beneath his body, he heard Maggie mumbling what sounded like a chant, but the words weren’t in English. They weren’t in Gaelic, either, which could’ve been expected from her name. They sounded for all the world like a unique kind of Spanish.
The idea of her speaking Spanish made him wonder if she might be part of the Mexican drug lord’s conspiracy. It could be that she was lying about everything just to set him up. Did she know more than she’d said? Especially concerning the international drug sting that had sent John into hiding in the first place?
Ignoring his suspicions for the moment, Colin tensed further at the sudden, deadly quiet and got to his feet. He stayed hunched over as he palmed his weapon and flattened his body against the wall between the door and the window. He took aim out the window, trying to get a fix on the shadowy fire escape of the opposite building—without making himself too great a target.
He gave Maggie a swift glance. If she was guilty, then her own cohorts had turned against her. But Maggie Ryan could not be left to die in a burning room. It was unthinkable, despite the fact she could have betrayed him. It would be up to him to fight their way out.
“Colin, move farther away from the door. Hurry!”
Maggie crawled closer and jerked at his hand, trying to pull him down. He twisted from her grip and concentrated on targeting anything that moved outside the window. From the corner of his eye, he saw Maggie grab again at his pant’s leg, finally giving it one gigantic tug.
Off balance now, he heard another blast just as the wall at his side burst apart. By then it was far too late to move out of the way.
Everything faded to black.
Chapter 2
Maggie dragged a woozy Colin and his duffel down the shadowed sidewalk. Good thing darkness still reigned in the wee small hours here in the valley between skyscraper mountains. Not many people were out in the crisp night air, though quite a lot of cars still filled the streets. A big red bus stopped at the corner of the block, belching smelly exhaust. The few people who’d been waiting began to board.
She’d considered taking the subway back to her hotel, but had dismissed the idea when she thought about Colin negotiating all those station steps. He seemed delirious, and she wasn’t positive he knew what was going on. He could barely walk. His wound wasn’t bleeding anymore, but if he was in shock, there was nothing she could do for him until they returned to her room. A taxi would be simple, of course, but they were scarce here and she didn’t want to deal with a curious driver.
Hailing the bus driver to wait, she climbed the bus steps, pulled Colin along with her and found two empty seats. During the fifteen-minute ride neither of them spoke a word. Colin closed his eyes and rested.
She felt his body heat without even touching him. Colin’s nearness did crazy things to her, in both body and mind, but she couldn’t get past the dangerous position he’d put them in. Who on earth was this guy really, and who wanted to kill him?
At long last she spotted the side street that led to her hotel’s entrance and hurried them off the bus. The hotel that she’d checked into earlier couldn’t be called a palace, but it was sure a heck of a lot better than Colin’s flophouse room.
Small by Texas standards, the room was at least clean and warm. And temporarily safe. She snuck Colin past the reception desk and into the elevator. When Maggie finally keyed open her door and tumbled Colin and herself inside, she was so danged relieved that she nearly cried.
Her witchcraft would help heal Colin. The sooner he was pain free, the sooner they could talk, and then she’d be that much closer to leaving New York City and Colin’s trouble far behind her.
Plopping him down on the single bed, she shoved pillows behind his back and helped him kick off his shoes. “You rest while I check your leg.”
She turned, but his hand snaked out and grabbed her arm. “You’re not leaving.”
“No, of course not. That’s not what I said.” Swinging back to reassure him, she caught the look he’d been giving her behind her back. Wary. Stark. Lonely. The stricken look on his face struck a deep note of sympathy in her heart.
“You’ll not be calling your friends, love?”
“What friends?” She pulled her arm from his grasp then placed her palm against his forehead, checking for fever.
“The ones who must have come with you. The chaps with the fire bombs and guns.”
He thought she was the one who’d brought that disaster down upon them? “I might ask you the same question,” she said, realizing he had a small fever but nothing her medicine couldn’t cure. “All I did was come to bring you news of your brother and niece, and I got shot at and nearly burned to death for my trouble. I was hoping you would have the answers as to why.”
Colin groaned and grabbed his thigh. “Don’t leave, Maggie.” He closed his eyes, slumped back against the pillows and was fast asleep in an instant.
Swell. Now she was faced with checking his wounds without his assistance. Determined to do the best she could for the man who had caused her even more inner turmoil than whoever’d been doing the shooting, she went to the closet to retrieve her medicine pack.
Maggie Ryan was tough. She could do anything. Isn’t that what everybody always said?
Being tough was one of the traits that had turned her only boyfriend—her college fiancé—against her. In a fit of anger over losing what he’d thought would be his meal ticket for life, he pushed it even further, accusing her of being frigid and asking for his ring back.
That was the last time she’d let a man get close to her. But she was feeling things for Colin that she’d never felt for her ex-fiancé.
Too close. She was too close to caring for this complete stranger. She needed to remind herself why she’d sought him out on this dark and icy night in the first place.
When Colin opened his eyes, it took him a moment to orient himself. He felt beneath his body and discovered he was lying on some sort of bed or mattress. But with the jumbled thoughts in his head, nothing else seemed clear.
The pain in his thigh was most definite, though, and sharp enough to make him more alert. The memory of the wall exploding behind him kept repeating, and the sound of Maggie Ryan’s voice begging him to get down echoed clear and true in his ears.
Was he still in danger? Probably not. Because wherever he was, everything seemed absurdly quiet after all the commotion. Colin’s survival instincts lay still. Nothing screamed in his gut to either run or fight.
Turning his head, he pried open his eyes and glanced around. He found himself in some sort of bland and inexpensive hotel room. He’d seen many of these same small rooms around the world.
“You’re awake again. Good. Do you think you can sit up?”
It was her voice. Maggie’s. That same smoky pitch he remembered from when she’d appeared at his doorway.
Colin tried to rise, but he had little strength in his arms and one hell of a pain in his leg. “Where am I?”
Her soft, feminine arms slid under his back, and with a surprising
