The Hotter You Burn (29 page)

“You sure know how to give good festival,” someone else said.

That's right. He, West and Jase had paid for everything. No wonder no one minded that he'd cut the line.

“We're next,” he told Sunny Day, who stood at the front collecting money.

“Is that so?” With oil money to burn, and a temper legendary in five states, Sunny wasn't one to give in easily.

“That's so. How much?”

The piercing in her nose gleamed, a diamond shiny even without the help of the sun. “Twenty. Each.”

“The sign says five dollars a ride,” Harlow pointed out.

She smacked her gum. “Take it or leave it.”

“We'll take it.”

Harlow finished off her sweet tea with three big gulps, and oh, gross! Tea leaves must have settled at the bottom of the cup, because the drink left a bitter aftertaste for the first time.

Beck threw the cup in the trash, then dug two twenties from his pocket. Sunny pocketed the cash, unabashed. Never mind the festival's profits were supposed to help add a gymnasium to Strawberry High.

With a few button pushes, the wheel soon came to a stop.

“Everyone but Mayor Trueman and his
assistant
,” Sunny said, using air quotes, “can stay put.”

The mayor was not the most liked person in town nowadays. A few days ago, word about his affair with his “assistant” spread, devastating his wife.

Beck dragged Harlow to the empty cart, ensured her tail was out of the way before buckling in, and then waited until they were in the air to speak.

“I can't change my past,” he said as the wheel started its slow ascent and Harlow had no means of escape.

“I know.” She peered out at the town; the higher they lifted the more she saw. Sweeping hills, flat plains, fields of wheat, cotton trees shedding the small white blooms, valleys with strawberry vines drying out for the cold months ahead.

“You can't change yours, either.”

“I know that, too.” The air smelled so fresh up here. The dew of coming rain dampened her skin. A cool breeze blustered past and she shivered. With Beck, run-ins like this would happen again and again. Women would always throw themselves at him. Always desire him.

“Talk to me.” Beck drew her firmly against his side, shielding her from the worst of the wind. “Tell me what you're feeling.”

A thousand different things. Upset. Remorse. Regret. Resignation. Determination. But at the forefront? “Jealousy,” she admitted. “You're mine, and yet they know intimate details about you. They probably discuss you, and even hope to get you back into bed again.”

He kissed her temple, lingering over her skin. “They will never succeed. I've had a taste of you, love, and I am utterly addicted.”

Love. The endearment rocked her, as precious as it was life changing. Did he mean it the way she prayed he did? Did he actually love her as she'd suspected?

“I know we discussed this, but I need to hear the answer again. Do you ever compare me to them?” she asked.

“All the time.” At her outraged gasp, he laughed. “They lose. Always.”

Slowly she relaxed against him. As the Ferris wheel made its descent, it seemed as if half the town watched her and Beck's cart. He received a few winks, even more thumbs-up. Giving everyone a show, Beck anchored two fingers under her chin, turned her head and kissed her.

The crowd cheered, and the wheel began another ascent, throwing Harlow's stomach into her feet, making her light-headed and deliciously dizzy. At the same time, passion burned through her, white-hot. With Beck, passion always burned through her. He tasted so good, his heat a soothing balm to her tattered soul, and by the time he pulled away, she was panting, squirming in her seat.

He rubbed his nose against hers, his thumbs brushing over her cheekbones in a featherlight caress. “You're not thinking of leaving me, are you?”

“I'd rather die,” she said, putting everything on the line.

A flash of relief in eyes now hot with more than desire. “I probably shouldn't tell you this, but we are open and honest with each other, so you need to know a different answer would have meant I started playing hardball and let you see my dark side.”

“You have a dark side?”

“Pray you never meet him. He spanks.”

She chuckled. “I'm beginning to think you've got a secret fetish.”

“Secret? Love, I've been thinking about it since the moment we met. Just been waiting for the green light from you.”

“Well, I will let you spank me the day you let me spank you.”

“So...today?” he quipped.

Her smile stretched from ear to ear. “You are incorrigible. You know that, right?”

“I believe the word is pronounced
irresistible
.”

“And you have no shame,” she added.

“But you love me anyway.” As the words echoed between them, he frowned and shifted away from her.

Did he not like the thought of her love? Despite the fact he'd used the endearment with her twice already?

Her stomach roiled so hard she gasped, and as the wheel continued to climb, the roiling only grew worse. In all her life, she'd only been sick only a handful of times. Her mom used to say she had the immune system of a champion. But the times she
had
gotten sick, she'd fervently prayed to be wiped from the planet forever; the fever, chills, sweats, and trembles so violent she'd looked as if she were having a seizure had been almost too much to bear.

