When Lightning Strikes

Chapter Four

“Okay, I’ve got the computer program running. Pull up a chair,” Daniel said.

Hannah did as he asked. There wasn’t much room and his leg pressed against hers as they sat beside each other. That fluid warmth filled her with awareness.

As Daniel captured her gaze, everything feminine in her came to vibrant life. In his eyes she could see the same fire that was coursing through her. Yet that knowledge did little to stop the crazy kaleidoscope of emotions swirling through her. This man was all male power—raw, immediate and unrelenting.

She tore her gaze from his. Daniel Eagle didn’t back away from anything—even this. It went against his nature. But one of them had to put a stop to the sexual tension rising between them. Otherwise things would spiral out of control.

Hannah looked at the computer screen. “Okay. How do we use this program?” she asked, forcing her voice to remain steady.

The work took more than an hour, but after the first fifteen minutes, Wolf trotted over and wedged himself between them, pushing their chairs aside enough to accommodate him. Hannah laughed, and shifted to make more room for him, but Daniel glowered at the animal.

“He’s such a nice dog,” Hannah said, burying her hand in the thick fur around Wolf’s neck.

Jealousy only increased Daniel’s irritation. “Yeah. He’s swell.”

Refocusing on the work at hand, Daniel continued adjusting facial features on the screen according to her directions, manipulating the shape of the face until she was satisfied. “That’s the man who was going to kill me,” she said at last.

He studied the sketch of the Anglo man, toggling the printer to make a copy. “I don’t recognize him. Do you have any idea who he might be?”

Hannah looked up at him and shook her head.

Daniel could see the pain and fear mirrored on her face. She looked fragile—a beautiful flower that had been buffeted by an angry wind. Daniel struggled with the sudden desire to pull her against him. He’d held her once, and her bare skin had felt like velvet and fire. It had left him wanting more.

Fighting himself, he forced his thoughts back to the case. For all he knew, Hannah was an experienced manipulator and he was playing right into her hands. Ignoring the gut instinct that told him he was off base with that, he tried to convince himself that all Hannah could ever be to him was major-league trouble.

Pensively, he dropped his gaze to her hands, which were now resting on the small computer desk. They were delicate and feminine. And memory told him they were impossibly soft. He wanted to feel them on his naked flesh.

Disgusted with himself, he pushed back his chair and walked across the room. What he needed now was a cool head, not a raging sex drive.

“I’ll fax this to Silentman. He’ll run it through several databases and see what turns up,” he said, removing the drawing from the printer output tray and walking over to the fax machine on another desk beside the phone.

As he looked back at her, he saw Hannah wearily rubbing her eyes. “You look really tired. Have you had any sleep at all since this started?”

“I couldn’t get much sleep at the cabin the night I was there,” she said. “I was afraid someone might just walk in.”

“Why don’t you go lie down and get some rest now?”

“But there’s so much going on….”

“There’s nothing either of us can do at the moment. I have to wait for Silentman’s call. You might as well take advantage of the opportunity to sleep.”

Hannah stood up. “I’m so tired I can’t even think straight anymore. You really don’t mind if I take a short nap?”

“Go. The bedroom’s down the hall and to your left. I won’t be far away if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” Hannah met his gaze and gave him a gentle smile. “There are times when I’m firmly convinced that underneath that tough-guy image is one very nice man.”

Daniel watched her walk hesitantly to the room at the end of the hall. Wolf gave him a glance, received a nod, then followed her.

After several minutes, Daniel walked down the hall to the master bedroom to check on the mismatched pair. They were both on the bed, Wolf between her and the door. Wolf was lying on his side next to Hannah. His massive head rested on the pillow beside hers, his body vertical like a person would lie. Her arm was draped across his furry chest. The dog stared at him, but did nothing else, almost as if afraid moving would wake her.

Daniel glanced over at Hannah. The even sound of her breathing assured him that she was fast asleep and he allowed himself a moment more to watch her, studying her face. She looked at peace for the first time since he’d found her. As his gaze drifted down her body, he remembered the feel of those gentle curves against him, and his body hardened instantly.

