Trouble

by Ann Christopher

  He nailed her with his most penetrating gaze. “How are you, Dara?”

  Oh, so he thought she was suicidal just because he’d rejected her, did he?

  Bastard.

  “Fine,” she said without breaking stride.

  “What are you doing here?” he called after her.

  “Helping Jamal with his writing.”

  You know what? Screw it. She sped up, so desperate to get away from him she didn’t care if she broke into a run. Seeing him again hurt way too much.

  “Dara.”

  She paused, slowed by the unexpected urgency in his voice.

  He hesitated. “Maybe we should talk.”

  Oh, really? So he could explain in greater detail exactly how little she meant to him? No freaking way.

  “I think we’ve said it all,” she said over her shoulder.

  And as she continued up the stairs, she felt the tiny satisfaction of seeing a look of absolute misery fall across his features before her own unhappiness engulfed her.

  A few minutes later, the sound of hurrying feet in the hallway startled her. She jumped back to her feet just as Sean rushed in.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, alarmed by his bloodshot eyes and red-tipped nose. “What happened?”

  “It’s my mother.” He swiped the back of his hand under his nose and collapsed in one of her chairs. “She’s got breast cancer. Again.”

  “Oh, God.” So Mrs. Baldwin had finally told him, had she? Dara kept her gaze lowered, determined not to break Mike’s confidence and reveal that she already knew. “How is she?”

  “She’s already had surgery and started chemotherapy,” he said, voice cracking. “She didn’t even tell me when she was in the hospital the other day.”

  Dara swallowed her irritation. Apparently Halley’s Comet was a more frequent occurrence than Sean’s communications with his mother, who lived right here in town.

  “She probably wanted you to focus on school.”

  “She told Mike,” he said bitterly. “She always turns to Mike.”

  It was getting harder to handle her annoyance, especially when the situation with Mike already had her so edgy. “Now is not the time for sibling rivalry, Sean. What can you do to help her now that you know?”

  Sean shrugged helplessly. “I—I don’t know. I was so upset I didn’t really hear her. She left and said she’d call me later.” His head dropped into his hands. “What am I going to do if Mama dies?”

  Nice pity party, Sean, she thought. No wonder his mother hadn’t told him sooner. What help could he possibly be to her when he was so busy wallowing in me-me-me?

  But then she felt terrible for judging him when she knew everyone handled grief in his or her own way.

  “It’ll be okay, Sean. Everything will be okay. Come here.”

  A hug seemed to be just what the doctor ordered, because he got up, walked straight into her open arms and held on for dear life.

  “It’s okay,” she murmured over and over. “It’s okay.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Startled, Dara let Sean go and looked around. Mike stood in the doorway, watching them with eyes like black ice. His hard gaze swung back and forth between them, then settled on Dara.

  “I thought you were leaving,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I came back.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Mama?” Sean asked quietly.

  Dara suddenly had an image of a younger Sean, scared and needing comfort and reassurance from his older brother. Now was the time for Mike to step up to the plate and offer Sean a comforting word. Only Mike had the power to help Sean at this moment.

  One glance at his thundercloud face told her it was never going to happen.

  “Why don’t you bother calling her once a year?” Mike asked, just as quietly.

  Sean flinched and turned away.

  Dara got in Mike’s face and glared him down, driven by her fury with everything he said and did these days.

  “If that’s all you’ve got to say,” she said, “then I wish you’d leave. I was having a conversation with Sean.”

  Animosity seethed in the air between them until, looking murderous, Mike wheeled around and strode out without a word.

  Cursing, Mike walked into his office and slammed the door shut behind him, making the windows rattle. He circled his neat, work-laden desk, knowing he needed to calm down and sit—to think carefully and clearly—but that was impossible with a red haze of anger clouding his judgment. His galling frustration buzzed inside his head like a hive of agitated bees—Dara; Sean; Dara and Sean—testing the little bit of control he had left.

  And then he blew.

