He pulled her hand up, positioning it on the outside of his jacket, just underneath his left arm. There was surprise on her face as she felt the unmistakable bulge of his shoulder holster and sidearm.
“I can handle Dwayne,” he said again.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant Francisco…?”
Frisco released Mia and turned to see one of the cops standing just inside the door. He was an older man, balding and gray with a leathery face and a permanent squint to his eyes from the bright California sun. He was obviously the officer in charge of the investigation.
“I’m wondering if we might be able to ask you some questions, sir?”
Mia bent down and picked up Frisco’s crutches, her head spinning.
A gun. Her lover was carrying a gun. Of course, it made sense that he would have one. He was a professional soldier, for crying out loud. He probably had an entire collection of firearms. She simply hadn’t thought about it before this. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to think about it. It was ludicrous, actually. She, who was so opposed to violence and weapons of any kind, had fallen in love with a man who not only wore a gun, but obviously knew how to use it.
“Thanks,” he murmured to her, positioning his crutches under his arms. He started toward the policeman. “I’m not sure I can give you any answers,” he said to the man. “I haven’t even seen the damage yet.”
Mia followed him out the door. Thomas was still standing outside. “Will you stay with Tasha for a minute?” she asked him.
He nodded and went inside.
She caught up with Frisco as he was stepping into his condo. His face was expressionless as he gazed at what used to be his living room.
The glass-topped coffee table was shattered. The entertainment center that had held his TV and a cheap stereo system had been toppled forward, away from the wall. The heavy wood of the shelves was intact, but the television was smashed. All of his lamps were broken, and the ugly plaid couch had been slashed and shredded, and wads of white stuffing and springs were exposed.
His dining area and kitchen contained more of the same. His table and chairs had been knocked over and the kitchen floor was littered with broken glasses and plates swept down from the cabinets. The refrigerator was open and tipped forward, its contents smashed and broken on the floor, oozing together in an awful mess.
Frisco looked, but didn’t say a word. The muscle in his jaw moved, though, as he clenched his teeth.
“Your…friend ID’d the man who broke in as someone named Dwayne…?” the policeman said.
His friend. As Mia watched, Frisco’s eyes flickered in her direction at the officer’s tactful hesitation. The man could have called her his neighbor, but it was obvious to everyone that she was more than that. Mia tried not to blush, remembering the bright-colored condom wrapper that surely still lay on Frisco’s bedroom floor. These police officers had been crawling all over this place for the past twenty-five minutes. They surely hadn’t missed seeing that wrapper—or the way Frisco had pulled her possessively into his arms when he’d arrived. These were seasoned cops. They were especially good at deductive reasoning.
“I don’t know anyone named Dwayne,” Frisco told the policeman. He unbuttoned his jacket, and carefully began maneuvering his way through the mess toward his bedroom. “Mia must’ve been mistaken.”
“Alan, I saw—”
He glanced at her, shaking his head, just once, in warning. “Trust me,” he murmured. Mia closed her mouth. What was he doing? He knew damn well who Dwayne was, and she wasn’t mistaken.
“I appreciate your coming all the way down here, Officer,” he said, “but I won’t be pressing charges.”
The policeman was respectful of Frisco’s uniform and his rows of medals. Mia could hear it in the man’s voice. But he was also obviously not happy with Frisco’s decision. “Lieutenant, we have four different witnesses who saw this man either entering or leaving your home.” He spread his hands, gesturing to the destruction around them. “This is no small amount of damage that was done here this afternoon.”
“No one was hurt,” Frisco said quietly.
Mia couldn’t keep quiet. “No one was hurt?” she said in disbelief. “Yesterday someone was hurt….” She bit her lip to keep from saying more. Yesterday that man had sent Frisco to the hospital. His name had been Dwayne then, and it was still Dwayne today. And if Frisco had been home this afternoon…
But trust me, he’d whispered. And she did. She trusted him. So she had swallowed her words.
