by Betina Krahn
Finally, he just asked. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Uh-huh. I’m about as fine as somebody being chased by a crazy Vegas mobster and mistaken for a prostitute can be.” Shaking her head woefully, she added, “It’s really not fair that I can be accused of being a hooker and not have the sordid experience to show for it. And called a thief and not have any jewels.”
Any final threads of tension evaporated, and Reese had to admire the way she’d taken everything that had come her way in the past several days in stride. Just like she did everything else.
Some women would have left that first night, after she’d been treated so harshly by his pushy family members. Others might have resented being moved around like a pawn on a chess board by a rich old busybody who liked getting her own way.
But Amanda just went with it, laughed and never complained about what she couldn’t change. He found that incredibly attractive.
He also really liked the way she teased him about it as they drove back to his place, asking what his sweet old aunt would think if she knew the wild things he’d done to her the night before. As if wanting to remind him, she put her hand on his thigh. Then she began sliding it up, inch by inch.
Suddenly, though, when she went too high, whispering something about making the ride home more enjoyable, he dropped his hand on hers and squeezed, shaking his head in silence.
He didn’t have to say anything. She immediately understood. Sucking in an embarrassed breath, she pulled away. “Oh, Reese, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he murmured, knowing she understood why he was such a careful driver.
There were some games he’d never play, some risks he would never take. No matter what. He’d learned that lesson all too well.
“I’m an idiot.” She sighed heavily. “An insensitive twit.” She curled up one leg, wrapping her arms around it and resting her chin on her upraised knee, staring pensively out the windshield at the oncoming traffic. With a hint of wistfulness in her tone, she added, “He must have been a wonderful man for you to have turned out to be such a great guy yourself.”
“Yes, he was.”
He fell silent, not elaborating at first. Talking about his father was probably as difficult for him as talking about hers was for Amanda. Not for the same reasons, of course. Her wounds were old and scarred, and she no longer felt the ache. His were fresh and raw, and he just didn’t feel like poking at them and starting the bleeding all over again.
But he could tell by the continued silence that she felt like crap for even suggesting they fool around while he was behind the wheel. The last thing he wanted to do was make her feel worse. So he began to speak.
“His name was Patrick, and he died way too young.”
She turned her head to look at him, wide-eyed and tentative. “You don’t have to…”
“It’s okay. Actually, it’s kind of nice to be able to say his name without someone bursting into tears.”
She wasn’t crying, but he could tell, even in the low lighting of the car, that her eyes were moist.
“He’d worked late, as usual. And he was driving too fast, trying hard to make it to one of Jake’s basketball games. He’d missed the last few because of work, and they’d had a big fight about it the day before. He’d promised he’d make the next one. Only…he didn’t.”
“Oh, God, poor Jake,” she whispered, immediately grasping the situation. “That’s a lot of weight for a kid to bear.”
“Tell me about it. He’s been the one I’ve been most worried about. He’s angry at the world, sometimes mean and rebellious, sometimes still just a lost kid wondering what happened.”
Amanda reached across for his hand, this time lacing her fingers through his in a touch that was all about sweetness and consolation. And because she didn’t ask any questions, didn’t pry at all, just letting him say whatever he wanted, he felt okay about saying it.
He told her about that night. About the nights that followed. About how fucking hard it had been to pick out a casket and decide on a headstone and keep his mother upright and his sisters from sobbing and the business functioning and his brother from blowing his whole life out of guilt, and still maintaining his own sanity amid his own deep, wrenching grief.
It was like someone had pulled a plug on all the words that had gone unsaid for two years. And it wasn’t until he’d let them out that he realized just how much he’d needed to say them. Being the strong one, the stoic one, the steady one had also left him the one who’d never been able to release the anger and the heartbreak that had been locked inside him.
By the time he finished, they were sitting in his driveway, and had been for several minutes. They were silent, neither of them even looking at each other, or moving to get out of the car. But finally, once he’d taken a deep breath and realized the world hadn’t ended just because he’d admitted to someone else that he sometimes resented his life and his family and even his father, he looked over at her and saw the kind of warmth and kindness Amanda Bauer probably didn’t even know she possessed.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “Everything you’re feeling is completely understandable.” She lifted his hand to her mouth, pressing a soft, gentle kiss on the backs of his fingers. “I’m sorry you and your family had to go through that, Reese. So damn sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said, rubbing his knuckles against her soft cheek. He opened his mouth to continue, to both thank her and to tell her she needn’t feel sorry for him. He also felt an apology rise to his lips, feeling bad for dumping everything on her like that. But before he could say a thing, something caught his eye.
A shadow was moving around the corner of his house.
He stiffened, leaning over to stare past her, out the window, but saw nothing. Thinking about what he’d seen, he knew it hadn’t been Ralph. He never left the dog out if he wasn’t home. Nor had the shape looked like any other kind of animal.
It had been man-size.
“Stay in the car and lock the doors,” he ordered, reaching for the door handle.
