by Cara North
“Humph. What of?” Joshua set the case on top of the DVD player and bent over to grab a chick flick. Evelyn should like that. Let’s see, something with Ben Affleck or Matt Damon. Ah ha! Good Will Hunting. It had them both. She should be able to relate to Will.
“Oh my,” Evelyn couldn’t help her reaction. Ethan was pretty, but he was no Joshua. And seeing him bent over in front of her, totally at ease, something had stirred inside her.
“What now? You have a crush on these guys, too?” Standing he didn’t bother to face her. Hollywood hunks he could deal with, didn’t like it, but he could deal with it. Ethan, no, he couldn’t deal with a woman ogling Ethan. They competed over women frivolously when they were younger. Ethan was older and taller, by an inch. He was like his big brother, and he escaped to New York every summer to be with them and joined the pack when he moved there. They were hounds when they were young, three big dogs.
“No. And I don’t have a crush on your cousin. I don’t get crushes.” Except you. And for good measure, she added, “I hate men, just on principal.”
“Well, if you hate men, why did you say he was hot?” Joshua sat on the couch and rubbed his shin. He respected Ethan, but he really respected Grace. No way did he want to have her naked image in his mind. Hot, it burned him to know she thought Ethan was hot.
Jealous. Shit. When did this happen? Jealous of Ethan? He had a beautiful wife, a baby. Maybe, of that, but nothing else.
“To get a reaction from you.” Evelyn was honest. Joshua was like a confessional. He asked; she answered. It must be the vagina talking. Evelyn barely felt like herself since she had been here. From that first instance when she saw him, something changed in her. Damn, now she felt bad about holding a gun on him earlier.
Joshua was about to respond to that, but the doorbell rang. Pizza, he was saved by the pizza man. Evelyn was noticeably put out. She folded her arms over her chest and huffed. So much like a man at times, those reactions didn’t suit her at all, but they amused the hell out of him.
“Hold on, Rocky, let me pay the pizza man, and we can get back to the fight.” Joshua smiled a triumphant smile. She wanted a reaction, so he gave her one. But she was reacting to him, too. The difference was he knew she was just emotionally charged and he was the release.
Her feelings weren’t real. It reminded him of Candace; they grieved together. Then when she stopped grieving, she realized she didn’t want him after all. Evelyn would be no different. She needed a friend. She had confessed an enormous secret; she had been beat up and almost shot. Her emotions had to be on full throttle. A friend, he thought again. He would be that for her, nothing more.
“We’re not fighting.” Evelyn narrowed her eyes on him.
“No?” He laughed.
“You don’t feel my foot in your ass, do you?”
Joshua laughed loud and opened the door. He exchanged the bills in his hand for the pizzas. Stepping back inside, he closed the door, locked it, and headed for the kitchen. “How many?”
“Two, three, no two.” Evelyn wanted four but didn’t want to seem like a pig. Breakfast was cut short by the mental breakdown, and she was still making up for lost eats.
“I’ll give you four, so you don’t have my ass running back and forth all night.” Joshua shook his head. “And to drink, my lady?”
“Coke, water, no, coke.” Evelyn had never been so indecisive. She was turning into a woman. Not that she wanted to be a man, but she thrived on her masculine qualities, her ability to think without emotion, act without fear, make a decision and stick to it.
“Okay, coke and water for the lady.” Joshua set her plate on her lap and the drinks on the end table close to the chair.
“Anything else while I’m up?” He grabbed his own pizza and a beer and settled in on the couch. Of course as soon as he took the first bite she spoke.
“Napkins?” Evelyn said it softly. The pizza was dripping all over her.
“Woman.” Joshua bit his tongue and stood. He was worried that he would miss his daily exercise because he had told everyone he had the flu. He couldn’t very well go jogging around the neighborhood. Not a chance, Evelyn had him hopping. If she wasn’t injured, well ... she was, so he got the napkins.
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Chapter 4
Evelyn accepted the napkins, but he didn’t let go. She tugged again. Still he held. Her brown eyes moved up his arm and across his throat and, oh, past his lips to his green eyes. His brow was lifted in a gaze of expectation.
