Seeing Red

by Jill Shalvis

  Summer laughed. “No, he’s not.” She thought of their kiss on the beach, the way he’d painted her skin with his fingers when they’d made love. “But he can be romantic when he wants to be.”

  “That’s because you’re different from the other women he’s been with,” Kenny said. “I’m so glad you’re different.”

  She wondered at the others.

  Kenny grinned. “You’ve also got amazing restraint.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Go ahead, I’ll give you a freebie. Ask me anything, I’ve known him for years. You want to know if he snores? Yes, when he’s stressed. You want to know if he still thinks of himself as a fat loser? Yes, especially when he gets dumped by some silly woman who never understood him. You want to know if he’s easily hurt? Double yes, way too easily.”

  There was something in Kenny’s eyes now, some gentle reproaching warning not to hurt his close friend and partner, and the loyalty made Summer’s throat thick. “How about I ask a question about you instead?”

  “Okay,” he said, surprised.

  “What’s going on between you and my mother?”

  “Nothing.” His eyes behind his glasses were right on hers, and as far as she could tell, honest. “Yet.”

  “What’s going to go on between you and my mother?”

  A small smile curved his lips. “Truth?”

  “Please,” she said.

  “When this arson investigation is over, I’m going to date her. A lot. Is that a problem for you?”

  “She’s seven years older than you.”

  “Seven years is nothing. She’s sweet, beautiful, kind, and she cares about me.”

  “Kenny.” Torn between loyalties, she chewed on her lower lip. “She cares about men. That’s never been the issue. She just never likes them for long.”

  “I’m a big boy, Summer. And anyway, have some faith in the power of love.”

  “Love?”

  “Love,” he said firmly. “Trust me.”

  Trust him. He hadn’t been the first man to ask that of her. No, Joe had the distinction of that honor.

  “Do you want to know where Joe is?” Kenny asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to make him even grumpier, or turn the day around for him?”

  Summer thought about that. She wanted to tell Joe how much she’d missed him last night. That she needed him. That she thought that maybe all those years ago she’d loved him as much as she’d been capable of, and it had scared her but she didn’t know why, and she still didn’t. “It might be a combination,” she admitted.

  Kenny nodded. “There was just a store bombing near the Amtrak station. A convenience store. Some punk tossed an M-80 through the windows to break in. They think it’s the same punk who’s robbed three other stores this year. Joe’s working with the police, checking for evidence.”

  “Can you just tell him I came by, maybe ask him to call me?”

  “You bet.”

  Summer turned to leave just as the soap opera went to a news bulletin. “We’re on site at the convenience store bombing from earlier this morning,” a newscaster said. “The third in this area this year. This time the suspect wasn’t able to get the money from the cash register, and he vanished. The police think he’s still in the immediate vicinity. We’ll go to Tom now, on scene.”

  The camera cut to a young reporter holding a microphone, standing in front of the convenience store. The windows had been blown out and were blackened around the edges. Just inside a few officers moved around.

  “Look.” Summer pointed to Joe. He wore his usual uniform of jeans and his white button-down, half untucked and draped over the gun on his hip. He hadn’t shaved and his hair was rumpled, and he looked so incredibly sexy she wanted to reach out and touch him.

  Kenny sighed as she sank next to him on the couch. “How many times have I told him when there’s suits or cameras around, tuck the shirt all the way in and comb that mop masquerading as hair…”

  The reporter began talking. “The police are confident that they have the suspect on camera—” A gun went off, and the reporter gasped, spinning around to take in the scene behind him.

  A guy wearing a ski mask and holding a gun leapt out of a large open tub of sodas. He waved the weapon, and as everyone else reached for theirs, the man closest to the perp dove forward.

  Joe. He hit the suspect at midbelly and they both went down.

  The gun went off again.

  Four officers converged on them both, covering the view of the camera.

  “Keep the camera on them, Ed!” yelled the reporter. “Keep rolling!”