This was somehow worse.

She clutched her stomach, beads of sweat popping up on her brow. She could actually feel the blood draining from her face and knew she was deathly pale, judging by the horror suddenly radiating from Beck.

“What's wrong, love?”

“My stomach hurts. Bad.” Bile rose.

“Get us down,” he shouted to Sunny. “Now.”

The girl held out her arms, all
what am I supposed to do? Pull you off with my she-strength?

Beck flattened his palm on Harlow's belly and gently rubbed. “Just hold on a little longer, baby. I'll get you home.”

Nausea churned faster, harder, and she gagged. She judged the remaining distance with dread. Not even halfway down yet. She wasn't going to make it, was she?

“Beck,” she said on a moan.

He understood. He ripped off her cat-ears headband, tucked her hair under the collar of her shirt and held on tight to her waist, saying, “Lean over as far as you can. I won't let you fall.”

At any other time she would have been humiliated. Right then she hurt too much. So she did it. She leaned over and vomited her guts out, spraying whoever stood below their cart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

B
ECK
 
HAD
 
NEVER
 
been so scared in his life. Over the years, he'd been beaten, sexually used and manipulated by a foster mom, abandoned and forgotten. But this—this was far worse. He'd never had a woman of his own, and he'd never had to worry about anyone but himself. Jase and West had always been self-sufficient. If one of them had gotten sick, they'd sucked it up and yelled at anyone who dared approach. Only in the privacy of their rooms had they curled into balls of pain and rocked back and forth, moaning and softly begging for mercy. The manly way.

But by the time his friends returned home later in the evening, their laughing voices echoing all the way to the bedroom, Harlow had grown far worse. She'd begun to dry heave, too weak to make it to the bathroom or even hold herself up. Beck had to carry her and anchor her against his chest, afraid she'd drown in the toilet otherwise.

“You're going to be okay,” he told her. “You have to be okay.”

She was too weak to respond. She could no longer even hold open her eyelids.

When a few minutes passed without another incident, he carried her to bed and tucked her into the softness of the sheets. Her face was puffy from strain, her skin waxen and clammy. Locks of hair clung to her damp cheeks and neck. He dressed her in a clean T-shirt but it, too, stuck to her skin.

Brook Lynn and Jessie Kay entered the room and flanked his sides.

“I heard she threw up on the mayor,” Jessie Kay said. “I thought it was the most awesome prank ever. I didn't realize...”

“She'll be okay,” he repeated. More to himself than to them.

Brook Lynn patted his arm. “Why don't you take a shower, get changed. Let us take care of Harlow for a while.”

“No. I'm not leaving her side.” This woman was the center of his world. He'd let her in, or maybe she'd burrowed her way inside. Either way, she belonged to him and with him, and damn it, he needed her to get better, and he needed to see her do it.

She'd been fine one moment and deathly ill the next. She wasn't feverish or exhibiting any other symptoms.

“Is there some kind of virus going around?” he asked, desperate for answers. He couldn't help her until he knew what was wrong.

“No, otherwise I would have gotten it long before now,” Jessie Kay said. “I always get sicker faster and far worse than everyone else. Could she have eaten too much junk food?”

A soft moan rose from Harlow—right before she vomited up a river of blood.

The crimson splatter on the sides of her mouth had to be the most horrifying sight he'd ever seen. Beck sprang into action. He scooped Harlow into his arms, her body utterly boneless, and shouldered his way into the hall. “Jase! West!”

Both friends came running.

“Help me get her to the emergency room.”

Jase swiped up his car key, and West held open the front door, then the car door.

“Go to St. Joseph's.” He wanted Harlow to have the best medical care, experts in every field at her disposal, and as much as he loved Strawberry Valley, he wasn't sure about the medical facilities.

As fast as they drove, they reached the city hospital in less than an hour. A true miracle, considering they didn't wreck or get pulled over. Along the way, West made some calls, so, by the time they screeched to a halt at the curb, doctors and nurses were already outside, waiting for them.

Several people reached for Harlow at once. Beck almost couldn't bring himself to let her go. But he did it, his stomach seeming to twist around a knife. She was placed on a gurney and wheeled away.

As Jase parked the car in the lot, West led Beck inside. They sat in the waiting room, and one hour after another passed, every second more agonizing than the last.