“Thank you.” Evelyn blushed, and she felt it warm her cheeks. He let go. “I had food in my mouth.”
“You have bad manners.” Joshua sat down, took another bite, and got it down. He eyeballed her.
“What?” she said innocently.
As soon as he lifted the beer, the phone rang. His head started shaking. He did that a lot. She could see him towering over children, his stance wide and his hands on his hips, shaking that head back and forth. It was a natural expression for him. She liked it, made him softer, more accessible.
“What?” Joshua answered the phone on the third ring.
“What? You were supposed to have Evelyn call me, that’s what.” Grace looked at the phone in her hands with disbelief. What’s going on down there?
“My bad, I thought you were Ethan.” Joshua let out a long breath. “She’s a real pain in the ass you know.”
“Who is that? Is that Grace?” Evelyn was all but climbing out of the chair.
“As soon as she heals I’m taking back my underwear and kicking her out.” Joshua talked as he walked. “Here the diva is.”
Grace really was shocked at what Joshua just said. Maybe it wasn’t Evelyn in her house after all. That made her nervous and anxious to talk to the woman. Evelyn was a tough chick not a diva by any means.
They met by chance in art class. Evelyn sat next to her and said, “You’re a real redhead, and us redheads gotta stick together.” Grace laughed, and from then on she was delighted, intrigued, and horrified by the woman’s life. One thing she knew for certain. Evelyn hated men, all men. She expected Joshua to have put her out by now, but he seemed playful, and that seemed strange. Grace had witnessed Evelyn interact with men; it wasn’t playful. She also witnessed Evelyn break a guy’s nose in a bar one night because Grace had told him to go away and he didn’t. Evelyn just popped him. It was amazing.
“Gracie.” Evelyn was relieved. “I’m so sorry I have put you out like this.”
Joshua spit the beer from his mouth as the rest went through his nose. Put Grace out, Grace was in New York. He was the one put out. This woman is outrageous!
Evelyn looked at him.
“Are you okay, Joshua?” she asked covering the receiver.
The look he gave her was unpleasant, so she crooked her face into a false grimace and went back to Grace on the phone. “Well, I feel a lot better now. I mean I got my ass kicked. Thankfully I had my vest on, so when Nikolai hit me, it just knocked the wind out of me. Stix and Stones came out of nowhere. I landed a roundhouse on Stones, the short fucker, and he went down. Stix was yelling at me to calm down, so I did.”
Joshua sat there in utter amazement. She told Grace everything—names, how it happened blow by blow. Stix and Stones, he had to find people named Stix and Stones? Gets better by the minute. He took mental notes and pretended to watch the movie all the while listening in. She laughed now, a high feminine laugh. Now she’s laughing?
“Well, he’s over six foot tall, so of course he thought he could outmaneuver me, but I brought him down to size. Of course by then Nikolai had got up and landed a cheap shot busting my lip. Little fucker, I returned the favor in kind then swept his knee. Stones landed a good one right in the eye. I blocked, so it wasn’t as powerful as it could have been. One quick throat jab and I was out of there.”
Evelyn listened now, nodding, smiling. He felt her gaze on him. He tried to look without looking. It was successful since her eyes had dropped to his lap. He looked do
wn himself to be sure his fly was up. Never had he felt like such a piece of meat. Her eyes were wandering all over him. She kept smiling and nodding making little agreements to Grace. Finally she wandered to his eyes. She started blushing instantly, and that gave him a bit of satisfaction. For a woman who hated men she seemed to like to look at them a lot. “You ogling me?”
“No.” She feigned offense. How long had he been watching her peruse him? “Sorry, that was Joshua,” she said into the phone. “Yes, he is.”
“Now you’re talking about me?” He pointed to himself.
“I’m on the phone.” Evelyn shook her head and waved a hand at him in dismissal. “He’s something else, yes.” Then after a moment she said, “I will. At least I will try how about that?”
She hung up the phone with a laugh. “She likes you.”
“Grace?” Joshua was agitated.
