“No, it’s not,” Bill muttered, sliding his hands under me and then scooping me up into his arms. “It’s really very simple. No one should hurt you. No one. Not ever.” He kept up this monologue – more than he’d said in the two days I’d known him – as he carried me inside and upstairs to my bedroom. I rested my head on his chest and felt his words as a reassuring rumble that made the barbed wire coils inside me loosen their grip. When he laid me down on my bed the monologue had turned into a list of rather colorful things he was going to do to Duncan Laird. I must have lost consciousness briefly because, when I next came to, Bill was gently swabbing my face with a wash towel and singing. It was the song I’d heard him singing once before. It had sounded familiar then, but the words weren’t in English.

“That’s pretty,” I whispered. “What is it?”

“Just an old song my mother used to sing to me … hey, you’re shivering. Are you cold?” he asked, drawing a blanket up over me. “I should have taken off your wet clothes …”

“Too much of a gentleman, eh?” I quipped through chattering teeth.

“Not anymore,” he said, unbuttoning my damp shirt. “I promise not to look …” His voice froze, his eyes widening as he stared at my chest.

“Hey! That’s looking!”

“I’m an idiot,” he said, stripping off my shirt and then my jeans. “There’s poison spreading through your body.”

I looked down and saw jagged red lines – like claw marks – spreading across my skin. The red made them look like burn marks, but they felt like ice daggers ripping open my chest.

“So … cold …” I bit out between shudders.

Bill gave me a frantic look and then started to chafe my skin with his hands. He started with my legs, working his hands up my calves, then my thighs. He did my arms next. Wherever he touched my skin warmed and the red marks faded. It felt so good I forgot to be embarrassed that he was rubbing his hands all over my naked body, but when he came to my chest he looked up at me and I saw that he hadn’t forgotten.

“I have to keep your circulation going to get rid of the poison … especially around your heart.”