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  Jefferson bent and picked up his duffel to stop himself from weakening and planting his fist in Tristan’s face, brother or not. His head knew that his brother was trying to manipulate him, but his gut churned at the very notion of Emily with someone else. Even Tristan. Or, perhaps particularly Tristan.

  “She deserves some happiness,” Tristan said.

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” Jefferson growled. “I want her to be happy. I want her to be safe, too. And if I stay, she won’t be safe.” His head pounded and his breathing grew harsh. “She won’t be safe from me.”

  Tristan frowned. “You’d never—”

  “Take a look at her arms, Tris.” Jefferson kept his eyes open, knowing as soon as he closed them he’d be seeing those black bruises. Bruises that he’d inflicted. “You’ll see for yourself why I have to go.”

  “She could help you through this, if you’d let her.”

  “No.”

  “She’s a strong piece of work,” Tristan continued. “Just tell her what happened.”

  “Nothing happened,” Jefferson ground out the blatant lie.

  Tristan sighed. “Until you can admit that something did, I guess there’s nothing more to say, is there.”

  “Exactly.”

  Tristan picked up the cane beside the dresser and held it toward his brother. “Except that while you’re off denying what’s gone on in your life, Emily might just decide to move on with her own.”

  Chapter Four

  Emily rose the next morning and mechanically moved through her morning jog to the stable. She had to force her mind to stay on her riding, however, lest Bird toss her onto her backside in the bushes lining the dirt trail. By the time she turned back for the stable, she was fully awake and Bird had worked out his jitters. If only the rest of her life were so easily controlled.

  Jefferson was gone.

  She hadn’t needed to peek into the guest room to see if his duffel was still sitting on the dresser. Nor had she needed to look into the garage to see if the black rental car was still there.

  She’d instinctively known.

  Her steps dragged as she walked back to the house. He’d only been there two days, but she knew the house would feel empty without him. As empty as she felt herself.

  She’d survive. Just as she’d told Tristan she would. She’d had plenty of practice. She’d been surviving for years now.

  So she prepared for the day and drove off to work, telling herself that she was going to get on with her life. She would, once again, hide away her hopeless feelings for Jefferson. Maybe this time she’d even be able to move past them.

  It was with that thought in mind that the next day she accepted Stuart Hansen’s invitation to join him and a few of his friends for the weekend. They were driving down to Mexico, he told her. They’d leave Friday after work and return Sunday evening. Just some guys and girls getting together for some sunshine and seafood. No pressure, he assured. She could bunk with the other two women who were going.

  Tristan frowned at her when she told him that night over supper that she’d be gone for the weekend. “I thought you weren’t serious about the bean-counter.”

  “I’m a bean-counter,” Emily responded smoothly. “And who says I have to be serious about Stuart? We’re just going to Rosarita Beach for the weekend with some other people.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because he invited me now, that’s why.”

  “Where will you be staying?”

  Emily shrugged. She wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up camping on the beach. “We’ll wing it, I’m sure. Don’t worry,” she smiled tightly, “I’m not going to do anything foolish. Like elope on the rebound or something.”

  “Not with that dope, at least,” Tristan shuddered.

  “You’re awful. I thought you liked Stuart.”

  Tristan shrugged and leaned his chair back on two legs. “He’s okay. He’s just not…”

  Emily’s lips tightened. “Not Jefferson,” she finished. She rose and took her plate to the sink. Her appetite was nil, anyway. She meticulously rinsed off the uneaten casserole and placed the dishes in the dishwasher. “Look, Tristan, Jefferson is gone. I knew he’d leave. So, I’d just as soon we not talk about him.”

  “You’re the one talking, sweet pea. I was just going to say that Stuart isn’t real exciting.”

  Emily flushed. “Maybe I don’t want exciting,” she said. “Maybe I want someone nice and steady. Reliable.”

  “Jefferson’s reliable.”

