Dare To Love

“You’re upset. We’ve got a long way to go, Kai. Don’t start fighting me now. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll try to make it easier on you. After I get you bandaged up, I’ll find you something to eat. Are you hungry?”

Kai tucked her trembling lower lip between her teeth, afraid she would begin bawling in earnest. Just the rough velvet of his voice destroyed the anger she had aimed at him.

Matt groaned inwardly. Why the hell did she have to look like a helpless, vulnerable child in that moment? She was tearing down defenses he had erected two years ago. He cocked his head, studying her, trying to ferret out the answer. Her ponytail had loosened, the auburn hair framing her square face with softened waves. Her eyes were large, the color of flawless emeralds. High cheekbones gave her eyes almost a tilted, catlike appearance. She was exotic looking. Her mouth was generous and asymmetrical, one corner curving up more than the other. He liked her nose, patrician but with a slight hump, making it a bit less than perfect. An arresting face filled with contrast. The sort of face he could spend the rest of his life mapping with his eyes.

“Please,” Kai quavered, breaking into his thoughts, “let me go. My father will pay the ransom. All I want to do is go home….”

She was little-girl scared, and that fact tore yet another wall away from his heavily guarded heart. He hung his head momentarily.

“I can’t do that. There’s much more at stake here than you realize.” Matt closed his eyes. He knew this whole operation was going to be tough. But he had never envisioned this kind of emotional impact on him. Kai Easton was magically affecting him on every sensory level. And in those precious seconds of discovery, Matt realized he felt the first stirrings of wanting to live again.

“Kai, you have to trust me. Just do as I ask. Those two guys out there are hard. They won’t listen to your pleas or—”

“Or feel sorry for me like you do?” she hurled back contemptuously.

Matt leaned forward, gently recapturing her arm. “Lady, what I feel is hardly pity,” he warned her in a vibrating voice.

Matt’s touch was electrifying, and Kai bit back a gasp. His strong, tanned fingers wrapped firmly around her forearm, and she surrendered, remaining silent. After cleaning her wrist, he gave her an apologetic look. “All I’ve got is Vaseline so those cuts won’t stick to the gauze.” He allowed her to pull back her wrist while he drew out the ointment and smeared it across the dressing.

Kai said nothing, trying desperately to ignore him and his sensual touch as he carefully wrapped her wrist. He looked satisfied with the attempt.

“Not hospital-recommended,” Matt conceded, “but it’ll do for now.” His gray eyes lightened as he sought her approval. “You’re a nurse. What do you think?”

Kai glared down at her wrist. “Blood poisoning is a good bet,” she muttered, refusing to be drawn into his banter. Anger was replacing her wooziness. Right now all she wanted to do was slap his handsome face. Kai instantly regretted the thought. She could see exhaustion shadowing his pewter eyes. He had saved her from the humiliation of Boyce’s advances. She gave him her other wrist to clean, and the silence heightened unmercifully between them.

“At least tell me where I’m being held.”

“You’re at an abandoned warehouse near the gulf.”

Kai could hear the rain pelting against the roof and slashing against the sides of the empty building. The hollow, drumlike sound intensified in her head. Her burgeoning headache was growing to mammoth proportions. She closed her eyes, tipping her head back against the wall.

“Kai?”

She barely opened her eyes, the garish light hurting them. Matt Taylor’s concerned expression came into view. “What?” Kai sounded churlish. Ordinarily she never allowed her feelings to show. How many times had she coaxed, cajoled and needled her injured patients into trying to walk again? Kai had urged them to their feet when they had thought it an impossibility. And sometimes, especially at first, they had glared at her, cursed her and cried with her. She tried not to take their harsh words or looks personally. But she did at times; she was only human. She had forced herself to try to become detached and allow their epithets to bounce harmlessly off her. That technique didn’t always work.

With Matt, she took everything he said personally and then some. Kai felt helplessness and anger welling up inside her like a volcano, and she wanted to lash out at him. She wanted to hurt him as much as he had already hurt her.

“Come on,” she heard him say, “lie down. You’re getting pale again.”

Stubbornly Kai raised her head and glared at him, no matter how much it hurt to open her eyes. “Go to hell.”

One corner of his mouth quirked inward. “If you don’t lie down you’re going to collapse. You have a headache?”

Kai couldn’t deal with his kindness. “Just leave me alone!”

“Look,” he said in an exasperated tone, “we’ve already contacted your father. He knows how much we’re asking in ransom. As soon as he gets the four million together, I’ll meet with him. You’ll be home in no time.”

She grimaced. “That’s really funny, Taylor. The captor trying to comfort the victim.” She placed her fingers against her brow and forced out, “Who are you?”

Matt smeared the Vaseline on the gauze. “What do you mean?”

Kai tenderly rubbed her temple, which seemed to assuage the needlelike pain stabbing at her. “You know what I’m talking about. You’re not like those other two criminals.”

“Afraid I am.”

