Unforeseen Danger Read Online Free PDF Page B

close to her.   This post-Nikki was causing too many protective urges to swell within him, when he wanted to cling to his rage at her.   The nurse gave him an impatient look, and he went over to help her.
    Her hand on his wrist burned him, but he gritted his teeth and didn’t say anything.   Jake placed a hand at the small of her back, shocked by her thinness.   She had always been slender, but now he could see her shoulder blades jutting through the thin material of her gown.   It seemed that the tension of the last few weeks had stolen her appetite, as well.   Her bed had been just down the hall and he wondered if she had lain there, crying the same tears he had as their marriage died.
    Nikki walked with the measured steps of an invalid.   Pulling her I.V. beside them, Jake frowned as he noticed she was favoring her right side.   She showed some of that old pre-Nikki spunk by completing an entire lap around the floor, even though he could tell it was grueling for her.   As they neared her room, her knees buckled and Jake had to grab her.   He scooped her up in his arms, stunned by how light she was.  
    It feels like I’m carrying a scarecrow, he thought.  
    Jake winced as she snuggled closer to him and rested her head on his chest.   He gently laid her in her bed, and she smiled at him.
    Damned if he wasn’t starting to get used to that smile.
    The nurse came back in and reattached some of the monitors.   After she left, Jake turned to ask Nikki if she wanted a drink of water and was surprised to find she was asleep.   She was so still, and had dropped off so suddenly that it frightened him.   Jake walked over to the bed and stood over her, inexplicably unable to trust the monitors hooked to her, needing to see for himself that she was breathing.   He reached to brush a stray lock of hair from her forehead.   Finally, reassured by the soft rise and fall of her chest, he sank into the chair beside her bed and raked his hand down his stubbled face.
    Suddenly, he realized how close he had come to losing her.   The thought of not having her in his life filled Jake with a nameless dread.   She looked so fragile lying there, so innocent.
    When had things between them gone so wrong?  
    In an effort to change the direction of his thoughts, Jake tried to recall the last time he had his truck serviced.   Three, four weeks?   Had they changed the brake pads then?   He couldn’t remember.   He used to do all that stuff himself, before work had gotten so busy.  
    Jake leaned his head back and closed his eyes.   Faces flashed in his mind, faces of friends and acquaintances.   Nikki’s lover was someone he knew, she had alluded to as much, but who?   Like a thief in the night, someone had slipped in and stolen her from him.   Jake had never seen it coming.
    ***
    The trees whizzed by so fast that they were nothing more than green blurs outside the windshield.   Nikki watched helplessly from somewhere outside her body as she pumped the brakes and wrestled with the steering wheel.
    “It’s not working!” she screamed and jerked savagely at the emergency brake.
    Nothing.
    “We have to jump!”
    As she reached for the door handle, the wheel wrenched from her hand.  
    “Jake!” she screamed.
      Suddenly, everything exploded into a cacophony of shrieking metal and brilliant white light .

Chapter 3
    “Jake!” she screamed.   “Jake!”
    Trapped in the terror of her dream, Nikki fought against the arms that closed around her.
    “ Nik , it’s me!   Baby, wake up.   It’s me, Jake.”  
    His voice stilled her.   Disoriented, she tried to focus on his face.
    “Jake?” she whispered.
    “Yeah, honey, it’s Jake.   I’m right here.   It’s okay.”   
    He was in the hospital bed with her.   She sagged against him, her only lifeline in this frightening world she was trapped in.  
    Nikki couldn’t stop crying and Jake’s arms tightened around her.   When someone opened the door, he