Can't Help Loving You

by Nika Rhone

  “How would she have gotten in?” Peter clicked over to cop mode.

  “I don’t know.” Fisting her hands, Lillian looked around the room. “But who else could have taken them?”

  “They were there?” Richard stalked over to the empty space. “Right there?”

  “Yes, Richard. Right there.” Like that mattered?

  Evidently it mattered a whole lot to her older brother, whose face turned an unbecoming shade of red. “Right there, in front of the door to the panic room?”

  “Um…” Oopsie. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You guess.” In a gesture she hadn’t seen since they were teens, he clasped his hands around the back of his neck like he was trying to keep his head from popping off. Which, given the look on his face, might not have been all that far-fetched. “So, after promising Mom and Dad you’d follow all of their safety measures if you could move in here alone, you not only switched to using the bedroom without the panic room that was built for you, but then you thought it would be a good idea to stack things in front of the door to it? Do I have that right?”

  “Um…” When he put it like that, it sounded so much worse. The panic room had been overkill, but her father insisted on it. She never once thought she’d have an occasion to need it.

  Of course, she never thought she’d have someone try to set her on fire while she slept, either. Which reminded her. “Would I have been safe from the fire if I was in there?”

  Theo looked nonplussed by the question. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “What would it matter, since you were in the other freaking bedroom?” Richard asked, throwing his hands in the air. She’d always been able to drive him past the brink of his considerable patience without even trying.

  It was a gift.

  “Well, for your information, smarty pants, I did remember about the room, and I was going to get into it to wait out the fire, but Rafe wasn’t sure it would be fireproof, and I couldn’t remember, so…” Oh. Oh. “No. Tell me he didn’t.” The words were a whisper as she stared at the empty spot where the canvases had stood.

  “Huh?” Peter cocked his head. “Who didn’t what?”

  “Rafe.” Brushing past Richard, she slid her fingers along the underside of the chair rail molding and found the button that released the hidden door. The button she’d shown to Rafe just a few days ago.

  “Well, at least you remember how to open it.” Richard grunted when Lillian’s elbow connected with his stomach. “Brat,” he wheezed.

  “Grouch.” Pulling the door open, her breath left her with a whoosh.

  They were there. All of them. Crammed into the small space that resembled a long, narrow closet were her missing canvases. Unbelievable. How could he have been stupid enough to risk his life for a bunch of worthless paintings? “Rafe, you idiot.”

  “Well, at least we agree on something,” Richard muttered. He backed up a wary step when Lillian turned on him.

  “You do not get to say things like that about him!”

  “Why not? The bastard was supposed to keep you safe, and instead he almost got you killed.”

  “Are you kidding me? He’s the reason I’m alive!”

  “You were almost burned, stabbed, and shot. All in one night!”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, Rafe saved me from the first two, and as for the third, the bullet was nowhere near close enough to hurt me.” The first time being short had worked in her favor. “He hit exactly what he was aiming for.”

  “Don’t forget, it was his brother who let that woman into the building in the first place,” Theo said.

  Lillian stared at him in disbelief. “You too, Theo?”

  He shrugged, although he did look a little uncomfortable. “It’s only the truth. She wouldn’t have been able to get past all the building’s security to set the fire if it wasn’t for him. Or cut you up.”

  Just talking about it made her stitches itch. She fought off the urge to scratch the small bandage covering them.

  “Okay, first off, to get inside, she could have gone after any single guy in the building the same way she did Cris, so don’t blame him. And second, I worked with her. We hung out. Hell, I considered her a friend. Sort of. She would have eventually found a way to get close enough to me to do whatever she wanted, because she was—wait for it—a psycho bitch! None of that is Rafe’s fault.”

  “If he hadn’t been so busy getting into your pants, he might have been doing his job and figured out who was responsible before it got that far.”

  Lillian sucked in a sharp breath. “Line. Crossed.”

  At least Richard had the decency to look embarrassed. “Lil—”

  “No. I don’t want to hear it. What happened between me and Rafe is our business, not yours. You don’t get any say.”

  “But—”

  “Not. A. Word.”

  Richard threw his hands up. “Okay, fine. Not another word about him taking advantage of the position of trust he was in to get what he wanted like the slimy bastard he is.”

  A growl erupted from Lillian’s throat. “You are such an a—”

  “For God’s sake, would you two stop?” Theo gave Lillian a look. “Lil, you’re our sister. We’re allowed to worry about you. Especially when we’ve never seen you like this with another guy before.”

  Because it had never been like this with any other guy before.

  Blinking back the tears that threatened, Lillian said, “I love him.”

  “The hell you do!”

  Lillian glared at Richard. “Don’t you tell me what I feel.” Oh, damn, now she sounded like Bernice. Her shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s not taking my calls, and he hasn’t called me back, so…” She shrugged, trying not to care that her heart felt like someone had stomped it like a grape. Someone who had risked his life to go back into a burning apartment to save her stupid paintings.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  If she hadn’t looked up at that precise moment, she would have missed the look of guilt all three of her brothers shared. Her sister-radar instantly went off. “What?”