  With a stifled shout, he lunged for the desk and swiped his arms across it, sending dozens of files, notes and assorted office supplies crashing to the floor in an unholy mess. When he straightened, he realized he’d missed the office phone, so he grabbed it, yanked the cord out of the wall and lobbed it at the top of the pile.

  There was a final flutter of paper, then silence.

  “What’re you doing?” asked a quiet voice on the threshold.

  Mike recoiled, blinking. He hadn’t heard the door open.

  Jamal, he realized with relief. It was only Jamal.

  Not that he wanted anyone to see him for the disaster he was at the moment.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  Never one to take a hint, Jamal stepped inside the office and shut the door behind him. “Listen, Pops—”

  “Not. Now.”

  “You can’t keep up like this, man,” Jamal told him quietly.

  “I’m fine,” Mike lied, kicking the phone’s trailing cord out of the way as he turned toward the window and stared blindly out.

  “Bullshit. You gotta work things out with Dara, man.”

  “I am not having this discussion with you.”

  Jamal shook his head and regarded him with eyes that were huge and disbelieving. “Dara belongs with you. You know it and I know it.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s in there”—he violently jerked his thumb in the direction of Dara’s office— “all hugged up with Sean. My brother. Who seems to be in love with her.”

  “She doesn’t want Sean,” Jamal cried.

  Mike leaned against the window, tired down to the marrow inside his bones. Every day since he’d met Dara had aged him two years. “My personal life is not up for discussion,” he said, looking around for his briefcase. “I’m going home and you have English to work on with Dara. Bye.”

  Jamal lingered, opening and closing his mouth.

  “What?” Mike barked.

  “So that’s it? You’re just gonna be a ...a ...martyr because your brother wants her, too? Is that all you got?”

  Jesus.

  “What do you want from me, Jamal?” he shouted.

  “I want you to work things out with Dara.”

  “I can’t!”

  Jamal shook his head sadly. “Then you’re one stupid punk. And you don’t deserve her anyway.”

  When he got home, Mike showered, threw on some sweatpants and stretched out on the bed for some TV. But after he’d made one full circuit of flipping channels, he tossed the remote aside in disgust. Five hundred channels and nothing to watch.

  He went downstairs to the kitchen, rubbing his shoulders as he went. They felt like they’d been encased in twin boulders, and nothing helped to relieve the tension. Not running, not hot showers, nothing. Sex might help, and he briefly considered calling someone—Lisa, maybe—to come over. She’d be willing, with no questions asked, and straight sex with no emotions would give him some temporary relief.

  But what fun would sex with a woman other than Dara be?

  The fridge was fully stocked, so he leaned in to find a snack. Cheese and crackers? Yogurt? A bowl of cereal? Ice cream? Nothing looked appetizing, and all food tasted like dust to him these days.

  He wasn’t really hungry, anyway.

  Slamming the fridge shut, he went th
rough the French doors onto the dark deck. The cold air smacked him across the face and made the gooseflesh rise on his bare chest and back, but he didn’t care. Anything that might help clear his mind was fine by him. The only problem was that nothing cleared his mind. Not anymore.

  Dara hated him. Bottom line.

  He didn’t know how he’d expected her to act at work, but cool detachment sure wasn’t it. She’d looked right through him like he was nothing. It was all his fault, he knew. It was a matter of choosing between his family and Dara, and he couldn’t choose her.

  Whatever the consequences were, he deserved them.

  He’d made his bed, yeah. He just didn’t want to lie in it.

  He debated whether to go inside before he developed frostbite, not that he’d care if he did. This, then, was his nightly ritual. Come home, more work, run, shower, no snack, no sex, roam the house. Eventually, he’d make his way up to his bed and pretend to fall asleep for several hours.

  Tomorrow, he’d do it all over again.

  There was no plan, no grand design. One day at a time was all he could manage. One day at a time for a few more weeks, until her internship ended. He refused to think about whether he’d ever see her again after that—

  Hang on. Was that his phone?

