The Harder They Fall

by Jill Shalvis

“Excuse me....” a female voice called from the street. “Wasn’t that Trisha going off on that bike?”

  Hunter paused as a woman with bright red hair laced with a white streak shut the door of her car and hastened up the walk. He recognized her immediately from the day he’d visited Trisha’s shop. It’d been the day they’d shared that first volcanic kiss.

  “Hello, again,” she said, waving as she came closer, the silver jewelry jangling in and on various body parts.

  Hunter was positive that the last time he’d seen this woman, her hair had been jet-black. “Yes, that was Trisha,” he said hurriedly, still wanting to go after her, though he knew she wouldn’t welcome the intrusion.

  “She looked upset.”

  Hunter didn’t answer, but shut his car door with a sigh. Trisha had enough of a head start now that she could avoid him forever if she wanted to. He’d have to wait her out, and hope she didn’t get herself killed while she rode off her demons.

  Celia was staring at him, and for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, he felt like squirming.

  “What happened?” she asked, putting her hands on the hips of the shiny black cat suit she wore.

  He wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but the torment he’d seen in Trisha’s eyes haunted him. “I told her I might sell.”

  Celia’s gaze turned from pleasant to deadly solemn in less than a heartbeat. “I see.” Without a word, she headed back to her car.

  “Wait!” he called. “Please, wait.”

  “I’m going after her,” Celia said, not stopping. “I’ve got to find her.”

  “Please,” he said again.

  She stopped but didn’t turn around. “She’s got to be terribly upset.”

  “She’s more than just upset,” he said, feeling helpless. “I think she had some sort of panic attack.”

  As Celia swore vehemently, Hunter knew that he had to be missing a big piece of the puzzle that made up Trisha Malloy.

  “Tell me why what I said upset her so much.”

  “That should be obvious.” Celia glared at him. “She doesn’t want to move.”

  “I understand that much,” he said sardonically. “She’s told me often enough. What I meant was, tell me why it matters so much. It’s just a house. And a rundown one at that.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  He couldn’t answer this question, only knew he was suddenly driven to understand the woman he knew he’d inadvertently hurt. “It’s important.”

  She glanced anxiously down the street. “But Trisha—”

  “Is long gone,” he assured her grimly, every bit as worried as she obviously was.

  Celia sighed and looked at the house. Finally, with a resigned shrug, she walked back up the drive, her four-inch heels clicking. She stepped onto the patio, where she sat on the wooden bench beneath the bay window. “Might as well kill two birds with one stone,” she said to herself.

  “What?”

  “Sit,” she said, patting the bench. “Sit, Dr. Adams, and listen.”

  He gladly complied.

  Eleven

  Two hours later darkness had fallen. Hunter still sat on the bench in front of the house, waiting. Fretting. Worrying. Seething, but not at Trisha.

  Celia had left, but only after exacting a solemn promise that he would call her when Trisha returned. There’d been a heavy warning in her voice, one that he understood all too well.

  She expected him to make it all better. The responsibility didn’t daunt him; he was more than used to NASA and his family expecting miracles from him. “Call Hunter, he’ll fix anything” seemed to be a motto the people who knew him adopted.

  But this was different. Trisha had no family or work ties to him. She certainly hadn’t asked for his help, had in fact done everything in her power to avoid doing so. Which somehow only made the compulsion to solve the problem all the stronger.

  But what exactly should he do?

  She should have been back by now. Something had happened to her, something horrible. She hadn’t been thinking clearly, she’d been riding recklessly.

  His fault, dammit, his fault. He should have gone after her immediately, should have kept her here and forced her to talk about the house. Instead, he’d let her leave. If something had happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.

  With the intention of calling the police and every hospital within twenty miles, he stood and walked to the end of the porch.

  Then he went completely still as relief flooded through him.

  The wheels on her bike squeaked; he knew this because she often rode it to the store and he could hear her coming from a quarter of a mile away. He heard her now.

  The minute she turned into the driveway, he was there, holding the bike as she got off. Her hair looked like an explosion in a mattress factory, wild, long strands everywhere. Her eyes seemed huge in her pale and drawn face. Huge and red.

  Dammit, she’d been crying. His gut jerked. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Her shoulders automatically squared against him, making him regret his words. Why didn’t he just say he had been worried sick? That he cared what happened to her and wished she hadn’t run off? Women liked that sort of thing, he remembered belatedly, then wondered why the hell he was worried about pleasing her. He was mad as hell at what she’d put him through. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course.” With that unusually cool, distant tone, she turned from him and walked toward the outside stairs.

  “Wait.”

  She didn’t, but he wasn’t surprised. He was beginning to know her better than he’d planned to, and she was stubborn as hell. With three easy strides, he caught up with her and gently took her arm, turning her to face him. “Please, Trisha. I want to talk to you.”

  “No.”

  One simple word, yet with layers of meaning behind it. Mostly panic. He understood some of that now, thanks to Celia, and his fury choked him. He wanted, quite badly, to go find her uncle and show him exactly what he thought of his child-rearing techniques. Though Hunter had never used physical force to prove anything, he found he wanted to do so now, quite violently. But that wouldn’t help Trisha.