She opened her eyes, giving him an irritated look. “You’re not a very convincing liar, Taylor. In my business I’m trained to see men at their bottom line, and I can see through the games and manpulation you’re pretending with me.”

Matt carefully knotted the gauze around her other wrist. He scowled as he got up and retrieved a thermos filled with coffee and a chipped plastic cup. He poured her some. “Here, you’d better start drinking this.” He reached into the pocket of his pale blue shirt, producing a tin of aspirin. “And take a couple of these.” At the door he turned and looked back at her. Even in the damp, unflattering jogging clothes, she had a look of refinement.

Matt smothered the wistful images he conjured up of her in a long, sophisticated gown with her rich auburn hair arranged in a tasteful Gibson-girl hairdo. “Elegant” was the word that came to mind to describe Kai Easton. Maybe the rich were different. But Kai differed from her half sister. Susan epitomized the enfant terrible attitude that stalked some of the wealthy, whereas Kai’s lack of snobbery placed her at the opposite end of the spectrum. Matt reined in his rampant thoughts; he had to keep his mind on the business at hand. Kai Easton’s life was at stake in more ways than she could possibly fathom.

“I’ll be back later. Lie down and rest and don’t try to leave the room.” He motioned toward one corner. “The social amenities aren’t much, but they’ll have to do.”

Kai’s heart gave a resounding thud when she thought of Boyce. “They’ll leave me alone?”

Matt opened the door. “They won’t lay a hand on you.” He saw the momentary relief in her dark jade eyes. His scowl deepened as he closed the door and made sure it was locked.

Boyce and Wright raised their heads. Both sat around a dusty table shuffling a deck of cards. The grayness filtered through the shattered windows and afforded them precious little light to play poker by. The warehouse was one of the oldest on the dock; a broken-down wooden structure surrounded by newer ones with corrugated aluminum skins. Matt had chosen it because of its proximity to the gulf. If things to got too hot, they could escape in the forty-foot cabin cruiser floating in a nearby quay.

“How’s my girlfriend?” Boyce asked, grinning.

Matt’s eyes turned the color of charcoal. “Forget about her, Boyce.”

Boyce placed his cards on the table. He was a large, hulking man, half again Matt’s size. “Look, I don’t like these society dames, Taylor. The rich always think they’re better than the rest of us.”

“You screwed up. We kidnapped Kai Easton instead of her sister, Susan. Both of them have red hair and are the same height.”

Boyce looked momentarily shocked and then shrugged noncommittally. “Doesn’t make any difference. She’s an Easton. One’s as good as another.”

“Kai Easton’s a nurse. She works for a living.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Taylor. Now she’s Miss Goody Two Shoes. What she needs is a real man to show her what life’s about.”

Matt glanced at his watch. Boyce couldn’t be trusted. And he had to meet with Drummond in forty minutes. “Make that second phone call to Easton’s home. Be sure—”

Boyce slowly rosé. “I know. Make it from a different phone booth each time. Don’t worry, Taylor, I know my job.” He flashed a disdainful look. “This is my sixth kidnapping. It’s your first. So don’t try to tell me what to do. You’re supposed to coordinate and pick up the money. It’s my job to make the calls and take care of the broad.”

Matt’s face remained closed and unreadable. “Let’s go,” he ordered, motioning Boyce toward the corrugated door located at the other end of the warehouse.

The rain was coming down in earnest, soaking Matt’s shirt and stretching the thin material across his muscled back before he could reach the car at the end of the wharf-side dock. As always, he and Boyce split up, each taking a different route and vehicle. Even in the gloom of the shroudlike morning, Matt restlessly combed the deserted strip of wharf for any suspicious activity. No one but Drummond knew of their whereabouts…. He shut off his thinking there, allowing his instincts to override his mind. With his five senses Matt scanned the area. No sight, sound or smell escaped his abilities, honed to radar precision. It seemed he could almost feel danger, too—taste it when it was in the air.

For the past two years he had lived and behaved like an animal, rubbing elbows with the criminal element. A grimace pulled at his mouth as he peered through the slashing rain. His human side remained in hibernation. Until now…. Kai Easton was responsible for its reawakening. My God, why now? Why her? She was out of his league in every sense of the word. She was born rich. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. According to Drummond, Kai’s wildcatting father had had every last penny riding on one last oil well. The day Kai had been born, Paul Easton had gained a red-haired baby daughter, a multimillion-dollar producing well and had married his love hours after Kai’s birth. Two days later he had lost his adored wife, Rae, to post-labor complications.

Matt hesitated at his dark blue Toyota Celica. His sharpened gaze missed nothing as he looked over the sports car. Satisfied that it hadn’t been tampered with, he slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. Water trickled down the length of his strong jawline as he leaned over, placing the key in the ignition. One more look around the area and Matt slowly drove away from the wharf, heading toward the prearranged destination point.

He saw Boyce’s black Mustang easing out from another entrance. Matt braked to a crawl, wanting to make sure Boyce was heading in the opposite direction before turning left into the dreary noon-hour traffic. Drummond would be waiting….

* * *