The Honeymoon Cottage (A Pajaro Bay Romance) (14 page)

She wasn't much for praying, but she knew if she didn't get them out, they were done for. No one would notice until—when? Until Ms. Zelda came for her appointment? That was hours away.

"Oliver!"

No answer. She got to him, grabbed him by his pajama top—his favorite flannel race cars—and pulled. He slid across the smooth floor. She opened the bottom half of the dutch door and heard it bang against the cottage's wall. The outside air slapped her face—cold and wet and fresh.

She grabbed onto Oliver again. She pulled him closer to the door. She had to make it. She had to.

Then the top of the door banged open and something warm and hard was there. A person—not just any person, but Ryan. She had never felt so relieved at someone's presence in her whole life. He picked Oliver up in one swift movement, grabbed her with his other arm and propelled them out the door.

She felt cool grass wet beneath her. The air cold, wet, and so fresh and clean. She thought she heard Ryan saying something about backup and emergency, but she couldn't make it out.

She coughed and coughed. Ryan was bending over Oliver. She tried to ask if Oliver was okay, but it came out as a small squeak.

"He's alive," Ryan said briskly. "Come on, son, wake up!"

She crawled over to Oliver and started rubbing his face. "Honey, wake up. Wake up, please." His breathing was steady, the flannel race cars rising and falling with each breath. "Please, sweetheart."

He opened his eyes. "Mama?"

"It's Camilla, honey. You're okay. You're going to be okay."

"You're both going to be okay," Ryan said, sitting back on his heels.

~*~

Chapter 7

"And how are you doing, young man?"

Dr. Lil had short gray hair, a no-nonsense bedside manner, and an air of competence that had put Camilla at ease from the moment they'd burst through the doors of the Pajaro Bay Medical Clinic at 2:15 a.m.

Now it was several hours later, the light was shining in the window of the little room, and she watched as the doc checked Oliver over again, re-testing all his reflexes.

Oliver looked over at Camilla. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Oliver. Don't you worry about anything."

"I just turned on the heater upstairs...."

"I know. You were cold."

Such a simple mistake. He had gone into the house ahead of her last night, and, feeling cold, had turned the knob on the heater in the upstairs hallway. The heater she hadn't yet checked for safety.

"You mad?"

"Of course not." She smiled at him. "Really. Not mad at all. You were very brave last night."

He stopped hunching over in the bed, and she relaxed. Oliver had enough on his small shoulders. The last thing the kid needed was to feel he'd done something wrong. It was an innocent mistake.

She gave him another big smile. "Now listen to Dr. Lil. She's still checking you out."

Dr. Lil straightened up. "I'm done checking. He's doing fine. His oxygen saturation levels are normal, and he's alert and responsive."

"I'm not brain dead?" he asked.

"Definitely not brain dead, young man." She winked at him.

"And you're not either, young lady," Dr. Lil said, turning to Camilla. "But you should get back to your bed." After assuring Oliver that he wasn't going to miss any exciting procedures if they left him alone for a few minutes, Dr. Lil helped Camilla back to her room.

"He still has a headache," Camilla said when she was being helped into her bed.

"That's normal. Your headache is, too. You had a close call."

"But he's okay?" She allowed the doc to pull the covers up over her and leaned back against the pillows.

"You're both completely okay. There's no permanent damage. A few more minutes and brain dead might not have been a joke." The doc looked over her clipboard. "These readings are very good. Oxygen content good. You got out very quickly. If you hadn't woken up so quickly, you could have died in your sleep."

She shuddered at the thought.

"But luckily the carbon monoxide levels are pretty low. You hadn't breathed in too much before you got away from the source. It could have been much worse. Particularly in a child, it doesn't take much to cause serious problems."

"But he's okay." She needed to hear it again to be reassured.

"He's fine. You did the right thing getting out immediately. If you had slept until morning, you might never have woken up."

"The elves woke us up," she muttered.

"Elves?" Dr. Lil raised an eyebrow at her.

