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The name sounded tentative on his lips for a man so sure of himself. Agent Max Duvall had always been her favorite patient and it had nothing to do with his dark good looks or his killer body—they all had those killer bodies.
Most of the agents were hard, unfriendly. Some wouldn’t even reveal their names. Max always had a smile for her. Always asked about her welfare, made small talk. She looked forward to the quarterly visits by Max—and Simon.
Smashing a fist against her lips, she swallowed a sob. Simon had been friendly, too. He’d even admitted to her that he was engaged, although such personal communications from the agents were verboten. Where was Simon’s fiancée now?
Did Max have a wife or a girlfriend sitting at home worried about him, too?
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She blinked and met Max’s gaze. They were back on the desolate highway through the desert, and Max’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. A trickle of fear dripped down her back. Maybe those men back at her house were there to save her from Max. Maybe Max and Simon were in league together.
“Are you afraid of me?” His low, soft voice floated toward her in the cramped space of the car.
“N-no.” She pinned her aching shoulders back against the seat. “No, I’m not. You saved my life—twice. I’m just confused. I have crazy thoughts running through my head. Do you blame me?”
“Not at all.”
“If you could tell me what’s going on, I’d feel better—as much as I can after tonight’s events. I deserve to know. Someone, something is out to extinguish my life. I need to know who or what so I can protect myself.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“From what? For how long?” Her fingers dug into the hard muscle of his thigh. “You have to give me more, Max. You can’t keep me in the dark and expect me to trust you. I can’t trust like that—not anymore.”
Tears blurred her vision, and she covered her face with her hands. Hadn’t he just told her to snap out of it? If she wanted to prove that she deserved the hard truth, she’d have to buck up and quit with the waterworks.
“You’re right, Ava, but I have a problem with trust, too. I don’t have any.”
“You don’t think you can trust me?” Her voice squeaked on the last syllable.
“You worked in that lab.”
“The lab that you visited four times a year. The lab that kept you safe. The lab that treated your injuries—both physical and mental. The lab that made sure you were at your peak performance levels so you could do your job, a job vital to the security of our country.”
“Stop!” He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, and she shrank against her side of the car.
“That lab, that bastion of goodwill and patriotic fervor, turned me into a mindless, soulless machine.” He jabbed a finger in her face. “You did that to me, and now you have as much to fear from me as you did from Simon. I’m a killer.”
Chapter Four
Icy fingers gripped the back of Ava’s neck and she hunched her shoulders, making herself small against the car door. She shot a side glance at Max. The glow from the car’s display highlighted the sharp planes of his face, lending credence to his declaration that he was a machine. But a killer? He’d saved her—twice. Unless he’d saved her for some other nefarious purpose.
Her fingers curled around the door handle, and she tensed her muscles.
Her movement broke his trancelike stare out the windshield. Blinking, he peeled one hand from the steering wheel and ran it through his dark hair.
“I—I won’t hurt you, Dr. Whitman.”
She whispered, “Ava.”
He cranked his head to the side, and the stark lines on his face softened. “Where can I take you...Ava?”
She jerked forward in her seat. She couldn’t go home, as if she’d ever called that small bungalow teetering at the edge of the desert home.
But if Max thought he could launch a bombshell at her like that and then blithely drop her off somewhere, he needed to reprogram himself.
Had he really just blamed her for Simon’s breakdown?
“Before you take me anywhere—” she pressed her palms against her bouncing knees “—you’re going to explain yourself. How is any of this my fault?”
