Hero For Hire

by Laura Kenner

  “Will? Will? Are you all right?”

  He refused to move until he could recall the fundamental difference between up and down. Once he remembered, his next reaction was to make sure Sara hadn’t been injured. But he quickly learned her initial instinct was to administer the same treatment to him. After a confusing moment of dueling first-aid attempts, they both realized they’d survived their ordeal relatively unscathed. Will helped Sara up from the gutter and propped her against a nearby car.

  He rubbed the lump forming on the back of his head and tried not to wince. “You okay?”

  Her teeth began to chatter. “That c-car came out of n-nowhere. He c-could have hit us.”

  “But he didn’t.” Although earlier, she’d made it perfectly clear she wasn’t interested in him, Will surrendered to an instinct to put his arm around her shaking shoulders. For one incredible moment, everything felt…right. It was as if having this woman in his arms was the most natural thing in the world for both of them. She shuddered and his doubts crept back. Was her reaction a matter of delayed stress or the sudden realization that she was in his arms and not her fianc6’s?

  He orchestrated her release by gingerly probing his second most demanding injury: a bruised chin. “Did you see the driver?”

  She shook her head. “The headlights blinded me. I couldn’t tell you whether it was a Volkswagen or a Mack truck.”

  He closed his eyes and leaned against the hood of the parked car, trying to recall the details the flash of headlights had etched into his brain. “It was a Mercedes—dark, maybe black. But I couldn’t make out which model or the license.” He opened his eyes. “I couldn’t see the driver, either.”

  “You’re pretty observant.” Her look of dawning admiration turned rapidly to concern. “Will…you’re bleeding.”

  He glanced at the faint smear of color on his fingers, and the bowling ball in his stomach took a counterclockwise spin. I hate blood.

  “Will?”

  “I hate blood,” he repeated, this time aloud for her benefit. He swabbed the cut on his chin and tried not to look at the residue left on his fingers. Knowing that the better part of valor was maintaining the facade of bravery, he managed what he hoped wasn’t too pasty a smile. “It’s nothing. I’ve done worse to myself shaving.”

  Sara pawed through the purse still slung around her shoulder and pulled out a small packet of tissues. “Here.”

  After swabbing away the worst of the blood with a tissue, Will lifted himself from the car bumper, then offered her a hand. To his surprise, she accepted, slipping her cold fingers into his. To his further amazement, she stood without removing her hand from his grasp.

  “Should we call the police?”

  Will dragged his attention back to their predicament, almost embarrassed that he could even consider invasive personal feelings when the meting out of justice should be the foremost thing on his mind. He squinted into the shadows. There wasn’t much to go on. They had only a vague description, too much elapsed time and a major interstate escape route only a few blocks away. He glanced at his watch, then looked up at her only to be momentarily mesmerized by her dirtied features, her mussed hair and her magnificently disheveled dress.

  “Will?” she prompted.

  He glossed over his temporary misdirection. “I—I was just thinking…it’s almost ten o’clock on a busy Friday night We don’t have much of a description of the vehicle and we can’t identify the driver. Other than my chin and your stockings—” she followed his glance to her grimy knees “—and our collective dignity, no real damage has been done.”

  Despite the pink halo of the streetlight, he could tell she was truly blushing. Pulling her hand from his, she suddenly busied herself, flicking away the sodden leaves stuck to her dress. “My collective dignity is going to be very sore in the morning.”

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets and winced. “Mine, too.”

  She took one last look down the street. “I guess the best thing to do now is simply head home.” Suddenly she straightened, then blinked. “I didn’t thank you,” she whispered. He started to protest, but she cut him off with a quick gesture. “You saved my life and I want to thank you for that.”

  He stared down at his shoes, wondering how long it would be before he uttered the immortal words, “Aw, shucks, ma’am. T’weren’t nothin’.”

  “Will?”

  He looked up.

