by Tina Folsom
Why he had the visions and when, or how they appeared, Nick didn’t know. It was his special gift—and the reason he lived in hiding. But today, he would use his gift to save a human life. If he wasn’t too late already.
The light backpack he always carried slung over one shoulder, Nick ran through the busy early afternoon crowd that clogged up the sidewalks, pushing people out of his way if they didn’t let him pass quickly enough. Curses and angry shouts followed him, but he barely took any notice. He was close, so close. Just another two blocks to the coffee shop.
He raced down the sidewalk, briefly stepping onto the street when a wheelchair user blocked his way. A car honked at him, but he kept running, darting between two vehicles to make a right turn into the street where the coffee shop was located at the end of the block.
A man he recognized from the premonition approached the door of the coffee shop. The door almost hit him in the face as it was opened. The woman exiting was Michelle.
Shit!
From the corner of his eye, Nick saw something flash yellow. He snapped his head to the side. The cab was passing him.
“Michelle!” he called out at the top of his lungs, waving at her.
She neither heard nor saw him and kept walking, approaching that fateful crosswalk.
Nick launched into an even faster sprint, pushing off the hot asphalt with all his strength. His heart raced as his lungs worked overtime.
Gotta get to her! Run! Damn it, run!
“Michelle!” he cried out again, but a car honking drowned out his voice.
A few more yards, just a few more. You can do it!
He darted past a woman with a small child, catching up with the taxi. Ahead of him, Michelle stood at the crosswalk, looking to her right, away from him and the approaching cab. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion now. The cab approaching the intersection… Michelle lifting her foot to take a step into the street…
“Michelle!” Nick barreled toward her.
Michelle ripped her head in his direction, eyes wide, mouth open, freezing in her current position, one foot on the street, one on the sidewalk. Nick lunged for her, turning her sideways in a split second, away from the traffic, inserting himself between her and the taxi, which had just reached them.
He pushed her away from him, toward the middle of the sidewalk. He tried to pivot with her, but the mirror of the cab caught in the strap of his backpack, ripping it from him and swiping his arm. The impact knocked him sideways. Nick was slammed against a metal newspaper rack, his left arm and side taking the brunt of it. But he didn’t have time to worry about that now, nor about the screeching tires or the excited shouts around him.
Instead he searched for Michelle. When he finally found her, she was in the middle of the sidewalk, upright, but visibly shaken. He ran his eyes over her, but saw no obvious injuries.
Relieved, he slumped to the ground and rested his back against the newspaper rack. “Thank God,” Nick murmured to himself, air rushing from his lungs now.
“Jesus Christ!” Michelle ran toward him, staggering a little and looking shaken. “Oh my God!”
“You all right, Michelle?” He looked up at her.
She breathed heavily as she crouched down to him. “That cab would have hit me!” Her lips trembled. “If you hadn’t been there…” She closed her eyes for a moment, swallowing hard.
He reached for her hand, but winced at the pain in his arm and side. He breathed through it, willing the sensation to subside.
Michelle’s eyes flew open and she shot a look at his arm. “You’re hurt. Don’t move. I’ll call an ambulance.”
Instantly, Nick shook his head. “I don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine.”
He didn’t want an ambulance. Nor did he want a police report about the incident. While he had built a fake identity for himself, he wasn’t about to test how well he’d covered his tracks.
Several bystanders crowded around. A man pushed through them: the taxi driver.
“You all right, buddy?” he asked, his voice shaking.
Nick quickly nodded.
“Shit!” The cabbie ran his hand over his head. “You stepped right in my path. Wasn’t my fault.”
A few pedestrians grunted angrily.
“Typical cab driver!” one of them cursed.
Nick used his good arm to push himself off the ground and, using the newspaper rack for leverage, pulled himself up. “I’m fine. Nothing happened.” He pasted a thin smile on his face, nodding to the cab driver once more. “I’m all right. No need to hang around.”
“You need a doctor to look at you. You could have a concussion,” Michelle insisted.
Nick put his hand on her forearm and squeezed it. “I’m fine. Trust me.”
The cab driver tossed him an unsure look, scratching his neck. “You sure? You not gonna sue me afterward?”
“I’m not gonna sue you. It was entirely my fault.”
Finally, the cab driver marched back to his taxi. Nick turned to the other pedestrians who continued to hover, making sure they didn’t miss anything.
“Honestly, nothing more to see here,” he insisted and made a shooing motion.
“Is that your bag, ma’am?” A kid pointed to a computer bag on the sidewalk.
Michelle nodded and the boy handed it to her. “Thank you.”
Slowly, the people disbursed. Nick glanced around. It was possible that somebody had already called 9-1-1 and the police were on their way. It was best not to risk hanging around here any longer. He reached for his backpack, glad to see that it was still intact from landing on the curb.
“Somebody has to look at you,” Michelle said beside him.
He smiled at her, her concern touching him. “It’s just a little bruise. I’ll survive.”
“Please, let’s get you to a hospital.”
“I can’t. I don’t have health insurance right now.” It was true, although that wasn’t the reason he didn’t want to see a doctor. “I just need to ice down the area.”