But her outburst had been enough, and for the first time since he’d stepped inside his condo, Frisco’s face flashed with emotion. “This is not something that’s going to go away by arresting this bastard on charges of breaking and entering and vandalism,” he told her. “In fact, it’ll only make things worse.” He looked from Mia to the cop, as if aware he’d nearly said too much. With effort, he erased all signs of his anger from his face and when he spoke again, his voice was matter of fact. “Like I said, I don’t want to press charges.”
He started to turn away, but the policeman wouldn’t let him go. “Lieutenant Francisco, it sounds like you have some kind of problem here. Maybe if you talked to one of the detectives in the squad…?”
Frisco remained expressionless. “Thank you, but no. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to change my clothes and start cleaning up this mess.”
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” the cop warned him, “but if you end up taking the law into your own hands, my friend, you’re only going to have a bigger problem.”
“Excuse me.” Frisco disappeared into his bedroom, and after a moment, the policeman went out the door, shaking his head in exasperation.
Mia followed Frisco. “Alan, it was Dwayne.”
He was waiting for her at his bedroom door. “I know it was. Hey, don’t look at me that way.” He pulled her inside and closed the door behind her, drawing her into his arms and kissing her hard on the mouth, as if trying to wipe the expression of confusion and apprehension off her face. “I’m sorry if I made you feel foolish in front of the police—claiming you were mistaken that way. But I didn’t know what else to say.”
“I don’t understand why you won’t press charges.”
She looked searchingly up at him and he met her gaze steadily. “I know. Thanks for trusting me despite that.” His face softened into his familiar half smile and he kissed her again, more gently this time.
Mia felt herself melt. His clean-shaven cheeks felt sensuously smooth against her face as she deepened their kiss, and she felt a hot surge of desire. His arms tightened around her, and she knew he felt it, too.
But he gently pushed her away, laughing softly. “Damn, you’re dangerous. I’ve got a serious jones for you.”
“A…jones?”
“Addiction,” he explained. “Some guys get a traveling jones—they can’t stay in one place for very long. I’ve had friends with a skydiving jones, can’t go for more than a few days without making a jump.” He crossed to his closet and leaned his crutches against the wall, turning back to smile at her again. “Looks like I’ve got myself a pretty severe Mia Summerton jones.” His voice turned even softer and velvet smooth. “I can’t go for more than an hour or two without wanting to make love to you.”
The heat coursing through her got thicker, hotter. I’ve got a serious jones for you—the words weren’t very romantic. Yet, when Frisco said it, with his husky voice and his liquid-fire eyes, and that incredibly sexy half smile…it was. It was pure romance.
He turned away from her, somehow knowing that if he looked at her that way another moment longer, she’d end up in his arms, and they’d wind up in his bed again.
And there was no time for that now, as nice as it would have been. Thomas was back at her condo, watching Natasha. And Mia was still waiting for Frisco’s explanation.
“Why won’t you press charges?” she asked again.
She sat down on his bed, watching as he took off his jacket and hung it carefu
lly in the closet.
“I saw Sharon,” he told her, glancing back at her, his eyes grim and his smile gone. He was wearing a white shirt, and the dark nylon straps of his shoulder holster stood out conspicuously. He unfastened the holster and tossed it, gun included, next to her onto his bed.
Mia couldn’t help but stare at that gun lying there like that, several feet away from her. He’d treated it so casually, as if it weren’t a deadly weapon, capable of enabling him to take a human life with the slightest effort.
“It turns out that she does owe Dwayne some money. She says she ‘borrowed’ about five grand when she moved out of his place a few months ago.” He hopped on one leg over to the bed and sat down next to her. Bending down, he pulled off his shoes and socks. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing tantalizing glimpses of his tanned, muscular chest. But even that wasn’t enough to pull Mia’s attention away from the gun he’d thrown onto the bed.
“Please—I’d like it if you would move this,” she interrupted him.
