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Where was he? Had he been captured? They would give almost anything, risk almost anything, to take him alive.
He moved cautiously, his mouth setting grimly at the amount of effort it took. There was pain in his left shoulder and lacing through his left thigh, and he had a dull headache, but both his leg and arm obeyed his mental command to move. Awkwardly using his right hand, he threw the sheet back and struggled to a sitting position. Dizziness assailed him, but he gripped the side of the bed until the feeling subsided, then he took stock once again. A pristine bandage was wrapped around his thigh, thickly padded over the wounds. The same treatment had been given to his shoulder; gauze had been wrapped around it, then anchored around his chest. He was totally naked, but that didn’t bother him. His first priority was to establish his mobility; his second was to find out where the hell he was.
He stood, the wounded muscle in his thigh quivering in outrage at being forced into motion. He wavered, but didn’t fall, merely stood there until the room stopped swaying and his leg was steady under him. Despite the coolness of the room a fine sheen of sweat began to form on h
is body.
There was no sound except for the gentle whir of a ceiling fan that hung over the bed and the distant mechanized sound of an air conditioner. He listened intently, but could detect nothing else. Keeping his right hand braced against the bed, he took a step toward the window, grinding his teeth together at the searing pain in his leg. The closed slats of the old-fashioned blinds drew him. Reaching the window, he used one finger to lift a slat and peer through the crack. A yard, a vegetable garden. Nothing unusual, but nothing in sight, either, human or animal.
An open door was in front of him, revealing a bathroom. Slowly he moved to the doorway, his black eyes taking note of the items on the vanity. Hair spray, lotions, cosmetics. A woman’s bathroom, then. Perhaps the red-haired woman who had been on the boat? Everything was neat, impeccably clean, and there was a certain spare luxury to both the bath and bedroom, as if everything had been chosen for maximum comfort while still leaving a lot of what was simply bare space. The next door over was a closet. He pushed racks aside and checked sizes. Again, everything was for a woman, or a small, very slender man of undecided sexuality. The clothes ranged from remarkably ragged to sleekly sophisticated. A disguise?
Cautiously he opened the next door slightly, putting his eye to the small crack to make certain there was no one out there. The small hallway was empty, as was the room he could see beyond it. He eased the door open, balancing himself with a hand on the frame. Nothing. No one. He was alone, and that made no sense at all.
Damn, he was weak, and so thirsty that the fires of hell seemed to be in his throat. Limping badly, occasionally staggering, he made his way through the empty living room. A small, sunlit alcove was next, and the glaring sun streaming through the windows made him blink as his eyes adjusted to the sudden excess of light. Next was a kitchen, small and sunny and extremely modern. A colorful array of fresh vegetables lay on a counter, and there was a bowl of fresh fruit sitting on the center work island.
Cotton lined his mouth and throat. He groped toward the sink, then opened cabinet doors until he found the glasses. Turning on the cool tap water, he filled a glass and turned it up, pouring the water into his mouth so thirstily that some of it spilled down his chest. With that first terrible urgency satisfied, he drank another glass of water and this time managed to get it all in his mouth.
How long had he been here? The blanks in his memory made him furious. He was vulnerable, uncertain of where he was or what had happened, and vulnerability was one thing he couldn’t afford. But he was starving, too. The bowl of fresh fruit beckoned, and he wolfed down a banana, then half an apple. Abruptly he was too full to eat another bite, so he tossed both the banana skin and the half-eaten apple into the trash.
Okay, he could get around. Slowly, but he wasn’t helpless. His next priority was to find some means of self-defense. The most available weapon was a knife, and he examined the kitchen knives before choosing the one with the sharpest, strongest blade. With that in his hand he began a slow, methodical search of the house, but there were no other weapons of any sort to be found.
The outside doors all had extremely strong dead-bolt locks on them. They weren’t fancy, but they would damned sure slow down anyone trying to get in. He looked at them, trying to remember if he had ever seen any locks exactly like them, and decided that he hadn’t. They were locked, but what sense did it make to put the locks on the inside, where he could get to them? He turned the lock, and it opened with a smooth, almost silent movement. Warily he reached for the knob and opened the door a little, again checking through the crack to see if anyone was in view. The door was heavy, too heavy to be an ordinary door. He opened it a little more, running his fingers along the edge. Steel reinforced, he guessed.
It was a snug little prison, but the locks were on the wrong side of the doors, and there were no wardens.
He opened the door completely, looking out through a screen door at a neat little yard, a tall pine thicket and a flock of fat white and gray geese searching for insects in the grass. The heat coming through the screen door was thick and heavy, hitting him like a blow. A dog appeared as if by magic from beneath a bush, leaping up onto the porch and staring at him with unblinking eyes as its ears went back and snarls twisted the canine muzzle.
