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The man headed across the room, likely to get me that wheelchair, leaving the doors unguarded. There wasn’t going to be a better chance.
I made a run for it and bolted into the emergency wing. I rounded a corner and slowed to a more appropriate, totally-normal-person pace.
All was going according to plan until I realized there were no names on the rooms, and so I was either going to have to figure out some kind of convincing lie to tell a nurse, or I’d have to check inside the actual rooms to try and find the head injury guy.
As soon as I spoke to someone, they’dknowI didn’t belong here. Then, back to square one—my butt kicked to the curb.
I stalked through the halls, hoping to magically divine head injury guy’s location. Maybe I’d get a tingle, or maybe—
I rounded a corner and stopped an inch away from something big and man-sized. Heat carried up my neck as I followed the buttons of his well-fitted dress shirt over what looked like a remarkably toned chest. My body swayed in surprise, or maybe in swoon.
The stranger reached out to catch me, but I didn’t need to be caught. He shoved his hands into his pockets. The almost contact flickered awareness across my skin, like a switch I didn’t know existed inside of me had flipped. It was similar to that time a week and a half ago when I’d fallen into another super smokin’-bodied stranger. I pushed the thought from my brain, because there was no reason to relive that trauma.
It would have been totally inappropriate to reach the few inches between us and run my hands all over this dude’s chest, and to my credit, I didn’t. It also would have been totally inappropriate to linger there, imagining the feel of his hands on me, and I realized that too late, that’s exactly what I was doing.
But while I didn’t move, he didn’t either.
All at once, the tiny bubble of heady pleasantness popped, and reality struck.
What was I doing? What was wrong with me?
I took a step back.
“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going. Totally distracted and….” Finally, I looked at his face, and I lost whatever words I’d been planning to say.
His skin was cracked and discolored and extremely swollen. The entire right half of his face was so puffy and bruised that it was difficult to imagine what he’d looked like before whatever horrible accident had befallen him. The left side was also puffy, but showed hints of his true looks—a square jaw and a scowling green eye.
“I think you might be headed in the wrong direction,” I told him. “That’s the wayoutof the hospital.”
“I know.”
“Okay,” I said, and took a step to the side to let him pass.
As he did, I noticed a ratty gray vest in his hands with yellow stripes.
Realization struck hard…almost like a hammer to the head. This was the man I’d accidentally bludgeoned.
“Hey, wait!” I called after him.
Instead of stopping and or slowing or turning back, he pretended not to hear me. And wait…was he walking faster? Yep, I had to speed-walk to keep pace with his long, brisk strides.
He was running away from me.
NINE
TRISTAN?
The assassin had found me.
She’d returned to finish the job.
My pulse whooshed in my ears as I fled for the exit. With every stride, the rhythm heightened in both pace and volume. A pulsating haze numbed my fingers and toes.
“Please, I need to talk to you,” she called in a gentle voice.
Oh, she was good. I’d fallen for her ruse the moment she’d crashed into me—the clumsy, gorgeous woman “accidentally” rounding the turn too quickly, mildly distraught, utterly enthralling. I’d tumbled headfirst into her big honey eyes, been lulled by her soft blush and her softer body, a body that melded so perfectly against me.
Even now, knowing it would mean being caught by my enemy, a small part of me wanted to turn back and see what she had to say. It was her voice, pleading with a touch of sugar, nearly irresistible.
