by Jane Graves
Dumb thought. She didn’t give a damn about a scar. Not when she could have been in the morgue right now instead of the ER.
She closed her eyes, remembering the blast of gunfire, followed by a sharp, searing pain. She’d fallen to the pavement and strangers had surrounded her, staring down at her, and her head had hurt so much. Only seconds passed, but every one of them had seemed hours long.
Then the crowd had parted, and she’d looked up to see Alex beside her. He’d picked her up, carrying her as if she weighed nothing, moving her out of harm’s way. And then he’d laid her on that vinyl sofa in the Laundromat, his hand against her cheek as he held the towel to her wound, touching her firmly but gently. In that moment, the most indescribable feeling had swept over her. You’re going to be all right. As long as Alex is here, you’re going to be all right.
Then she remembered how she’d clung to him like a scared kid. Embarrassment shot through her.
It was because of the blood. She hated blood. The sight of it made her light-headed and sick to her stomach, making it hard for her to think straight. That was why she’d acted so completely helpless.
She’d calmed down now, though. Taken stock of the situation. She decided she was going to believe that whoever shot her was just some random wacko. Alex had said so, hadn’t he? She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nothing to worry about.
A young dark-haired nurse swept back the curtain that surrounded Val’s bed. “How are you feeling?”
Val sat up, weaving a little. The nurse put her hand against her shoulder. “Why don’t you stay put for a minute more? We don’t start collecting rent unless we send you upstairs.”
“Nah. I’ve got places to be. Home, for instance, getting out of this bloody T-shirt.”
Val waited for the dizziness to subside, then slid off the bed, trying not to look down at herself. Her stomach was none too stable right now, and looking at blood was not going to help any. She teetered a little as she stood up, her head starting to pound all over again.
“Do you have somebody to drive you home?” the nurse asked her. “That Percocet I gave you is going to kick you hard in a minute. You’d better make sure you’re sitting down.”
Val thought about calling her friend Darla. Darla owned the nail salon next door to Val’s storefront office on Fourteenth Street. They had breakfast or lunch together almost every day that Val was in her office, trading off on paying the tab. Once Darla had even nursed her through a particularly nasty case of the flu. But this wasn’t something that a big pot of chicken soup was going to solve. As much as she loved Darla, she wasn’t in any mood to answer questions, to hear mindless reassurances, or to have somebody “taking care” of her. She sorted through her mental short list of other friends, then decided she’d rather tough this one out on her own.
“If you can just give me the phone number of a cab company,” she told the nurse, “I’ll be fine.”
“Sure. Just come on out to the front desk. But take it easy, okay?”
She followed the nurse out to the reception area. She glanced through the sliding glass doors leading outside to the portico and the parking lot beyond them. Her heart kicked up a little. She had no idea who had pulled that trigger. Was he out there right now, waiting for a chance to get off another shot, hoping this time he found his target?
No. It had been a random shooting. Or somebody had been aiming for somebody else and she’d gotten caught in the line of fire. The guy was long gone. Nothing to worry about.
Then her gaze traveled over to the waiting area, and when she saw who was there, her heart skipped. Alex was sitting on the edge of a chair, his elbows on his knees, tapping his fingertips together impatiently.
How long had he been there? She checked her watch. If he’d followed the ambulance, he’d been sitting there over an hour and a half.
He turned and saw her, suddenly coming to attention. Their gazes met, and he rose to his feet. The nurse handed her the phone numbers of a couple of cab companies, and by the time she started to dial, Alex had reached the desk.
“Val,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Calling a cab.”
He took the phone from her hand and replaced it in its cradle. “No. I’m taking you home.”
“Excuse me?”
“A cab isn’t safe. The guy who shot at you may still be out there.”
Val felt a little tremor of apprehension, but managed an offhand shrug. “That’s nonsense. It was just a random shooting. You said so yourself.”
“I don’t think so.” He inched closer and dropped his voice. “I didn’t want to say anything earlier, but I think Ford was right. Whoever killed Shannon found out that you were watching the house last night. He’s afraid you saw something you shouldn’t have.”
“The other cop who came by here didn’t seem particularly convinced of that.”
“Forget him. What do you think?”
She had the most terrible feeling that Alex was right. This was no coincidence. But if that was true, if Shannon’s murder and the shooting today were indeed related, then she was forced to reach another conclusion she hadn’t wanted to deal with, either.
She looked up at Alex. She had to say it. He deserved to hear it after how she’d gone on at him in the Laundromat, but it didn’t make it any easier to say.
“You didn’t have anything to do with Shannon’s murder, did you?”
He stared at her a long time, his gaze steady. “Did you ever really believe that I did?”
Despite everything she’d said to him, despite all the evidence to the contrary, despite all the well-founded animosity she’d carried with her all these years, she knew in her heart that the world would come to an end before Alex DeMarco would commit murder. Suddenly his insistence last night that he was innocent seemed as irrefutable as the sun rising in the east.