  It was, ringing on the kitchen counter.

  Mike hurried back inside and snatched it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Mike? It’s Miller. District one.”

  One of his Cincinnati police acquaintances? That couldn’t be good.

  “What’s up?” Mike asked, stiffening.

  “I was called to a two-car accident on Liberty. Couple of your employees, a male and a female, got themselves T-boned at a light. The other driver failed the field sobriety. We charged him.”

  Mike blinked and rewound all that information. The words took forever to saturate the working part of his brain, and when they did, stark terror nearly knocked him out. He had to lean against the counter or risk a butt plant on the floor when his knees inevitably gave out. The levelheaded, good-in-a-client-crisis person he’d always been had left the building. In his place stood a man whose mouth and voice refused to work together.

  Jesus, God, please.

  Not Dara, not Dara, not Dara.

  “Is she—?”

  Mike had to stop there. His screaming emotions prevented him from saying either alive or...anything else.

  “They’re at the hospital asking for you,” Miller told him.

  12

  Dara sat by Jamal’s emergency room bed and held his IV-taped hand while he slept. He had a concussion, the doctor had said, and a stitched and bandaged cut on his temple that didn’t look too bad, thank God.

  His fingers moved, snapping her out of bleary exhaustion to full attention.

  “Dara?” he asked faintly, lids fluttering open.

  “Yeah?” She scooted to the edge of her chair.

  “Why don’t you look where the hell you’re going next time?” he demanded, glaring.

  Dara’s jaw hit the floor. “It wasn’t my fault that drunk idiot plowed into us!”

  He grinned. “I’ll need the name of your insurance agent.”

  Laughing, she kissed the uninjured side of his face. “Not a chance. Your mom’ll be here any second, by the way.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I just got one question for you.” Serious again, he fingered his bandage. “Tell the truth.”

  “What is it?”

  “Am I still pretty?”

  When Jamal drifted back to sleep, Dara slipped out through the curtains and slumped on one of the uncomfortable chairs on the outskirts of the waiting area, wondering what she should do. She’d wait until Jamal’s mother arrived, of course, but how would she get home? Her poor little SUV was totaled.

  Mike could take you home.

  Dara ignored the stupid little voice and dug her phone out of her purse. Sure, she’d given his number to the police because he’d want to know about Jamal and would probably come to the hospital right away. But that had nothing to do with her. In fact, she planned to be long gone before he arrived.

  You need Mike.

  Agitated, she found her phone and got up to pace.

  No, she didn’t need Mike, thanks.

  True, she’d never been in a car accident before, and she’d never been as terrified as tonight, when she’d heard the thunderous crash, the scraping and grinding of metal against metal and Jamal’s shout of pain. But everyone was fine, and that was what she needed to focus on.

  That, and making arrangements for a car rental.

  “Dara.”

  Startled, she looked up from her phone.

  Mike was right there, face strained, eyes wide with worry.

  For one paralyzed second, they just stared at each other.

  Then, with a hoarse cry, Mike reached for her, and they came together with rib-crushing force. His muscular body swallowed her up and she felt instantly protected and safe, as though nothing bad could ever possibly reach her when he had an arm around her waist and his other hand cupped her head to anchor it against his solid chest.

  Long seconds passed as they swayed together and she clung to him, listening to the erratic thundering of his heart.

  Until the shakes overcame her in some sort of a delayed reaction she couldn’t control.

  “Shhh,” he murmured, smoothing her hair back from her forehead and cheeks, cooing and offering comfort even though his own body kept shuddering. “You’re okay now. And you’d better not ever scare me like that again. Ever.”

  He pulled back and studied her, his intent face a jumble of dark emotions she’d never seen before.

  “Mike?”

  He seemed not to hear her. His strong, warm hands stroked her face, and he leaned down and pressed fevered kisses on her forehead and both eyes. Without hesitating, he angled her head back and caught her mouth beneath his.

