Page 41 of Hotter than Wildfire

The hot water of the shower had put some rose under the ivory. Her colors were just incredible. The sun was shining in through the kitchen window and she lifted her face into it, closing her eyes.

Harry hungrily watched her face as the sunlight brought everything to life. The deep auburn eyebrows, delicately arched, the long, lush eyelashes slightly lighter at the tips, the full mouth so deeply red it didn’t need lipstick—it was enough unpainted to bring a full-grown man to his knees. Not to mention the dark red hair that revealed a thousand colors in the light, from dark brown to coppery red to streaks of blonde. It was thick and glossy and starting to curl as it dried. A curling loop hung over her shoulder and he had to dig his fingernails in his palms to force himself not to pick it up and run it through his fingers.

They’d kissed, yeah, okay. But women had this invisible Rule Book men weren’t allowed to read and he didn’t know if some time had to pass from kissing her to fondling her hair.

He’d have the right to touch her soon, though. And not just her hair. All over. Oh yeah, he would.

“This is delicious. Thank her and Nicole for me.”

“You can thank them yourself,” Harry said easily as he transferred half the bacon and scrambled eggs to her plate. “We’re invited to dinner at Sam’s tonight.”

For some reason that alarmed her. Her head rose and the coffee cup which she’d been holding to her mouth trembled. Harry reached out and cupped her hand with his.

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” she said. Her voice was tight and strained. “As soon as I’m better, I’ll be on my way. With some help from you and Sam. So, really, there’s no reason to include me in any dinner invitations.”

Harry listened calmly, refraining from rolling his eyes. He didn’t even dignify that ridiculous statement with an answer. She was here and she was staying.

Instead, he leaned forward and watched her eyes. It wasn’t a hardship. In the morning light they looked like the finest green marble , with darker veins of color running through them. Back in his office, her eyes had been bloodshot with fatigue, dark purple smudges under them. Now the whites of her eyes were as clear as a child’s, the skin underneath fair and unblemished.

“Why did you run?” he asked. She sucked in a little breath, the sound loud in the silence of the room. “You came to us for help, you were safe with us, but you ran away. Why?”

Ellen put the cup down carefully on the saucer, focusing on her hands, as if it were a difficult and delicate task. She looked up finally.

“I thought—" she began and stopped.

“You thought?” He gave in to temptation and picked up the deep red lock that had fallen forward and smoothed it back. Fuck the Rule Book. “What did you think?”

She met his eyes and he nearly winced at the misery in them. Beautiful deep-green eyes full of pain and sorrow and a deep loneliness. She sighed. “You know I got your name through Kerry? Or the woman you know as Kerry because that’s the name you provided her with?”

Harry nodded. He wasn’t the one who’d set Kerry—or Dove or whatever the hell her name had been originally—up in her new life, Sam was.

But had the roles been reversed, had it been Sam who’d been wounded, Harry or Mike would have been the ones to help Kerry into her new life. Her story had been terrifying. A rich, powerful, brutal, alcoholic husband who’d put her into the hospital over and over again, and who sooner rather than later would put her into a grave.

“She shouldn’t have talked,” Harry said gently. If she hadn’t talked, Ellen would probably be dead by now, but they drummed into the women’s heads that no one—no one—was to know their story. It was their first line of defence. No one was to know, ever.

Shelters had their hotline, which was the way the women found their path to RBK. It was way too dangerous to have an informal network of women talking among themselves. The men after them were brutal, but they weren’t necessarily stupid.

“Yeah.” Ellen nibbled at a corner of a piece of toast, then put it down, pushed the plate away. “She knew that, believe me she knew that. We became friends almost despite ourselves. We were both waitressing off the books. I could just tell from what Kerry was reading and the way she spoke that she was well-educated, way overqualified for what she was doing. We just drifted together, I think, because we were both so…so lonely.”

Harry nodded again. He knew. The women they spirited away had to keep their heads down for the rest of their lives, otherwise they were dead meat. But women are hard-wired to make connections, they have to do real violence to themselves not to.

Unlike guys.

If Harry hadn’t had Sam and Mike, he’d have spent the worst periods of his life—after Crissy’s death and after Afghanistan—completely alone, never speaking to another human being. And while he’d been wounded, he hadn’t even wanted company. Sam and Mike pushed themselves into his life, never taking no for an answer. Because Harry’s instinctive response was to turn his face to the wall.

“So you became friends? Told each other your story?”

She sighed. “Not really. Neither of us sat down to ‘tell our story’ as you put it. It’s more things that slipped out. I told you how this guy stopped by and asked about me. When she told me, she saw how panicked I was, she put that card in my hand, said that if I needed help to turn to Sam Reston in San Diego.” Her mouth tightened. “But then last week, like I said, I was coming back to my room after the evening shift. It was dark. I rented a room in a bad part of town and was used to being careful, being aware of my surroundings. But more because it’s an area of drunks and addicts than anything else. I thought Gerald would never find me. But there he was—one of Gerald’s men, dressed as a bum.”

“Must have freaked you out.”

Ellen gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah. You could say that. I keep a little running away kit in my purse at all times. Cash, a big floppy hat, sunglasses. I ran. They’d be watching airports and stations, I knew that. The only thing I could think of was a bus. I just hopped on the first bus south, went to Portland, spent the night in one of those seedy all-night cinemas that show classic movies. At least it wasn’t showing porn, I don’t think I could have stood it.”

“You watched the Thin Man movies.” Harry could see it—a terrified Ellen on the run, huddled in the dark in a movie theatre. Alone and scared. “Nora Charles.”

She huffed out her breath. “Yeah. I was so tired, so scared when I called, it was the first name I could think of.”

“Here. Eat that.” He pushed the plate back to her and put command into his voice. He didn’t do that normally with women, but he made the exception with her. She needed to eat. More than that, Harry needed her to eat food he’d provided for her. “And after you’ve finished, you can tell me why you ran from us.”