by K. M. Scott
“Help! Help!” she yelled loud enough to wake the entire floor.
He hoped to God no one heard her or keeping her safe would become next to impossible.
Clamping his hand over her mouth, he whispered, “You gave me no choice here, Kate. The more you scream, the more chance that someone’s going to call the cops. Do you want them to come here and find you?”
He felt her mouth open and then a second later her teeth sunk into his middle finger. Pain shot through the rest of his hand, but he didn’t know if he could trust her not to scream again, so he stuffed his other hand into her hair and tugged hard.
Kate’s eyes filled with tears because he knew how tightly his hold on her hair was, but still she kept her teeth on his finger. Locked in a stalemate, he tried to keep calm as the pain in his hand began to migrate up his forearm.
“I can let your hair go, but only if you stop biting me, Kate. I don’t want to stand out here in the hallway with my hand over your mouth, but you can’t scream again. Do you understand me? If you scream, someone’s going to call the cops.”
She nodded and slowly opened her mouth, releasing his finger from between her teeth. Then she said something, her words all garbled by his hand covering her mouth, but he saw he’d finally gotten through to her with the combination of pain and fear. Damnit, he hated having to resort to things like threatening the person he was supposed to be protecting. Why did she have to be so difficult?
Now he just had to worry about her running away. Looking deep into her eyes, he tried to find some evidence that she wouldn’t bolt as soon as he let her go. “Do you promise not to run if I let you go? I can’t release you if you’re just going to try to get away again. I don’t want to carry you back to the room, but I will if you don’t give me a choice.”
Nothing in the way she looked at him said she wouldn’t run the second he removed his hands from her, and he couldn’t take a chance that she’d do something stupid, so he scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. At first, she seemed stunned, so he made it halfway back to the room before she finally reacted.
“Put me down!” she said, again far too loud for the middle of the night in a hotel hallway.
At least now if someone poked their head out to see what was going on, he could pretend they were having a lover’s spat. Hopefully, a hotel guest would believe that.
“Stop making so much noise. We’ll be back to the room in a few seconds,” he said as he turned the corner and saw the door a few feet away.
Instead of yelling, she turned to punching his lower back, landing her fists on the very spot where he’d cut himself climbing out the bathroom window at the Bayou Motel. Over and over, she pounded that very spot so tender until he felt a terrible stab of pain race up his side.
He got the door to their room open and dumped her onto the bed before staggering back against the wall in agony. Although he knew what he’d find, Roman ran his hand over his side through his shirt and brought it up in front of him to see blood on his fingers.
Kate sat on the bed glaring at him until she saw him wince in pain and then saw the blood. Jumping up, she ran over to him.
“Oh, my God! You’re bleeding! What happened? Why are you bleeding? Did I do that when I punched you?” she asked in rapid fire succession, not giving him a chance to answer any of her questions.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed past her and walked into the bathroom to get a better look at his injury. It couldn’t be too bad since he hadn’t been bleeding the whole time, and when he’d checked it in the shower less than an hour before, it hadn’t looked like much at all.
Then again, he hadn’t had someone landing punches over and over on that very spot before his shower.
Kate followed him into the bathroom and stood back as he lifted his shirt over his head. Tossing it to the side, he saw the large red stain on it and knew when he looked at his side it wouldn’t be good.
Her gasp when he removed his shirt told him it may even be worse than he’d suspected.
“Oh, Roman, I didn’t…I mean, I didn’t think when I was hitting you,” she said quietly.
Looking into the mirror, he saw tears well in her eyes. Christ, this woman was a handful. If she wasn’t giving him grief about something he had no idea about as he took a shower or running away and then beating on his back when he was forced to carry her to the room, she was crying because she’d hurt him.
Roman didn’t want to see her cry, so he waved away her concern. “I’m fine. It’s just a little scratch.”
Her mouth dropped open at his understatement. “A little scratch? Have you seen it?”
He knew it wasn’t just a minor thing. That nail or screw or whatever it was in that bathroom window had torn into his side pretty well. He felt it when it happened and knew it would hurt more later. Now after having Kate use his body for a punching bag, it was much worse.
Turning toward the mirror, he examined his side, wincing as he poked his finger in the cut to see if it was deep enough that it would need stitches. The gash didn’t feel too deep, so he could probably get away without seeing a doctor to fix him up.
“Stop touching it,” she cried as she looked on in horror. “You’re making it worse!”
Frustrated and in pain, he shot her a look in the mirror. “What made it worse was someone hitting me because she was having a temper tantrum all the way down the hallway.”
Kate hung her head and quietly apologized. “I didn’t mean to, Roman. I’m sorry. You did throw me over your shoulder like a sack of flour. What was I supposed to do?”
He threw her another look, this one even angrier. “Come back to the room and not act like a crazy person?”
She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. Finally, after a few seconds, she gave him a real apology. “I am sorry. I never wanted to physically harm you. Honestly, I didn’t do this on purpose.”
