“Sunflower?”
Sunny opened her eyes and saw Dusty’s smiling face leaning over her. The dark room cast everything in suspicious grays. Not knowing if it was another illusion her exhausted mind decided to play on her, she moved her hand and felt … whiskers. “Dusty?”
“Hey, sleepyhead—”
“What are you doing here? I mean—I haven’t seen you since we landed. I thought you left me, that you had flown home.”
Dusty ran his fingers along her jawline. “I couldn’t leave you without knowing how you were. No one would tell me a thing. I even tried to sneak a peak at your chart at the nurse’s desk, but one of Steele’s men stopped me before I could lift it out of the rack.”
“It’s the privacy laws; you know that. They couldn’t tell you because you aren’t my husband.”
He ran a finger along the edge of her sling. “Is your arm broken, then?”
“Uh-huh, a hairline fracture, just like we thought.”
Staring up into Dusty’s blue eyes, she could see them shine with raw emotion even in the room’s low light as he gently touched her bruised face. “All the time you were gone, I was so worried about you, wondering what was happening, and wishing you’d just get back so … so we could start our dating and never be apart again. I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should’ve gone with you instead of Adam. I could’ve protected you. You needed a Marine with you, not a pilot.”
“No—no!” Sunny ran her hand up his muscular chest. “I couldn’t have taken them hurting you like they did Adam. I would’ve told them everything—anything to keep you safe.”
“I wouldn’t have let them take us.”
“You mean you would’ve started shooting?”
“I would’ve been armed, yes.”
Sunny pushed him away. It didn’t take much pressure—he didn’t resist, and she sat up. “Would you have been able to shoot our way out like Lucy did?”
Dusty scrubbed his hand over his chin and shook his head. “I couldn’t have predicted that many men coming at us.”
“But Lucy predicted it, didn’t she?” Sunny got up and went to the window. The louvered blinds opened with an easy twist, letting in the bright Bahaman daylight. She wanted to see Dusty’s reaction when she asked her next question.
“Has Johnny talked to you about Lucy being psychic?” When she heard Dusty make a deep snorting gag, she rushed back to the bed and sat down beside him. “Remember when Johnny found that gas leak on our way over to the meeting with the assistant director?”
“Uh, sure I do.” Dusty took her hand and loosely held it.
“Did you believe his story?” He hesitated too long in his answer. “Well, did you?” she asked again.
“Of course not.” He let out a heavy breath, but he wouldn’t hold her gaze. “It didn’t make sense when I found Mr. Sanchez unconscious on the couch with a pillow under his head. If he knew he was in trouble enough to try to get attention from the street, then he should have passed out on the floor next to his window. Common sense tells me that he fell asleep on the couch as the room filled up with the gas. If we hadn’t had reached him when we did, he would have died from asphyxia. Worse than that, though, I saw Johnny turn off the gas water heater, and I realized that if it had clicked on …” Dusty took in a shaky breath and said, “The room would have exploded in flames. He stopped a major fire from happening.”
“I think it was Lucy who knew about it.”
Dusty’s blue-eyed gaze moved up to her eyes. “What else do you suspect?”
Sunny sat up straighter. “You believe me? Tell me what you know.”
“What we’re going to talk about,” Dusty said, quietly, “is just between us, or I can’t tell you anything. I promised Lucy and Johnny.”
“I promise.”
“You have to swear, or you know Lucy will shoot me,” Dusty said with a minute smile.
Sunny kissed his grin away. “I’ll never let that happen. I swear.”
Listening to the events about the racing cars chilled Sunny with excitement. Then, when Dusty told her about Lucy’s body temperature falling to nothing when she passed out afterward, it confirmed Sunny’s suspicions about Lucy being psychic and that her icy body temperature had something to do with her having an episode.
“So, it
was
Lucy who knew about the gas leak.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Her body was cold after the explosion. She knew that gunfight was going to happen.” Sunny touched her cast. “Lucy saved us, didn’t she?”
“No doubt about it. Have you been debriefed yet?”
