He, on the other hand, he did. At the foot of the stairs, he stopped and sank down. His eyes were scratchy, gritty from the sleep he hadn’t gotten the night before, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Wearily, he rubbed his left hand over his eyes and then lowered it, staring at the closed front door. His right arm was throbbing, had been ever since yesterday, but the last damn thing he felt like doing was going to see the doctor.
He wanted, needed to hang around here, on the offchance that maybe Hope would come out and he could try to talk to her again …
I’m done talking about this.
Her voice echoed through his mind.
With a bitter curse, he shoved upright and grabbed his keys from the small table in the hallway. Shit, shit, shit. Yeah, he needed to see her, talk to her, try to get her to stop being so fucking pissed, try to get her past the hurt he saw in her eyes.
But that wasn’t what she needed. Son of a bitch.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
“JUST GO TALK TO HER.”
Roz opened her mouth to argue with him, but Carter pressed his mouth to hers, cutting the argument off. “No. Don’t give me this bullshit that it’s not for the workplace and don’t give me the other excuses either,” he said after he lifted his head.
Staring down into her mutinous blue eyes, he said, “Go talk to her. And damn it, just stop being so stubborn and say you’re sorry, for crying out loud.”
“I ought to make you sleep on the couch for a month.” She glared at him.
“If you don’t feel better after you do this, fine. I’ll sleep on the couch and I’ll go down on you every night for the entire month, too.”
Roz chuckled. “Well, that’s enough to make me say I don’t feel better even if I do.” Sighing, she turned around, staring off in the direction of the kitchen. “Fine. I’ll do it. I can’t take not having one of my best friends talking to me anymore.”
“There’s my girl.”
As she started off down the hall, Carter leaned against the door. Waiting. When she stopped and turned to face him, he said, “Stop thinking. Get it done.”
Roz stuck her tongue out at him.
“How much longer are you going to ignore me?”
Lena sighed as she laid the knife down. “You know, Roz, it’s never a good idea to do that to somebody who has a butcher knife in her hand. Especially if the somebody in question can’t see.”
She set the knife down, leaned against the counter. Shit, this was getting to be a headache and a half.
“Damn it, Lena, are you going to talk to me or not?”
“Sure.” She grabbed a towel and turned around, facing Roz. “What do you want to talk about? I have to take Puck in to get groomed in a few days and he’s not going to be happy with me. Ezra fucked my brains out last night, though, and that left me feeling pretty damn happy. How are you and Carter doing?”
“For fuck’s sake, Lena, would you grow up!”
Lena bared her teeth in a mean smile. “Would you? You want us to be all buddy-buddy again, and I’ve already told you … it isn’t happening again until—”
“I fucked up!” Roz shouted. “I get that. I fucked up and I’ve already tried calling Law, but he ain’t answering the damn phone. I fucked up. I was wrong. I’m sorry—I wasn’t a good friend to him, and now I see that I wasn’t a good friend to you, either, because when I wasn’t fair to him, I hurt you, too.”
Lena pressed her lips together and braced her hands against the counter. She swallowed the knot in her throat. “You finally getting both those points, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Tugging her glasses off, Lena rubbed her eyes. “He didn’t deserve that shit, Roz. He’s a good guy.”
“I know. And you’re right—I was way off, and I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and as she did, it felt like some aching, massive weight fell off her shoulders … and her heart. “Okay.”
“So …” Roz murmured. And her voice was closer. Cautious. “Are we okay?”
“No,” Lena said honestly. “But we will be, I think.”
Roz touched her shoulder. Lena smiled and lifted an arm. Roz moved closer and pressed her shorter, curvy body up against Lena. “I miss you,” Roz said.
“Yeah. I miss you, too.”
“I miss Law. I miss all of us going out to breakfast. Carter is about to strangle me, too, because I’m so damn grumpy all the time, which is making him grumpy and he hardly even wants to be around. I’m chasing him out of his own damn house.” She sniffled and squeezed Lena’s waist. “Plus, I’m going through cookie withdrawal. I know I deserve it all, and that makes it even worse, because I can’t even indulge in a good pity party.”
Lena snorted. “You sound like you’re doing just fine.” She hugged Roz and then eased away. “Maybe I’ll try to do some cookies next week.”
As far as a peace offering, it was the most she was willing to do just then. She was already running behind and she hadn’t had her lunch yet. She wasn’t about to skip her meal just to make Roz her damn cookies.
Roz chuckled. “I won’t say no, but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I’m consoling myself with some shortbread cookies I found at Target.”
At her feet, Puck whined in his throat and she felt his tail wagging against her legs.
“Sorry, boy. You can’t have any,” Roz said.
“He’s not excited about the cookies,” Lena murmured.
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
“Hey.”
“Law.”
Even twenty minutes ago, the sound of his voice would have been enough to have her strained nerves shattering, but now, she made her way to him. “Hey, what are you doing out here?”
She slid an arm around his waist to hug him, but just that light touch was all it took to tell her something was wrong.
