If A Man Answers

by Merline Lovelace

  Molly paused with one foot on the stairs. It was well past eight o’clock. She’d made it a point to work late and grab a taco on her way home so she wouldn’t impinge on Sam’s hospitality any more than she had to. Turning down his offer seemed a bit rude, though.

  “I got a fresh shipment of prime cut this morning,” he added casually. “Compliments of the Double Bar.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the Double Bar?”

  “A small spread in northern Arizona. The brand is sort of a sideways ‘H.”’

  “The ‘H’ standing for Henderson, I assume?” He nodded, and Molly gave herself a mental pat on the back for correctly placing his faint drawl the first time she’d heard it.

  “Is this spread yours?”

  “Just a small corner of it. My mother sold off most of the land when my father died. My brothers and I run a few thousand head with the Double Bar brand on what’s left. My oldest brother, Jake, manages the place for her, in addition to his own.”

  Molly’s store of knowledge about ranching would fit on the tip of the proverbial pin, but a few thousand head sounded like a pretty good-sized operation to her. Curious, she tilted her head to study Sam Henderson, onetime rancher, ex-Air Force Major, and currently unemployed as far as she could tell. “So why did you settle here in Vegas if you own land in Arizona?”

  He hesitated a mere fraction of a moment, then lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s more convenient here.”

  Molly wondered at that brief pause, and at the deliberate casualness of his reply. Obviously, Sam Henderson didn’t like talking about his past. Or was it his present that put that touch of cool reserve into his voice? More curious than ever about her mysterious neighbor, she decided to bend her self-imposed no-meals, no-mingling rule. Just for tonight.

  “A steak sounds wonderful...if you’re sure it’s no trouble?”

  “I’ll fire up the grill while you get settled.”

  It didn’t take Molly long to choose between the three upstairs bedrooms. The one at the top of the stairs obviously doubled as a study. A sophisticated computer system sat atop a desk, while the rest of the room was taken up with bookshelves and a striking hunter green leather sofa. An antique sleigh bed and a massive Korean chest in teak and brass dominated the second room. Suppressing a pang of serious envy over the beautiful chest, Molly peeked in the third room.

  It had to be the master suite, since it ate up the whole back half of the second floor, but the huge room hardly looked lived in. Granted, the giant-sized bed attached to a wall unit filled with books was truly awesome. And, yes, Molly would have committed serious mayhem for the comfortable, high-backed leather chair and ottoman in one corner. Yet she didn’t get a sense of sanctuary, of welcoming retreat, as she did in her own, far more sparsely furnished bedroom. Nor did she spot a single item of clothing draped over the back of the chair or tossed on the floor. Either Sam’s military training had turned him into one of those disgustingly neat obsessive-compulsives, or he didn’t spend a lot of time in his bedroom.

  Considering the nights she’d laid awake listening to Buck Whatsisname, Molly supposed it was the latter. More curious than ever about her neighbor’s nocturnal habits, she deposited her tote on the sleigh bed in the guest room and headed back downstairs. The aroma of hot, sizzling charcoal drew her to the patio.

  “How do you like your steak?”

  “Burned black on the outside, no trace of pink on the inside.”

  Molly braced herself for the usual argument. Everyone from waiters to friends to ex-fiancés... particularly ex-fiancés...gave her grief about her preference for meat cooked to the consistency of blackened shoe leather. To his credit, Sam merely winced.

  “This could take a while.” He forked a slab of beef a good three inches thick onto the grill. “Would you like a cold beer while you wait?”

  “I don’t drink beer,” she reminded him with just a hint of priggishness. She hadn’t completely forgotten the nasty cracks he’d made about her empty beer cans during their initial skirmishes.

  “That’s right.” His eyes glinted above the glow of the coals. “You only wear it. How about a glass of wine, or do you only wear that, too?”

  “Just on special occasions.” She replied, grinning. Her gaze drifted past Sam to the dark outline of her house. Slowly, her smile evaporated. “Like when I hear things go bump in the night.”