  “Thank you.” She caught him by surprise by stepping closer, standing on her tiptoes and placing a warm but very chaste kiss on his cheek.

  The whisper-soft sensation played havoc with his already shaky equilibrium. He stared into her eyes, wondering if he would find some evidence of restraint hidden in their depths. Could an unpretentious gesture of gratitude mask a more complicated emotion? In the split second that their gazes locked, he created an entire life for them.

  Together.

  He blinked.

  And his fantasy world faded into the oblivion from which it rose. Pipe dreams, he reprimanded himself. Nothing but stupid pipe dreams.

  She groaned as she flexed her shoulders. “I’d better go now. If I don’t get into a hot tub soon, I won’t be able to move tomorrow.”

  A hot tub?

  His pipe dreams surfaced for one last go at it.

  “But…” His voice trailed off as the truth smacked him in the face. No matter how charming, how attentive, no matter how attracted he might be to her, her heart belonged to another man.

  It was as simple as that.

  He dragged himself back to the business at hand. This was definitely conduct unbecoming a gentleman…but he wasn’t there to be a gentleman; he was there as a businessman, hoping to ply his unsavory trade.

  He took a deep breath. If charm couldn’t win, perhaps logic had a chance. He bent down and retrieved her keys from the leaf-strewn gutter, gallantly wiping them off on the leg of his jeans. At least he could appear to be a gentleman whether he truly was one or not. “Can I at least follow you in my car? Just to make sure you make it home all right?”

  The look she gave him contained more concern and confusion than fear. “It’s not necessary. This really was…an isolated incident. I think I’m over the worst of it.” She held out a remarkably steady hand and he reluctantly gave her the ring of keys.

  “You’re absolutely sure?” He held her fingers just a tad longer than necessary.

  She ignored his gesture, gracing him with a small but genuine smile. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be fine.”

  He walked with her in silence to her car, holding the door for her as she settled into the driver’s seat. A more persistent man might push a little harder, but Will decided she wasn’t the sort of woman who respected being unduly pressed. He knew a compromise was in order if he wanted one last chance. Closing the door, he motioned for her to roll down the window.

  “Does Mike know where you live? Does he have your phone number, at least?”

  Her eyes widened.

  That got her attention!

  Her smile faded a bit “Look…you’re a nice guy and I appreciate what you did but—”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to pick you up.” Will stooped and rested his arms on the window opening. “It’s just that it would make me feel a whole lot better if you called Mike when you got home. Just so he and I…so we both know you got home safe. If he knows where you live, then he’d be able to call the cops if there were any problems or you felt uncomfortable.”

  She took a moment to mull over his logic, then nodded and sighed. “Yes, Mike knows where I live.”

  Will thumbed over his shoulder toward the restaurant. “Then after you roll up your windows and lock your doors, I’m going to go back and tell him what happened so he’ll know to expect your call.” Will consulted his watch. “How long will it take you to get home?”

  Sara shrugged. “Twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes. There’s not much traffic this time of night.”

  “Then I’ll tell him to expect
your call within the half hour. Anything later than that and we call out the guys from ’Dragnet,’ okay?”

  She nodded. “Sounds fair.” She glanced up, nailing him with a look that under any other circumstances, he would describe as beguiling. But Will realized there was no guile involved.

  No hidden messages.

  No engaging offers from the engaged lady.

  He stood, accepting defeat as graciously as he could manage. “Drive carefully.”

  For a moment, their gazes locked. Even though the window slowly rolled up between them, the glass failed to slice through their riveted attention.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  It wasn’t until her car disappeared around a corner that Will allowed himself to release the breath he held. He’d made a mistake. A big mistake.

  And he was going to have to think fast to place the blame elsewhere. But William B. Riggs could tap-dance around guilt with the best of them. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and whistled a tuneless melody as he headed back to the restaurant.

  SARA TOLD HERSELF she wouldn’t look at the answering machine when she got home, but curiosity demanded to be served. While she called Mike from her phone in her office, she tried valiantly to ignore the steady red light, which indicated no one had left a message.