  But camera guy Ed couldn’t get a clear shot, there were too many people yelling and talking, standing in front of the lens.

  “Oh my God, did you see that?” Summer cried, leaping to her feet. “Joe just dove right at him. Was he shot? Could you see? I couldn’t see!”

  Face grim and tense, Kenny squeezed her hand then headed for the door. “I’ll call you from the scene—”

  “Oh, no, you won’t. Because I’ll be standing right next to you—”

  They had to drive separately because Kenny was going in an official capacity, while Summer would be nothing more than one of the desperate crowd.

  And she was desperate. Her heart was bouncing off her ribs like a Ping-Pong ball, the blood roaring in her ears as she played the scene in her head over and over.

  Why had Joe tried to be a hero?

  But she knew the answer to that. He’d been the closest, he’d had the best chance at taking the guy down before he’d shot someone. And yet the gun had gone off anyway.

  She drove faster, cranking up her radio for news.

  “One officer is down,” a reporter droned in a nasally, impersonal voice as if reading the alphabet. “But the gunman is in custody—”

  It took her four more long, agonizing minutes to get to the scene, the longest minutes of her life. She’d lost sight of Kenny’s truck, and the entire block had been barricaded, but she moved in as close as she could. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find a spot to park.

  When an ambulance whipped past her, going in the opposite direction, followed by a squad car, her heart kicked up a notch, if that was even possible. She was just about to abandon her car and say the hell with it when her cell phone rang.

  It was Kenny. “Oh thank God,” she said in lieu of a greeting. “Listen, I can’t get in close, there’s nowhere to park, I’m just going to—”

  “Turn around.” He sounded perfectly calm but Summer could hear the strain beneath the surface. “He just left in the ambulance, and is heading toward the hospital.”

  Now her poor heart stopped. “He was hit?”

  “I don’t have any details yet, but we both know Joe is far too stubborn to be anything but okay.”

  She heard Ashes let out a little bark, and knew she must be riding shotgun with Kenny. Summer let out a little sobbing laugh, and with the phone shoved against her hunched shoulder, tried to turn around. But traffic was a bitch and no one was moving and…and she was going to go postal here in a second. “Damn it!”

  “Listen to me, Summer. You have time, so drive carefully. Summer? Are you there?”

  Since she couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat, she nodded as if Kenny could see her.

  “Just get to the hospital,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Summer tossed the phone to the seat besides her and weaved through traffic, snarling at anyone who got in her way. At the hospital, she parked crookedly and ran through the lot and into the emergency department, which was so packed there was standing room only. People lined the hall, sat against the walls, paced the floor. Summer made her way past all of them, skidding to a halt in front of the nurses station. The line there was long but no one seemed to be doing anything so she stood off to the side and caught the eye of a nurse. “Joe Walker,” she gasped. “The fire marshal from the store bombing.”

 
Miraculously, the nurse moved to the counter and consulted a clipboard. “Are you family?”

  She debated with herself for less than a single heartbeat. She knew the rules. No family, no information. “Yes,” she said because it was true. She was the closet thing to family he’d ever had.

  “He’s going into surgery.” The nurse tossed a chin toward the waiting room. “Have a seat.”

  Chapter 22

  He was five again, and had knocked a glass of milk over. He stood there quivering in his own skin staring up into his father’s menacing face.

  “Got to teach you a lesson, boy.”

  Joe knew the drill and bit his lip to keep his mouth shut because he wouldn’t cry. But his father was all hands. Huge, hard, cruel hands—

  “There, that’ll help the pain. Joe? Joe, come on now, open your eyes.”

  Joe cracked open one eye and found himself surrounded by white and metal and a bright light that made him shut his eye again. His tongue felt swollen and his brain hazy.

  “Do you remember what happened?” a female voice asked.

  His nose was assaulted with a metallic scent, and a warm hand settled on his arm. Fixing an IV he realized, and his eyes flew open again.

