Fire and Ice (Ice 5)

No, she would run as far and as fast as she could, and she wouldn’t come home until she’d made peace with everything.

It should only take a decade or two.

In the meantime she was going to sleep. If someone would just come in and give her more…

Reno had been perfectly willing to mug a doctor in order to steal his coat and name tag, but in the end it had been much simpler. The locker room was easily marked, no one was inside, and no one bothered with locks. It was a shame—he was in the mood to hit someone—but he accepted the fact that life was going to give him a break. The coat he found was a little small but it still fit, and it belonged to Dr. Yamada. Perfect. He grabbed a stethoscope and went out to prowl the midnight floors of the hospital.

No one gave him a second glance. He’d grabbed a pair of weak reading glasses—the bottoms of the frames were just enough to distract from his tattoos. They gave him a headache, but that was the least of his problems. Studious Dr. Yamada could move through the floors without anyone giving him a second glance.

It took him almost an hour to find her. She was in a private room at the end of one of the darkened corridors, and he managed to bluff his way past anyone who questioned his presence. The night staff was just as happy to leave him alone, and no one noticed when he slipped inside her room, closing the door silently behind him.

He was half afraid he’d be too late. Whoever had tried to kill her could have gotten there ahead of him, finished the job. But he looked at her and breathed a sigh of relief.

She looked like hell. She had stitches on her cheekbone, bruises on her pale skin and one eye was swollen shut. She was lying in the hospital bed and she looked very small for such a force of nature.

He grabbed the chair and propped it under the door handle; no one would be coming in without giving him plenty of warning. He took his gun from his belt and set it on the table, looking down at her.

Her one good eye fluttered open, staring up at him. She was drugged up the ass, looking at him with muzzy wonder. “Who are you?”

He’d forgotten his changed appearance. “Your doctor,” he said, wishing he’d grabbed an operating mask at the same time.

And then she smiled, a dazed, dreamy smile. “You’re Reno,” she murmured happily. “I knew you’d come.”

She didn’t know anything; he could tell from her movements and slurred speech that she was too drugged to realize what was going on. Tomorrow morning she’d think it was just a morphine dream, or whatever it was they were giving her. In the meantime, he was going to give in to temptation, do something he’d never be able to do in real life.

“You’re imagining me,” he said softly, kicking off his shoes. “I’m just a dream. You won’t even remember me in the morning.”

For once she didn’t argue. Maybe that had been the trick—he should have just kept her drugged and docile while they’d been on the run in Japan. And then he saw the tears begin to slide down her bruised face.

“How badly are you hurt?” He should have checked her chart on the way in, but he’d wanted to get out of sight as quickly as possible.

“Nothing interesting,” she said, sounding faintly disgruntled. “Just a sprained ankle and some bruises. It’s my heart.”

?

?Your heart?” he echoed, panicked. “Do you have internal injuries…?”

“It’s broken,” she said, soft, plaintive, the tears still sliding down her face.

He muttered a curse. It was just the drugs talking, but he could feel his own heart twist inside. She lay in the middle of the wide hospital bed, but she was looking very small, and he simply climbed up beside her, pulling her into his arms with exquisite care, not wanting to hurt her any more.

She let out a small sound, and for a moment he thought it was a cry of pain, but then she moved closer, putting her face against his shoulder, and he could feel her crying. “I missed you,” she said, her voice muffled.

“I know.” He held her gently—she suddenly felt fragile, and he’d almost been too late. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if she’d gone over that bridge. He didn’t want to think what would have happened to him. He’d lost Ojiisan, the most important person in his selfish, miserable life. If he’d lost her…

He wasn’t going to think about the fact that she wasn’t even his to begin with. All he wanted to do was hold her while she cried, hold her while she slept, watch over her for as long as he could.

And then, once she was home and safe, he was going to kill the man who’d done this to her.

He remembered what he’d told her. If he ever felt in danger of falling in love, he’d lie down till the feeling passed. He hadn’t been fast enough. She’d gotten to him, the way no other woman had been able to, ruining his life, ruining his sex drive, ruining everything. All he wanted was her, and right now all he wanted was to hold her, take care of her.

He was totally fucked up. But the good thing was, he could get over it. So he was temporarily insane. He had enough strength of will to fight it, to walk away from someone who didn’t fit into his plans for his life.

And he would. Once he was sure she was safe.

For now he’d hold her. Stroke her hair, put his lips against her forehead. And not think about anything at all.

“I want some of those drugs you gave me last night,” Jilly said brightly. She was dressed in the clothes Jenkins had brought her, ensconced in a wheelchair on her way out of the hospital, and the studious young resident was fiddling with her discharge papers.