Melinda Di Lorenzo - Undercover Protector

She squeezed her lids shut.

A scream built up in her throat.

Her mouth dropped wide.

She threw back her head.

And with the exception of her pulse, everything around her went still. Ever so slowly, Nadine dragged her eyes open. Then she blinked, and reality came flooding in. There was no smoke, no scream and no paralyzing terror. Instead, there was disinfectant-scented air, soft white light and the steady hum of medical machinery.

The hospital, she thought.

Though to be more accurate, it was the Whispering Woods Acute Care Facility. The mountainside tourist town was too small to have a real hospital, but the influx of outsiders twice a year—summer and winter—necessitated something more formal than a simple clinic. Nadine wished she could be thankful for it, but she’d been stuck in the same bed for seven days. Being under lock and key for that long was more than enough. And the unpleasant icing on the unpleasant cake was that the nightmares—an off-and-on staple for nearly the last decade—seemed more frequent here in the yellow-walled room.

She sighed. If she’d been back home in Freemont City, she would’ve simply discharged herself.

Except Freemont’s not really home anymore, is it?

Nadine swallowed, wishing she could simply shove off the reminder. It wasn’t like she’d left anything behind. Her things were boxed up or sold. Her old job belonged to someone else. And her ex was probably in bed, his arms wrapped up around his current fling.

And you washed your hands of that life on purpose.

That much was true. For six months after her breakup with Grant, she’d walked around in a daze. She’d done her best to be there for her cherubic students with their sweet questions, but, really, she hadn’t been able to get into a proper teaching groove. So when a lawyer had shown up on her doorstep and informed her that she’d inherited her childhood home in Whispering Woods—a shock because she’d assumed that everything her mom owned had been spoken for a year prior when she passed—she hadn’t even hesitated. Kismet, she’d called it. Especially when the teaching position at Whispering Woods Elementary had fallen into her lap, too.

Except in the month or so since she’d arrived in town, she hadn’t accomplished much in the way of teaching. And she’d accomplished even less in regard to cleaning out her inherited apartment. Instead, she’d watched her half brother get shot. She’d been caught up in some decade-and-a-half-old crime that somehow also tied to the decade-old accident that she couldn’t remember. And, according to the few people who knew what was really going on, the police weren’t even aware of her brother’s murder. It was as chilling as it was concerning. Thankfully, the corrupt cop who’d killed him was also dead, and though she was responsible for the event that caused his death, the local authorities investigating had ruled it an accident. But now Nadine was stuck in a hospital bed with an IV in her hand and a generally bad taste in her mouth. And of course there was the wannabe guard at her door. A detective from Freemont with his own ties to the crimes in question.

Her eyes drifted to the narrow blinds of her interior window. She could just see the man’s slumped-over form on the bench in the hall. So far, Detective Anderson Somers hadn’t budged much from his spot. She was pretty sure he’d been living off vending-machine sandwiches. Maybe the same watery coffee dispensed there, as well.

Nadine let out a heavy breath and looked away. If his presence didn’t bother her so much, she might’ve felt a little sorry for him. She doubted that being her watchdog was as exciting as his usual day-to-day work.

He probably hates it here as much as I do.

But even with that acknowledgment, she could barely manage to drum up more than a trickle of empathy. Because Anderson Somers’s presence was the real reason she couldn’t discharge herself. It was he who’d insisted to the doctor that Nadine needed the extra recovery time. He’d said it all in a too-nice voice, reeling off some medical jargon about head injuries, smiling like he cared. He had a nice smile. Even teeth. And it always touched his eyes. So the doctor had bought it. Of course.

Nadine narrowed her own eyes at the window. What, exactly, had the detective said to the staff at the care facility about his relationship with her? she wondered. What would make them think he could speak on her behalf? She was truly curious, but she wouldn’t dare ask.

Like he could feel her eyes on him, Anderson shifted in his seat, his head lifting enough that Nadine could see his shaggy blond mop. She quickly sank back against her pillow and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping he hadn’t caught her staring. A second later, she worried that maybe he had, for her door whooshed open and soft footfalls tapped along the floor, then stopped not far from the edge of her bed.

Nadine feigned sleep, inhaling and exhaling at a carefully measured pace. At a count of ten, the steps receded, and then the door shut. When she lifted her lids and peered through her lashes, she saw that the bench outside was now empty.

Hmm. So he’s been sneaking away when I sleep.

For some inexplicable reason, the idea bothered her as much as the fact that he’d been watching her around the clock. She narrowed her eyes again. Then pursed her lips. And finally smiled as a realization occurred to her. This was the perfect opportunity to free herself. From both the detective’s scrutiny and the doctor’s.

Nadine slid her legs out from under her covers, then swung them over the side of the bed. She waited for a reaction of some kind. A yell from the nurses station, or for Anderson to suddenly pop his head in and shoot her one of his too-sympathetic smiles. But there was just the same silence as there had been when she was tucked nicely under the blankets.

So she took it a step further. She reached over to her automatic IV unit and pressed the off button. Then she waited some more. No alarm sounded. No one came running.

“All right, then,” she murmured to herself.

With her eyes on the door, she took ahold of the tape that held the plastic tubing to her hand and pulled it off. Then she pressed her pinky finger firmly against the port and tugged out the tube itself. It came free with ease—no mess, no pain. It was almost too easy.

Nadine breathed out. Maybe she should’ve felt a bit of guilt as she shouldered into her sweatshirt. Or as she grabbed her shoulder bag. Maybe she should’ve admitted that it was a bit unreasonable to go running out of the care facility like she was doing. But she wasn’t going to let either thing stop her. No way would being stuck where she was get her any closer to getting justice for her brother. Or any closer to filling in the gaps in her memory. She needed to be moving. Looking. And in order to do those things, she couldn’t be kept under guard in a hospital bed.

She cast a final look over the room, slid her feet into her slippers and slipped out into the hall.

* * *

As Detective Anderson Somers rounded the corner in the hall that led to ward 3B, he just about dropped his coffee. A woman who looked an awful lot like Nadine Stuart was moving very quickly in the other direction.

Blond hair, almost shaved up one side and a shock of bluntly straight locks on the other. Yep. Brown eyes, a little guarded and a lot defiant. Uh-huh. Then she turned her head just enough that he could see the distinctive scar along the line of her cheek. It was her. No doubt. Complete from the rosebud mouth to the sheep-print pajama bottoms.

For a second, Anderson was too startled to do much more than stare. What was she even doing awake, let alone scurrying through the hall? It was two in the morning. He’d barely seen her out of the bed since she’d been admitted the week before, and less than five minutes earlier, he’d checked in on her to make sure she was asleep before he took off to grab some coffee that wasn’t vending-machine swill.