Did he think she was? Or was he surprised she’d said that, and was not taking it personally? But he was. His ego showed it.
“Men are so sensitive about sex. They have to be the best a woman has ever had. God forbid if they ever run across one that spoils the illusion.”
Too late she realized how that sounded.
“Thank you for pointing out that I wasn’t the best you’ve had.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Pausing as he dropped a pillow onto the sofa, he eyed her skeptically.
“I can’t control the way I feel,” she said. He, on the other hand, had to be in constant control. She saw it in his acute awareness of all that surrounded him, maybe even in the way he gauged love on how good the sex was. He’d married twice because of that.
“You can control how much Trevor influences you’re feeling.”
“The same way sex influences you?”
“Sex is important to any relationship.”
It had been with Trevor. It could be with Braden. If she let it....
Chapter 8
Lincoln hobbled on his crutch to the kitchen, rinsing off his plate. Everything was harder without the use of his leg. The bullet had torn through his muscle and the doctor said he’d have weeks of physical therapy once the wound healed. He was already doing some now. He had his manager covering for him at his martial arts studio, but he worried about getting back up to speed in time. Healing may take a while, longer than he could afford.
And bounty hunting. He’d be out of commission there, too.
He hoped Arizona was doing all right. Arranging all those weapons had been a stretch for him. But he’d rather have an armed Arizona than a vulnerable one. Besides, she knew how to shoot. And she had Braden.
Movement out his window caught his attention. A truck backed into the driveway of the house next door.
He lived in an older section of Denver. Most of the homes on this street had been renovated. His was the most recent to see improvements. The one next door hadn’t yet. Its exterior wasn’t in bad shape. Most of it was redbrick. The trim was cracked and the paint peeling. The front porch was stone. The yard gave away the lack of care. Weeds, overgrown shrubs, a patchy lawn and a falling-down fence all told the tale. He hadn’t been inside but he’d bet the cost of his pricey renovation that it was in disrepair.
A woman climbed out of the cab of the moving truck, a white Lab right after her. The dog bounded around the truck, into his yard and back to its owner, who, Lincoln saw, was about as hot as they came. In a pink tank top with faded jean shorts, her legs went on for a mile down to green flip-flops. Her curly red hair was up in a ponytail, poking out from the back of a pink baseball hat.
Did he have a new neighbor?
She opened the back of the truck and slid out a ramp. Just when he was going to go out front and offer to help, he remembered his shot leg.
Her Lab ran up the ramp and ran back down, tongue flopping with her ears. The dog was a girl.
After the second trip, he decided he had to do something. Hobbling out the front door, he made it to his driveway when he saw another car drive up to the redhead’s house.
The Lab saw him and bounded over with a deep bark. Lincoln tried to crouch and the Lab jumped onto him, her front paws on his thighs. The dog licked his face as he pet her.
“What’s your name?” Seeing a tag hanging from her collar, he read, “Madeline. Who would name you Madeline?”
She was a beautiful creature, all white except for a reddish tint that was deepest on her ears and eyebrows and faintly down her back and tail. Her stomach and paws were pure white. Trim and streamlined, she had the makings of a great hunter. The energy, too. She could hardly stay still.
Bounding away, Madeline ran back to the van, sniffing until she stopped and perked her ears to the newcomer.
A man climbed out of a black Jetta, the car too small for his frame.
Lincoln winced as he straightened, pain shooting up his leg as he maneuvered the crutch under his arm. He headed back for the front door.
“I thought I told you not to come here.”
Hearing the woman’s voice, Lincoln stopped.
The muffled response from the man was unintelligible from here.
“How did you find me?”
They were inside the truck.
“It’s not like you left the city.”
Had his neighbor moved to get away from the man?
Lincoln saw Madeline, agitated and pacing at the base of the ramp. She put her paws on the ramp and growled.
Dogs were an excellent judge of character. Maybe this man hadn’t come to help her unpack.
“Just go.” The woman marched down the ramp carrying a box. The man followed, carrying another.
Madeline kept out of the way, trotting after her owner into the garage.
Lincoln moved to the edge of his driveway.
“It’s a nice house. I can help you fix it up.”
“Are you crazy? Leave. Now.”
Madeline growled again.
“Shut that thing up,” the man shouted.
“She never liked you. I should have paid more attention to that.”
“You’re going to piss me off.”
“Get the hell out of my house!”
The sound of a fist hitting flesh preceded a surprised gasp from the woman.
“Bastard!”
Hearing the woman begin to wrestle with the man, Lincoln crutched his way into the garage. The door leading into the house was open.
Madeline was just inside, her front paws lifting off the kitchen floor with each agitated bark. Then the dog lunged for something out of Lincoln’s sight.
“Ouch! Stupid dog!”
Had Madeline bitten the man? Lincoln reached the open garage door in time to see the man try to kick the dog. But she dodged out of the way and rounded for his other leg, clamping down for another chomp.
Way to go, Madeline.
