Awaken to Danger (2 page)

Hell.

She looked up, the motion jerky from shock most likely. Her eyes locked on his down the length of the

passageway, dark circles underneath. Hair even darker, tangled around her head in a silky mess that

begged his fingers to comb through, to rest on her shoulders and pull her to his chest for the comfort she

no doubt needed.

Her fingers went slack around the deep red blanket until the edge slid open to reveal her clothes. Jeans

and a silky pink shirt, mis-buttoned as if hastily snatched up and on—the same clothes she'd been

wearing when he ran into her the night before. He stuffed back the kick of jealousy and moved closer.

Still she didn't speak, a slight tightening of her full lips the only indication she registered his approach.

He wrestled with the detachment he would need to get through the next hour, a difficult battle. He looked

past her into the room to the sheet over a body on the floor. Closing his eyes, he swallowed and winged

a quick prayer for the dead man. There was nothing more he could do for Owens.

Nikki needed him.

Carson knelt beside her, too aware of the cops standing guard a few feet away. "Nikki?"

Finally, he let himself look at her face again even as he steeled himself for the unshakable draw combined

with guilt that made it tough to think around her, much less speak. He worked to read her expression, but

her face was blank. Still he couldn't miss the pale cast under her olive complexion.

She glanced up, frowning, confused. Or disoriented? Her shaky hand rose toward his face. "Your

mustache. It's gone."

What an odd thing to notice, but then she had reason to be in shock. Her wounded eyes seemed so

much older than her twenty-three years right now, a dangerous thought for him to have since their

twelve-year age difference helped him keep his distance.

He stroked his freshly bare upper lip. "That's what I get for shaving on the fly when I was running late."

Because his few hours at home during the night had been filled with thoughts of running into Nikki outside

Beachcombers on her way in to meet up with another man. "What happened here?"

She shrugged, the blanket slipping farther. "Gary is dead." Her voice was low, overly calm but thready, a

thin substitute for her normally husky and—God help him—sultry tones. "You probably already know

that."

"How?"

"We're not sure. Sometime during the night he hit his head."

Hit his head? Drunk and stumbling around in the room? Possible. Yet something was still... off. "I'm sorry

this had to happen to you. What can I do to help? Tell me and I'll do my damnedest to make it happen."

"Gary's the one we should be sorry for." Her fingers twisted in the burgundy blanket even as her face

stayed composed. "Thank you for coming over, but the SPs have everything under control."

So why were they keeping her around?

God, he wished she were anywhere else right now. She should be on her way to work. She often went in

early or on Saturdays to tutor at-risk students from other classes and schools. He shouldn't know so

much about her, but his ears always tuned in when her father bragged about his daughter's graduation

from college, her junior high teaching job, her latest marathon race.

Damn. He was a freaking sap when it came to this woman. Always had been.

Tearing his eyes away from her before he did something dumb like scoop her up and take her away, he

stared at the shrouded body being hefted onto a gurney. "Owens was in my squadron. I have to be here

for him, and your father would want me to look out for you."

Her father, a cargo plane loadmaster, was deployed to the Middle East. The last thing the Price family

needed was more stress with J.T. in a war zone and his wife taking care of a toddler with another

late-in-life baby on the way.

"I
am
okay." Nikki's teeth chattered faster in contradiction to her seeming composure.

"Right. And you're not in shock, either. Uh-huh." Carson shrugged off his jacket. No way did he want to

think of her father right now or all that guilt would drive him to his knees.

He'd betrayed the man in the worst possible way, a man who was more than a friend, more than a

comrade in arms. They'd been POWs together, the strongest of bonds.

He owed J. T. Price better than screwing the man's daughter. He couldn't make up for the past, but he

could take care of the present by hauling Nikki out of whatever mess she'd landed her most excellent ass

in.

Carson passed his jacket to her. She stared at the coat so long he wondered if she might simply ignore

his offer. Finally, she took it from him carefully, without touching his hand.

The blanket slid around her waist as she shoved one arm then the other into his coat, a final shiver rattling

her teeth. "I'm sure my dad will be grateful."

Not hardly.

He wanted to tell her he'd come for her, too, but that wouldn't be wise with a cop within earshot.

The gurney wheeled past with the sheet covering the outline of a body. She went even paler under her

deep tan. She tanned easily thanks to her mother's Greek heritage—and what an inane thought in the

middle of hell. "You still haven't told me what happened? How did he hit his head?"

Maybe he should pull the SP aside and speak with him instead, but he couldn't bring himself to leave her

sitting alone.

"I don't know. I had a couple of drinks over at Beachcombers. I was nervous about—"

Please don't let her say she was nervous about sleeping with Owens.

"—about breaking up with him."

Thank God.

Or maybe not because that gave them all the more reason to have fought.

"I don't remember anything after the second drink. I can't even recall leaving Beachcombers, just waking

up here."

Nikki didn't remember? Or was too embarrassed to say? Either way, he could tell now wasn't the time to

push her.

He could see the fear in her wide eyes. Her foggy eyes? Something wasn't right. Her dilated pupils stared

back at him in spite of the early-morning sun through the windows and overhead light flooding the hall.

Nikki didn't use drugs. He would bet his life on that.

Except no one ever believed his wealthy uptight parents were users, much less addicts, until his tenth

grade English teacher. She hadn't been able to get the administration to do crap for him since his parents

were six-figure contributors to the private school, but she'd pointed him toward Alateen. His parents

weren't alcoholics, but the counseling principles had still applied for the child of addicts.

