Bound For Me (10 page)

 
Of
course
she’d be working tonight. She had no freaking choice.

“Thanks Krista,” Connor took it upon himself to do the talking for her. “Can you tell Austin and Mac to come in.”

He waited ’til Krista had made it to the door before turning and looking back down at Savannah.
 

“How are you feeling?” he asked softly.

She couldn’t answer.
 

“Sugar?”

Oh that was too unfair. And he was watching her so damn intensely—like she’d turned into the Rubik’s cube conundrum of the other night again.

“I’ve had better starts to the day,” she said warily.
 

She’d
slept
with him. The guy she’d wanted to hunt out and make pay somehow. How was that
possible
?

“It’s not going to get much better for a few more minutes I’m afraid,” he said. “There are a couple of people who’d like to talk to you.” He turned, waved in the two men now lingering just inside the doorway.

“This is Austin,” he gestured to the man in the white Summerhill tee. “Resident doctor. And this is Mac, our local Sheriff.”

“I need to talk to you, if you’re feeling up to it, Ms Nash,” the officer stepped forward.

Savannah eyed the notebook the guy already had open and then turned to Connor. “What the hell is happening?”

“You’ve been unwell.” The doctor answered. “You lost consciousness last night and the Sheriff here is interested in finding out why.”

“Lost consciousness? At work?” Savannah’s mouth dried even more. “But…” Hell, did they think she’d gotten drunk and passed out or something? “I don’t understand, I don’t drink on the job. Only water.”

“No,” Austin smiled reassuringly.
 
“It wasn’t anything you did. I’m afraid it seems you were given something. Some kind of drug.”

Savannah’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t help glancing at Connor. He was standing at the foot of the bed, glaring grimly at the edge of the blanket.

“You remember being at the bar?” The Sheriff asked.

Slowly she nodded. “Sure. I’d started the evening shift.”

“After working the lunch shift,” Connor interjected with an ominous note in his voice.

“Yes,” she lifted her chin and refused to look at him again. Some people had to work hard for a living. “It was busy. I remember there were a lot of people. A lot of the usual customers…” she trailed off.

“What else do you remember?” The sheriff prompted gently.

“Making cocktails. And feeling hot.”

“Did you have anything to drink?”

“Only from my water bottle. Only water.”

“Do you know where that bottle is now?”

She shook her head again. “It’s green. Neon. Hard to miss.”

“And you always drink from that bottle?”

She looked down at the needle in the back of her hand and nodded, feeling sick. Feeling scared. But damned if she was going to show it.

“I put the needle in, in case I needed to put you on a drip,” the doctor explained quietly. “But it wasn’t necessary. You were sick a couple times, but didn’t get too dehydrated. If you keep up your fluids today you’ll start to feel better.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve taken a blood sample already, but I’ll need you to sign a couple of forms.”

“Of course.” She’d been sick? So that’d be why there was a towel beside her pillow. Why there was a bowl. Why she’d been lying on her side.

The horror of it all made her want to be sick again now. She swallowed rapidly. Enough humiliation, right?

“I’ll take that out for you now, if you’d like?” Austin gestured towards her hand.

“Thanks.”

“I understand you’ve moved only recently to Summerhill, but is there anyone you can think of who might want to cause you harm Ms Nash?” The officer started the scary questions again.

Involuntarily her gaze flew to Connor’s.
Jerk. Double Jerk. Ultimate Jerk-Off
. She knew Connor remembered their harassing words. They’d been at the bar again last night. And they were total assholes… but, surely not. They wouldn’t be that stupid, would they?

“I don’t know anyone who’d want to bother,” she said lamely.

Connor’s frown was instant.

“You’re sure?” The officer asked.

“I really don’t know anyone in this town other than my work colleagues.” She glanced down as Austin deftly removed the needle and quickly applied a Band-aid.

“No ex-boyfriend who’d come after you? You’ve had no issues with stalkers in the past?”

She almost laughed. She’d had three years worth of bullying to see out her school days, but then she’d buried herself at her father’s struggling hotel. She’d been out of her school acquaintances sight for so long, she knew she was out of their minds. And her one serious ex had hit the road as soon as he’d realized the extent of her father’s problems. He was never going to turn stalker.
 

 
“No,” she answered. “I can’t think of anyone.”

The officer nodded. “We’ve already reviewed the security footage from the cameras in the bar, but for a few moments both cameras that were focused on where your bottle was, were obscured.” He frowned at his notes. “And your water bottle is now nowhere to be found. Though we do,” he paused and glanced over at Connor. “Have a couple of leads.”

“You do?”

“We’ll be following them up.” He flipped his notebook shut and nodded at the doctor, then Connor.
 

“Savannah,” the doctor took his cue. “I’m on the premises, you feel at all bad, you come see me, okay? I’ll call you later as well.”

“Sure. Thanks.” She drew breath. “And if you hear anything Sheriff…” Like what those leads were? But the guy had clammed. “Or if you have any more questions…” Her voice wavered. “You know where my apartment unit is?”

“I do, Ma’am. And I’d like to say how sorry I am this has happened. There’s very little crime in Summerhill, this is unusual. But we’ll do everything we can to find whoever was responsible.”

“I’m sure it was just some… stupid prank or something,” she mumbled.

A hideous prank. And the more it was sinking in, the worse she was feeling. She cleared her throat and adjusted the cover, pulling it higher. She really needed some alone time. Glancing up, she caught both the doctor and Connor scrutinising her. The doc with clinical detachment—Connor, not so detached.
 

