Page 44 of Her Wicked Hero

She bit her lip, and his eyes flickered down to watch, then raised to look her in the eye. “I wanted to see you. Thanks for coming,” Zed said.

“I needed to see you.” She shuddered. “I needed to see if you were real.”

He seemed to be saying so much with his eyes, but maybe she was reading it wrong. She couldn’t stand it. She needed to lighten the mood.

“Dante, huh?”

“Occasionally. Depends on the circumstances.” His voice went through her like liquid heat. He couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he did. Was his hand squeezing her waist a little tighter?

“How are you?” His hand came up to trace the curve of her cheek. “I can barely see the bruising on your face, so that’s good. But you were limping when you came in, how’s your leg? Your head?”

“I’m fine.”

“Marcia, you’d say you were fine if you were on fire.”

She snorted a laugh.

“So, tell me the truth, what did the doctors say?”

“I got the all clear on the concussion. My leg is infection free, that was their big worry.”

“But?” he prompted.

“They recommended R.I.C.E.”

“Sounds really familiar,” Zed chuckled. “Rest, ice, compression, and elevation.”

“Yep, that’s it. The swelling has gone down, but I’m still limping. They said the week after next, I should be back to normal.”

“Hunter told me Homeland Security has been questioning you. How hard of a time have they been giving you?”

She sighed, it was time for business. “Not a hard time, exactly,” she prevaricated.

“Bullshit. Three days? They’ve been questioning you for three fucking days?”

Marcia pressed up against his chest and reluctantly, left the comfort of his embrace. She sat down in the chair beside the bed. “Okay, three days was overkill. I don’t know what their problem was either. They treated me like I was on trial or something. I had to tell them over and over again everything Raymond ever said.”

“That should have taken three hours,” Zed said as he leaned forward and speared her with a fierce glance.

“I agree,” she grinned. “But I made them work for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was actually after four hours, I gave them the silent treatment.”

“You asked for a lawyer?”

“Nope,” she smiled broadly, remembering the two agents’ frustration and eventual fury.

“You’re killing me here, Marcia, I see your smile, and it’s absolutely diabolical. What in the hell did you do?”

“Nurul and Hana had been left behind in Borneo. I told them until they got her on the phone with a translator, I wasn’t going to talk to them again. That’s part of the reason I was there so long,” she admitted.

Zed shouted with laughter. “How is Nurul? How’s the baby?”

“They’re with Nurul’s auntie. The doctor on the aircraft carrier made sure Hana’s arm was set properly, and they had gotten her back to her family. She’s still really tore up about her dad.”

“It’s not your fault,” Zed reiterated what he’d said in the jungle.