Up In Flames

by Lori Foster

  Seconds ticked by while they stared at each other. She shook her head again. “No.”

  That was all she said before turning away and heading for her bedroom. Obviously, no one else was in the apartment, given the way she went about her business.

  Mick followed her into her room, and the first thing he saw was the suitcase opened on the bed, partially packed.

  His knees locked; his healing shoulder pounded with a renewed ache. “You going somewhere?”

  She didn’t look at him again, though her face remained pale and he could see her hands trembling. “Yes.”

  His throat tightened. “Where?”

  “I can’t tell you in here.”

  A frown pulled at his brows. “In here in the bedroom?” he asked, perplexed by her odd behavior.

  She shifted impatiently. “No, here in my apartment.”

  “You heard what Faradon told you.” He strode toward her, uncertain but determined. He wouldn’t let her get away from him. “You’re not to leave.”

  Her scathing glance stopped him in his tracks. “I can’t very well stay here. But don’t worry. I’m not skipping town. I’ll still be around for you to persecute.”

  “Prosecute,” he corrected automatically, then caught himself, realizing she’d said it on purpose. He clenched his teeth, counting to ten. Attempting a softer, more reasonable tone, he said, “I don’t want to prosecute or persecute you, babe.”

  She went to her dresser, picked up an armload of items and dropped them haphazardly into the suitcase. “Get out of my way,” she said as she started past him to the hallway. “What are you doing here, anyway? And why are you creeping around with your gun out? Were you going to shoot me?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer to that outrageous insult, but marched into the hall.

  “You know damn good and well I wouldn’t shoot you! I wouldn’t do anything to—”

  “Hurt me?” She stopped abruptly. “It’s a little too late to make that claim, isn’t it?”

  “Delilah...”

  In a hurry to finish packing, she rushed off. Was she leaving her apartment rather than throw him out? Did she think he intended to stay with her still?

  Actually, he hadn’t thought that far ahead, but the idea of leaving her, of not having her next to him at night, her soft body his to touch, her gentle breath warming him, gave him a lost, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  He put his gun away, then knotted his hands to keep from reaching for her. She looked...breakable. Fragile.

  She stopped in the middle of the floor, as if uncertain what to do next. Her gaze landed on her computer, and she dove toward it with a purpose, quickly pulling cords and disconnecting the monitor.

  Mick used that opportunity to clasp her shoulders. Touching her made him feel better. “Delilah, listen to me.”

  She jerked away so violently, she almost lost her balance. “Don’t touch me,” she said in alarm, her eyes huge and round and filled with wariness. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

  They watched each other in silence. Mick was the first to finally speak. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  For a long minute, she stared at her hands. “All right.” She took a deep breath, met his gaze defiantly. “I fell in love with you. I trusted you. I knew it was too soon for that, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. And you’ve broken my heart. I really don’t think I can ever forgive you.”

  Her words were damn difficult to take, filling him with elation—because she loved him—and the heavy weight of sadness, because he didn’t know if he could do anything about it. He chose his words carefully, watching her, gauging her reaction. “Because I turned you in?”

  Her eyes closed and a tiny, very sad smile appeared. “No, because you’d think that about me at all.” She looked at him again. “Here I was, letting myself go crazy for you, and you hadn’t really learned anything about me at all.”

  The need to hold her was a live thing. He barely resisted it. “Can we back up just a bit?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Why are you in such an all-fired hurry to leave now?”

  She gave a broken sigh. “And here I thought you were so smart. Smart and brave and honorable.” She reached for his hands and enfolded them in her own. Leaning so close he thought she would kiss him, she whispered near his ear, “I didn’t tell anyone anything. I figure you didn’t, either. That means my place has to be bugged.”

  Mick stood there, stupefied, watching her lean back, watching her wait for his reaction. Bugged?

  A stillness settled over him, slowing his heartbeat, squeezing his lungs. Of course her place was bugged.

