sorry I didn’t make your wedding,” Noah told her. “I was out of the country at the time.”
“He would have liked you to be there,” she said without looking at him.
Privately, Noah doubted that.
“It was a simple service. We didn’t even use a church.”
Was that a trace of regret? Noah couldn’t tell. The last assignment had left Noah taking a hard look at the choices he’d made in his own life. He’d experienced a tug of envy over the life his brother had planned. Talk about irony. Noah risked his life every time he went on a mission, yet it was Jerome who’d died protecting someone else, leaving Noah the living hostages to fortune.
Noah was relieved when the elevator doors opened and he could abandon that train of thought. He led Sydney down the hall.
“How did you come to be an orphan?” he asked abruptly, curious about the woman his brother had married.
“My parents and older brothers were killed in an avalanche on a skiing vacation in Austria when I was seven.”
“That’s rough.”
Remembered grief reflected in her eyes. “I was supposed to go with them, but I came down with chicken pox the day before the trip so I stayed with my grandmother.”
“So you weren’t a total orphan?”
With an impatient toss of her hair she shook her head. “She died of a massive heart attack when I was sixteen. Do you really want my life history?”
He unlocked the door to his room. “Maybe later. Does it bother you to talk about the past?”
“No.”
He gestured her inside the room and she entered cautiously, almost as if she expected someone to jump out at her.
“Have a seat,” he said brusquely.
“You must scare the heck out of young recruits.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re good at giving orders and intimidating people.”
He found himself wanting to smile again. “I don’t scare you.”
She arched her eyebrows again. “Remember that.”
He suppressed an urge to chuckle. He hadn’t expected to like Sydney so much. He laid a finger over her cracked lips. “Save your voice. You can yell at me later. Right now you look done in.”
She studied him through eyes semiglazed by pain and fatigue. He sensed both grief and fear hiding beneath the surface and held up a hand to stave off any further protests. “I’ll try to stop giving orders. In the meantime, let’s not argue until you’re back to fighting form. Do you want to eat or sleep first? You’ll be safe here, Sydney.”
Her eyes spoke volumes, but she turned without a word and set the plant on the nightstand. She moved stiffly to the far bed with its undisturbed cover.
“It’s silly, but I’m so tired I can’t even think straight anymore,” she murmured.
“It’s not silly at all.” He stripped down the covers and let her climb into bed, still clothed in his running outfit. Sydney wasn’t the sort to lean on anyone if she could help it. That she let him help her and didn’t even protest when he smoothed the blanket over her told him a great deal about how bad she was feeling. He’d been right not to initiate a serious discussion right away. There’d be time later.
He’d meant to keep his actions strictly impersonal, but as her eyes fluttered closed, his hand reached out and gently stroked the hair back from her face. She twitched, but that was all. He would have sworn she was asleep in seconds.
Noah sat at the table and watched the steady rise and fall of her breathing and tried to control the unexpected spike from his libido. Sydney would be shocked if she knew the sort of urges she was stirring in him. He was feeling a little shocked himself.
No other woman had provoked this raw need to protect and cherish. Why Sydney of all people? Unless it had something to do with the baby she carried. He’d shied away from thoughts of the child ever since she’d uttered those damning words. Jerome’s baby.
He ran unsteady fingers through his hair. What a mess. His brain knew she was his brother’s wife, but his body didn’t seem to care.
He stared at her hand, lying protectively curled across her chin. She had long, graceful fingers and short, unpolished nails, but it was her ring finger that captured his attention. She wore a simple, wide gold wedding band and an ordinary diamond solitaire on her left hand.
Glad to have a focus—any focus that would keep him from looking at her—he studied her ring. She designed jewelry for a living. He would have expected something different on her finger—something unique. Obviously, he would have been wrong. Still, that jarring note was one more in a growing list of inconsistencies he’d noticed since he arrived.
Finally convinced that it would take the entire Army marching band to wake her, Noah made a couple of phone calls to get his mind off the bewitching woman. The last one was to Agent Wickowski, who expressed anger at not being told about the orderly. He wanted to come over and talk with Sydney right away. Noah convinced him to wait and suggested Wickowski talk with the nurse and the police officer first.
For a long time after that, Noah watched Sydney sleep, sorting through his options. He didn’t have many, he acknowledged glumly. He couldn’t simply walk away from her or the situation. He and Jerome had a blood tie he couldn’t deny. And now Noah was irrevocably bound to Sydney. The thought was nearly as disturbing as the woman herself.
She looked almost ethereal in sleep. How would she look when she grew round with the baby she carried?
Following that line of thought would lead to disaster, Noah told himself. Impatiently, he stood and put out the Do Not Disturb sign. Then he called the desk to ask them to hold all calls. Disgruntled, he lay down on the other bed and willed himself back to sleep. Questions loomed in his mind. He tried to picture Sydney and Jerome together and the image made him angry and restless.
When she sat up hours later, he was still awake, still trying to figure out how to initiate the discussion they needed to have.
She rolled over and looked at him, her eyes misty with sleep. “Hi.”
“Feel better?”
“I think so. Why are we whispering?”
“So we don’t strain your voice?”
“Oh.” She moistened her dry lips. “What have you been doing?”
“Watching you sleep.”
She blinked in surprise. “You do lead an eventful life, don’t you?” and she yawned, stretching away the kinks.
Noah’s attention riveted on the material of the T-shirt where it tightened over the gentle swell of her breasts. She caught him looking and color suffused her face.
Heat stole up
