a wet, rocky mountain. Water splashed onto his face, and the whole left side of his body felt numb. Until he took a wrong turn and ran straight into a red-hot knife.
He heard Alessandra’s voice. It sounded far away. She wanted him to help her.
Help her with what?
The darkness was split by twin headlights on a twilight road.
The pavement was old, chewed up. The guardrail, where it existed, tilted into the canyon below.
He thought he was driving south, but direction didn’t matter, because suddenly there was a sea of lights, red and flashing. He braked behind one of several ambulances.
A biker watched from the sidelines. “Bus went through the guardrail,” he said, pointing. “Took the turn too sharp and started to roll.”
Now McBride heard screams and saw people, wild-eyed and bleeding, as rescue workers assisted or carried them out of the canyon.
One of them, a man with a heavy accent, was hysterical. A woman sitting close to him had been impaled by a long piece of glass. He’d never seen anyone die before.
Lucky guy, McBride thought.
He identified himself to the officers on scene, then, without waiting to be asked, started down.
More people were being stretchered upward, among them the driver. They didn’t know how many passengers might still be on board, but figured the bus wasn’t going to remain much longer on the ledge where it had landed.
McBride agreed. The thing was rocking like a drunk ready to topple.
He skidded down the treacherous slope, spotted a firefighter spraying foam on the undercarriage so flying sparks wouldn’t ignite the fuel tanks.
“There’s at least two more inside,” the man shouted. “I can’t get them out and stop this sucker from blowing at the same time.”
Nodding, McBride switched direction. He spied a man, facedown in a patch of scrub. Blood had pooled around his head. He wasn’t breathing.
But somebody was. Fists pounded on one of the rear panels.
The only way in was through the front. He had to crawl over the impaled woman and, nearby, an older female who’d been crushed by a row of seats.
The pounding stopped. He muscled a chunk of twisted metal aside, was about to call out, when a woman’s face appeared.
She was bruised, filthy and looked to be no more than eighteen years old. He noted both relief and suspicion in her eyes.
“I’m a cop,” he said, because right then he knew he didn’t look like one. “Detective McBride, Chicago P.D.” The few lights still working illuminated the most amazing pair of gold eyes he’d ever seen. “Is there anyone else?”
“There was. Now there’s only me.”
He motioned for her to give him her hands. “We need to get out of here before the tanks blow or this bus goes for a second roll.”
Once free of the wreck, he kept her ahead of him on the upward climb. She had a truly spectacular butt and mile-long legs to go with it. Her hair was dark, her features nothing short of extraordinary. She was headed for Chicago to become a vet.
Now how did he know that…?
A paramedic and a cop, both about to descend, met them at the top. The paramedic took the woman aside. The cop, a friend, began strapping on gear.
“Figured it was you down there. Anyone left?”
McBride hoisted himself over the edge. “Not alive.”
The cop continued to harness up. “It’s a mess, all right. Like you. Why the beard and long hair?”
“Undercover case screwed up. I needed to get out of Chicago.”
The woman hissed as the paramedic cleaned one of her cuts. “I guess I’m lucky your case didn’t work out.”
A smile crossed McBride’s lips. Through a thickening haze, he bent to kiss her. “Maybe we’re both lucky, Alessandra.”
She grinned, though her features were cloudy now. “You’re slipping, McBride. I didn’t tell you my name…”
The memory skidded to a halt. Wait a minute. She hadn’t said that. And he hadn’t kissed her. Not there. Not then.
Oh, he’d kissed her all right and more, much more, but that was later, when he couldn’t get her out of his head—and after he’d discovered she was twenty rather than eighteen.
Then his life had tanked and landed both of them in hell.
Pain sliced through him like a lightning bolt. It shattered all the images in his mind—the bus, the sobs, the screams, the sirens, everything. Except for Alessandra’s eyes.
MCBRIDE WAS, WITHOUT question, the most stubborn man Alessandra had ever met. Fortunately, he was also the most resilient. The moment she removed the bullet, which had come dangerously close to nicking a major artery, he’d fallen into a deep, healing sleep. She could almost see his red blood cells multiplying.
The generator outside growled noisily, but with the rainstorm disinclined to move on, she barely noticed it.
“Since when do you listen to Keith Urban?”
McBride’s question came as no real surprise given his exceptional recuperative powers. But the clarity had her raising a brow as she emerged from the lab.
She had two scalpels in her hand and didn’t put either of them down. “Joan left her iPod in the dock. I wanted music. How do you feel?”
“Like a man whose been shot, probed with a sharp instrument and left to die in a cowboy bar.”
“So, well on the way to recovery, then.” She held up one of the scalpels. “No double vision?”
“Not much vision at all.” He squinted at the ceiling bulbs. “Is the power off?”
“It went out right before you arrived and subsequently fainted.”
He half smiled. “I’ll let that go, Alessandra, because I do, in fact, see two scalpels. I also heard your voice while I was floating around in the black fog of our distant past.”
“Yes, you were reliving it fairly accurately until you got to the kissing part.”
“Call it wishful thinking.”
Alessandra looked at him and sobered. “Not that I want to be any more deeply involved than I am, but are you planning to tell me what you’re doing here, minus a great deal of blood and with a hole in your chest where a bullet used to be?”
“Just another day on the job, darlin’.” Wincing, he worked his way onto his right elbow.
She sighed. “You know you shouldn’t do that, right?”
“I