He glanced away. Hannah Jones was a living, breathing distraction. That was all there was to it. Wolf raised his head as Daniel took a step back out into the hall. “Count your blessings, mutt. That really should be me next to her, not you.”

Daniel was back in the den when his cell phone finally rang. Silentman had received the fax and wanted a status report.

“Do you think she’s guilty?” Silentman asked immediately.

“I don’t know,” Daniel replied honestly. “She seems pretty straightforward to me but, then again, that may only mean she’s a great little actress.”

“I’d give that possibility some serious thought if I were you,” Silentman warned. “I’ve just received a confidential report from one of the nurses who knew her when she was a teen and living in a psychiatric hospital in Albuquerque. The nurse claims that Hannah was a very bright girl, and that was the reason she was released early—too early, the nurse believes. The woman said that Hannah learned to tell the doctors exactly what they wanted to hear. That, coupled with the fact that she was good-looking gave her an edge, one Hannah learned to use to take advantage of young men. But, in all fairness, this woman clearly didn’t like her, so the information may be tainted.”

Daniel listened, saying nothing. He felt as if someone were holding an ice cube to the small of his back. He couldn’t quite disregard the possibility that he may have allowed Hannah’s looks and her seemingly desperate situation to sway him too much. Was he being taken for a ride?

“Watch yourself, Lightning.”

“Always.”

Daniel hung up the phone and went to the kitchen to fix himself something to eat. The refrigerator was nearly empty. Good thing he’d bought some supplies for them at the trading post. He went out to the SUV, brought back some canned goods, dog food and the loaf of bread he’d bought, then began to prepare some food.

The sound of shattering glass in the bedroom suddenly broke the silence and he ran down the hall, his adrenaline flowing. As he entered the room, he found Hannah with tears rolling down her face, standing on one foot and balancing herself by holding on to Wolf.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I had a nightmare,” she managed to say. “I woke up scared and somehow knocked over the lamp and broke it. I’m sorry if I alarmed you.”

“It’s all right,” he said, breathing normally again.

As he looked down he saw that she was barefoot, and one foot was bleeding. “You must have stepped on some glass. Sit back down on the bed and let me get some bandages.”

Putting Wolf at stay so he wouldn’t cut himself as well, Daniel hurried to the bathroom, then came back with a small first aid kit and a dampened washcloth. Picking up Hannah’s injured foot carefully, he saw that the cut wasn’t deep and there was no glass in the wound. “You’ll be all right. It’s not very bad.” He cleaned the cut and bandaged it expertly.

As Daniel looked up from his work, he saw her expression soften. The gentleness in that gaze tore at his determination to close himself off from her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Let me get the broken glass picked up, then you can give your bandaged foot a test drive,” he said, teasing.

After the glass fragments had been discarded, he released Wolf from the “stay” command and watched Hannah take a few steps around the room.

“Good as new,” she said with a grateful smile. “Thanks.” She touched his upper arm and gave it a squeeze.

Desire, sudden and fierce, swept over him again. He nodded absently, and pretended to be only interested in her injured foot.

Her toenails were painted a pale peach color. Somehow that little detail had escaped him until now. The knowledge he’d overlooked something, even if it was insignificant, disturbed him. “Tell me about your nightmare,” he said, moving away from her to sit on the easy chair.

Hannah went back to her seat on the edge of the bed, facing him. “It was just a jumble of images and there was this bright red haze that covered everything,” she said, suppressing a shudder. “People were there but they were nothing more than bloody shapes.” Her voice broke but no more tears fell down her cheeks.

More than anything else, he wanted to wrap his arms around Hannah, but if he touched her now, he’d want to do a lot more than comfort her.

“Did you recognize anyone?” he asked.

“I didn’t see the people clearly enough for that.”

“Do you think this dream has something to do with what happened at the church?”

“I…don’t know.”

“Think back. Did anything look familiar?”

She shook her head. “It was an awful nightmare. Those bloody shapes…” She took an unsteady breath. “And there were voices and sounds that seemed to rip through me, like peals of thunder.” She held her hands against the sides of her head as if trying to push the memory back inside.

“Did the voices say anything you can recall?” He saw her shake her head, but he continued to press her. “You have to fight to get your memory back, Hannah. Do you understand? When you get dreams like these, hold them, force yourself to look at them squarely,” he said gruffly. “They might hold a clue.”

“That’s easy for you to say. But that dream was terrifying. I don’t want to hold on to it—not for anybody.”

“I’m trying to protect you. If that means forcing you to face your fears, then that’s the way it has to be.”

He saw the confusion and the pain in her eyes, and almost regretted his words. Then he remembered his conversation with Silentman. He had to stay focused. Hannah could be a one-way ticket to a hell he’d never even imagined.

She stood up slowly, gingerly putting her weight on her injured foot. “I’ll do my part,” she said, with that quiet dignity of hers that was either pure class or a great act. “You don’t have to remind me of my situation. I’m very aware of what I have to do.”

He nodded once. “Come on. It’s six-thirty and we haven’t eaten. Let’s have some food. Afterwards, we’ll try to come up with a plan of action.” Daniel walked with her to the kitchen, nuked a plate of pork and beans in the microwave, then set the dish before her along with two pieces of toast. “It’s not fancy, but it’ll have to do,” he said, getting a plate for himself.

“This is fine,” she said, munching on the toast.

After seeing her pick at the beans for a while, he realized that they were far from her favorite food.

“What other foods can’t you stand?” he asked with a grin.

She chuckled softly. “Eggplant, Brussels sprouts, and chile that’s too hot. It sets my mouth on fire.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said, offering her a can of soup to replace the beans. “When the chile kills the taste of the food, and you need a fire extinguisher, it’s too much.”

Smiling, she looked up at him, and the impact of those guileless eyes slammed through him once more. Swearing that he was going as loco as she was rumored to be, he looked down at his plate and took another forkful of beans.

“I have an idea that might give us some answers,” Hannah proposed, opening the soup and pouring it into a microwave-safe bowl. “But it’s risky.”

Daniel shrugged. “At this point, everything we do will entail risk. What’s your plan?”

“I want to go to my office at the church. I did some of their bookkeeping, mostly balancing the modest funds in their operating budget, but maybe something there will trigger my memory.”

Daniel nodded slowly. “Yeah, that thought occurred to me too, but we can’t just walk in there. You’ll be recognized. The only way we can go is if I can come up with a really good disguise for both of us. Fortunately, I have some background in that. One of my summer jobs when I was in college was working for a film company that had come to New Mexico to shoot on location. With Silentman’s help, we can get the supplies we need together, and then get going.”

“What kind of disguise do you have in mind?” she asked, setting the control on the microwave to heat her soup.

He reached past her to set the machine on, then turned her to face him. “Let me surprise you.”

IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER TEN the next day when they approached the church on foot, leaving Wolf in the SUV. “Stoop more,” he said quietly.

She did as he asked, knowing it would enhance the role they were playing—that of an elderly couple. “You put so much talcum powder in my hair to make it gray that if anyone sneezes, a cloud will lift into the air,” she muttered.

“Good. A cloud is good. Think of it as a smoke screen.”

Her loose skirt was so baggy it would have fallen to her ankles if it hadn’t been for the cloth belt she’d fashioned from the curtain tie-backs. “I feel guilty about having taken this skirt from someone’s clothesline.”

“Don’t. I left a hundred-dollar bill clipped to the line. They’ll be thrilled.”

“Those baggy pants don’t do much for you,” she said, “but I’ve got to say that the way you’re walking, in that halting style with the cane, you really do look like an old man.”

“Which is why I keep telling you to imitate me. They won’t look at our faces, believe me. Even if they do, that dark makeup will convince them. Just look down to the floor, and avoid catching anyone’s eye. Two old Navajos just stopping by a church won’t be noticed.”

They entered through a side door, and she led the way down an empty hallway to her office. No one was usually around this wing of the building in the middle of a weekday. The staff all had day jobs. But, farther down the hall, they could hear a cleaning crew busy inside the chapel, polishing the floors.

“That’s just the caretaker and his wife,” she whispered. “They clean when no one’s around.”

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