Dare To Love

“Susan?”

“Yeah. You’re Susan Easton. Or has the drug erased your memory, too?” he taunted.

“N-no. I’m not Susan. I’m Kai Easton. Susan is my half sister.”

He reared back, surprise mirrored in his expression. Then, just as suddenly, the flicker of shock was gone, and only that gray, opaque stare remained.

“Susan Easton has red hair, she is five feet seven inches tall and weighs one hundred twenty pounds. And she jogs that same route every day, seven days a week. Boyce has been keeping track of her movements for three weeks now…. He couldn’t have made that kind of mistake.” An then Matt pulled out a black-and-white photo from the pocket of his shirt. It was a poor, partly blurred photo of Susan jogging in one of her tailored outfits. He held it near Kai’s face. “You do look similar with your hair pulled back by a sweatband,” he groused, shoving the photo into his pocket once more.

“Susan didn’t jog today because it’s raining. And I just got home on leave yesterday. I borrowed one of her outfits because I forgot to pack mine.”

Matt combed his long, strong-looking fingers through his hair. “If you’re telling the truth…dammit.”

Kai would have burst out laughing if the situation hadn’t been so serious. “Did you kidnap the wrong woman?” she managed dryly.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “It doesn’t really matter,” he muttered. “You’re an Easton. Susan just happened to be our target because she was the most visible.” Then regret came to his eyes. “You’re the physical-therapist nurse.”

“Yes.”

Ruefully Matt shook his head. “For all your red hair and freckles, you sure as hell don’t have any Irish luck, lady.”

Kai grimaced, watching as he babied the lacerations around her wrists with antiseptic. “Believe me, ever since my father remarried, my luck’s gone down the tube.” She bit back any more of a response, realizing how quickly and intimately they had established a rapport. Kai withdrew her wrist. He raised his chin, staring at her. In that fleeting second he appeared…different. Kai could easily imagine him in a military uniform or in a business suit. Everything about him shouted that he was a man who was above the act he had taken part in.

“You haven’t answered my questions. What’s going to happen to me?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“We’ve kidnapped you for money.”

“My father will pay it. Any amount.”

“Four million?”

Kai drew in a sharp breath. “Four—”

“You’re worth it,” he muttered cryptically, reclaiming her wrist.

Anger tinged her drugged state. “But why? I’m just a nurse! I’m a U.S. naval officer who lives in Bethesda, Maryland. This doesn’t make sense, Mr.—”

“Matt Taylor’s the name.”

Her look was scathing. “Is that your real name?” What kidnapper would stupidly give her his real name? She could relay that vital information to the police once they freed her.

“That’s as close as you’re going to get.”

“At least you have some manners, even if you do have to resort to lying.”

His look made her feel as if she’d just been shot.

“Look, Kai, the game we’re playing with each other is necessary. I’m sorry we kidnapped you and not your sister.”

Suddenly Kai sobbed. It was unlike her to be overemotional. She had been a nurse for almost six years after winning her navy commission out of college. She loved her work and her patients. But this was too much. They had wanted Susan—not her. Her lips parted as tears rolled helplessly from her eyes. “I—I’ve never hurt anyone. At least not intentionally. And neither has Susan.” Well, that was a bald-faced lie. Susan effectively cut up everyone with her royally bred tongue. When she was in one of her shrewish moods, she made everyone who didn’t come up—or down—to her standards feel like a case of the urban blight. And Frank’s perverse moods made Susan’s look like the pranks of a child in kindergarten.

Kai turned her head toward the wall, trying to escape the mortification of crying in front of her captor. She felt Matt Taylor’s fingers come to rest on her chin, gently drawing her head back toward him to meet his gaze. She stared up into his anguished gray eyes.

“Believe me, no one’s sorrier about this than I am, Kai.” He brushed her cheek dry with his fingers. “You’re Easton’s daughter by his first wife.”

“Y-yes.”

A slight smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “The love child?” He posed the question softly.

Kai winced. “Please….” Her voice was strained. “My father’s second wife and her three children remind me of the circumstances every time I come home on leave. I’m a bastard to our mutual family.”

She blinked back the tears. Why did she have the feeling he knew about love? And yet he was her kidnapper. She had seen loss reflected in the depths of his eyes as she’d spoken.

2

MATT TORE HIS GAZE from her. He had found himself falling helplessly into those wide, understanding emerald eyes. Kai’s compassion for others jarred him to the core. He had expected a twenty-three-year-old woman who had a reputation in Houston for being a spoiled brat. Instead they had captured Kai, who seemed to be a diametric opposite to Susan. What a pity, he thought. He could at least have reconciled himself to the fact that the experience might have made her a bit humbler. He had rubbed elbows with the wealthy enough times and found them an interesting lot. They lived by a different code, a different set of principles. He returned his attention to Kai.

“Feeling any better?”

“A little more coherent. My right thigh aches, and my wrists—”

“There was no need to hurt you.”

A shiver coursed up her arm from where his fingers rested. My God, did Matt affect her that much? Quickly she reorganized her thoughts and began focusing on her plight.

“So you’re the boss?” Her voice was whiplash taut.

“That’s right.”

Kai was annoyed with herself. She prided herself on her ability to judge people. If Matt Taylor had masterminded this whole fiasco, then he was the worst of the lot! She jerked her wrist away.

“You bastard.” She struggled to sit up, suddenly aware that as the blanket fell away, her sweat shirt was revealed, clinging to her like a second skin and outlining her full breasts, flat stomach and slender waist. Heat rushed from her throat up into her face. She was blushing. As much as the recuperating military officers and enlisted men ogled her in the hospital words, or teased her good-naturedly, she never blushed. But this man made her excruciatingly aware of her femininity, exhilarated and uneasy all in the same breath. Infuriated with herself and frightened, Kai was not in full control of her emotions, and her anger ballooned.

“I take that back. I’m a true bastard. But you—” her voice shook with feeling “—you’re the worst kind of human being. You’re a parasite. Someone who bleeds off people’s losses and misfortunes.”

Matt resigned himself to the tirade. Color had rushed back to her cheeks, and her eyes had a flicker of life in them once again. It appeared that she was beginning to throw off the effects of the drug. He drew an inner sigh of relief, willing to have her recuperation compensate for her anger.

“Let me finish cleaning your wrists,” he told her in a level voice that was meant to defuse her rage.

“I’ll do it myself! Just hand me that—”

“You’re shaking like a leaf, Kai. You couldn’t even hold—”

She drew her knees up against her chest, her body pressed to the wall. “I don’t want you to touch me!” she cried fiercely. That was a lie. Matt’s touch gave her an instant’s reprieve from this unfolding nightmare. He imparted strength, stability and some intangible emotion that made her feel protected.

His eyes grew cold and unreadable. “Tough. Knock it off, and give me your wrist.”

They stared at each other with the silence engulfing them. Exhaustion was thinning Matt’s reserve of patience; he hadn’t slept in the past twenty-four hours. He didn’t believe in using unncessary force, either. Especially on a helpless child or a woman.