Every Breath She Takes (8 page)

And thinking lascivious thoughts about the cowboy lying somewhere outside in his lonely bedroll. Was he thinking of her too? The thought made her twist restlessly.

She’d given Cal the truth. The suddenness of the passionate explosion between them had shaken her. Not because she was afraid of passion; not by a long shot! And she would apologize to no one for that. But omigod, she hardly knew the man and she’d come
this
close to doing him right there. He’d taken her red light graciously enough, but she’d felt his speculative gaze on her back all the way down the ridge. He’d test the waters again. She had no doubt of it.

What she
did
doubt was her own ability to deny him.

Face it,
she chided herself,
you’re vulnerable.

She hadn’t had a relationship with anything except her vibrator since Garrett broke off their engagement, and that was over a year ago. A year that marked her longest period of celibacy since she’d become sexually active in university. Not that she hadn’t had plenty of opportunities to replace Garrett in her bed since then. But somehow she hadn’t been able to, and not out of undying love or loyalty to her former fiancé. She’d gotten over
that
pretty quickly when she realized he couldn’t accept her as she was.

How clichéd was that? For the whole eighteen months of their relationship, she’d managed to hide from him the fact that she occasionally had these violent visions that turned her inside out. But when things got serious—after he’d proposed and she’d accepted—she’d belatedly realized that he had to know. She couldn’t see building a life with someone who didn’t know her
secrets. But when her secret was revealed, he’d said he needed to sleep on it. Fair enough, she’d thought. She’d delivered a pretty big bombshell. Nevertheless, she was stunned the next day when he texted her—
texted her,
for God’s sake!—that he couldn’t marry her. In hindsight, he’d proposed too soon. Could they just take a step back?

She’d taken a step back, all right. Right out of his life. The jerk.

That’s what had held her back this past year. Not that she felt she needed to blurt out the bit about the visions thing on a first date, but then the question became, at what point did you tell a romantic partner? And what was the point of a relationship if she didn’t tell? As she’d demonstrated to Cal up on that ridge tonight, she clearly wasn’t ready to jump into bed with a guy she knew casually just to scratch an itch.

But she was close.

So close, in fact, that if she hadn’t rededicated herself to her mission, Cal would be in her bed right now.

Just like that, the pictures were there—Cal holding himself over her, his weight braced on those powerful arms, caging her, his pale eyes unreadable in the dark…

Damn. So not what she should be thinking about. She squeezed her thighs together, seeking relief from the ache.

Forget it, Townsend. Nothing’s changed.

Yet even as she told herself that, she knew that everything had changed. She’d touched his face, kissed his mouth, felt his sex stir…

“Aaargh!”
Pure thoughts
. Pulling the quilts over her head, she tried to channel Mother Teresa.

Lauren woke to the smell of bacon frying. Groaning, she fumbled for her watch and peered at it in the half-light. Six-o-five.

Too early to crawl out of her warm nest. She settled back again, but before sleep came, the scent of perking coffee reached her. Hunger she could have ignored, but the siren call of caffeine snared her. She donned her clothes and entered the adjoining room.

Both men sat at the table. She paused a moment in the doorway to watch them. Cal was dressed but rumpled. He’d probably slept in his clothes. Brady wore his shirt open, and his bare feet poked out from beneath faded jeans.
Nice body
. She could see why he’d caught Marlena’s eye.

Her gaze drifted back to Cal. No, Marlena was crazy. How could she have wanted anyone else when she’d had Cal?

Brady spotted her first. “Morning, Lauren. We wake you?”

“No.” She stepped into the kitchen. “It was the smell of coffee that woke me.”

“Sit.” Cal was already on his feet. “I’ll pour.”

“I can do it. Just show me where the mugs are.”

“You’re the
guest
, remember?”

That worked for her. She sat. “Black, no sugar. And I’ll have one egg over easy, one slice of toast, and some of that bacon I smell.”

