Midnight Run. Linda Castillo

known she wouldn’t welcome him back. In the months he’d spent in prison, he’d tried desperately to convince himself it didn’t matter, that he didn’t care. But the truth had eaten at him, like an acid gnawing at his heart until there was nothing left but an empty shell.

      Shaking off the memories, Jack took the knife and walked back outside to splice the telephone line. A few minutes later, he returned to find Landis at the hearth, building a fire. Without speaking, he went directly to the phone. A sigh of relief slipped between his lips when he got a dial tone. He dialed Aaron Chandler’s number from memory.

      He looked at Landis. “Come here.”

      Wariness flashed across her features. “Why?”

      Ignoring the question, Jack thrust the phone at her. “Tell him to meet you here. Tell him you’ve got a mutual friend who needs clothes and money. Don’t mention my name in case there’s a tap. He’ll know it’s me. Tell him it’s an emergency. Make sure he drives up here now.”

      Protest registered in her eyes, but Chandler must have answered, because she turned her attention to the phone. Jack watched her shift into lawyer mode, listened as the cool, detached professionalism slipped into her voice. Quickly and without emotion she informed Chandler of the situation. If Jack hadn’t been watching her, he wouldn’t have known her hands were trembling. Or that the pulse point just above the mole on her throat was thrumming.

      Hanging up the phone, she turned to him. “He’ll be here in a couple of hours.”

      “That’ll give me time to eat and shower.”

      “You realize Aaron’s going to insist you turn yourself in, don’t you?” she asked.

      “He can insist all he wants. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

      “As an attorney—”

      “Cut the lawyer crap. Nothing personal, but I’m not too keen on lawyers these days.”

      “Maybe you should have gone somewhere else.”

      Jack bit back an angry retort. He was cold and hungry and ached all the way to his fingernails. The last thing he wanted to do was argue with Landis. “It’s been a rough couple of days.” Argument leaped into her eyes, but he raised a hand to silence her. “I’ve got a bullet wound in my left shoulder.”

      Her mouth opened slightly and her gaze flicked to the bloodstained shirt. But she didn’t speak. She didn’t offer help. Maybe she wasn’t as compassionate as he’d thought. “You need to go to the hospital,” she said.

      “That’s not going to happen.”

      “I’m a lawyer, Jack. I don’t do bullet wounds.”

      “Yeah, well, you’re going to make an exception tonight.” Never taking his eyes from hers, he began unbuttoning his shirt.

      Landis stared at him as if he’d slashed her with a machete. Her gaze flicked from his eyes to his hands as he worked the buttons. At least that cool, detached mask was gone he mused, vaguely satisfied.

      Easing one side of the shirt off his shoulder, he stole a look at the wound. His stomach flip-flopped as his eyes took in the mass of jagged flesh. The skin was the color of eggplant, swollen and hot to the touch. No wonder it hurt like hell.

      Landis gasped and covered her mouth with an unsteady hand. “My God, Jack, I had no idea you were… You need to go to the hospital. A doctor. Stitches…” She stepped back, as if distancing herself would make him go away.

      He knew she wasn’t necessarily worried about his well-being, but it was good to know she was concerned. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had worried about him. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time someone had cared whether he lived or died.

      The feeling was bitterly familiar. Orphaned at the age of eight, Jack had grown up in a series of foster homes, some good, some not so good. He’d been moved around so often, the constant shuffling from home to home had become a way of life. He’d dealt with it by convincing himself he didn’t care. If that didn’t work, he went looking for trouble—something he’d always had a knack for finding.

      He thought about the man who’d helped him turn his life around and wondered how Mike Morgan would feel about what was happening now. The prospect of Mike’s disappointment left a bitter taste at the back of his throat.

      “Why don’t you let me drive you over to the clinic in Provo?” Landis said.

      Taking in her wide eyes and pale skin, he almost smiled, realizing that even after everything that had happened between them, he was still hungry for her attention. Hungry for a hell of a lot more than her attention if he wanted to be honest about it. God, he was a fool…

      “Because by law all bullet wounds are reported to the police,” he snapped.

      “I’m not equipped to treat a wound like that, Jack.”

      “It’s only a graze. You can handle a bandage.” He looked down at his muddy clothes. “Right now I’d like a shower and some dry clothes. I need something to eat. Some aspirin and a bed. I need to have a clear head when Aaron gets here.”

      He gazed through the French door, gauging the snow. Not exactly a snowstorm, but it was coming down again. In another hour the roads would be treacherous. Hopefully, Chandler kept a set of tire chains in the trunk of his Mercedes.

      Surprising him, Landis stepped closer, until she was standing a mere foot away. He knew it was a tactic she’d learned at some point in her education. Some nonsense about invading personal space. Too bad she hadn’t yet learned the tactic didn’t work on him.

      “All right, Jack. You can take a shower. I’ll fix you something to eat. I’ll even do my best to get your shoulder taken care of. But the moment Chandler gets here, you become his property, and he’ll damn well take you with him when he leaves.”

      Jack tried to be amused, but his sense of humor had all but vanished in the last hours. “And if he doesn’t?”

      Narrowing her eyes the way a cat might an instant before it pounced on an unsuspecting mouse, she moved even closer. “Then you can add another twenty years to your sentence for holding me hostage.”