He glanced at her, and then down at his holstered gun. “Sorry.” He picked it up and set it down, away from her, on the floor. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t like firearms.”
“I don’t dislike them. I hate them.”
“I’m a sharpshooter—was a sharpshooter, I’m a little rusty these days—and I know firearms so well, I’d be lying if I told you I hated them. I’d also be lying if I told you I didn’t feel more secure when I’m carrying. What I do hate is when weapons get into the wrong hands.”
“In my opinion, any hands are the wrong hands. Guns should be banned from the surface of the earth.”
“But they exist,” Frisco pointed out. “It’s too late to simply wish them away.”
“It’s not too late to set restrictions about who can have them,” she said hotly.
“Legally,” he added, heat slipping into his voice, too. “Who can have them legally. The people who shouldn’t have them—the bad guys, the criminals and the terrorists—they’re going to figure out some way to get their hands on them no matter what laws are made. And as long as they can get their hands on firearms, I’m going to make damn sure that I have one, too.”
His jaw was set, his eyes hard, glittering with an intense blue fire. They were on opposite sides of the fence here, and Mia knew with certainty that he was no more likely to be swayed to her opinion than she was to his.
She shook her head in sudden disbelief. “I can’t believe I’m…” She looked away from him, shocked at the words she almost said aloud. I can’t believe I’m in love with a man who carries a gun.
He touched her, gently lifting her hand and intertwining their fingers, correctly guessing at half of what she nearly said. “We’re pretty different from each other, huh?”
She nodded, afraid to look into his eyes, afraid he’d guess the other half of her thoughts, too.
He smiled wryly. “Where do you stand on abortion? Or the death penalty?”
Mia smiled despite herself. “Don’t ask.” No doubt their points of view were one hundred and eighty degrees apart on those issues, too.
“I like it this way,” he said quietly. “I like it that you don’t agree with everything that I think.”
She did look up at him then. “We probably belong to opposite political parties.”
“Is that so bad?”
“Our votes will cancel each other out.”
“Democracy in action.”
His eyes were softer now, liquid instead of steel. Mia felt herself start to drown in their blueness. Frisco wasn’t the only one who had a jones, an addiction. She leaned forward and he met her in a kiss. Her hands went up underneath his open shirt, skimming against his bare skin, and the sensation made them both groan.
But when Mia would’ve given in, when she would have fallen back with him onto his bed, Frisco made himself pull away. He was breathing hard and the fire in his eyes was unmistakable. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. He may have been addicted, but he had a hell of a lot of willpower.
“We have to get out of here,” he explained. “Dwayne’s going to come back, and I don’t want you and Tasha to be here when he does.”
“I still don’t understand why you won’t press charges,” Mia said. “Just because your sister owes this guy some money, that doesn’t give him the right to destroy your condo.”
Frisco stood up, shrugging out of his shirt. He wadded it into a ball and tossed it into the corner of his room, on top of his mountain of dirty laundry. “His name is Dwayne Bell,” he told her. “And he’s a professional scumbag—drugs, stolen goods, black-market weapons—you name it, he’s involved. And he doesn’t earn six figures a year by being nice about unpaid loans.”
He glanced at her as he unfastened and stepped out of his pants. Mia knew she shouldn’t be staring. It was hardly polite to stare at a man dressed only in utilitarian white briefs, but she couldn’t look away.
“Sharon lived with him for about four months,” he told her, hopping toward his duffel bags and searching through them. “During that time, she worked for him, too. According to Sharon, Dwayne has enough on her to cause real trouble. If he was arrested for something as petty as breaking and entering, he’d plea-bargain and give her up for dealing drugs, and she’d be the one who’d end up in jail.”
Mia briefly closed her eyes. “Oh, no.”
“Yeah.”
“So what are we going to do?”
He found a pair of relatively clean shorts and came back to the bed. He sat down and pulled them on. “We’re going to get you and Tasha out of here. Then I’m going to come back and deal with Dwayne.”