Sunny shook her head. “Not yet. I’m expecting Jim to do this personally. He said he was flying down. He’ll probably be debriefing Adam, Johnny, and you as well.”
Dusty lifted her chin up with his fingertips. “You aren’t going to discuss this with your boss, are you?”
Sunny knocked his hand away. “Why would I get through swearing to you that I’d keep this secret only to spill it to Jim the first chance I got?”
“Now, don’t get angry with me, Sunflower. I just don’t want to get shot.”
Sunny let her shoulders slump, and she leaned into Dusty’s broad chest. “I can’t understand why Lucy won’t wake up.”
“I was just in with Johnny. He’s rooming with Adam, but I couldn’t get any information on Lucy. Can you tell me about how she’s doing?”
Sunny didn’t see any reason for not sharing the surgical details with one of the paramedics who’d saved Lucy’s life. He deserved to know. While she relaxed into his embrace, she told him what he needed to hear—from the beginning of the operation to when she was wheeled into the ICU.
“So she does have pneumonia.” Dusty gently folded his arms around her.
“Yes, but we were able to get all the shrapnel without damaging any major organs, or at least ones that she can’t live without.”
“What do you mean?”
Sunny shifted to where her broken arm wasn’t touching his chest. “One of the pieces of metal had sliced into Lucy’s gallbladder. Dr. Stanton thought it better to remove that organ. I agreed. The other three pieces were easily extracted with minimal damage to surrounding tissue. Her scalp had a deep laceration that took a few staples to close. It’s her pneumonia that has us worried more than her wounds. She’s on oxygen and a full spectrum I.V. antibiotic. That’s all we can do. But she hasn’t come out of the anesthesia. It’s a waiting game at this point.”
“When are you going back to LA?”
“I’m staying until Lucy is able to be flown home, and I’ll go with her then.”
“Well …” Dusty moved his warm lips along her forehead. “I still have the next three and a half weeks off.” He slowly kissed along her temple. “Nassau seems like the perfect place to spend my vacation.” Her bruised cheek then received several gentle kisses. “And we can get started on our, um, dating tonight.” He lowered his lips down to her mouth, holding the back of her head with his big hand, keeping her from moving away from him. His kiss seemed more intense than before, pulling at her lips, stirring an intense longing for him from deep within her. He didn’t need to try so hard. She was already falling in love with him.
But while she may have lived through one of the most terrifying times of her life, at what expense? Lucy could still die, and it would be Sunny’s fault.
“I’m sorry, sir. This is a restricted area.”
Johnny held the flowers he bought a little higher and limped by the red-haired man leaning his elbow against the ICU nurses counter. The same SR initials were silk screened on the black polo shirt near the shoulder, but the guard was a new man. “I’m allowed to be here.” While not factual, Johnny needed to see Lucy, and he kept up the slow, awkward pace his injured leg would allow. He neared the door. “Ask Dr. Pettigrew.”
“No, sir. Dr. Pettigrew isn’t on staff here.”
Oh, crap
! Sunny wasn’t official staff? What was her surgeon’s name? He couldn’t remember. He was tired and in pain, and Johnny couldn’t take any more red tape from the black-shirted security. He grabbed the door handle and ran inside. He made it through to Lucy’s room before his body seized in horrendous pain, and he fell to the floor, groaning loudly.
“What are you doing?” Sunny screamed as she leaped toward Johnny’s jerking body. “Stop that!”
Dusty grabbed the two lead-wires and yanked the Taser gun from the guard’s hand, stopping the influx of electricity.
“He ran past the checkpoint, ma’am. He isn’t authorized to be here.”
“He’s Johnny Cartwright, and he’s wounded!” Sunny kneeled on the floor and helped Johnny sit up. “He’s one of the paramedics who saved Agent James after she was wounded.” With her good arm protectively around his shoulder, she raised her voice, and asked, “Who briefed you?”
“Cooper Steele, ma’am—”
“I’m a doctor, not a ma’am,” Sunny shouted her contempt at the man.
“What’s going on here?” Brockway asked from the open doorway. Junie and Kate stood peering around his shoulders.