Michelle let out an annoyed huff. “Damn it, do you have to be so stubborn?”
He grinned. “You think I’m stubborn?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, then let’s go to my place. I’ll look at your injuries and I swear if I think it looks bad, I will deliver you to the hospital myself.”
At her bossy statement, Nick felt like saluting as if she were a drill sergeant in the army. But he suppressed the urge. “Yes, ma’am.”
6
At least Nick wasn’t objecting to her helping him.
“Can you walk?” Michelle asked, looking him up and down.
“I can. Where do you live?”
She motioned toward the path she’d originally been heading down. “It’s not far. Just a few blocks.”
Michelle hoisted her computer bag over one shoulder and waited for the light to change to green, letting out another breath. She was still shaking, but the reality of what had just happened was settling in. She’d been about to cross the street without looking. And had Nick not been there, she would have walked right into the path of the taxi. Everything could have been over in seconds. She shuddered at the thought.
“You okay?”
At Nick’s concerned voice, she lifted her face to him. “I guess it’s only just now sinking in. I can’t believe I was so careless. It was so lucky that you were there. How did you realize—”
Nick took her hand in his and squeezed it. “Don’t think about it any longer. It’ll just drive you crazy. I’m happy that I caught you in time.”
At the odd phrasing of his words, she snapped her eyebrows together. “Were you looking for me?”
“Actually, I was on my way to the coffee shop, hoping that I might see you, when I saw you at the intersection.”
“Oh.” It was odd since they hadn’t seen each other since their first encounter a few days earlier.
“Yeah, when I saw you there, I realized you’d already left the coffee shop, so I called out to you.”
Nick grinned, shrugging. Then he motioned to the changed light, and together they crossed the street. “Took me a few days to scrape together all my courage to ask you out for coffee. I didn’t wanna waste that opportunity. So I ran to try to catch up with you.”
Her heart started beating faster, and this time it wasn’t out of panic or shock. “You wanted to ask me out for coffee?” And instead he’d saved her from getting hurt.
Nick cast her a sideways glance. “Figured I’d try my country bumpkin charm on you once more; see if it works better this time.”
In disbelief, she shook her head. Was this man for real? Not only was he a hero, saving her without regard for his own safety, but he was also self-deprecating, sweet, and absolutely charming. Not to mention handsome and sexy as hell. She quickly glanced at his hands. And apparently still single. Jesus, why could she not have met a guy like him earlier, when her life hadn’t started to careen out of its tracks?
“I don’t know what to say.” She reached for his arm.
Wincing, he said, “No need to say anything. But a bag of ice would be great right about now.”
“So sorry,” she apologized when she realized that she’d just squeezed his injured arm. “Let’s get you inside, and then I’ll take care of your arm.”
She pointed to a three-story brownstone. “I’m afraid it’s a walk-up.”
“Nothing wrong with my legs.”
Michelle turned to the door and unlocked it. She entered, Nick on her heels, and walked ahead of him, climbing the old creaking staircase.
“You live alone?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Yes, it’s just a small one-bedroom, cheap enough so I don’t need a roommate.”
“Good.”
For an instant, her heart stopped. Was it wise to bring a man she’d only met for the second time today to her apartment? Was she inviting trouble by letting him into her place, where they would be alone? After all, she knew nothing about him.
Nothing apart from the fact that he was charming—which apparently serial killer Ted Bundy had been, too—and that he’d saved her life. That latter part helped her make up her mind. Nick had risked his own life to save hers and gotten injured as a result. She owed him to at least make sure he was all right. And she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to go to a hospital. Without insurance, they would charge him an arm and a leg just for getting an x-ray and an icepack.
“Here we are,” she announced as she reached the top floor and stepped onto the landing. There were two apartments on this floor. She pulled her key ring from her computer bag and inserted the key in the lock.
When she pushed the door open, she turned and saw Nick hesitating in the hallway. She waved him in. “Come in, I won’t bite.”
He smirked. “Promise?”
Michelle dropped her keys onto the side table in the short hallway from which one door led to the bathroom and the other to the bedroom. Ahead of her, an arch led into the living room with an adjacent tiny kitchen. It wasn’t much, but at least she had privacy here.
“Nice place,” Nick commented and followed her into the living room.
“Take a seat. And take off your shirt,” she demanded and marched into the kitchen.
The door between living room and kitchen had long been removed because of lack of space. She opened the freezer and rummaged through it, finally finding a bag of frozen peas. It would have to do. She snatched a clean dish towel from a drawer and turned back to the living room only to slam to a halt.
Nick stood in the door frame, his chest bare and glistening. He was even better built than she’d suspected the day she’d first met him. In fact, he was positively ripped. Her mouth started watering at the sight of his six-pack-abs and the well-defined pectorals that seemed to twitch.
The only sound she managed to produce from her dry throat was “Uh.” Great, she was turning into a drooling teenager. How pathetic.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” The deep timbre of his voice bounced off the walls of the tiny kitchen.
In the small room he looked even more imposing, even more attractive, more tempting.