  Who had made that noise? she wondered for the gazillionth time since her meeting with Detective Kaplan this morning. Whose shadow had she seen moving along the wall? Had Joey Bennett’s killer come after her, too? Was he lurking somewhere close by right now? Watching her? Waiting to get her alone? She shivered and edged a step closer to Sam.

  He caught the small movement. As she had, he shot a quick look at the darkened house beyond the hedges. His chin took on a determined tilt, but his voice held only calm assurance.

  “You’re safe here, Molly. My security system came with a whole battery of motion-activated floodlights. I turned them on this morning. No one can get anywhere near this place without lighting it up like a Christmas tree...and answering to me.”

  That went a good way toward soothing Molly’s jittery nerves. Settling in a springy, striped patio chair, she hooked a heel on its crossbar and wrapped her arms around her knee.

  “I can’t believe I got myself involved in such a bizarre situation. Brady would, though. He was always telling me that I was too impulsive, that I needed to slow down and think things through.”

  “Brady?”

  “My onetime fiancé. I left him and most of my furniture back in Boston when I sublet my apartment and moved to Vegas six months ago.”

  That explained her empty house, Sam thought It didn’t explain the sudden, inexplicable kick of satisfaction he got from knowing that his quirky neighbor was currently unattached.

  Or was she?

  “Six months, huh?” He probed her steak with the long-handled fork, raising a chorus of spits and sizzles. “Do you still miss him?”

  Her full mouth curved in a slow, impish smile that did strange things to Sam’s lungs.

  “I miss my couch more.”

  He was still trying to recover from his momentary lack of oxygen when Molly turned the tables on him.

  “What about you? The first time I called here, a woman answered the phone. Is she someone special? Someone who might wonder what your neighbor is doing camped out in your guest room?”

  Sam thought briefly of the sexy, red-haired intelligence officer he’d been seeing off and on before his accident. Smart, talented and ambitious, Janet Green had wanted to take their relationship to the next level. They were a perfect match, in her view. Both dedicated to their jobs, both on the fast track to the top, they understood the pushes and pulls of a military marriage.

  All during Sam’s long rehab, Janet had remained convinced the Air Force wouldn’t put him out to pasture. He was too valuable a resource, too experienced a test pilot. She’d been shocked when he accepted without a fight the Medical Evaluation Board’s ruling of a temporary retirement. She’d come by several times after he’d hung up his uniform and moved into this house, trying to understand, even offering to put her own fast-moving career and upcoming transfer to Washington, D.C., on hold while he contested the MEB’s decision.

  Sam knew when and how to pick his battles. This wasn’t one he intended to fight. Until he conquered the blinding pain that attacked him all too frequently, he couldn’t fly, couldn’t give his usual two hundred percent to any job. Hell, at times he could hardly see.

  There was no way he was pulling any strings to get back on active duty. He wouldn’t do that to the Air Force, or to himself. After their last argument over his decision, Janet had left, disappointed and hurt, although Sam suspected that her disappointment stemmed primarily from learning that their “perfect match” wasn’t so perfect after all. She hadn’t been back since.

  “No,” he told Molly, adding his steak to the grill beside hers. “There’
s no one special. Do you want to eat out here? I nuked a couple of potatoes in the microwave. I’ll bring them out while these finish cooking.”

  “I’ll get them.”

  She pushed out of the patio chair and went inside. Sam kept one eye on the sizzling meat and one on the swing to Molly’s backside. She filled out a pair of jeans nicely, he had to admit. Very nicely.

  Without warning, the memory of how she’d snuggled against him last night came rushing back. It had taken a concerted effort, but Sam had managed to keep that particular memory at bay most of the day. He’d darn well better keep it tucked away for the short time Molly would spend under his roof. He couldn’t let himself think about the way her breasts had pressed against his chest. Or the neat fit of her bottom in his lap. Not if he was going to make it through the next few days without doing something stupid...like forgetting that his prickly neighbor could put out more sharp spikes than a desert cactus when she wanted to. Or that he wasn’t in any condition to take up where he and Janet had left off.

