Ghostwalker 09 - Ruthless Game

him; Paul gets the job done when it’s needed.
    “Who did this surgery?” Excitement edged Paul’s voice.
    Rose tensed. There was no way he could know. No way. Just in case, she eased away from the two men, putting a little distance between them.
    “Eric Lambert,” Kane replied.
    Paul shook his head impatiently, brushing off the quick answer. “No, before the doc. Who was in the field with you? Who worked on you in the field?”
    Kane shrugged. “Sorry, Paul, it was one of the team. I was out of it.” He looked at Rose. “Do you remember?”
    She avoided his eyes. She had promised herself she would never lie to him, and if they were alone ...
    “I do,” Javier stirred from the shadows.
    Rose jumped. She’d almost forgotten about him. He blended, perfectly stil , until he was part of the wal he had draped himself on. His gaze moved over her with open speculation—and something else. If she had done anything at al to harm Kane ... She shivered at the dark promise there. She was very good at assessing threats, and in spite of al the skil s the rest of this team had, Javier was truly the most dangerous—and unpredictable—of them al . His protective and loyalty instincts must have been off the charts when they tested him.
    “What’s wrong, Paul?” Javier continued.
    “Bril iant fieldwork. He would have bled out, but someone repaired the artery; I just can’t see how.” Paul narrowed his gaze, stepping closer to Kane and actual y crouching down to peer upward toward his abdomen and chest.
    “There’s a definite wound site, the artery spliced together in some way.”
    The darkness gathering in Javier’s eyes disappeared, and he flashed Rose a smile. “You saved your man, didn’t you? What exactly did you do?”
    Paul pushed Kane’s shirt out of the way. “Clean cut. This is where he went in . . .” He broke off as Javier’s words penetrated. He blinked rapidly as if coming back from a great distance. Very slowly he stood, regarding Rose with awe. “ You did this? How? You have to tel me what you did.” Excitement made his voice shake. “You know you saved his life. He would have bled out in minutes.”
    Kane must have sensed her reticence, because he reached out and took her hand, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her knuckles. The smal gesture comforted her. She shrugged, trying to look casual. They thought they knew about protecting themselves from Whitney, but she’d been under the scrutiny of cameras and microphones nearly al of her life. She knew what it was like to live under a microscope. It had become obvious, at a very early age, that each of the girls Whitney was experimenting on needed to hide as many of their abilities from him as possible.
    She thought she’d have the chance to learn trust slowly—with just Kane. She hadn’t counted on his family. His team, with the exception of Paul, had grown up together, and Kane trusted al of them. He expected her to do the same. Panic hovered close. She could barely breathe.
    You can do this, sweetheart. You don’t have to answer questions. This is your home. There are no expectations.
    His voice caressed her. She forced her head up and looked into his eyes. She could live there. The way he looked at her—as if she was his entire world—it was a heady, potent experience, one she didn’t entirely trust. But she wanted to trust him. She wanted this to work. When she made up her mind to do something, she committed 100 percent. She wasn’t going to wimp out now.
    “Rose, please,” Paul’s voice trembled with excitement.
    “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and—seriously—the closest thing to what I can do. I’ve never met anyone like me.”
    She heard the loneliness—the idea that he could be a freak of nature. Al of them battled with being “different.” They always would. She could see how isolated Paul must have felt growing up. His father was a big man, a man who was disciplined and understood violence. Paul was just the opposite—a natural-born healer with tremendous empathy for those around him. His father probably had tried to understand him, but how could he? The boy was sensitive, and the idea of kil ing had to be abhorrent to him.
    In some ways, even among the GhostWalkers, Paul was stil isolated. He wasn’t a soldier by choice. He was far too empathetic to kil . He was a healer, a poet, a man whose very soul cried out for gentleness, yet he was surrounded by extremely violent men. She could see both