by Nancy Warren
Matt started to yell, “Police, freeze,” but got halfway through before changing the yell to “Son of a bitch.” He was already halfway to the back porch, thinking bomb. A light snapped on and he yelled, “Chloe! Get down.”
By the time he got to the porch and saw that the bomb was no more than a rock that had bounced off the window without breaking it, he was furious. Nobody messed with his property, his tenant, and his night’s sleep. Barely breaking stride, he pelted to where the guy had disappeared. He leapt the fence. Saw a car’s lights flare and the shriek of an ignition being cranked too hard. Anybody whose pitching arm was so lame-assed they couldn’t throw a rock with enough force to break a window wasn’t somebody who’d run down a man standing in front of his Honda sedan.
At least he hoped not, because Matt was not going to let this punk go without a fight.
His feet hit the dirt. He landed hard and as his brain told his legs to run, the impact of his feet hitting the gravel shuddered through him until he felt his knee pop out from under him.
“Shit!” he yelled as he crashed helplessly into the ground and watched in impotent fury as the Honda squealed past him. His eyes were so clouded with pain and dirt that all he got of the license plate was a 4 and maybe a 3.
Great. Just great.
He lay there for another minute, not sure whether he was angrier with the rock-thrower, with Chloe, or with himself for forgetting he’d left that macho shit behind after a bullet had taken out half his knee. It took him a couple of painful minutes and a lot of sweat and cursing to get himself into a sitting position with his back against the fence.
He contemplated dragging himself to his feet and hopping home, but the pain radiating from his knee all the way to his teeth made the idea of sitting here in the gravel for what remained of the night more appealing.
Rustling sounds near him heralded the arrival of Mitzi, who walked around him a couple of times, giving him a wide berth, her tail swishing. When he didn’t move, the cat circled closer and finally close enough that he could pet her. Her fur was warm and sort of dusty and she seemed to look at him with indulgent disdain that he couldn’t manage the leap she did so effortlessly several times a day.
Then he heard much louder rustling and finally Chloe calling him in a low voice. “Matthew? Where are you? Are you all right?”
He ignored her for a while, but she wasn’t the kind of woman to give up. He finally figured that answering her would be less aggravating than listening to her call for him all over the neighborhood as though he were a lost pet.
“Over here,” he finally called, keeping his voice soft. No reason for the entire neighborhood to see him like this.
She appeared on the other side of the fence, looking over and down at him. Her face was pale in the darkness. Her hand went to her cheek. “Oh, no. What happened?”
“Old knee injury,” he said, trying to drag himself up on his one good leg, feeling like a damn fool. He forgot about the knee every time he should be most careful to remember it.
Pain twisted through him and he grunted as he almost toppled.
“Don’t move,” she ordered, and his mind was taken off his pain momentarily while he watched the least athletic attempt to climb a fence he’d ever witnessed. However, a lot of visible thigh was involved, which made him happy his neighbor was no athlete.
“A gentleman wouldn’t stare,” she told him.
“I was wounded in the line of duty. Give me a break.”
She slid to her feet and then brushed off her palms before taking stock of the situation, which didn’t take a hell of a lot of summing up.
“I can’t walk.” He didn’t even have crutches anymore. He’d given them away the moment he was walking again.
“Right,” she said. “You’ll have to lean on me.”
“I’m too heavy for you.”
“Nonsense. I’m stronger than I look.”
“Who was that asshole throwing rocks at your window?”
“We’ll talk inside. You must save your strength.”
She came toward his injured right side and he clenched involuntarily. But she was so smooth she could have been trained. She slid under his arm, put her arms around his waist to anchor him, and then looked up. “All right?”
He nodded and let go of the fence. With slow, painful hops, they started the long way around to the front of the house. It didn’t take long for him to realize that she’d been right. She was stronger than she looked and also had an instinct about how and when he was going to move. He relaxed against her and the going got smoother.
“Good,” she said softly. “You’re beginning to trust me.”
“Like a mouse trusts a bull snake.”
She trilled her laugh. “I love it when you talk Texan,” she said, and he found himself grinning.
“What else am I gonna talk?”
The night was quiet but for their footsteps and his hopping shuffling the gravel. Mitzi, after rubbing past his legs, took off and he and Chloe had the night to themselves. Odd, when he was full of pain and furious at his own stupidity, but he noticed the feel of her body against his, slender and elegant. Her breast was pressed against his side out of medical necessity, but still, he noticed how nice it felt.
She smelled good too. He couldn’t stand perfume and he doubted Chloe wore any. But she sure smelled good.
“We’ve made it more than halfway. How are you holding up?”
“Better than you. You’re panting.”
When they got around to the front of her house he knew she didn’t have it in her to get him all the way home to his place, but he thought she could make it past her car.
“Lean on the bonnet for a minute,” she panted. “I’ll run in and get my keys.”
Keys? “What for?”
Even in the dark he could tell she was giving him that look again, like he was stupider than dirt. “To drive you to the hospital.”
“No. I know the drill. I’ll go to my doctor tomorrow. All I can do tonight is ice it and keep it elevated.”
