by Nancy Warren
“Not exactly.”
The paramedic had finished his initial inspection and jogged back up the stairs only to reappear with a temporary splint. In the background was a second attendant and a stretcher. Soon they’d be carting him around like a papoose.
Once more his gaze meshed with a blue one. As blue and innocent as a summer sky. “I tripped and fell,” he said. “The girlfriend resisted arrest, stole this woman’s vehicle and got away.”
John hadn’t been born yesterday. He frowned his disbelief then turned to stare at the woman blushing and wringing her hands—the picture of guilt. Finally, his gaze skewered Blake once more. “You tripped and fell.”
“That’s what I said.” He glared up at John, having to squint against the sun. Normally, since he was the taller of the two, he looked down a couple of inches when he was speaking to his handler. He didn’t like the view from flat on his back. Didn’t like it at all.
“Look, Blake—”
“Are you putting that splint on me or taking it to the prom?” he snapped at the attendant who was hovering, hugging the temporary cast against his chest.
“We’ll have you fixed up in no time,” the paramedic said in that falsely jovial tone Blake associated with nurses and playschool teachers.
He glared at John for a second, making a slight motion with his chin toward the woman. He wanted John to bugger off and take Blondie with him, before the paramedic started stuffing his broken leg into the splint and the swearing began.
Goodbye, Blondie. She looked like an angel from heaven, but it would be obvious to a man much more stupid than Blake that she was nothing but trouble. Sexy, but trouble.
John’s narrowed gaze said he had some explaining to do, which he knew.
“Shouldn’t we…” She turned back to gaze at Blake, worry creasing her forehead.
“He’s in good hands,” John said firmly, and urged her forward.
She took one step, turned back and mouthed, “I’m sorry,” before continuing up the cement steps.
His vision might not be twenty-twenty at the moment, but he could still enjoy the sway of her hips, the long legs and slim ankles. The view was even better since she was walking away from him. Out of his life forever.
From the neat business clothes she wore, he assumed she was some kind of office worker. Of course, they weren’t neat now. Apart from one crucial missing button, the lady had a hell of a run in her stockings.
Then the paramedics worked his broken leg into the cast and he forgot all about her bewitching body and concentrated on keeping his curses too low for her to hear.
3
WHAT KIND OF FLOWERS could possibly say, I’m sorry I broke your leg and let a criminal get away?
Sophie scanned bouquets and bunches in the hospital’s ground-floor florist shop and gnawed her lip in indecision. She couldn’t forget the second message: Thanks for not turning me in.
The roses were beautiful, but heady with the scent of romance. Definitely not roses. A single orchid in a Japanese-style setting of tranquil simplicity appealed to her, but orchids were high maintenance. Detective Barker hadn’t struck her as an orchid-fussing type.
Tiger lilies were too obvious, a potted plant too homey—this wasn’t a housewarming present.
She scanned the shop once more, thinking perhaps she’d overlooked the perfect gift.
She hadn’t, of course. There was no gift, no plant, no flower arrangement that could gloss over the fact that Detective Barker was in the hospital because she’d put him there.
Oh, the hell with it. Tired of her own indecision, she hauled out her brand-new temporary credit card—the one she’d picked up this afternoon along with a temporary driver’s license and a rental car—and pointed to a big bunch of blooms. The chrysanthemums and dahlias were as bright and colorful as a Rose Bowl parade. The florist arranged them in a clear glass vase together with a metallic balloon that said Get Well Soon.
Perky as hell.
She was sorry, and maybe these bright happy flowers would lighten his mood and his pain.
She winced as she recalled her own stupidity. Look before you leap, Sophie. How often had her mother read her that homily as she bandaged knees, iced black eyes and wrapped sprains. But Sophie the child had grown sick of being the little one, and a girl. The one teased and picked on until her temper flared and she flew at her older brothers.
Besides, the black eyes and split lips Mom had iced hadn’t all been hers. She’d learned from her big bros, and had given as good as she got.
On one memorable occasion she’d caused her second oldest brother, Matt, to have to go to emergency for stitches. That, she recalled with satisfaction, was the day her brothers started to respect her. They were all strapping great men now, two with their own families. But there wasn’t one who didn’t step carefully when Sophie was in a temper.
Still, in all the years of spectacular family clashes, not once had any of the siblings ended up as badly injured as Detective Blake Barker.
If she had accidentally broken one of her brothers’ legs she’d be devastated for she loved every last bullying one of them. She’d do everything she could to make sure they were comfortable.
Thinking about her rough-and-tumble brothers helped calm her nerves. She’d take the flowers and pretend it was one of her brothers laid up in hospital. She’d apologize without groveling. There was a way of being sorry that still left a person their pride.
She continued her self-administered pep talk as she took the elevator up to his floor. She took a deep breath and headed for the nurses’ station, inhaling the hospital smell of disinfectant and sickness. She recalled the detective’s disgusted expression when the paramedic had started working on him. How he must hate being here. She clutched the vase tighter. “May I see Blake Barker please?” she asked the nurse behind the counter.
The woman checked the clock. “Sure. Visiting hours end in thirty minutes. His room is the last on the left.”
