by Minard, Tori
“Stay away from me, Max.” I spun around and stalked away.
I’d forgotten the shoes on my feet. My ankle wobbled and twisted on the uneven pavement. A stabbing pain ripped through my lower leg. With a cry, I fell to my knees, catching the force of it on my hands.
Max leaped to my side. “Are you hurt?”
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Now I couldn’t run away from him or anyone else. I gritted my teeth against the pain and blinked back tears.
“Yeah. I’m hurt.”
He crouched down beside me. “Your ankle?”
“Yes.” I was so furious with myself that I snapped at him.
“Do you think you can stand up?”
Why was he being so understanding when I was being a bitch?
“I don’t know.”
He took me by the elbow. “Let’s try.”
I grabbed his arm and leaned heavily on him as I tried to stand. As soon as I put weight on my injured ankle, fresh pain shot through me and I gasped.
“I can’t.”
“Okay. Lean on me and let’s think about this for a second.”
I didn’t want to lean on him. He was a stalker. My boyfriend had been kissing another girl. The only thing I wanted from men tonight was to tie all of them together and use them as one big punching bag. But my foot and ankle hurt so much I could hardly think straight, so I leaned on Max.
He felt strong and solid under my weight, and so warm I decided leaning on him wasn’t so bad after all. For the first time, his presence didn’t leave me feeling overwhelmed by the achy butterfly sensation. I was too overwhelmed already by pain.
“We can try to make it back to your dorm this way,” Max said. “Or I can carry you.”
“Carry me? Get real, Max.”
“On my back.”
“Piggyback? Seriously?”
He looked down at me, his mouth curling up at the corners. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
His budding smile disappeared. “I won’t hurt you. Ever. Do you hear me? I’d never hurt you, Caro.”
“Don’t call me that. My name is Caroline.”
He sighed. “You need help and I’m here. Let me help you.”
“What if you drop me?”
“I won’t drop you. Want to try it?”
I groaned in defeat. “I’m not sure I can. I’ve been drinking and I don’t know how well I can hold on.”
“Yeah, I thought I smelled alcohol on you. Were you at a party?”
I didn’t want to discuss it. “Yes. It sucked.”
He laughed. “Okay. Well, we’ll try hobbling along like this until you’ve had enough and then we’ll put you on my back. How’s that?”
I shrugged ungraciously. “I guess that’s okay.”
“All right. Ready?”
No. “Yes.”
We started forward at the pace of a speeding earthworm. My ankle screamed in agony every time I put the least amount of weight on it, and even leaning on Max, I had to touch it to the ground with each step forward. My face screwed up into a grimace as we inched our way down the street.
“We should get you to a doctor,” Max said after one painful block.
I groaned again. “I can’t make it that far.”
“I wouldn’t make you walk all the way,” he said, a smile in his voice. “I’d leave you at a cafe or something and get my car.”
I just grunted.
“I think that’s a better idea than taking you home, just in case you’ve broken something.” He stopped walking.
“It’s not broken. Just sprained.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel it.”
Max snorted. “You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
That was true. I wanted to be on my own. I could get help from someone in the dorm and then I wouldn’t have to deal with Max.
“It’s not going to work,” he said. “I’m taking care of you tonight whether you want me to or not.”
“Fine. Whatever. Take me to the emergency room. No, I can’t afford that. Take me to the dorm. I’ll put some ice on it and tomorrow it’ll be fine.”
“Like hell.” He scowled down at me.
“Max, I really don’t have the money for an emergency room visit. Do you know how much they cost?”
“How about one of those urgent care centers?”
“Maybe.” They were expensive, too, but my parents did have insurance and as a dependent I was still covered under their policy. I sighed. “Okay. Urgent care.”
“Good. Can you stand on one foot?”
“Huh?” I gave him a baffled stare.
“Until I get in front of you. I want you to climb on my back.” He pulled away from me, leaving me to balance on one precarious foot. Then he slipped off his jacket and handed it to me. “Put this on. You look cold.”
I was cold, but I hadn’t noticed it until now. I’d been too keyed up, what with the party disaster and then those creepy guys. “Thanks.”
The jacket smelled of leather and some kind of masculine spice I’d never smelled before. Different from Trent, muskier. Sexier. Essence of Max. It sent a shivery, aching sensation through me. God, I hated how much I wanted him.
I put on the jacket. It was still warm from his body.
Max sank to his knees. “Okay, get on.”
I clambered awkwardly onto his back and wrapped my arms around his neck. This position put my face so close to his that if he turned his head, we could kiss. The achy butterflies were back. “Are you sure I’m not too heavy?”
He pulled my calves up over his arms, so that I was wrapped around him, and stood. “I’ve backpacked with more weight than this.”
“No, you haven’t.” Who had a backpack that weighed over a hundred pounds?