He stood rigid and unmoving as she squeezed his waist and when she eased back, her heart skipped a beat in trepidation. Too much weird shit going on—what in the hell was wrong now, she wondered.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah.” He dropped a kiss on her brow. “Lousy day. Just needed somebody to hang with for a while. You eat yet?”
“Actually, no.” She turned back to Roz. “I think maybe I’ll go ahead and grab my lunch.”
“Sure.” Roz’s voice was hesitant. “You okay, Law?”
“I’m fine.”
“Ah … okay. Um, look, can I have a second?”
Law tensed. Lena reached up, laid a hand on his arm.
“Sure.”
She could hear the nerves in Roz’s voice, the misery. And as she started to apologize, some of the tension in Law’s body eased. Some. Not all.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I haven’t been a very good friend to you, and I feel lousy about it,” Roz said.
“Forget about it,” Law responded, his voice brusque. “All the crazy shit we’ve got going on, none of us are acting normal, I don’t think.”
“Ahh. Well, okay, then. I’ve got orders to take care of, so I’m going to get.”
Lena waited until the door swished shut behind her before she faced Law. “So … just how bad has your day been?”
He waited a beat and then asked, “Can we have lunch in the bar?”
“Hell, Law, if it was me, I might have been thumping you over the head,” Lena muttered, disgusted. At the same time, she felt bad for him. She reached over and rubbed a hand down his back.
“Gee, thanks for cheering me up,” he said sarcastically.
“Don’t come to me looking to get cheered up,” she said, shrugging. “I’m your friend, not your cheering section. But you apologized and that’s the best thing you can do.”
She scowled absently, twirling her straw back and forth between her fingers and wishing she could have a drink. But she still had too much of the workday left ahead and the rest of her staff would be in soon.
“You and Roz okay?” Law asked softly.
“We’ll get there. We talked earlier.”
“I figured. You know, you didn’t have to get pissed at her on my account.”
She leaned over, bumped her shoulder against his. “It wasn’t on your account. She was wrong. Plain and simple. And it pissed me off. It made it worse when she kept trying to smooth it over like nothing happened, or just say trite crap like … well, everybody else seems to think … We’re not lemmings, none of us. We can think on our own.”
“So you got mad at her for being a lemming?”
“Oh, shut up.” With a sigh, she checked the time. Her break was just about up. “I’ve got to get back.” She brushed a kiss against his cheek and then grimaced. “You need to shave, pal. You’re like a Brillo pad. And stop brooding about Hope. Just give her some space. It will be okay, though. She loves you too much to not forgive you.”
“Thanks.”
As Lena walked away, Law kept staring off into the distance.
Part of him knew she was right. That part of him was still edgy, anxious … pissed.
The giving Hope room part was the problem. He had a massive problem with patience and now he was supposed to wait and just let his friend work out the grief he’d heaped on her.
She had too much grief in her life already.… How could he have added to it like that? It was only the hundredth time he’d asked himself. He figured he’d do it another hundred times before he ended up putting it away.
Maybe after he’d put it away, he’d feel level enough to face Hope again.
Maybe.
“Bad?”
Hope pushed the keys into Remy’s hand and gave him a strained smile. “Of course not. I didn’t put a scratch on it.”
He tossed the keys onto the desktop and said, “I’m not talking about the damn car.” He reached up, cupped the back of her neck, and brought her against him.
“I know.” She sighed and snuggled against him, resting her head against his shoulder. Once more, it amazed her at how right that felt, how natural. Like, maybe, just maybe this space had been made just for her. Absently, she lifted a hand and smoothed his shirt. “It was bad enough. He said he was sorry, for barging over to your place. And for earlier. All of it.”
“Okay …” Remy stretched the word out.
Feeling a little foolish, she eased away from him and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can forget the deal with him barging over to your place. That’s just Law. He’s got to get it in his head that he doesn’t always have to protect me.”
“That’s not going to happen any time soon.” Remy smirked and rubbed his jaw.
“I know. And I can forget that part.” She winced and shot him a look. “I know maybe you might not feel the same …”
Remy sighed, leaned back against his desk. “Sweetheart, look, I’m not pissed off at him over last night. What he did last night was … well. Hell, it’s typical Law. Hotheaded, impulsive … but he did have you in mind. You definitely hadn’t had the best day and he knew that. If you’d been out with some guy just looking for an easy lay, well …” He ended with a shrug.
“Guys aren’t going to put up with me just to get laid,” she muttered, shaking her head. Not with all the issues she had. Running her hands through her hair, she linked them behind her neck. “But I’m glad you’re not angry with him.”
“Oh, I didn’t say that.” Remy’s voice went hard and flat. His gaze was cold and wintry. “I’m plenty angry and it took more self-control than you can imagine not to deck him yesterday.”
He pushed off the desk and came to her, cupped her cheek in his hand. “I’ve seen so many people say hurtful things to others, more than you can imagine, probably. And sometimes it really does get to me.” Stroking his thumb over her lip, he gazed into her eyes as he murmured, “But I’ve never once felt that pissed off by somebody’s words before, Hope. Never. I wanted to pound him into the ground for putting that pain in your eyes. So yeah, I’m angry. But this is between the two of you—you two are friends and I’m not going to come between that.”
