After Midnight (37 page)

Or if she’d died, never knowing how much he loved her.

Standing abruptly, he rushed to the bathroom, bent over the toilet and vomited.

****

Isabeau’s throat was on fire.

She lay in the hospital bed, the blankets pulled to her chin, shaking, cold even though she’d been trapped in a burning building. Her entire body ached, throbbed, from her multiple injuries. Her right shoulder was scraped raw, her forehead cut. There were tiny little welts, dime-sized burns she’d been informed, all along her back where bits from the ceiling fell on her as she crawled along the rug. The largest of her injuries was the second degree burn on her right arm. At the moment, she couldn’t decide which hurt worse, her arm or her throat.

But at least she was alive.

Unlike Clint.

Tears welled in her eyes when she thought of Clint, trapped in the hell she’d managed to escape. Of the panic he must have felt as he choked and gagged on the thick smoke.

Unlike the police who’d just left, she believed Clint to be an innocent victim. She didn’t care that there were signs the fire was intentionally set. Even if the evidence showed it originated from inside the building, she refused to believe Clint had anything to do with it. Not Clint. Dear, sweet Clint who’d been her employee for years. Her friend.

Of course, if it wasn’t Clint, then there remained someone out there who wanted her dead. Someone angry and twisted enough, that they were willing to hurt others, in their quest to get her. Nausea and fear churned in her belly.

Suddenly uneasy, she rolled to face the door, cringing when pain knifed across her back. No position was comfortable, but at least if she remained still, the discomfort was kept to a minimum. A nurse had been by earlier and offered her a painkiller. She’d turned her down. She didn’t want numbness or sleep. She wanted the doctor to come and listen to her lungs again so she could leave.

Her pain was extensive, her loss complete, and her emotions much too close to the surface for comfort. If she was going to break, which with every minute longer she waited she feared was closer and closer to happening, she preferred to do it in private. She didn’t want any witnesses to her grief. She wanted her own bed and Noah.

Her eyes slid closed. Her heart clenched. Loss consumed her.

She wanted what she no longer had. Her home and business had been lost to fire therefore she had no bed to curl up in. And Noah, he was in California, working on his future.

A future she played no part in.

She couldn’t, she admitted, even if she wanted to. Because her livelihood was not the only thing lost to the fire. She’d also lost the music that had been with her for as long as she could remember—even when she hadn’t wanted it.

A constant, ever present piece of her.

Gone.

Leaving behind nothing but silence.

Unable to hold it off any longer, Isabeau curled in on herself and wept.

Chapter Eighteen

“How long ago did you get back?” Dominic asked as Noah sank into the overstuffed chair in the corner of Dom’s room.

“What time is it?” Noah glanced at the digital clock on the bed stand. “Three hours ago.” He leaned back in the chair and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Have you seen her, Dom? Spoken with her?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t find her.” Noah sighed, pressing his fingers against his eyes. “I have to find her.”

Exhaustion pulled at him, combined with the fear already coursing through him. He’d been searching for her since he’d gotten off the plane and discovered the voice mail message left by Dominic. The message that assured him that Isabeau had survived the fire. After eight hours of desperately trying to get back, of believing the worst, all he could think of was holding her. The only problem was no one seemed to know where to find her.

“I even went by the bar…” A shiver worked through him. A horrific sight that added fuel to his futile search for Isabeau, there wasn’t much left of her home and business. The fire had spared nothing, not even her SUV. Parked in its usual place along the back of the building, it had been too close to escape the intense heat and flames. “I can’t believe it’s the same place.”

“Have you checked with Thomas?”

“I went there first. The tattoo parlor was locked up tight, as was the entrance to the apartment above. No one answered.”

Dominic leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I assume you checked the local hospitals as well?”

Noah groaned. “You don’t even want to know how many there are. The most I could get out of them was that she wasn’t on any of the floors, and even that bit of information wasn’t easily gleaned.”

It wasn’t until the last place he’d gone that he discovered she’d been treated and released. Information that sent him back into Manhattan, to Thomas’s again, where his knocks had gone unanswered a second time.

He tossed his arm over his eyes. Where the hell was she?

“Noah?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you spoken with Tony since you left California?”

“He left me a message while I was in flight. I haven’t rung him back.”

“He says the offer is fair.”

Noah shifted his arm off his eyes and placed it across his lap. He stared up at the ceiling, trying to work up enough energy to go back to his room and make the necessary telephone calls. “I’ll ring him later.”

Dominic shifted positions, leaning back against the headboard. He pulled one foot onto the bed, resting his arm on his bent knee, while the other foot remained on the floor. “You know that Nick left?”