  But it would have to be worse than that. Just listening wouldn’t have given anyone such specific details of their first night together. No, that was something that had to be seen, too.

  Almost in slow motion, Mick looked around, heart pounding with acceptance. He caught Delilah by the shoulders. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “To my car. I want you out of here.”

  She dug in her heels, resisting his efforts. “I’m not your responsibility anymore. I can take care of myself, just like I’ve always done.”

  “We can’t talk here,” he insisted.

  And she added with a note of sadness, “We don’t need to talk anywhere. We’re through.”

  He hadn’t been willing to accept that when he’d thought her an accomplice; no way in hell would he accept it knowing she was innocent and in danger. And he didn’t doubt her now, not at all. Maybe he was too anxious to find an alternate explanation, one that didn’t incriminate her in any way. But this time he was going by his heart, by his guts, not by his damn pride or his conscience.

  He gripped her shoulders tighter, opened his mouth—and heard someone say, “Am I interrupting?”

  They both whipped around, and Mick shoved Delilah behind him. Alec lounged in the doorway, one black brow quirked in question, his equally black eyes speculative.

  Mick caught Delilah’s hand, dragged her resisting behind him, and stepped out into the hallway. Without a word, Alec followed. They moved to a corner and there, where no one could possibly hear, Mick asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Josh called and said you needed my help.” He looked at Delilah, his gaze speculative. “What’s going on?”

  “Damn.” Mick quickly explained the possibilities to Alec. Several times Delilah tried to wiggle her hand away from him, but he held tight, and she seemed reluctant to make a scene.

  Alec didn’t appear the least surprised by any of it, but then he was a specialist when it came to espionage equipment. “Probably a Minicam,” he said. He put his large hand on the side of Delilah’s neck and bent to look her in the eyes. “You okay?”

  She didn’t so much as glance at Mick. “I’ll survive.”

  Alec considered that, holding her gaze for a stretch of time, then shook his head. “I think you should go on home with Mick. Let me check things over here and... No?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going home with Mick.”

  “Yes, you are,” Mick told her. “Alec, I just need a sec to talk to her.”

  Her gaze glued to Alec’s, Delilah bared her teeth in what she probably thought looked like a confident smile, but instead showed her tension. “I’m not going home with Mick.”

  Alec raised his brows, waiting for Mick’s response. He was saved from that fate when pounding footsteps sounded on the stairs. They all moved at once, Mick again shoving Delilah behind him while drawing his gun, and Alec stationing himself in front of them both.

  Josh and Zack skittered to a halt at the sight of them blocking the hallway.

  “Uh, we decided you could use some backup,” Josh explained.

  Mick growled, knowing Josh thought he couldn’t apologize to Delilah correctly on his own.

  Delilah mistook him, though. From behind Mick she muttered meanly, “Some watchdog you are if you need those two.”

  Mick turned to frown at her.<
br />
  Alec sighed.

  More footsteps sounded. Dane, gun in hand and arm extended, reached the top of the stairs in a crouch. Everyone blinked at him.

  Alec said, “You got my message.”

  “Yeah.” Dane came to his feet and tucked the gun away in a shoulder holster. “What’s going on?”

  Delilah stepped around Mick, glaring at all five men. “Do you all run around town armed?”

  Josh and Zack shook their heads. “Of course not.”

  Alec, Dane and Mick said at the same time, “Yeah.”

  She turned away in exasperation. “I need to finish packing.”

  “Packing?” Josh asked, his tone filled with alarm.

  “You’re going somewhere?” Zack tried to step in front of her.

  Alec caught her by the back of her shirt, then quickly held up both hands when she rounded on him. “Don’t slug me, just listen up, okay? You can be pissed off at Mick all you want. Hell, I would be, too.”

  “Me, too,” Josh and Zack said almost in unison, earning Mick’s glare.