He suddenly turned towards the two men. “I’ll see you guys out.”

“Thanks.”

Turned out ‘seeing them out’ meant walking them as far as the bedroom door. Connor muttered something in a low voice and they left. Connor closed the door after them and faced her.

Savannah decided now wasn’t the time to try to stand up.
 

Slowly he walked back towards the bed. She drew her knees up and tightened her grip on the cover. For a moment she didn’t know what was freaking her more—being drugged or knowing she’d slept with Connor Hughes. It ought to be the drugging. But that
this
guy was Connor?

“Mind if I sit?”

She shook her head, tried not to wince as it pounded.

He didn’t take the chair Krista had left vacant, instead he sat on the edge of the bed, his hip level with hers. And she was not following that thought any further… too intimate.
 

As it was he looked too at home—like he owned the place. Which, she realized grimly, he probably did.

She’d walked right into the lion’s den. Finally was where she’d wanted to be, but in totally the
wrong
circumstances. She’d wanted to put the screws on him, not
actually
screw him. But she had. Totally.

And now remnants of that heat burned up her unruly body.
 

Seriously?
 

Despite feeling super crap, her hormones wanted him to play? Yet the thought of his touch, sent the sick feeling away.

He was the freaking
enemy
.

She mentally tossed her body under a freezeroid shower. It was never,
ever
happening again.

“So,” she opted to play it cool. It was never too late to play it cool. And Savannah was a master of very,
very
cool. “Not a banker.”

His mouth twitched a little. “No.”

“Not a liftie either.”

“I am a liftie. Sometimes. For a couple hours.”

“The rest of the time you run this place...” she said. “This is Summerhill, right? The famous Lodge.”

He nodded.

“And you own it,” she sighed. “So much for a small net worth.”

“But you don’t like me for it,” he replied, sounding like he was smiling now.

She closed her eyes so she couldn’t see him. Couldn’t be affected. “You
can’t
be Connor Hughes.”

He reached out and covered her cold hand with his, gently rubbed her Band-aid with his still-bandaged finger. “Why can’t I?”

She looked at him, curling her fingers into a fist underneath his warm palm. “You have longer hair. In that picture on the website...”

Oh
. Way to go Savannah—she’d just busted herself. Let him know she’d cyber stalked him. It had been harder than she’d thought it would be. There were far fewer pictures of him than his brother Logan. The model. Connor had been much harder to find—turned out the pictures were
old
.

 
He didn’t pick her up her revealing slip, just answered easily. “I shaved it off recently.”

“Why?”

“Cancer fundraiser. One of the housemaids has a child...”

Connor takes care of everyone
. Or so Krista thought.

But Savannah knew he didn’t. Because of Connor Hughes and his father,
her
father had lost everything he’d had left. Even his dignity.

The Hughes empire had stolen Savannah’s future. She wasn’t ever going to forgive him for that. He was
so
damn spoiled. She’d bet he’d never really done a proper day’s work in his life.

He was watching her closely. No smile in those eyes now. He’d seen her anger?

“The leads the sheriff has… you think you know who it was?” she asked for diversion as much as curiosity.

“I think we both know who it was.”

“Those jerks?” She couldn’t believe it. Were they really that stupid? That mean?

“I don’t know what they thought they could get away with.” Bleakness dimmed the brightness of his eyes.

She shrugged, not wanting to even go there.

“You could have had a bad reaction to whatever it was they gave you,” he all but growled. “They could have
hurt
you.”

Like those thoughts hadn’t already occurred to her?

The anger inside was almost uncontrollable. To have her strength taken away from her? To be incapacitated like that—forcing her to be dependent on someone else? On Connor freaking Hughes?
 

“I know you’re angry,” he said.

“You have
no
idea how I’m feeling,” she choked.

He leaned closer but she flinched back, snatching her hand out from under his.
 

She did
not
want his sympathy. She did
not
want his touch.

“We’ll get them, Savannah. I promise.”

Really? What was his promise worth? “Justice is that important to you?” she asked sceptically.

“Of course. Isn’t it to you?”

“It’s very important to me,” she answered in a hard voice. “When someone has done something wrong, they ought to have to
pay
.”

His eyes narrowed.

She breathed in. Maybe she’d said that a little too vehemently.
 

“Is that why you’re here?” he asked.

Her lungs constricted. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you here, in Summerhill?”

“I need money and I get good tips here.” She swept her hair back from her face in a casual gesture.

“Really?” He sounded so disbelieving.

“Some people like my bitch bartender act.” She sent him a pointed look.

“And we both know it’s an act.” He laughed under his breath. “You’re not anywhere near as cold as you make out.”

She stiffened, unable to contain her anger any longer. “You should have told me who you were.”

His laugh was louder that time. “I’m not the bad guy here.”

“No? I asked if you knew Rex Hughes. If you knew Connor. You didn’t tell me. Then we had sex
and you
still
didn’t tell me.”

He sobered completely. “And why do you want to know Rex? Why do you want to know me?” He put one fist either side of her, bracing forward to ask right in her face. “What do you
want
from me?”

That
really
wasn’t a question she wanted to answer right now. Her brain was too scrambled. And her body? Too confused to know what was best for it.

She’d come here with the general notion of making them pay somehow. But it wasn’t like she was actually about to blackmail them like in some TV soap. Probably the worst she could do was go to the press and see if someone was interested in her story.