by Dani Collins
Sterling nodded and a few minutes later pulled into the hospital parking lot near the emergency doors. By the time he had come around to her side, Paige was trying to slide onto the ground.
“You’re going to drive the glass deeper into your foot.”
It made her nuts, having to accept his help, he could tell. But after a hiss of breath aimed at the sky, she let him swing her into his arms. He tossed her a bit to hike her higher against his chest. It felt good to hold a woman, even one who kept herself all stiff and unyielding. Her fine hair lifted to tickle the side of his jaw and he didn’t even care that he didn’t have a free hand to brush it away.
“I’m guessing you don’t indulge in rescue fantasies,” he said, walking into the hospital.
“Ha. No. You?”
“‘Course not. But listen, when we get inside, call me Clark.”
He felt her surprised chuckle. She relaxed into him. He tightened his grip, pleased.
An orderly brought a wheelchair as they came through the automatic doors, and provided an absorbent paper pad for Paige to rest her feet on. Then the admission clerk took a history of her allergies, blood sugar levels and susceptibility to critical frustration when pestered with stupid questions. How about a bandage people?
Sterling went outside to move the vehicle from the emergency lot and came back to find Paige gone. A nurse led him through the stuffy, over-warm maze of curtained beds and flicked one back to show Paige curled on her side, looking bored. She had blue paper pads wrapped loosely around her feet and was toying with a pendant on a chain around her neck.
“How long until you see someone?”
“I thought you left.”
“Of course you did. I just moved the SUV.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
“How will you get home if I don’t?”
“I can call Brit. Or her dad. Olinda, maybe.”
“Or I could act like a decent human being and stay. Your mom’s not on the list?”
“Doesn’t have a car. Speaking of moms, yours told you not to be late for dinner.”
He picked up a chair and moved it closer. “Is that a shot, or are you genuinely concerned about my hot meal intake?”
“Hey, I can’t tell you how many turkeys I’ve roasted that no one ate. When I cook and no one shows, I get cranky. You should go.”
It was amazing how uncomfortable she was. He should probably give up trying, but couldn’t. Not when sparring with her was so much fun.
“My mom’s more forgiving than you are. I already called and she’s fine.”
“You told her where you were?”
He held her gaze, refusing to apologize for putting off the full explanation. “I told her I had to drive someone to the hospital. I’ll give a more detailed account when I get home.”
Her lashes swept down, hiding her reaction but her mouth went soft with consternation.
He sat down on the chair.
Paige bunched the stiff pillow and sighed, like she was trying to make herself more comfortable. Her husband must have woken up a thousand times to see her arm curved under her pillow like that.
“What happened to your marriage?”
She blinked, surprised. He was a little stunned himself. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Her fingers curled around the pendant she wore. “What’s that?” She nodded at the magazine in his hand.
“Nice coping strategy. Don’t like the question? Pretend it wasn’t asked.”
“I see you’re adopting it.”
“I don’t have a problem with questions.” He held up the technical manual he’d taken from his father’s office this afternoon, before he and his father had blown up at each other. “This is light reading for while we wait. I know you’ve been dying to learn about cycle rates on lathes.”
“Mmm. Growing up with Lyle, I hardly ever got to hear about manly things like industrial tooling.”
“And here I was looking forward to initiating a virgin.” Oops. He hadn’t meant to go there. An apology rose in his throat as a blush burst under her skin. It wasn’t the flush of humiliation, though. It was self-conscious awareness, quickly hidden with lowered lashes.
If he hadn’t been face to face with her, he might have missed the subtle difference, might have thought she had been offended instead of learning she was as tuned to him as he was to her.
And wasn’t that interesting.
She dropped the pendant, which turned out to be a ring, and adjusted the pillow beneath her head.
“Whose ring is that?” It looked familiar.
