The Darling Songbirds

by Rachael Herron

  And Adele wasn’t helping a damn thing, standing there looking so pretty and clean. She wore jeans and a long white tank top that flowed to the top of her thighs. Her arms were bare, and her hair was loose. She wore no make-up and she looked refreshed, as if she’d just woken up from a fifteen-hour sleep. ‘You need to wash that cut.’

  ‘Really? Because I thought I’d just go to the marina and rub some fish scales into the dirt, too.’ He couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice. ‘I shut off the water main.’

  ‘To the hotel, too?’

  He jammed a pile of napkins against the wound to staunch the blood. ‘No.’

  She turned on her heel – or rather, on her cowboy boot. Her ass looked great in those jeans, and she probably knew it. ‘Come on,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ He’d go turn on the water – no, he couldn’t, not until he fixed the goddamned beast. Crap. He followed her through the back arbour and up the rock walkway through the rose garden. She stumbled a tiny bit on the uneven gravel, he noticed with too much satisfaction.

  Room one smelled like her now, like something sweet, almost sugary, mixed with a tang of citrus. Lord, he could practically chew that smell. How was this fair?

  She headed for the closet. ‘I have a first-aid kit in my suitcase, I think.’

  ‘Don’t need that. Just need to wash it out.’ How long would it take to air the place out after she was gone? He could imagine the scent lingering – vanilla in the curtains, orange in the sheets.

  He would just leave the doors and windows open for a month if he had to. He headed for the bathroom.

  ‘I’ll be right in. Wash it good. I know it’ll hurt.’

  Hugh had always used the hotel’s soaps that customers left behind, the slivers that were still good, but Nate hadn’t been able to get on board that train, as much as he admired the thriftiness of it. He usually just got a big bar of whatever was cheapest at the drugstore, but the bar he’d left behind wasn’t on the edge of the sink. Instead, there was a big pink bottle of something that floofed at him when he pushed the pump.

  Crap. This was what the room smelled like. What she smelled like. And he had to rub it into his wound. Literally. He groaned.

  ‘Hurts, huh?’ Adele set a roll of gauze and a tube of antiseptic cream on the back of the toilet. ‘That looks bad. Here, let me.’

  She reached forward and took hold of his wrist. ‘Cold water? You don’t have to be such a man about it.’ She adjusted the temperature of the water with her other hand.

  Nate tried to pretend she wasn’t brushing his upper arm with her breast. He tried like hell.

  Turned out it was impossible.

  ‘I can do it myself.’

  ‘I’d let you if I thought you could.’ Her fingers were as warm as the water was, and he caught his breath. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Sorry. But I’ve got to get all the gunk out.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He held himself as still as he could. And he prayed she’d lean against him again, just the same way.

  Nothing hurt, it turned out. The way she was touching him made him forget that pain was even a thing that existed. The side of her breast pressed against him again, so lightly he almost couldn’t feel it. She bit her bottom lip as she rinsed the soap off. It was so quiet when she turned the water off that he held his breath.

  She was so close. So close. Her eyelashes were so long he wanted to touch them lightly with the tip of his finger. He could lean forward and kiss her, and …

  And then what? She’d scream. Jump backward and knock her head on the towel rack. Slap him.

  Nate was just being stupid about a pretty girl. And it wasn’t the first time that had ever happened. (It was, though, the first time a woman had actually made him feel a little dizzy – it wasn’t the sight of blood, either. It was the sight of her. Damn it.)

  The handtowel she pressed against his arm was light green.

  He jerked his arm back. ‘You’re going to get blood all over that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Now quit wriggling.’

  She thought he was wriggly? Nate was using all of his might just to stay still next to her. To keep his free hand from wrapping around the back of her head and pulling her mouth to his. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Shhh.’

  She was so close to him he could almost taste the peppermint toothpaste she used.

  He pretended he was a statue. A naked statue with a rock-hard – nope, that wasn’t working.

  He yanked his arm from her hold. ‘I’ll do the rest.’

  ‘Let me dress it.’

  ‘What, are you a field nurse?’