She looked as though she was going to argue, so he said a word he never uttered to a woman if he could help it. “Please.”
“You’re crazy. You know that, don’t you?” she scolded, but she also rearranged herself under his arm and they continued walking.
The steps were tough, but he’d done this before. So, it seemed, had Chloe. She got him inside and to the big armchair in her living room, where he eased himself down stifling a groan. She pulled one of the dining chairs over and carefully lifted his foot onto it. “Ice?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t have an ice pack,” she said from the kitchen, where he heard the sound of ice cubes being snapped out of trays, and then she came in with a lumpy-looking dish towel and eased her homemade ice pack around his knee.
She took a good look at him under the light of a standard lamp she’d switched on. “All I have in the way of painkillers is Advil.”
He shook his head.
“Don’t be a bloody hero. You’ve got some heavy-duty meds at home, I’m certain. Something strong enough to ease those lines of pain. Here.” She touched him, a soft stroke of her index finger down the center of his brow. It was such a dumb thing, hardly personal at all, but he felt that light touch and knew that he wanted to know more of it. He wanted to feel her hands on him. Put his hands on her. Something of his thoughts must have communicated itself to her, for he saw heat leap into her eyes. Her lips parted slightly and she leaned closer. “If circumstances were different,” she said, in that soft but husky voice, “I’d kiss you all better.”
He could barely breathe. Lust was pummeling him even as the fact that Brittany trusted him held him rooted to the chair like carpenter’s glue.
“If your kisses can fix my knee, you’re a miracle worker.”
She smiled that completely female cat’s smile of hers. “I wouldn’t cure your knee. I’d simply make you forget you had one.”
Oh, man. He’d tri
ed to deflect the blast of lust with his comment, but she’d backhanded it smack in his lap. “The medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom,” he said. “Prescription painkillers.” He didn’t need the meds as much as he needed to get Chloe out of range until he got his wits back.
He contemplated hauling Rafe out of his bed to come help him home, but he figured there weren’t enough hours of night left to worry about. Besides, it was time he and Chloe had a little talk.
He placed his revolver on the table next to him, beside a biography of Coco Chanel.
She was back in less than ten minutes with his painkillers. She got him a glass of water and shook out two, offering them on her palm.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for the nursing type.”
Her chuckle was low and sexy. “I was engaged to an Italian former Olympic skier who had a knee very much like yours.”
“I doubt it.”
She cocked her head at him. “What kind of injury was it? Football?”
“Bullet.”
“Good heavens.” Considering it was going on four and she hadn’t had a whole lot of sleep, his neighbor looked far too good. She wore gray U of T sweats and with her dark hair tousled and no makeup on, she looked like a co-ed. “Is that why you left the force?”
“Pretty much. I was given a desk job, but I’m not cut out for that.” He shrugged. “I already had a couple of houses I’d fixed up and rented or sold. It worked out okay, so I kept on doing it. Keeps me busy.” He paused. “Of course, I could always go into your line of work.”
Her eyes widened. “My line of work?”
“Private investigation.”
She recovered quickly. “Exactly. Somehow, I can’t imagine you as a PI.”
“A lot of people would say the same about you.”
She beamed at him. “I know. That’s why I’m so smashingly successful.”
“Speaking of smashing.” He pointed a thumb toward the window that hadn’t broken. “What was that all about?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I have a feeling the attack wasn’t about me, but my employee.” Her brow furrowed. “I can’t tell you more until I’ve seen her.”
She then took a dark purple throw off the back of the couch and laid it over him, tucking it around him with nimble fingers. She got an extra pillow out of the hall closet and tucked that behind his head. “Don’t worry about it now. Get some sleep.”
“I need answers, not sleep.”
She patted his cheek. She actually had the nerve to pat his cheek. “And you will get them. When the time is right.”
He grabbed her hand to stop her from leaving, felt the softness of her skin but remembered the underlying strength in her. “There’s going to be a reckoning between us, Chloe, one of these days.”
She glanced at their joined hands, then met his gaze. “We’re yin and yang.”
“Yeah. Whenever I yin, you yang.”
She sent him an enigmatic smile and gave his hand a quick squeeze before pulling free. “Good night, Matthew. Thank you for being my protector.”
“I fell flat on my face,” he reminded her.
“A man is no less a hero for being a wounded knight,” she said softly, and then flipped off the light. He heard her tread going softly up the stairs.
A wounded knight. That woman was definitely a few ants short of a picnic. He found himself smiling in the dark. Even though he didn’t think the rock-throwing punk was coming back, he kept watch until it was light.
Chapter 17
Stephanie let out a squawk of alarm and dropped her bag on the floor, which caused the man asleep in Chloe’s living room to jerk awake and then swear violently, clutching his knee.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. She recognized him now that she’d got a good look at him. He was the man from next door. The one who owned this house. Still, it seemed kind of strange for him to be sleeping in it. “Does Chloe know you’re here?”
He rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Ten of nine.” She was early, but then she was usually early getting to Chloe’s since, unlike her previous jobs, this was the most fun thing in her life. Or maybe that said more about how pathetic her life was than how great her new job was.
