Ghostwalker 01- Shadow Game

bruises, she was an alluring sight sitting there. Her hair tumbled and curled in the steam. Water bubbled and brushed lovingly at her body. She took his breath away. Stole his heart. She cried for him.
    "I can't think when you look like that, Lily. Why did you have to be so beautiful?" He didn't mean physical beauty, but he couldn't separate one from the other. He was sick at heart with what he'd done. He didn't think the blood of a friend could ever be washed from his hands but somehow her tears had managed to do it. Ryland stared at her, in the middle of what looked like a crystal palace, a princess he didn't deserve but was going to keep.
    "I wish I was beautiful, Ryland. You make me feel beautiful." Her vivid blue gaze drifted moodily over his rugged features. "How could you think I would blame you for saving our lives? I feel what it cost you. I felt it when you did it."
    "I saw your face. You wanted to save him." He blinked away the tears burning unexpectedly in his eyes. His throat felt raw with pain.
    "I saw yours. I wanted to save him for you." She reached out her hand to him. Waited until he took her fingers and settled on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. "We're connected somehow. And you're right. It doesn't matter if my father found a way to manipulate the attraction between us, I'm grateful you're in my life."
    Ryland brought her hand to his mouth, nibbled on her fingers, resisting the urge to gather her close. She humbled him with her generosity. "Does your shoulder hurt?" He leaned forward to brush a kiss against the vicious bruise.
    "I'm fine, Ryland. What about your ribs? Arly said he cleaned the scratch but you know knife wounds are notorious for infections." She sounded anxious, not at all his perfectly calm Lily.
    He knelt beside the tub, reached beneath the bubbling water for her calf. He began a slow, deep massage, working her knotted muscles with infinite gentleness. "Don't worry, Arly scrubbed it with some kind of foul-smelling stuff he called bug juice. It burned like hell. Nothing could be alive, not even the tiniest germ."
    "When I was a child, he swore by that stuff. I think he makes it up in the laboratory like the proverbial mad scientist. Every time I fell down, he swabbed it over my knees and turned my skin a very ugly shade of purple."
    Ryland laughed. "That's the stuff, all right." He felt her wince beneath his massaging fingers and gentled his touch even more. "Tell me about Ranier. What do you think?"
    "He was telling me the truth," Lily said. "I was so relieved. I've known him most of my life and I'm not certain I could have taken it if he had been involved in a plot against my father. Apparently, he received none of the messages my father sent him. Not his letters, or his emails, and not the phone calls. Interestingly enough, the general's aide is a brother to Hilton, the man Colonel Higgens sent to keep an eye on me." She reached under the water, gripped his wrist. "General Ranier was suddenly very worried, as if he were connecting dots to something. I think there's been a security leak for a while and he's suddenly putting two and two together."

    "Maybe. If there's been a problem with a leak, they wouldn't advertise it. The investigation would be internal. No one would suspect Colonel Higgens. His record is impeccable.
    I certainly preferred in the beginning to believe it was your father betraying us all. And General McEntire… it's still difficult to believe that he would be involved in selling out his country. It's a nightmare, Lily. This entire thing has been a nightmare."
    "Do you think Cowlings was a plant? Someone Colonel Higgens placed in the program? I remember when I read his file, he scored low on most of the criteria for psychic ability. I thought he was allowed in because Dad wanted to see if the enhancement would work on someone with little or no natural talent. And it did."
    Her voice had slipped back into her professional, completely interested tone. Ryland knew immediately the discussion had gone from personal to clinical. Instead of annoying him, it made him want to smile. "He might not have been telepathic, but he certainly was able to take command of an inanimate object. That was really great."
    "Lily, you did destroy your father's original notes on the experiment, didn't you? He wouldn't want it repeated."
    The cramps in her leg were slowly beginning to ease under his ministration and the hot water. Lily breathed a sigh of relief and sank deeper into the