  ‘Yep.’ Her nose had a perfect little tilt at the end. A tiny ski slope. ‘And I’m going to win this battle, so don’t fight me on this. Let me fix you up.’

  He sighed. ‘Fine. But hurry up.’

  Adele smoothed antiseptic cream into the long cut which had mostly stopped bleeding now. ‘It’s not deep. I don’t think you’ll need stitches.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have gotten them even if I did.’

  ‘Ah.’ She put the top back on the antiseptic tube and then gave him a look that made his insides growl. ‘Tough guy, huh?’

  He stuck out his chin. ‘Aren’t we all?’

  ‘Some of you are worse than others. I mean, tougher than others.’ Her voice held a wink but her face stayed straight. ‘I don’t think you need a whole bandage, do you? Just a few of these big bandaids should do.’

  Nate nodded. ‘Just give them to me. I’ll replace them for you later.’

  She shook her head. ‘Please.’ Her gaze shot up and met his.

  What would she look like if she said that a different way? In a different place? Under him, specifically? No, no. He grabbed the bandaids out of her hand. ‘I told you I’d do it.’

  ‘Grumpy-pants. What were you doing, anyway?’

  He ripped open a bandaid with his teeth and spat out the corner. ‘Fixing the dishwasher. Again.’

  ‘It’s a problem?’

  ‘It’s like a dying possum that’s been hit by a car. Refusing to die, but bleeding all over the place.’

  ‘What an attractive image.’

  He winced as the adhesive pulled his skin shut. ‘You asked.’

  ‘Can’t you get a new one?’

  ‘Sure.’ Why wasn’t she getting this? ‘Just as soon as we buy a new water heater and ice machine. Nothing works in the whole damn place and I’m running on the spot just trying to keep the saloon open on the small amount of cash we bring in. If you’re bringing any substantive investment to the table, I wish you’d tell me, because if I have to pull the tailpiece one more time, I’ll probably slit my wrists on purpose.’

  ‘I don’t have much.’ Adele opened another bandaid for him and held it out.

  Hating himself, he took it. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But I have enough to buy a new dishwasher.’

  Oh, God. ‘No.’ He needed her gone, not literally invested.

  ‘We should talk about it.’

  They didn’t need to talk about anything except when she was getting out of town. He slapped on the last one and crumpled the wrappers, then shoved them in his pocket. He moved so that he was closer to the door.

  And closer to the bed. Damn it. ‘Don’t you need to be getting back to Nashville? Back home?’

  She blinked. ‘Nah. I have time.’

  ‘You don’t have …’ He cleared his throat. ‘You don’t have someone waiting for you?’

  Adele laughed. Lord, her laugh was pretty. ‘No. Remember I said I’d been evicted?’

  What kind of jackass would kick out a woman like her? ‘So where do you live?’

  She looked around, her eyes still too bright. ‘I think this is all I’ve got. And it’s not even mine – it’s yours and I have to get out so you can have your bed back.’

  They both looked at the bed. Nate coughed. Why weren’t his lungs working the way they normally did? He was a strong guy. He went running with Tox Ellis at least once a week, a
nd sometimes the bastard made them go up into the hills. Nate’s capacity for oxygen intake was good, even on a seven-miler with a thousand-foot incline.

  But standing near Adele was like standing on top of a twenty-thousand-foot mountain. The air was thin, and he had to actually think about making his lungs work. Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. Some bodily reactions were continuing to function just fine without him trying – especially some things downstairs.

  If he didn’t get out of this room, he was going to kiss her. At least.

  Nate threw himself out onto the porch the same way he threw fighters out of the bar – bodily. ‘I’ve got to go clean up the mess I left.’

  ‘I’ll help.’

  He gripped the edge of the railing and gave himself an immediate splinter. ‘Don’t need help.’

  ‘Okay, then let me help with something else.’ She followed him onto the porch, bringing that sweet smell with her.