  She laughed abruptly. “Right. You can always rely on Jefferson to leave.” Tristan just watched her and her eyes began burning. “I’m going to Mexico tomorrow night,” she said flatly. “We’re leaving from the office, so I won’t see you until we get back, I guess.”

  “I’d feel better if I at least knew where you’d be staying.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to come along and play chaperone,” Emily suggested tartly. “But somehow I don’t think you’d qualify for the part.”

  “At least take the mobile.”

  Emily didn’t want to take the mobile phone. But she would. Only because Tristan seemed to think it was important. “Fine,” she agreed tiredly. “It’s your turn to clean up,” she reminded Tristan. “I’m going to pack.” She turned and left before he could find another concern to latch on to.

  At the top of the stairs, she looked at the open doorway to the guest room. Closing her eyes, she wished with all her heart that she’d never heard of Jefferson Clay. And then promptly retracted the wish. Mentally squaring her shoulders, she strode into the room and yanked back the comforter, causing pillows to tumble every which way. She pulled off the sheets and bunched them in a heap, then remade the bed with fresh linens. With the ones she’d removed balled up in her arms, she clumped down the stairs and through the kitchen, straight to the laundry room.

  “Don’t pussyfoot around,” Jefferson warned, his temper short. He’d been sitting in this bloody office for an hour, waiting for the surgeon to return. “The fragment’s moving. Right?”

  The doctor, who looked young enough to still be in high school, moved past Jefferson and rounded his desk to sit down. He opened a thick file and seemed to study it for a while. He nodded. “We knew it was a possibility that the shrapnel would eventually begin to shift. That’s what’s been causing the numbness in your toes and foot.” He folded his hands across the file and watched Jefferson across the paper-strewn desk. “You’re going to have to decide, soon, Jeff. The surgery to remove the fragment is risky enough right now. The closer it moves to your spinal column—”

  Jefferson waved his hand, cutting off the surgeon’s words. He’d heard the spiel so many times he knew it by heart. “You know how many surgeries I’ve had since I…”

  The surgeon nodded. He knew full well what Jefferson had been through. The thickness of the medical file his arms rested upon testified to that fact. “Nevertheless,” he continued steadily, “you’re going to have to go through one more.”

  “One more that could leave me paralyzed.” Or dead.

  “You may become paralyzed without it,” the surgeon countered. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “The possibility that the fragment wouldn’t move did exist. That’s why I didn’t push the issue of the surgery when I met with you in Amsterdam. But it’s obviously not the scenario we’re looking at now. It is moving. And it will get worse. You could die, Jeff.”

  Either way, the odds weren’t in his favor. Unable to sit in the high-backed leather chair another minute, Jefferson rose, and moved over to the wide window. He looked out on the expanse of neatly groomed grounds. No one looking at the sprawling building located in upper Connecticut would take it for anything other than what it appeared. A commonplace industrial complex.

  Except the trucks that periodically entered and left the grounds weren’t carrying your everyday goods. Jefferson himself had arrived at the center thirty-six hours ago safely hidden away in the trailer of a semi that for all the
world appeared to be carrying paper products. Toilet paper, to be exact.

  Considering his life seemed to be in the toilet, it was a fitting touch. “I don’t want to get cut on again,” he said. Never mind the weeks and weeks of therapy he’d have to undergo once, if, the surgery was a success.

  “Your foot’s numb right now, isn’t it?”

  Jefferson didn’t answer.

  “Pretty soon, your calf will feel the same way. Then the rest of your leg. You won’t be able to move your knee. Al ready the reflexes in your other leg are diminishing.” The surgeon tapped his finger against the file.

  Jefferson pressed his fist against the windowpane.

  “You’ll never be able to return to the field, unless you do something soon.”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn about getting back in the field,” Jefferson said, gritting his teeth. He’d given enough of his life to the agency. Whatever time he had left would be his own.

  The other man closed the medical file. “What about the nightmares?”

  Damn that psychiatrist bitch. Nothing was private in this place. “What about ’em?”

