Dallas Read online

  With a war whoop, Toren flung his body in front of hers, taking the full brunt of the electric shock. Horrified, she stood there with water streaming down all around her, watching him jerk and twist as the cable seemed to maliciously cling to his wet chest. He made an awful, guttural sound and fell to the floor with a splash. He jerked a few times and then was completely still.

  The lights went out as the electricity finally gave out, as if it had drained itself into the Highlander. She looked down at the comfortable sneakers that Eloise often teased her for wearing. The rubber soles had most likely saved her from being electrocuted as well. She slid toward him, feeling his throat for a pulse. Finding none, she pressed her ear to his chest, then slapped him hard a few times, shaking his shoulders.

  Oh God, had she let this man get killed trying to save Eloise’s ape? She’d urged him forward instead of telling him to get to safety. There was just something so big and brave about him, she’d let a ridiculous primal instinct take over instead of keeping her head and remaining in charge. As she started CPR, she remembered they had a defibrillator on their floor. Praying the entire way, she ran to get it.

  Chapter 5

  Toren opened his eyes and groaned. That had hurt worse than a thrashing. His very bones had felt the sting. The wires all lay quiet now, and the wee geysers in the ceiling had stopped gushing. Only a few drips and drops were to be heard. The room smelled rank and the smoke still lay heavy in the air. It was mostly dark, with only the glow of emergency lights above the door and a faint street light coming in from between the slats of the closed blinds.

  He heaved himself to a sitting position and turned warily to have a better look around. Everything was soaked or charred. The ugly ginger beasty was nowhere to be found and he would have thought he’d dreamed the creature if its huge cage hadn’t sat there before him, the door wide open.

  Miranda burst through the door in a lovely tangle of wet curls, her clothes clinging to her in a way that stirred something long, long forgotten in him. She carried a white box under her arm and had a paddle-like object in each hand, her pretty face screwed up with fear. She stopped short, sending water droplets in every direction.

  “How are you sitting up?” she asked, skidding to his side. She grabbed his arm and pressed her fingers against his wrist. “How is your heart beating?”

  He shrugged. “That’s always been a mystery to me,” he admitted. “Ye’re a physician, nay? Surely ye understand it?”

  “I’m a chemist,” she started, then shook her head. “Your heart was stopped from the electrical jolt. You weren’t breathing. I ran to get the defibrillator and now…”

  “I suppose ye were mistaken,” he said.

  “I wasn’t mistaken. I may not be a medical doctor but I can properly take a pulse.” She glared at him as if he’d offended her by not being dead again.

  He began to wonder. It had hurt something awful and he did think he blacked out for a moment, but hadn’t Soni said nothing would harm him? Did she mean nothing could harm him? He was so overcome with curiosity he looked around for a way to test this theory. The wee chemist gripped his jaw and turned his head from side to side, peering into his eyes.

  “How do you feel? What day is it?” she demanded.

  “I feel quite a bit better than I usually do. Did ye not become a medical doctor because of your unsavory bedside manner?” he asked, avoiding her second question. In truth, he didn’t know the date. Nor where he was for that matter. It wasn’t Culloden, that was the only thing of which he was certain.

  She let go of his jaw and her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I was just so worried you got killed, all trying to save that—”

  “Not a friend of wee Ambrose?” he interrupted with a grin. She looked so fetching when she got flustered. “Where is he, by the by? Made it to safety with your assistant? Perhaps the lass willna miss her party after all.”

  She slumped further and looked up at the ruined ceiling. “I have no idea where Ambrose got to. He’ll turn up eventually. Hopefully.”

  “Ye dinna sound too hopeful.”

  A loud clang reverberated from the hall and he jumped to his feet. “What now?”

  He held out his hand, which she primly ignored, getting to her feet on her own. If someone didn’t start letting him help them soon, he may run out of time to complete his mission. He followed her to the dim hallway, illuminated only by emergency lights above each doorway. The assistant stood in front of the exit door wielding a hammer. Her purple dress was waterlogged and she tugged it up with one hand while pounding on the small glass window with the other.