She turned her gaze away, finding it hard to look him in the eye. She’d all but called him a murderer not two hours ago, when she’d known in her heart that it couldn’t possibly be true.
“What I said to you earlier, about not knowing if you did it or not—”
“Forget it.”
She let out a soft sigh. “So you think that whoever killed Shannon thinks I might be a witness he needs to get rid of.”
“That’s what I think.”
“Well, that’s news I’m not exactly thrilled to hear.”
“We can talk about it later. After I take you home.”
It was hard to say which she feared more at that moment—a murderer with a gun, or Alex DeMarco stepping inside her apartment one more time. She’d managed to dodge the gunman today. Five years ago Alex had hit her squarely in the heart, and she didn’t know if she was up to dealing with him again—under any circumstances.
She thought about the Beretta she kept strapped around her ankle, the one she never left home without. Now that she was on her guard, the guy wouldn’t get the drop on her again.
“I don’t go anywhere unarmed,” she told Alex. “You know I can take care of myself.”
“Under normal circumstances, I don’t doubt that. These are not normal circumstances. What kind of pain medication did they give you?”
“Just Percocet.”
“One or two?”
She paused. “Two.”
“Well, that ought to improve your aim. What are you planning on doing? Walking right out the front door of the ER?”
She hadn’t really stopped to think about that yet. “You have a better idea?”
“Yes. I parked my car around the corner of the building by a side entrance. Chances are he won’t be waiting for you there.”
“Aren’t you being a little dramatic?”
“Aren’t you being a little careless?”
“You’re just trying to scare me.”
“Hell, yes, I’m trying to scare you! Whoever shot at you knows he missed. With a little more luck than he had the first time, he could get off a solid head s
hot instead of a flesh wound.”
“I doubt that’s going to happen.”
“Val? Just once would you say, ‘Okay, Alex. That sounds good. Let’s do it your way’? Just one time?”
“Alex—”
“Just once. Humor me.”
“But—”
“You can’t do it, can you? You can’t agree with me on anything. You can’t just say—”
“Will you stop trying to tell me what to do?”
There had been a time when verbally sparring with Alex had been one of her favorite sports. But this was another situation entirely. She didn’t want to fight with him. Didn’t feel like fighting with him. Damn, her head felt goofy—the nurse hadn’t been kidding about the drug kicking in. Her thoughts suddenly felt weird and disjointed, as if she hadn’t slept in days, which allowed images of angry, faceless gunmen to sweep through her mind. She took a deep, ragged breath, her gaze turning involuntarily to the double glass doors leading to the parking lot.
“It’s okay,” Alex said. “I know you’re scared. Anybody would be right about now.”
She turned back. “Don’t try to be sympathetic, Alex. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Don’t try to lie to me. I saw your face when we were in the Laundromat.”
“I don’t like blood. I panicked a little. That’s all. Don’t make more out of it than it really was.”
She hadn’t intended to dwell on that, but at least it offered some explanation for her childish behavior. But now she realized he was probably going to say, You don’t like blood, huh? Then you’d have made a hell of a police officer.
She almost wished he would. If he made a snide remark right now, it would be a lot easier to go on hating him.
“Just let me take you home,” he said.
His voice was calm. Gentle. And so damned tempting.
“I don’t need you.”
“Tonight I think you do.”
Oh, Lord, Alex. Don’t do this. Don’t be nice. I can deal with you when you’re being arrogant and demanding, but I can’t deal with this. Give me something to fight against here.
She looked up again and met his gaze, and all those feelings came rushing back again, those feelings of attraction, of need, of desire that had been trapped inside her all this time, like slow-burning embers that had never been extinguished. And the way he was looking back at her—as if he could read every one of her thoughts—made her suddenly feel stark naked.
He knows. He knows you can’t even look at him without getting hot all over again.
No. She was giving him way too much credit. Those damned painkillers were making her think dumb thoughts. Dumb thoughts that centered around throwing herself right back into his arms again.
He’d betrayed her, and what she really needed to be doing was running away from him as far and as fast as she could. But if she did, would she be running right into the path of a killer?
He was right: she was scared. But he was the last person on the planet who was ever going to know it.
“Fine,” she said. “You win. Take me home. I suppose it beats a smelly old cab. And at least you speak English.”
To her surprise, he smiled. “Why, Val, I do believe that’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.”
Good heavens. She’d forgotten how he looked when he smiled: warm and handsome and very, very charming. There was a time when she would have cheerfully drowned in that smile, and just one glance at it now put her on the verge of diving right back into it again.
“You say there’s a side door to this place?” she said, brushing past him, wishing her legs didn’t feel so wobbly, wishing the medication hadn’t made her so shaky that she had to concentrate just to put one foot in front of the other.
“Down the hall,” Alex said. “Right by that exit sign.”
Despite her efforts, when she turned into the hallway, she stumbled a little, and Alex caught her arm. She tried to shake loose from him, but she succeeded only in tangling her feet together even more. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders to keep her from falling.
