Untamed

“Ma’am, there’s always one person that a drunk person can be controlled by. With my dad, it was my little sister. She could just lead him by the hand, when he’d kill another man for trying to make him stop drinking. I don’t think Rourke would ever hurt you. But I’ll be there if he tries to. Please?”

“Are you downstairs?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll meet you in front of the bar.” She hung up.

* * *

She put on slacks and a yellow pullover blouse. She didn’t wait to make up her face. She met O’Bailey outside the lounge downstairs, where a vicious loud voice was cursing in Afrikaans. She winced.

“He’ll listen to you,” he said. “I know he will.”

She gave O’Bailey a grim look. “I’ll try,” she said.

She walked into the bar. There was another man, one who looked about half as drunk as Rourke. He spotted her and got up, grinning from ear to ear.

“Well, look what a pretty little fairy just walked in the door,” the man exclaimed. He caught her by the arm and tried to pull her to him. “Precious, how about coming up to my room...?”

In an instant, Rourke had him by the throat. His one eye was dark with rage. “You touch her again and I’ll kill you!” he said through his teeth. He threw the man backward. He fell over a table and picked himself up and ran out of the lounge, holding his throat.

“Stanton,” Clarisse said softly.

He looked down at her. He was breathing roughly. He reeked of whiskey. He peered at her, frowning. “Why are you here, Tat?” he asked in almost a whisper.

“I came to get you.” She slid her cold, nervous hand into his. He’d frightened her when he grabbed the man by the throat. But he didn’t look violent at all now. “You have to come with me.”

“Okay,” he said easily.

She tugged on his hand. He let her lead him right out of the room, to where O’Bailey was waiting. She could hardly believe it. The bar was a wreck. Men, big men, were against the wall, behind tables, as if they were hoping Rourke wouldn’t notice them. Grown men were afraid of him, but he was following along with Clarisse like a lamb.

“I’ll talk to him. Is he staying at this hotel?” Clarisse asked the Irishman, grimacing as she noted the bartender just peering over the bar and looking hunted. “He’ll pay for the damage,” Clarisse said.

O’Bailey nodded. “Rourke’s in room 306. I imagine the key’s in his pocket.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“No, ma’am, thank you!” he replied, and she smiled.

He nodded, grinned, gave Rourke an apologetic smile and went into the lounge.

Rourke looked down at Tat. “Why are you here?” he asked angrily. “Won’t your fiancé miss you?”

“He’s in Argentina with a patient,” she reminded him. “He won’t be home for several weeks.”

“What a tough break for him,” he said, looking down at her with barely hidden hunger. “God, you’re a knockout,” he said huskily. “I ache just looking at you!”

She flushed. She turned and led him into the elevator. They rode up in silence to the third floor. He was watching her with unnerving intensity.

She led him to his door. “You need to get out the key card,” she said.

He leaned against the door. “No.”

“Stanton,” she groaned.

“Once I open the door, you’ll leave,” he said heavily.

She nibbled her lower lip.

“I can always go back to the bar,” he said cagily, shouldering away from the door frame.

“No!”

“Promise you’ll stay with me until I fall asleep, then,” he said, his voice only slightly slurred. “Give me your word, Tat.”

She ground her teeth together. He wasn’t quite in control of himself and she was afraid of him. Not of his temper, but that he might try to continue where they’d left off when she was seventeen. That had been a near thing. Not until she was in her twenties did she realize just how near.

“I won’t...do anything you don’t want,” he promised.

She drew in a slow breath. “I’ll hold you to that, Stanton.”

He smiled. He drew out the card and pushed it into the lock. There was a click and a tiny green light went on. He pulled the card out and slipped it back into his pocket. He opened the door. “After you.”

She walked into the room, a poem about spiders and flies teasing around the edge of her mind.

The room flooded with light as he touched a switch.

She turned to him. He looked harder than she’d ever seen him. His handsome face was tense with some powerful emotion as he stared down at her with his one good eye.

She looked back, wincing at the eye patch.

He misread the look. “Ya,” he said coldly. “I’m disabled. That what you’re thinking?”

“I was remembering when it happened,” she said softly.

The tension grew worse. “I’d just...been told something that upended my life,” he said evasively, avoiding her quiet gaze. “Like a rank beginner, I walked right into an ambush.” He laughed coldly. “Lost an eye, took a bullet in the chest...” His eye cut back around to her face. “You were there, sitting by the bed when I came out from under the anesthesia.”

“K.C. called me,” she said. She lowered her eyes to his chest. “He was scared to death, and he didn’t want to start gossip all over again by sitting with you. Nobody thought it unusual that I did. I knew most of the hospital staff in Nairobi.”

He drew in a breath. He felt sick. Sweaty. “There was a lot of gossip after that.”

“I never noticed. Neither did you.”

He studied her downcast face. “As soon as the stitches came out, I invited Anita out to the game farm and sent you home to DC.”

She bit her lip. “Yes.”

He closed his eye, anguish in his whole body as he recalled that act of cruelty. “I didn’t even thank you, for what you did. I wanted to die when they told me I’d lost an eye, that I might go blind. You made me want to live.”