Deal with Dwayne? “Alan—”
He was up again, slipping his shoulder holster over his arm and fastening it against his bare skin. “Do me a favor. Go into Tash’s room and grab her bathing suit and a couple of changes of clothes.” He bent down and picked up one of his empty duffel bags and tossed it to her.
Mia caught it, but she didn’t move. “Alan…”
His back was to her as he searched his closet, pulling out a worn olive drab army fatigue shirt, its sleeves cut short, the ends fraying. He pulled it on. It was loose and he kept it mostly unbuttoned. It concealed his gun, but still allowed him access to it. He could get to it if he needed it when he “dealt with Dwayne.” Unless, of course, Dwayne got to his own gun first. Fear tightened Mia’s throat.
He turned to face her. “Come on, Mia. Please. And then go pack some of your own things.”
She felt a flash of annoyance, hotter and sharper than the fear. “It’s funny, I don’t recall your asking me to come along with you. You haven’t even told me where you’re going.”
“Lucky has a cabin in the hills about forty miles east of San Felipe. I’m going to call him, see if we can use his place for a few days.”
Lucky. From Frisco’s former SEAL unit. He was Frisco’s friend—no, they were more than just friends, they were…what did they call it? Swim buddies.
“I’m asking for your help here,” he continued, quietly. “I need you to come along to take care of Tash while I—”
“Deal with Dwayne,” she finished for him with exasperation. “You know I’ll help you, Alan. But I’m not sure I’m willing to go hide at some cabin.” She shook her head. “Why don’t we find someplace safe for Tasha to go? We could…I don’t know, maybe drive her down to my mother’s. Then I could come with you when you go to see Dwayne.”
“No. No way. Absolutely not.”
Her temper flared. “I don’t want you to do this alone.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What, do you really think you’re gonna keep Dwayne from trying to kick my butt again? Are you going to lecture him on nonviolence? Or maybe you’ll try to use positive reinforcement to teach him manners, huh?”
Mia felt her face flush. “No, I—”
“Dwayne Bell is one mean son of a bitch,” Frisco told her. “He doesn’t belong in your world—and you don’t belong in his. And I
intend to keep it that way.”
She folded her arms across her chest, holding her elbows tightly so he wouldn’t see that her hands were shaking with anger. “And which of those worlds do you belong in?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Neither,” he finally said, unable to look her in the eye. “I’m stuck here in limbo, remember?”
Positive reinforcement. To use positive reinforcement to award positive behavior meant being as consistently blaséas possible when negative behavior occurred. Mia closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself not to fall prey to her anger and lash out at him. She wanted to shake some sense into him. She wanted to shout that this limbo he found himself in was only imagined. She wanted to hold him close until he healed, until he realized that he didn’t need a miracle to be whole again—that he could be whole even if his knee gave out and he never walked another step again.
Wallowing in despair wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good. And neither would her yelling at or shaking or even comforting him. Instead, she kept her voice carefully emotionless. “Well,” she said, starting for the door with the duffel bag he’d tossed her. “I’ll get Tasha’s stuff.” She turned back to him almost as an afterthought, as if what she was about to say to him didn’t matter so much that she was almost shaking. “Oh, and when you call Lucky to ask about the cabin, it would be smart to tell him about all this, don’t you think? He could go with you when you find Dwayne. He could watch your back, and he probably wouldn’t resort to lectures on nonviolence as means of defense.” She forced herself to smile, and was surprised to find she actually could. His insult had been right on target—and it wasn’t entirely unamusing.
“Mia, I’m sorry I said that.”
“Apology accepted—or at least it will be if you call Lucky.”
“Yeah,” Frisco said. “I’ll do that. And I’ll…” It took him a great deal of effort to say it, but he did. “I’ll ask him for help.”
He was going to ask for help. Thank God. Mia wanted to take one of the colorful medals from his dress uniform and pin it on to his T-shirt. Instead, she simply nodded.
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