The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online

Amanda protested.
    “We trespass before normal visiting hours, should not be
here at all. It will be some time before we are allowed in again.”
    “Surely if you ask—”
    “I have already used more influence than I should. Added to
that, your brother is in pain, I think, and requires medication. It will be
better if he rests now that his mind is somewhat at ease. You should rest
also.”
    “Don’t worry about me, Mandy,” Jonathan spoke up as the
thermometer was removed from his mouth. “I’m hard to scare. And I’m not sure
how you got here so quickly, but you have to be tired from the trip.” He eyed
with weary disfavor the hypodermic needle the nurse was unwrapping on the table
beside his bed. “Anyway, Nico is right. Sister Maria is about to send me to
la-la-land again.”
    She could not fight three against one. Amanda clenched her
jaws together to prevent further objections. Leaning over the bed, she pressed
a kiss to Jonathan’s forehead. “Take care of yourself, love,” she whispered.
    “Always,” he said, though his smile did not reach the
desolation in his eyes.
    ~ ~ ~
    Amanda Davies was livid, Nico knew, and
perhaps she had cause to direct her anger his way. He should not have
threatened a man flat on his back and in pain from his injuries. Still, seeing
Carita lying so waxen and motionless while surrounded by tubes, wires and
monitors, knowing everything that reckless young fool had done to her, put him
in a killing rage.
    The only thing that had snapped him out of it was
recognizing that same anger burning in Amanda’s eyes.
    A woman who could become that infuriated, that fast, must
carry a volcanic inferno of passion inside her. He’d thought so before but was
doubly sure now. It just took a threat to someone she loved to expose it.
    He would give much to know what else might set it free.
    Nico thought she was calm and in control once more as they
left her brother’s room and traversed the maze of corridors which would lead
eventually to an entrance. He was startled when she came to an abrupt halt. As
he turned toward her, she put her back to the nearest wall, sagging against it
while she hugged herself as if in intolerable pain.
    He stepped close, caught her upper arm. “What is it? Are you
ill?”
    She gave a swift shake of her head that sent the shining
bell of her hair forward to conceal her face. She was shaking as if with cold,
squeezing her arms harder around her waist as she eased away from him.
    “Come, we’ll get something hot and sweet to drink. A
cappuccino, perhaps? Or tea?” This was some form of delayed reaction, he
thought, a response to everything she had been through in the past hours.
    “Haven’t you done enough? Leave me alone.” She shifted away,
tugging against his hold. He should let her go, he knew, but could not force
his fingers to relax their grip. Stepping in front of her, blocking the view of
a passing orderly, he reached for her other arm as well, caressing the slender
muscles with his thumbs.
    “If you mean what I said just now to your brother, it wasn’t
half of what I felt like telling him.”
    “What is the matter with you?” she demanded, flinging up her
head so he caught the full blast of the contempt in the silvery gray of her
eyes. “It isn’t as if he drove off a cliff on purpose.”
    “He should have slowed down. He didn’t know the road well,
didn’t understand how tight the curves are just there. Besides—” He stopped,
compressed his lips as he looked away down the hall to where a technician
pushed a cart loaded with electronic equipment.
    “What?” She raised her hands between them so they rested on
his chest as if she’d meant to push him away, but lacked the will to actually
do it. “Your sister isn’t worse? I thought you said — But she is, isn’t she?
Her doctors told you earlier.”
    He said nothing. It wasn’t simply that his brain had been
short-circuited by her touch, though he could feel her every fingertip