  “Come inside,” he said, trying to propel her resisting body toward the house.

  She dug in her heels and he swore he could see steam coming from her ears. Frantically, he searched his mind for an incentive—women liked incentives, didn’t they? “I’ll make you dinner,” he offered quickly. “You must be starving after all that riding.”

  She looked at him as if he were mad, and in truth, he felt that way. “No,” she said.

  “Trisha, I—”

  “I’m going upstairs now,” she said carefully, through her teeth. “I want you to go away and leave me alone.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” he said with regret.

  “Yes, you can!” she cried, pulling her arm free. “Just go on with your cozy little neat life, the way you always do. And leave me a-alone!”

  Her voice cracked on the last word, breaking his heart, and he reached for her again. She tried to evade him, and for a moment they stood grappling under the glare of the porch light.

  Hunter heard the footsteps first. A couple, out for an evening stroll, watched them curiously as they passed, obviously drawn by the raised voices.

  “Go away,” Trisha whispered to him in a hiss as she raised a hand and smiled at their audience.

  “Not until we talk,” he said between his teeth.

  The next-door neighbor chose that moment to pull up his driveway, the headlights of his car illuminating them. Trisha closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  In that flash of time Hunter could see her clearly, the paleness of her usually flushed skin, the near translucence of her eyelids, the faint purple circles beneath them. Sick, he lifted his hands from her shoulders and sighed.

  Mutinously, she stared at him, looking so damn vulnerable it made him ache for her. “Okay, that’s it.” As gently as he possib
ly could, he took her hand and tugged her close. “Inside. Your place or mine?”

  “Not with you. Not again.” Her jaw tightened and she tried to pull away, but he held firm.

  “To talk, Trisha.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “I realize that,” he said conversationally, pulling her as nicely as he could toward the stairs. No, he decided, changing direction in midstride, not her place. Too many memories for her there. He changed directions, heading to his front door.

  “If you don’t let go of me, I’ll scream,” she warned.

  She would, too. His heart aching, for he hated what he had to do, he stopped and turned to face her. “Go ahead, it might make you feel better.”

  “You have no idea what will make me feel better. I—”

  “I know why you’re upset, Trisha. I know why you flipped out about my selling this place. We’ve got to talk about it.”

  “No, no we don’t.” She took a deep breath, visibly tried to pull herself together. “Look, I’m sorry about tonight, okay?” Now she smiled, and he could only call it such because she showed her teeth.

  “I’ve been working a lot,” she said. “And not sleeping as much as I should ... the usual working-girl stuff, that’s all. I’m just cranky.” She backed up several steps.

  “You are not just cranky,” he said. “You had a panic attack.”

  Now she stepped off his porch, still walking backward. “It’s all in how you perceive it,” she told him. “And I—”

  “Did you hear me, Trisha?” he asked her softly, not chasing her. “I said I know. I know what’s wrong with you.”

  “Yeah. I need to go to bed.” Nervous energy practically rose off her in waves. A bubble of laughter escaped. “Alone,” she added swiftly.

  Time to play the ace. “Trisha.”

  “Good night—”

  “You moved eighteen times in eighteen years.”

  Turning dead white, she stopped short, nearly tripping. “What—what did you say?” she whispered.

  “You were forced to wear the god-awful secondhand clothes your aunt purchased for you. Ugly clothes she purposely bought too big because you matured so early. She needed to make certain you were so unattractive, no one would look twice at you. She was afraid you’d become easy otherwise.” God, the expression on her face killed him. As he thought this she whirled, poised to run.

  “It didn’t matter, though,” he said hoarsely to her stiff, proud back. “Because you just stuck out all the more. Moving so constantly didn’t help.”

  Trisha froze, so still she could have been a statue.

  “When you’d cry at night, your aunt would spray holy water on you and command you to stop being evil and wanting material things.”

  Her shoulders hunched defensively, and he longed to hold her, but he couldn’t give in to the urge, not yet. “They stopped giving you a separate bedroom, so you couldn’t escape, making you sleep in the living room where anyone could see you. You never had even a small space you could call your own.”

  Until now, he thought, with a sharp pang of regret.

  Trisha still didn’t move.

  “College was good,” he continued quietly. “You stayed in the dorm, though you had to work night and day to come up with the tuition money since you had no family willing to help. Directly after graduation, you came here, mortgaged yourself to the gills, and bought your store. Your aunt and uncle nearly had heart failure, but you haven’t had to move since.”

  “You realize, of course, I’m going to have to kill Celia now,” she said finally, in a voice so low he almost missed it.

  Even now, in a moment of deep anguish, she could resort to sarcasm. He guessed it was her only defense. “She was worried sick. Now I know why.”

  “Lots of kids have it worse.”

  Not many, not even him. “What you’ve done with your life is pretty terrific,” he said, daring to come up close behind her. “Running a successful business—”

  She let out a short laugh. “You haven’t seen the books.”

  “You’ve made something of your life,” he said softly.