He hadn’t known, but the news didn’t surprise him. Were he in Nick’s shoes, with a wife and kids waiting for him back home in California, Noah would have skipped town already, too. “I don’t blame him.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, a silence Dominic finally broke. “Noah?”

Dom’s change in intonation brought Noah’s head up. He focused on his friend, half sprawled atop the bed, his head tipped back and slightly angled. “Yeah?”

“How many places do you think you looked for her?”

“Too many. Why?”

“Did you check your room?” He gestured with his thumb toward the wall at his back.

“What are you—” Water. Running through pipes. Out of all the hotels in all the cities in the world Noah had stayed in, there wasn’t a single room where the sound of water running in the next room wasn’t audible through the wall.

He stood, heart in his throat. “It’s most likely the maid.”

“She came through this morning.”

Scooping up the duffel bag that lay near his feet, Noah was out the door and standing before his room in the space of a heartbeat. He fumbled for his wallet and the keycard he kept inside. On the third try, he finally got the green light and pushed the door open.

Isabeau.

In one piece. In his room. Sporting blue surgical scrubs a few sizes too big for her frame, and a gauze wrapping that circled her right forearm from wrist to elbow.

Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her feet bare. Her face was pressed into one of his shirts—a poor substitute for the comfort she’d come to his room seeking. “I can offer you something better than an old shirt.”

Her head came up, her eyes locked on him. She was pale, her face drawn. Dark rings of fatigue circled pale gray eyes.

He’d spent eight long, agonizing hours not knowing if she was alive or dead. She had never looked more beautiful.

He pushed the door closed, turned the lock and placed the duffel near the closet. Then, he crossed the room and removed the shirt from her hands. Dropping it atop the dresser, he wrapped her in his arms. “I’ve been searching all over the city for you.”

She sagged against him, fisting her hands in his shirt to keep him close. “You’re supposed to be in California.”

“I’m supposed to be right here. What’s the matter with your voice?”

“Smoke inhalation.”

He could hardly bear to think about what she’d been through. And how much worse it could have been.

“Noah, are you shaking?”

“Like a leaf,” he admitted. “I need a minute. Just…give me a minute.” He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek to the top of her head—relishing the feel of her in his arms, breathing her in. He caught the hint of smoke beneath her shampoo and another tremor moved through him. “Are you all right? Were you hurt?”

She eased back enough to look up at him. “A few scrapes and bruises.”

He touched her, tracing his fingers lightly around the cut on her forehead. Her eyes drifted shut as he leaned down and pressed his lips near the mark. “I heard about Clint. I’m so sorry, Isa.” He cupped her face in his hands as tears welled in her eyes. “I thought it was you. When Dom called and told me about the fire, I thought…” He had to clear his throat to go on. “I didn’t know whether or not you were alive. Not until my plane landed.”

“Noah,” she whispered.

He couldn’t stop touching her, her face, her throat, her hair. She reached up and pulled the elastic band from her hair and he pushed his fingers through the silky strands. Then he kissed her, her face, her throat, he pressed his lips against hers and drank in the familiar taste of her. A taste he’d feared he would never experience again.

“How did this happen? Do they know?”

“They’re looking at Clint. They believe he may have gotten trapped after he started the fire.”

“No way, I don’t believe it.” You didn’t look at a woman the way he’d seen Clint look at Isabeau, and then try to burn her alive. “You don’t think Tommy—”

“No. He wouldn’t do this.”

He slid his hands down to rest atop her shoulders, wondering if he was ever going to stop shaking. Someone had intentionally set her building on fire, knowing two people were inside? “How do you know?”

“He wouldn’t, couldn’t have, he’s in rehab. Thomas convinced him to go, and I—”

“You what? You’re paying for it, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She gazed up at him, her eyes soft, sincere. “I’m doing it for Thomas, to give him a better chance at a relationship with his son. He deserves that.”

Emotion tightened his throat. Noah brushed his hand down her hair. “Yes, he does.”

She was the most unselfish woman he’d ever met. He wanted to take her to bed, make love with her and then hold her while she slept. Long enough for the shadows to clear from her eyes. He wanted his hands on her—all that smooth, soft skin—wanted to hear the quick hitch in her breathing as he explored her body, reassuring himself that she was all right.

Sliding his hands off her shoulders, he smoothed them down her back.

Her spine went taut, her body arched away from his. The hands fisting his shirt tightened as she drew in a quick shuddering breath.

“What’s the matter?” She’d gone pale. Tears filled her eyes. “Isabeau?”

“I’m okay.”

He could tell she wasn’t.