“Thank you.” She headed down the hall.
The nurse’s voice stopped her. “Ma’am? I said left.”
She turned around and walked the other way. “Of course you did.” Left, right, north, south—she pretty much always got them wrong.
When she arrived at his room, the door was ajar. She peeped in, heart thumping uncomfortably, hoping there’d be a crowd of officers or friends and family with the detective and that she could leave her flowers and bolt. But Detective Barker was alone. The scowl on his face must have scared everyone away.
The picture before her had her smiling in spite of unease. Detective Barker did remind her of one of her brothers laid up and in a foul mood. He was propped up in a white hospital bed and obviously wished himself elsewhere. It was a semiprivate room, she noted, but the second bed was empty. No doubt he’d terrified the other patient into discharging himself.
He wore a short-sleeved green hospital gown which showed off impressive biceps. One leg was tucked beneath a yellow blanket, the other propped on top. Where the gown ended she had a glimpse of tan, muscular thigh with a sprinkling of dark hair, the knob of a knee and then a heavy white cast that stretched from just below his knee to his toes and had her biting her lip again.
Her gaze jerked back to his face. He did not look like a happy man. His hair was still unkempt, she saw, but he’d pulled it back in an elastic band so she got the full benefit of a mighty scowl.
Biceps bunched as he turned a page of the magazine he was reading and she caught a glimpse of the cover. Ladies’ Home Journal. He flicked another page, looking bored, irritable and uncomfortable.
She took a step backward. No way she was going in there. She’d pretend she’d found him asleep and leave the flowers with the nurse.
Even as she stepped backward his head rose, like an animal scenting prey. As he spotted her, his stormy green eyes darkened.
“Hello,” she said softly from the doorway, fighting the urge to turn tail and run.
He did not appear overjoyed by
her visit. Only the fact that he had a cast hampering his movement gave her the courage to enter his room.
She held out the flowers like the peace offering they were and, since he didn’t reach for them, she crossed the room and placed them next to a box of tissues on a narrow table that sat under the window.
He flicked a glance at the flowers and didn’t bother to thank her.
She fussed with them, buying time, turning the bouquet until the best side showed, wondering how many minutes she ought to stay for politeness’ sake.
“I don’t even know your name,” he said at last. His voice sounded gruffer than she remembered.
And wouldn’t it be nice to keep it that way. She turned and stepped over to the bed. “It’s Sophie. Sophie Morton.” She was so flustered, she extended her hand for him to shake.
He glanced at her and a shaft of reluctant amusement lit his eyes, bringing them to sexy, powerful life. His hand was as big and strong as the rest of him and surrounded her fingers as he squeezed. It was so warm she wondered if he had a fever.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, compounding her inanity.
“Likewise, I’m sure,” he murmured and damn if the thread of amusement didn’t do something seriously chaotic to her libido.
She pulled her hand back and glanced around, wishing she’d had the stupid flowers delivered. He didn’t want to see her any more than she wanted to see him. What was the matter with her?
Guilt, that’s what. Her gaze was drawn to the white cast. “Is it very bad?” she asked in a small voice.
“It’ll heal.” As she recalled from earlier today, he was a man of few words.
“And your head?”
“They’re making me stay overnight for observation.” He shrugged. “It’s a hard head. It’ll be fine.”
She nodded, completely able to believe he was hard-headed.
“Would you like to sit down?” He indicated the chair beside his bed.
“No, really, I should be—” She gasped as his hand clamped down on her wrist.
“I’d like some company. I’m sick of women’s magazines and fishing journals. We could have a nice talk.” The words themselves were pleasant enough, she supposed; it was the steel beneath them that made her heart jump into her throat.
“I can’t think what we have to talk about.” She tried to struggle free, but his hand shackled her wrist.
“Let’s start by what the hell you were doing when you knocked me down the stairs and broke my leg.”
Tugging was useless and undignified so she gave it up. “I’ve already apologized. I am sorry. I thought you were attacking that woman.”
He stared at her as though she were crazy. “I had a gun.”
“I know. That’s why I tackled you. I was only going to call 9-1-1 from my cell phone in the car, but then I saw the gun. How did I know you weren’t going to kill her?”
If anything, the pressure on her wrist increased. She wouldn’t be surprised if he left burn blisters. “I could have killed you.”
“You weren’t looking my way.”
His mouth crooked up on one side. “That’s a mistake that cost me.”
Guilt assailed her. “If there’s anything I can do… I got a pretty good look at that woman. If I see her again I’ll—”
“You stay away from her.” His hand squeezed tighter and she winced. His eyes were coldly furious once more. “She and her friends kill first then ask questions.” He shook her arm up and down as though he’d forgotten he was holding it. “You see her and you run, you hear me?” His fingers were hot and implacable as they squeezed her flesh. Any tighter and she’d be the next one in a cast.
Sophie nodded. She felt herself trembling. Even though it was warm in the room, she felt cold.
As quickly as his anger had come, it faded, replaced by an awareness that was very male and very unnerving.
The fingers that had all but branded her a moment before now traced a lazy circle on the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. “Who are you?” he finally asked.
