What? That a rich boy like me wouldnt know how? He shrugged. Well, when you get along better with the help than with your own family, you pick up a few useful domestic skills.
Most women would choose that moment to comment on his fathers wealth and position, or ask him what the campaign had been like. Genie did neither. She popped a forkful of egg into her mouth, made a sexy Mmm sound when she swallowed and said, Poor baby. Do you do windows, too?
He relaxed the tension he hadnt even realized had crept into his neck and shoulders, bit into the toast and nodded toward the full-length windows surrounding the ground floor. Yeah, but Id charge you extra for those, particularly if you wanted me to polish the stained glass.
Ill keep that in mind. After a few minutes of oddly companionable silence, she stared at her empty plate. I guess I was hungry. Thanks.
He got up and dished out seconds, grateful that she was lucid and eating. He added a couple of prescription pain pills and a glass of water to her place setting before he sat back down.
She scowled at the pills. Theyll knock me out. I need something that wont make my brain fuzzy.
Without a word he leaned across the breakfast bar and grabbed the ibuprofen hed put there earlier, popped the cap and handed it to her. Kind of thought youd feel that way.
She swallowed four of the pills dry and chased them with a bite of egg. Gesturing again with her fork, oblivious to the fact that her terry robe was now gaping at the top, she said, So what happened? I dont remember much, but the darkroom was trashed, wasnt it?
Nick tore his attention from the hint of smooth, round flesh at her widening neckline and glued his eyes to her face, which was looking worse by the minute as the bruises darkened to the color of rotten eggplants. Protect, he reminded himself, not ogle. Yeah, the cassettes were opened and the films thrown around, and it looks like he went after the developer with that pipe wrench we use to change the chemical tanks. He, uh, mustve done that before you got there.
How do you know that? She grimaced and pushed her plate aside.
Well, from the amount of Nick cleared his throat and willed the image away blood on you and in the room, hed have been too hurt to demolish anything afterward.
Genie shook her head and her drying hair shimmered in the light of the stained-glass lamp. How had he ever thought her hair was a nondescript brown? The metallic threads of bronze and gold glowed as she moved, and the natural waves washed almost to the place where her breasts pushed against the rapidly loosening terry robe.
Ordinary she was not. But that didnt change the fact that she was a pain in the neck.
That doesnt make any sense. I wouldve known something was wrong if the developer wasnt running properly. And besides, how did he just waltz back down the hallway, onto the elevator, and past security? Wouldnt someone have thought it strange? I mean, sure its a hospital, but bleeding people tend to stick to the E.R., not the research buildings.
She had a point. Well, there was blood in the sink. Maybe he washed some of it off. Nick closed his eyes and tried to picture the ruined room. What was he missing? How about clothes? A lab coat or something he couldve put on over his other stuff? A baseball cap to cover a scalp wound?
A scalp wound would work, Genie agreed, her eyelids drooping and her words coming more slowly now. Itd bleed like hell but not do too much real damage. The clothes make sense, but where would he get them? Bring them with him? Why would he do that unless he was planning on getting hurt? And why was he in there in the first She trailed off and would have fallen asleep face-first in her leftover eggs if Nick hadnt seen it coming and reached over to catch her chin in his hand.
Why indeed?
He stared at her face, at the translucent skin, the bloom of violent bruises, the obscene line of black stitches above her swollen eye. She looked like an angel whod gotten the losing end of a bar fight. Why would anyone want to hurt her? Hurt their research? They found disease genes, for heavens sake. They didnt clone dinosaurs, they didnt work with embryos and they didnt use lab animals in their experiments.
They tried to cure people. Why would anyone want to hurt researchers who were only trying to cure people?
Nick had no idea. Nor, it seemed, did either of the detectives working on the case. At least not yet.
Sighing, he picked up Dr. Watson and manfully rearranged her robe so it covered as much as possible. He carried her up the spiral staircase to her bedroom, flicked on a faux Tiffany lamp that lit the room in bits of sparkling color and laid her on the big brass bed. She didnt wake when he slid her between the covers and tucked them all the way up to her chin, but she murmured and curled up with both hands beneath her cheek.
Her two cats, which he had previously noticed only as flitting shadows at the edge of vision, appeared on the bed as if by magic. The big black shorthair curled itself behind her knees and the tiny gray tabby, maybe two months old or so, purred like a locomotive as it marched up to her face and sniffed at the line of stitches. It licked her chin worriedly.