  No, he’d play it easy and friendly for the next few days. That approach seemed to be working well tonight. His neighbor hadn’t snuck in any digs about his music or her bushes, and Sam didn’t feel any aggravating curl of pain around the base of his skull. With luck, that surprisingly pleasant state of affairs would hold until Molly moved back into her own quarters.

  Easy and friendly lasted all through dinner, eaten by the light of the stars and a couple of candles Molly had found in one of his cupboards.

  It took them through an hour of idle, after-dinner conversation, where the topics drifted from Boston to Arizona to Vegas. From her newfound passion for the spangles and spandex so popular here, and his for the ’67 Mustang he was restoring. From her current job, which Sam found fascinating, to his former one. He even opened up a bit himself, admitting that a flameout over the desert and a head-to-head with a stubborn canopy had forced him into a temporary medical retirement. When pressed, he said only that his nightly workouts were slowly getting him into better physical condition than anyone would have predicted six months ago.

  Easy and friendly even got them through an awkward moment Friday morning, when Sam came downstairs to find Molly about to return to her own house. She hadn’t wanted to wake him, she explained, but she had to shower and change for work.

  Sam didn’t bother to remind her that he’d gotten used to operating with little or no sleep...or that he’d spent half the night trying not to picture her sprawled across the bed just down the hall, and the other half wishing he could go downstairs and work off the tension that gripped his lower body when he did. He simply walked her home, checking the entire house before returning to his own.

  There was nothing even remotely easy or friendly about Sam’s condition late Friday night, however. His head pounded like the jackhammers heard constantly all around Las Vegas. An entire construction crew could have been riveting steel beams in there.

  He prowled the darkened downstairs, desperately needing exercise but reluctant to wake Molly by pumping the clacking, clattering weights. He needed the distraction of one of Buck Randall’s lonesome laments. He needed....

  “Sam?”

  He spun around, and the pain slam-dunked through his brain. The sight of Molly wearing a wide brown stripe across her nose and cheeks and a baggy T-shirt that dropped down to her knees didn’t help his condition, either. How the hell could the woman manage to look sexy in a cotton sack?

  “What do you want?”

  He didn’t realize he’d barked at her until she took a quick step back, blinking. She recovered before he did, her surprise morphing into concern.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

  Ignoring his growl, she padded into the darkened room. “What’s the matter? Why can’t you sleep? Why don’t you ever sleep?”

  “I sleep when I want to,” he ground out, adding a silent “sometimes.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s why I see lights on at your place all hours of the night.”

  Sam was in no mood to argue. He couldn’t.

  “All right. I get headaches once in a while. That’s what happens when you butt headfirst through a supposedly shatterproof canopy.”

  “Have you got one now?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted, trying not to grind his teeth. “Go back to bed, Molly. It’ll go away. They always do.”

  Eventually.

  “Can’t you take something?”

  She floated toward him in the darkness, all pale, sleep-tossed hair and flaky brown facial. Above the peeling stripe laid across her upper cheeks and nose, her eyes were wide with a concern that teetered so close to pity that Sam’s jaw tightened another notch.

  “Didn’t the doctors give you some pain pills?”

  He would have snorted if he didn’t know the effort would blow off the top of his head. “I’ve got a whole pharmacy full of pills upstairs. Every color and variety you can name.”

  “Tell me what you need. I’ll go get it.”

  “No.”

  “But....”

  “No!” His lips pulled back in a snarl. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the rest of my life doped up and out.”

  To Sam’s surprise, she didn’t back down. She didn’t even flinch. She stood toe to toe with him, her face scrunched up under her half mask.

  “So you’re going to spend the rest of your life living like a vampire? Pacing through the night? Listening to that...”

