Asking For It (4 page)

"So now I'm going to supervise the 'bunk' you've given me." Arnie stretched and yawned. "And I guess you'll want to camp out right here."

Kate blinked and looked back at Arnie. "I will?"

"Somebody has to stay with our friend here, right?" Arnie yawned again. "You know, in case he wakes up. To explain what happened and keep him from wanderin' around...naked." Arnie grinned.

Since a ridiculous embarrassment seized her at the idea, she did her best to look unconcerned. "You're right. I'll stay. It's not as if I'll be able to sleep tonight anyway." An unhappy laugh escaped her.

Arnie's good-natured grin faded. "You're doing all you can, Kate."

"Yeah, well. That isn't good enough." These kids depended on her, not only for a camp experience, but for a chance to see they had the capacity to make something of their lives, that they could stay out of trouble.

"Kate."

"It's okay, Arnie." Not wanting to argue about it, she made herself smile.

The big groundskeeper sighed and shook his head. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Bright and early."

Still shaking his head, Arnie left the room.

It grew very quiet, then. The infirmary was inside the main building, separated from the outlying cabins, where the boys were no doubt kicking up a fuss about going to sleep on their first night away from home.

But none of that could be heard in the plain infirmary room. Here the silence felt like an additional layer isolating Kate with the man who lay very still on the hospital cot.

She frowned at him.

His response was a continuation of the helpless, supplicating look.

She felt another one of those weird and unpleasant lurching sensations that started in her stomach and floated down to her toes.

Strange. Why did looking at this guy make her feel like she was on a boat?

Kate grabbed a chair and set it very deliberately by the head of the bed. She sat, crossed her arms over her chest and threw one jeans-clad knee over the other. She stared at him.

He'd said he'd been grabbed. He'd obviously been beaten. Drugged too, Arnie thought. Why had somebody done that? And why leave him on her doorstep, of all places? The only clue they had were the man's shoes sitting below the cot, apparently all they'd been able to salvage of his clothes. They were a fancy Italian brand, Kate saw, the kind with a price tag in the triple digits.

She shook her head. Certainly, there were plenty of troubling questions. But the most troubling question of all concerned the short moment in the dining hall before he'd collapsed. Between herself and the man something had passed. Something...almost personal.

But how could that be? Frowning, Kate leaned forward to peer more closely at his face, just to make sure. She didn't know him. No. Truly, she didn't. Even the way he looked now, he could walk away with the leading role in some romantic drama; he had that kind of bone structure. She would have remembered meeting a man this good-looking.

Kate's lip curled. Indeed. She had a good memory for pretty faces, and filed them under D for danger. In her experience, handsome men got so much mileage out of their outsides they didn't bother prettying up their insides.

They could be real snakes inside.

Maybe she was biased, but she'd bet the good-looking man lying on the bed — who was developing a shiner and whose jaw was bristling with new beard — was as reptilian as he was handsome.

With a snort, Kate leaned back in her chair. Not that either quality was her concern. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. How was she going to send anybody home? Even one kid, let alone the eight who didn't have a counselor? And how to choose those eight? It was her job — her mission — to see that whoever came to Camp Wild Hills got a chance to see another side of life, a chance to make something of themselves.

Biting a knuckle, Kate wondered what she was going to do. The handsome man lay beside her, unmoving.

It occurred to Kate, scowling at him, that it had become her job to run this camp because of a good-looking man, one who definitely had not examined his rotten, unprincipled insides.

CHAPTER THREE

Griffith opened his eyes. Correction, it was only one eye that would open. With it he saw a pocked, acoustic tile ceiling with a brown stain swirling in one corner.

The only ceiling he knew of that looked like this was at Dorchester Prep School. He must be in the nurse's office then, hiding from that nasty Pierce Cruller after yet another failed fistfight. The nurse would be calling his mom, but naturally his dad would come instead and, boy, would Griffith get an earful then.
You got a black eye? Hell, why didn't you just beat the shit out of him
?

According to Griffith's frustrated father, his son was a hopeless wimp.

No, no. Griffith frowned at the brown swirl on the ceiling. He was not at Dorchester Prep. It all came back in a plummeting rush. He was at Camp Wild Hills.

Which might be even worse.

His neck was stiff, but it worked. Cautiously, Griffith turned his head. His field of vision lowered from the ceiling and caught a woman sitting in a chair by the bedside. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her chin was tucked into the hollow beneath her shoulder. She was early-to-mid-thirties, pretty, and asleep.

The idea of somebody having watched over him while he was out cold and defenseless was terribly embarrassing, especially since Griffith recognized the woman. She was the same one he'd seen earlier, in the dining hall.

And he was afraid that she was Kate Darby.

Lying there on a hard, narrow cot, Griffith fervently hoped he was wrong, but all evidence pointed to her being the camp director. She was the only female he'd seen in the dining hall. If that weren't enough, she was sitting by his bedside, showing herself to be the most conscientious person around. The most conscientious person was usually whoever had the most to lose.

Though Kate Darby had no idea yet how much she was going to lose.

Griffith ground his teeth. He almost wanted to laugh. Simon! The bastard was brilliant. Not only had he swiped Griffith from his critical meeting with the bank, but he'd thought to dump him
here
.

When Griffith had seen the sign for the camp he'd felt an hilarious dread. He'd come back to consciousness only a few minutes earlier, face down in a vegetable field. Spitting dirt, body aching, he'd felt briefly amazed he was still alive. Then he'd sat up and experienced a nauseating fear of being lost. With pathetic relief, he'd seen lights. As he'd stumbled toward civilization, he'd come across the camp's sign. Simon must have planned it that way; he must have wanted Griffith to know he'd only jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Yes, Simon must have looked at a map and guessed Griffith's position vis-à-vis Camp Wild Hills. He must have known the delicate situation into which he was throwing Griffith.

