She let herself sag heavily against the two men holding her upright. The sudden shift in weight caught them by surprise, giving her an opening.
Swinging as hard as she could, she jabbed her elbows into their crotches and pushed to her feet, jerking free as they reacted to the pain of her blows.
The door to the second floor was right in front of her, shimmering and undulating. She pushed through it, ignoring the ruckus behind her.
“Get her,” she heard one man say, his voice a pained croak.
She didn’t look back, racing down a writhing, spinning tunnel. There was still enough sense left in her drugged-out brain to realize she was running down the second-floor hallway of the hotel. She gave a half second’s thought to banging on the doors, looking for help, but she suspected the people inside those rooms, even if they answered her knocks, would see her swaying and drunk-eyed and slam the door in her face.
Worse, the men she heard pounding down the hall behind her might kill anyone who answered.
She found her strength flagging, and even though she had put a fair amount of space between herself and the men running behind her, she knew they must be gaining.
She had blown past the elevators, knowing she couldn’t risk waiting for one to arrive, but there was a second set of stairs at the end of the corridor that led down to the parking lot. It was on the opposite side of the hotel from where she’d parked her little green Ford Mustang, but at least she’d be outside with more room to maneuver.
She hit the door to the stairwell at a dead run, stumbling into the railing and nearly pitching headfirst down the stairs.
She heard footsteps pounding from above her, coming down a flight of stairs at a clip. Had one of them circled back, anticipating her destination?
She started running down the steps, but whatever they had injected into her neck was hitting its stride, making her head swim as if she’d just spent the last ten minutes riding a tilt-a-whirl. She stumbled a few steps above the landing and pitched forward, landing hard.
The air whooshed from her lungs, making her vision go black. As she struggled to breathe again, she heard a thudding of footsteps racing down to where she lay.
She tried to push to her feet, but she didn’t have the strength. She felt a pair of strong, warm hands drag her to her feet. She blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
The ghost of Ben Scanlon stared back at her, his blue eyes soft and so beautifully familiar that tears filmed over her eyes, blurring his features.
“Scanlon,” she whispered.
“No time, sugar,” he answered in Scanlon’s voice, the cocky Texas twang she’d first hated, then grown to love.
But he was dead. She’d seen the aftermath of the explosion. Examined the autopsy report. Watched his casket lowered into a grave in the tiny town of Maribel, Texas. Held his mama’s hand as she’d cried.
She was hallucinating. One of her captors had found her and grabbed her again. That was all it could be.
But she didn’t have the strength to fight anymore. The appearance of Scanlon’s ghost seemed like a mercy, one last chance to be with her partner again before she met whatever fate her captors had planned for her.
Giving in to the fantasy, she stopped resisting and let Scanlon’s ghost lead her quickly down the stairs and out into the blinding sunlight.
He slipped a jacket over her shoulders as they reached the side of a dark green van. Dragging her around until her back met the solid wall of the panel van, he pulled the cap off his own head and shoved it onto hers.
She blinked with confusion, opening her mouth to ask what he was doing. A strange halo limned his body, an aura of brilliant blues and dazzling greens. She’d never seen anything so beautiful in her life.
His hands cradled her face, his touch crackling like electricity. His bent head blocked out the sunlight as he touched his mouth to hers.
Fire flowed from his lips into hers, poured through her veins in a flood of bright sensation, immolating her from the inside out.
She wound her arms around his neck and pressed closer until she melted into him, their bodies melding until she no longer existed outside of him. A low groan rumbled through her. She didn’t know which of them had made the sound.
The world disappeared into a brilliant pinpoint of light, pulsating with colors that throbbed and danced until they finally exploded like supernova.
The fireworks fell away, fading into a cold, black void, and it was a long time before Isabel formed a conscious thought again.
Chapter Two
Consciousness returned in sickening waves, crashing against a wall of agony in her head. Even the small effort of opening her eyes seemed beyond Isabel’s strength, so she suffered awhile longer in a dark cocoon, willing the nausea to subside.
Where was she? Why so much pain? Why had she been asleep?
Movement nearby forced her to open her eyes. Wincing as light needled into her brain, she bit back a moan and focused on a man standing with his back to her as he stirred something in a battered pot on an old gas range.
Scanlon, she thought, even though she knew it couldn’t be so.
Then he turned to grab a spice tin from the counter beside the range, making her gasp. The aquiline nose and stubborn chin definitely belonged to her former FBI partner.
Her dead partner.
He turned around at her gasp, his blue eyes soft. “Hey there, Cooper. Back among the living?”
She shook her head, seized by fear. Had she lost her mind? Was that why she couldn’t remember where she was or why she was here? “You’re dead.”
“Cooper—”
“No, you died! Six months ago! I saw footage of the explosion. I—I read the autopsy report.” She swiped tears from her cheeks with a jerk of her hand. “I held your mama’s hand as we buried you—”
Pain flickered across his expression. “I know.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts!” If she wasn’t dreaming, then she was crazy. Loss could do that, and she’d been hiding her own grief all this time, trying not to worry her family or even admit to herself how important Scanlon had been to her—
“I’m not a ghost.” He crouched beside her, threading his solid fingers between her own. The warmth from his hands worked its way up her arm into her chest. Hot tears burned her eyes and she let them fall, staring at him in disbelief. She reached up to touch his stubbled jaw, wondering if her hand would slide right through him. But he was solid. Warm.
Alive.
He caught her face between his hands and made her look into his eyes. “I know it’s confusing, but I’m here. I didn’t die in the explosion. I was there, but I escaped.”
An ache settled
