Dealing with Annie

by Jill Shalvis

  AFTER SCOTT LEFT, Ian let himself into Annie’s house. As before, it was neat and tidy as a pin, with everything in its place, smelling like lemon oil.

  He was fairly certain Thomas didn’t use lemon oil to dust. He was fairly certain Thomas didn’t dust.

  Here, every room had happy, healthy plants that looked to be thriving.

  The one pot of flowers at Thomas’s place sat on the kitchen windowsill, dead as a doorknob.

  Annie’s living room had an antique canoe flat against one wall, used for a shelf that held books. The rock fireplace was unique, with some Native American artifacts decorating the stone shelves. The curtains were lacy and drawn back to let the daylight in. The richly detailed room brought to mind elegance and sophistication—the virtual opposite of Thomas’s.

  Both the kitchen and living room were empty, so he helped himself and climbed the stairs, cursing only slightly at his aching leg. There was a pillowed nook halfway up, with a book facedown, as if someone had recently been sitting there reading. He could see Annie there, her long hair flowing around her shoulders, her lips parted—

  Down, boy.

  The kiss had been one of his more stupid moves, since he couldn’t get it out of his head now. He wondered if Annie was having the same problem.

  He found them in Aunt Gerdie’s bedroom, Annie busily tucking a comforter around the older woman, who was in a four-poster bed surrounded by a mountain of fluffy pillows.

  He stood in the doorway, watching as Annie leaned in and kissed her aunt’s cheek, fussing with the covers, babbling as she made her aunt comfortable. “I’ll bring you tea later, and something hot to eat, and then—”

  Gerdie put a hand on Annie’s. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Just rest—”

  “I know how much work I am,” Gerdie whispered. “And you’re so busy—”

  “Now, you just stop.”

  “I’m such a burden—”

  “No. Never.” Annie touched Aunt Gerdie’s cheek. “I don’t want to hear any more talk like that. My God, you’re my only true family. You raised me when everyone else just walked away.”

  “Oh, Annie…”

  “I love you, Aunt Gerdie, so much.”

  As they embraced, Ian knew he should move away, give them their privacy, but he stood riveted to the spot as something deep within him softened.

  Had he ever been so totally responsible for someone? Taken care of them, put their needs first, no matter what?

  No, he had to admit, he hadn’t. He’d grown up with a warm, loving, bossy mother, and a strict but equally warm, loving, bossy father, and they’d been there for him every step of his childhood and beyond. If they’d had any idea how bad his leg had been, if he’d even told them he’d been shot, they’d be here right now, breathing fire down his neck to rest and get better.

  But never in his life had he had to do anything for them in return. He’d never had to nurse anyone back to health, had never had to care for any living soul other than himself.

  The very opposite of Annie’s life.

  Always, he’d kept work and his family separate. So separate he could see now that he’d missed out on something.

  “Now, you just rest,” Annie whispered to Aunt Gerdie with a sweet smile as she pulled back. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  The women in Ian’s life had all been around the block a time or two, and overtly sexy. None of them had been soft, warm and gentle, not a single one out of the bunch. He’d never wanted a woman like that.

  So why the hell did his heart clench just looking at Annie? Why was he swallowing a large lump of emotion in his throat? Why was he thinking about her all the time, wanting to be with her?

  Walk away, you idiot. Just turn around and walk out.

  Go home.

  And not home to the farm across the road, either, where he’d face a growling pig and an older brother who thought they knew it all.

  He meant he should get the hell out of Cooper’s Corner, away from wide-open spaces and no damn noise. He should go back to New York where it was noisy and crowded—his two favorite things. That was where he belonged.

  There, he could lick his wounds in his own damn apartment, in his own environment. And, anyway, his leg was feeling better, much better. In fact, that desk job he’d turned his nose up at was looking damn good, especially if he didn’t have to do anything more than sit. Yeah, he could sit just fine. He could be back at work in no time at all, assuming he could talk Commander Dickhead—er, Commander Richards—out of his remaining three weeks of leave.

  Bur he just stood there, watching Annie.

  * * *

  ANNIE KISSED AUNT GERDIE, then stood up. And jumped a little at the sight of Ian lounging in the doorway. Apparently she was more on edge than she thought if simply looking at the man could make her jump.

  “Is she okay?” he murmured when she walked toward him.

  She held a finger to her lips and moved out of the room. He followed her, and as he did, she became vibrantly aware of him behind her, tall and silent, big and bad, ready for anything. She could feel him studying her, feel his intensity, and in spite of herself, a little shiver ran down her spine.

  She kept going, down the steps, through the living room to the kitchen, where she was planning on having a hot cup of tea, possibly laced with Aunt Gerdie’s secret stash of fine liquor. She wasn’t a drinker, but thought maybe that could change today.

  “She’ll be fine after a nap,” she said when she heard Ian limp into the room behind her. “She’s tired.”

  When he just looked at her, his eyes filled with understanding, she sighed. “She’s getting tired more and more.”

  “She’s getting up there in years.”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “What you do with her…taking care of her and everything…it’s pretty amazing.”

  “She’s family.”