  The nurse smiled at him. “Hi there. Welcome back.”

  He remembered being in the convenience store, remembered the shouts, the punk lifting a gun, pointing it at an officer. He remembered thinking it was just a kid, a stupid kid, then the explosion of the gun near his ear and the fiery agony as the bullet had torn through his boot.

  He’d been shot in the damn foot by a kid.

  Jesus, he was getting old if he’d let that happen, and that sucked too. He lifted his head and stared down at his foot, which was bandaged up like a mummy. “It’s still there,” he said with some relief, and lay back again.

  “It most definitely is,” the nurse said. “You have a nice hole in it though, and you won’t be using it any time in the near future, but it’s there. Your wife has been pacing the hallways waiting for you to wake up. Should I send her in?”

  “My wife?” He lifted a hand to his head. No bandages.

  “What’s the matter?” the nurse asked.

  “Did I hit my head?”

  “No.” The nurse frowned. “Does it hurt?”

  The drugs had kicked in now, and things were nice and fuzzy. “I’m not sure.” In the opened doorway he locked on to a set of jade green eyes, red rimmed with a smudge of mascara under each. They belonged to the one face that could both stop his heart and kick-start it with one look.

  Summer sent him a tremulous smile. “Hi honey, I’m home.”

  “I just loaded him with morphine,” the nurse warned her with a little pat on Joe’s arm. “He’ll be quite loopy, and it’s possible he won’t remember this at all.”

  “Christ, I hope I do,” he murmured. “It’s not every day I get to lay eyes on my wife.”

  Summer’s cheeks glowed red but she moved to his bedside. “You okay?”

  “I don’t remember our honeymoon. Did you wear a pretty silky teddy thing?” He closed his eyes because his eyelids felt too heavy. At the same time, energy surged through him, making his skin feel too tight. “Because just naked is good too.”

  “Joe.”

  “Summer,” he answered obediently. “I can’t feel a damn thing. That’s a nice change. Even my heart doesn’t hurt.”

  “Oh, Joe.”

  Because she sounded so sad, he blinked and tried to concentrate, but it wasn’t easy. “My foot has a hole in it.”

  “I know.” Staring down at his IV, she stroked his arm gently. “I was so scared.”

  She was so pretty with her sweet worry, with her fiery hair brushing her golden shoulders. She was wearing two tank tops layered together, one white, one sky blue, and a denim skirt that showed off her mile-long legs. He felt a…grin split his face. “You married me. You must really looooove me.”

  A frown turned her mouth upside down. “You aren’t that drugged, are you? You know we’re not really married.”

  “I didn’t take a bullet to the brain.” Sighing, he lay back and closed his eyes. “I know where we are. You want to be friends, and occasionally fuck me.” Suddenly the morphine wasn’t enough. He realized his chest did hurt. His head hurt. His foot burned like a son of a bitch. And he was quickly sinking into the black pit where he’d run into his father’s fists again. “Red?”

  He felt her hand on his jaw, and he sighed, turning his face into her touch. “Don’t go.”

  But he fell into the pit before he could hear her answer.

  For three days the Creative Interiors case took a backseat to Joe’s shooting. When he was discharged from the hospital, Summer drove him home and set him up in his bed, surrounded by the flowers and gifts people had sent, which looked almost obnoxiously cheerful when compared to his stubborn, set, irritated face.

  “Where’s Ashes?” he asked.

  “Kenny’s got her.”

  He frowned. “You should have taken me into work.”

  “The doctor said no.”

  He sent her a brooding glance.

  “It’s not the end of the world,” she said, carefully propping his foot up on a pillow. “Taking some time off.”

  “Are you sure?”

  In the act of smoothing his covers, she looked over at him, saw the irony in his expression. “Okay, maybe at first I thought it was, but I got used to it. I sure got used to seeing your face whenever I wanted.”