Beck checked with the receptionist at the front desk so many times she began to moan every time he approached. Brook Lynn and Jessie Kay eventually arrived with food and bottles of water. Brook Lynn tried to get him to eat or drink something, but he refused, too unsettled. She tried to engage him in conversation, but there was only one person he cared to chat with right now, and she wasn't available.

Finally, a nurse came out to ask their entire group questions about her. What Harlow had eaten and drunk that day, what she had done. He answered as best he could, but when he asked questions of his own, the nurse rushed off without responding.

Another hour passed.

He couldn't lose Harlow. He just couldn't. He liked—no. Damn it, no. He
loved
her, and he wasn't going to hide from the truth any longer. He loved her with all his heart, all his mind and all his strength. He loved her, and he had come to depend on her. She was the best part of his life.

The only part that mattered anymore.

A burn of tears in the back of his eyes, He tangled his hands in his hair and tugged at the strands. Was it normal to be kept waiting this long? Damn it! Why the hell wouldn't anyone tell him what was going on?

He paced. He considered punching the walls. He tried to breathe as his imagination tormented him with a continuous replay of Harlow vomiting blood.

At long last the nurse returned to lead their group to a comfortable seating area away from the crowd. No matter the questions Beck threw at her, she replied with, “I'm sorry, but you'll have to ask Dr. Lowe.”

“I'd be happy to ask him. If he'd be kind enough to show his damn face.”

She beat feet. Finally, a short, squat man with a no-nonsense gaze and a stern demeanor joined them, saving the building from the fury of Beck's fists.

“My apologies for the delay. I'm Dr. Lowe,” he said as he shook one hand after another. “I'd like to speak to Miss Glass's next of kin.”

“I'm her boyfriend,” Beck said. “How is she? What's wrong with her?”

The doctor pursed his lips. “I'm sorry, but considering everything I've learned, I will only speak with immediate family.”

“Why? What did you learn? Did something happen to her?” Beck nearly grabbed him by the shoulders to shake the answers out of him. “Is she going to be okay? You have to tell me. Please.”

“Tell
me
. I'm the sister,” Jessie Kay said, pushing her way forward. “I'm Jessica Glass.”

Dr. Lowe led her to the side, and Beck nearly burst out of his skin. He didn't have a right to know Harlow's condition because he wasn't her husband? Hell, no. Unacceptable. He would have joined the pair and demanded answers
now
, but Jase grabbed him by the arm, holding him in place.

“Let go, man. Now.”

“Calm yourself.” Jase motioned to the entrance. Two security guards stood in the doorway, and a fortysomething woman wearing a pantsuit entered, a notebook in her hand. A detective, guaranteed. He'd talked to enough of them after Pax's death to recognize one on sight.

The blood drained from Beck's head. If the cops were involved...

Something bad had happened to Harlow.

Panic flooded him as he shook off Jase's hold and raced to Dr. Lowe and Jessie Kay. “She's okay. She has to be okay. You tell me anything else, and I will lose my shit.” His throat was closing, making breathing difficult. Dizziness hit him, and blackness winked over his vision. “She can't be...she just can't be... I need her!”

Gentle hands helped him into a chair. “Beck.” Jessie Kay's voice reached him through the length of a long, narrow tunnel. “You really have to shut your mouth and listen to me, okay. I know you're thinking the worst, but Harlow
is
alive.”

The most profound sense of relief dulled the worst of the panic. Able to breathe again, the dizziness fading fast, he lifted his head and met navy blue eyes brimming with concern. “Where is she? What's wrong with her? When can I see her? Why are the cops here?”

Jessie Kay rubbed his back, saying, “Let me tackle this a question at a time, all right? They've admitted Harlow to intensive care. I'm sorry, but she isn't even close to stable. Dr. Lowe said...he said she's slipped into a coma.” Tears streaked down her cheeks. “You can't see her. Not yet. None of us can.”

A coma. Harlow was in a coma. In intensive care.

But Jessie Kay wasn't done. “You know eyedrops? What people use to make the red fade from their eyes? Well, the active ingredient is tetra something...something chloride. I'm can't remember the technical mumbo jumbo, I'm sorry, but whatever it is, it's great for the eyes but apparently ingesting it causes blood vessels to shrink and blood pressure to drop.”

“Are you telling me Harlow drank eyedrops?” His tone was hard and harsh, cutting and loud, but he didn't attempt to moderate it, and he didn't apologize.