“Dad’s. He had to take it off when he was admitted. I put it on this chain I was already wearing so we wouldn’t lose it. It has an inscription.” She gave him a look, kind of tentative, but inquisitive. “He’s worn it for as long as I can remember and I’ve never asked where he got it, but it’s from S.E. With love. That’s not my mom or Olinda. Know anyone in town with those initials?”
“Not off the top of my head.” He leaned forward and picked it up, angling it so he could read.
She drew a little intake of breath. He thought she might be holding it. Then she licked her lips and they were right there, the angle perfect if he leaned forward a little more.
“Someone passing through do you think?” she asked thinly.
“What?” Not thinking at all over here, not really. Those lips were so flawless in their shape, so soft looking. Full enough to compensate for his clumsy efforts years ago and probably knowledgeable enough now to make things deliciously fantastic. God, he could still recall exactly how it had felt to kiss her. Electricity had thrummed through his whole body.
“The initials,” she prompted.
He rolled the ring so he could see them again, used it as an excuse to lean closer.
“Your mother doesn’t know?” he murmured. Grady had always been a notorious tomcat. There was a reason Paige’s mother had left him and that reason probably had these initials.
She breathed a little laugh that warmed his jaw. “She said it stands for, ‘Somebody Else.’”
“Ah.” He would have grinned, but his mouth wouldn’t hold the smile. He just wanted a brief taste—
The curtain jerked back with a clatter of metal hooks.
Sterling dropped the ring and sat back, only realizing as he felt the chair against his spine how far he’d almost gone.
Paige rolled to lie face up.
The doctor, a tall, white-haired, Ted Danson type, peered over square glasses balanced on his nose.
“Don’t look so embarrassed. I’ve walked in on worse. Had a coitus interruptus just last year. A young man with a broken ankle and a long wait for x-rays. Saw the young lady again nine months later, no word of a lie.”
“I walked in on one last year, too,” Paige said. “My husband and the divorcee from down the hall. They’re expecting a girl this Christmas.” She shot a tight smile at Sterling. “Questions don’t scare me. It’s the answers that put me off.”
Oh, Paige.
The doctor lowered his smirk to consult his chart. “Paige, I’m Dr. Braidwood. And you have a cut foot. Let’s have a look.”
He searched for a rolling stool, drew it to the end of the bed, and sat to unwrap her feet, tilting his chin up so he was looking through his glasses. “Nurse give you any needles? Something for pain? Tetanus shot?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re about to be a pin-cushion. You’ll need both and stitches besides.”
Paige came up on her elbow. “Seriously?”
Sterling held out his hand. “I’m right here.”
“This a date?” the doctor asked.
“No.” Paige ignored Sterling’s offered hand.
“That’s good,” Dr. Braidwood murmured in his dead-pan voice, as a nurse arrived behind him with a tray. “Because it would be a lousy one. This is going to sting.”
Paige caught her breath and her cool fingers slid into a tight weave with Sterling’s.
Cha
pter Eleven
“You’re awfully quiet,” Sterling said, making her aware they were turning onto her street. “Feet hurt?”
“No, just thinking.” Had he been about to kiss her in the hospital? Why? Would she have let him? How could she even entertain the thought? How could he? They hated each other.
Didn’t they?
“About the break in?”
“Pardon? Oh.” Okay. She’d go with that. “I guess it was probably kids? Looking for booze and money?”
“Is there any reason it would be something more serious?”
“I don’t know. It’s weird that it happened the day we both started at the factory, isn’t it?” Paige settled her hands in her lap, wishing she could reach over and hold his hand again. He had a warm, strong grip that made a girl feel safe—okay, rescued—and it was a moderately addictive sensation. “But I’d rather believe it was random,” she decided. “Or I’ll turn paranoid and won’t trust anyone.”
“You can trust me.”
She suppressed a scoffing noise. He was the last guy she’d ever trust.
The house was completely lit when Sterling pulled in behind Lyle’s truck, next to Britta’s ancient VW Rabbit. Paige felt like an idiot, waiting for Sterling to round the hood of his truck, but wait she did.
