Deadly Gift by Heather Graham

could barely remember tasting anything so sweet—and then she was whisked off to the bath, where she shed her robe and slipped into a giant tub filled with hot water, herbs and orange peels. Now she was listening to harp music, and luckily, she was in the tub right next to Sean’s wife.
    The blonde was lying back in the water, her hair wrapped in a towel to keep it dry, just as Caer’s had been. A pillow rested beneath her head, but she had removed the cucumbers she had been given to set on her eyelids and was chatting to the woman on her other side.
    The water was soothing, and a series of small jets kept it in constant motion. That, combined with the orange peels and whatever concoction of herbs floated in the water, intended to soften the skin, was extremely pleasant. She allowed her cucumbers to remain on her eyelids and listened in, though she hardly imagined that—if Amanda had indeed caused Sean’s illness in some way—she was going to blurt out a confession to a stranger.
    “Eddie is such a nice guy. It’s too bad he’s the one who’s missing, not Marni, Cal’s wife. Talk about a piece of work. She has a husband of her own, but she’s always looking to sweet-talk mine . Not that I blame her, really. You’d have to know Sean to understand just how fabulous he is, even though he’s so much older than I am. He’s got the constitution of an ox. He’s never ill—well, usually. Honestly, I don’t understand what could have happened.” The woman sounded genuinely puzzled, Caer thought. “All this has really upset me. I needed today. Absolutely needed a break from the depressing atmosphere of…that crummy hospital.”
    Caer almost sat up in indignation. The hospital was understaffed, admittedly. But it was a good hospital, and the employees worked very hard. It was more than a job to the people she had come across there—it was a caring way of life….
    And depressing? Crummy?
    Christmas was still weeks away, but in their free time, the staff had put up trees on every floor and in every ward. They had festooned the walls with decorations, and done everything they could to brighten the patients’ rooms for the holidays, so those stuck in bed to while away their hours of pain and sickness would have something cheery to look at.
    Well, she hadn’t cared much for Amanda when she had met her, and nothing she was hearing now was doing anything to change her opinion. She certainly didn’t seem like the kind of woman a man like Sean would choose to marry.
    “You know,” Amanda said to the woman on her far side, “he may be older, but all those years of experience certainly pay off in bed.” She giggled. “I mean, he’s hot . Maybe that’s what I should do,” she said, considering. “Something risqué, like making it with him in his hospital bed.”
    Far more than Caer wanted to know.
    But the woman on the other side of Amanda was apparently perfectly happy to discuss other people’s sex lives.
    “If the man is ill and, well, older , that might not be all that good for him,” she said.
    “Really?” Amanda said thoughtfully. “It could be just what he needs.”
    Amanda’s cosmetician came by then with a massive towel to help her out of the water, informing her that it was time for her sea-salt scrub.
    Caer sank deeper into the water, grateful now that the woman hadn’t noticed her, since she was going to be traveling with them, and Amanda might not be best pleased if Sean’s nurse knew all about her love life.
    Caer opted against the sea-salt scrub herself, and quickly dressed and headed downstairs, where she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Michael. When he answered, her heart sank. It sounded as if he were at the races. “You’re not at the hospital, are you?” she asked.
    “No, but I made sure someone’s there,” he told her.
    “Sean needs to be watched carefully tonight.”
    “He’s your assignment,” Michael told her.
    “Yes, but if I’m leaving tomorrow, I have things to