“Yes, I have.” He started walking with no apparent effort at all.
“Why would you have such a heavy pack?”
“Because it had everything I owned in it, including my food and drinking water.”
Oh. That must have been when he lived on the street.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want your pity, Caro.”
Didn’t I tell him not to call me that? “It’s not pity. I just don’t like thinking of you that way.”
I shouldn’t have said that. Apparently the adrenalin rush hadn’t truly destroyed the alcohol in my system. It was still in there, making me blab like a fool.
Max bent his head for an instant, as if what I’d said moved him in some way. Then he straightened up and strode forward like nothing had happened.
We continued in silence for another three blocks. I have to admit I was impressed with Max’s strength and endurance. My weight didn’t seem to bother him in the least, and while I’m not very big, it’s still a lot to carry even a petite adult on your back.
We reached the edge of campus. A string of shops and little restaurants lined this side of the street. On the opposite edge of the sidewalk sat a long, low concrete planter filled with pansies and flowering kale.
“You can put me down there,” I said. “I’ll sit on the edge of the planter.”
He lowered me to the makeshift bench. “I’m going to get my car.”
“Okay.”
Max glanced around at the empty street. At one in the morning, everything was closed except the tavern in the next block. A couple of guys came out the door, whooping with laughter, and staggered down the street away from us.
He gazed down at me, glowering. “I don’t like leaving you here by yourself. Especially not dressed like that.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Like you were earlier?”
He did have a point. “Do you have your phone? We can call a cab.”
Max rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I didn’t already think of that.”
After he called a cab, we had nothing to do but hang around and wait. Max sat down next to me on the lip of the planter. His jacket kept me from feeling the chill in the
air, but I missed the sensation of his hard, warm body clasped in my arms and legs anyway. And that was so wrong. How could I force myself to stop thinking of him that way?
“What happened at the party?” he said, staring off into the distance.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yep.”
He glanced at me. “You gonna be all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
“No.”
He bent his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know how to—I just want to help. That’s all.”
This was so confusing. I didn’t really know who he was—the creepy brother-murderer Trent described or...someone else. Someone likable and kind who’d made a terrible mistake as a kid. My stomach ached every time I thought about that drawing he’d made, the words he’d written under it.
Maybe I was being unfair to him.
I turned my body toward his. “I’m grateful you were there tonight. I really am. And for helping me get here and call a cab and everything. But you aren’t responsible for me. I can take care of myself.”
Max just looked at me.
I flushed. “Okay, I wasn’t doing such a great job tonight, I admit. But normally I’m fine.”
“I guess you have no reason to trust me, and you probably don’t even like me. But you should know that if you need anything, if there’s something Paige can’t help you with, I’ll be here for you.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. I just couldn’t. The problem wasn’t that I disliked him; it was that I liked him too much. A guy who’d killed his brother, a guy hated by his own family, a guy who kept trying to get me to see him even though he knew my boyfriend didn’t want me talking to him. Or was he that other guy, the kind one I wanted to know better?
I studied my hands. “Okay, Max. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I heard you spent Thanksgiving with my—with Trent’s family.”
“Yeah,” I said, wondering who’d told him.
“Did you have a good time?”
A sidelong glance revealed he was carefully watching me. “Not especially.”
“No? My stepmom’s a great cook.”
“The food was good.”
He cleared his throat. “But?”
“It felt weird being there, knowing you weren’t allowed.”
“I told you once, don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t need it.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I frowned at him. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”
Max just looked at me. My face burned and I knew I was blushing yet again.
“You look just like your dad,” I said. “And I found your old sketchbooks.”
His face and body grew still. “My sketchbooks?”
“Who broke your ribs, Max?”
He withdrew from me. Not physically. His body stayed in the same place, the same position, but emotionally he pulled back. I saw it in his eyes, the set of his mouth as he looked away from me, staring at the closed-up shop fronts.
“I’d rather not say.”
“Why?”
“Because all that happened a long time ago. It’s over. I don’t like thinking about it.” There was anger in his voice.
I pulled my arms closer to my sides. “Okay. I won’t ask again.”
Chapter 12
Max
The urgent care clinic took a lot longer than I expected. I kept my arm around Caroline’s waist as we hobbled into the building. She felt so good against my side, smelled so good in spite of the haze of cigarette smoke and beer than clung to her hair, I felt my groin beginning to ache. Damn it. This wasn’t a good time for a boner.
I glanced up and saw a row of wheelchairs next to the reception desk. “Stay here. I’ll get you a wheelchair.”
“I don’t need one of those.”
“Yes, you do. I can see you wincing every time your foot touches the floor. Just hang on a minute. Lean against the wall.”
I carefully pulled away from her and left her with her hand against the wall as I snagged one of the wheelchairs. She sank into it with a sigh, letting me know without words I’d made the right choice. She had a lot of pride, but she didn’t want to walk all the way up to the reception desk and then to a chair in the waiting area.
