half exhausted him.
Willa remained frozen at the side of the bed, her pretty features still radiating shock. “Willa, for God’s sake, please help me. It’s a matter of my life and death.”
As he said the words he began to rip out all the wires and tubes that had been connected to him.
“This is a bad idea,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “You shouldn’t be leaving the hospital like this.”
“Willa, with or without your help, even if I have to crawl out of here, I have to go. Otherwise I’m a dead man.”
He wasn’t sure if it was his actions or the urgency in his voice that finally snapped her inertia. He was only grateful when she hurried to his side and helped him get the last of the wires unattached from his body.
They were getting closer—the hunters—and Jared knew if he and Willa didn’t get out of here immediately he’d be lost.
He got to his feet and would have fallen if she hadn’t supported him. His weakness shocked him. It was far worse than he’d anticipated.
“Take me anywhere,” he murmured, unmindful of the flap of the hospital gown at his back. “Just get me out of here as quickly as possible.” He threw his arm around her shoulder, hating that he had to depend on anyone, but knowing without her help he was definitely a dead man.
Even though he was focused on the danger of the moment, he couldn’t help but pick up her thoughts. They screamed in his head.
She was afraid, not so much of him but rather of what she was about to do in taking him out of the hospital. She had questions, too, about who he was and who might be after him. Was he telling the truth or was this some sort of a result of brain injury?
Now wasn’t the time for him to answer those questions and he wasn’t sure he’d ever tell her the whole truth. The last thing he wanted to do was bring danger to the woman who had been his emotional lifeline while he’d been comatose.
She didn’t say a word as she helped him to the hospital-room door. She peeked around the corner and then they left the room and entered the long, dimly lit hallway.
He could smell her, a faint floral scent that was as familiar to him as the sound of his own heartbeat. It was a scent he associated with compassion and tenderness, qualities that had been absent for all of his twenty-eight years except for the past six months.
Neither of them said a word as they slowly made their way toward the exit in the distance. Until the moment when she’d walked in to his hospital room minutes earlier, he’d had no idea what she looked like, but he knew her scent, the gentle touch of her hands, and he also knew many of her innermost thoughts.
Thankfully they encountered nobody else in the hallways. By the time they left the building Jared was beyond exhaustion. It was only sheer determination and desperation that drove him to put one foot in front of the other.
She led him to a car and helped him into the passenger seat and then he watched as she hurried around the front of the car to the other side.
He liked the way she looked. She was tall and slender with light blond hair she’d pulled back into a low ponytail. He suspected he would have thought her beautiful even if she’d been bald and weighed eight hundred pounds because he knew the beauty of her soul.
She slid behind the steering wheel and a cacophony of voices suddenly resounded in his head, the familiar voices of dangerous men. Close. They were so close and getting closer every minute.
“Please, we have to hurry,” he urged her. “We have to get away from here.”
“I must be out of my mind,” she murmured as she jammed the key into the ignition and started the engine. “Buckle up,” she demanded as she backed out of the parking space and then changed gears and raced for the hospital exit.
He fumbled with the seat belt and finally managed to get it secured around him as she wheeled out of the parking lot and onto a main road.
Within seconds the voices in his head had faded away and the urgency that had filled him since the moment he’d regained consciousness began to ebb.
He was left with an overwhelming exhaustion. It didn’t matter where she took him, at least for now he knew he was safe.
The men who hunted him would find his hospital bed empty and nobody would be able to tell them what had happened to him. If nothing else he’d bought himself some time.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“My house,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s only about five minutes from here. You can’t be by yourself right now. You shouldn’t even be out of the hospital.” There was more than a little censure in her voice.
“Trust me, the hospital was the last place I needed to be.” He leaned back against the headrest and fought the weariness. What he needed more than anything at the moment was a chance to regain some strength and then he needed to try to contact his twin brother.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked as she turned down a tree-lined residential street. “How can you know somebody is after you? You’ve been in a coma for the past six months.”
He raised his head and looked at her, wondering how much he should tell her. As little as possible, he decided. “I just know,” he replied and couldn’t help the weary sigh that escaped him.
“You’re exhausted. You have no business being out of bed,” she exclaimed. “And I should have my head examined for having anything to do with all this.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your head,” he replied. “Willa, you just have to trust me.”
“How do you know my name?” She cast him a quick sideways glance and then focused back on the road.
“The same way you know mine. The same way I knew I was in danger. It’s complicated.”
She turned into the driveway of a neat ranch house and with a press of a button the garage door rose. She pulled in to the garage, then unbuckled her seat belt and turned to look at him, the only illumination the light from the garage-door opener in the ceiling of the garage.
“Are you crazy or am I?” she asked softly.
“You’re the most sane person I’ve ever known,” he replied. “Can we get inside?” He was irritated to realize he felt slightly faint.
“Of course.” She got out of the car and hurried around to his door to help him out. Once again he found himself leaning heavily against her as they walked through the door that led into a cheerful kitchen.
“On the sofa,” she commanded as they walked through the kitchen and into the living room. She guided him to the overstuffed navy sofa, where he collapsed.
“Lie down,” she said and went over to a desk where she grabbed a blood pressure cuff. “I want to check your vitals.”
“I’m fine. I just need to get my strength back.” He plucked at the gown he wore. “And I need to get some clothes.”
She said nothing
