by Jill Shalvis
“I’m not taking the easy way out on this one.”
“I can see that.”
“She’s in danger, Brody. And she’s not calling back. That could just be because I’m a stupid prick, but it could also be more.”
“So you’re going to go find her because she might be in danger.”
“No, I’m going because this is the new me. The new me who sticks.”
Brody sighed again. “Go then. Go stick.”
“I will.” But it didn’t escape him that for the first time in his life, he was choosing a woman over a flight.
Dani recorded elephant behavior all day, and afterward, ran into Reena in the employee locker room.
“Saw you’re getting Saturdays off now,” Reena said, changing back to her street clothes. “Doesn’t suck to be head keeper, does it?”
“I could probably get you a few Saturdays off too.”
Reena shut her locker and shook her head. “I don’t want any favors.”
“But—”
“Seriously. Don’t.”
Dani began to change, hating the unaccustomed distance between them. “I have the new Depp DVD. Do you want to—”
“Can’t. Some of us are going for sushi, but you can come with us if you’d like.”
Dani hadn’t slept in two days—except for that hour in Shayne’s arms. “I really can’t. I’m—”
“—Management now. Gotcha.” Reena grabbed her backpack and headed to the door.
“Reena.”
The door shut just a little harder than necessary.
“Damn it.” Dani changed, then walked out to her car, alone. She told herself her skin was not prickling, but she braced herself for the sound of gunfire anyway.
Nothing.
Of course it was nothing. She’d gotten a message from Shayne’s brother, saying they believed it could have been some kids playing target practice with the tall lampposts.
She wanted to believe that. With all her heart, she wanted to believe that.
Reena was just getting into her car. Dani called out to her. “Are you sure about the movie? I have double fudge ice cream to go with.”
Reena smiled, but shook her head.
“I’m sorry about the damn promotion.”
“No, it has nothing to do with that. Really.” But her smile seemed just a little forced.
“Reena.”
“Look, I’m meeting a date later. Okay? That’s all it is.”
Dani had to accept that. She drove home, stared at her front door with some hesitation before unlocking it. She shoved it open to prove her bravery, but once again just peered in from the doorway.
Safety first.
It looked fine. Everything was in its place. No sign of anyone having been inside while she’d been gone. She stepped inside but didn’t shut the door all the way to allow for her hasty getaway if her quick inspection didn’t turn out okay.
But all seemed normal. She distracted herself with the mail, and then the Visa bill, and then with a phone call from her dentist reminding her of a cleaning in two days.
Then she changed into her most comfy sweats—a pair of men’s bottoms left over from a past boyfriend, three sizes too big but perfect for ice cream consumption—and a camisole top.
And while she was in her bedroom, she slopped on a facial mask. It was green and smelled like avocado, which would conflict with the ice cream, but it made her skin feel like a baby’s butt and would go a long way toward lifting her morale.
This was not a pity party, she reminded herself.
Well, not officially, anyway.
She put the movie into the DVD player and plopped on the couch with a big wooden spoon and the ice cream. The only thing that would have improved on the evening would have been a big bag of popcorn, but she’d forgotten to restock from her last pity party.
Not a pity party.
Ah, hell. It was a pity party. But she could do this without the popcorn. The opening credits of her movie were just rolling when someone knocked on the door, making it creak open an inch or two.
Unbelievable. She’d never gone back to shut the damn door. So much for safety first. Heart in her throat, she looked around for her bat.
“Dani?”
Oh, good God. All her air escaped her and she sagged back into the couch. The man calling her name wasn’t her invisible murderer.
Or her equally invisible mystery sniper.
But someone just as dangerous—Shayne.
Chapter 14
Slipping down onto the couch, Dani found herself stuck in place like a deer caught in headlights.
“Dani?”
“She’s not here.” Sinking farther into herself, she closed her eyes. “She . . . left the building.”
“Uh-huh.” Shayne shut the door. She heard the lock click into place.
“Go away.”
“Not until I leave a message. Tell Dani that Shayne came by.”
“Shayne? The pilot? The, what did the business card read, president of operations?”
He sighed. “Saw that, did you?”
“Hard to miss. It was embossed in gold.”
“Maddie’s doing.”
“President of operations, Shayne. Not just a pilot. Not by a long shot.”
“There’s other things to talk about,” he said. “Like why the hell is your door unlocked?”
Scrunched down as far as possible, the ice cream and spoon still in her hand, she was rooted to the spot by several facts.
One, she was wearing huge pity-party sweats.
Two, she’d gone through nearly half the ice cream already and the sugar high was quickly turning to wooziness, a direct cause of number three.
Which was why at just the sound of his irritated voice, her entire body had gone on high red-alert status, including nipples hardening, belly quivering, and a whole host of other things too.
Good God, she was worse than Pavlov’s dog. “You’re supposed to knock.”
“I did.”
“And wait for a response!” Craning her neck, she took a peek. She couldn’t help herself.
Yep.
There he was, in the flesh. Wearing his pilot gear, which consisted of blue trousers, a white button-down shoved up at the elbows with Sky High’s logo on a hard pec, and aviator sunglasses, which at the sight of her he pulled off. That meant that those piercing light brown eyes landed directly on her without any barrier.