“Not willingly, I'm sure. Someone must have put the drops in her drink. The doctor said vomiting would have occured within minutes of ingestion, and since she threw up on the Ferris wheel, it would have happened right before you guys got on.”

“No. Impossible.” Before the Ferris wheel, she'd finished off her sweet tea—sweet tea he'd also ingested when he helped Brook Lynn set up her booth. Harlow had nursed that damn cup for hours, savoring every sip, and she hadn't got sick. Neither had he.

Besides, who would do something like that?

“They've run tests,” Jessie Kay said, treading gently. “Plus, her symptoms fit. Vomiting occurs within minutes, and sometimes even seizures and a coma.”

Seizures. Coma. There was that word again. Sometimes people fell into comas and never woke up.

His heart shriveled in his chest. “The symptoms fit other things.”

“Yes, but they were able to question Harlow before she sank into...well, she mentioned her tea tasted funny. Tea doesn't go bad unless mold is starting to set up, so they ran tests for certain kinds of poison.”

“You're Beck Ockley?”

In a daze, he glanced up at the newcomer. The detective. “Yes,” he responded, his voice hollow.

“I'm Detective June, and I'd like to chat with you.”

She proceeded to ask him personal questions about his life, and about Harlow and her past, and about their relationship. He answered everything, leaving nothing out. Who cared about privacy at a time like this? Nothing mattered but saving Harlow's life. Nothing mattered but finding the one who'd poisoned her—and making him pay.

“Can you think of anyone who would want to do her harm?” the detective asked now.

He shook his head absently. “Everyone seemed to have gotten over their anger. They smiled and waved at her.”

“Not everyone,” Jase said. “Not Tawny Ferguson and Charlene Burns.”

The detective focused on him. So did Beck. The guy had done his rock-solid best to fly under the radar since being released from prison. As an ex-con with a history of violence, he was likely to be the first suspect in a case like this—Beck and West surely close seconds. The fact that he was speaking up meant more than Beck could articulate.

“That's right,” West said. “Both Tawny and Charlene hate Harlow. I was with Beck and Harlow when the two women approached. Soon after, a man named Scott Cameron drew our attention elsewhere. After that, I escorted Tawny and Charlene away, but it wasn't long before they broke away from me to follow Beck and Harlow to the Ferris wheel, giggling about something. I'm sorry. I never thought—”

Detective June wrote something in her notepad and said, “They may not have intended this to happen. A lot of people have heard that putting eyedrops in someone's drink causes diarrhea, nothing more, but they are dead wrong. I'll speak with Strawberry Valley's police chief, and I'm sure he'll question Miss Ferguson, Miss Burns and Mr. Cameron. If you think of anything else he needs to know—”

“I'm not Harlow's sister,” Jessie Kay burst out, as if she couldn't hold back the words any longer. “I just said I was to find out what was wrong with her. And I went twenty miles over the speed limit to get here. Don't arrest me.”

Frowing, Detective June handed everyone a card. “Dr. Lowe, please call me when Miss Glass wakes up.”

After the detective left, the doctor adjusted the lapels of his lab coat. “You're all welcome to stay in here if you'd like, but visiting hours are currently over. They'll begin again tomorrow at eight, and at that time, we'll let you see Miss Glass, one at a time.” He strode from the room.

Just like that? Beck was supposed to stay away from the love of his life for an entire night? A woman who lay in a coma, hooked to machines? She could die before the sun rose. He could lose her. After everything, he could lose her, and it would have nothing to do with his past, or his issues, or not being enough for her.

Death didn't care about Beck's future happiness, or Harlow's young age and sweet heart. The bastard took without prejudice and left the survivors to deal.

I can't deal.

Until Harlow, he'd had only half a life. He'd had friends and work and lots of sex, but no love. No real purpose. He'd hated change, and perhaps that was one of the reasons he'd resisted Harlow so fervently, and yet, where would he be without
this
change? Without her?

He stormed to the door, not sure what he would do. Leave not only the hospital but Strawberry Valley, hoping distance would ease the pain, make him forget? Drink
himself
into a coma? Sneak into her room? Hunt down Tawny, Charlene and Scott—hurt them?

Arms banded around him, steel bands he would have to fight to break through. West and Jase had surrounded him, offering comfort.

He drew on their strength, and in a moment of startling clarity, he knew what he had to do. “I've got to go,” he said, wrenching free of his friends.

“Beck, man. Don't leave,” Jase said. “Stay. For her.”

West grabbed his wrist. “If you're thinking about going after Tawny and Charlene, don't. If you're locked behind bars—”