Sam shrugged it off with his small grin like he always did. "Don't sweat it, Ty, easy come, easy go. She'll come back when she gets over her snit." He followed Tyson's gaze to Libby. "The only reason you're interested in Libby Drake is because she's a puzzle and you have to solve it. She's too bizarre for you to really want to be with her."
Tyson flinched inwardly at Sam's matter-of-fact assessment of his interest in Libby. The worst of it was, he knew it wasn't true. She'd intrigued him from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. There was something different about Libby and he wanted to figure her out, but he also loved being with her. He glanced at her again. She hadn't moved, but in the cars, three of her sisters were exhibiting signs of coming around. "They had to have put themselves in a trance," he muttered aloud.
"What?" Sam asked. He followed Tyson's gaze. "Mass hysteria at work."
Tyson might have used the phrase himself, but now that Sam had, it annoyed him. Libby didn't get hysterical and neither did her sisters, but it was entirely possible they did put themselves in a trance. That was a logical explanation. He frowned at Sam. "I thought you were friends with the Drakes."
Sam shrugged. "Of course I am, but that doesn't mean I'm not aware they're crazy. Come on, Ty, do you think all that heebie-jeebie stuff is for real?"
"Of course not."
"Then it's either all about sex or you having to figure her out or both."
Tyson waved him off, angry but not knowing why. He didn't like Sam's assessment no matter how true it might be. The officers were no longer even looking his way and he took advantage of the fact, moving swiftly over to where Libby lay on the ground just feet from the smashed car.
Matt Granite nodded at him. "We've got to get them back to the house."
"I'll get Libby." Tyson didn't want anyone else picking her up, holding her close. She looked dead, still unconscious, her skin like wax.
"No." Sarah made the protest, calling from the car.
Damon Wilder, her fiance, immediately wrapped his arm around her. "We're taking you all home, Sarah. Libby will be fine once we're in your house."
"Have Jackson put Libby in the car." Sarah's gaze touched on Tyson.
He felt her instant rejection of him. There was none of her teasing laughter, no acceptance at all. She looked at him the way he might a virus under a microscope. Deep inside, everything he was welled up in protest. Stubbornly he pushed past Jackson to reach for Libby.
"No!" Sarah was sharper this time, steel in her voice. "You aren't what she needs right now."
Ty glared at her. "I'm exactly what she needs right now. Someone with logic."
Matt put a hand on his shoulder. "You don't understand any of this and you'll do more harm than good. We'll handle it."
Jackson sent Ty a dark, dangerous look, those ice cold eyes chilling him. "Back off, Derrick. Go home. I think you've caused enough trouble for one night."
Tyson watched as Jackson gathered Libby's slight weight into his arms. She hung limp, lifeless, her cloud of dark hair falling over his arm like skeins of silk. Ty paced along beside the deputy. "All I wanted to do was get Jonas help." He defended himself. He didn't give a damn what Jackson thought of him, but he needed to tell Libby.
He followed Jackson to the deputy's vehicle. He'd never felt so helpless in his life, or so unsure. He always knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it, but he just didn't have a clue about the situation he was in. He needed to protect Libby, even if it was from herself and he could see now that her family not only encouraged her behavior but would fight him if he tried to take her out of the situation.
Matt Granite and Aleksandr Volstov blocked him from reaching in and pulling Libby out of the police car. "You'd better go," Aleksandr said. "You don't want to make any enemies."
Anger flashed through Ty with such ferocity he could barely contain it. He stepped closer to the Russian, uncaring the man was an Interpol agent and had been trained since childhood in more ways to kill a man than Ty might ever know. "You back off. All of you. I'm not afraid of you and you're not warning me off of Libby. She needs help and all of you are idiots."
"So you're going to save her from her family," Matt said.
There was warning in Matt's stance, enough to remind Tyson he was a former army ranger. Ty shrugged off Sam's restraining hand. "Hell, yes, I'm going to save her from her family. They're fruitcakes and you're just as bad, encouraging them to believe in witchcraft. It's a bunch of garbage and you know it. Get the hell out of my way, Granite. You don't impress me all that much either."