  Peter fidgeted under her stare. “What what?”

  “What was that look for?”

  “What look?”

  “The look that says the three of you are up to something you know I won’t like.” Peter had always been the weakest link when it came to ferreting out her brothers’ secrets, and he didn’t let her down now. The panicked guilt that flashed over his face told her she’d scored a direct hit. She planted her hands on her hips and glared at all of them. “What did you do?”

  “Umm…” Peter looked to the others for guidance.

  “Lil, it was for your own good,” Richard said.

  “What. Did. You. Do?” They exchanged another of those looks. She pointed at Peter. “You. Talk.”

  He squirmed for a second before folding like a house of cards. Just like old times. “We might have told Delgado to keep his distance,” he mumbled.

  “You what?”

  “He almost got you killed!” Richard shouted.

  Lillian held up a finger in his face. “I’ll get to you in a minute.” To Peter she said, “When, exactly, did you find the time to tell him this little tidbit?”

  “When he called me the morning after you got out of the hospital.”

  “When he called…” She heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. He’d called?

  “And when he came to the house,” Peter added without prompting.

  Theo shot him a disbelieving look. “Really? Don’t you have any filter?”

  “It’s a twin thing,” Peter said, sounding sullen. “She’s always been able to make me tell her what she wants to know.”

  “Rafe came to the house? To Mom and Dad’s?” How had she not known this? Why hadn’t anybody told her? “And you sent him away? Without telling me?” She pressed her hand to her chest, which hurt so bad she wanted to throw up. “Why?”

  “To protect you,” Richard snappe
d.

  “From Rafe?” Was he kidding?

  “From getting hurt.”

  Lillian pressed against her chest again. “Too late.”

  “Lil…”

  “No. My turn.” Wrapping her anger around her like a protective cloak, she gave each of her brothers The Look until they were squirming. “You had no right to interfere. No matter what you thought you were protecting me from, or what good intentions you convinced yourselves you had. The bottom line is you stuck your noses into my personal, private life and managed to ruin the best thing that ever happened to me. Thank you all very much.”

  Richard let out an exasperated noise. “You’ve known the guy for a week, Lil. You can’t fall in love in a week.”

  “I dare you to repeat that gem to Mom and Dad.” It was a piece of family history that their parents had fallen in love at first sight, and were just as stupid for each other now as they had been thirty-six years ago.

  “He was hired to watch over you for a few days while the police handled their investigation,” Richard continued.

  “He wasn’t hired. He did it because Peter played the friendship card and guilted him into it.”

  “And then he used that position of trust to get close enough to make a move on you while you were vulnerable.”

  “Did it ever occur to any of you boneheads that it might have been me who made a move on him?” From the comical looks on their faces, that would be a no. Lillian would have laughed if she weren’t so furious. “Rafe didn’t use me. He didn’t play on my vulnerability, or take advantage of the situation. I’m not going to say anything more about our relationship, because I don’t owe you or anyone else an explanation for who I see or how I feel. Now.” She crossed her arms. “What exactly did you say to him?”

  They glanced at each other again before Theo answered. “Basically, we said that his job was over and you didn’t need him anymore.”

  Lillian’s jaw tightened. “What else?”

  Peter tapped his fingers on his thigh in a rapid staccato. “And, uh, that he should leave you alone, that you wanted to forget everything that happened in the past few weeks. Emphasis on everything.”

  I’m going to kill them. “Is that it?”

  Richard was unrepentant. He stuck out his jaw and said, “I told him that if he was looking for any kind of a payday, he could forget about it. He’s not squeezing a single dime from us.”

  “You…that…gah! I don’t believe you would say something like that!”

  “Lil, come on, what else do you think he was looking for?”

  She froze. “Wow. Just…wow. Nice to know you think I have so little to offer a guy that my money is the only thing he might be interested in.”

  “That isn’t—”

  “Shut up, Richard. Just shut up.” Seething, she looked at the brothers she’d once admired more than anyone in the world. “You three have got to be the biggest bunch of monkey butts in the freaking universe. Stay the hell out of my life!” More furious and hurt than she’d ever been in her life, she pushed past Theo and stomped down the hall to her bedroom, slamming the door. How could they do that? Bad enough they’d interfered, but the things they said to Rafe were inexcusable. Looking for a payday? Rafe? Seriously?

  She needed to talk to him. She had to let him know her brothers had acted without her knowledge, and that none of what they’d said had come from her. God, no wonder he wasn’t returning her calls. He must be thinking she was some kind of massive bitchzilla.

  What could she do? If he wasn’t returning her calls, then maybe she should take a page out of Rafe’s own book. She should go to his parents’ house to try and find out where he was staying so she could see him in person.

  Yes. Perfect. Except…since she’d come with Peter, she didn’t have a car to drive. And she didn’t know where the Delgados lived. Or if they’d even open the door if she found out.

  “Yeah, great plan, Lil,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Freaking brilliant. Not.”