He scooped her up like it was no big deal. Like their lips weren’t less than a breath away.
He waited while she slammed the door on the SUV then strode across the lawn, the motion rocking her against him, the cradle of his arms tempting her to sink into the heat of his body. Saint Sterling. Bloody Superman, Prince Charming and Tall Guy In A White Hat. And she was as susceptible to the appeal as chickens were to avian flu.
The door wasn’t locked. She pushed it open, and he muttered, “Again with carrying a woman up the stairs,” but he attacked them with steady strides.
While she whispered a barely audible, “Oh, Clark.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” he bit out, practically dumping her onto the sofa as he released a chuckled curse.
Their entrance gained the attention of the cleaning bee.
“Oh, sweetie,” Britta said, dropping the vacuum hose and coming around from behind the dining room table. “Let me see your feet.”
Paige turned up her soles for Britta’s inspection. Lyle came over to check too.
“How’d you get here?” she asked him.
“Brit told me what happened, gave me a lift. Just your feet?”
They were bandaged, so Paige said, “Two stitches in this one, four in that.”
“You didn’t see or hear anyone?” Lyle asked.
She shook her head.
“Hmph.” He glanced over to where Sterling stood talking to Rosie. “Where was Golden Boy?”
“Not here. He was over at his grandmother’s so how about taking a rest on making lousy cracks?”
Lyle held up his arms in a hands-off gesture and went to help Cam finish taping the sheet of plastic over the door, passing where Rosie stood talking to Sterling.
“...he’s released tomorrow and we’re going straight to the airport,” Rosie was saying to Sterling, sounding sober, which was refreshing, and holding his hand, which was annoying. “Gosh, look how deep your love line goes.”
“Does it hurt?” Britta asked Paige.
More than it should, but she refused to become proprietary about Sterling and his warm, strong hands.
“No,” Paige replied. “Was anything taken?”
“My tools weren’t touched,” Lyle said. “All the TVs and gaming stuff are still here.”
Paige didn’t bother asking after the booze since it never lasted long enough in this house to be stolen.
Sterling’s phone rang. He withdrew his hand from Rosie’s to reach into the back pocket of his jeans, glancing at the display before answering.
Paige waited to hear him say, ‘Hi Mom,’ but heard ‘Hey, Sugar,’ instead, and tuned out the rest. Wow. Why hadn’t it occurred to her he had someone in South Carolina?
“You brought Lyle?” she asked Britta.
“I thought he should know. About the break in,” she hurried to clarify.
“I thought Cam was calling someone on duty?”
Hearing his name, Cam straightened. “He was here, canvassed the neighbors. No one heard or saw anything. It probably happened midday, while everyone was at work.”
“Did you check the bedrooms?” she asked Britta.
“To see if the television was still in your Dad’s room. If anyone was in there, they weren’t obvious about it, but there’s no mattress for money to be hidden under,” she said pointedly.
“Fildew’s only delivers on Thursdays.” Her edgy tone had more to do with the break in than Fildew’s union truckers. At least, that’s what she told herself. She didn’t care if someone called ‘sugar’ was phoning Sterling freaking Roy. She didn’t want to know what he talked about to her, or why it seemed to have stiffened his shoulders and put a hard look on his face.
Cam and Lyle finished up with the door and came to hover over her.
“So nothing was taken?” Paige bunched a pillow behind her back, trying to get comfortable as she looked up at Cam. “That’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Better yet, did they find what they’re after or will they come back?” Sterling asked, folding his arms.
Paige stilled. “That hadn’t even occurred to me.”
“Come stay with us,” Britta said.
“What about Rosie? We wouldn’t all fit at your place. She’d be alone,” Paige said.
“She wouldn’t be alone.” Lyle turned the end of the rolled tape he’d used on the door. “I’m here, in the basement.”
“No, you’re at the bar,” Britta said.