  ‘Nah. Thanks for the bandaids.’ Why had he asked her if anyone was waiting for her in Nashville? He didn’t care. Did he? He raised his arm in salute and headed down the old wooden steps. If he hurried, he’d be back in the saloon before she decided to follow him and this time, for once, he’d lock the back door until it was opening time when, by law, the fire exits had to be open. Till then, he’d hide from her like the chicken he was.

  ‘Wait.’ She was right behind him, her boots crunching the gravel.

  Nate spun. ‘What?’ His voice was too harsh, but she didn’t look surprised.

  ‘You don’t have to hate me.’

  He bit back the groan in his throat. He really, really didn’t hate her, not right now. ‘That’s not it.’

  ‘You’re acting like you can’t stand to be in the same room with me. I just need to –’

  Before she could finish the sentence, Nate grabbed her. Like some Neanderthal, he hauled her against him and kissed her, hard. And like the same Neanderthal, he deserved a smack, but she didn’t give it to him. Instead, her lips parted in surprise, but almost as quickly as he’d moved, she kissed him back. She moved her lips against his, her tongue at first tentative, then, seconds later, eager. She tasted rich and heady, like a wine he couldn’t really afford to buy for the bar. He was a Two-Buck Chuck kind of guy, and she tasted like top-shelf Scotch, and he should stop kissing her, but he just couldn’t do it.

  His good arm was strong around her waist, pulling her up against his chest, but her arms were around his neck just as tightly. It felt like gravity, somehow, the way they were pressed against each other. As if they’d both fallen down but were still standing up.

  ‘Oh …’ she breathed against his mouth, and he grew even harder.

  She had to feel the effect she was having on him. There was no hiding it, but instead of pulling back in surprise, Adele pressed herself full-length against him. That gravity thing again. Nate slid his hand up into her hair and angled her head back so he could kiss the side of her neck, the spot right under her ear. She made a sound that he couldn’t understand as a word, but he knew exactly what it meant.

  It meant he should pick her up and carry her up those shallow stairs to his room. Her room. Whatever.

  A horn honked from the street, and Nate jumped. No one could see them up here, unless they’d walked in and through the saloon, but it reminded him that this was wrong. He couldn’t kiss Adele Darling. He pulled back, his hand still at the nape of her neck.

  She touched her bottom lip, wet from his mouth. ‘Yep.’

  ‘What?’ He’d lost track of what they’d been talking about. If it had been anything at all.

  ‘You’re right.’ She nodded. ‘This is exactly how I act when I can’t stand to be in the same room with someone.’

  ‘Adele –’

  ‘No, you’re right.’ She took a teetering step away from him. The front of him, the part of him that had been touching her, felt suddenly cold. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She was sorry? He was the ape that had decided to grope her. Shit. ‘We should probably …’

  Their eyes met, and Nate forgot that he was going to say they should talk about the saloon, talk about him buying her out. Heat, pure and white, hit his groin. Adele said something with her eyes that he couldn’t have put into words even if someone’d had a gun to his head.

  Then she spoke out loud. ‘Hugh.’ It sounded more like a gasp than a name.

  Her uncle. His mentor. The name acted like the slap of cold water he needed. ‘What about him?’

  ‘His apartment. I’ll clear it out. I need to give you back your room so you can get off your boat. Can you give me the key to Uncle Hugh’s place, please? I’ll just work on that, and work on getting the paperwork together so we can start putting the sale through.’

  ‘To me.’ Nate’s chest filled with hope. He’d do anything to help her get out of here faster, leaving him with the deed and the keys and a path forward.

  ‘To you. I just need the names of those guys you said could help me.’ Her voice was breathy.

  If her breathing was as shallow as his was, that would make them both in danger of falling over. Breathing was something Nate usually managed to do every day without any extra concentration. Was this heatstroke? Nate looked up at the sun, getting close to being directly overhead. That was probably it. He ignored the fact that it couldn’t be more than seventy-two degrees yet. Definitely heatstroke. That or the blood poisoning from the cut had already hit his system. ‘Post. The Post brothers. Jack and John. I’ll write down Jack’s number. Stay here.’ For the love of God, she had to stay right there and not follow him into the dim coolness of the storage room, which would be a perfect spot for kissing her more.