  “I think it’s bulletproof glass or something,” she said disgustedly when she saw them. “It won’t even make a dent.”

  “Stop, before you hurt yourself. It isn’t as if we could get through it anyway,” Miranda said. “Why hasn’t anyone come to help?”

  Eloise shook her head. “Nobody else is working at this hour. I think the security guard leaves at seven. No one was in the booth when I went to my car to get my dress.” She paused and looked sheepish. “I think I left my phone down there because I can’t find it.”

  “But what about the firefighters? Someone must have heard that alarm.” Miranda wrung her hands and Eloise shrugged.

  “Let me try to kick the door down,” he said.

  “Oh, that would be awesome,” Eloise said admiringly.

  He paused to let Miranda admire him as well, but she merely raised a brow. “Don’t bother, Hercules. I’ll call someone. There’s enough damage already.”

  He watched her as she slogged through the puddles toward her office. He turned to Eloise, who trembled with cold in her scanty, soaked outfit.

  “Where’s Ambrose?” she asked, looking him over appraisingly. “He’d be making a racket if he was still locked in his cage.”

  “I dinna know,” he told her, trying not to look at her at all out of respect. He wished he had something to cover her shivering shoulders. “When I awoke, his cage was open and he was gone.”

  “Probably hiding up in the ceiling, poor thing.”

  “Why do ye have such a creature, here in such a place?”

  She goggled at him. “You never heard of a lab animal? You do know you’re in a science lab, right? Who did you say sent you again?”

  He didn’t blame her for her suspicions, and it wasn’t as if she could kick him out, but he still wanted to put her at ease. He wracked his frazzled brain until he recalled the name. “Dr. Deenan, aye? She sent me over for an interview.”

  “And what’s the interview about?” she asked, faster than he could blink.

  Before he could think of an answer that might have satisfied her, Miranda slammed from her office, looking as if she might hit the first thing she could reach. He never thought he’d be so happy to see such an angry woman.

  “Is help on the way, then?” he called out.

  “If they are, it isn’t because of me,” she said. “I can’t find my phone either, and the desk phones aren’t working thanks to the power being out.” She glared at him as if it were his fault, then sighed, visibly trying to calm herself. She tossed a dry lab coat to Eloise, who gratefully put it on.

  At last it was his chance to help. “I’ll kick down the door straight away.”

  “Yessss,” Eloise said with a fist pump that made him chuckle. It died in his throat when he saw Miranda was clearly unamused.

  “Absolutely not. You were unconscious. Who knows how many volts of electricity you took. You shouldn’t even be standing right now.”

  “You got electrocuted?” Eloise asked, looking him up and down incredulously as if he should be visibly smoking.

  Miranda answered for him. “Yes, trying to save your pal Ambrose.”

  Eloise looked stricken, still clearly not liking him but now having to feel beholden. He ignored them and pushed forward. “Nonsense. I dinna feel poorly at all. In truth, I feel better than I have in ages.” He pumped his biceps and puffed out his chest, gratified
when their eyes widened at his manly display.

  “There isn’t any reason for it since we aren’t in real danger anymore,” Miranda said. “We should open the windows and hunker down until someone comes for us.”

  “Oh, let him do it,” Eloise whined. “It could take hours. I don’t even care about that party anymore, I just don’t want to be trapped here all night. Or all weekend. The alarm system clearly didn’t work right or the fire department would be here. At the very least Dr. Harrold would have come back.”

  “What do you mean? Why would Bergen come back?” Miranda asked.

  “The system is supposed to notify you and Dr. Harrold if the alarm goes off for any reason. That and alert the proper authorities. But it obviously didn’t do either one. C’mon, Miranda.”

  She warred inwardly and finally waved for him to have at it. “I suppose a broken door won’t add much to this wreck,” she said. “And it can’t be healthy to be breathing this bad air.”

