by Lynn Turner
“I’m-” Mina tried, then winced. She sounded like she’d been out of it three years instead of minutes, her voice small and hoarse.
“Drink this.” Tara handed her a pouch with a straw. “Deep breath…”
Mina winced again as the medic’s expert hands reached her shoulder, then obediently sipped, aware of Zack’s sharp eyes moving over her face and body, then back up to her shaking hands. Acute humiliation at him seeing her so haggard brought a new kind of heat to her face. Enfin… he wasn’t exactly Fred Astaire, either. There were shadows under his eyes, and his hair stuck out in places it usually lay smooth, like he’d run his fingers through it more than once. His jaw was so tense, it could have been made of steel and bolts.
But more than any of that, was the way his body filled the space. He wasn’t threatening—not to her. He was like the swan, she realized. Raising his wings, spreading his feathers. Protecting her. She felt a lump in her throat. After feeling so small and scared and powerless, she welcomed the flood of relief in her body at the sight of him. Despite her earlier resolve to end things before they began, she found herself fighting the urge to throw her arms around his neck and squeeze.
“I’m…” She almost said, I’m fine, but that wasn’t true. She’d never been a good liar, and she was so tired. “I… don’t know.”
“What happened, petite? Where were you?”
“In a minute,” Tara’s voice was kind, but firm. “Almost done, Mina. When was the last time you ate or drank?”
Mina shifted her eyes to the left, away from Zack’s penetrating stare, to the back of the ambulance where Faye and two officers were observing quietly. Faye looked particularly rapt, her gaze going back and forth between Mina and Zack like a ping pong ball.
Merde.
“Eh, this morning.” She forced her attention back to Tara. “It was early. I… think I had a banana before the gym…and a green juice a-after pointe class.”
“Do you remember what time it was?”
Mina still felt a little shaky and sipped the salty-sweet concoction in the pouch again. “Nine hours.”
“Nine o’clock?”
“Oui. Sorry. Yes, nine o’clock.”
Tara glanced at her watch and marked something on a clipboard. “Good. That’s very good, Mina.”
“What time is it now, s’il vous plaît?”
“About two-thirty. We’re treating you for heat exhaustion, exercise-related collapse, and dehydration.”
Another medic—male, about the same age, handed something to Tara, and the crackle of plastic filled the ambulance.
“Your shoulder’s a little tender,” she said, gently. “Is it an old injury, or relatively new?”
Ice cold met her shoulder and Mina jerked, then relaxed, hazarding a glance at Zack. She was pretty sure he hadn’t blinked since he’d entered the ambulance. “New,” she said quietly, and the clamp on her finger began to beep in time with her quickening pulse. “I was—it happened so fast. He took my bag. He pulled so hard—”
“What?” Zack boomed.
Mina flinched. He filled her vision completely, his hands on her knees. “You’re saying you were mugged? Jesus, are you ok?” His frantic eyes moved over her face, her hairline (which probably looked like the matted fur of a black sheep) and trailed her body again. “For Christ’s sake, why didn’t you lead with that?”
“Just grasping at straws here,” said Faye, “but this might be why.”
He ignored her. “Did you see the guy? Where were you? Did he hurt you?”
“We’ll get to that,” Tara snapped, waving him out of the way. “I think we should get you to the hospital for an x-ray—”
“Non!” Mina was exhausted. She couldn’t stand much more poking and prodding. Besides, she didn’t need x-ray confirmation. She was certain her shoulder was sprained. It was nothing. She’d had much worse.
Tara’s expression softened. “You aren’t the first stubborn dancer I’ve treated. Let’s make a deal,” she said to both Mina and Zack. “You need to rest. Forty-eight hours, minimum.”
Mina gasped.
“Forty-eight hours, no hospital. I’ll send you home with some ice packs, which you can use as-needed. Make sure you get plenty of fluids, and…” she directed her scowl at Zack “…try and keep the stress to a minimum.”
Unfazed, Zack looked Mina over again, then nodded, as if assuring himself she was whole. “I’ll be right outside, okay? I’m right here.”
Giving her knee a squeeze, he ducked from the ambulance.
“Mina?”
Mina watched until he stepped out of view with the officers again. Faye gave her a sympathetic smile and followed suit. Seconds later, muffled voices filtered into the air, blending with the surrounding noise of the city.
“Mina,” Tara said again. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Other than your shoulder?”
Mina trembled at the horror of the underlying question. “N-non. Just my shoulder. He took my bag and then he ran.”
Tara clasped Mina’s shaky hands. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You were lucky, you know. This is one of the hottest summers on record. We treated a couple of two-hundred-pound marathon runners last week who weren’t so lucky.” She patted her hands and signed another form. “I’m clearing you to go home. You okay to give the police your statement?”
“Oui, I can do that.”
“Good.” She smiled, handing off her clipboard to the other medic.
Sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the ambulance, taking unenthused nips at a peanut butter protein bar, Mina answered the officer’s questions. There was no ignoring Zack’s imposing presence, and honestly, his ticks were fascinating. She recorded each one in her mind, stowing them to obsess over later.