  No one including Raymond.

  Mike burst onto the phone line. “Sara! Will told me what happened. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, Mike, I’m fine. I didn’t notice any cars following me or men in trench coats waiting outside my door.”

  “You’re sure?” he shouted over the background noise. “I could find that no-good fiance of yours, read the riot act to him and he’d be over there in two seconds flat.”

  “No, Mike. Like I said, I’m fine. And don’t you dare bother Raymond. He must be tied up in business or he would have shown up tonight.” She paused, girding her courage. “Uh…what about Will? Is he okay?”

  “I sent him home with an ice pack for his head.”

  Her heart took an extra beat “His head?”

  “Yeah, he took a pretty good crack on the noggin when you landed on him. But don’t worry about him—the guy’s got a hard head. He bounces back fast. Now, you…you go check your doors, then head to bed. Okay, doll?”

  “Thanks for caring, Mike. Bye.”

  After she hung up, Sara realized she had two options: fear or anger. Both would keep her up all night, either worrying that something terrible had happened to her fiance or furious over his apparent inconsideration. However, she knew Raymond was neither careless nor thoughtless. She surrendered to the logic of fatigue, which whispered that he would call the next day with some reasonable excuse why he’d been unable to make their date. Whether she chose rage or panic, either would be better dealt with after a good night’s sleep.

  But sleep didn’t come easily, nor did it come without a price. She tossed and turned all night, and when she awoke in the morning, she suffered from vague memories of several erotic dreams that tiptoed around the edges of her mind.

  As she propped herself on a stool in the kitchen, Sara tried to dredge up those dreams from their forgotten corners. It was no fair having her subconscious provide what must have amounted to distracting entertainment all night and not be able to remember much of it. It had something to do with—a sudden shiver made her slosh coffee on the newspaper—a knight in shining armor using a Frisbee to disarm a white-eyed mechanical dragon holding a scale in his claws.

  Sara didn’t need a Freudian theorist to explain the obvious symbolism; her knight in shining armor was Will and the white-eyed mechanical dragon was the oncoming vehicle that had nearly run them over. The scale? The symbol for the legal system, which could represent either a retired judge or the Blackwater Barracuda. Which one? Did it really matter? She didn’t believe that every dream bore the responsibility of carrying a message from the subconscious mind.

  But…what about the Frisbee?

  Blowing into her coffee, she watched ripples destroy the reflection of a sleepy woman who held no deeply rooted attraction for Sir William of Riggs.

  Sometimes a Frisbee was just a Frisbee.

  She left her mug on the counter and searched the refrigerator for something bland for breakfast She spotted a jar of a marmalade—his favorite marmalade. Well, if he wanted to eat it and not wear it the next time she saw him, Raymond S. Bergeron, attorney-at-law, had quite a heartfelt apology ahead of him. When he eventually surfaced, she would make sure to put him through his paces.

  Make him toe the line.

  Or walk the plank.

  She would…scan the headlines, looking for some sensational story, which would explain that Raymond had single-handedly saved twelve people from a burning bus and had been whisked to the White House for an awards ceremony.

  She actually trotted down the driveway and retrieved the paper. But there was no story…so far.

  Twice she reached for the telephone, but each time, she forced herself to stop. Raymond was the one who needed to make that all-important apologetic call, not her.

  But what if he’s hurt…?

  Sara ignored the little worrywart voice in her head. However, she did continue to find excuses to linger at home: lounging for an unusually long time in the hot tub and changing her mind twice about her outfit. Finally running out of delaying tactics, she dressed and headed to the restaurant where she figured some hard, tedious work might distract her.

  Entering through the back door, she dodged a delivery-man hauling in trays of fresh bread.

  “You’re late, again,” she complained as she held open the door for him. She couldn’t help but enjoy the whiff of freshly baked bread as it passed by.