After getting her checked in, I wheeled her over and parked her next to a chair for myself. Her face looked kind of pinched, her mouth tight. She was in pain and needed some distraction.
I nudged her elbow. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with that French major yet?”
“No. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“You don’t want to be a teacher?”
“God, no. My mom’s a teacher.”
“Hmm.” I rubbed my chin. “How about a translator?”
“Maybe. You have to go to a special school for that, though, and I’ve heard it’s really tough.”
“You could be a mime.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to speak French for that. Mimes don’t talk.”
“You could be the world’s only talking mime.”
That got me a smile. “I don’t think so.”
“You think there are other talking mimes? Maybe you’re right. You should get on the Internet and find out. I’ll bet the others would like to know they’re not alone.”
Caroline poked me, laughing a little. “There aren’t any talking mimes. Besides, I don’t want to be a mime.”
“No? Not even when you were a little girl?”
“No. I wanted to be a ballerina.”
I could see that. It was kind of a turn-on, imagining her leaping across the stage in point shoes. I grinned at her. “Sexy.”
“Knock it off, Max.”
No way. I’d gotten her to laugh. Score. “Maybe you could open a French shop. You could pretend to be French and impress everyone with how snooty and French you are.”
“I’m not snooty. Plus, what would I sell?”
“Who cares? You could sell anything and you could be snooty with a little acting. I bet you’d have a ton of customers. Everyone would want to buy from the beautiful, snooty Frenchwoman.”
She gave me a disbelieving stare. “Beautiful? I think you need glasses.”
That stopped me cold. “Don’t you know how beautiful you are?”
Her face turned pink. “Cut it out.”
Other people in the waiting room were starting to listen in on our conversation, so I decided to have pity on her.
“Okay, I’ll stop for now. But don’t think this is over.”
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and smiled. Gods, she was stunning. And I’d gotten her to laugh and smile at me. Maybe all was not lost.
A nurse appeared at the doorway leading into the exam rooms called Caroline’s name. She smiled at us. “Would your boyfriend like to come too?”
Caroline blushed even more brightly. “He’s not—”
“Yes,” I said. I got up to wheel her into the back area.
It turned out she did have a sprained ankle, which they wrapped before releasing her. She was supposed to stay off it, ice it, elevate, all that crap. I had the feeling she wasn’t going to follow directions.
I called another cab to take us home. We rode without talking. Caroline leaned her head against my shoulder, thinking whatever dark thoughts were on her mind. I wanted to wrap my arm around her, but I stopped myself. That would be too much at this point. Something must have happened between her and Trent at that party. Did I dare to hope they’d broken up?
Nah. She would have said something if that were the case. They’d probably just argued. Or, hell, maybe she hadn’t liked the drinks they were serving or the music they played. How did I know?
The cab pulled up to her dorm. She opened the micro-purse she was carrying and pulled out a wad of bills just as I was getting out my wallet.
“I’ll pay,” I said.
> “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
“But you paid for the one to the clinic.”
“So?” I opened my wallet. “How much?”
“Max, I’ll get it this time.”
I shoved a fifty into the cabby’s hand.
Caroline glared at me. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I could.” I resisted the urge to kiss the tip of her nose. She might have slapped me.
The cabbie gave me my change, I gave him a tip, and then got out of the car. I held the door open for Caroline and extended my hand.
She looked up at me with a ferocious frown. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you upstairs.”
“I don’t need help. Go home, Max.”
No way was I letting her go inside alone. What if she fell? “I’ll go home when I know you’re safe in your room.”
She heaved an exasperated-sounding sigh. “Oh, for pity’s sake. You just don’t give up, do you?”
“No. Now get out of the car.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Bossy Pants.”
The cabby snickered. I guess he felt safe since I’d already paid him and forked over the tip. I fought back a smile.
Caroline held out her hands and let me pull her from the car and help her stand. The brace the clinic had given her seemed to help her stand up without wanting to collapse. The narcotics they’d given her probably helped too.
Maybe they should have given her a stronger dose. She might have been easier for me to manage.
I gave her my arm and she took it without argument. She still wore my leather jacket, too. I liked the way it looked on her. Made it easy for me to imagine she was mine.
We made it all the way into the lobby of her dorm without fighting. But as soon as she’d pushed the up button on the elevator she looked up at me and I knew what was coming.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Don’t even say it. I’m taking you up to your room.”
“I don’t need your help. I can lean on the wall.”
“Don’t care. I’m taking you to your room and that’s final.”
“Good grief.” She rolled her eyes. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a pain in the ass?”
“Almost everyone I know. What’s your point?”
She blew a little gold curl out of her eyes. “You’ve done enough for me tonight. More than enough.”