“Coming up.” He handed her a steaming mug of coffee, then turned to Brady. “Why don’t you wake Marlena? Since Lauren’s up, we’ll get an early start.”

Brady blushed at the reminder that he’d shared a bed with Cal’s ex-wife, but manfully managed not to squirm. “Sure,” he said, then left the kitchen.

Cal’s gaze followed him. “Kid’s still worried I’m gonna come aboard him.”

“Any danger of that happening?” Lauren asked.

“Hell, no. Marlena’s a free agent. And Brady’s a paying customer.” His expression flat, he turned back to the gas range.

“Cal!”

The anguished shout came from Brady. Before Cal or Lauren could react, the young man came skidding into the room.

Cal put up a hand to stop him. “Whoa, man, what is it?”

“Marlena! She won’t wake up. I think she’s dead!”

No
, thought Lauren as she watched Cal roll Marlena’s sheet-tangled body over. Her blond hair spilled over the pillows like Barbie doll hair.
Not like this. It’s not supposed to happen this way.

Then a moan issued from Marlena’s almost bloodless lips.

“Oh, thank God! She’s alive.” Brady looked like his grip on the bedpost was the only thing keeping him standing.

“Thank God is right,” Cal muttered. “That’d be just what I need.” Cal lifted one of Marlena’s eyelids, and she shrank away, groaning. He lifted his gaze to Brady. “Did she take anything last night?”

“Huh?”

“Drugs, Brady. Did she take any drugs?”

“Yeah, she did.” Brady’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Suddenly he looked less like a man and more like a scared kid. “She said it was nothing bad, nothing illegal.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. Some pills.”

“She took them to get high, I presume?”

Brady blushed furiously. “She said it would make it better for her. She offered me some, but I didn’t take any. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to…you know, to…”

“Okay, okay, we get the picture.” Cal sighed. “Bring me her backpack.”

Brady complied, his gaze downcast, shoulders slumped.

“Upend it,” Cal instructed as he removed the pillow from under Marlena’s head and rolled her onto her side.

Again the younger man did as he was told.

“There! That cosmetic bag—dump it on the bed.”

Brady hesitated at the invasion of Marlena’s privacy.

“Go on, for God’s sake, just dump it. We’ll make our apologies
after
we make sure she’s gonna live.”

He dumped it. Lauren gasped.

“Damned walking pharmacy.” Cal scooped up a handful of drugstore-issue pill bottles and scanned the labels. “Uppers, downers, sleeping pills, painkillers. Jesus, she must have double-doctored her way through greater Calgary to collect this much junk.” For the first time, he looked as though he might not have the situation completely under control. “What do we do now? She might’ve taken a freaking
cocktail
of this stuff.”

“Let me have a look at her,” Lauren heard herself say.

Brady perked up. “You a doctor or something?”

“Or something.”

Cal glanced up. “You know first aid?” When she nodded, he shifted out of the way. “She’s all yours.”

“Brady, have a look at the pills and see if you recognize what she took,” she said before perching on the bed. Brady jumped to the task, and Lauren turned her attention to the exam. It turned out to be more reassuring than she’d anticipated. Despite first appearances, Marlena wasn’t unconscious, just very drowsy and
reluctant to open her eyes. Her pupils were responsive, heartbeat regular, reflexes good. Through the whole exam, Marlena mumbled curses, trying to twist away into sleep.

Lauren sat back. What could Marlena have taken? She didn’t display the slow respiration and poor reflexes of a barbiturate overdose, nor the excited vitals of an amphetamine high. It looked like a hashish overdose, but Brady said pills…

“Found it!” Brady’s voice was excited. “This is the one. I’m sure of it. It starts with an X.”

Lauren took the bottle from him. “Xanax.” Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Benzodiazepine. Good.”

“Good?” asked Cal.

“It’s a nervous system depressant. It can cause profound drowsiness, impaired coordination, and so forth, but normally not coma. At least not in reasonable quantity and not in the absence of alcohol or some other substance.” She glanced up at Brady. “Can you be sure she didn’t inhale or inject anything in addition to this?”