  “But,” Alec continued, “you have to think here. Don’t go putting yourself in danger just to spite yourself. I don’t know where you intended to go, but with everything we’ve just found out, even you have to realize you need someone who can protect you.”

  Dane crowded closer. “Just what the hell is going on?”

  Mick groaned. “God, I’m getting tired of explaining this.”

  “Then let me.” Delilah drew herself up, and she wore the meanest expression Mick had ever seen. It relieved him, because at least some of the shock, some of the hurt, had been replaced. “Mick went to the hospital to see Rudy Glasgow.”

  “He’s awake?” Dane asked.

  “Yeah,” Mick said. “Unfortunately, he is.”

  “While there,” Delilah continued, “Rudy convinced him that I was part of his little gang, a criminal to be arrested.”

  Her tone was so nasty, the men all held perfectly still as if frozen by her censure.

  “You see, Rudy knew personal stuff—and no, none of you need details—about what we’d done here in the apartment.”

  “In the bedroom,” Zack supplied, earning a hot glare from Delilah.

  “So, of course,” she practically sneered, “Mick had to believe the worst about me.”

  Mick swallowed hard. She’d have them all lynching him before she finished. Already Josh was seething again, and Zack kept giving him reproachful looks. Dane and Alec just seemed resigned. “Delilah—”

  “He convinced his connections in the police department to have me picked up for questioning.”

  Everyone looked at everyone else. Dane ventured, “Connections?”

  Mick shook his head. “Never mind.” Delilah didn’t yet know he was a cop, and he had a feeling now wasn’t a good time to tell her. He had enough amends to make without confessing his own deception.

  “She thinks her apartment is bugged,” Alec finished for her, cutting to the chase, “which would explain things.”

  “Ah.” Dane nodded. “That’d make sense, I guess.”

  “It explains it better than thinking she had a hand in that damned robbery,” Josh pointed out unnecessarily.

  Zack elbowed him hard.

  Defensive, Delilah crossed her arms over her middle and repeated, “I am not going home with Mick. I can take care of myself.”

  “You know,” Alec said, his lowered brows making him look more than a little fierce, “this could have all been a ploy. Why tell Mick you were involved unless someone wanted him to get angry with you, to walk away from you?”

  “Which would leave you alone and unprotected,” Dane finished for him. He nodded. “Someone wants to get to her, but that’s impossible with Mick watching over her. So they instigated this little separation.”

  Still determined, Delilah said, “I have a deadline.”

  “Good Lord,” Mick muttered, unable to believe she’d be concerned with that now.

  “I don’t have time to debate with you. I just want to get settled down and finish my work.”

  “Someone is after you, damn it!”

  Even when Mick shouted at her, she didn’t meet his gaze. She stared down at her feet and said, “I’ll be very careful.”

  She turned toward the apartment door, and again she got pulled up short. Josh, standing tall and resolute beside her, held her arm. “If you don’t want to go home with Mick, come to my place.”

  Raging jealousy shot through Mick. Growling, he took an aggressive step forward, and both Alec and Dane flattened a hand on his chest, stalling him.

  Delilah smiled in regret. “I can’t do that, Josh. I’d drive you crazy in an hour.”

  “Not so.”

  She shook her head stubbornly. “No, it’s out of the question. I wouldn’t consider imposing on you.”

  “Then come home with me,” Zack said. “Dani would love to have you there.”

  “No,” she answered gently, looking a little amazed by the offers. “I don’t sleep regular hours, and I’d be disruptive and—”

  Dane shrugged. “You know you’re welcome to our place, or to Alec’s.”

  Alec nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “But either way, Delilah,” Dane continued, “you can’t be alone. It isn’t safe.”

  Mouth open, she shook her head. “I don’t believe this. You people hardly know me. You can’t really want me underfoot. And if there is some type of danger, I could be bringing it to your homes!” She shook her head again, more violently this time, as if making a point. “No, I could never do that.”

