Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Carol Ericson

Author:Carol Ericson [Ericson, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

White light and muffled voices overwhelmed her senses. Survival automatically urged her to open her eyes, but a safe sensation of numbness and warmth spread through her and dragged her deeper. Only this time, she didn’t want to go deeper. Pure, comforting numbness was all that waited—no nightmares, no pain, no guilt—but where she’d retreated to that space over and over again in the past, it wasn’t good enough anymore. Not after her abductor had nearly taken his revenge.

“Take it easy. Wouldn’t want to have your nurses have to restrain you again.” That voice. She knew that voice. Coaxing and dangerous at the same time, a perfect combination that promised to bring her back to the surface.

Remi clung to it, battling to bring herself past the drugging haze of unconsciousness. Piercing fluorescent light intensified the stiffness in her neck and shoulders, and flashes of the headlamp that’d kept her attacker’s identity in shadow scored across her mind. She turned her face from the outline above her and tried to raise her hands to block the light. Stinging pain shot along her arm.

“You’ve got an IV in your arm, Sheriff. Try not to tug it too hard.” Warm, callused fingers coaxed her arm back to her side, and it took everything inside her not to pull away at the physical touch. Steel-gray eyes came into focus before Dylan looked up at something across the bed. “Dim the lights for me, would you? They’re bugging her eyes.”

Movement shifted from somewhere within the room as the brightness eased. Coarse sheets, white tile, a door with a bright silver handle. A hospital room. Soft beeping filled her ears from one side of the bed. A loose blood pressure cuff encapsulated one arm, the catheter for her IV line in the other. Bubbles floating in clear liquid filled the thin plastic tube. Fluids. She must’ve been in worse shape than she’d originally estimated. “How long...?” Rawness coated the entire length of her throat, hints of dirt still clung to the inside of her mouth. Her voice had lowered an octave, unrecognizable even to her own ears. “Unconscious...?”

“You came out of surgery about four hours ago.” Dylan smoothed a section of her hair away from her face, and a buzz fizzled across her over sensitized skin. That was the second time he’d touched her in as little as two minutes. “The surgeon was finally able to stop the internal bleeding and sew up your wound, but you lost a lot of blood between the caves and the hospital. You lost consciousness right after I got you into the SUV. Your doc wants to keep you overnight to make sure your vitals stay stable. Then there’s the cut at the back of your head and the concussion you endured when your kidnapper took you from the station.”

Her eyes were still heavy, but the fact Dylan was standing by her hospital bedside at all eased the last few hours from her memory. “He shot you. I thought...you...were dead.

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