  She stayed. He looked up the number and wrote it down. When he took it outside to the courtyard, he said, ‘Jack talks. But John works harder.’ He held it out. Their fingers touched as she took it, and he swallowed, hard.

  Instead of saying anything, she just nodded.

  Then she turned and ran up the stairs to his room. She was light and fast and, holy hell, if he didn’t want to follow her and never come back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Where d’you want us to start?’

  Jack Post stood on the deck in front of Uncle Hugh’s apartment door. He looked to be in his mid-sixties, salt and pepper at his temples. He was short and slim but had bunched muscle pushing at the edges of his shirtsleeves, as if he slung things around just for fun – logs, or horseshoes. His brother John was taller than Jack, and looked even stronger. He could probably throw a whole tree across the road. For men no longer young, they both gave the impression that they could build a house overnight if the job called for it. Since they’d arrived, John hadn’t said a word, but his handshake – which came with an ear-to-ear grin – had been surprisingly friendly. Jack, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped talking except to ask this question.

  Adele pressed her hands together. ‘I’m not sure if you’ve been in there recently, but it’s not good.’

  ‘Well, your uncle was a man of refined tastes. And by that I mean he liked just about everything. I remember him stopping to pick up soda can tabs like they were fossils, which I guess they kind of are. You know?’ It didn’t seem like he needed an answer from her. ‘And books! He couldn’t walk past a free-book box at the Friends of the Library sale. Seemed like he just needed all the books, that was all. Adopting them like orphans. So, should we go in?’

  Adele unlocked the door. A blast of sour air hit her nose. ‘I bought masks for all of us.’

  Jack’s eyebrows shot upward. He took one step in, then another one. ‘You got extras? Because I want to double up on that. How about some Vicks VapoRub?’

  ‘Not on me, no.’

  ‘Eucalyptus oil?’

  Adele shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Maybe you can go get us some while we start. If you put a little bit under your nose, it makes the going easier. Less stinky, right? I have this theory that it actually helps kill the germs, too, before you inhale them. You can i
nhale germs, right? I’m not getting that mixed up?’

  ‘I think it depends if they’re airborne or not.’ Adele hoped like hell that the men she’d hired wouldn’t contract some awful disease while helping her clean the place out. She wasn’t sure what kind of insurance Uncle Hugh had carried for contractors (another thing for her to find out) but she doubted if it covered much in the way of environmental hazard safety.

  ‘Huh. Bet you’re right.’ Jack slipped on a pair of blue rubber gloves, the thickest ones Adele could find at the drugstore. He threw another pair at his brother. ‘This smell here, it don’t smell like airborne germs to me. None of them path-oh-gems. This just smells like dirt. And wet paper. Boy, there’s a lot of paper in here, huh?’

  Adele had hoped that her memory of how bad it was had been wrong, that she’d exaggerated it in her head. But in fact the opposite was true. The kitchen was appalling. If she were Jack or John, she would have backed out and said her thanks but no thanks.

  Instead, the Post brothers pushed in farther. ‘Okay, shoot me one of them bags, huh?’

  Adele gave him an industrial trash bag.

  He grinned. ‘This is going to be fun! I love throwin’ things out that don’t got no more use anymore. Hey, you know what?’ He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘We can tell you stories while we work. Lots of people like it when we do that. Sometimes,’ he looked sideways at her, ‘sometimes we get our lunch bought for us if we do that. You know, talking makes the work go faster. And we tell good stories.’

  Somehow Adele knew that by ‘we’ Jack meant himself, since John was already silently shoving piles of newspaper off the counter tops into a half-full bag. ‘Pizza okay?’

  ‘Oh, boy. Yeah. We like salami and extra olives. Now, what kind of story you want? Real or fake?’

  That was easy. ‘Real.’

  ‘Got it.’ Jack glanced through a pile of mail that teetered on the edge of what was probably a buried table. ‘No bills, just junk mail. All in the trash?’

  ‘Recycling. Here, we’ll use this bag for that. Can you tell me about people in town? People my uncle would have known?’