His teacher had also steered his parents toward enrolling him in a military prep school for his junior and

senior years. A school far-the-hell away from his neglectful, abusive home life.

If Nikki had a problem, she needed help from someone better than him with his own secrets and

demons.

"Maybe I should call your mother." He reached inside his thigh pocket for his cell phone. Nikki's mother,

Rena, was also a counselor, even if she was on maternity leave.

"No!" She gripped his wrist with quiet desperation. Her slender fingers seared through his uniform sleeve.

"Please. Mom has enough on her plate right now with Dad deployed, not to mention being over forty and

pregnant again. She hasn't wanted people to know, but she's having a tough time with nausea, even a

false labor scare. Please, don't call her. Okay?"

"You shouldn't be alone. Is there a friend I could call for you?"

She shook her head, tangled hair brushing her shoulders. "I don't want
anyone
to know, not yet at least."

"All right, but that means you're stuck with me." He shoved to his feet by the SP. "Have you finished

questioning her?"

"For now. The lead OSI agent said he has more questions for later."

Carson glanced back into the room where two men in suits were crawling around the floor looking under

the bed. The OSI was made up of part civilian investigators, part active duty military. Since the incident

had happened on base, involving a service member, civilian police wouldn't even be involved. Would that

be better or worse for Nikki? Who the hell knew anything right now except he had to get her out of here.

"Then I'll take her home."

The cop stepped closer to Nikki's chair. "I'm afraid we can't let you do that, sir. She has to be checked

out by a doctor first."

Doctor? They'd said
Owens
was the one who hit his head. Had something happened to her, too? That

would account for the pupils and the confusion over what happened. "A doctor?"

He reached to brush back her hair for a better look at her face. She jerked away, flinching. From him or

pain? Either way her hair swished to reveal a bruise on her cheek. What the hell had Owens done to her?

Scenarios he hadn't wanted to consider blared through his head. He'd assumed Owens died in a freak

accident—slipped in the bathroom or tripped over his pants or rolled out of bed. Carson pinched

between his eyebrows. He didn't want that image of Owens in bed with Nikki. But the image of Owens

hurting Nikki...

Hell.

Rage threatened to blind him. He blinked the red haze clear enough to function.

He scoured her clothes as if somehow he could develop Superman X-ray vision and find marks on her

skin. No such luck, a curse and a blessing. But he did find other details he'd overlooked earlier—missing

buttons on her silky shirt tugged on over a tank top. One of the knees of her jeans seemed more

threadbare than the other, as if she'd skidded recently. He would wager money he would find a bruise

beneath the denim.

There'd been an attack. A struggle. And somehow Owens had died.

"Nikki, did he hurt you?" Or worse. He blinked back the red fog again.

"I told you, I don't remember." Pride and a paper-thin bravado braced her shoulders. "Even if I did, this

isn't your business or problem."

"Are you sure you don't want me to call your mother? She's going to find out eventually."

"And maybe we'll have a few more answers by then. I would like to get through—" she sucked in two

shaky breaths "—the doctor's exam first."

She might not want his help, but he wasn't leaving her alone. He would protect her until she could take

care of herself again.

He turned back to the SP. "She needs to leave. Now. Can't you see she's about to pass out? Who the

hell knows what happened here but it's clear she was assaulted and needs treatment."

"Major, we're just doing our job and the investigator still needs to question her."

"He can do that at the hospital." He let all his anger seep steel into his words. "If she's been abused in any

way and you've kept a traumatized woman sitting here alone—"

"We're moving things along as quickly as we can, Major, without compromising the crime scene."

"Is she being detained?"

"No, sir."

"Then she's ready to leave for the E.R." He slid an arm around her shoulders and eased her to her feet

trying not to remember the last time he'd touched her this way or how many times he'd been tempted to

put his hands on her body again.

His only defense had been distance. And now it looked as if he wouldn't be leaving her side anytime

soon.

Nikki tugged a surgical scrub shirt over her head and stifled a wince at the lack of underwear since all her

clothes had been bagged for evidence. As if she didn't already feel exposed enough today.

At least the E.R. held more answers for her than her still-foggy head. She'd pulled it together enough

during the police escort over to call in sick at school. Truth be told, she did feel sick, heartsick and body

sore.

Paper crackled under her as she gingerly slid off the gurney, her toes hitting cold tile. Not as much of a

shock as it could have been since she already felt chilled to her soul.

Bracing a hand on the cabinet full of gauzes, tongue depressors and latex gloves, she tugged on the

surgical pants and knotted the tie before sliding her feet into the flimsy hospital slippers the nurse had

given her. For the first time in her life she was grateful she could go braless. She could have sent Carson

to her place to pick something up, but he wouldn't leave the hospital and she really didn't want him

rooting through her underwear drawer.

What a silly thought. Except her brain seemed to hitch on the oddest details as if to fill empty space left

by missing memories. At least the doctor reassured her it didn't appear that she'd had sex or been raped.

She shuddered.

Any bruising stayed confined to her arms and ribs and Gary had been wearing his pants—even if they'd

been around his ankles. All signs indicated if she'd killed him, she'd done so before penetration.

Her stomach cramped at the thought she could have taken a life, even in self-defense. She couldn't live

with having killed someone, anyone, and to have known that person... Would she spend the rest of her

life wondering what she could have done differently?

Or worse yet, never know.

Had she struggled and thrown him off? Or hit him with something? She was strong enough to do it after

years of training on her university soccer team. She squeezed her eyes shut tight against tears so close to