  “Stop it.” Slowly, she turned to face him, her dark eyes shimmering with so much pain it stole his breath. “Just stop it. So you know why I’m so attached to this place. Big deal. Doesn’t help much in the face of your plans ... and don’t you dare tell me you’re going to change them because of what Celia told you. I wouldn’t believe you.”

  He had no idea what to say or do next, and the helpless feeling ate at him.

  “I’m going in,” she said quietly, crossing her arms over her middle. “I’m cold and I want to change.” With a quiet dignity that tugged at his heart, she attempted to smooth down her hair as she walked past him, her chin high. The forest-green suit she wore was made of a clingy material that emphasized each graceful swing of her hips. Watching her walk caused the predictable male physical response, but for Hunter it went far deeper than that.

  She dressed the way she did because for the first time in her life, she was free to do as she pleased. Free to wear clothes that fit her body, free to pick and choose what she did with her time and with whom. So much about her suddenly made sense now, and for the first time since she’d literally fallen into his arms weeks ago in his bathroom, he felt as if he knew her, understood her.

  “Celia’s dead,” she was muttering as she moved. “Dead.” Then: “Gossip with her again, Dr. Adams, and I’ll have to kill you too,” she called over her shoulder.

  She already was killing him, but it was a slow death. “I guess our talk is over.”

  She lifted a hand and kept going. “Good guess.”

  “You can’t avoid me forever,” he said.

  “I can try.”

  “Trisha—”

  “No.” She stopped abruptly, her back still to him. “I ... can’t do this,” she whispered.

  He moved up behind her, careful not to touch. It was hard, when he yearned to do just that. “Can’t do what?”

  “This.” Still not facing him, she gestured wildly, which he took to mean him, this, that, everything.

  “I hate what you know about me,” she said, tipping her head way back and studying the sky. The ends of her hair drifted across the small of her back. The smooth white column of her throat drew him. So did the plunging neckline of her trim jacket. And though the last thing she needed at that moment was an aroused male, it was exactly what she got.

  “I hate what I know, too, because it makes me ache to go back and fix it all for you. But I can’t, Trisha. It’s done, and you’re grown. But I’m not sorry I know,” he murmured. “I can’t be, when now I can understand so much about you.”

  “Don’t you see?” she asked, turning to him. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You know everything about me and I know next to nothing about you. It makes me feel at a disadvantage.”

  Which she also hated. Well, he understood that well enough. He wished he could just do as she obviously wished he would—leave her alone. But for some reason, he couldn’t. He couldn’t let her go. Nor could he draw closer. “I’d never use what I know to hurt you. Never, Trisha.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Soft talk won’t get me to break the lease.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  She started walking toward the stairs again. Hell. “Trisha, please. Come back.”

  “Stay out of my life, Hunter,” she said unevenly. “I mean it.” But she didn’t. Good Lord, she didn’t. More than anything, as irrational as it seemed, she wanted him to hold her, to wrap those wonderful arms around her and never let go.

  “Trisha.”

  The way he said her name had her eyes stinging. But she didn’t slow down, couldn’t.

  She’d gotten to the bottom step when he said, “God, Trisha, you’re tearing me apart.”

  That makes two of us, she thought, faltering slightly before regaining her footing. Definitely two of us.

  Without another word or glance, she climbed the
stairs and went directly to her bedroom, where she stripped down, dove under a blanket, and covered her face with a pillow.

  She refused to cry.

  The next morning Trisha stretched, but without much satisfaction. She hadn’t slept a wink, and it didn’t take a genius to know why. She’d told Hunter to stay out of her life. Would he listen? Had she meant it?

  Of course she had. But goodness, it shouldn’t hurt so much, should it?

  Bravely, she checked the front yard. No “For Sale” sign appeared. But she didn’t allow herself a sigh of relief, for it would be short-lived.

  It was only a matter of time, she told herself, and tried not to panic. It couldn’t be as bad as it sounded. She might find another place she liked just as much. Maybe she’d get used to the idea.

  Then she tried not to think about Hunter, and how her feelings for him complicated everything. And how mortified she felt over what Celia had told him. Celia. She’d managed to avoid her so-called friend’s calls last night because she intended to have it out with her in person.

  But she’d never be able to face Hunter again.

  Suddenly she wanted to take back those words she’d flung at him. Anger and humiliation had caused her to say something she hadn’t meant. If only he weren’t so perceptive, so startlingly intuitive ... such a damn good kisser.

  After showering, she headed down the stairs, dressed for work in a purple lamb’s wool sweater and a matching short suede skirt—yet another of Celia’s designs. Because of the sleepless night, she was running later than she would have liked, and she hurried, head down, her shoes clunking noisily on the wooden stairs.

  Just her own dumb luck, she supposed, that she should run smack into a set of warm, solid arms.

  She squealed in surprise.

  Hunter caught her barreling weight with the grace with which he did everything. The tentative, disarming smile he sent her turned her heart to mush.

  She barely checked the urge to throw her arms around his neck. Instead, she stepped back and smoothed her skirt. He followed the movement with his gaze, then cleared his throat, his smile fading.

  In the time it took her to blink, he’d responded to her coolness and had distanced himself as well. “How are you this morning?” he asked, polite as ever.