Sam yanked on his arm, staring at him as if he'd grown two heads. Tyson couldn't blame him. He didn't believe in fighting--it was stupid and childish--but he wasn't afraid at the prospect of a fight. He had excelled in several forms of martial arts, but when he sparred, it was to teach or to be taught, or he simply ended the fight as fast as possible with a knockout. There was no in between. Yet now, he was virtually picking a fight with the Drake sisters' fiances.
He shrugged Sam off a second time and stood solidly in Matt Granite's path, nose to nose, chest to chest, like a primitive jungle animal. "You're not taking her with you." Adrenaline surged through his body and at that moment he knew he was more dangerous than he'd ever been in his life.
"I'm arresting your ass," the deputy behind him announced.
Tyson didn't turn his head, didn't take his eyes off Matt, ready to fight.
Sam threw his arms around his cousin, pinning his arms to his sides. "He's upset over Jonas," he explained to the deputy. "He's not thinking right. I'll take him home. Come on, Ty. We've got to get out of here. No woman is worth getting arrested over."
That was the trouble. Libby was worth it and someone needed to save her from her family and from herself. Tyson Derrick was the man to do it, too. When he put his mind to something, he was unswerving.
"You can let go, Sam." It wouldn't help if he was in jail and Jackson was glowering at him, mean as a snake, ready to give the word. He would have to use finesse, plan his battle carefully. "I'm leaving."
8
SAM stood in the basement, right at the bottom of the stairs, hands on hip glaring at his cousin. "Did you forget something?"
Tyson didn't look up, didn't acknowledge his cousin's presence, continuing to frown with total concentration into a microscope.
Sam stomped farther into the room, careful to avoid the long rows of equipment, computers and big bulky machines. Tyson rarely spent large amounts of money, but when he did, it was usually on the best equipment possible for his laboratory. "Damn it, Ty, stop playing the mad scientist. You had a date tonight."
Tyson glanced up, the lines in his face grim. "No, I didn't. I made it clear to you I had no intention of dating that moron you were trying to set me up with. I'm busy, Sam. I've got work to do. I stand down here staring at all of this and all I can think about is that Drake woman."
"You're sulking, Ty. You've been down here day and night and I know you haven't slept--or eaten. What good is it going to do to make yourself sick? And over what? Libby Drake? No woman is worth this. She's become another one of your obsessive puzzles."
When there was no response, Sam sighed and changed tactics, his voice becoming coaxing. "You need to get out. The doctors won't sign a release to let you work as a firefighter, so we should plan other things to get you out of the house."
"You go, Sam, I've got a lot of work to do." Tyson wasn't going to admit to his cousin he'd been to Libby's house every day like some obsessed stalker and had been turned away by her sisters. He couldn't stop himself any more than he could stop investigating why the new drug, PDG-ibenregen, which BioLab had in second stage clinical trials, was producing depression in a certain age group of participants. Harry Jenkins wasn't paying attention, thinking the incidents small and random, but to Tyson, they were a glaring red flag and he wouldn't--couldn't--stop until he found the answer.
Sam swore under his breath. "You're obsessive, you know that? Totally a wackjob, and you
need to find a way to get over it."
For one horrible moment, Ty was certain Sam knew about his numerous trips to the Drake home. He felt like a wackjob. He was used to his single-minded compulsion, his need to find answers and the thrill when he was on the right track, but that trait in him had never transferred to a human until Libby Drake had laughed in the streets of Sea Haven so many years ago and caught his attention. He couldn't allow Sam to know just how Libby had consumed his mind over the years. He didn't even know how it happened--or when it was that he decided to pursue her. Nor did he know exactly what he was going to do with her once he succeeded. It just was something he had to do. It was just like how his research took him over, only this was more potent. And like with his research, there was no possibility of failure in his mind.
"If you keep this up, you're going to end up in the hospital for malnutrition and I'm going to have to take care of you."
The concern in Sam's voice gave Tyson pause. He frowned up at his cousin, as usual feeling guilt for allowing Sam to try to take care of him. Sam tried so hard to understand him, but obviously it was impossible. "I promise to break for food. You go have fun on your date."
Sam scratched his head, the frown still very much in evidence. "I overheard the phone call with what's his name from BioLab. He didn't sound happy with you."