“Just the pills. Nothing else.”

“No booze?”

“No, ma’am.”

“What time did she take it?”

“The last time?” Lauren didn’t think Brady could redden any more, but he did. “An hour ago. Maybe a little longer.”

“Then stand clear.” Lauren rolled Marlena closer to the edge of the bed. Hoping that her patient had a healthy gag reflex, she introduced two fingers into Marlena’s throat.

“Jesus!”

Both men leapt back in unison as Marlena vomited neatly on the small braided rug beside the bed. With arms that trembled more from relief than exertion, Lauren maneuvered a suddenly vocal and decidedly furious Marlena back onto the pillows.

She grimaced, holding her hands in front of her. “I’m going to clean up, after which I think I’m really going to need that coffee.” With that, she strode to the bathroom on shaking legs.

When she emerged from the bathroom five minutes later, she found Cal at the table with the flowered cosmetic bag. Lauren filled a coffee mug and carried it to the table without sloshing a drop, her trembling finally conquered. “She all right?”

“Judging by the abuse she’s heaping on our boy right now, I’d say she’s well on the road to recovery. Thanks to you.”

She shrugged. “The effects are a lot like alcohol. If we hadn’t tried to wake her up so early, she’d likely have slept it off. We’d have been none the wiser.”

“Jesus, that’s scary.” He raked a hand through his hair, making it stand up. “So how’d you come by all that knowledge if you’re not a doctor? ER nurse? Pharmacist?”

Her mind raced as he refilled his mug. She’d known this question was coming. While she’d busied herself cleaning up, she’d toyed with the idea of telling him the truth—that she’d done a year of med school before deciding to thwart her parents’ ambitions for her by pursuing her own love, veterinary medicine. But it was a little late now. He’d find it pretty strange that she hadn’t mentioned before that she was a vet. Worse, he’d probably think she made the erotica writer bit up to titillate him. How humiliating would that be? She’d painted herself into a corner.

“EMT,” she said, then took a hasty swallow of her coffee. Well, she wasn’t lying. Her knowledge of poison control
did
come largely from her paramedic experience.

“EMT?” His forehead wrinkled.

“Emergency medical technologist. Before I moved to Halifax, I worked with a rural volunteer ambulance service. But then they upgraded, got rid of all the volunteer services in favor of a paid professional corps, and that was the end of my stint. I haven’t worked on people in years.”

Lauren almost bit her tongue at the last bit, but if he wondered what she
did
work on these days, he didn’t ask. Instead he gestured toward the cosmetic bag.

“What do you make of this stash?”

She pursed her lips. “It seems fairly comprehensive for a young, healthy woman.”

“Diplomatically put.” He extracted one of the tiny bottles. “Personally I’d say my ex-wife has a honkin’ big drug problem.”

“She wouldn’t be the first to abuse prescription drugs.”

“No doubt.” He rolled the bottle in his hand. “But I’ve got a hunch the prescription route wasn’t her first choice.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I doubt she spent her whole settlement, plus whatever she borrowed from the loan shark, on drugstore highs. I’m thinking she must have developed a taste for the recreational stuff, then turned to prescription drugs when the money ran out. Not that it matters.” He poked the bottle back in the bag with the others. “She’ll be doing without any of it as long as she stays here.”

Lauren said nothing, merely stared into her coffee cup.

She heard the legs of his chair scrape across the floor as he pushed back from the table. “What?” he demanded roughly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t have to.” He snapped up the cosmetic bag, dangling it by its grip. “You think I should give this back to her?”

The intensity of his gaze reminded her of the angry energy of the Atlantic when the tail end of a hurricane stirred it up. She found it disturbing to watch the ocean then, just as she found it disturbing to hold Cal’s gaze now. But hold it she did.

“I have the impression you’re planning to hustle her out of town again as soon as this loan shark thing blows over.”