How was he supposed to stay mad at someone who said that with tears in her big blue eyes? He didn’t want to be angry with her. All he wanted to do was help her.
Why did she have to make that the hardest thing he’d ever tried to do?
“It’s fine. Just help me find something to stop the bleeding,” he said as a trickle of blood began sliding down toward his waist.
His apparent forgiveness made her spring into action, and she began scurrying around the bathroom looking for a clean washcloth as Roman stood there watching her and wondering if maybe she truly was crazy. One minute she was fighting him, and then the next minute she couldn’t help enough.
He had to admit, though, as much as he hated the way she fought him on everything, when she acted sweet and kind, he liked her a whole lot more.
Probably more than he should, in fact.
Chapter Nine
The more Kate stared at that horrible gash in Roman’s side, the worse she felt. Physically, it made her want to throw up, but emotionally, the sight of it just proved once again that he’d tried to help her from the very moment they met. He’d not only suffered through her behavior but truly suffered because he’d been doing what he claimed the entire time.
Protecting her.
She cringed at how she’d punched him all the way down the hallway. She’d done this to him. Kate looked everywhere in the bathroom but found not a single clean washcloth. Between the two of them, they’d dirtied them all.
Tearing open the shower curtain, she saw the white washcloth he’d used. “I can’t find any clean ones. What about the one you used when you took a shower?”
“Yeah, fine. I just need something to press on the wound so my pants don’t fill up with blood.”
Still wet, the washcloth felt cool in her hands as she turned to hand it to him. She struggled to keep her gaze on his face because some kind of morbid curiosity kept taking over and forcing her eyes to settle on that horrible cut on his side.
For his part, Roman stayed as calm as he had for virtually the whole time he’d been around her. Except for when he had to clamp her mouth
shut because she wouldn’t stop screaming and then when he had to carry her back to the room because she’d made it clear she planned to run as soon as she could, he’d been the rational one to her insanity.
All of which made her feel like shit.
Looking away toward the toilet, she again apologized. “I’m so sorry, Roman. I truly never meant for this to happen. I didn’t think my fingernails touched you.”
When he groaned in pain, she couldn’t help herself and turned around to see the washcloth already half-stained in red. His face writhed in agony, making her want to fix what she’d done.
“Turn around,” she said, as she placed her hands on his shoulders and began to maneuver him in a way that would allow her to help him while not letting him see his side.
He fought her, though, stopping halfway around. “What? No. I’m fine.”
Even though his expression made it clear he didn’t want her help, she had to give it. She’d done this to him, and she needed him to see she wasn’t just a whole lot of meaningless I’m sorry’s.
“Roman, please let me do this. I can help you. It’s the least I can do,” she said in her sweetest voice.
“I’m fine, Kate. Just let me do this myself.”
“Just turn around and stop fighting me, for God’s sake!”
With shock in his eyes, he relented and let her turn him so she could easily get to the wound. “Damn, you’re either snapping at me or bossing me around.”
She opened her mouth to tell him to keep quiet while she cleaned his side, but her first up close look at what she’d done made her gasp in horror. For as bad as it had looked from a few feet away, seeing it now made her truly sick to her stomach.
He heard her sharp intake of breath and looked back at her. “I’m fine. Just let it go.”
His words were full of bravado, so she quickly worked to get her head together and took the washcloth from his hand. Dampening it with warm water, she gently pressed it to his skin.
The touch of the cloth to his wound made him flinch, so she quickly pulled it away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s fine,” he said through gritted teeth.
“So how did this happen? Is this an old wound?” she asked as she rinsed off the cloth.
He shook his head. “I got caught on the windowsill leaving that shithole of a motel room you were staying at,” he said as she pressed the damp cloth to his skin again.
Instantly, she felt even worse than before. He’d gotten hurt helping her get away from the cops, even though he didn’t believe she had anything to fear from them, and then she pummeled him, reinjuring him.
As she gently cleaned the skin around the wound, she said, “I’m sorry, Roman. I didn’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t have…”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time I’ve been hurt, and it won’t be the last,” he said in a clipped tone.
Once she’d cleaned him up, she rinsed off the cloth once more and said, “It’s clean, but it should have a bandage over it. And you should probably get a tetanus shot.”
“It’s fine. I’m okay.”
“Let me call down to the front desk, at least. I’m sure they have bandages here.”
Roman stood up straight and turned around to face her. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got stuff in my bag.”
He walked out, leaving her holding the bloody washcloth and feeling like shit for what happened.
Looking in the mirror, she shook her head at her reflection. “Real nice, Kate. The guy saves you, and how do you repay him? You act like a spoiled brat and make him bleed. Nice.”
She knew what she had to do. There was no other way. She’d already done enough damage to him.
Roman pressed tape around the edges of a gauze pad over his wound and pulled his shirt down before sitting in the chair at the far end of the room. Kate walked over to stand in front of him. He looked up at her like he expected her to say something more about how sorry she was for everything she’d done, but the time for that had ended.
Now she needed to say goodbye.