  “Yes, ma’am. But this time I called.”

  But you’re still late. Sara stepped into the kitchen and spotted her partner, Lucy Hilliard, who was busy overseeing the morning crew. Lucy raised her hand to cut off Sara’s further protests. “I know he’s late. But he called.”

  “So he said. But it’s the third time this week. One of these days he’s going to cut it too close and we’ll be serving burgers with no buns.” She tried to maintain a stern front but the aroma of fresh bread overtook her. She snagged one bun, sampled it and sighed. “But we’ll never find anybody who makes them like this guy.” She took another bite. “Just as long as he called…”

  Lucy’s husband, Martin, squinted at Sara through the steam of the large pot he was stirring. “You look too rested. What happened?”

  Sara released another sigh. “Nothing.”

  Lucy stopped slicing lemons long enough to give Sara a critical once-over. “Nothing as in ’nothing much’ or as in ’nothing at all’?”

  Sara felt the tips of her ears redden. “Nothing as in Raymond never showed up.”

  “Never?” Lucy and Martin blurted together.

  Sara shrugged. “He told me yesterday he had a six o’clock meeting that might make him a little late. But it must have lasted longer than he expected. I left Mike’s place around ten—” she didn’t dare look at Martin “—after waiting almost two hours.” But in avoiding Martin’s glower, she made the mistake of glancing at Lucy. The woman’s look of shock was almost more than Sara could bear.

  “And he simply never came?” Lucy uttered in disbelief. “Or called? Or at least left a message?”

  Sara sighed yet again. Was it entirely necessary to relive that humiliation simply for the enlightenment of her friends? And she still had Martin’s reaction yet to survive.

  As expected, he slammed a lid on the pot he was tending; Martin always reacted physically when he got upset. But it was his second motion that took Sara by surprise. When he reached for the phone hanging on a nearby wall, she didn’t quite understand what he was doing until he punched the fourth digit—of Raymond’s number.

  “Oh, Martin…don’t.”

  He shook his head, listened to the receiver, then spoke in his usual low, controlled tones. “Raymond, it’s Martin. I think you’d better explain
to Sara why you missed your date last night.” He shoved the phone in her direction.

  That was Martin for you. No frills, tell-them-what’s-on-your-mind Martin. Usually she found his directness refreshing; this morning she found it damn near unappealing and she made sure he had an opportunity to read her opinion plainly in her face as she took the receiver from him.

  Raymond sounded sleepy. “Honey, I’m sorry but you have to understand that the meeting ran long.”

  She tightened her grip on the receiver. “I figured that’s what happened. I even explained that to Martin, but you know how he is.”

  Martin crossed his arms and glared at her.

  She knew what his expression meant: Tell him how you really feel. And she also knew Martin Hilliard wouldn’t let her rest until she confronted Raymond, which she didn’t want to do, even if she knew it was the right thing to do. She drew a fortifying breath. “I just wished you’d called so I wouldn’t have worried—”

  Martin cleared his throat loudly.

  She glared at him. You aren’t going to let me get away with anything, are you?

  She picked up the thread of her conversation. “Then I wouldn’t have felt as if you’d forgotten all about me.”

  “Forget you?” Raymond made a noise that reminded her of a stifled yawn. “Not bloody likely. Listen, sweetie, I know Martin’s standing there, tsk-tsking and muttering under his breath. He’s pretty hard to ignore when he gets a head of steam. Just tell my esteemed cousin that I agree with him. I’m a louse. I’m a two-bit four-flusher who doesn’t deserve an angel like you. Tell him I’m the lowest of the low and he can be sure I’ll do any and everything I can to make it up to you.”

  She glanced at Martin who crossed his arms and glared back. Although the two men were cousins, they shared an animosity that was almost as strong as the family bond between them. Martin gave her another steely-eyed glare, which was eerily reminiscent of his cousin’s. “Has Ray apologized, yet?”