Emily refused to let herself be charmed. This man had taken her hostage. Thrown her in the line of fire. Risked her life to save his own. Kissed you like you’ve never been kissed before, an annoying little voice reminded. The memory of the kiss heated her cheeks. She desperately wanted to deny the effect it had had on her. But Emily had always been honest with herself, and Zack’s kiss had moved her in ways no other kiss ever had in all of her twenty-eight years. What kind of woman enjoyed a kiss from a convict?
Like father, like daughter….
For most of her adult life she’d hated her father for what he’d done. For giving into weakness and disgracing the uniform he’d worn. For humiliating himself and his family. Was she like Adam Monroe?
“Looks like you’ve lost a good bit of blood.”
His words dragged her from her painful reverie. Emily looked over to see him fingering the bullet hole in her coat. Sure enough, the material was saturated with drying blood.
“I’m going to roll up your sleeve and take a look now, okay?” he asked.
She nodded, but still she flinched when he touched her.
“Hurt?” His fingers brushed against her arm as he rolled up her sleeve.
“What do you think?” Her stomach roiled at the sight of the bruised flesh and clotted blood.
“It’s not too bad,” Zack said.
“You’re only saying that because it’s not your arm.”
“I’m saying that because it’s a scrape. It bled a lot, which is a good thing. You’ve got some bruising, but not much tissue damage. It’s basically a flesh wound.”
“You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.”
His hands stilled on her arm, his gaze meeting hers. “Maybe I am.”
He dipped a small towel into the pan of water and dabbed at the wound. Because she didn’t want to look at it, Emily watched his hands. She couldn’t help but notice they were incredibly gentle.
Using the towel, water and soap, he scrubbed the wound. She tried not to wince, but the pressure hurt. “Sorry,” he said. “I just need to make sure there are no foreign particles inside the wound that might cause infection later on.”
She wished he wouldn’t apologize for hurting her. Inmates weren’t supposed to be nice. They weren’t supposed to have a soft touch. Or the kind of hands that made a woman want to lower her guard.
But Emily never lowered her guard. Not in her professional life. Never in her personal life. She had learned at a very young age what could happen when you did.
“This is going to sting.”
Zack’s words pulled her from her thoughts. She looked up to see him uncap the bottle, then drizzle a small amount of cognac over the wound. The pain was instantaneous and fierce, as if someone had dropped a burning ember directly into the wound. Emily ground her teeth, but she didn’t utter a sound.
He stroked her arm with his thumb as he blotted the excess liquid from her skin. His touch was as smooth and gentle as his voice. “You okay?”
She shot him a hard look. “I’d be a lot better if you told me who you are and what’s going on.”
“My name is Zack Devlin. I’m an agent for a branch of the CIA known as MIDNIGHT. Four months ago I was sent undercover to Bitterroot be cause over the past year alone at least twelve inmates have died under suspicious circumstances. My assignment was to find out why these inmates died and who’s responsible.”
Emily was aware that her heart was racing. That her hands were shaking. And that despite the heat of the fire, she was cold again all the way to her bones.
“I’ve never heard of MIDNIGHT,” she said when she found her voice.
“MIDNIGHT is a secret agency within the CIA. We take on the missions no other agency will touch. The missions nobody ever hears about on the six-o’clock news.”
“I can’t believe an agency would jeopardize one of its agents by sending him into a maximum-security prison like Bitterroot.”
Never taking his eyes from hers, Zack removed his jacket, then rolled up his sleeve to reveal a deep precision cut. One that had bled every bit as profusely as hers, yet he’d never said a word. Emily remembered seeing the blood that morning when he’d accosted her in the prison infirmary. She’d assumed he’d overpowered Dr. Lionel during a minor surgical procedure. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“My superior at MIDNIGHT takes every precaution to make sure his agents are safe.” He glanced down at the wound, which was located on the underside of his left arm. “I had a Global Positioning System device surgically implanted before this mission in case something happened and the agency needed to locate me quickly. Earlier this morning two corrections officers came into my cell, cuffed me and took me to the infirmary, where the device was removed.”
“How did they know it was there?” she asked.
His expression darkened. “The only logical explanation is that my cover was compromised.”
Because she hadn’t yet decided if she believed him about his being an undercover agent, she went to her next question. “Why are the inmates dying?”
“The less you know about—”