“Huh?” She swung her head around to see what he’d been looking at. She figured it out almost immediately. “Is it him? Wait! Don’t you dare…”
But he had already stepped out into the cold night, quietly pushing the door closed behind him. Maybe that bastard Lebowski didn’t know he’d been spotted.
Reese paused for one second to glance back at Amanda, who watched wide-eyed from inside the car. Making a dialing motion with his hand, he mouthed, “Call 911,” then crept across his own front lawn.
Though Parker had said the thief wasn’t considered dangerous, Reese wasn’t taking any chances. As he passed by the front flower bed, he bent over and grabbed the ugly ceramic gnome one of his sisters had given him as a gag housewarming gift. The thing had weight, it was solid in his palm. And if knocked against somebody’s skull, he suspected it would hurt like crazy. It’d do.
The night was moonless and cold, wind whipping up the few remaining dead leaves still lying in the yard. Reese moved in silence, approaching the corner of the house, carefully peering around it before proceeding.
He spotted Lebowski immediately. The robber was trying to use a credit card to jimmy the lock on the side door leading into the utility room. Muttering curses under his breath, the robber appeared clumsy and not terribly quiet, as if he’d gotten spooked when he’d heard them pull up in the driveway and was now on the verge of panic.
Reese suspected the man had been at it for a while. The fact that the guy hadn’t been scared off when he and Amanda had returned said a lot about how desperate Lebowski was to get whatever he thought Reese and Amanda had.
The guy might be sly, but he wasn’t much of a criminal. He didn’t even notice Reese moving up behind him, jerking in shock when Reese pressed the pointed tip of the gnome’s hat against the small of his back. “Make one move and you’re dead.”
“Aww, shit, man,” the guy whined. “No, don’t shoot, please don’t. I wasn’t
gonna hurt anybody. I just wanted to get what’s owed me and get outta here before you got back!”
“Yeah, so why’d you feel the need to threaten my girlfriend?” he asked, digging the point a little harder into the bastard’s back.
“Are you kidding me? I didn’t threaten her. The crazy bitch is hard-core, she ain’t afraid of nothin’. She scares me!” The other man risked a quick peek over his shoulder, paling a little more when he saw the obvious rage in Reese’s face. “Sorry.”
“I most certainly am not hard-core,” a voice said, cracking through the cold night as sharp and forceful as a whip.
He was going to kill her. “I asked you to stay in the car.” He had to push the words through tightly clenched teeth.
“I did. I called the police, they’ll be here any minute. When I saw you had things under control, I thought I’d come back and see if you could use this.” She held out her hand, extending the long waist-tie to her overcoat.
Smart thinking. He’d gotten Lebowski to remain still, but hadn’t thought ahead to how to keep him that way until the cops came. If the little toad figured out he was being held in place by a ceramic gnome’s head, he might not be in the mood to stick around and wait to be arrested.
“Fine. Tie him up.”
She moved closer, carefully. “Put your hands behind your back.”
“I swear, I just wanted my jewelry. I owe some money to some of my colleagues and if I don’t come up with it, they’re gonna kill me.”
“Well, hopefully they won’t be able to get to you in a jail cell,” Amanda said, sounding distinctly sour and a little bit pleased at the thought. Not that the guy didn’t deserve it.
As she tied Teddy Lebowski’s hands behind his back, yanking the fabric so tight the other man winced, she also said one more thing.
“And you can call me the biggest bitch in the known universe. But I am not crazy.”
REESE HAD NEVER TOUCHED her more tenderly, more lovingly than he did that night after they’d watched Teddy Lebowski being taken away by the local police. They’d walked upstairs with their arms around each other’s waists, her head dropping onto his shoulder in utter weariness.
But once they’d slipped out of their clothes and met in the middle of his bed, sleep had been far from Amanda’s mind. And from Reese’s.
He’d spent hours stroking her, tasting every inch of her skin, teasing her with soft kisses and slow, deliberate caresses. Every brush of their lips had included a sweet whisper, each embrace a sigh of delight.
Even as he aroused all her senses, bringing her every nerve ending to its highest peak, he’d made her feel…cherished. Adored.
There had been absolutely no frenzy. They exchanged long, slow kisses that didn’t prompt any urgency, didn’t make them want to go faster or hurry on to whatever came next. They were delightful just for how good they felt, how intimate and personal and right. Kissing was an incredibly intimate act, she saw that now. She’d always considered it more a prelude to other things, but in Reese’s arms, under his rapt attention where every touch brought waves of sensation, she gained a whole new appreciation for a simple kiss.
She’d never experienced anything like it. Never dreamed that emotional tears would fill her eyes as a man slowly slid into her body. She hadn’t ever pictured every slide becoming a declaration and each gentle thrust a promise.
Nor had she ever imagined that when it was nearly over, when she’d lost herself to climax after climax, and had known he was reaching his, too, she’d actually feel her heart split in half at the sound of the words he’d softly whispered in her ear.
I love you.
He’d done it—the unthinkable. The thing she’d warned him not to do. He’d fallen in love with her. And he’d told her so.
Part of her wondered why she hadn’t already left, slipping out the minute he’d fallen asleep. The old Amanda would have headed for the hills or the plains or another continent where she didn’t have to deal with someone else’s feelings that she simply didn’t return.
