In Safe Hands. Linda Conrad

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 show of strength, Maggie lifted him to a sitting position. “There you go. You’re in my hotel room. Does it hurt very much?”

      Clearing the fog from his head, Colin stared once again at the most striking-looking woman he had ever beheld. The fantastic mass of curls he remembered from before as being dark auburn looked the color of burnt cinnamon in this light. The ugly, pea-colored coat was gone. She wore a long-sleeved, western-cut shirt with blue and red stripes, tucked into dark-blue jeans.

      He focused on her face, his gaze skimming across clear golden skin and a soft, full mouth. But it was the eyes that drew him in. Still startling. Still the vivid green of an Irish mist. Just looking at them produced a surprising and unwelcome reaction in his groin.

      “I have a few questions for you.”

      She had questions? Since Colin’s brain had begun working past the pain, a million blasted questions sat unasked on his tongue.

      “But I need to finish working on your leg first,” she added.

      “How did I get here?” He couldn’t let her get ahead of him. His control was shaky, but he didn’t trust her enough to close his eyes again.

      “You and I sort of limped over here on the bus, after we got out of that room one step ahead of the fire-fighter first responders. You were a little shocked and dizzy, but we made it.”

      He gave her a disbelieving look, but she seemed undeterred.

      “The shot that hit you only nicked the fleshy part of your thigh. No bullet fragments were left behind, I checked. You’ve got a couple of cuts on your forehead, but none of them are deep.” She paused. “I was afraid to stick around and wait for the cops or the paramedics. Someone must want you dead pretty badly.”

      “Yes, it does seem that way.” But was she in on it? He’d been waiting in that room all day, and the shooting had started only after she’d arrived. “Never mind. Where are my pants, love?”

      “I had to cut them off you to get to the wound. But you packed another pair. I brought your duffel with us as I dragged you out of the fire. Thankfully, your leather jacket was only singed in a few spots, but it should be—”

      “You dragged me out of the room? By yourself?”

      She gave him a sharp smirk before turning her back to dig into his duffel. “I’m tougher than I look.”

      Yeah, he would bet she was quite a lot of things underneath those exotic looks. Grace, strength and a sort of magical beauty must have been bestowed upon her at birth by the fairies. But something sinister seemed to lurk about her as well.

      He’d already made up his mind to find out everything. She would tell him first whether she had been sent to do him harm, and then she would complete her tale about his brother. The truth. Every bit of it.

      It mattered little that her appearance affected him like no other woman’s. With everything they’d been through, he couldn’t imagine why his body kept betraying him with primal, sexual reactions. But he swore to set all that aside.

      

      “What