"No, I'm not hallucinating, Doc. I'm just joking. One of the old fireplace tiles fell on me and woke me up. It was almost like the cottage itself warned me."

"Ah. You're in a Stockdale," Dr. Lil said, deadpan.

Camilla looked incredulously at the no-nonsense doctor. "You believe in elves?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Not quite. Some of the old timers believe the cottages are haunted—enchanted, more accurately. They believe Stockdales have personalities, and individual presences."

Camilla must have looked shocked, because Doc clarified: "I'm not saying I believe that. But a lot of people here do. But whatever the reason, you and Oliver are very lucky—both that you woke up and that Captain Ryan was there to rush you to the clinic."

"Yeah." She frowned, which made her head hurt worse, so she tried to stop. She hadn't had a chance to discuss Ryan's sudden arrival with him. That couldn't have been coincidence. She didn't believe in little elves, and she didn't believe Captain Ryan Knight was just "passing by" her cottage at two a.m. either.

~*~

"Don't sit down, Ryan. You're not staying." Camilla sat up in the hospital bed and scowled at him.

Ryan stood up quickly from the chair he had been about to plop down in. "So we're back to Captain Ryan. After I dragged you out of there?"

She realized she was feeling really angry with him, and it wasn't fair. "I'm sorry," she mumbled.

He leaned over so his face was inches away from hers. "It's okay," he whispered. His hand brushed across the top of her head, just barely touching her curls, but she felt the tingle across her scalp. "I was afraid you were going to die," he whispered.

She pulled back from him, and he straightened up. "Can I sit down? I've been up all night rescuing damsels in distress."

She motioned to the chair by the bed and he plopped down in it. He looked exhausted.

He seemed to have trouble figuring out where to put his hands, eventually resting his palms on his knees. He cleared his throat. "This is a nice room."

"Yup. If I can figure out how to pay for it, it'll be even nicer."

He nodded. "I can talk to Dr. Lil. I'm sure something can be worked out."

There he went again, trying to run things. How had she gone from avoiding him, to having him controlling her? "Thank you for saving my life," she said, very formally.

"You're welcome, Ma'am," he said, equally stiffly. But there was a ghost of a smile on his face and the skin around his eyes crinkled up, making him look tired and charming and quite adorable.

She tried to stay mad. Mad was good, because it protected her from the feelings she felt every time she was around him. Anger protected her from noticing how his big hands looked all strong and tanned, and about how his blue eyes seemed warm and friendly today, not intimidating and piercing, and how she really wanted him to brush his hand across her head again, and maybe even touch her somewhere other than the top of her head....

"About how you saved us, though," she said, trying not to smile in response to his little grin. "Maybe you can explain how you happened to know we needed help?" She crossed her arms across her chest and glared at him.

She was pretty sure her glare wasn't effective, though, because his smile just got bigger. "Isn't there some old saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth?"

"Don't get evasive with me, Ryan. You haven't answered my question. What were you doing outside my house at two in the morning?" Maybe she owed him something for saving them. Maybe she wanted to just lay back in the hospital bed and relish the warmth of him being here next to her, the feeling of him protecting her, sharing some of the burden of this strange situation she was in. Maybe she did, but she just knew that would be a mistake. She had tried to keep her distance from him, and yet she kept ending up spending time with him. She kept feeling an attraction that was going to lead to disaster when he, a do-gooder cop, found out she was a criminal's daughter, with secrets of her own. When he found out she wasn't "good," and "honest," and "smart," and "kind," and all the other words he kept calling her that she knew were part of the act she was putting on for him.

"Nope," he said, the grin vanishing at her expression. "You're definitely a gift-horse-looker."

"I just want an answer."

"Nice pink pajamas."

"Leftovers from my old life. I paid cash for them, so nobody could repossess them when I went bankrupt."

"That's good. Those pajama repo men can be brutal."

She laughed in spite of herself. She watched those hands of his, and told herself again not to fall. "You're not answering my question," she said stiffly.

He smiled weakly. "I'd say you look cute when you're angry, but that wouldn't help, would it?"