“Yes, what’s wrong with you?” Evelyn was still full of happiness. Her friend was fine and assured her she was in capable hands. Of course she knew that by now. The most capable hands she had ever felt.
“Me?” Joshua stood in disgust. Evelyn had apologized to Grace, told the whole bloody story to Grace, names and all.
“Joshua, you look mad?” Evelyn didn’t know how he looked. He wasn’t furious; she knew that look, had seen it a few times now.
“Mad? No. Frustrated, confused. Maybe.” His voice was low, almost sad.
“About what?” Evelyn gave him her full attention. She didn’t want him to be mad at her. Slowly she was beginning to accept the fact that she may even like this Joshua character. And not just to look at him.
“You. Shit woman, you’re in my house, mine. I live here. I’m the one trying to help you. When I asked you what happened, you told me it was none of my business. Grace calls and you give her the play by play.” It was both educational and frightening listening to her recount the fight. She knew the men who did this, wasn’t expecting it. They turned on her, and she fended them off. Where was this gear, her vest? Hell, he still didn’t know where her car was!
“You asked me that when I knew you for five seconds, before, you know.” Evelyn frowned now. He was the one put out by her being here. She wasn’t used to being treated this good. It was disarming, made her weak. “I told her right in front of you. If I wanted to hide, I would have walked in the other room. You want to know something, ask.”
Her confidence was amazing. She was direct and practical, a stark contrast to the woman he carried up the stairs this afternoon. Rough and tough one minute, confessing horrible secrets and clinging to him the next. He didn’t need this. Why was this the woman he was dealt? Where was his simple loving lady he asked for?
“How’d you get here?” Joshua was going to give her another chance to tell him what happened that night, all of it.
“I drove. My car’s out there on the street.” Evelyn smiled. “A black Honda Civic, older model ... My stuff is in it.”
The way she said that, he knew what she wanted. Incredible, he had always been the one catered to. Women threw themselves at him, and he reaped the rewards. This woman hated him on principal, and he’s playing butler for her. “Where are the keys?”
“One key, should have been in my pants pocket.” Evelyn smiled.
Her bruised face lit up, and he felt his chest sinking. He hoped the bruises were the reason he had turned into Chase, his other cousin who catered to his wife Megan’s every annoying whim. “Fine.”
“Oh and Joshua.”
He growled. It was an audible growl.
“I just wanted to tell you not to be alarmed if you open the trunk.”
“Stix or Stones in there?” His voice rich with sarcasm, Joshua grabbed the car key off the washer. If he knew which car it had gone to, he would have searched it this morning. He looked down the street twice already, nothing out of the ordinary.
“That hurts.” Evelyn frowned. But she knew he was just tired. She had asked a lot from a man who knew her less than twenty-four hours. More than she had asked any man in her lifetime. And he was there, each time, and he did it. Unlike any man she ever knew in her lifetime. “Joshua”
“God help me.” He looked to the ceiling, raised his hands and shook his head.
“Thank you.” Evelyn had a real frown on her face now.
“I’ll be right back.” Joshua unlocked the door and headed out.
Almost a block away he found the damned car. Evelyn apparently did everything the hard way. It had Tennessee tags on it. That helped, at least until he opened the trunk. It was like a small spy center. A stack of license plates from several mid-west states were close at hand. A few mag-light flashlights of various sizes, various handcuffs, keys to cuffs, flexi-cuffs, night vision equipment, bb-gun, stun gun, shit!
His eyes couldn’t believe the equipment in there. And that was just what he could see in the first box. No suitcase. He closed the trunk before he scared himself. Of course the crossbow caught his attention as he pulled the hatch shut. In the backseat was a small suitcase on wheels. Under it was her jacket, a bulletproof vest, a cell phone and a purse. Huh, a purse. He grabbed all of it since the jacket and vest were stinking up the car; it was covered in the same mud she was this morning.
Walking back to his house he realized how much it must have hurt to stage everything. The car was definitely nondescript. It wasn’t tourist season, so parking along the road made sense. If she parked in the parking lot across the street, he would have noticed the car right away. She was good. Damn good. A new respect welled inside him, along with a new fear.