“A mistake,” Johnny said after he finally regained the use of his fine motor abilities. “It was my fault. I probably shouldn’t have run in here.” He lifted his shoulders, feeling the two barbs embedded in his back. “He couldn’t have known.” Johnny reached out his hand to the man. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know if the man would take him up on his concession, until he took Johnny’s hand and helped him to his feet.
“No …”
The voice was so low, if it had come from Lucy a minute earlier nobody would have heard it. Johnny rushed to her side, trailing two wires along with him.
“She’s waking up,” Sunny said, moving up on the other side of the bed. She touched a button above the headboard, calling the nurse. The soft beep of the heart monitor had been muted by the commotion, but now it surfaced as it accelerated.
Lucy seemed agitated.
Johnny looked up at the monitor. It seemed as if she was panicking, yet she still wasn’t conscious. Her breathing sped up enough that Sunny took off the oxygen mask before Lucy could begin hyperventilating.
“She must have heard me yelling,” Sunny said.
Johnny sat on the edge of the bed and grasped Lucy’s sweaty hand. Then his world disappeared.
Like the helpless feeling of getting tasered, Johnny felt trapped watching the horrific memory that filled his mind. A woman he could’ve sworn was Lucy with long, blonde hair was getting stabbed to death—and Johnny had to see every detail in surrealistic color. It ended with the man walking down a hallway toward him with a narrow knife dripping in shiny crimson blood. Lucy’s pathetic whimpering cries knocked him out of her dream and back to reality.
“
Dusty
—” Sunny reached out, trying to lift Johnny up, but he clung to Lucy’s hand, his quickened breathing matched Lucy’s. “Help him—”
“Are you okay, Johnny?” Dusty asked, holding him up off Lucy’s injured chest.
“Let me go. She’s having a—a nightmare.” Johnny shrugged his friend away. “Lucy! Lucy, wake up!”
“I think he’s right,” Sunny said to Dusty. “Lucy—Lucy, Johnny’s here. Please wake up!”
Their coaxing didn’t stop her from getting more disturbed and frightened. Lucy moved her head from side to side in a jerking fashion, like she was trying to look away from something terrible. Johnny knew what that terrible thing was. He almost felt like he’d lived through it, too.
Sunny shook Lucy’s hand and shouted, “Wake up!”
Her eyes opened, just a slit. “Johnny …” Lucy whispered weakly.
“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here.” Johnny kissed her dried lips as he rested a gentle hand on her face.
“I saw him; he—he wouldn’t stop …”
“I know, I know. Lucy, was that your mother?” Lucy closed her eyes and nodded. “You look just like her.”
“You saw what?” Sunny asked. “What are you talking about?”
Lucy whispered, “I saw … my mother … killed.”
“What?” Junie clutched her throat. “And you couldn’t stop—” She slapped her hand over her mouth as Jim pulled her tightly to his side.
Johnny looked over his shoulder, his stare landing on each person crowding around the bed. “Lucy has had these nightmares”—he glanced at Sunny before staring down into Lucy’s wet eyes—“since she was a child, where she sees a man murder her mother. She told me all about it.” Johnny leaned closer, stroking her chin with his thumb. “I can see every detail like it was my own memory.” Lucy gasped in a breath. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you. You’re going to be fine.”
“Take it easy, Lu,” Johnny said, helping her out of the passenger side of his truck with a firm hand around her arm.
It was mid-September, and already the afternoon was cold enough for a sweater. Coming from the Bahamas, Lucy’s wardrobe wasn’t anything more than light shirts and shorts. Johnny had done his best to see that she had everything she needed and wanted, but the unusually chilly weather was the one thing he hadn’t anticipated.
“I’m fine.” Lucy studied the concrete steps of her LA bungalow. She noticed new paint on the eaves of her ninety-seven-year-old home. The dark green wicker rockers on the porch were still there. Part of the purchase included most of the former owner’s furniture. Vivian Haynes had moved to an assisted living home for retired movie stars and could only take her most valued things. Vivi had no living children, so she told Lucy she could keep everything she left behind. While Lucy felt sorry for the woman, she also knew she had lucked out.