Unwrapped (8 page)

She was tired of spending her days dreaming about Scotsmen and bloodsuckers. And even more tired of spending her nights dreaming about skilled fingers and hot lips. If talking to Patrick made her realize that he was only an ordinary man, not some mythical vampire or dream lover, then so be it. Hopefully, seeing him in the light of day would allow her to move on with her plan to get her aunt's money. This time she wouldn't run off from the wedding. She rested a hand on her stomach. The stakes were much too high.

“Hey!” A man yelled at them. “You can't walk through here.”

Gerald started to stop, but Jac tugged him along. Once her eyes adjusted to the shadowy building, she immediately spotted Patrick.

He stood at a makeshift worktable, one hand resting on his hip while the other held a cell phone to his ear. His attention was pinned on the plans rolled out on the table. The closer they got to him, the louder his voice got.

“I don't give a damn what excuses the guy has, I want that crane here now.”

The sound of his deep voice sent a shiver through Jac's body. Or maybe it wasn't his voice as much as the image that popped into her head. An image of Patrick standing in front of her, his muscled body highlighted by the fire that flickered behind him. That breathy sigh/moan escaped her lips. Gerald glanced down at her and lifted an eyebrow.

“It's not too late to change your mind,” he said. She ignored him and continued to pull him toward Patrick.

“Hey, did you hear me?” The man grabbed Gerald's arm and stopped them. “You can't be in here.”

Patrick looked up, his green eyes zeroing in and taking all the air from Jacqueline's lungs. “What the hell, Jimmy? Get those people a hard hat.”

“I'm trying, boss.” He looked back at Gerald and Jacqueline. “You can't be in here. Not without—”

There was a loud clang from overhead, then an even louder shout to “Look out below!”

Jac glanced up just in time to see an object bounce off a steel beam. It spun end over end just like Thor's hammer, heading straight for her. There was a burst of pain.

Then there was nothing but darkness.

P
atrick couldn't quite believe his eyes. Not only because two civilians had slipped through the barricades but also because of the precision with which the thermos bounced off the steel girder and headed straight for the woman with the really ugly hair. It ricocheted off her forehead with a dull thud, and she dropped like a stone. Luckily, the guy with the pink scarf caught her before she hit the cement foundation. Unluckily, the woman looked like she was out cold.

Shit. Here's a lawsuit.

“Gotta go, Charlie. I'll expect to see that crane here by this afternoon.” He hung up without waiting for a reply and dialed 911 on his way over to the limp woman. As he knelt, he noticed her black hair was now askew. The wig sat on her head at an angle, and her large sunglasses had slipped off her nose to cover her mouth.

“I'm sorry, Patrick.” Jimmy, the college kid he'd just hired, stood over them with panic in his eyes. “They wouldn't stop when I yelled at them.”

“We'll discuss it later,” Patrick said. “For now, go get me some ice out of a cooler.” He pushed the wig up on the woman's forehead and examined the large bump that was forming. The 911 operator finally answered. While he gave her the pertinent information, the victim's eyes fluttered open. They were a clear robin's-egg blue. And when they focused on him, they widened, and her hand covered her neck.

Patrick's heart thwacked against his ribs. “Jacqueline?”

The woman didn't answer. She just stared at him—mostly at his mouth. Even in a cold building, a shaft of heat speared through him. He pulled his gaze away and finished talking with the operator. When he ended the call, he turned to find Jacqueline being mauled by the guy in the pink scarf.

He was the same guy in the picture that had been on Jacqueline's phone. Patrick instantly disliked him. He didn't like his navy coat or his fancy designer jeans or his perfect haircut. He really didn't like the way he hugged Jacqueline to his chest.

“My God, Jac. Are you all right?” he asked in a frantic voice. “That missile thing just came out of nowhere. Then it hit you, and you went limp in my arms. For a brief moment, I thought you were…dead.” He looked like he was about to burst into tears.

“I'm all right,” she whispered as she pulled back. Even with the sunglasses covering her eyes, Patrick could feel her gaze riveted on him. The man continued to ramble. This time at Patrick.

“How fast will the ambulance get here? Would it be faster if I took her? Or maybe we should get a helicopter.”

Patrick didn't answer him. Instead he got to his feet and swept Jacqueline up in his arms. He didn't care that it might piss the guy off. Or even that it might piss Jacqueline off. She was lucky he didn't chew her ass out. Fool woman. What was she doing parading around his construction site without a hard hat? Standing right in the line of a wayward thermos? Hanging out with a jerk in a pink scarf?

And why the hell had she left his cabin when Patrick hadn't been finished with her?