  Peter had to know the address, but she was too pissed to talk to any of her idiot brothers right now. Still, she had to do something.

  As she tried to come up with some way she could set things straight with Rafe, she became aware of the faint strains of music floating in through the open window. Spanish music. The kind on the radio station Rafe listened to in his truck.

  Rafe.

  If the police had released her apartment from being a crime scene, it made sense that they would have done the same to his. Which meant he was probably down there, just one floor below, right at that very minute. Her heart thumped.

  There was a soft knock on the door. “Lillian? Can we please talk?”

  Damn. If she tried to go down to talk to Rafe now, her brothers would probably follow, and things could get ugly. If she didn’t go, she might miss her best chance to fix what her brothers’ meddling had broken between them. There was only one other way to get to Rafe’s apartment besides going to the front door.

  She glanced at the open window and swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. Maybe she could convince her brothers to leave her alone long enough to go talk to him the normal way.

  “Lillian?” Another knock, less soft this time, indicating the baton had passed from peace-maker Theo to self-righteous Richard. “If you’d stop acting like a child and listen to reason, you’d see that we were right to do what we did.” The doorknob rattled, making her glad she’d taken the extra second to lock it. “Open the door, Lil.”

  Or maybe she couldn’t.

  Without giving herself time to think about how crazy it was, she slipped off the now black and soggy booties and climbed out onto the fire escape. Her breath seized. This was a whole lot different in the light of day, when she could see all the way to the ground. All the very, very long way to the ground.

  Inching her way down the ladder, she tried and failed to keep her mind off how much like a squished bug she’d be if she were to slip. Each time her foot left a rung, she chanted under her breath, “Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.”

  Finally, her feet found the third-floor landing outside of Cris’s open window. She grasped the windowsill with a sigh of pure relief. “Never, ever, ever again,” she promised herself as she crawled inside. She resisted the urge to kiss the carpeted floor. “Ground floor apartments from now on. Screw the view.”

  Wiping her sweaty hands on her legs, she looked across the room to where Cris stood next to the bed. He was staring at her with a bemused expression, a stack of sloppily folded T-shirts in his hands. On the bed was a half-full suitcase. “Oh. Hi. Um, sorry to barge in like this without asking…”

  “Yeah, well you can barge right back out the same way.” He gave a chin-tip toward the window.

  Not a chance in hell. He’d have to physically push her out the window.

  Which, given the stormy expression he wore, wasn’t out of the question.

  “You look good. I’m so glad you’re okay after what happened.” No response. Okay, then. Screw the niceties. “Look, I came down to see Rafe. I need to talk to him.”

  He snorted and tossed the shirts into the suitcase. “And he needs is not to have some rich-bitch use him and tell him pretty lies to get what she wants and then break his stupid heart when she’s done slumming.” He turned back to his dresser, slamming one drawer and opening the one below it. “He’s not here, anyway. Just go away and leave him alone.”

  Slumming? Pain twisted her gut, and she shot a malevolent glare at the ceiling. She was so going to make them pay. “Whatever you think I said or did to him, I didn’t. That was my dumbass brothers, and I just found out about it, like, two minutes ago.”

  “Whatever.” He dumped a handful of socks on top of the tees.

  “Look, I get that you don’t want to believe me, but it’s the truth. I’ve been trying to get Rafe on the phone for the past two days.” She groaned in frustration. “If he’d just returned one of my calls, we would have both known what my brothers were
up to.”

  If she hadn’t been so well versed in sneaky brothers, she might have missed the look that streaked across his face. Lillian narrowed her eyes. “Cris?”

  “What?” He refused to meet her gaze, making a show of zipping up the suitcase even though it was far from full.

  “Why do I get the feeling I’m not the only one who’s had brothers meddling in my business?” She thought of the snotty Isabella. “And sisters, maybe?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He was a worse liar than Peter. “Uh-huh.” She went around the bed and stood in front of him, arms crossed, wearing all of her anger and frustration on her face.

  “Take me to Rafe. Now.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Well, that hadn’t sucked as much as it could have.

  Pulling into his parents’ driveway, Rafe turned off his truck but didn’t get out right away. Once he went inside he’d be swarmed by whichever of his family happened to be home and not have a moment’s peace. Instead, he sat listening to the engine tick as he considered the way the past few hours had played out. When he left, he’d been convinced he wouldn’t still have his badge when he returned. Summonses to headquarters were never good.

  Especially after a shooting.

  While on leave.

  And under evaluation for reinstatement. Psych evaluation.

  Yeah, he’d gone in with expectations of hearing fuck you very much, turn in your badge, there’s the door. Instead, he’d gotten some encouraging words from the brass and an hour with the department shrink that, for the first time, actually felt like it helped him in sorting out the tangle of emotions he’d been dealing with for the past year. According to her, it wasn’t his near-death experience that had him all twisted up inside his head. It was whether he’d held off shooting Fernando because he didn’t have it in him to pull the trigger when he needed to. That he didn’t have the nerve to do his job.