Formula for Danger. Camy Tang

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СКАЧАТЬ unexpected vulnerability shocked him. Her frailty made him want to wrap her in his arms. In the year they’d been working together on her basil plants and growing closer as friends, she had never been this emotional with him. Then again, she hadn’t been suffering under this kind of setback before, either. “I want to understand you, Rachel. If you’d only let me.”

      She met his eyes, touching him with her gaze like a caress to his cheek. But then her eyes wavered, doubt filling them, stress drawing lines down her face, and she turned away.

      He’d lost her.

      She turned quickly and grasped a basil plant, shaking it loose from the clumps of dirt on the floor, but holding it so tightly that she bruised its leaves.

      Despite the fact that he didn’t agree with her workaholic tendencies, they had been more than researcher and gardener. They had been becoming friends. He couldn’t deny that this kind of brutal attack on her, leaving her shaken and vulnerable, made him want to help her.

      He put his hand over hers, taking the forlorn basil plant from her fingers. “Don’t worry, Rachel. Things will turn out fine.”

      She shook her head, biting her lip. “I’ll never find out who did this.”

      “Yes, you will. Because I’ll help you.”

      TWO

      Rachel’s stomach was a block of ice despite the sun warming her back and the sweat dripping down her neck. She pedaled harder, making the wind sting her face as her bike tires ate up the sun-bleached asphalt of the Sonoma country road.

      Yesterday had been awful. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t been safe in her own spa parking lot. The attack on her plants at Edward’s greenhouse felt like an even deeper violation—not just against her, but against her research, against her family’s spa.

      And last night in the greenhouse, she’d wanted Edward to protect her—to hold her and make everything all right. She’d wanted to unburden herself and wrap herself in his concern.

      But she didn’t have the right to ask that of him.

      Her father had been concerned, but even more than that, he’d been worried about the research, about the product launch. As usual. Unspoken was the specter of her last disastrous venture, and how he’d blamed her for it.

      Four years ago she had developed a grape-seed extract moisturizer for the spa to launch as a new product. A month before Joy Luck Life spa released it, Avignon spa in New York happened to release a grape-seed extract moisturizer, as well. It wasn’t the exact formulation, even though it also used a grape-seed extract ingredient, and Rachel hadn’t thought it would be a problem to continue with their product launch. Plus, it was too late to stop it. But then Internet news reporters had accused Joy Luck Life of “stealing” Avignon’s formula. The spa received a lot of bad press and had been subjected to false rumors, which her father had taken hard, asking her again and again why she had suggested they continue with the product launch.

      And now this sabotage of her basil plants, causing a setback for her latest product launch.

      She’d considered skipping her daily bike ride this morning, but aside from a low-level headache and some tenderness around her eye, she felt fine. She needed to be alone with her thoughts.

      As she neared the base of an upcoming hill, the hum of a car engine came from behind. Her heartbeat sped up for a second as the gleam of chrome seemed to appear directly next to her, blinding her—the vehicle was too close!

      Then the auto blazed past her, whipping her in the wind of its wake, making her wobble a bit. She caught a glimpse of the bright sticker of a car-rental company on the bumper before it disappeared over the hill.

      Another tourist, viewing the sights of Sonoma County or maybe getting a very early start on a wine-tasting tour. She couldn’t complain, since the tourists contributed to the spa’s popularity, but their recklessness on the roads sometimes made her hug the sides more than normal.

      She struggled up the winding hill, the breeze dropping with her dwindling speed. The sun warmed her head inside her bike helmet. Her lungs heaved, and she welcomed the exertion, trying to somehow purge her body of all the confusing, frightening feelings of last night.

      The greenhouse destruction made it obvious that someone else knew about her research and wanted to stop the product launch. While anyone could have followed her to the greenhouse at any time, they couldn’t know how central those plants were to her current project unless they’d somehow gotten her research notes, which were only on her computer at work.

      She couldn’t take the chance someone had hacked into her work computer, or could do so in the future. This morning she had called her cousin Jane, a computer expert, to ask her if she could come to the spa to upgrade the security on Rachel’s work computer and see if someone had breached her system.

      Jane was the main reason she had developed the scar-reduction cream, and she could barely repress her desire to present it to her, to feel that she had somehow atoned for what she had done to Jane all those years ago.

      When Rachel and her cousin were eight years old, Rachel had inadvertently started a fire in Jane’s playhouse, causing scarring along Jane’s cheek and jawbone. Jane said she forgave Rachel, but Rachel couldn’t forgive herself. When she’d realized how incredible the results of the cream were, she had doubled her efforts to perfect the formula, thinking of Jane’s scars the entire time.

      She reached the crest of the hill, her heart pounding. Her entire body was tired today, probably from the stress of last night, getting home so late only to face her father’s heavy disapproval, and then rising early to go for a bike ride. Maybe she’d cut her ride short today so she could get into work early. She coasted down the hill, the breeze cooling her, the wind filling her lungs.

      Another car engine sounded behind her, ruining the feeling of freedom and being alone out here in the crisp air. She damped down her irritation and, mindful of the last car, moved closer to the side of the road.

      The engine seemed abnormally loud—and close. She glanced over her shoulder.

      Her movement caused her bike to slip off the asphalt and skid a little in the gravel bordering the road.

      Suddenly she felt as if the car behind her had bumped into her back tire. The bike bucked her off and flung her upward.

      She screamed.

      For a stricken heartbeat she hung poised in midair, staring at the ground sloping from the road to a field of grapevines. And then she plummeted down, rocks and juniper bushes rising up to meet her.

      She curled as she landed, striking her right shoulder with a crack! that trembled through her entire frame. She rolled and pitched, head over heels, sideways and underways and every which way. She finally landed with a jarring thud! to her spine that snapped her head back into the ground.

      For long, excruciating seconds, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t make her diaphragm move. She stared at the pale blue sky, misted with incoming clouds, and struggled to make her body obey her frantic mind.

      Then she gasped long and hard. She coughed, hacking up dust from her lungs, burning her throat. And pain exploded in her bones.

      She curled onto her side, thorns pricking СКАЧАТЬ