“Alex—don’t.”
He pulled her around, grasped her by her upper arms, and stared down at her admonishingly. “Val? Will you cut out all the tough-girl crap? You’re a pharmaceutical basket case right now, and if you fall, you’re liable to crack your head open and end up staying here all night. Is that what you want?”
Without another word, he wrapped his arm around her again and headed for the exit.
Damn it. Why had she let that nurse talk her into pain medication? Her head had hurt like crazy, but she certainly could have toughed it out. The Percocet made her bleary-eyed and tremulous and a little nauseated, and right now it felt too good to be leaning on Alex. He was a solid wall of strength and steadiness, and she had the feeling that as long as she held on to him, nothing could touch her.
No. You’re forgetting what he did to you. You may think you can trust him now, but you’d better keep your eyes wide open.
She decided she’d let him take her home, but that was it. Any talking they needed to do about this god-awful mess they could do tomorrow, and someplace besides her apartment. And once this damned drug wore off and she returned to her right mind, she’d never let Alex get near her again.
chapter seven
By the time they arrived at Val’s apartment, Alex could see that she was practically asleep on her feet, though she did everything she could to hide that fact. He pulled her keys from her hand to open her apartment door.
She shot him a look of disgust. “You want to give me back my keys?”
“Come on, Val. You couldn’t even find the keyhole right about now.”
He swung the door open and stepped aside for her to enter. She did. He followed her inside, closing the door behind them.
“Alex, I don’t want you here.”
“That guy could decide to finish the job he started this afternoon. And if he does—”
“See this door?” Val said. “A handle lock, a dead bolt, and a chain. Three very nice barriers against the bad guy. I’ll deploy every one of them just as soon as you’re gone.”
“You really think those locks are going to stop him?”
She swayed unsteadily, as if a gentle breeze might blow her right over.
“Val? Why don’t you lie down before you fall down?”
She closed her eyes and put her hand to her forehead. “I can’t fight you right now, Alex. I can’t. So will you please just do as I ask and go?”
“Lie down, and I might consider it.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Do you have to be so pushy?”
“Yes. Evidently I do.”
Finally she spat out a breath of disgust, then turned and headed through her living room toward the hall.
“Where are you going?”
“To get out of this bloody T-shirt and wash up a little.”
Okay. At least she’d stopped arguing with him. That was half the battle won.
Alex glanced around her apartment. It was just as he remembered it, and that surprised him. Not that it was the same, but that he remembered that it was the same, from the scarred hardwood floors to the rough plaster walls to the thrift-store furniture. He’d been with women whose names he couldn’t even remember, much less their décor, but he remembered this apartment as clearly as if he’d been here yesterday.
He looked at the bookshelves that lined one wall of her living room, filled with an assortment of books so eclectic that anybody on the planet could have found something to keep himself busy. Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time sat right next to a hardcover edition of The Shining, which was next to a tattered copy of Dorland’s Medical Dictionary. The older books contributed to a faint musty smell in her apartment, which mingled with the scent of vintage oak woodwork. People who lived in places like this were generally a little quirky. That described Val perfectly. He’d always wondered why a person like her would want to
become a police officer. It seemed an unlikely career for somebody with her unconventional approach to life. Why had she even pursued it in the first place?
And then he looked at her sofa, and memories came flooding back.
He remembered the surprised expression on Val’s face when she opened her door that night five years ago and saw him standing in the hall. He came inside, sidestepping her questions as to why he was there. He asked her to sit down on the sofa, still looking for the right words to use to break the news to her about the dismissal that was coming the next day. Not once in his life, under any circumstances, could he remember being unable to say something that needed to be said, but this time everything he came there to tell her had gotten stuck in his throat.
Being a police officer wasn’t the right profession for her. In the end, she was going to see that he’d done her a favor by recommending that she be dismissed. She was still young. She still had a hundred opportunities out there to find a direction for her life. He was doing the right thing.
But if he truly believed that, then why were the words so hard to say?
He knew just how much his being there that night knocked her off guard, because as they sat down on the sofa, her eyes narrowed warily, and she refrained from the usual teasing banter she tossed at him. He said something stupid about the weather, or something that had been in the news that day, the kinds of things people say when they can’t think of anything else. Then she tilted her head questioningly, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. Her fingertip seemed to move in slow motion as it curled around her ear, then grazed her neck as she dropped her hand back to her lap. That innocent gesture had made his mouth go dry as parchment.
Just tell her.
He must have silently repeated that to himself at least a hundred times. Getting himself to listen—that had been the problem. But why?
In his younger days, he might as well have installed a revolving door in his apartment for the parade of women he’d dated. But only part of him had shown up for those relationships. They’d been surface kinds of involvements requiring little emotion, emotion that he could turn off and on like a light switch. But something about Val reached right inside him, bone-deep, until he felt as if he couldn’t even find the switch.