Yes, Simon was brilliant, but Griffith was even more brilliant. Oh, when he got his hands on Mr. Grolier...

On the bed, Griffith carefully unclenched his fists. Okay, he'd do something very interesting once he got his hands on Simon, but in the meantime he had to get out of here. He glanced at the woman's sleeping face. He had to get out of here as quickly and discreetly as possible.

Not an easy task when you weren't sure your legs would work, you didn't have a phone or set of wheels, and —

Griffith's eyes widened. — And when beneath the rough blanket covering you, you were completely naked.

He darted another look toward the suspected Kate Darby. Had
she
done that — to
him
?

Damn, if the idea wasn't...perversely erotic.

Yeah, perverse all right. Shaking his head at himself, Griffith carefully eased upward. Muscles protested from his ears down to his toes, but at least all the muscles worked. Halfway up, on his elbows, he glanced toward the woman again. Perhaps he could slip past her and find a telephone. What he'd do after making a few crucial phone calls was unclear. Hide until help came? Then dash forth, naked?

He gnashed his teeth. He would
eviscerate
Simon. It had been a long time since he'd felt so completely helpless.

Then, to complicate an already dicey situation, the woman woke up. She drew in a sharp breath, lifted her head, and opened her eyes. Leaf green, her eyes met Griffith's directly.

He felt pinned. Again, he was pricklingly aware of the erotic quality of the situation. There she was, sitting up, completely dressed. Here he was, lying down, completely naked. And she had no idea who he was.

Beyond all of that, she was pretty. Not his type exactly, but still very pretty. Her face was a forceful oval, with full, unpainted lips, a stubborn chin, and arched eyebrows. No-nonsense, hard-working, and earthily sensual. Hay-blond hair was pulled back from this face, and her eyes... To Griffith her sleepy eyes seemed to promise the entire spectrum of female sexual knowledge.

Under the blanket, he went hard.

Oh, Jeez. This really
was
perverse. He hadn't managed to get erect the other night for Mona, who might possibly have appreciated the gesture. But it was happening now, while in the presence of a woman who called for a very different plan of action.

Namely, escape.

"Uh..." He tried a grin and struggled to get his unruly body under control. He had to think here —
think
.

But how could he think when she blinked? One slow, feline close and open of those green eyes. Despite himself, Griffith's libido did a somersault.

"You're awake." Her voice, deep and husky, did nothing to ease Griffith's somersaulting sex drive. Neither did the way her gaze dipped to where the blanket had slid to his hips.

Nothing terribly intimate was exposed, and the folds of the blanket hid his ridiculous condition, but Griffith's libido did another flip. Insane.

The inviting warmth in her eyes disappeared as she appeared to waken fully. "Hey." She grabbed the edge of the blanket and jerked it upward. "Let's stay decent, huh?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Sure." Griffith carefully tucked the blanket under his armpits. "Didn't mean to — " Hell. His face was getting hot. "Guess I'm still a bit woozy."
You could say that again
.

The woman frowned. "Woozy. Yes, Arnie said he thought you'd been drugged."

Arnie. Griffith wondered if that was the big fellow he'd seen in the dining room standing next to Kate — if she was Kate. "Arnie's right." Griffith winced. "Three of them wrestled me until they could stick me with a hypo. Must have been a tranquilizer. Put me down like a ton of bricks."

Her expressive face pulled into a puzzled frown. The damn woman clearly wanted to understand this. But her clear understanding was exactly what Griffith did not want. Instead of sitting solicitously by his bedside, she'd be dumping him down the nearest canyon.

"But why?" she now asked, looking way too shrewd. "Why bring you here?" Her eyes narrowed. "Who
are
you?"

An utterly natural question, but it made Griffith's pulse quicken. Taking a chance, he told her the truth. "My name is Griffith." He watched her closely. "Griffith Blaine."

To his relief, no flicker of recognition crossed her face. Apparently, the seller had followed the terms of escrow, not divulging Griffith's name to his new tenant.

Feeling calmer, Griffith continued. "I was on my way to an important business meeting, a critical one in fact, when three hoodlums jumped me." Probably best to tell as much of the truth as he could. "They drugged me and — What day is it today, by the way?"

"Wednesday." She looked at her watch. "Or was. It's past midnight."

"Ah." Griffith lowered his lashes. He'd lost more than a whole day, then. He needed to talk to March and the guys at Goldfed Financial. Deirdre. Not to mention a few dozen other people. Shit. He needed to get to a telephone.

But in order to attain that goal, he needed to keep his cool. It was essential to allay the perfectly justifiable suspicion with which she was regarding him. And he needed to get rid of this utterly absurd hard-on.

"I'm not in the habit of getting abducted." Griffith rustled up a smile. "In fact, this is my first time ever. But there's a hot project, lotta competition. I was muscling my way to a front-line position and I guess one of my rivals didn't like it. So he...got me out of the way."

It was more of the truth, but her eyes pinned him. Clever eyes. Beneath the blanket, Griffith's inconvenient arousal jumped.

Meanwhile, he realized he had a question of his own he ought to be asking. With a guileless look, he said, "Where am I, anyway?"

"Ah." Her expression relaxed, infinitesimally. "You're at Camp Wild Hills."

"Oh." Griffith did his very best to look as if he'd never heard of the place.

She unbent enough to smile. "It's a camp for disadvantaged boys."

"Ah." That's right. She ran a good Samaritan outfit for poverty and discipline cases. Carefully, he asked, "And that would put me, locationwise...?"

She raised her eyebrows. "We're in the mountains above Sagebrush Valley. Locationwise, that's about halfway between San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield."