“No.” Drake kept his voice firm, but only through a huge effort. “Just the bare minimum.”

He couldn’t lose the use of his shoulder and arm, not even for an hour. He had no idea how far his security had been breached. Every instinct he had told him that he was safe here, but there had to be a mole and he could be close by. The thought of Grace in danger while he had lost the use of his arm and shoulder was too frightening even to contemplate.

“So how the hell am I supposed to work on you if I’m fucking hurting you?” Ben asked in exasperation.

Drake closed his eyes and went away.

Four

It was just amazing to watch. Before the doctor could inject the anesthetic, this man, this Drake, as everyone called him, simply closed his eyes and…disappeared. It was as if he put himself into a deep sleep—actually it looked like more of a coma, though he remained sitting upright—in a second.

“What—what happened?” she asked. Her voice sounded shaky.

Ben looked up at her and frowned. “Don’t go into shock on me,” he warned. “At least not yet. I need to take care of Drake now.”

“Of course,” she said, ashamed. The man’s wound was much worse than anything she’d suffered and he’d insisted she be treated first. The least she could do was not distract the doctor.

“Amazes me every time,” the doctor said conversationally as he made three injections of anesthesia around the wound. He started cleaning the area, bloody gauzes dropping steadily into a steel receptacle. He took something that looked like cooking tongs and, after a few moments’ fierce concentration, dropped a flattened piece of metal into the receptacle. “Hmm. Boat-tail Sierra MatchKing. Don’t see too many of those in city shootings. Came from a military rifle.”

He brought out a scalpel, needlepoint scissors and a curved needle with thread in it. Grace’s stomach lurched.

“Are you—are you hurting him?” Grace asked.

“God knows. He’s got this incredible control over himself and when he has to, he just disappears. Poof! He’s gone.” He shook his head. “Strongest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.” There was raw admiration in his voice.

Grace had to look away, think of something else besides what Ben was doing to Drake’s torn flesh. She looked around and took in the big room for the first time. “What is this? A private hospital?”

“You could say that.” Amusement colored Ben’s voice. “Yeah, you could say that. I like the idea. Drake Hospital. That’s what I’m going to call it from now on. Drive him crazy.”

Grace watched Drake’s face. It was completely impassive. Even his eyes behind the closed eyelids were still.

“Can he hear you?” she whispered.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? I admire him tremendously, but he’s an enigma. Who knows what goes on in his head? I sure don’t.”

Grace eyed what looked like a CAT scanner. “So. Where are we? Are we—are we in a private home?”

“Yep.” He was bent over Drake’s shoulder. She heard snipping sounds and swallowed heavily. “Drake’s.”

“So, um, there’s this clinic in a home? How does that work? And are you the boss?”

She saw his mouth curve up even while he was intently focusing on what he was doing. “The boss? Me? With Drake anywhere within a hundred-mile radius? No ma’am. Absolutely not. I’m the hired help. Highly educated and highly skilled, it’s true, but just the help.”

“I—uh,” she floundered, feeling suddenly weary. She hurt all over and was keeping herself from keeling over only by gripping the edges of the cot, intensely aware of the fact that she was alone in a building with God only knew how many men. Armed men. And alone in this room with two men she didn’t know.

Something of what she was feeling must have shown on her face. He flicked a quick glance her way. When he spoke again, his voice held no teasing note at all. If anything, he sounded…kind.

“You must be frightened. Drake hasn’t told me what happened, but it looks like the two of you were attacked. But you had Drake with you and he’s the smartest, toughest, bravest man I know, so you were okay. As for this room, yes, it’s sort of like a private clinic. Drake employs a lot of men and sometimes they’re…injured. In the line of work they do. He’s very private, so he decided to set up a sort of field hospital of his own.”

“What line of work?”

Silence. When it became obvious he wasn’t going to answer, Grace changed tack. “Have you…have you known him long?”

His mouth curved in a slight smile. Clearly, he felt this was something he could answer. “About four years. I was a surgical resident in my last year, with over a hundred thousand in student loan debts, when I came across a man who’d been shot. I patched him up as best I could and got him to the nearest hospital. He was one of Drake’s men and the surgeon told Drake I’d saved his man’s life. The next day, my debts were wiped out and Drake asked me to set up this clinic, with no limits to what I could spend. A young doctor’s dream.”

“And you work here all the time?”

“No, good God, no. I’d never keep my hand in. No, I work full-time in a hospital, but I’m on call for Drake. When he needs me, I come.” He picked up the curved needle and thread. “You know what? I’ll bet you anything that wherever he’s gone to, he’d feel better if you held his hand.”

“His hand?” Grace asked, startled. “I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me. How could my holding his hand bring him any comfort?”

Ben stopped and looked at her directly. “I’m just guessing here, but…he saved your life, didn’t he?”

She nodded, numbly. “Well, maybe it wouldn’t be too much to hold his hand, then.”

Put like that…

Grace jumped down from the cot and nearly fell to the floor as her knees buckled.

“You okay?”

It was unthinkable that Ben be distracted from patching up Drake’s wound. She stiffened her knees and straightened her spine. “Yes. I’m just a little…Yes. I’m okay.”

She walked slowly over to the two men. Drake was utterly still. Though Ben was bent over Drake, she was aware that he was following her progress.

Grace took a hard metal chair, brought it close to the bedside and sat down. Acutely aware of Ben’s attention on her, she reached out for Drake’s hand. She stopped just before touching him, her hand hovering an inch above his.

His hand was huge, maybe the largest human hand she’d ever seen. Sinewy and rough, with odd-looking, tough yellow calluses along the sides of his hands. They were definitely not the hands of an office worker.

Most professions left signs on the body. Even clerical workers had bodies that became soft and round and stooped. She had no idea what business Drake could be in to have hands like this.

Ben’s hands were those of a doctor, a surgeon. Though the skin looked soft, his long, elegant fingers were strong and supple.

Drake’s hands looked like tools, immensely strong, sturdy, indestructible.

Slowly, she moved until her hand touched his, her palm covering the back of his hand. His skin was warm, almost preternaturally so. Her skin was chilled—like most operating rooms, this clinic was kept very cold and she’d been soaked by the rain. It felt like she was touching a small furnace. The heat crept up her arm.

Suddenly, Drake’s hand turned until his palm was clasping hers, the grip warm and tight but not painful.

Startled, Grace looked at Drake’s face. It was utterly expressionless, in the stillness of deep sleep. There was no sign of consciousness at all. And yet he was now holding her hand.

Ben was smiling slightly as he took stitches in Drake’s shoulder.

Grace chanced a look. The wound was looking much better as Ben closed it into a neat, stitched line.

Now that his shoulder wasn’t such a bloody mess that she had to avert her eyes, she looked at the rest of Drake’s torso. She’d have had to be dead not to.