  “The therapy sessions would help, Jeff. If you weren’t so damn stubborn.”

  “You know what kept me alive in that hellhole?” Jefferson queried. “Stubbornness.” It was also what had kept him going in the months since.

  “Okay. You’ve no plans to return to the field. What do you plan to do? Transfer to a different sector? Sit at a desk? Teach? Assuming that you even last more than a year or two. What? Regardless of what you choose to do with your future, Jeff, the surgery is still a necessity.” The surgeon swiveled his chair around so he could face Jefferson directly. “What about marriage? Children? Why cut off the possibility of those things if you don’t have to?”

  Every muscle in Jefferson’s body tensed. He couldn’t let himself think about that. Not when those thoughts were irrevocably twined with thoughts of Emily. It was a road he simply couldn’t travel down. “How long before I can get out of here?”

  “You know the routine. Seventy-two hours.”

  Leaving him a day and a half before he’d be transported back to the city by, in all probability, another toilet paper truck. He raked his fingers through his hair and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. Thirty-six more hours of people probing his mind and his body. Invading his dreams and his thoughts.

  The other man sighed. He might look like a kid, but he was one of the top men in his field. And he’d known Jefferson Clay for years. Pretty much knew what made the man tick. Jefferson Clay had been the best in the business. He’d had a golden touch for so long, that it had gotten pretty darn spooky. People stood in line to be on one of his missions, because despite the danger, everyone knew that when Jefferson Clay was the lead man, bloodshed on his team was nonexistent.

  The man had pulled off more successful missions than any other agent, and he’d only once failed. And it was that very single failure that even now continued torturing the tense man standing across the room. “Jeff, it wasn’t your fault that Kim died. You have to accept that. He knew the risks.”

  “Cold comfort for his wife.” Jefferson wheeled around and began pacing the length of the office. “Or for his little son.” His partner…his friend…had had every reason to live. Yet he’d died in that little square of a room that he’d been held in. The whole mission had been a fiasco from start to finish. But they’d waited and planned. And endured. Until the day had arrived when they made their break. The day their plans got shot to hell once again.

  It hadn’t gone the way they’d planned at all. Kim wasn’t supposed to have died. He’d been just a kid, practically. Hardly old enough to be married with a son of his own.

  “Are we finished here?” Jefferson asked abruptly. He knew the futility of just walking out. They’d find some way to drag him back.

  The surgeon sighed again and scribbled out a note. “Here,” he said as he shoved it into Jefferson’s hand. “Have it filled at the dispensary before you leave. It’ll help with the pain.”

  Jefferson stuffed the prescription in his pocket. He still had a nearly full bottle of pills from his last exam. He could handle the physical pain. It was that damned numbness that unnerved him.

  “I hope you change your mind about the surgery,” the man said as Jefferson prepared to leave the office. “Your chances are better with it than without.”

  Jefferson didn’t respond. He left the office and headed downstairs. If he didn’t show up in the cafeteria and eat something, he’d just be visited by that nurse-from-hell upstairs who had myriad ways of wearing a man down.

  The cafeteria more closely resembled a quiet, elegant restaurant than a person’s idea of a hospital cafeteria. He found himself a table that wasn’t occupied and dragged a second chair around so he could prop his leg on it. Then whittled away the next hour by nursing a bottomless cup of strong coffee and pushing a ridiculously mild enchilada around his plate. The chef could have used a few tips from Emily.

  “You should have ordered the roast beef,” a deep voice said next to him. “It’s overcooked and dry, but it’s a lot better than that crud.”

  Jefferson’s head swiveled. He looked up at the dark-haired man who’d seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Shock held him still for a long moment. “Well,” he finally mused. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  Sawyer Clay, eldest brother of the Clay crew, grinned wryly and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Good to see you, too.” He turned away briefly to signal the waitress for a cup of coffee. Then he took over the chair that Jefferson’s boot had kindly vacated. He shook his head. “Damn, Jefferson, you look like something the cat dragged in.”