But instead of asking her that question, he carried her through the building to the jobsite trailer at the back of the lot. Her arms hooked around his neck, her hands brushing the skin above his shirt collar. He couldn't explain the heat her cold fingers generated. Nor could he explain his strong desire to punch the guy she was with.

“Bailey's going to kill me,” the man said as he hurried along next to them. “Kill me. I don't know why I let you talk me into this. Let's fly to Denver, she says. It'll be a fun little getaway, she says. Well, there was nothing fun about this. Not one thing. Not the long plane trip or the bad coffee or the crazy spy thing. And certainly not the flying object thing. Oh God, Bailey is going to kill me!”

Ignoring the man's nonsensical jabbering, Patrick climbed the steps of the trailer and shifted Jacqueline so he could open the door. As soon as they entered, his foreman Steve jumped up from the chair behind the desk.

“Patrick, what happened?”

“A thermos hit her in the head.” He moved to the decrepit sofa and laid her down. She tried to sit up, but he warned her with one look. She shrugged and relaxed back against the cushions, causing the wig to shift. A strand of red hair fell from beneath. Not bright red or strawberry blond, but a deep auburn. He studied the curl for a brief second before he turned to Steve.

“Find out who dropped the thermos. I'll want to talk to them after the ambulance leaves. And get Matthew or Jacob on the phone.” He nodded at the door. “Use your cell.”

“I'm on it.” Steve grabbed his phone off the desk and brushed past the man in the pink scarf. The man looked about ready to drop.

“What can I do?” he asked.

Patrick didn't hesitate to answer. “Wait outside.”

“No!” Jacqueline sat up. The action must've made her dizzy because she closed her eyes and put a hand to her head. It was déjà vu all over again. The memories he'd been trying to wipe from his mind flooded back in vivid color—full breasts, smooth thighs, a sweet center all warm and waiting for his touch.

“Out,” he tossed over his shoulder.

There was only a slight hesitation before he reached for the doorknob. “I'll be right outside, Jac.”

She turned the huge lenses of her sunglasses toward him. “Don't call Bailey, Gerald. I'm okay…really.”

Gerald didn't look convinced, but he nodded as he slipped out the door. When he was gone, Patrick asked the question that had been resounding in his head since he first recognized her.

“What are you doing here?”

She continued to look at the door, almost as if plotting her escape. And a part of Patrick really wished he could let her. Her return was bad timing. Right now he had more on his plate than he could handle. He'd decided to take Jonesy up on his offer and had spent the last week crunching numbers and coming up with a business plan. Starting his own company was going to take time and money. The work didn't bother him and he had plenty of money in his bank account—that was, if he didn't have to pay his family back for money lost in a lawsuit.

“Do I need to repeat the question, Jacqueline?”

She pulled her gaze from the door and cocked her head, causing the wig to shift even more. “Am I supposed to know you?”

Pissed didn't even come close to describing how he felt. He wasn't sure what game she was playing, but he wasn't going to join in. “Let's see if this will jog your memory. Halloween. Two orgasms.”

Behind the lenses, her eyes didn't even blink. “Hmm? I'm sorry, it doesn't ring a bell. You must have me confused with someone else. What did this woman who had two orgasms look like?”

“Long blond hair and blue eyes.”

She held out a strand of the wig. “Short. Black.”

Patrick's shoulders tightened. Women confused and annoyed him, but they rarely made him so angry that he wanted to strangle them. Jacqueline seemed to be the exception. But he wasn't about to let her know that.

He leaned on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “You do realize that your wig is on crooked, right?”

She straightened it with a jerk. “Look, I don't know you. I wasn't with you on Halloween. And I didn't have two orgasms. The only reason I'm here is to find a contractor to build a house for me and my husband.”

“Your husband?”

“Yes.” Her cheeks beneath the frames of the glasses turned a rosy red. “My husband and I were eating breakfast across the street when the idea came to us.”

Patrick held back a snort of derision. She had to be the worst liar ever. But for now he'd play along. “Really? And just where are you planning on building this house?”

She fidgeted. “I don't have a clue. Gerald did all the land buying. We're from Cincinnati.”

“How long have you been married? And what were you doing last Halloween night?”

“Three years. And we were attending a wedding.”

“On Halloween?”

“Yes,” she sniffed. “I think Halloween is a perfect date to have a wedding.”

Tired of the game, he pushed away from the desk. “And I think you're lying. I've never met a woman yet who didn't know exactly what neighborhood her house would be built in. People who dress like you don't eat at greasy-spoon diners. As for Halloween night, you didn't attend a wedding. You were with me. You took a bath in my tub. You slept on my sofa bed. And you fu—” Jacqueline released an outraged squeal and tried to get up from the couch, but he blocked her way. “So answer the question. What the hell are you doing here getting hit in the head with thermoses and screwing up my workday?”

