From the bathroom, he grabbed a fluffy white hand towel and brought it to where she was sitting on a carved wooden bench in front of a mirrored dressing table. He wrapped the towel around her wounded arm and brushed escaped curls off her forehead. Under her freckles, her complexion had faded to a waxy pale.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Sure. Fine.”
When the energizing effect of adrenaline wore off, he expected her to crash like a rock slide. And he wanted to be there when she unwound, to catch her before she fell, to hold her and tell her that life was going to get better. There was something about her that awakened his protective instincts.
As a rule, he kept his distance from other people and avoided committed relationships. Losing his brother had torn a hole in his heart and made him wary of deep connections. But Lexie’s grin repaired his pain. He wanted to be close to her.
He held her hand, marveling at her slender fingers and the delicate turn of her wrist. His gaze lifted to her dark eyes. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
“I know you’ll do your best.” She shrugged. “Sometimes there’s no way to prevent the bad stuff.”
Though she was acting nonchalant, the hollow echo in her voice surprised him. He could tell that this woman had experienced more than her fair share of tragedy. Immediately curious, he wanted to hear more about her life, her dreams and her plans for the future.
But this wasn’t the right time. Gently, he removed his gun from her clenched fingers. Her vulnerability touched him, but he also appreciated her strength. When she’d needed to be tough, she held off four bad guys—five including the unconscious one outside the elevator. Now she could relax.
He didn’t have that respite. An aggressive burst of gunfire echoed in the corridor like a call to duty. He stuck his earbud back in. Sean was screaming his name, demanding an update and informing Mason that they had a group ready to storm the seventh floor.
Gun in hand, he turned his attention to TST Security business.
Leaving Mason to growl orders on his intercom, Lexie slipped into the bathroom, locked the door and leaned against it. Stillness wrapped around her. Inside this pristine tile and marble cubicle, the gunfire seemed far away.
Exhaling a sigh, she slid down the wall. Sanctuary! Not that she was truly safe. This peaceful feeling was akin to being in the eye of a tornado while danger continued to swirl, but she was glad for the momentary respite—especially glad she’d made it into the bathroom before she swooned like some kind of whimpering Southern belle.
Mason didn’t need to know she was scared. She liked him and wanted him to like her. And something told her that he wasn’t the kind of guy who enjoyed being around girlie girls. She’d seen the gleam in his eye when he watched her taking aim and when he tended to her bullet wound. As if on cue, the red-stained towel fell from her arm. Oozing blood smeared and saturated the blue fabric of her jumpsuit.
“Bummer.” This was one of her favorite outfits.
It didn’t hurt. Not much, anyway. But her body was having a reaction that was out of proportion to the injury. Was this some kind of panic attack? She was acutely tense. Her muscles twisted into knots. Her gut clenched. Other symptoms slammed into her, one after the other. She was light-headed. Her breathing was labored, and she smelled the odor of rotting meat. The inside of her mouth tasted like ash. Shivers twitched across her shoulders.
Her spine buckled, and she ratcheted down to the floor. She lay on her side with her wounded arm up, the white marble cooling her cheek. She tried to breathe deeply and calm herself. But she was too tense...and too cold, ice-cold. Her fists clenched between her breasts. Her pulse pounded. She pinched her eyes closed, hoping to blot out the terrible fear that threatened to overwhelm her.
She had to get control. I’m going to be all right. No matter how many times her conscious mind repeated those words, a deeper place in her soul didn’t believe it. I won’t die. Post-traumatic stress squeezed her in a grip so tight that her bones rattled. Everything is going to be all right. She wasn’t in mortal danger, not this time. This isn’t like the accident.
Her memory jolted. Flung backward in time, she heard a fierce metallic crunch and the explosion of the air bag from the steering wheel. Her brother’s little bronze sedan had been thrown onto its side and was skidding toward the edge of the cliff near Buena Vista. Cringing, she heard the grinding screech of her car door against the pavement. Should have taken the truck. Jake was going to kill her for wrecking his car. Not my fault. The other car—black with tinted windows—had crossed the center line and hit her front fender.
Her mouth opened wide as she desperately tried to scream. The air bag had stolen her breath. She could only gasp. And then her brother’s car was falling, crashing end over end, down the steep hillside and into the trees.
Other people had told her that they couldn’t recall a single moment of their accidents. In the midst of their traumatic events, they experienced amnesia. Not her. She felt every twist and turn as the car plummeted. Fully conscious, she braced herself for what would surely come next: the gas explosion that would tear her limbs apart and the flames that would sear her flesh.
That wasn’t the way it turned out. Though the driver who had hit her fled the scene, there was a witness in another vehicle. She was rescued, taken to the hospital and stitched back together. The doctors fixed as much as they could.
Replaying the accident—the worst moments of her life—lessened her current panic. The terror that had threatened to smother her receded into the shadows of her mind. She forced her thoughts back to the present reality and focused on what had just happened. She’d been attacked by five armed men.
Instead of sliding deeper into fear, she chuckled to herself. This definitely wasn’t like the horrible feeling of helplessness in the car accident. When it came to self-defense, she did okay. Not a big surprise, as she’d been trained by her three older brothers, who ran a karate dojo. And her dad, a Marine Corps sergeant, had insisted that she know how to handle rifles, pistols, handguns and other weaponry.
Thinking of the DeMille men calmed her. Even though they were a thousand miles away in Austin, Texas, they were watching over her. They’d made her into what she was today: an independent, stubborn, kick-ass tomboy. A survivor.
When she’d encountered the first man outside the elevator, she knew—without the slightest doubt—that she could take him down. Lexie had earned her brown belt in karate when she was fifteen.
Shooting at people was more difficult; she didn’t want to kill anybody. If Mason hadn’t shown up, she had no idea what she would have done. He’d taken a risk by charging onto this floor to help her. Of course, security was his job...but still, she was grateful.
There was a tap on the door. “Lexie, are you all right?”
She scrambled to get her legs under her. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? It’s quiet in there.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
She should have turned on the shower. Mason wouldn’t have knocked if he’d heard water running. Struggling, she lunged to her feet and hit the faucet in the sink. There! Was that enough proof enough that she was fine and dandy?
Her reflection in the mirror confronted her. Not a pretty sight! Her arm dripped blood, her makeup was smudged and her ponytail was tangled like a bird’s nest. What she needed was a shower, but stripping off her clothes while bad guys were on the prowl seemed like an invitation to more trouble—naked trouble.
She went to the bathroom door, pressed her ear against it and listened for the sounds of battle from the outer corridor. There were distant pops. This wasn’t the kind of cheesy motel where you heard every cough and sputter from the neighboring room, but gunfire was loud.