“Honey, I’m home,” Joshua called expecting to see her in the chair. She was gone. He waited a minute before stepping inside. His eyes surveyed the room though he didn’t feel a threat. “Evelyn?”
The backdoor was open. He passed through the kitchen, dropped the stuff off in a chair and on the counter, opened the laundry door and tossed the heavy vest and jacket on the washer. Closing the door he realized the light was on out back. Cautiously he slid to the door.
Looking out he was surprised to see her in the hammock, a fresh bag of ice on her eye. Damn if that didn’t make him want to find those bastards. He wondered if her story was true, had she really hurt them? He just couldn’t see it. Her little toes wiggled, and she tried to make the thing swing. She was cute, too cute to be running around kicking people’s asses.
Joshua loomed over her, and she smiled. “Lay down with me.” She patted the hammock.
“It might break.” He didn’t move.
“It won’t.” She patted the hammock again. “Pu ... come on you big baby.”
He was sure she was going to say please, and then she changed her mind. All right, it’s a start. He sat on the hammock, and it dipped and began to swing as he laid back. He crossed both arms behind his head. Evelyn pushed and squirmed and then settled. Gravity pulled them both to the middle, and her body ran the length of his armpit to his ankles. Her warmth pushed through his cotton T-shirt and boxers. She hadn’t changed out of them; of course she had nothing to change into either.
“You’re getting mighty comfortable in my underwear, woman.” Joshua gazed at the night sky. He loved that he could see the stars clearly. It was a crisp night, and a chill was settling on the air. He tried not to think of her in a sexual way, but that was difficult, especially when she touched him. And as if she read his mind, she did.
“You can borrow a pair of mine if that would settle us up.” Evelyn felt brazen, like a madwoman driven by a force bigger than herself. She crossed her left arm over and placed her hand on his abdomen. She had to touch him. His body warmed her side and reminded her of his chest.
She weighed a hundred and forty pounds last time she stepped on a scale. That was lean for her five-five frame, but heavy as dead weight. Yet he didn’t seem phased the least as she slept right on top of him this afternoon. She had let her guard down in a big way, yet he didn’t take advantage of it.
“I’m not a thong kind of guy.” He smiled. Her han
d spread, and his stomach fueled the fire throughout him. Stop talking about underwear, stupid.
“Yeah, like I’d wear a thong.” Evelyn opened and closed her fingers slowly.
It just felt nice to be here. She had never shared a moment like this with a man. Sure she stargazed in the field atop Hummers with other Marines. It was great in Okinawa. She spent the years mastering different fighting styles, and the night sky held different constellations. The men there were more like brothers. If they ever saw her sexually, they were smart enough not to say it.
Joshua let out a guttural growl. He didn’t mean to, but the thought of her ass in a thong was a little more than he wanted to envision right now. Friends don’t picture friends naked. Even hot, deadly, redheads that could kill you in your sleep.
Somehow that last thought was meant to settle him but kinda turned him on instead. A lady, I need a lady in my life, not a killer.
“Okay.” Joshua sat up. “I need to get to bed. You’ve worn me out.”
“Funny I was thinking the same thing.” Evelyn’s voice was silky, sexual.
He cleared his throat. “You’re tired too, huh?”
Evelyn pushed up and laid a hot hand on his back burning right through his T-shirt. “No. I thought about taking you to bed and wearing you out.”
“All right-y then. See you in the morning.” Joshua sprang up straight and walked quickly into the house. He felt like a scatterbrained teenager. Driven by a sense of duty, and derailed by a sense of lust. She was toying with him, and he didn’t like it.
“You can’t run forever. I’m a hunter, and I always get my man,” she whispered aloud to herself. She had never really wanted a man, but the more Joshua treated her kindly and respected her as a lady, the more she wanted him. She didn’t consider herself a lady, but liked the way it felt to wear that disguise. Of course it would have to go down her way, but she could convince him of that, too. She had time, unless he kicked her out.