Dangerous Waters Read Online Free Page B

his expression, yet suddenly she sensed his withdrawal. "Only hazily," he said. "I remember that I was going to take a look at a house down the lake. Give 'em a bid for an addition. After that..." He shrugged. "The cold water's the next thing I remember."
    Megan watched him intently. "And you don't know why...?"
    "It's not the kind of thing you'd forget."
    That didn't exactly answer her question. Or perhaps, in a way, it did.
    "I'd better let you rest," she said, reaching for her purse. "I'm glad you're recovering, Mr. McKenzie."
    He held out one hand, touched her cheek lightly. "I owe you a life for a life now."
    The purse forgotten, Megan stared at him, still feeling his touch though his hand lay back at his side. "Don't be ridiculous. That sounds so...melodramatic. It's my job. I've pulled other people in. You don't have to..."
    "A rule's a rule." He wasn't even smiling. "You save a life, it belongs to you. So what are you going to do with mine?"
     
     
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    He wished it were a joke. He'd intended to say it lightly, except that on some level he was entirely serious. She had risked her own life to save his, and the danger to her wasn't past. What he ought to do was walk away, start over in another town with another name. But if he did that, it would leave her defenseless. She'd seen him thrown from the boat. And that made her a threat to the men who'd tried to kill him.
    He watched the shock in Megan Lovell's vivid blue eyes, then somberly, the effort she made to hide it.
    After a moment, she even managed a smile. "I'll let you handle your life. Just use it well, okay?"
    Frustration gripped him. He felt trapped in this sterile hospital room. "Has it occurred to you that..."
    "Those men won't be happy to know that I saw them," she finished for him. "My mother has already been kind enough to point that out to me. One mother is enough, thanks anyway."
    He raised a brow, cursed his pounding head. "Do I remind you of your mother?"
    Her gaze flicked to the scar on his stomach, then back to his face. "Of course not. As long as you don't fuss."
    Grimly he held those astonishing eyes with his own. "There's a time for fussing."
    "I refuse to become afraid of shadows," she said, the tilt of her chin defiant. "There is no reason for them to regard me as a threat. It was dusk. I couldn't even tell you what color hair either of them had! They were just...figures. If they ask around town, that's what they'll hear, that I couldn't identify them. If either of us is in danger, Mr. McKenzie, it's you."
    "I'm well aware of that," he said. "But since I don't have the faintest idea why, that makes it a little tough to act."
    Her expression was frankly disbelieving, but all she said was, "If I were you, I think I'd go back wherever I came from. You have nothing to hold you here..."
    "I have you," he said softly.
    She was blunt. "No, you don't. I don't need—or want—anything from you. What I did for you, I'd have done for anyone. I don't expect any payment."
    He ignored that. "Maybe you should find an excuse to disappear for a while, too. If you're gone, they're not going to hunt too hard for you."
    She actually laughed. "Mr. McKenzie..."
    He felt an unaccustomed wrench of irritation and interrupted. "Mac."
    "I have a job and family and friends. This is my home. I'm not going to toss my whole life aside for weeks or months, like some book I'm not in the mood for. 'Oh, by the way, Mom, don't call me, I'll call you. Maybe.' " She shook her head and her dark braid flopped against her shoulder. "No. Home is where I'm safest."
    He gritted his teeth. "Damn it..."
    "Goodbye, Mr. McKenzie." With that she was gone.
    He stared broodingly after her, not really seeing the starkness of the hospital room. His head felt like it had the time he'd been trampled by a steer in a rodeo. He hadn't lied to her altogether; events were a little hazy in his mind.
    But he remembered her from the first instant, when he had thought she was a mermaid he had