The kitten looked directly at Nick and mewed a question. He stroked its little head with the back of a finger, and said, Yeah, I hear you. Shell be okay though. He stared down at the motionless woman, barely a lump beneath the bedclothes. Shell be okay, he repeated. Ill protect her.
He paused and said to nobody in particular as he stared down at the woman in the bed, Ill protect her. God help us both.
Chapter Three
While Genie slept, her brain, that precocious organ that had dictated much of her life up until this point, churned and spun in its liquid-filled housing and tried to make sense of the days events. A difficult task considering there was a large piece of that day tucked away in the back recesses of memory, protected by a twist of neurons and a few subconscious Keep Away signs.
She frowned; her sleeping self registering the pain of pulled stitches and ordering her face muscles to relax even as her dreams flickered red and black.
She had gone to the developer room, excited to read the films from the day before. They were about to begin analysis of a new Grays Glaucoma family and she wanted to see how the DNA samples were working, particularly since Molly had gotten a strange phone call from the familys wealthy patriarch the day before.
The old man might just be a tube of DNA to the lab rats, but to the rest of the world he was a tycoon. A powerhouse. Someone that Genie wanted to keep very, very happy in the hopes that hed donate generously to the Eye Centers new wing. She made a mental note to return his call and be extra nice.
Placing a hand on the exterior port, she assured herself that the developer was running properly. The tray was hot to the touch, a puff of air ran across its surface to keep the films from sticking to the hard plastic, and the hallway was filled with the sound of turning rollers.
She glanced over the new cartoon taped to the wall near the darkroom door and a faint smile touched her lips. Dr. Nicholas Wellington might be a big, handsome jerk with no sense of protocol and an annoying habit of appropriating her equipment just when she needed it most, but his arrival had given the lab a certain sense of character. She glanced at his office door and grinned at a poster that featured a buff body with a cutout picture of Wellingtons head taped in place, the caption reading, Is This The Face Of Erectile Dysfunction? followed by an eight-hundred number for one of those new potency drugs.
Shaking her head, Genie grinned wider. Though she highly doubted that Wellington suffered from E.D., she had to give him points for leaving the poster where his techs had hung it.
He either had a great sense of humor or he was, so to speak, awfully cocky about his abilities.
Reassured that the developer was running, she reached for the spinning door and rotated it so she could step into the darkroom without letting in any white light. As she entered the light lock, she was surprised to see that the Occupied sign was lit. She sniffed. Wellington. She banged on the back of the light lock. My turn, Beef. Check the chart!
But there was no response. Maybe hed left the sign lit after he was done. Genie snorted. Slob. She tried calling his name again before she entered the light lock, heard the rubba-thump, rubba-thump of the revolving door as she let herself into the darkroom
She was in a field of daisies. Her cat, Oddjob, sat at her feet while Galore gamboled through the flowers, leaping in huge bounds to see over the stalks while he swatted at the yellow and black butterflies with kittens paws.
In her sleep Genie cried out in frustration at her brains refusal to show her what had happened in the darkroom. She twisted against the bedclothes and whimpered when she brushed a clenched fist against the ripe bruise on her cheek. Then The Voice returned and she stilled.
Shh, sweetheart, its only a dream. Youre safe. Im here.
She struggled against sleep again, fighting to wake to tell him that she wasnt afraid of the dream, that she was frustrated by the missing pieces. But the bed dipped as he settled beside her and she felt a whisper of a touch at her forehead that took away the pain. She sighed and snuggled deeper, turning her bruised cheek into his hand.
Sleep now. Ill keep watch.
In the field, the cats purred and Genie turned her face up into the warm yellow sunlight. She felt Nick behind her and knew if she turned her head shed see him, larger than life and twice as handsomethe high Viking cheeks, the flat blade of a nose and the warm blue eyes. But as she moved, something else caught her eye, a flash of mossy color at her shoulder. She looked down
And saw that she was wearing green scrubs stained brown with blood.
GREENS, GENIE PRONOUNCED the next morning, waving a forkful of strawberry pancake in Nick Wellingtons direction before popping it into her mouth. It sure beat a handful of granola on the way out the door. If Wellington sticks around, she thought, Ill have to exhume the StairMaster from the attic.
