Undercover Mistress. Kathleen Creighton

      “Broth,” she countered, giving her head a determined shake as she picked up the mug and spoon. “It’s mostly water. Plus, it’s warm. Here—open up.” She leaned toward him, humming inside with a curious high, a mixture of excitement and anticipation, confidence and…not exactly fear—more like stage fright. Like opening night on Broadway—if I should ever be so lucky.

      The man’s brow furrowed in a frown of reluctant acquiescence. She clamped her teeth on her lower lip, holding back the tumult of her feelings as she watched the parched lips open…followed the spoon’s unsteady path toward them…saw the spoon hover…the lips purse…sip…and the amber liquid disappear.

      She heard his soft sigh and responded with a single bright bubble of laughter. “See? That wasn’t so bad. Have some more.”

      He didn’t answer, not with words, but the eyes that flicked toward her held a spark she hadn’t seen there before and his lips, before they opened to accept the spoon, seemed to carry at least the promise of a smile.

      “I thought you were going to die, you know,” she said in a conversational way as she watched the spoon make its journey from the mug to his mouth and back.

      “Yeah, me, too.” The voice was sandy, still, but seemed to her to be getting stronger.

      “Well, I’m very glad you didn’t.”

      “Yeah, me, too.”

      She laughed again. “I’m sure. Really, though. I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d died. I’d sure have had some ’splainin’ to do. Doc and me both.”

      “Yeah?” He let his head relax back against the pillows, as if the effort of swallowing had exhausted him, though his eyes still studied her warily from under lowered lashes, like some wild thing watching from shadowed woods. “Why’s that?”

      “For bringing you here, obviously. Instead of—”

      “Where, exactly, is here?” His voice, less whispery, less sandy, now, had a gruff and growly quality that made Celia’s own throat feel in need of clearing.

      “My house, of course,” she said, pausing the spoon just shy of its target. “My bedroom. Actually, that’s my bed you’re in.”

      “How?” He growled the question, then watched her with narrowed eyes as he opened his mouth like an impatient nestling for the tardy spoonful.

      “We carried you,” Celia said as she delivered it, watching her hand to avoid meeting his eyes. “Doc and I did. Let me tell you, you weren’t exactly light, either.”

      “Umh.” It was his only comment, since a trickle of broth was making its way down his chin.

      Unthinkingly, Celia snatched up the napkin from the tray and dabbed at it…and in the next instant her hand was slowing…pausing…as a strange little frisson of awareness raced across her skin. She felt frozen in time and place, unable to move her hand, the napkin or her eyes away from the place where it touched his mouth and chin.

      The lips moved, forming a single word. “Why?”

      She jerked, cleared her throat, and dropped the napkin back on the tray. “Why what?”

      He spoke slowly, separating each word. “Why…bring…me…here?”

      She shrugged. Her hand shook slightly as she picked up the spoon again. She could feel those eyes… Black coffee or chocolate…not at all sweet… “It was the closest place.”

      He accepted a spoonful of broth, licked his lips, then murmured, “Why not a hospital? You didn’t call paramedics?”

      Celia took a breath, placed the spoon and mug on the tray. She felt herself bracing as if to meet a physical force. “You asked me not to,” she said finally. “Begged me…actually.”

      She thought, as a shiver of nameless excitement raced through her: Here’s where it begins.