  He bowed showily. “I am at your service, ladies.”

  He braced himself and heaved his foot at the door below the handle. The door didn’t budge, but sent a ratcheting pain reverberating up his leg. “That’s worse than being trampled by a horse,” he muttered, gearing up to try again. This time he sent a more concentrated blow with his heel above the door handle. Still nary a creak from the door.

  “Maybe the whole thing is bulletproof,” suggested Eloise, clearly trying to hide a smirk.

  Miranda looked anxious, possibly pitying, and his pride made him try once more, straight to the handle itself. It clanked, turned downward, then slid back into position while he flew backwards onto his arse.

  “Oh my God, are you trying to kill yourself?” Miranda asked, kneeling to check him for injuries.

  “All sizzle and no steak,” Eloise said under her breath.

  “Aye, I was most certainly sizzling when I tried to save that shrieking beast of yours,” he groused, his pride aching as much as his bum. She pressed her lips together, abashed.

  Miranda patted his shoulder awkwardly. “You shouldn’t have exerted yourself like that. That door is clearly made by Fort Knox.” She turned her fierce glare on her assistant. “Go look for a safety ladder. We’re supposed to be equipped with them since there aren’t any fire escapes.” Eloise trudged off and Miranda looked around distastefully, finally sitting next to him on a somewhat dry patch of the floor. She looked suddenly less formidable. Small and unsure. He almost put his arm around her but recalled her many glares and stopped.

  “Would ye care to continue on with your interview?” he asked.

  She laughed mournfully and tilted her head to look at him. “Are you serious?”

  “If it’s what I was sent here for, then I believe I should do it.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and wearily pushed herself back to standing. Clearly no rest for her. “I was going to start my trials early next week, but who knows what will happen now. I will need to start them eventually though, so I suppose if you don’t mind seeing if you qualify, we might as well.”

  Eloise popped her head out of the supply closet. “I can’t find any ladder. I’m going to open the windows anyway, get some fresh air in here.”

  Toren jumped to his feet, refraining from rubbing his sore backside. Being alive again was turning out to be no picnic. “Let me help ye, lass.”

  They picked their way through the rubble of the lab and opened the three windows. Toren leaned out one of them, noting it would most certainly be fatal to jump. To someone who had to worry about such things. If he was truly impervious to harm during his brief time here, was he supposed to fling himself to the ground and save these damsels? But from what distress? As Miranda had said herself, they were in no real danger anymore. And he found he wanted to stay in her company a bit longer.

  “It’s no wonder no one heard the alarm ringing,” he said, tearing his gaze from the ground far below and looking side to side. They were in a warehouse type building, surrounded by other warehouses and storage buildings, all of them dark and locked up tight for the night. “I can’t see a single soul anywhere.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and hallooed. “Certainly one of these places has security?”

  “Yes, I’m sure someone will notice …” Miranda leaned her head out of the window and looked left and right, then frowned. “Actually, there isn’t any damage at all on the outside.” She pointed to the ceiling, which had several burnt out tiles, trailing her finger down to the floor. “It looks like something ignited in the crawl space up there and then fell through, setting the lab on fire and disrupting all those cables.” She walked to the desk, where there was clear evidence of a blaze along one side of it, then to the filing cabinet that had a soggy mass of burnt papers at its base.

  “Here too,” Eloise said, pointing to a spot behind Ambrose’s cage. She shuddered. “He might have been burned alive.” She called out his name several times but there was no sound of scampering feet and no more frightful shrieks. “He must be good and hidden, poor guy.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “Well, there’s nothing we can do short of yell ourselves hoarse except wait for someone to find us. Or the electricity to come back on. El, can you please search some more for my phone? It has to be here somewhere and that would be the end of this. I’m going to give Mr. Dallas here the qualifying interview.”

  “Please, ye must call me Toren,” he said. Finally he could start on his mission.