The redhead was climbing to her feet, using the kitchen counter to stand. She turned, holding her jaw.
The jerk had hit her hard enough to knock her on the floor. Rage boiled up in him. He didn’t care how much his leg hurt. Entering the house, he spotted the man trying to kick Madeline again, but the dog was far too agile for his slow swing. Lincoln used his crutch as a weapon, lifting it just as the man saw him. He jabbed the man’s temple, sending his head backward.
With startled eyes, the man stumbled and crashed against a pantry door and then landed on his hands and knees. Lincoln limped over to him, using the crutch to thump him on the head again, making sure some of his teeth sliced the soft tissue of his mouth.
The man yelled. “What the...”
Lincoln kept pummeling his face. “You like hitting women?”
The man tried to grab the crutch. Lincoln put weight on his good leg and kicked the man’s arm, swiping it away from the crutch, ignoring the pain in his injured leg.
“Huh?” Lincoln goaded, pounding the man with his crutch. “You like that?”
“Stop!” the woman shouted.
Madeline barked wildly but didn’t attack. Smart dog. He liked Madeline. He and Madeline were going to be good friends.
“Stop it!” the woman grabbed Lincoln’s arm.
He stopped hitting the man on the floor. His face was bloody. So was the rubber end of Lincoln’s crutch.
The man on the floor glared up at him with a mixture of alarm and anger. “Who the hell are you?”
Lincoln turned to the woman. “Are you all right?”
“Get out.”
Not the show of gratitude he’d expected. “What?”
“Get out.” She pointed to the garage door.
“Your boyfriend hit yo
u.”
“And that is none of your business. I don’t even know you.”
“I’m your neighbor. I was going to offer to help you unload your truck when I heard this piece of work.” He indicated the man on the floor.
She eyed his crutch. How had he planned on helping her with that? He could hear her thinking.
“I’m not accustomed to limitations,” he said.
She continued to stare at him, his charm falling flat. “I don’t care who you are. You don’t just barge into somebody’s house and start beating people up.”
The man rose to his feet, taller than Lincoln by about an inch. Madeline growled, baring her pearly white teeth. Nice-looking fangs. Good girl.
Her eyes shifted to him and he received an acknowledging blink.
Lincoln chuckled. “Cute dog.”
The man’s fist began to swing for him. He was going to punch him? Lincoln easily blocked the attempt, letting the crutch fall and driving his own fist into the man’s throat. Just hard enough to let him know he was no match for Lincoln.
The man choked and struggled for breath.
“What are you doing?” The woman ran to the horrible man, pawing and mewling to see if he was okay. It made Lincoln sick.
He bent to pick up his crutch, petting Madeline’s head when the dog came to him. “Good girl. You watch your mama.”
Standing up, he saw the woman and the man eyeing him with appall. Okay, maybe he’d misjudged this.
“Sorry. I thought you needed help,” he said to the woman.
“Go away and never come back,” she stormed.
Some women liked men who knocked them around, he guessed. Weird. He crutched into the garage and over to his house. Inside, he went to his kitchen window. Nothing stirred next door. But moments later, the man helped the woman unload the truck.
Lincoln gave up, mystified over why any woman would scold the help of someone who’d only defended her, and then welcome an abusive man into her home. Let him help her unload her moving truck.
After heating up a frozen dinner, Lincoln went to sit on his back patio, enjoying a glass of wine with his painkiller and the cool, starlit night.
Beating up that guy had hurt his leg.
A sound from next door disturbed his peace. He liked it better when he had no neighbor.
Soft laughter filtered over the fence. That and bubbles. She had a damn hot tub. Was she in there with that jerk? Not hearing any other voices, he realized she was talking on a cell phone. Girl talk. She sounded nicer than he’d experienced in person.
Lincoln stood and took his wine inside.
After watching a movie and cleaning the kitchen, he went up to bed. It took some time getting up the stairs. His room was on the same side as his new neighbor.
Not getting why he was drawn there, he went to the window to see how much of a view he had of the inside of her house. Quite a bit. Did she have every light on in her house?
The truck was still parked in the driveway and he couldn’t see if the jerk’s Jetta was still in the street. The blinds in the upper level room were open. They were open in every room. Or were there any window coverings at all?
There must not be. Otherwise, why not shut them? Unless she welcomed Peeping Toms.
Just as the thought came, she appeared in the upper-level window. He could see her clearly. Wearing a short nightie, she sauntered to the window and stood there looking at him.
He couldn’t move. She was so beautiful and he was being a reprobate by continuing to watch, but she was too much of a vision to turn away.
Flipping him off, she turned and lifted the nightie over her head, tossing it to the floor with attitude. Her naked butt swayed as she went to the bed and climbed in.
Beautiful but bitchy. And what was the deal with that guy? Why had she allowed him to hit her? Why was she mad at him for defending her?