She didn’t have to wonder for long. The answer was simple, really. She did return them.
And that broke her heart even more.
Lying in Reese’s arms after he’d fallen asleep, Amanda couldn’t stop thinking about that moment she’d been sitting in the car, when she’d watched him disappear around the corner of the house. She’d heard the expression about your heart going into your throat when terror had you in its grip. But she’d never experienced it…until then.
It didn’t matter what Parker had said, or that he’d been right in pegging Lebowski as a cowardly punk who didn’t have the nerve to commit real violence. There’d been no way to be sure of that. As the seconds had passed, when her ears had still rung with his sad, grief-stricken whispers about his father, whom he had so loved and lost, she could only imagine the worst.
Losing him, something happening to him…she wouldn’t be able to stand it. And though she had no real liking for his family yet, given their behavior the other night and the fact that his mother had looked at her like she was something that had crawled up from out of a toilet, she suddenly felt boatloads of sympathy for them.
The pain of losing someone you deeply loved had to be unimaginable. Which was, perhaps, one reason she’d never wanted to experience the emotion.
Too late. She, the stone-cold, heartbreaking bitch had fallen in love. Completely, totally, irrevocably in love. The ice had melted, her heart had begun beating with renewed energy and purpose. And the man she’d fallen in love with was incredibly sexy, smart, funny, loyal…and great.
Yet, instead of that realization filling her with joy, she could only lie here in the dark and wonder just how long it would be before she screwed it up.
What would be the first callous thing she’d say to start piercing at his feelings for her? What trip would she take, what birthday would she forget, what need would she ignore, what promise would she not keep? How soon before she felt constricted, restrained, and just needed to go?
Because those things were inevitable. That was her M.O. No, she’d never gone as far as falling in love before, but it didn’t matter, did it? She always let men down, always hurt them, always bailed.
She was just like Uncle Frank. Feckless, reckless, lovable but unreliable Uncle Frank. Everybody said so.
She suddenly wanted to cry. Because how badly did it suck to finally fall in love, really in love, and realize you liked the person too much to inflict yourself on him?
Reese was too good, way too good for her. She didn’t want him hurt.
Not only that, he had a million and one things on his plate, was obviously at the end of his rope in terms of all the demands placed on him by everyone around him. So how could she add to that, become one more thing for him to worry about, one more weight on his shoulders?
Funny, when he realized she was gone, he would probably think it had something to do with his family, his responsibilities, his ties that bound him so tightly to this place and these people. All the things he’d told her about on the ride home tonight.
In fact, none of that really mattered. She’d told herself she never wanted to be stuck in place, living the same kind of life her parents had lived. But it didn’t take a genius to see she didn’t have to. She’d been in Reese’s house for almost a week, and the world hadn’t come to an end. She’d kept going to sleep each night and getting up each day. Kept breathing in, then out. Kept working, kept flying, kept living. They could make this work.
If only she weren’t so damned sure it wouldn’t last.
It was that certainty that drove her out of bed just after dawn. For a moment, the thought of just leaving, heading for the airport, occurred to her. It had been her standard operating procedure in the past.
But Reese didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. Besides, she wasn’t that person anymore. Cowardice and immaturity had led her to make those decisions in the past. Now, she wasn’t afraid, and she was looking at this through calm, adult eyes.
They couldn’t work. Not in the long term. So he’d be better off getting out in the short one.
Sitting at his kitchen table, with Ralph—sweet dog, she was going to miss him, too—at her feet, she sipped a cup of coffee and waited for the chill of morning to leave her bones.
It didn’t. Not one bit. She just sat there cold and sad, waiting for him to come down.
Finally, he did. When he walked into the kitchen, she could only stare at him. He wore low-riding sweatpants, no shirt, and she gazed at the strong arms that had held her during the night, the rough hands that had brought her so much pleasure. The broad chest against which she’d slept.
God this was hard. Love was hard.
He knew before she said a word that she was leaving.
“Do you need a ride to the airport?” he asked, not meeting her stare. “Reese…”
He waved off her explanation. “I know. Game’s over. Bad guy’s caught. It’s not even a holiday, so there’s no reason for you to stay.”
There were a million reasons for her to stay, but one really good one for her to go. All the men in the Dumped by Amanda Bauer group could attest to that. She just wasn’t cut out for a serious, loving relationship.
“I did the unthinkable,” he added, sounding so tired, and looking so resigned, her heart twisted in her chest. “I fell in love with you when I told you I wouldn’t.”
He finally met her stare, watching her closely. He seemed to be looking for something—a sign, a hesitation, a hint that she was happy he loved her.
It took every bit of her strength not to give it to him.
Finally, with a short nod that said he’d gotten the message, he broke the stare. “So, do you need a ride?”
“I can get a cab,” she murmured.
“Fine. Goodbye, Amanda.”
He didn’t say anything else, merely turned and walked back out of the kitchen. His footsteps were hard as he walked up the stairs, and from above, she hard the slamming of the door as he went into the bathroom.