  He closed his eyes. “I’ve had just enough drugs to take that as a compliment.” He lay on his bed very still, as if moving a single inch hurt.

  The doctor had said no weight on the foot for one week, but after that he’d recover quickly. Summer wanted to believe that with all her might but he looked so haggard and hollow and pale. His mouth was tight, as if the pain meds weren’t working, or maybe that was just because she was hovering.

  Not wanting to leave him alone, she sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Hey, wife,” he said, eyes still closed, not moving a single muscle.

  “Do you need anything?”

  “Nah. Just checking to see if you’d answer to the title.”

  “Funny.”

  One side of his mouth quirked, and she caught a flash of his dimple. “Gotta get your kicks where you can when you’re down,” he murmured.

  “You won’t be down for long. Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah. I want a Big Mac and a Supersized order of fries, extra carbs and cholesterol please.”

  He’d lost weight in the past few days. And since he was still so carefully not moving, she figured the order was more wishful thinking than anything else. “How about some soup and tea?”

  He made a very soft noise of aversion and then was quiet.

  So was she. For days she’d been living with the nightmare of what could have happened. How much worse this could have been. He could have taken the bullet in his chest, or in the head, in which case, she might be sitting by his grave—

  She put her fingers over her mouth.

  “You going to stare at me until I’m better? Because that might be a while.”

  “Yes,” she said a little shakily. “Until you’re better, I’m not going to take my eyes off you.”

  “Even when I’m in the shower?”

  “Why not? I’ve seen it all before.”

  “Not on a regular basis. Only when you’re needing a distraction.”

  She stared down at him, horrified that that’s what he thought he was. She had nobody but herself to blame for that, because she’d started this whole thing with him for exactly that. A distraction. “Joe.” Her throat went tight. “You know how I feel about you, right? You know I—”

  He opened his eyes for this.

  But it wasn’t as easy when he was looking at her, she discovered. Not that there was anything remotely easy about speaking of her feelings at all. “Um…”

  He arched a brow.

  “I…”

&nbs
p; He snorted and shut his eyes again. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  God, she felt like a fool. Why couldn’t she just say it? He made her laugh, he made her feel good, he made her happy. And if that meant she’d deepened her feelings to…love…then that’s what it was.

  “I’m hot,” he said.

  Pathetically grateful for the break, Summer leapt up and pulled off his blanket.

  “Still hot.”

  “You’re only in a sheet.” But she removed that too, dragging it aside in a way that he could easily pull it back over him if he wanted. He wore only low slung faded gray sweat bottoms. His chest was bare except for the light dusting of hair that ran from pec to pec. His belly rose and fell with his breathing, hard and ridged with muscle, but also nearly concave from not eating for days.

  He hadn’t shaved, and she looked at the shadow on his jaw. At the shadows beneath his eyes. And everything within her softened, melted. “Can I get you anything?”

  “A hammer to the head.”

  “You need more pain meds?”

  “No.”

  He’d been stubborn about those, and she knew why. He hated to be out of control, hated to feel weak. She shifted a little closer and put her hand on his chest, and then frowned at how hot he really was. “You are too warm.”

  His fingers came up to cover hers. She would have softened some more, melted some more, but he shoved her hand off him. “You don’t have to stay,” he said. “Kenny’s coming later. I’ll be fine until then.”

  “You think I don’t want to be here?”

  He didn’t answer, and that made her mad. Leaning over him, she put her hand back on his chest and waited until she felt each of his muscles tense in reaction at her touch. “You of all people should know I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

  “I’m not in the mood for this, Summer.”

  Summer. “Well, isn’t that fine and dandy, because I’m not in the mood to watch you go through all this pain, through being laid flat and helpless when I know damn well how much you love that.”

  A long moment passed. Joe was still in his own zone.

  “Stop staring at me,” he finally said. “Your thoughts are so loud they’re penetrating the pleasant buzz of the drugs.”