

A dark, predatory expression crossed his face, shimmered in the depths of his eyes, a menacing threat that caused her to shiver. At once he leaned forward to brush her temple and cheek with the warmth of his mouth. "You were supposed to have guards at Donovans. Where the hell were those useless guards? Where were they when all this was happening? Why weren't they watching over you? I should never have allowed you to go back there. Damn it, I'm a military officer, and I let a civilian go unprotected into a dangerous situation." He let
her
go—
Lily
—and she was hurt.

His voice was so beautiful it seeped through her pores deep into her body. As always it moved her as nothing else could. Somehow her head throbbed less with his concern. She touched his face gently, wanting to soothe him. "You know it was my decision alone and no one could have stopped me." When she felt him stiffen, she hastily continued. "An alarm went off. The guards ran to see if security had been breached," Lily said tiredly.

She lay back, settling closer to the warmth of his body without being fully conscious of doing so. "When I first went in this morning, Colonel Higgens met me and walked me to my office. Phillip Thornton joined us there and they told me they wanted me to have military guards because they were afraid you might attempt to kidnap me. They implied you may have been the one to attack me."

There was a small silence until he could swallow his anger. Both men knew he wouldn't hurt a woman.

Deliberately his white teeth flashed, a wicked smile that had his eyes glittering silver. "Kidnapping you has a very erotic side to it," he teased.

A small answering smile curved her soft, trembling mouth in spite of the attack. "You're so outrageous, Ryland. Only you would think of something so kinky."

He nuzzled her neck. "I like kinky, honey, when you're involved." His teeth teased her earlobe.

"More interesting things to look forward to." Despite her game attempt to smile, she sounded infinitely weary.

His heart turned over. He drew her closer to him, felt her soft body yielding to his. Ryland fought down his body's reaction, knowing she needed comfort. He could feel the pain throbbing in her head. "Did you take something for your headache?"

"I wouldn't take anything from them, I waited until I came home. I'm not sleepy or tired so much as just wanting to lie in the dark and feel sorry for myself."

He brushed kisses over her face. Feather light. Tender. "You need a cup of hot chocolate. I'm going to call Arly and have him get a doctor here to look you over."

"No! You can't do that, Ryland, you don't know them. Arly, John, Rosa, they'll be crazy. I'm fine, really, just a bump and a headache. And it gives me a great excuse to miss work for a couple of days and no one here will think anything of it."

"I don't want you to ever go back there. There's no need."

"Don't, Ryland." She touched her finger to the sculpted perfection of his mouth.

"Don't what? Want to protect you? I'm sorry, Lily but there's no way that instinct is going to go away. I knew. That day you walked into the room. I knew right then in that heartbeat of time when my brain was going crazy and my skin crawled and my insides were knotted up so tight I was going to explode. You walked into the room, Lily, and you were so damn beautiful it hurt."

"I don't remember it quite like that."

He crushed her silky hair in his large hands, brought the strands to his face to rub them along his jaw. "You tore out my heart on the spot, lady. It's been yours ever since. Damn it, I can't do anything else, feel anything else, but wanting to protect you."

"Ryland…" She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes. "I feel the same way about you, but we're both enhancers. Anything we feel is just more intense."

He took the rose from her pillow and placed it carefully on the nightstand beside the candle. "I've thought about this, came at it from every angle. I don't believe what I feel for you has anything at all to do with enhancing, Lily. I'd walk through hell to protect you. I'm not one of the nice men you've always known in your protected world. Don't see me like that, because it isn't who I am. You're stuck with the man I am."

"I don't want you to be any different, Ryland." It was true. In spite of herself, she couldn't help but love the way he was so protective.

"You're magic, Lily, sheer magic. And you're mine, Lily, my everything. I'm drawn to you because you're Lily Whitney with more courage in your little finger than most people have in their entire body. You have a brain, a sense of humor, a smile that knocks me over, and every single time I'm near you, I want to tear your clothes off. And damn it, I'm not going to lose you."

"You're not going to lose me." Her lashes lifted to give him a glimpse of her startling blue eyes. "I knew you would get around to sex sooner or later."

His hands slipped around her to cup her breasts beneath the sheet. She fit into his palms, warm and petal soft. "I forgot to say you always smell good too." He inhaled deeply, taking her scent into his lungs where it swirled, a potent temptation. "Stop deliberately distracting me, Lily, I want to give you a lecture."