Great. So much better.
Except not. With a groan, she sank farther down in the couch and tried to vanish.
Shayne frowned at the couch. What the hell was she doing? Besides avoiding his calls.
Then the couch spoke. “Why are you here?”
“Good question.”
“If you don’t know—”
“Oh, I know why I’m here. Why the hell didn’t you return my calls?”
“Well—”
“And why the hell is your door unlocked?”
“You already asked that.”
“Still waiting for an answer that makes sense.”
“Fine. I got a little distracted.”
Tired of talking to the couch, he came around the front of the couch to face her. She wore green monster face paint on her face. Her hair had gone wild on top of her head, though he could see another yellow number-two pencil in there trying to hold it all together. Her entire lower body had been swallowed whole by a pair of sweats that looked like they might belong on a four-hundred-pound rapper. And then there was the ice cream, and not just a bowl either, but an entire gallon.
That was some serious ice cream consumption. “Bad time?” he asked.
“Yes, actually.” She bristled a bit, which looked comical in green. “I’m . . .” She shoved the wooden spoon and ice cream behind her back, as if he hadn’t already seen them. “Busy.”
“Ah.”
At that, she lifted her chin, playing the I-don’t-care-that-I-look-like-shit game. Good tactic, one he might have taken himself, though he do
ubted he’d have looked even half as adorable as she while playing it.
“Very busy,” she added.
A drop of the green mask fell from her nose and plopped to her camisole top.
“Very, very busy,” she added, her voice a bit smaller now as she tried to surreptitiously rub the green into her sweats.
So damned adorable. “I can see that.” He said this with an utterly straight face, but she rolled her eyes, set down the ice cream and the spoon, and got to her feet.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” she said pointedly, looking at the door.
“You didn’t return my phone calls.”
“No, I didn’t.” She took in his expression and shook her head. “That’s never happened to you before, has it?”
He rubbed his jaw while trying to decide the right answer to that.
She laughed again, then put her hands to her face. “This is drying. Don’t make me laugh, I’ll crack.”
In his pocket, his cell phone vibrated, but he ignored it. He didn’t have a flight, and everything else could wait. “You smell like avocados.”
“Why are you here again?”
“Are you kidding me? Last night you thought you saw a murder.”
“I’m sure that happens.”
“No, actually. It doesn’t happen. Then you had someone in this very apartment.”
“I might have been mistaken about that part.”
“And you were shot at. You weren’t mistaken about that.”
She went on the defensive, in her big sweats and green face mask. “How do you know they weren’t shooting at you, Shayne? You ever think of that?”
He gave her a long look, and with a sigh, she plopped back to the couch. “Okay, fine. What’s your point?”
“My point is . . .” Actually, he had no idea. She turned him upside down and sideways, with seemingly little effort. He shouldn’t have come, and yet not coming hadn’t been an option.
Hunkering down at her side, he looked into her face. Her green face. “A call back might have eased my mind.”
“Okay, well, I’m sorry about that.”
“Something might have happened to you.”
“It didn’t.”
“I was worried.”
She blinked, as if that hadn’t occurred to her. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
She looked down into the ice cream on the coffee table, and then at him, and this time, her eyes had warmed. “I’m sorry.”
“It never occurred to you I might be concerned?”
“That’s not what I thought you were calling for.”
“What did you think I was calling for?”
Her telephone rang, shattering the sudden silence. Looking relieved to be saved by the bell, she got up, flashing him a very brief view of the top of a pale blue thong before she yanked up the slipping sweats and stalked toward the telephone.
He sank to the couch and tried to concentrate past that pale blue. He’d come to make sure she was okay. Now that he could see that she was, he could leave.
Should leave.
Damn it. He didn’t want to.
Dani frowned at the phone, then hung it up.
“Wrong number?” Shayne asked, sitting on her couch like he belonged.
“No one was there.” She felt him watching her. “A hang-up.”
“Do you have caller ID?”
“No.”
“You need caller ID, Dani.”
With a sigh, she plopped at his side on the couch, tilted her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “I know. But for now, I’d like to keep pretending that it was just a wrong number.”
He put a hand on her leg. Her entire body went back on high alert.
“Back to my earlier question,” he murmured. “What did you think I came here for?”
It wasn’t easy to think past the hand he had on her knee. In fact, it was impossible.
“Dani?”
She sighed. “A booty call.”
“A booty call.”
She lifted her gaze to his, and for the longest beat he just looked at her, clearly surprised.
Okay, now she didn’t know which was worse. That she’d said it out loud, or that she’d been wrong.
“A booty call,” he repeated. “Jesus.”
She tried to get up, but he pressed a hand to her leg, holding her still. She closed her eyes. “My being mistaken makes me an even bigger loser than sitting here with a mask on, halfway through a gallon of ice cream all by myself.”
“Now, see, you didn’t have to admit that part.” She felt him lean forward, look into the carton. “Wow. You weren’t kidding.”
“Please. Just go out the door and pretend you weren’t ever here.”
“Dani.”
She didn’t answer.
“Dani.”
With a sigh, she opened her eyes and looked at him.