“I know you said you’re here to protect me, but I don’t need it. Thank you, but I’m fine on my own. I’m involved in this of my own doing, but you aren’t and you’ve been badly hurt already because of me. I don’t want that, so thank you, but I’m going to handle things from here on out. Good luck, just Roman. Take care.”
She turned and began to walk toward the door, but she expected him to follow her again to stop her. He didn’t. Instead, he continued to sit in the chair and let her go.
That shouldn’t have surprised her. She had been the biggest pain in the ass he’d probably ever encountered in his job or anywhere else, for that matter.
And for that, she truly was sorry.
From behind her, she heard him say in that deep voice that never failed to make her feel safer, “You’ll be lucky if you make it a block from the hotel.”
She stopped and turned around to face him. “Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be fine.”
Roman gave her one of his smiles that she’d remember for the rest of her life. “That’s my line.”
Kate looked at him and thought to herself that he really could be cute sometimes. And sexy. And a good man. Too bad she hadn’t met him when she wasn’t on the run and wanted by the police for the murder of two people. Maybe they could have gotten together.
“So what’s your plan then?” he asked with a look of skepticism in his eyes.
She hated to admit it, but she didn’t have a plan. When she didn’t answer, he put his hands behind his head with a brief wince and said, “So you have no plan?”
God, this man had the ability to shift from sexy and sweet to irritating as all hell in a matter of seconds. That she wouldn’t miss.
Defensive, she put her hand on her hip. “I have money saved, so I’ll be just fine. I’ll just grab some files before anyone gets to the office and be out of town in hours.”
Roman shook his head. “The cops are looking for you, for whatever reason, so you won’t be able to just stroll through the front door.”
She raised her hand to stop him before he went any further. “I know a back way in, so I’ll just stroll in that way. Problem solved.”
For the briefest of moments, she reveled in her triumph over his negativity about her going out on her own. He may have been big and strong and very helpful in a number of situations, she had no doubt, but she wasn’t without skills herself. As a single woman in a big city, she’d learned to handle herself. More than once, she’d had to think on her feet. This situation would be no different.
Roman slowly leaned forward and positioned his elbows on his knees. “And as for your money, forget it. They’ve already put a freeze on all your accounts if they’re really after you. It doesn’t seem like you’ve thought this whole thing through, Kate.”
He was taking all the wind out of her sails. Deflated, she sat down hard on the edge of the bed and sighed. “Fine. What am I supposed to do? I have to get that proof.”
“Why? Who does it help for you to get proof that your boss didn’t trust the cops?”
She didn’t want to admit the truth, but she wanted the proof for him. Something about him thinking she may be guilty or played a part in the death of Jonas and Samuel bothered her. She couldn’t explain it since normally she reserved that kind of respect for people she knew for years and had grown to trust.
This person she’d known for only two days. It made no sense that his opinion of her guilt or innocence made any difference to her.
But it did, and every time he looked at her like she might deserve the police coming after her made it all the more important that she show him she had nothing to do with these murders. That her distrust of the police stemmed from something real and not just the crazy ramblings of a woman on the run.
“It helps me, Roman. I want to have that proof is all,” she said, not sure she wanted to admit the truth of why she planned to risk everything to go to th
e law offices and find the file for Samuel Darnell’s case.
Roman eased himself back against the chair and shook his head. “That makes no sense. You know if you’re guilty or not.”
Focusing on her hands in her lap, she said, “Well, it doesn’t have to make sense to you. You’re not part of this anymore.”
He didn’t say anything to that, so she pushed down the fear of going out on her own that had begun to form into a tight ball in her stomach and told herself she could do this. She had to. She had no choice.
“Kate, I told you when I walked into your room at that fleabag motel that I was going to protect you. That’s my job, and I don’t plan for you to be the first assignment I fail at, so I can’t let you go anywhere without me.”
Frustration pushed fear out of her mind for the moment, and she stood to look at him. God, he looked so in control as he sat there, probably still bleeding from that gash in his side. Even injured, he seemed so calm and ready for anything.
If every word out of his mouth didn’t irritate the hell out of her, she could admire him for that calmness. As it was, she wanted to lash out at him for thinking he could or should stop her from doing anything in this world.
“Why do you keep telling me you can’t let me do things? What makes you think you have any say whatsoever in what I do or don’t do about this or anything else? You come waltzing into my life saying you want to protect me, and you think that means you can dictate where I go and when? No way. Nope.”
Kate felt her emotions begin to unravel, but she didn’t care. She may have liked Roman more than she wanted to admit even to herself and she may have felt bad about what she’d done, but this issue of giving her permission to do things was her line in the sand, the hill she would die on, if need be.
Hopefully, that death would only be figurative.
But whatever happened, she fully intended on doing what she wanted to do and not because some man she’d just met let her.
She waited for Roman to say something, but he remained silent and just stared at her like she was some creature he’d never encountered before. Maybe he’d never met a woman who stood up for herself. She had no idea. All she knew was there would be no letting her do anything.