  “You’re going to interview him now?” Eloise asked incredulously. “With the power down?”

  “We can do the stress test at a later time,” she explained, then seemed to wonder why she was explaining anything. Her face grew stormy and she looked pointedly toward her office.

  “Sure,” Eloise said, drawing the word out to have about ten syllables. She dragged herself to the office, leaving them alone in the dim lab.

  She pulled out the chair from behind Dr. Harrold’s desk and dragged it under the emergency light, then pulled over a stool, waving him onto it. She smiled eagerly and for the first time since he’d been tossed into her life, she looked calm. Even when a dirty drop of water landed on her nose, she merely shook it off as if such a thing happened every day. He found this unharried Miranda very attractive and he’d found scowling, anxious Miranda quite attractive enough. He leaned forward and returned her smile, noticing that while they looked tired, her eyes were a clear, pretty green, the lashes long and dark.

  “I’m yours, Dr. Clark. Ask me anything ye like.”

  Chapter 6

  Miranda got a shiver at his words. Or was it his deep voice and sexy Scottish accent? She had to be absolutely exhausted and somewhat traumatized from the fire to be so taken by him. It went against everything she stood for to be so instantly attracted to someone as she was to him right now. She wondered with an inward smirk if she would qualify for her own experiment.

  Perhaps if he qualified, they might get to know one another better and actually be compatible. Really, compatible. The kind that lasted forever. She had a good feeling they’d most definitely be compatible in the way that didn’t last. Looking into his open and earnest blue eyes she felt he was someone she could trust, though. Someone worth risking something for.

  Nonsense. Wasn’t that frat boy 101, learning to fake sincerity? He seemed the furthest thing possible from a typical player, though. There she went again, basing everything on the way he looked. She needed to get a grip. But instead of scooting her soggy chair back, she leaned closer, drawn into his smile. Ask him anything she liked? She shivered again. Why did the way he said those simple words make her feel like he really wanted her to tell him things. Things she might like.

  Oh, goodness, that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He’d been sent here for the opportunity to take part in a medical experiment. He wanted an easy paycheck. She needed to ask him the questions on her questionnaire. Which was in her office. Damn it, why couldn’t she look away from those blue eyes of his?

  She sat up as straig
ht as her back would allow without snapping and rattled off the first question by memory.

  “Full name and date of birth, please.” The crisp, in-charge sound of her voice brought her back to reality. She’d been the one to write up the questionnaire in the first place and she’d been repeating it ad nauseum since the beginning of the week.

  “Toren James Dallas,” he said, fidgeting with his shirt cuffs.

  “Date of birth?” she prodded, the odd spell he’d cast over her nearly dissipated.

  “Ah, that’s a bit of a conundrum,” he said.

  All the way dissipated. Why was he being so difficult all of a sudden? “I assure you it’s one of the easiest questions,” she said.

  “Miranda! Come in here for a second, please,” Eloise called from her office.

  Miranda sighed, noting that Toren looked as relieved as if he’d dodged a bullet. “Excuse me a moment.”

  “Aye, o’course,” he said magnanimously.

  Scowling, she got into her office and shut the door behind her. As long as she was there, she scooped up the pad with her questions on it in case she got ruffled by Mr. Dallas’ handsome ray again. She was irritated enough to think nothing could ruffle her anymore until Eloise grabbed her arm in a vice grip.

  “Listen, what do you make of that guy?” she asked. She had changed into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and pushed a wad of dry clothes at Miranda.

  She disentangled herself from Eloise’s grip and unfolded the pair of yoga pants and giant, floppy sweatshirt. As much as she would have liked to be dry, the thought of wearing something so unflattering in front of Toren made her heart sink.

  “Where did you get all this?”

  “They’re my gym clothes from this week. I wear them here but then forget to bring them home with me so I’ve got a few days’ worth. They were under my desk so didn’t get too wet.”

  “You worked out in these?” Miranda asked, holding them a bit further away from her.