“I don’t need to know what you thought, so much as what you actually saw. Did this same thing happen again when Mills kicked him?”
“Yes, but there was no chance that the bone was completely healed. Malichai told me the physical therapist wanted him walking daily as well as swimming. I didn’t necessarily agree with that, but Malichai is impatient to be back on his feet one hundred percent. He doesn’t mind working hard, but I think he actually needs to rest the leg.”
She was watching Trap’s hands as he inched his palms over the calf. Malichai felt heat sliding over his skin. It wasn’t like when Amaryllis worked on him, which she had for the last two days. The energy she generated was so powerful that he always expected to see blisters on his skin, although the last time, it felt as if she’d been able to tone it down somewhat.
Amaryllis was often busy in the kitchen, and thankfully Mordichai and Ezekiel helped her, while Rubin spent his time in jail, and then was let go. He stayed to himself in his room as a rule. Gossip swept through the inn and reached Malichai through Burnell and Jay. They came to visit him and would happily tell him that Marie’d had to take Jacy to a hospital and there was a suspected hit man in their presence. They whispered the word “hit man” and yet emphasized it at the same time.
Craig came in and played chess with him occasionally and regaled him with tales of the other guests’ reactions to the suspected hit man. He asked all kinds of questions about Malichai’s injuries and how he got them and whether there was permanent damage, all of which Malichai fielded easily.
“I hate staying in bed when Amaryllis clearly needs help without Marie here.”
“Everyone’s here,” Trap said. “She’ll have plenty of help now. Draden and Shylah are a huge help in the kitchen. Shylah can actually cook—well—she can follow recipes according to Nonny, which most of the women can’t.”
Cayenne winced visibly and turned away from the bed. At once, Trap dropped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. “Baby, you’re too damned emotional. It’s the fucking hormones. I don’t give a damn if you ever learn to cook. You know I don’t. I like you going to the lessons because you enjoy being around Nonny and the women, not because I want you to learn to cook. Stop being so damn sensitive.”
Malichai winced. Trap clearly was showing his woman he loved her and it was obvious he really didn’t care whether she could cook or not, but he sounded gruff, even a little mean when he swore at her.
Trap framed Cayenne’s face with his hands, forcing her head up, and he took her mouth hard. Devouring her. Kissing her until neither of them seemed to breathe. Until her arms slid around his neck and she leaned her body completely into his, relaxing totally into him.
He lifted his head first. “You good, baby?”
Cayenne nodded. She didn’t seem the least embarrassed that there were witnesses to Trap’s hungry kisses. Malichai couldn’t help smiling at Amaryllis, who smiled back.
“Yes.”
“I’ve got to make certain Malichai is healing. If I don’t know what’s going on with his leg, I can’t boss him around adequately, and you know how pissed off that kind of thing makes me.” He rubbed his chin on top of Cayenne’s head and then turned back to Malichai. “It’s official, you know, in case your brother didn’t tell you. Mordichai finished his work in emergency care. He’s been taking time off to do his clinicals, which is hysterical since he’s been doing them for the last few years in the field. But he’s officially a doc now. No one can give him a bad time.”
That was just like Mordichai not to say a word. Anything to do with GhostWalkers was always so secretive. Malichai had known his brother had been going to school for several years, but they often interrupted him in order for him to go on regular missions. He’d gotten most of it out of the way, but he was persistent and continued even though it had taken much longer than normal.
“Trap, you never once admitted you had any healing ability,” Malichai said. They all did in one capacity or another, but Trap had always insisted he didn’t, that it was nonsense.
Trap abruptly pulled his hands off Malichai’s leg. “I don’t. I can ‘see’ sometimes, but I can’t heal. I’m taking Cayenne downstairs. We don’t want to be caught in here. But you stay off this leg and let the damn thing heal.”
“Will do,” Malichai said, uncertain if he meant it.
Amaryllis went to the door and looked out. They’d swept the other rooms for bugs and found several, all in the rooms of those attending the Ideas for Peace convention. The only other room to have one had been Malichai’s. Malichai was fairly certain Callendine had paid someone to plant the bugs—most likely Billy. Malichai had destroyed the listening device and now, several times a day they swept the room just to be safe.
The hallway was dark, and Trap and Cayenne immediately disappeared into the shadows in the way the GhostWalkers did. Amaryllis watched down the hall to make certain no doors opened. The B and B was full, every room taken, and there was excitement over the upcoming convention. Often groups of guests congregated in the meeting room or front room to talk about the various ideas they had and what they were most looking forward to. Judging by the friendly way the strangers treated one another, no one would ever think a deadly threat could be hanging over their heads.
Amaryllis closed and locked the door, turned back to him and leaned against it. “I find it interesting that your GhostWalkers think nothing of visiting you in the dead of night, never thinking they might get seen by a guest.”
“They rely on other senses to tell them if anyone is around, and they’re used to working at night. Trap would have known if anyone was in the hallway.”
“Some of the guests have a habit of sneaking down to the dining room and raiding the cookie stash there.”
“Why are you way over there?” Malichai studied her face. She was nervous around the GhostWalker team members, and he couldn’t blame her. Essentially, she had to rearrange her thinking from looking at them as supersoldiers—those belonging to Whitney’s private army—and the GhostWalker teams serving their country.
Amaryllis continued to stay across the room from him. “I think all of you take too many chances, Malichai.”
“All of you” meant him. She wasn’t happy that he’d been testing his leg already. She might not swear at him the way Trap did, but she was equally as upset, maybe more. He didn’t want his woman to be the one looking out for him. He did have some pride, especially now that the others were there, and she could see all the various things they were capable of.
Trap and Wyatt were geniuses and they had more money than they knew what to do with. Draden had been some hotshot model before he was a GhostWalker. Women tended to fall at his feet and worship. Gino was an extremely dangerous man. It had been Malichai’s observation that women had a tendency to think dangerous men were every bit as hot as a model.
What was he? His mother was an addict willing to sell her kids for drugs. He’d grown up on the streets, Ezekiel watching out for him. He was a doctor, but he wasn’t gifted the way the others were. He was what he was—a soldier.
He’d never felt inferior before. Never. Not around any of them. But he hadn’t been lying in a bed with a leg that wasn’t worth shit while the woman he wanted most in the world to see him as someone worthwhile was surrounded by men who could do just about anything. Hell. She’d had to save his life, not just with her healing skills but by following him when he’d allowed himself to get kidnapped.