Chapter 9
Braden took Arizona down to the most public place in Soper’s Hole the next morning. A café with a busy patio, a real tourist attraction. They’d be safe here.
She sat across from him, still looking around like a scared cat. Scared but ready to strike. He couldn’t deny how much he liked that about her. He refused to be a victim, too. He just couldn’t talk about why. He was, however, amazed that she’d zeroed in on that about him. No one else ever had, not even his parents.
Instead of watching the street as he’d planned, he watched her. She was doing the watching for both of them. She probably would rather do that than look at him. All morning she’d barely said anything to him. She had probably made up her mind there was nothing between them after their night together, thinking of Trevor instead of him while he was inside her. Those few sparks they’d had in the beginning were a fluke.
Damn. Why couldn’t he stop thinking that way? Sex wasn’t everything. He of all people should know that. He’d had two failed marriages that had been based on sex. Arizona was giving him a complex.
At another table, two couples talked. One of the women held a baby, a little girl who’d begun to fuss. The woman tried to soothe the baby while the other woman smiled her adoration.
The baby quieted and drifted off to sleep.
“Aww, that’s so cute,” the other woman said.
The two men got into a conversation that had nothing to do with babies.
Braden noticed how Arizona watched. She was completely absorbed in the baby. Then she noticed him and shook herself out of her trance.
“What’s cute about that?” she asked.
Aiden hadn’t been cute to him when he was born, either. But once the skin stopped being so red and chapped and his young blue eyes looked up at him, his whole world changed.
“It’s different when they’re your own,” he said.
“Yeah, but look at that woman. She doesn’t have any kids and she’s making a fool of herself over there.”
“Maybe she didn’t bring her kids on vacation.”
Arizona took that in and continued to study the scene, baffled and struggling to understand.
“When they’re your own, they’re part of you, body and soul.” She turned to him as he tried to give her some insight. “You see the similarities, both physically and behaviorally. And you have a huge responsibility for that tiny life. They depend on you for everything. They learn from you.” He glanced over at the now-sleeping child. “It’s their innocence, and knowing that someday they’re going to grow up just like you did. You want them to have every advantage in life, to be the best they can be. Better than you.” Looking back at Arizona, who listened intently, he finished. “But most amazing is the love you feel for the miracle you created. There’s nothing to compare to it. It’s the best feeling in the world.” He didn’t have to pretend how powerful the bond was between him and his son.
“That sounds like a fairy tale,” she said. “I don’t see how I would ever feel that way. All I know is that I don’t want to have a helpless baby to look after. I don’t want to be responsible for bringing any child into this world.”
At least she’d called it a fairy tale. She didn’t have a completely frozen heart. Why was she so blocked off to the concept of babies?
She truly didn’t want to have kids. Her career was more important. There were some women out there who made those decisions. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe women like Arizona weren’t meant to be mothers.
He thought of Aiden and his future. If he ever remarried, he’d make sure the woman accepted him as though he were her own. Not being able to satisfy Arizona in bed lost some of its importance just then. Aiden was his top priority. He was better off without a woman than with one who didn’t want kids.
Arizona turned from the patio as a couple on bicycles pedaled by. Her dreamy look revealed her wish to be doing something like that, something fun
and with a hint of adventure. Disconcerting, how he’d like to do the same. Get on a bike and ride the island. Just think of all the great places they’d experience.
“Excuse me?”
Braden turned with Arizona to see a woman standing at their table. It was the maid from Julian’s house, the one who’d helped them escape. She glanced around anxiously.
“You,” Arizona breathed.
“I don’t have much time.” She dug into her purse.
“Sit down,” Braden said. “What’s your name?”
The woman sat, glancing hurriedly around as though afraid to be seen. “Patty Williams.” Her fingers trembled as she lifted out a small velvet bag. “This belonged to her.”
She handed the bag to Braden.
“To Tatum?” He had to confirm.
She nodded.
With foreboding circling his core, he opened the bag and pulled out a necklace with a familiar emerald pendant.
His parents had given her this for her last birthday.
“Yes.”
He drilled Patty with an expectant look. An explanation was necessary right now.
“She was there,” Arizona breathed.
“I never saw her.” She looked imploringly at Braden, begging for him to understand. “Julian asked me to take a box of clothes to donate, and the necklace was among the items. Since he was giving them away, I didn’t see the harm. He invites many women there who leave things behind. It wasn’t the first time I’ve donated for him. I only kept the necklace.”
“What things did you donate? Tell me about them.”
“There wasn’t a lot. Just a few outfits. Nothing personal like cosmetics or other toiletries. There were different sizes, too, so not all of them came from the same woman.” She looked imploringly at Braden. “Until you came searching for your sister, I suspected nothing.”
“Have you told the police about this?” Arizona asked.
“I didn’t know who she was until yesterday when I heard Julian talking. You broke into the house and I heard him tell his guards to catch you both and lock you in rooms until he figured out what to do with you before his father arrived. He said he couldn’t allow it getting out that your sister had been there.”
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