Excuse me?
She dropped her fork onto the plate with a loud clatter and blushed before she realized he hadnt heard her slip of the medulla. And where had that come from? There was no way Nick Wellington was sticking around. No way she wanted him to. In the cold, rational light of morning, that little incident in the shower seemed like an out-of-body experience, like something that had happened to someone else. Now it washopefullytime for them to get back to reality.
Back to Dr. Genius Watson and Dr. Beef Wellington. Matter and antimatter. Magnetic north and south. It would serve her well to remember that, because there was no way in hell she was making the Archer mistake twice.
Besides, Wellington wasnt even interested. Sure hed felt sorry for her, and maybe a tiny bit responsible because hed found her. Nothing more. He certainly hadnt felt the hum of rightness in the ambulance and he hadnt been prey to the fantasies shed briefly entertained in the night.
He couldnt have, or else he wouldnt have bolted from the shower as if she had just grown a third eyeball in the center of her forehead. She had been nakednaked!in his arms and her breasts had been rubbing up against his wet T-shirt and her thighs and her Well, never mind. Genie resisted an unladylike snort. He hadnt done a thing. He hadnt kissed her, hadnt even made a suggestive comment.
Nothing.
Ergo, he wasnt interested. It didnt take a genius to figure that one out. And it was just as well, she thought, since she absolutely, positively, wasnt interested, either.
Screw me once, said Marilynns well-bred, Georgian contralto in the back of Genies mind, shame on you. Screw me twice Genies lips twitched. She was pretty sure the conclusion of Marilynns malaprop didnt really apply here, but it felt good to remember her friend, as if Marilynns ghost was standing at her shoulder, protecting her from being stupid.
Genie? Nick waved his hand in front of her face. You still here?
She mumbled something unintelligible while she tried to remember what theyd been talking about. Oh, yeah. Greens, she repeated and he nodded.
Thats what I thought you said. Are we talking about lettuce, kale, spinach, that sort of thing? He sipped at the coffee, which had turned out fragrant, flavorful and perfect, three things she had thought totally beyond her Mr. Coffee.
No, greens as in surgical scrubs. I dreamed about them last night.
Wellington looked at her as if that was the worst possible thing he could think to dream about, which it probably was. She bet he dreamed Technicolor fantasies starring tall blondes with chest measurements roughly equivalent to their IQs.
So?
She leaned forward. Thats how he got out of the darkroom. My greens. I keep a set in there for changing the developer chemicals. What do you want to bet theyre not there anymore?
Genie smiled when he nodded agreement, and was surprised to feel the tension across her shoulders loosen a little. Talking to Wellington over pancakes seemed to be making the events of the day before a little more bearable. A little less awful.
Not smart, her brain supplied, remember Archer. And she did. She remembered Archer in all his golden, popular glory. He might not have broken her heart, but hed certainly shattered her pride.
Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Ill mention it to the detectives when I see them later today.
Nick stood and piled his dishes in the sink before he grabbed his keys off the breakfast bar. Genie wondered fleetingly why hed left them there when there was a perfectly good key rack just inside the door. Then she sighed. It was a timely reminder of their differences. She had racks, he had piles.
Magnetic north and south. Shed do well to remember it.
Im going to run an errand or two, check in at the lab and speak with the detectives. You going to be okay?
So that was it, then. Genie tried to ignore the faint sadness that trickled through her. Sure, Ill be fine. My cars parked in Chinatown so Ill catch a cab to the commuter rail.
He paused halfway out the door. Youre not planning on going to work today, are you?
Though the very thought of it made her queasy, she said, Of course I am.
He blew out a slow breath and abandoned subtlety. You were beat up yesterday, Genie. Youve got stitches in your eyebrow and I can tell your heads killing you. Cant you take the day off?
Sure she could, but she didnt want to. Already the idea of taking the elevator up to their shared floor and walking past the developer room was filling Genie with prickles of dread. She knew it would only get worse the longer she stalled. Her brain might be filling the emptiness with irrelevant thoughts of Nick Wellington in her shower and annoyingly apropos mental notes, but her soul knew the truth.
A big, tough guy like Wellington might not understand, but she was scared. Deep-down, bone-thumping scared.