“What is your full name?”
“Wilhelmina Fiona Allende.”
Curious left brow.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Jaw muscle tick.
“Where were you?”
“Central Park.”
“Were you alone?”
“Oui.”
Jaw muscle. Vein in left temple.
“Walk me through. What brought you to the park? What were you doing when you were attacked?”
“I had to get out of my apartment. I… I needed to get away from…myself. I didn’t want to be alone.”
Adam’s apple. Jaw muscle. Left brow.
The officer scratched his jaw. “So, you were meeting someone at the park?”
“Non. I went to see the swans. I… needed to think.”
Knowing, all-pervading stare.
Merde.
“I see. You went to the lake, near the Conservatory Gardens.”
“Oui.”
“About what time was that?”
“Half past ten.”
“Did you notice anything strange before the attack?”
“I—I had a strange feeling…like I was being watched. It’s—stupide.”
“It might not be. Most of these cases are crimes of opportunity, but people who stick to a predictable routine make easy targets.”
Tightened jaw. Thin lips. Green eyes cooling to black.
She looked away. “The park isn’t part of my usual routine.”
The officer scribbled some notes. Zack stared a hole into the side of her face.
“How long have you had this feeling?”
“A couple of days, I think. I don’t know…” She bit her bottom lip. “I’m a private person, so it may be my anxiety about being recognized.”
“Let’s not rule it out. Can you remember what your attacker looked like?… About how old was he?… What race?… Any identifying marks or tattoos?”
She couldn’t help herself. She looked at Zack again.
Brows, lips, jaw, Adam’s apple…clenched fists.
She sighed. The rest of her statement took twenty minutes.
“And you walked here, without stopping anywhere else, from the Conservatory G
ardens to Times Square?”
“Oui. I had no keys, no phone, no money.” She didn’t look at Zack this time. The hopelessness in the aftermath of the moment caved in on her, and she swallowed down a sob.
“How long did that take?”
“Almost two hours. I-I got lost a-a few times.”
Muffled curses.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” The officer was no longer looking down at his notebook.
Mina hesitated.
“It’s alright, take your time.”
“His eyes were—he looked scared to me. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s almost like…he didn’t want to do it. He said please. What kind of thief says please?”
“You said he was young. It might have been his first time.”
She nodded, eager to accept the first logical explanation, even as her stomach lurched in apprehension. Her entire body sagged, and she buried her face in her hands.
“Is that enough?” Zack asked, but it sounded more like, That’s enough.
“I think we have what we need for now.” The officer nodded once at his partner to confirm. “I suggest you cancel your credit cards and get new locks. Try not to go anywhere secluded alone.”
Chapter Fifteen
Mina protested weakly against Zack taking her home, and when he unceremoniously told her to shut up, she didn’t argue any further. She didn’t even call him an ass, which was concerning. It was fine with him that she didn’t speak much on the way to her apartment. He seemed to have lost his flair for quick, witty conversation anyway. At five in the evening, there was no parking available, because of course everyone in New York City owned a car for the express purpose of hoarding a parking space for all eternity. Muttering a string of curses, he prepared to circle around again.
“What are you doing?” Mina sat up straighter, wincing.
He dropped his eyes to her shoulder, then back to her face. “Looking for someplace to park.”
She stopped fidgeting with her seatbelt. “Non, you can’t come up.”
“I’m coming up.”
“Zack-”
“You were mugged. I just want to make sure you’re safe, petite. Then I’ll go.”
Worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, she seemed at war with herself for a few seconds, then relaxed. “Fine. There’s a garage underneath the building. The entrance is on the street opposite.”
“Where am I going?” he asked when they were underground.
“I’m unit eight—over there.”
He pulled into the narrow space and switched off the engine. Gently, he brushed his fingers through the mess of curls at her hairline, grinning when they snagged on a tangle. “I don’t think you need to worry about anyone recognizing you.”
“Connard!” she snapped, turning her face away.
There it is.
His heart twisted.
He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her in two days, and when he finally did, both were in a sorry state of affairs. For the first time since meeting her, she appeared as small as she was. It was like she’d shrunk, turning inward and folding in on herself. Her eyes looked exhausted and wary…but there was a healthy flush to her face. The fire was still there, however faint.
Thank God.
“Atta girl.”
She was more than a little wobbly when she stood from the car, so he bent and scooped her into his arms, shutting the door with his foot. “Come on, Bambi.”
“Espèce d’idiot! Je m’apelle Mina!”
He chuckled, as much from amusement as from relief.
Yup. Still there.
Walking them through her front door, he promptly kicked it shut and leaned back against it, supporting her easily in his arms. “Good management here at least. I wasn’t expecting them to change the locks in a timely manner.”
“You weren’t expecting it?” She sounded incredulous. “You said incompetent, lazy, and criminal negligence in the same sentence when you yelled at him on the phone—you said if I was abducted or murdered, he’d be an accessory—”
“Jesus. You heard all that?”
Her body shook softly. “Everyone heard it.”
