Slowly, he raised himself up to a standing position. “You need breakfast. And coffee.”

He reached behind her to push a button near the head of her bed. She saw the tiny row of perspiration beads break out on his forehead at that small effort, and wanted desperately to force him to lie down. But how? His eyes had a strange, haunted cast to them she’d never seen before, something that was more than the physical pain she knew he must be suffering. She felt as helpless to do anything for him as she had the night before.

Of their own volition, her fingers groped at her neck.

“Where’s my…they took my opal!”

His jaw turned to stone. “I know, honey. The nurse will be here in a moment.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” But she wasn’t. Memories of last night flooded through her with sudden dizzying speed, and the sedative hangover only accented those nightmare images. “How could they? How could they take my opal?” Such a stupid thing to say, such a stupid thing even to think. It was just…she had always been a giver. No one had ever taken anything from her-no one had had to; there had never been anything she hadn’t been willing to give freely for the asking. The opal seemed a symbol of other things the blond bastard had threatened to take-although he hadn’t really touched her. He’d only touched the opal, something personal and precious to her, something that could never be retrieved.

Suddenly, she recalled all too clearly her unforgivable hysteria, the burst of uncontrollable crying that had started once she’d gotten Craig safely into the hospital the night before. Why then, when she was finally certain he would be all right? Her own loss of control had felt alien and strange, and for an instant she felt that terrible panic again.