“I told you. Sophie Morton.” This was not happening. She was not feeling attracted to him. That was not desire climbing her arm like a rash. She’d treat her attraction like a panic attack. It was just as irrational and inconvenient. All she had to do was deny it and it would go away.
“Is your head bothering you again? I should call the nurse.” She searched for a call button. Nurse, doctor, janitor, she didn’t care. Anyone who’d rescue her from being alone with this frighteningly sexy man would be most welcome.
He shook his head with impatience. “I mean, where do you come from? What do you do? Why were you in that alley today? Didn’t look like your regular beat.”
The call button was on his other side, but she’d throw herself out the hospital window before she’d lean across his body. She remembered only too clearly how it had felt to be pressed intimately against him, chest to thigh. She cleared her throat. “I’m in human resources. I was at a meeting this morning and I took a wrong turn on the way back to the head office. I got lost.”
“Did you ever.” He let her go at last and eased his head back against the pillows as though it were throbbing.
She put her hands behind her back so he wouldn’t see her rubbing her sore wrist. “I have no sense of direction. It’s a curse. That woman. Is she a very bad criminal?”
“I don’t know much about her. Her boyfriend’s one of the worst. He’s the head of an Asian gang that’s trying to build a base here. They deal drugs, run gambling rings, smuggle illegal human cargo, dabble in murder and intimidation.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We hoped to use her to get the boyfriend.”
She dropped her gaze to the gleaming tile floor feeling as guilty as if she were the vicious criminal. “Why did you lie to Detective Holborn? You didn’t tell him I broke your leg.”
There was a short pause as though he wasn’t sure why, either. In the hallway a doctor was being paged, the tinny sound of an amplified voice echoing against the pale green walls and polished floor. “You tried to help. You were…brave but misguided. I figure you lost your car, that’s punishment enough.”
Her car. Her very own half-paid-for car. “I should check and see if they’ve found it yet.”
He snorted with humorless laughter. “Your car’s gone. It was probably in a chop shop within an hour.”
“Oh.” She tried not to picture her poor seminew car being broken up and sold for parts. It was her own fault for being foolish and impulsive. When would she ever learn? “Well,” she said, glancing at her watch, “visiting hours are almost over. I’d better go.”
His gaze held hers for a moment and she felt momentarily breathless. It was the kind of look a man gives a woman he wants. Her pulse jolted under the raw heat in his expression. If they’d met at a party or club, would they have been attracted to each other?
She was pretty sure she knew the answer. At least on her side.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I guess you’d better.”
“I’m…um…I’m sorry.” Sorry for his broken bones, his botched arrest and very sorry they wouldn’t have a chance to explore the strong pull between them.
“I’ll live.”
“Well, I… Do you have a card so I can call you if I see that woman again?”
His brows rose and he glanced down at his hospital gown. Any fool could tell he was naked beneath. “Not on me.”
“No, of course not.” Her gaze settled in his lap where the gown had rucked itself round a very respectable bulge. She recalled the moment when she’d tried to move off of him in the alley and found her crotch pressed against him. Even at rest his male equipment had felt impressive.
“Did you lose something?” He’d followed the line of her gaze and once again that thread of humor laced his tone, only now it held a husky note.
“I’m not sure,” she said slowly, letting her gaze travel very deliberately up his body to his mouth, “but I think maybe I did.” Mmm, he was sexy, and if he could p
lay games, so could she. “Maybe we both did.”
She could tell her frankness had surprised him, but he didn’t deny her statement. What was the point? She knew he was thinking the same thing she was.
So caught up was she in reading the X-rated messages in his eyes that she didn’t notice his arms creep round her waist until she tried to back out of the room. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“You hurt me bad,” he said huskily. “The least you can do is kiss it better.”
She leaned forward slowly, wanting quite fiercely to kiss him, knowing from the way her blood was already heating that she wouldn’t be able to stop there.
“Which part of you hurts most?” she asked.
“I hurt all over.”
“I was afraid of that.” She let a hand rest on his wide chest as she leaned into him, feeling the thump of his heart beneath her palm. It wasn’t fair that this man both frightened and excited her at the same time.
Her body was aching all over, as well, with need. It was embarrassing to feel this way about a virtual stranger, but she never had been able to control her libido once it decided to take charge of her body.
His lips were near. She loved their shape and firmness, and based on every other part of him she’d touched, they’d be warm. Her own lips parted in anticipation and she watched as his did the same.
He lifted a hand and tucked a curl behind her ear, brushing the sensitive skin near her lobe so she shivered.
“What if someone comes in?” She couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. Battered and concussed he was about the sexiest man she’d ever seen. She couldn’t imagine what he must be like with all his wits and limbs functioning.
His lips curved. “Maybe we’ll get thrown out and I’ll be able to leave the hospital.”
He didn’t know about her embarrassing sexual quirk. “Believe me, someone would come. And you’d end up with a worse headache.”
His hand moved to the back of her head, thrust deep in her curls and he pulled her slowly forward. “I’ll risk it,” he said.
Look before you leap, Sophie. She’d ignored that excellent advice once too often today. This time, she decided to be smart. But it cost her.