“Guess I fell asleep. And yes, Chloe knows I’m here. She tucked me in herself.”
Chloe was obviously a very sexual woman and the neighbor was seriously hot, so what they were doing on separate floors was outside Stephanie’s comprehension.
They looked at each other for a few seconds. “I’m Matt,” he finally said. “I live next door.”
“I’m Stephanie. I work for Chloe.”
“Right.” He yawned. “Do your duties by any chance include making coffee?”
She smiled at him. “I’ll be glad to make you a pot.”
“Thanks.” He dug out a cell phone. While she put on coffee, she heard Matt say, “Hey, Rafe. Need a favor.” An entire tablespoon of Chloe’s very expensive French coffee plopped onto the counter. Was it possible he was talking to her Rafe? Not that the man was her Rafe. Bastard.
“Need you to pick me up at Chloe’s and give me a ride to my doctor. It’s my knee… Yeah. Long story. Tell you later. Thanks, man. I owe you.”
She heard footsteps on the stairs, so she poured a third mug of coffee and added a dash of skim and half a teaspoon of sugar. Chloe entered the living room in what Steph thought of as her “at home” business attire. Flowing white sailor style pants and a navy and white striped T-shirt. Her sandals were red and sported tiny crystal anchors.
Steph caught the look that passed between Chloe and Matt when they first saw each other and wished someone had warned her to look away. Her eyeballs felt scorched from the heat that zapped between them, as though she’d stared right at the sun.
“Good morning, Matthew. How did you sleep?”
He cracked a grin that made him look younger. His unshaven face and crumpled shirt, even the purple woolen throw puddled in his lap, didn’t take away from the sheer masculinity of the guy. “Like a baby.”
“Morning, Stephanie.” And then, catching sight of the coffee Steph was bringing in, she said, “Oh, how lovely.”
She handed Chloe her coffee first, then went to put Matt’s beside him within easy reach. She gasped. “Why is there a gun on the table?”
“Ah, yes. We had a spot of trouble last night.” Chloe glanced at Stephanie, standing there. “Let’s all sit down—then Matthew doesn’t have to crane his neck to talk to us.”
Stephanie had no idea why they were having social time, but she did as she was told and sat. She sipped the coffee, which was excellent, and watched Chloe drape herself on the furniture. She’d never seen anyone who could turn such a simple act into a tiny drama.
“I rather think your ex paid me a visit last night.”
Steph glanced at Matt, obviously wounded, and the gun on the table. “Did you shoot him?” she asked, half hopeful.
“No.”
“Pity,” said Chloe. When Matt glared at her, she waved a white hand and said, “Oh, not fatally. But a bullet somewhere soft and painful in his nasty little body would not make me unhappy.”
Matthew rubbed his unshaven face. Gulped coffee. “Can someone explain what’s—” He was interrupted by the doorbell.
“Would you be a darling?” Chloe asked Steph.
She supposed as receptionist it was her job to answer the door, but if the guy ringing the bell was who she thought he was, she really didn’t want to. However, she got up and went into the foyer. She flicked her fingers through her hair and then opened the door.
Rafe looked at her the way a man sometimes looks at a woman he’s recently seen naked and wants to see that way again soon. So why was he staying away from her, then? Among all the things in her life that didn’t make a lot of sense, Rafe was very near the top of the list.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi. Matthew’s in the living room.”
He nodded, and walked past
her. He didn’t even brush her, but she felt his sexuality waft around her, powerful and intoxicating.
He nodded to Chloe and then sauntered over to where Matt reclined with his foot up. “Messed it up again, huh?”
“Yeah.”
He gripped Matt’s shoulder and that was it. The extent of their exchange. She’d walked in behind him and she and Chloe exchanged a glance. They’d have been commiserating, asking for details, going over the whole dramatic story, then offering casseroles and making tea. These two macho guys managed a complete exchange in half a dozen words. Amazing.
“Would you like some coffee, Rafe?” Chloe asked him.
He glanced briefly at Stephanie. “Yeah, sure.”
What was she? A waitress at Denny’s? But she didn’t say anything, merely got another mug out and then went around to refill the others. She didn’t ask Rafe how he liked his coffee. He got it black. He merely nodded thanks when she put it on the table in front of the couch where he was now sitting beside Chloe.
She dragged over a chair from the dining table and sat, wishing Rafe didn’t have to hear this.
Matthew unscrewed the cap off a prescription medicine bottle and shook out two pills, which he swallowed with his coffee. Chloe looked concerned, but didn’t say anything. “Okay,” he said, “tell me what happened last night.”
Chloe glanced at Stephanie and said, “I wonder if we should talk about this later? You should get that leg seen to.”
“I’m not leaving here until you tell me what the hell’s going on. Since Rafe is a police officer, he should hear it too.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpened and he glanced at Matt. “What’s up?”
“I was threatened last night and my home attacked,” Chloe said in a clear, theatrical tone. Stephanie liked her boss a lot, more every day, but she did manage to make even the smallest things sound like national emergencies.
Rafe was definitely a cut-through-the-crap kind of guy. “Who threatened you?” he asked.
“I think it was Stephanie’s ex-fiancé.”