  Dane turned to Mick. “Why don’t you go in with Alec and look around? I’d like to speak to Delilah alone a second.”

  “About what?” Mick asked suspiciously, afraid Dane might bury him further. He was beyond pleased that everyone had jumped to her defense, had rushed to assist her, but he’d have been happier if she’d had no alternative but to give him another chance.

  “About life and love and reality.”

  Josh grinned. “Can I listen in?”

  “No.” Dane caught Delilah’s arm and dragged her toward the steps. “This’ll only take a minute.”

  * * *

  Delilah went grudgingly. Truth was, she didn’t know what to do. Her only plan had been to get out of the apartment. She felt...dirty. Not just from Mick’s impossible and hurtful accusation, but by the sickening possibility that someone had been watching her, someone had seen her making love to Mick. She shuddered with revulsion.

  Dane put his arm around her shoulders and stopped at the landing at the bottom of the stairs. It was slightly cooler here, but not much. She felt hot and irritable and irrevocably wounded.

  “You asked why any of us would want to take you in.”

  “I’ve never known people like you,” she admitted, glad for something to think about besides the invasion of her privacy.

  “We’d do it for Mick. We love him, and it’s obvious you’re important to him. He’d go out of his head if he screwed up this badly and something happened to you. I don’t want to see him hurt that way. He’s been hurt enough in his life.”

  The thought of Mick suffering because of her made her sadder than ever. Damn it all, she still loved him—and that was sheer stupidity on her part. Nursing her hurt, she said, “Yeah, he cares so much he thinks I’d get him shot.”

  “Men in love do stupid things. Our brains get all muddled. It’s not what we expect, and we don’t know how to deal with it.”

  “He’s not in love.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “He’s never said so.”

  “In words, maybe. But from the start he’s been fascinated with you.”

  She scoffed, and Dane added gently, “Delilah, he took a bullet for you.”

  She shrugged off that irrefutable fact. When he’d thrown himself on top of her, he hadn’t even known her name, so he couldn’t have had feelings for her then. And since then...well, since then everything had been too fast
. She was confused, so no doubt he was, too. “Mick is a hero,” she reasoned. “He’d do that for anyone.”

  Dane laughed. “I agree, he’s pretty damn heroic. But he’s still human, so you have to allow him some human faults. Like bad judgment on occasion, and jumping to conclusions. And acting before he’s really thought things out—which is what I think happened today.”

  “Do you have any idea how badly it hurts for him to think that of me?” Her heart, once full to bursting with love for Mick, now felt cold and hard, a dull ache in her chest.

  “Yeah, I do. I made the same mistake with my own wife once.”

  That got her attention. Delilah stared at him, fascinated.

  “It’s a long story,” Dane said, “and I won’t bore you with the details now, but I let her think I was my deceased twin, because I thought she’d had a hand in trying to murder him.”

  Delilah felt her mouth drop open, her eyes widen. “That sounds more outrageous than the stuff I put in my books.”

  Dane winced. “I know.” Then he smiled. “I fell in love with Angel before I got around to telling her the truth. When it all came out in the open, she hated me. Or at least I thought she did. She certainly thought she did. Circumstances not a lot different from what you’re dealing with now kept her with me. And it gave us a chance to work things out.”

  “You think I should go home with Mick so he can make amends?”

  “I think you should give your relationship every chance to work out the ugly mistakes. It’s not like you two met under normal circumstances. You’ve been shot at, he’s been wounded, someone is obviously after you for some reason—that’s enough in itself to make any relationship difficult.”

  “I guess.”

  Dane hugged her close. “One more thing. Mick wouldn’t risk his life for just anyone. From what he said, he was already mesmerized by you before the shooting. He’d watched you, and thought about you. I understand it happens that way sometimes.”

  She rubbed her face, so tired and washed-out and confused she could barely order her thoughts enough to keep talking. “I don’t know.”