  “Another bit of Clay wisdom,” Jefferson grimaced. He knew he looked beat. He felt beat. “I have a feeling your presence here is no coincidence. So cut to the chase. Why are you here?”

  Sawyer’s dark head turned as he leisurely studied the room. “It’s been a while since I was here,” he said. “But I see nothing’s changed. Do they still have that nurse upstairs…what was her name? Bertha?”

  Jefferson noticed the gold insignia on his brother’s dark blue uniform. Yet another notch up the ladder. He also noticed the way Sawyer hadn’t answered his question. “Beulah,” he supplied grimly.

  “Beulah,” Sawyer repeated. He grinned wickedly. “I’ve never seen a nurse who filled out her uniform like that.”

  “You’re crazy. She might look like something out of a teen age boy’s fantasy, but she’s got the temperament of a…geez, I can’t think of anything bad enough to describe that devil-in-nurse’s-white.”

  “You just don’t know how to handle her.”

  “Who wants to handle her? I see her coming and head the opposite direction.”

  Sawyer chuckled softly. He removed his coffee cup from the saucer and poured about half the cup’s steaming contents into the saucer.

  Jefferson watched his brother drink his coffee from the nearly flat saucer. “I haven’t seen anybody do that in a while,” he commented, putting away for the moment the questions he had for his brother. Questions like why his big brother, Mr. Navy-All-the-Way, was here at this private medical complex. Like why Sawyer even knew of its existence, much less Beulah’s existence.

  Sawyer set the saucer down, managing not to spill a single drop. “Proving that you haven’t been home in a while,” he said. “Squire never drinks coffee from the cup. It’s the only way to inhale hot coffee the way he does.”

  “Well, I’ve known other Swedes who don’t insist it’s the only way to properly drink coffee. Despite what Squire maintains,” Jefferson said. He’d never gotten the hang of drinking out of saucers. Oh, he’d tried it often enough when he was a kid, trying to be like his older brother and his father. But he’d always managed to spill it or burn his fingers or something. He liked his coffee in a mug, thank you. Not in his lap.

  Sawyer finished the coffee and nudged the empty saucer to one side. The time for chitchat was over. “
What did the doc say about your back?”

  Jefferson squared the end of the knife with the end of the spoon. He wondered exactly how much Sawyer knew about his activities. About the events that had brought him here to this medical facility in the first place.

  His lips twisted. Knowing Sawyer, he probably knew it all. His brother had the ability to find out anything he wanted about anybody. Apparently, even a brother who’d been so far underground that rumors had had him dead and buried. “I’m surprised you haven’t read the medical report yourself.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. Despite his casual pose, his eyes were sharp on his brother’s face. “Or have you?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “I know the gist of it,” he admitted. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve just been this route with the good Doctor Beauman. I really don’t feel like getting into it again.”

  “So you’re still refusing to have the surgery. Well—” Sawyer waved off the waitress before she could approach the table “—I can’t say I’m surprised. You always were stubborn. Nobody ever could tell you what to do. Have you talked to Tris about it? No. I’d guess not. You obviously know where Emily’s been living, too. That must have been interesting.” He continued speaking, clearly not expecting an answer from Jefferson. “Do you have plans? No? Well, good. Because I came to take you home.”

  Jefferson’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Not my home,” Sawyer elaborated. “My apartment isn’t big enough for two Clays. I’m taking you to the ranch. Tonight.”

  Jefferson straightened abruptly. “The hell you are. I don’t want to see Squire just now. Thanks all the same.” Even if it did mean an early escape from the white-coats.

  Sawyer studied him. And Jefferson felt his stomach clench.

  “It’s time to go home, Jefferson. Not just for your sake, either.” Sawyer’s lips tightened. “Squire’s in the hospital. He had a heart attack a few days ago.”

  Emily’s hand shook as she held the note up to the light, reading it through once again. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. Her legs gave way and she sank onto the kitchen chair. The note fell from her fingers and drifted to the floor.