  “Not everyone would do it.” He gestured to a chair. “Sit down, Annie. We need to talk.”

  “Uh-oh.” She headed for the stove and put water on to boil. “That sounds serious, you wanting to talk.”

  “Are you going to sit?”

  She turned and faced him, her big, tough, unbearably sexy neighbor with the unsmiling eyes and grim mouth. “Are you?”

  He let out an annoyed sound—a patented Ian sound that came from deep in his throat. “Are you always this difficult?”

  She considered that and had to smile. “Pretty much.”

  “Fine.” He pulled out a chair and gratefully sank into it, stretching out his bad leg. Then gestured to the next chair. “Now you.”

  “This must be bad.” She found her hands shaking as she pulled out a chair and sat. “All right, let’s get it over with.”

  “Officer Hunter just told me about two other cars that had their tires slashed yesterday like yours. He said they were done by two high school boys. The cars were owned by the mothers of the two girls who’d dumped the boys the day before.”

  Annie’s stomach fell as the implications of that sank in. “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m not an idiot, Ian. Obviously I’m not the mother of an errant high school girl, and therefore neither of these boys had any motive for slashing my tires.”

  “Exactly.”

  She glanced down at her hands, which were still shaking. What she needed was the calming body lotion she’d been working on earlier, the aromatherapy-based softener, scented to soothe the nerves.

  She probably needed the entire batch.

  “So…” Ian tapped his fingers on the table and looked at her. “We’re back to the same question. Who wants to hurt you?”

  “The thought of anyone being after me seems pretty out there.”

  “Heard from Dennis again?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think he wants?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Could he want you back?”

  She laugh
ed. “No.”

  “Why is that funny?”

  “Because I didn’t break up with him, he broke up with me.”

  Good Lord, his eyes were deep. “Did he break your heart, Annie?”

  Unable to maintain the eye contact, she turned away. “I’ve had plenty walk away from me. No big deal.”

  “Are you talking about your parents?”

  “Everyone in my life has walked away except Aunt Gerdie.” Why that far-too-honest statement popped out of her mouth, she’d never know, but she closed her eyes when he gently turned her to face him. “Don’t get off track here, okay?” she said with a shaky laugh. “I have bigger problems than this at the moment.”

  “Such as?”

  Such as you, and the way you make me feel. She opened her eyes. “Jenny called. You don’t by any chance get the New York Times?”

  “Thomas does.”

  “Maybe he saw the article, then, the one where Stella told the world that I’m a big fake, that I don’t even use my own products.”

  “And Stella is…?”

  “Stella Oberman—she runs her father’s makeup empire, Sunshine Enterprises. She’s so far out of my league it’s amazing she’s even bothering to try to ruin me.” She caught the speculation on his face. “And no, Stella isn’t wasting her time with crank calls and slicing tires. That would be far beneath her, trust me.”

  “You’d be surprised at what lengths people will go to in order to get what they want.”

  She thought of what she wanted, and without her permission, her gaze dropped to his mouth as she remembered how it felt against hers. Suddenly aware that it was so quiet in the room she could hear her own breathing, and his, she surged to her feet.

  For lack of something else to do, she grabbed a sponge and started wiping down the counters. Until a large, warm hand settled over hers, halting her efforts.

  She went still. Though he hadn’t touched her anywhere else, she could almost feel the length of him pressed up against her. To ensure it, she nearly leaned back, shocking herself at how much she wanted to have his chest pressing to her back, the fronts of his legs to the backs of hers.

  And all the spots in between.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said softly.

  Afraid? She wasn’t afraid, she was the opposite. She was heating up from the inside out, and all because of how he looked at her, how he touched her.

  “I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  Well, if that ridiculous misplaced male need to protect the pretty little woman didn’t clear every last little bit of sexual haze from her brain. With a low, mirthless laugh, she whirled to face him.

  A mistake, as he was even closer than she’d imagined, and now their body parts lined up as she’d thought, but the impact was all the greater face-to-face. “Go home, Ian.”

  “Annie—”

  “I mean it.” She put two hands to his chest and pushed, only feeling a slight twinge of guilt when she caught him off guard and he put too much weight on his bad leg and winced. “I want to think, and I can’t do that with you here, hovering.”

  “Hovering?” He let out a huff of disbelief. “I never hover.”

  “Could have fooled me. I don’t need a mother.”

  “A mother?”

  “Or a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal of a man.” Maybe another day she’d laugh at the horror on his face.

  “I’m pretty damn positive I do not drag my knuckles when I walk,” he grated out. “I just…”

  “What, Ian? You just what?”

  “I just want you safe, damn it.”

  “Because you worry about all the citizens in Cooper’s Corner? Is that it?”

  “Because I worry about you,” he said tensely. “And I think you know that. I think you know why.”

  “So we’re back to that…thing between us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But what I need from you is the one thing you can’t give me.”

  He blinked. “What the hell can’t I give you?”

  He was such a guy, she marveled, and might have laughed, if this wasn’t so serious.

  “What, Annie? Tell me.”

  “It’s what you won’t give me.” She was mortified to suddenly find her voice a little shaky. “I want your friendship, Ian. But in case you didn’t notice, you’re a man, and I’m a woman—”

  “I’ve noticed,” he said tightly.