If he thought he could intimidate her, he was wrong. Releasing an exasperated breath, she sat back on the couch with her expensive coat buttoned up to her neck and her hands crossed over her stomach. The sunlight from one of the small windows reflected off the red strand of hair that rested on her shoulder. After seeing her naked by firelight, he knew she wasn't a true blonde. And now it all fit. The red hair. The freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. The ivory skin.

“Irish,” he breathed. “Which would explain all the blarney.”

Her mouth dropped open, but before she could get a word out, Jimmy hustled in the door.

“The ambulance is here. They're pulling around back.” He handed Patrick a towel filled with ice, then held up a candy cane–striped thermos. “This is the thermos that hit her.”

Since it looked like something a kid would have in their lunchbox, Patrick was a little taken aback. “Whom does it belong to?”

“I don't know,” Jimmy said. “When I asked around, no one on the crew would claim it.”

“Leave it on my worktable and I'll deal with it later. For now, direct the paramedics in here.” Once Jimmy was gone, Patrick knelt next to the couch and brushed the wig bangs off her forehead. The bump had gotten much bigger, causing his anger to lessen. “Does it hurt?”

“A little.”

“It could've been a lot worse.” He cradled her jaw in his hand and placed the towel of ice on the bump, surprised at the desire that tightened his gut at the feel of her soft skin. Okay, so maybe he wasn't too busy to pick up where they had left off. Because, regardless of the crazy lies she'd told, she was here for a reason. And her flushed skin and the way she closed her eyes and leaned closer said it had to do with the same desire that swirled around in him.

But before he could kiss her, the door opened and two paramedics came in, followed by the so-called husband. Gerald whispered something to one of the paramedics before shooting a guilty look at Jacqueline. The look turned to one of fear when Patrick relinquished care of Jacqueline to the paramedics and motioned for Gerald to follow him to the desk.

Once Patrick was seated behind it, he nodded for Gerald to take the chair in front. “So how's married life?”

Gerald sat down so quickly that he almost tipped backward in the wobbly chair. He used the edge of the desk to right himself before answering in a quavering voice. “G-g-good. Umm, we want to build a house and need a good construction…guy.” The man was a worse liar than Jacqueline. He cleared his throat and fidgeted with his scarf, loosening it and then sliding it back and forth on his neck. “But I guess you don't build houses, do you?”

“No.”

“Somehow I didn't think so.” After an awkward pause, he focused his attention on retying the scarf. The way he meticulously retied it finally caused Patrick to see him in a different light. The realization made Patrick feel much better, and he actually smiled as he leaned over the desk.

“Let's cut to the chase, Gerald. You aren't married to Jacqueline, any more than I am. So what are you doing here?”

Gerald swallowed hard before glancing back over his shoulder at the paramedics, who were taking Jacqueline's blood pressure. One of the paramedics spoke to her. Patrick couldn't hear what the man said, but it caused her eyes to widen and then narrow on Gerald, who took the opportunity to turn back around. “Are you a violent man by nature?” he asked.

“Not normally. But if you don't start talking, that could change.”

Gerald released his breath. “Jac has a wild imagination that sometimes gets the best of her. But underneath all the craziness, I think she really wants to do the right thing. But I want you to know that I won't allow you to harm or bully her. What happened is both your responsibility, and you need to work toward a solution in a calm, nonviolent—”

“Excuse me.” One of the paramedics moved over to the door and opened it. “I'm going to need someone to hold this so we can get the gurney in.”

Both Gerald and Patrick jumped to their feet. “The gurney?” Patrick said as he came around the desk. “You're taking her to the hospital?”

The paramedic nodded. “Normally we wouldn't be too concerned. Her vitals are good. Her pupils responsive. But I think she should have some tests run.”

Patrick relaxed. “Of course. I want to make sure she's all right.”

The paramedic nodded. “Especially since she's pregnant.”

All the oxygen in the room seemed to evaporate in one fell swoop, leaving Patrick unable to take a deep breath. His knees gave out, and he sat down so hard in the chair Gerald had vacated that the damned thing flipped backward, taking him with it. Luckily, the back of the chair hit the floor before his head did. But at that point he didn't really care.

“Are you all right?” The paramedic crouched next to him.

Patrick blinked, trying to breathe and process the words at the same time. All right? No, he wasn't all right. His organized life had just spiraled out of control, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.