“Is that the ice?”
He motioned to the bag of peas, prompting her to spring back into action.
“Yes, yes. Sorry, I don’t have real ice cubes, but this’ll do the trick.” She turned sideways. “Why don’t you sit down here then, and I’ll look at you.” Not that she wasn’t already looking at him. Or better yet, ogling him.
He squeezed past her to the single barstool next to the miniscule breakfast counter that was just big enough for one person. Awkwardly, she turned to try to avoid brushing against him, but it happened nevertheless.
A bolt of adrenaline shot through her at the unexpected contact. The accompanying heat wave scorched her from the inside, adding to the stifling temperature in her top-floor apartment. Right now, she wished for air conditioning, though she wasn’t sure it would help cool her body down.
Nick took a seat on the barstool and turned toward her. She placed the bag of frozen peas on the counter and reached for his arm.
“I’m just gonna touch your arm lightly to see if it’s broken, okay?”
He only nodded, but remained silent. Michelle felt his eyes on her and tried to remain calm. It was only natural that he was watching what she was doing, she told herself. In his situation, she would do the same. It didn’t mean that he was checking her out. Besides, he was probably in pain, and not even men had romantic feelings when in pain, right?
Slowly, she ran her hands over his arm. His forearm felt fine, and when she squeezed hesitantly, he didn’t protest. When she reached his elbow, she tested his range of motion, and again, nothing struck her as odd.
“All good,” he commented.
She brushed her hand over his upper arm and applied a little bit of pressure. Instantly, Nick jerked back and groaned.
“Sorry.” She caught his gaze. “I need to check a little more.”
“Mmm-hmm.” His eyes were unreadable. Had they turned darker?
The warmth of Nick’s skin made her fingers tingle. She took a steadying breath, hoping he didn’t notice how touching him affected her. Hell, she was no blushing virgin! He wasn’t the first man she’d touched. He wouldn’t be the last either. Though it had been a while since she’d been with somebody. Maybe too long. Perhaps that was the reason why touching him got her all flustered.
Pulling herself together, she continued examining his arm. Even though he hissed when she squeezed his bicep, she didn’t think his arm was broken.
“I think it’s just bruised. It’ll probably turn blue in a day or two.” She exchanged a look with him.
“Just as I thought. Thanks.”
“Hold on,” she said. “How about your ribs?” She pointed to his side. “You crashed against the newspaper rack quite hard. Lift your arm.”
Nick followed her command and she placed her hand over his side, pressing lightly.
He shrank back. “Okay, that’s enough playing doctor for one day,” he said lightly, though his facial expression told her that he’d gotten bruised there, too.
Michelle tilted her head. “And there I was having so much fun,” she said sarcastically. She sighed. “Honestly, men.”
She grabbed the bag of peas and placed it over his upper arm. “Hold this.”
While he pressed the makeshift icepack to his bicep, she wrapped the dish towel around it then knotted it. “That should do.”
She opened the freezer again and snatched a bag of sweet corn from it. “This is for your ribs. You’re gonna have to press it against your side for a while.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
She braced her hands at her hips. “And don’t make fun of me. I’m just trying to help you, you stubborn idiot.” She sniffed in a short breath.
“So I’m an idiot now?” he asked way too softly—almost as if he knew what was going on inside her.
Tears sprang to her eyes. Nick could have gotten killed today. For
her. For saving her miserable life, when she knew her life was practically forfeit anyway. Because if she couldn’t produce the results Mr. Smith wanted, he’d have her thrown in prison. And right now, she was at a dead end. As if somebody had put a wall up right in front of her. One she couldn’t penetrate. She was running out of options and out of time.
“Why did you do that?” A sob tore from her chest. “That cab could have killed you! You don’t even know me. You don’t even know whether I’m worth risking your life for. You idiot.” The last word barely made it over her lips, tears choking off her voice.
She felt his hand wrap around her wrist a moment later, pulling her to him. His arm came around her back, dragging her closer until she was captured between his spread legs, chest-to-chest with him.
He used his forefinger to tip her face up so she had to look at him. “Every life is worth saving.” He paused, smirking. “As for calling me an idiot: I’d like an apology for that.” His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Her breath instantly hitched, awareness permeating every cell of her body. Her pulse began to race, and perspiration slicked her skin.
“A really nice, long apology.” He dipped his head until his lips were floating just an inch above hers. “How about that apology now?”
His voice was drugging, his strong arm imprisoning her. His breath blew against her face, tempting her further.
“Just one kiss,” she murmured.
“Two. You called me an idiot twice.”
“Two then.”
The moment the last word left her mouth, she felt Nick’s lips on hers. At first the touch was soft and gentle, a mere brushing of skin on skin, of warmth sliding against warmth. Instinctively her lips parted as she took in his masculine scent, inhaling his aroma, taking it deep into her lungs. A pleasant shiver ran down her spine, making her tremble in his arms.
An appreciative hum came from his lips, reverberating against hers, the vibrations spreading a tingling sensation over her mouth and face.
She knew then that two kisses wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the sudden hunger that was growing inside her.