They fell quiet. His thoughts spun like pennies, racing through the events of a day that felt like three, wobbling faster and faster until coming to an abrupt stop. So much had happened, but there hadn’t been time to do anything but react until now.
“Mina?”
Great, I sound completely unhinged.
“Zack?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” Her body stiffened, but she didn’t try to stand up, or demand that he put her down.
His heart did a slippery swirl in his chest, because the war within her filled the silence as surely as if she was fighting it aloud. It felt like the moment in the car when she was deciding if she’d let him in.
God, what a perfect metaphor.
Painfully perfect. Genius, really. Too bad he wasn’t in any condition to appreciate it. He flinched instinctively as her warm hands framed his face.
“Are you?” she asked.
He sucked in a breath in wonder at the woman he held. After the ordeal she’d suffered, and the tedious hours following—she was asking him if he was okay? That was it. His brave front, his tenacity, his strength—were all decimated by two whispered words. Tightening his grip on her, he bent his knees, sliding with her to the floor, touching his forehead to hers.
“You scared the shit out of me, Mina.”
“I know.”
“I feel like a tool for even saying it, knowing how scared you must have been.” He rubbed her back gently. “Knowing how—annoyed I was, at you—before it was obvious something was wrong. I thought you were avoiding me.”
She averted her eyes.
Not far off the mark, then.
“So many scenarios ran through my mind before you walked through those doors,” he said. “Each one worse than the last. And then you just dropped, and my heart fucking stopped. I was annoyed, and you were out there—Fuck. I’m so sorry, petite-”
“Sshhh.” Stroking his cheeks with her thumbs, her warm peanut buttery breath tickling his face, she pressed her lips to his.
He fell head-long into the kiss, drowning in the musk and heat of her, breathing her breath, feeling the warmth and fullness of her lips against his, the pitter patter of her heart against the violent pounding of his own. It was blessed relief. Life tasting life and being unendingly grateful for it. She flinched a little, reminding him of her sprained shoulder, and that he was squeezing her in his need to have her closer. Proof positive she was whole and here and fine.
“I’m fine,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.
“You’re fine.” He tested the words, letting them hang in the silence, then caught a whiff of her natural aroma tinged with the odor of sweat and city sludge.
She must have felt self-conscious, because she crinkled her nose and looked down at her soiled tank top.
“Tell me what you need,” he said.
“A hot bath, preferably with a pillow.”
He was on his feet in one smooth motion, with her still latched to him like a tree frog. “Clearly, you’re not well, and I’m gonna have to supervise you so you don’t drown in your tub.”
When he’d seen to it that Mina was neck-deep in warm, sudsy water (he’d misinterpreted the French label, so she was going to come out smelling like her shampoo from head to toe—which he didn’t see as a bad thing), he navigated to her kitchen to see what he could throw together for her to eat. She’d fight him on it, but he’d win.
Opening the refrigerator door, he recoiled. “Christ, it’s a botany experiment in here.”
Sifting through the wilted, the moldy, and the possibly fermenting, he failed to salvage enough ingredients to make anything substantial, so he tried another tack. Twenty minutes later, food was on its way, he’d rid her fridge of anything suspiciously green and fuzzy, and discovered the cleaning supplies in her hall closet…tuc
ked in a corner, away from her impressive collection of shoes. The flaming red ones screamed for him to touch them, so he did, even if it made him a foot-lusting perv. The points on the heels were sharp enough to qualify as weapons. He’d spent decades dancing on his toes but walking on those things without sustaining major injury was pretty damned impressive.
And hot.
Very hot.
He grinned.
The apartment was beautiful in an interior decorating magazine sort of way: classic, feminine, chic. But it was obvious she didn’t spend much time here. It wasn’t untidy but being Carmen’s son meant being able to eat from the table and floor and seeing the whites of his teeth on any shiny surface. So, he got to work. When his complimentary housekeeping services brought him to Mina’s living room, he straightened and smiled.
She had an actual chaise. A fancy one—cream, with buttons and intricate carving on the legs. This was where she lived when she was here, where a cozy blanket was thrown across the back, and a book lay open and upside down on the seat. Much like the sexy flaming shoes, the book was too enticing not to touch. It promised to reveal a secret about its reader: the kind of words she liked to fill her mind with.
“She Came to Stay,” by Simone de Beauvoir. He arched his brow at the cover’s description.
Kinky.
And smart.
And so, so complicated.
Fitting.
Hearing the shower come on, he stopped a moment, inclining his head toward her bedroom door. There was something else they had in common: showering after a bath. The coffee table was home to at least three more books of varying degrees of satire and scandal, a remote control, a couple of dirty tea cups, a stack of French magazines, and a miniature swan made of fancy aquamarine glass.
Cute. She must have a thing for swans.
Trying to ignore the way his jaw locked up at the way her sightseeing excursion had ended that day, he wiped down the table and picked up the books, preparing to shelve them. The setting sun pierced through the windows and caught on something on the bookshelf, sending rays of light in every direction. Squinting, he walked over to the shelf.
