Fiona Brand - Blade's Lady

Abruptly, she transferred her gaze to the rain-washed windscreen. Cold logic and bitterness dashed ice on the mystifying, aching flare of emotion. Whatever improbable fantasies had played through her mind when she’d first seen him, they were just that: improbable. She no doubt had a mild concussion, and her mind was playing bizarre tricks on her. The guy was big, tough and drop-dead gorgeous; he would have women queueing. She wasn’t in the market for a relationship, and even if she were, she had absolutely no confidence in her ability to handle a man like him.

He shoved the key in the ignition; the engine rumbled to life. “Where to?” His gaze locked briefly with hers.

“Second left. Finnegan Street. Number fifty-four.”

Anna felt the touch of his gaze again; then he was all business, checking for traffic as he eased onto the road.

“If I had been going to hurt you, I would have done it back there,” he stated flatly, his voice like dark velvet.

Pitched just that way to soothe her, she thought, realising just how tightly she was wound, just how paranoid her thoughts had become. “If I thought you would hurt me, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

And it was the truth, she realised, startled at how bone-deep that trust had gone. Mysterious though he was to her, she couldn’t shake the extraordinary compulsion to trust him.

Seconds later, he pulled over outside her block of flats.

“Thank you.” She aimed a grateful look in his general direction, fumbled her door open, then almost cried with frustration when her briefcase caught under the dash, slowing her escape.

He was already swinging out, striding around to help her down. He gripped her elbow, steadying her when she almost fell—and another of those quivering shocks travelled up her arm. It was too much. She jerked free, stumbling back, almost oblivious to the cold, steady rain streaming down her face, penetrating the collar of her raincoat and trickling down her neck.

He was talking to her, that smoky, soothing rumble again, as if he were trying to gentle a wild animal. She stared at him blankly for long seconds, not comprehending a word he was saying.

He held both hands up, palms out, in a gesture that cut through her confusion and suddenly made her feel foolish. He had only been trying to help her.

Mortified heat warmed her cheeks. He’d sheltered and protected her, driven her home—his actions those of a man used to caring for women, used to handling them. If he hadn’t grabbed her just then, she would have fallen.

“I’m sorry, I’m not…” She stopped, feeling even more clumsy, more inept. Not what? she thought bleakly. Not used to kindness? Not used to men touching her?

“You’re shaken. You’ve got a head injury. All I want to do is see you safely inside.” His mouth quirked at one corner. “Out of the rain.”

The rain. God, the rain. They were both getting soaked. She drew a breath. “Okay.” With a nod that she instantly regretted, she started up the cracked concrete path.

Anna paused at the door to her apartment, which was little more than a one-room bedsit. She turned to thank him, but he forestalled her.

“I know you don’t trust me, but I’m not leaving until you’ve either called a doctor or you let me take a look at that bump on your head.”

Once again, Anna was struck with confusion. The mere thought that anyone wanted to help her, take care of her, was so alien that for a moment she couldn’t take it in. She fingered the swelling, flinching at the hot bite of pain. Her fingers came away streaked with blood. “You’re a doctor?” She didn’t try to hide her disbelief.

Blade curbed the desire to reach out and try to soothe her with touch. It wouldn’t work, he decided dispassionately. She was as jumpy as a cat with its paw caught in a trap, and just as likely to lash out at him. It wouldn’t take much for her to kick him out on his ass, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. Not until he’d found out the answers to some questions. “I’ve had medical training. I was in the military until a couple of months ago. ‘Combat’ medicine.”

For a moment, Blade thought she wasn’t going to go for it, and he was knocked off balance by another emotion entirely—one he wasn’t pleased to admit to. Something about his ghost caught at his gut, grabbed him deep and hard. He felt…proprietary, protective. He had found her, and he was responsible for her. He wasn’t willing to let her go just yet.

When she put her case down and began digging for her key in her raincoat pocket, relief and satisfaction uncurled inside him. She didn’t want to, but she was going to trust him.

His gaze narrowed as he noted the strain she was still under, and the unusual control she was exerting now, despite the scare she’d just had. She should be shaking, coming apart, and he should be comforting her, lending her a shoulder to cry on if that was what she wanted—but none of those things were happening.

He didn’t know what this woman needed beyond a painkiller and rest. She wasn’t asking for his attention, and, even though she’d given him a measure of trust, he’d had to prise it from her. She would snatch it back in a second if he gave her reason.

She inserted the key in the lock, pushed the door open, stepped inside and flicked a switch. The small, sparse room flooded with the dim light of a naked, low-wattage bulb. Blade followed her in, cataloguing the room in one smooth sweep, noting windows and doors—the action as natural to him as it was to carry the Glock he’d left folded up in his jacket in the Jeep.

His persona shifted from soldier to male as she set the briefcase down beside her tiny dining table and began unbuttoning her coat.

He’d already noted that she was slim; now he saw that she could stand to gain a few pounds, although he knew there were curves beneath those shapeless clothes. When he’d helped her from that ditch, she must have had a dizzy spell, because she’d stumbled. For a split second she’d gone boneless against him and he’d felt the firm pressure of her breasts against his stomach.

She was also shivering and pale, her eyes big in her face. Too damn big. They were an odd colour, a strange, riveting, silver-grey, as if mist and shadows had taken up permanent residence there.

And her mouth… Something kicked hard in his gut. He hadn’t noticed her mouth before, but now that she’d wiped off some of the mud, it took all of his attention. It was pale, lush, pretty and sultry. Grimly, he logged the growing tension in his groin as he closed the door behind him. Oh, yeah…in other circumstances, he would want that mouth.

She bent to unfasten the last button, and in the light, her wet spill of hair, which he now saw was caught back in some loose, intricate braid, took on a warmer hue. Blade stared, transfixed both by the length of her dark hair and by its coppery gleam. When it was dry, it would be a silky veil, cloaking her shoulders, falling past her waist.

Hit number two, he thought bleakly. She was delicately made, and she was a redhead. Now all he had to do was find out what she was running from, and whether or not she had a history of…unusual dreams.

Anna began to shrug out of her coat. She flinched, startled, as her rescuer helped her the rest of the way and then looped the coat over the hook on the back of the door. The easy, matter-of-fact way he carried out that small courtesy caught her attention. She had been right when she’d thought he was used to taking care of women, of handling them. The gesture had been pure gentleman, but the easy way he’d assumed she would let him take care of her had been one hundred percent male.

He studied her forehead, frowning. “You look like you’ve been in a fight. How did you say you got that?”