Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

She grinned feebly at him. “I’m overstepping, huh? At least you can go home and climb mountains. I’m stuck here baby-sitting Rob’s twin sister. She’s-oh, shit.” Juliet groaned, nearly spilling her coffee. “Damn. Now I’ve done it.”

Nate glanced behind him and saw a pretty blonde in slim jeans and a black sweater turn about-face and retreat down the hall.

“Sarah Dunnemore?” He shook his head. “Good one, Longstreet.”

“Crap. At least Rob and I ended it on a positive note or this’d be even worse.” She set her coffee on the small refreshment cart. “Sarah’s really nice. Why don’t you come meet her?”

“You dug your hole. I’m not going to help you dig yourself out of it.”

She snorted at him. “I could tell you what people say about you behind your back, you know.”

As if he didn’t know. As if he cared. Nate grinned at her, but she squared her shoulders and headed out into the hall. He had the feeling she’d rather face the sniper who’d shot at him and Rob rather than have to make amends to Rob’s offended twin sister.

The armed deputies securing all access to her brother-medical, professional and personal-underscored for Sarah the gravity of his situation and the cold fact that the shooter was still at large.

The deputies let her pass without explanation of why she’d returned so soon. She’d just left the private corner of the I.C.U. where Rob lay with his tubes and monitors, asleep. She thought she’d step into the waiting room and collect herself before her next visit. Now she wished she hadn’t. Juliet’s words, which she obviously hadn’t meant for Sarah to hear, had stung.

Rob stirred when she approached him, as if sensing her presence, and any thought of her embarrassment receded. “Hey, kid,” he said without opening his eyes, his voice hoarse from the respirator. “How ya doing?”

It was the first time he’d managed to speak to her. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Rob-oh, God, Rob, you’ve been through absolute hell, haven’t you? But your doctors say you’re doing well.”

“Yeah.” He moved his fingers, and she took his hand, his skin moist and pale. His eyes fluttered open-they were bloodshot, glassy looking-but the effort was too much and he shut them again. “Sarah, listen to me…”

“Sure, Rob. What can I do for you?”

“You’re on vacation.” He coughed, and she noticed spots of some kind of brownish ointment on his gown, the fresh bandage on his abdomen. He was weak, heavily medicated, exhausted. His attempt to talk-to make sense-had to be a struggle. “I don’t want you here if I’ve got someone shooting at me.”

It wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “Just relax, okay? It’ll be all right.”

“If this guy sees you…”

“Nobody’s going to see me.” She tried to sound cheerful, but his fear was palpable, unnerving. “Rob, please don’t worry-just concentrate on getting better.”

His eyes still closed, he mustered his energy and squeezed her hand. His hair was matted, dirty. “You’re too trusting.”

She wanted to reassure him, but she had no intention of going back to Tennessee, not until he was more himself. “I’ll go home. Of course I will. I can’t wait to go home. After I know you’re better.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s a little after nine in the morning. You were injured yesterday around lunchtime.”

“Tonight. You can catch a flight back to Nashville tonight. Promise me.”

She didn’t know if he was entirely lucid or if the trauma of his injury, the lifesaving surgery and the medications he was on were making him a little crazy. Paranoid. She had a friend whose father, suffering complications after heart surgery, kept insisting he saw waiters in tuxedos delivering him pheasant under glass in the I.C.U.

Or was her brother simply projecting his own fears onto her? If she were drinking tea on the front porch at home in Night’s Landing, he’d feel safer.

“I don’t…” His voice was barely a rasping whisper now. “I don’t remember anything.”

He looked so vulnerable, so out of his element. Sarah could picture him yesterday in Central Park-strong, vital, a professional but also a man with a sense of fun. Why would someone shoot him? Who would do something like that? She’d lain awake much of the night on the futon in Juliet Longstreet’s, surrounded by plants and fish tanks as the questions repeated themselves. And over and over, until she finally gave up on sleeping at all, she kept hearing Rob on the phone, telling her he’d been shot.

She found herself having to choke back tears. “I’ll let you sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

But her twin brother had already drifted off.

Brushing her tears off her cheeks with her fingertips, Sarah stepped backward toward the exit and stumbled on someone’s feet. Before she could fall flat on her face, a firm hand caught her by the elbow, steadying her.

“Whoa, there. Easy.”

She spun around, straight into Nate Winter, the deputy who’d been shot with her brother. She recognized him from the photo they’d shown on TV. He was tall, lean, his dark hair softened with just a hint of auburn, and he had, Sarah thought, the most incisive, the most no-nonsense blue eyes she’d ever seen. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt under a dark plaid flannel shirt and scuffed running shoes.

The blue eyes settled on her. “Sarah Dunnemore, right?”

She nodded. “Deputy Winter-I hope I didn’t hurt your arm.”

She realized she was about to cry. She’d held her tears in check since the marshals had arrived in Night’s Landing yesterday, but now, with her brother lying a few feet away from her, hurting, begging her to go home, with the lingering sting of Juliet’s words, she couldn’t hold back. “I should go.”

Nate Winter didn’t say a word, didn’t try to stop her as she pushed past him and ran out of the I.C.U. into the hall, sobbing, tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t bring herself under control. She hated crying in front of anyone.

Juliet shot out of the waiting room. “Sarah-wait.”

Sarah broke into a run, charging past startled law enforcement officers. She squeezed by doctors and nurses getting off and onto an elevator and pushed her way to the back wall, sinking against it, bracing her knees as she focused on her breathing in an attempt to calm herself.

Nate Winter had been shot yesterday, and he was a rock. Steady, unemotional.

She had no business falling apart.

“You’re too trusting.”

Maybe. Maybe she shouldn’t have told the truth about who’d called last night. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Juliet Longstreet insist on moving her out of the hotel.

Maybe she shouldn’t trust her brother’s colleagues to have her best interests at heart.

They were all in shock themselves. They wanted to find a sniper, not be burdened with a wounded deputy’s archaeologist sister.

She had to get a grip.

Had Winter overheard her brother urging her to go home? Would he take it as his duty to put her on a plane back to Nashville?

She didn’t like the idea of being a nuisance, having these people think they were responsible for her. Before her flight to New York, her deputy escorts had offered to arrange for a counselor to be with her, but she’d turned them down. Maybe if her brother had been killed.

But he was alive. He’d be all right. She’d been so determined not to tempt fate by agreeing prematurely to counseling. She just had an ordeal to get through.

She hadn’t expected, though, that Rob wouldn’t want her in New York.

The elevator doors shut. An elderly doctor frowned at her in concern. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.