"Don't joke with me. My head hurts."

"Sorry. Should I call Doc to get you an aspirin?"

"Stop trying to take care of me, and explain what you were doing there."

"We do patrol the streets of Pajaro Bay, you know."

"I'm not stupid."

"I would never suggest you were stupid."

"You did last night, when you told me Dennis could be a murderer."

"Yeah. About what I said last night..."

"Wait. I first want to know what you were doing there."

"Same question." He looked at her pointedly.

She sat there rubbing her aching forehead until she got it. "You mean you're stalking us because you think Dennis is trying to kill us?"

"I would think you might take me a little more seriously after last night."

"After last night? Oh. You mean the heater? Oliver turned on a heater without checking with me. It was old and cracked—the fire department investigator was here an hour ago to explain how it was broken—which you should know if you're stalking me."

"I'm not stalking you. Stop being melodramatic."

"Then stop being crazy!" But he didn't look like a crazy man. He looked like he was tired, and worried. "Okay, Ryan. Let's assume for the moment that you're not insane."

"That sounds good."

"What were you doing outside the house?"

"Waiting for Dennis. No, wait," he said when she started to interrupt. "I'm not sure he's a murderer. I'm not sure which one of us is right. Yes, I talked to the fire investigator, too. It looks like an accident, and—" he paused, and she wondered if he was trying to appease her when he added: "and it probably was."

"So, you agree that maybe I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to Dennis's relationship with his son?"

"If you're right—okay, you're probably right—if you are, then I have even more reason to be outside the cottage."

She nodded. "You want to catch him."

"Don't you?"

"Yes! That's the only way to completely clear my name." She thought back to what she'd been thinking last night when putting Oliver to bed. "And it's the only way to settle things for Oliver, to give him stability. But that doesn't mean you have to stalk me."

"It's not stalking."

"Okay, follow closely with the intent of tracking my every move."

He smiled. "You're cute when you're being impossible."

"I warned you about teasing me when my head hurts."

"Yes, you did. I'm sorry."

She plucked at the bedcovers for a minute. "You don't have to wait outside. I would call you if Dennis showed up."

"Maybe."

"Maybe! You think I'm hiding Dennis? You think I'm still seeing him?"

"Of course not. But I think he might come for Oliver. And if he does, he'll probably want to make sure you don't call the police."

"By blowing me up in the car?"

"I didn't say that."

"What are you saying? That Dennis snuck into the house last night, sabotaged the gas heater so it would leak when it was turned on, then snuck out without taking his son? You're not making any sense."

"No. I'm not," he conceded. He sat back in the chair. "I'm not making sense. But that's because nothing is making sense. You've got to admit this is a weird situation."

"I am the first to admit this is a weird situation." She paused, and looked across the room at a stand full of medical supplies. She made up her mind. "It doesn't make any sense," she said. "But the bottom line is, I don't want you hanging around us. I'm grateful you saved us, but I don't want you following us around any more." It's too dangerous to my heart, she added silently.

"I might have to follow you around," he said quietly.

She stared at him, and saw the determination in his eyes. "Even if I don't want you to?"

He nodded. "If I have to follow you to keep you safe, I will. Ma'am. It's my job."

He stood up. "Now, I'm going to have a talk with Oliver." He headed for the door.

She threw back the bedcovers and put her legs over the side. "Oh, no you're not. Not without me there. I know my legal rights. If you even think of interrogating Oliver about this without his legal guardian present, I'll"—

He turned back. "What will you do, Camilla?"

"I'll"—tell your boss, she started to say. "I'll never speak to you again, Captain Knight."

He took a step closer to the bed, his expression hard. "That would be a terrible thing," he said quietly.

He leaned down, and put a hand around that back of her neck and then he was kissing her. His lips were surprisingly soft, and gentle. He smelled of the ocean and warm skin and something distinctively him.

She should pull away and tell him to knock it off, but her arms were around his shoulders and it took at least five more seconds before she pushed him away.