  “And you’ve made it quite clear that a man and a woman can’t be friends.” She went to her back door, hauled it open for him.

  “Annie—” He let out a disparaging sound and looked at a complete loss for words.

  “I want more than you can give me,” she whispered. “It’s just that simple.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IAN MADE IT BACK TO Thomas’s house and sank his sorry butt into a kitchen chair. How was it he was worrying about a woman he’d just met? Worrying about her life? Worrying about her feelings, for God’s sake? He, a man who didn’t like to admit such a thing as feelings existed.

  Leaning back, he closed his eyes, concentrating on the race of his heart, the ache in his thigh.

  Man, getting shot was a bitch.

  So was getting yelled at by a woman.

  After he caught his breath, he downed an entire glass of water and dialed a friend from back home. “Dean, I need a favor.”

  “No way in hell,” said the New York cop.

  Ian sighed. “You’re not still mad about Cici.”

  “You dumped my baby sister.”

  “She dumped me!”

  “Did she break your heart?” Dean asked.

  “Crushed it,” Ian vowed, fingers and toes crossed.

  “Positive?”

  “Positive.”

  “Well…” Dean sighed. “You’ve heard those vigilantes you’ve been chasing struck again, right? With Tony leading the way?”

  “No.”

  “They took out Jimbo Santori this time.”

  “Jesus.” Jimbo had made his millions in transporting drugs. It had taken a year and forty-five agents to bring him in, but they’d done it.

  Jimbo had been scheduled to go to trial next month, where they’d hoped to get important information out of him and see justice served.

  Now he was dead by the hands of the man Ian should have been able to stop. The fury had his heart racing all over again. “How the hell did they manage it?”

  “I figure Tony’s got someone on the inside. There’s an internal investigation, so we’ll find out soon enough. The worst part, though, now there’s actually a movement of sympathy with these vigilantes, since the public is happy to have Santori dead.”

  “But how did they get to him in jail?”

  “Rumor is it wasn’t a ‘they,’ but Tony himself, since he got away when you—er…”

  “Yeah, yeah, so he shot me. I shot him back.”

  “Really? That little tidbit never hit the papers.”

  “I made a hit, I can promise you that. And I’ll find him,” Ian vowed.

  “You’re on mandatory leave.”

  “Just tell me how it was done.”

  “Jimbo? He was being transferred from court back to his cell. Took him out with a long-powered rifle. As if Tony knew where and when he’d make a good target.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah. So… What’s the favor?”

  It took him a moment to remember. “I want you to run a Dennis Anderson, Stella Oberman and a Jenny Boler.”

  “Wait. Stella, the makeup guru Stella?”

  “You know her?”

  “My wife uses all her crap. Takes up all the counter space in the bathroom.”

  “How soon can you get back to me?”

  “I’ll do what I can. Stay out of trouble.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just get me something good.”

  Ian hung up just as Thomas walked into the kitchen. He grabbed a liter of soda and stood in front of the open refrigerator, head tipped back as he drank straight out of the container.

>   Only when half the soda was gone and he’d wiped his mouth with the back of his hand did he glance at Ian. “You’re relaxing, huh?”

  Though it hurt like hell, he pretended to stretch, plastering a bored look on his face. “Yes, perfectly relaxed.”

  “I should have Mom wash your mouth out with soap for that lie.” Thomas straddled a chair and sat. “I heard you on the phone.”

  “I was just calling to have a few people checked out.”

  “Give it up, Ian. Why don’t you just go the hell back to the city, huh? I can’t help you.”

  “Thomas—”

  “I mean it. You’re hopeless.”

  “Look, this isn’t about work.”

  “Bullsh—”

  “Would you listen?” Ian shoved his fingers through his hair and dragged in a deep breath, unable to believe it himself. “This isn’t about work,” he repeated carefully. “This is about…”

  “About…what? Spit it out.”

  “Okay, but if you laugh, I’ll hurt you. I swear it.”

  Unimpressed, Thomas just lifted a brow.

  “It’s about Annie. About how I feel about her.”

  “And how do you feel about her?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but my heart hurts instead of my leg.”

  “Your heart.”

  “Yes.”

  Thomas stared at him.

  Ian waited.

  “You even have a heart?” Thomas finally asked, and Ian growled, surging to his feet.

  Thomas got to his, too, and blocked Ian’s exit, his grin so wide Ian wanted to put his fist through it. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for being so damned idiotic, or for pissing me off?”

  “Both.” Thomas’s grin faded. “You’ve never done this before. Cared about a woman like this.”

  “I don’t know if I’m doing it now. It’s only been a week.”

  “Trust me, you’re doing it. I can see it in your eyes. Damn, Ian…do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I don’t! Just today I thought about running back to New York.” Ian shook his head in disbelief. “But then I look at her…” Images flitted through his head. Annie’s smile, her laugh, the way she made him feel when she directed either of them his way… “Christ. You think getting shot is bad, try falling for a woman. And so don’t bother telling me to relax ever again, I don’t think it’s possible now.”