LITMIR.BIZ

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      But if that were the case, why hadn’t he turned himself in to the members of the task force? If not during the chase itself, then why not later? Why had he come to her? Why tell her to keep his presence a secret?

      Damn you, she thought as she stared down at him, trying to figure out if that scenario really made sense, or if she just wanted it to. Her hypothesis did fit the evidence, she decided, but the same evidence would also support the reverse, namely that he’d faked his death so he could drop off the grid entirely and go to work for the terrorists, then got separated from them in the melee of the task force raid on the terrorists’ cabin.

      Both hypotheses fit, but which was the right one? Or was there yet another explanation she hadn’t come up with?

      “That doesn’t matter right now,” she said aloud. “What matters is what you’re going to do with him.” She glanced at the note, brain spinning.

      She knew Romo, knew what he’d been through as a child, and how those experiences had shaped the man he’d become. That, more than anything, told her logic favored the undercover theory. The Romo she’d known had been all about justice, sometimes to the exclusion of all other, softer emotions. She had to believe he’d been working for the good guys. That didn’t explain why he wanted to stay in hiding, but it did suggest that if the wrong people found out he was still alive, he could be in very real danger.

      Which, if she followed that line of thought to its conclusion, explained why he’d come to her if he felt he couldn’t go to whoever he’d been working for. She’d had her full medical training before deciding to specialize in pathology, and kept a small set of supplies on hand in case of emergencies. He would’ve known that, would’ve known she could patch him up. And, damn him, he would’ve known that she’d be unable to turn him away.

      Shaking her head, Sara stared down at him. “You’re really a bastard, you know that?”

      He didn’t answer. Didn’t even twitch. Which was so not helpful.

      She could call an ambulance, then dragoon one of her trusted cop friends to watch over him. There might be suspicions of complicity within the BCCPD and local FBI field office, but she knew for a fact that Chelsea, Fax, Cassie, Seth, Alyssa and Tucker were among the good guys. There was no way any of them were involved with the terrorists. They’d help keep Romo safe.

      But Sara stalled, because he’d come to her. He’d asked her to keep his presence a secret. Maybe, just maybe, it made the most sense to follow his instructions for the moment, and make her decisions once he was conscious and could fill in some of the blanks.

      Warning bells chimed at the back of her brain, but she couldn’t deal with them just then. She needed to make a decision, and it had better be the right one. Except when she came down to it, she knew she’d made her decision the moment she stepped toward him rather than away; the moment she’d touched his injured shoulder and felt warm skin, and remembered what they’d once been to each other.

      “Fine,” she said, her words seeming too loud in the silence of her secluded home. “Have it your way. You always did.” Reaching for a double handful of his clothing—and steeling herself to be a doctor rather than a woman who still, inexplicably, wanted to weep—she said, “I need to roll you. This is going to hurt.”

      She doubted he could hear her. The warning was more for her own sake than his, because she wasn’t used to dealing with patients who still had their pain responses intact.

      Doing her best to minimize the amount she twisted and moved him, in case the bullet had ended up someplace grim, she levered him partway up and checked for an exit wound or other injuries on the front of his body. She didn’t find either, which was both good news and bad: good news because his injury seemed localized and treatable, assuming the bullet hadn’t punched through to something internal; bad news because she didn’t know where the damned thing had gone.

      Easing him back down onto his flat stomach, trying not to remember how he’d slept like that, his face smashed into the pillow, his long limbs sprawled toward her, onto her, some part of him always touching some part of her, she rose and headed deeper into the house, through the smallish, oddly arranged rooms that she’d decorated to blend one into the next, with neutral, mossy colors and richly patterned curtains.

      She took the stairs leading up to her office and the bedroom, and tried not to remember the night she and Romo had made love on the landing, early in their relationship. They’d been out with her friends, teasing each other with looks and touches, with no question in either of their minds where and how the night would end. They hadn’t even made it all the way up the stairs before they’d collapsed, twined together, needing each other so much it had seemed like madness.

      Blushing, she stepped into her office, crossing quickly to the locked gun cabinet in the far corner, where she kept not only the small .22-caliber handgun she’d purchased just after al-Jihad’s reign of terror began, but also her medical supplies. The elegant cabinet was far more graceful—and much less expensive—than a safe. She dialed in the combination and popped the door, then stood and stared for a second at the large tackle box she’d outfitted as a field kit.

      She’d freshened her supplies regularly over the past year. With al-Jihad hitting targets in and around Bear Claw, she’d wanted to be prepared for emergencies. She’d never actually used the thing, though. Had hoped she’d never have to. She couldn’t handle the immediacy of living medicine, the emotions. Now, facing the prospect of working on a man she’d known intimately, a man she’d loved, she quailed. She’d never understood how her mother reveled in the godlike act of cutting into living flesh. Then again, she’d failed to understand a number of her mother’s choices over the years.

      You can do this, she told herself, squaring her shoulders and reaching for the medical kit. You have to do this. He’d trusted her enough to put his life and safety in her hands. She would reward that trust by patching him up. Then, once he’s awake, I’ll get some answers out of him, she thought as she returned to his side. Now that she had a plan of sorts, her emotions were starting to shift from dizzying relief at finding him incredibly, impossibly alive…to anger at the deception he’d perpetrated, and his presumption that she’d take him in and treat his wounds on the basis of a note that explained less than nothing.

      Leave it to slick, handsome, charming Romo Sampson to assume she’d take care of him after what he’d done to her.

      “Bastard,” she muttered under her breath, holding on to the anger because it steadied her hands as she cut away his jacket and black T-shirt, revealing the strong lines of his back, the angry bullet wound and the streaks of forming bruises.

      She removed the bulk of his clothing, save for his boxers, which were cheap chain-store wear, and nothing like what he would’ve worn before.

      Shoving that thought aside, she piled several blankets over him, then turned up the heat in the living room. She had to get him warm and find a way to get his fluid volume up. But at the same time, she knew she had to be smart, too; she needed to protect herself if things proved more complicated than her more optimistic hypothesis—that he’d been undercover, the blood spatter was from a clean kill of one of the terrorists, and he was in the clear, fully sanctioned for whatever he’d done.

      A quiver in her belly warned that the explanation, when she got it, probably wouldn’t be that neat. Romo had never been one to make things easy—either on her or on himself.

      His clothes were damp with sweat and blood, and streaked with dirt and other substances. His pockets were empty save for her spare key; a quick search revealed that he wasn’t carrying any wallet, ID, or weapon. She placed his clothes and boots in a paper bag and taped it shut, signing her name across the tape. Then she locked the bag in the gun cabinet. It wasn’t a perfect chain of evidence and probably wouldn’t be admissible in court, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

      It’s just in case, she told herself, and worked very hard not to think about what some of those cases might be.

      Returning to him, she

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