  For half a second she froze.

  Until she forgot she’d been angry with him and, whimpering, kissed him back.

  Hotly. Deeply. Endlessly.

  Mike came to his senses first, releasing her with a couple of lingering nips. But he kept a hand firmly around her waist when he steered her toward Jamal’s cubicle, as though he knew how dazed she suddenly was and didn’t want to risk her running into the nearest wall.

  Slowly coming out of it, she touched a hand to her burning lips.

  Then she got mad.

  Wait a minute.

  Had she really just kissed this SOB? After he’d told her all he wanted was to screw her?

  Yeah. Yeah, she had.

  Had anything actually changed between them?

  No. Nothing whatsoever.

  Of course he was worried about her now. Who wouldn’t be? She could’ve been killed. But what about half an hour from now? How long before he pushed her away again?

  “I want to see Jamal for a minute,” he informed her. “Then I’m taking you home.”

  Frowning, she opened her mouth to argue.

  His grip on her tightened as he led her through the curtain and back to Jamal’s bedside. “Don’t even think about arguing.”

  Dara snapped her mouth shut, fuming.

  Jamal now sat up in bed, sipping a drink. “What’s up, Pops? Your girl here tried to kill me.”

  Mike grinned and shook his hand. “Who hasn’t?”

  “Can I get workers’ comp for this?” Jamal asked hopefully. “Dara was driving me home from work.”

  “Nope. Sorry.” Mike shot Dara a sidelong glower. “And that’s something we need to discuss, since I distinctly remember you promising me you’d never go to Jamal’s neighborhood again.”

  Uh-oh. She’d been afraid he’d get around to that. A few weeks ago, when she’d discovered Jamal had left an important notebook—which he’d needed for his classes—at the office after one of her tutoring sessions with him, she’d driven by herself to Jamal’s sketchy neighborhood at ni
ght to deliver it. Neither Jamal nor Mike had been amused. Looking back, it hadn’t been one of her brighter moments, but Mike had let her have it with both barrels, carrying on as though she’d strapped a raw steak to her neck and walked naked into the zoo’s tiger enclosure.

  “Alone,” she said coolly, as if her heart wasn’t pounding ten miles a minute. “I said I’d never go there alone. And someone needed to take Jamal home.”

  “Yeah?” Mike pressed his lips together with grim satisfaction. “Well, now someone needs to take you home. I’m someone. How do you like them apples?”

  Dara tried to unlock her apartment door, but some debilitating combination of PTSD and anger at both herself and Mike made her hands fumble with the keys until Mike took them from her. His hands, naturally, were steadier than a neurosurgeon’s as he turned the bolt. After holding the door for her, he quickly followed her inside, making it impossible for her to do what she really wanted, which was slam the door in his face.

  God.

  How could she have been so stupid back at the hospital?

  He was a jerk, but she was clearly an idiot. Who else but an idiot would kiss someone—desperately need someone—mere days after he’d dismissed her in the crudest and cruelest possible way?

  He’d hurt her. Bad. Ergo, he was not welcome here and needed to get the hell out of her apartment. Now.

  She wheeled around to block him before he made it out of the foyer. “I’m good. Thanks for dropping me off. Bye.”

  “Dara,” he said quietly, “I want to talk to you.”

  “Now isn’t a good time.” She struggled with her quivering lower lip, desperate not to dissolve into tears in front of him again. “I’m really tired and I still need to call my insurance agent—”

  He nodded like the soul of understanding, put his hands in his pockets and hung his head as though he hated to disturb her at this delicate juncture. But he didn’t budge.

  “This can’t wait.”

  “It’ll have to,” she said flatly.

  His gaze flickered up to hers. Determined. Sad. Vulnerable.

  God, it hurt to look at him.

  Dara turned away, every glimpse of those amber eyes a stab of pain deep into the center of her chest, where her heart used to be. If he stuck around any longer, she’d bleed out onto the floor and die.