“You won’t find the person behind this on any list,” he finally told the other two men. “If Arthurs, Tenneyson, or anyone else sent after her knew who they were working for, then their name would have already shown up.”
John’s muttered curse just about summed it up.
“Travis, pull together our contacts in France,” Jordan ordered. “What I want to know is, who among the elite moneyed set had ties to Sorrel that weren’t found until after his death. Anyone related to him who would have the means to pull this off, or anyone among his social set who could reorganize the business or revive it. I’m betting we’d find the name on that list.”
As he moved to close the file, he caught a shadow of movement from the bedroom doorway.
Turning his head, he caught the sign from Bailey that Tehya was waking up.
“This is connected to the Taites, their money and influence,” he finished as he rose to his feet. “Arthurs and Tenneyson are watching the Taites, and it’s obvious they’re watching for Tehya. Let’s see what happens when we give them something.”
He didn’t wait for their opinion. Moving across the room, he headed for the bedroom and the woman too many damned men seemed way too interested in.
“She’s waking up.” Lilly nodded to Tehya with a soft smile, as Jordan entered the bedroom. “Doc will be here in a few. See if you can get her to cooperate. We all know how much she loves the medical profession.”
“Which means not at all,” he grunted, his gaze moving to the bed and the woman in it.
Lilly’s brows lifted, waggled, and a knowing grin crossed her face as Tehya’s lashes flickered open. The door closed softly as Lilly and Bailey returned to the front room.
Staring down at her, Jordan held back his grin as that first drowsy irritation crossed her face before her gaze adjusted, knowledge filtered through, and irritation turned to a spark of anger. As she caught sight of him.
“You drugged me,” she breathed out heavily. “Asshole.”
“We have a doc heading in to check the wound,” he told her. “You were in pain, Tehya.”
She gave a weak little snort. “This ain’t my first rodeo, cowboy.”
No, it wasn’t. She’d been wounded before.
She amazed him sometimes. One minute she was in tears over the invasion of her home, and in the next second so blasé about a fucking gunshot wound that the thought of the past she had lived had sweat popping out on his brow.
“It may not be your first rodeo, but you were too weak and you’d lost too much blood for my comfort level,” he informed her. “You needed to rest until we could safely stop, check the wound, then call a doctor in to look at it. You may need stitches.”
The weak little glare she shot him was almost amusing. It would have been, except for the anger he glimpsed in her eyes. That look assured him there might be hell to pay once she managed to regain her strength and lost the grogginess.
To a point, sometimes, he could maneuver her, but there was no controlling her. Especially when she was pissed. And Tehya was edging very damned close to pissed where he was concerned.
“And if we had been attacked while on the road? What then?” She struggled to sit up in the bed, her expression irate before she winced at the pain to her arm
“Let me help you.” He reached for her, only to have her slap his hand away with a glare. “Dammit, Tehya, you’re going to cause yourself to start bleeding again then you’ll really need stitches if you pull the adhesive I used loose.”
Tehya slowly pushed herself from the bed, the grogginess in her head making her teeth clench.
She really didn’t like being drugged. And she had no problem letting anyone know when there was something she didn’t like.
She’d learned quick enough that Jordan and his men did not care if she suffered her anger in silence.
She ignored him, pushing herself up with her good arm until she was sitting on the side of the bed and glaring at him. “Answer me,” she bit out, her voice strengthening marginally. “What would have happened if we had been attacked on the road and I was unconscious? I would have been dead weight, Jordan.”
“Good thing you don’t weigh much,” he quipped, then watched as she dropped her head, shaking it slowly. She wasn’t even considering the other side of the coin. She would have been vulnerable to enemies with an unknown agenda. All she was considering was whether or not she would have slowed him or the team down.
“I had everything covered, Tehya,” he promised when she said nothing more. “It was an hour-and-a-half trip and you were hurting like hell. You’ve lost sleep, and you’re riding on nerves. I wasn’t going to let you suffer like that when I knew the pain medication would help. Besides, there was an antibiotic with it. You have a head start on fighting back an infection.”
Tehya lifted her head and stared back at him, outraged. She couldn’t believe he had drugged her. How dare he have taken such a decision out of her hands?
“I fucking hate drugs,” she snapped, realizing her voice was still too weak to really hold any force. “And I was fine. It hurt. I was pissed off that my home was invaded, but if you had trusted me you wouldn’t have drugged me. What did you have to do, Jordan, that you didn’t want me to see or hear?”
Jordan always had plans. He was especially good at those contingency plans that no one was aware of but him. Had that had something to do with the reason he had drugged her? Was there a part of what was going on that he didn’t want her to know?