“I’m here when I need to be, fixing the fucking door in case you didn’t notice.”
“Hey,” Cam and Sterling said together.
“But where were you when your sister was standing in glass?” Britta challenged.
“Giving her privacy. She left with Golden Boy. Where was he?”
“Fucking stow it,” Sterling ordered. “I wasn’t here. I was at my grandmother’s.”
Everyone looked at him.
“You’re in a temper. Who was on the phone?” Lyle asked him and Paige wondered, Yeah, who?
“Why were you at your grandmother’s?” Rosie asked.
“To see if it was livable,” Sterling said, still curt.
“It’s not.” Rosie wrinkled her nose. “It has mice. That’s why I moved in with Grady.”
“I’ll set traps when I move in.”
“You’re going to move in.” Lyle thumbed toward the backyard. “To that house over there.”
“Given what went on here tonight, it’d probably be a good idea to have another pair of eyes in the neighborhood, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Keep us all safe G.B.” Lyle chuckled as he went to the stairs. “You kill me. You really do.” He shook his head as he descended.
Sterling narrowed his eyes as he watched Lyle disappear.
“Why would you move in there?” Paige asked, blushing for no intelligent reason. “You’re only going to be here a couple of weeks.”
Sterling paused briefly before saying, “Mom and Dad might have to sell it, once you decide on a price for your Dad’s buyout. I could start whatever repairs it might need. And Dad and I need our own space away from each other.”
“Having another man close by would be good for you,” Rosie said. “Especially since your dad and I will be gone.”
No, it wouldn’t. Oh, Paige’s inner damsel loved the idea, but she couldn’t let herself start becoming dependent on all that handholding nonsense. Besides, it looked, well, convenient. But what could she say? Everyone was likely to interpret reluctance on her part as some kind of cover-up of her real feelings. On the other hand, if she didn’t protest, she’d look like she wanted him here and Good grief, she was agonizing like a pre-teen with her first zit.
“Do whatever
you want,” she muttered.
“Thanks,” he said in an equally tight voice. “I will.”
~ * ~
Paige didn’t show up for work the next morning and Sterling wanted to see his grandmother’s house in daylight so he drove over at lunch to check out both, parking in Granny’s pot-holed driveway.
The sky had cleared like the weatherman had promised. The scent of freshly mown grass drifted on the breeze along with some homebound teenager’s music.
It was nice, making the neighborhood feel the way he remembered it as a kid, vibrant and secure. Which reassured him. He’d let the thought of Paige surprising the burglar keep him up last night.
He followed the worn path down the side of the house, through the break at the end of the fence between this yard and Grady’s, and walked between the hedge trees and car bodies to the front of Grady’s house.
The music, an angry threat that anyone coming around would be thrown out, grew louder as he approached. It was spilling from the flush mounted speakers in Grady’s open garage. Inside the garage, Paige’s car sat on blocks.
The front door of the house stood wide open.
Excellent security measures, given what she’d come home to yesterday.
Sterling shook his head, then took the front stairs two at a time, finding Paige kneeling on a dining room chair, plugging a power cord into a laptop dock.
“You left the door op—”
She jumped and screamed. The cordless phone she held to her ear fell with a clatter. “Oh, God! Sterling!”
She reached to pick up the phone, said into it, “I’m fine. Don’t panic. Someone startled me is all. A guy I work with. Just a guy, it doesn’t matter. No, I’m fine, but I should g— Yes that one. No. I’m only here until I finish the audit and negotiate a price.” She rolled her eyes at Sterling, like she was fielding yet another annoying accusation about taking over for good. “Six months at most, then I’m coming back to Seattle so I still need it. No. I’m going now. No. I’m going.”
She stabbed a button and clattered the phone onto the table.
“My ex,” she said with a frustrated glare at the offensive device. “I got the apartment in the divorce and he still wants it. Won’t stop bugging me for it.” She pressed a hand to the middle of her chest. “Man, you scared me.”