She wasn’t sure, but Hope thought her heart might have just melted. And for the second time that day, she was fighting tears. To hide it, she leaned forward and pressed her brow to his chest.
“It makes it worse not knowing why he did it,” she muttered. “I just can’t get it out of my head—why did he do that?”
“Did you ask?”
“Yeah.” She closed her eyes, breathed in the scent of him. Man, she loved the way Remy smelled. Male … warm. Expensive. Idly, she noticed the same scent was on her, now. It was the soap he used. She’d discovered that in the shower when she lathered up with it. The smell was borderline intoxicating on him, not so much on her. Absently, she stroked her hands up and down his sides.
“Hope, you’re making it very hard for me to have a conversation here.”
“Hmmm?” Tipping her head back, she glanced at him through her lashes, saw that he had a look on his face that was rapidly growing familiar.
That lovely blue was heated, his lashes low over his eyes. And she found herself wanting to push up on her toes and tug his head down close enough to kiss him.
He groaned. “Damn it, are we talking or not?”
“We are talking,” she said, but she was more interested in his mouth than his words.
Remy gripped her hips and pulled her close. Through their clothes, she could feel him and the feel of him had her shaking. Slowly, deliberately, he dragged her against him. Just once. But it was enough to set her nerve endings to sizzling and her mouth to watering.
Then he dipped his head and caught her lower lip between his teeth. “You’re killing me. Are we talking or should I go lock the damn door?”
“Lock the door …?” She blinked and then shot the door a look. Blood rushed to her cheeks and then she backed out of his arms so fast, she almost fell.
“Guess that answers that.” He snorted. With a pained look, he moved back behind his desk and sat down. “Maybe it will be safer for me back here.”
“Ahh … sorry.”
“I’m not.” He slanted a grin at her. “Just looking at you can do that to me. It’s just worse when you’re standing so close. And I get the feeling you need to talk about the mess between you and Law.”
Law …
That was enough to douse the fire dancing inside her veins. The energy drained out of her and she sank down on the couch tucked up against one wall. Burying her head in her hands, she said, “I just want to know why. And he can’t give me an answer, because he doesn’t know. He says he knows she won’t be bothering us again and if he says that, I trust him. Law … well, he knows people, Remy. I can trust him on that.”
Just the misery on her face was enough to set him off again.
But Remy knew she didn’t want or need his fury, so he fell back on logic. Folding his hands across his belly, he waited until he knew his voice would be level before he said anything. “Hope, you know this doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not Law thinks she’s going to come back and hassle you two. It has to do with the fact that she never should have done it to begin with. She came there armed, and it terrified you. That alone needs to be dealt with.”
“Hell, I understand that.” She pulled one knee up against her chest and rested her chin on it, staring morosely off into the distance. “But it’s not even about that for me.”
Remy wanted it to be about that—very much. Fuck, this was a mess. But he wasn’t going to harp on that point … just yet.
“So what is it about?”
She looked at him and the haunted look in her eyes was like a bare-knuckled punch straight to his heart. “He can’t even tell me why he was so willing to use our friendship for a woman he doesn’t even know. He didn’t even care about me, Remy. He’s known me for thirty years, almost our entire lives. He saw her for five minutes. And he’s willing to use me to protect her … and he can’t even tell me why.”
&nbs
p; “Is that what he said? He can’t tell you?”
Hope nodded, her gaze miserable.
Blowing out a sigh, he came out from behind the desk and settled on the couch next to her. He rested a hand on her back, stroked it from her neck down the curve of her narrow waist. “Then maybe he doesn’t understand why either, and chances are, that’s burning him up, too.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she muttered. She got off the couch and started to pace, her quick, angry strides taking her back and forth across his office in dizzying circles.
As petite as she was, those legs of hers could really move when she wanted, he mused.
Under the faded cotton of her too-large T-shirt, her shoulders were hunched and rigid. Abruptly, she stopped in midstep and whirled around, glaring at him. “Damn it, just give me a reason, okay? It doesn’t have to be the reason, but one thing that could explain why he did it. Maybe then I can let this go.”
“One reason?” Remy cocked a brow. Uncoiling off the couch, he came over and stood in front of her. Idly, he combed his fingers through her hair, watched as the silken brown strands fell back into place. “You know, I’m not really the kind of guy who is prone to violence. Not automatically. I usually think things are better solved a different way. I can remember the first time I saw you, though. How Prather had his hands on you, how you looked so scared … and even though he hadn’t hurt you, I wanted to hit him. Just for scaring you. There isn’t really any sense to that, I know. No logic. No reason. But I wanted to do it and I’d only seen you for a split second.”
She lifted her gaze to his.
Slowly, he lowered his head, and staring into her eyes, he rubbed his mouth against hers. Without lifting his head, he murmured, “Then you took off running and all I wanted to do was follow. Not much sense in that, either, considering all you did was look at me for that split second and you wouldn’t say two words to me.”
If You See Her Page 25