Dispassionately he examined the dog, weighing his chances. A trained attack dog, German shepherd, weighing eighty or ninety pounds. In his weakened condition he didn’t have a chance against a dog like that, even with a knife in his hand. He was effectively caged, after all.
His leg would barely support his weight. He was naked, weak, and didn’t know where he was. The odds weren’t in his favor, but he was alive and filled with a cold, controlled rage. Now he also had the advantage of surprise, because whoever had brought him here wouldn’t be expecting him to be up and armed. He closed the door and locked it again, then watched the dog through the window until it left the porch and resumed its position beneath the bush.
He had to wait.
AN ENORMOUS, PURPLISH-BLACK thunderhead was looming in the sky when Rachel turned into the driveway. She eyed it, wondering if it would dump its load of rain out at sea or hold it until it was over land. The rain would be torrential, and the temperature would drop sharply, but as soon as the cloud had passed the heat would rise again, and the rain would evaporate in a suffocating cloud of steam. Ebenezer Duck and his flock scattered, honking irritably, as she pulled the car under the shade of the oak tree where they had been lazily pecking at the grass. Joe lifted his head to look at her, then returned to his snooze. Everything was calm, just as it had been when she’d left. Only then did she feel an easing of the tight constriction in her chest.
She got the bag out of the trunk, unaware of the sharp black eyes that followed her every move. Holding the bag in one arm and the keys in the other hand, she climbed the steps to the porch, paused to shove her sunglasses on top of her head, then held the screen door open with her hip while she unlocked the door and pushed it open. The air-conditioned coolness was such a shocking contrast to the searing heat outside that goose bumps rose on her flesh, and she shivered. Taking deep breaths, she dropped the bag and her purse on one of the love seats and went to check on her patient.
Just as her hand touched the doorknob a hard arm circled her throat and she was jerked backward, her neck arched unnaturally. A brightly gleaming knife was held in front of her face. She had been too stunned to react, but now sheer terror flooded her as her gaze locked on the knife. How had they gotten in? Had they already killed him? The anguish that rose in her was wild and ferocious, consuming her.
“Don’t fight and I won’t hurt you,” a deep voice murmured in her ear. “I want some answers, but I won’t take any chances. If you make a wrong move—” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. How calm the voice was, as cool and unemotional as stone. It made her blood congeal.
The arm under her chin was choking her, and she automatically raised both hands, clutching at him. The knife moved menacingly closer. “No, none of that,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. Rachel shrank from the knife, her head digging into his shoulder, her body crowding frantically against his in an attempt to put distance between herself and that shining blade. Every detail of his body was imprinted against her, and suddenly her dazed senses realized what she was feeling. He was naked! And if he were naked, then it had to be…
Sharp, piercing relief, as painful in its own way as the fear and anguish had been, made her muscles suddenly tremble as the tension left them. Her hands relaxed on his forearm.
“That’s better,” the low voice growled. “Who are you?”
“Rachel Jones,” she said, her voice breathless because of the pressure he was putting on her throat.
“Where am I?”
“In my house. I pulled you out of the surf and brought you here.” She could feel him hesitate, though perhaps it was simply that he was growing weaker. His strength was astonishing under the circumstances, but he had been very ill, and his stamina must be wavering. “Please,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
That was the truth, Sabin thought grimly. He was exhausted, as if he’d run a marathon; his legs felt as if they would give out on him at any moment. He didn’t know her, and he couldn’t trust her; he had only this one chance, and a wrong guess could cost him his life, but he didn’t have much choice. Damn, he was weak! Slowly he relaxed his right arm from around her throat and let his left hand, the one holding the knife, drop to his side. His shoulder throbbed, and he doubted that he would be able to lift his arm again.
Rather than jerking away from him, she turned cautiously, as if afraid of startling him into an attack, and wedged her shoulder under his right arm, while her arms went around him and supported him. “Lean on me before you fall,” she said, her voice still a little breathless. “It would be a mess if you tore all those stitches out.”
He didn’t have much choice except to drape his arm over her slender shoulders and lean heavily on her. If he didn’t either sit down or lie down—soon—he was going to fall, and he knew it. Slowly she helped him into the bedroom, supporting him as he virtually collapsed onto the edge of the bed, then holding his head in the crook of her left arm as she lowered him into a supine position while she reached around him with her other hand to arrange the pillow. Sabin drew a deep breath, his senses automatically reacting to her warm female scent and the softness of her breast against his cheek. He had only to turn his head to press his mouth against her nipple, and the image teased at him with a curious urgency.