  She caught her breath.

  “Listening to Buck Randall and pumping iron,” she finished slowly. “That helps you? That...that punishment in the form of exercise? And the music?”

  “Sometimes.”

  She frowned, dislodging a small shower of flakes. “Well, why aren’t you doing either?” With a swift, indrawn breath, she answered her own question. “You didn’t want to keep me awake. That’s it, isn’t it, Sam?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve interrupted your routine, haven’t I?” She searched his face, her own troubled, then spun around. “I’m going back to my own place. I shouldn’t have imposed on you like this.”

  “Molly, wait”

  He caught her arm, bringing her back around. As little as Sam wanted to spend the rest of the long hours until dawn with this splintering pain, even less did he want his neighbor alone and unprotected in her house with a killer on the loose. The stubborn tilt to her jaw told him that she wouldn’t give in without a fight Sam couldn’t manage even a minor battle tonight.

  “You won’t help matters by going home,” he said brusquely. “I’ll still be awake and worrying about you.”

  “I’m not going to stay here and interfere with your regimen.”

  “Okay, okay. We’ll compromise. I’ll work out for a little while...”

  “For as long as it takes,” she insisted.

  “And you stay put. Agreed?”

  “Well...”

  “I’ll forgo Buck,” he offered by way of inducement. “You pick the music.”

  “I have a better idea. Instead of music, why don’t I just sit here and keep you company? I’ll talk to you while you work out. Unless you think it would be too distracting?”

  At the moment, Sam couldn’t decide which was more distracting...the jackhammering in his head or Molly Duncan curled up on his couch, her long, slender legs tucked under that sexy bottom. All he knew was that he wanted to get rid of one, badly, and not the other, almost as badly. He conceded with something less than graciousness.

  “Sit here then.”

  Stripping off his shirt, he stalked to the Universal gym and set the pin on the weights.

  “Okay,” he instructed, fitting his back to the bench. “Start talking.”

  Carrying on an easy flow of conversation in any one of several languages had never been a problem for Molly. Tucking her legs under her, she sank onto the sofa that had been pushed against the far wall to accommodate the gym.

  “Have you been to the Adda
gio yet?” she asked. “It’s gorgeous. All marble floors and tall, round columns. It’s supposed to replicate the interior of a famous Venetian palace. I’ve never been to Venice, but if the buildings look anything like the Addagio, I have to add it to my growing list of places to visit before I die.”

  Sam gritted his teeth and pulled the cold steel bar down to his chest. “Where...else...is...on...your... list?”

  “Don’t talk,” she ordered. “Just do your thing and listen. Where else do I want to go? Well, I spent a year in Tokyo on an exchange program while I was in college. I’d love to go back there again. Especially in the spring. Everyone should visit the Imperial gardens when the cherry trees blossom and a breeze catches the petals. It’s like walking through a pink, perfumed snowstorm.”

  Slowly, Sam worked into his routine. The clanking weights took on a familiar beat. A light sweat filmed his chest and arms as they bunched, released, bunched. Even Molly’s monologue seemed to pick up the rhythm, taking on a curious lilt. From her Irish grandmother, Sam guessed, his breath gusting with effort. The one with the secret recipes.

  “And I want to see the pyramids,” she said dreamily. “I’ve never been to Egypt, although I did take a side trip to Morocco once.”

  He could listen to her all night, he decided.

  Yeah, right, an inner voice scoffed. Like listening was what he really wanted to do all night with Molly. Even with the top of his skull about to blow off, all he had to do was sneak a glimpse at his neighbor curled up on the sofa, those gorgeous legs curled under her, and he got as hard as the damned steel frame caging him in.

  Grunting, Sam yanked the bar to his chest.

  Molly struggled to maintain her monologue as long as she could. The clank of metal on metal had kept her wide-awake at first. Gradually, she picked up the cadence buried in the jarring sounds. Before she knew it, she was pitching her voice to match it.