by Julie Miller
“Let me see,” she challenged, folding her arms beneath her breasts and thrusting them up in a way he shouldn’t have noticed. His unblinking glare should have backed her off a step. Instead, she threw up her hands and cursed. “This is ridiculous. You’ll stand up to KCPD, a hospital staff and some psycho who wants to steal your work and kill your family—but you’re afraid to take me on?”
“There’s a difference between fear and consideration. I’m responsible for getting you into this mess, and I’m perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to get you out of it in one piece. You did the same for Helen and I owe you. But that doesn’t mean I intend to take advantage of the situation.”
“Oh, and forcing me to look at your face is taking advantage?”
“Go home, Kit.” He was heading for the door.
But she planted herself in his path. She reached up and framed his jaw between her hands and demanded that he listen. “Don’t you feel it? Am I nuts, or is there something going on between us?”
She was touching him. Oh, yeah, he was feeling it. Every cell in his body leaped with traitorous joy. Wait for the rejection, boys. You’ve been without a woman for a year and a half now. If you do what you really want, you’ll scare the crap out of her. Damon closed his hands around her wrists to pull her away. “It’s probably some sort of rescuer complex. Pity and gratitude are getting all mixed up inside your head.”
She tugged herself free but didn’t budge. “I don’t have a lot of experience with men, Damon, but I think you piss me off too often for me to be feeling pity. And as for gratitude…”
Her tongue stopped on an uncharacteristic stutter. Her whole posture changed, retreated. “Is that what you feel for me? Gratitude? Because of Helen?” She studied his chest from shoulder to shoulder for a moment before tipping her chin to look him in the eye again. “I’m not any sort of ally or confidante who shares a common enemy with you, am I? I’m the buttinsky neighbor who gets on your nerves and gets in your way and disrupts your routine.” She was backing away now, her mouth lined with bitter apology. “There’s no chemistry here, besides your lab and my degree.”
“Kit—”
“Let’s call it even, okay, Dr. Sinclair? I don’t want you putting up with me out of gratitude any more than I want you writing me off with an embarrassingly large check. Thanks for saving my life. Good luck catching the bad guys. Say hi to Helen for me.” She darted around him to retrieve her basket from the table. “And I hope you enjoyed lunch.”
“Katherine.” He snagged her wrist as she hurried past. He cupped her cheek and tunneled his fingers into the fringe of her hair. “It’s not gratitude.”
He damned caution and common sense and lowered his head to kiss her.
Her lips tensed with a startled gasp, then softened beneath his. It was just mouths at first—testing, tasting, parting. She rested a hand on his bicep. He teased the band that tried to control her hair. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue and she opened for him with a shuddering sigh that caressed his eardrums and danced along his spine.
Kit was every bit as warm and sweet as he had imagined. And she was every bit an equal partner in this kiss as he was.
Her responses were cautious at first, then grew bolder with each foray as he welcomed her curious exploration of his mouth. She found the sensitive arc of his bottom lip. The seam of his dimple. The matching flavor of sweet and tart from their lunch on his tongue.
“This is chemistry,” she whispered.
“Advanced,” he clarified.
It was a damn fool’s game as well, but that didn’t stop Damon from finding the nip of her waist or settling a possessive hand on the swell of her hip and drawing her back to the table with him. He sat on the edge and pulled her into the vee of his legs, aligning her heat with his own. Easing the strain on her neck. Tempting every eager, aching cell of his chest with the teasing brush of her breasts. He pried the basket from her unresisting fingers and guided her hand back to his face. He wanted to feel her acceptance of him, needed to feel she wasn’t afraid.
Of her own volition, Kit lifted her other hand to his jaw. He deepened the kiss and she rose up on tiptoe, meeting him halfway. Damon freed her ponytail and sifted his fingers through the silky waves at the nape of her neck.
Other than a fond peck on Helen’s cheek, Damon hadn’t kissed a woman in months. He hadn’t wanted to. But now, with the blood rushing in his ears and pooling south of his belt buckle, he wondered why he’d waited even two days to kiss this one.
He’d deprived himself of a woman’s touch. He’d wallowed in his grief, refused to want. His work was his mistress, retribution his only need.
Damon squeezed Kit’s bottom and lifted her more fully against him. She moaned into his mouth at the frictive contact of lips and bodies. He absorbed the sound deep inside, where it opened a fissure in the loneliness and guilt that imprisoned his soul.
Her bold fingers stanched the same wound, running across each ridge and hollow of his face—learning the tragic imprint of his life stamped there. Soothing him. Accepting him. A tickle at the bump of his nose, a scrape against his stubbled chin, a lingering stroke along the line of his jaw.
Then she discovered the strap that anchored his eyepatch in place and the first intrusion of rational thinking snuck in. Damon lowered her to the floor.
She traced the strap to the back of his head and he slid his hands to a less intimate grasp at her waist. She followed the strap back to the leather circle that hid his disfigurement. She fingered the leather and frowned against his mouth. “Is this from the fire, too?”
Reality shot through Damon like an ice-cold lightning bolt.
He pushed at her waist. Pushed her away. Pushed to his feet and turned her toward the living room.
“You and I will talk later. I need to shower and sleep and run some more tests. I should be able to trace the source of the chemicals used to drug you, if not an actual manufacturer’s matrix. We might be able to track a purchase or theft if we know where it came from.”
“Damon. What’s wrong?”
“Don’t leave the building without telling me.” He thrust the empty basket into her beautiful hands and led her to the door. “Don’t leave without Oscar or another SinPharm guard to escort you.”
“I won’t. But—”
“What just happened here will not happen again. Understood? I need time to think. Time to figure out what’s going on before anyone else gets hurt.”
The confusion and hurt that darkened her eyes was hard to ignore. “If we put our heads together, we stand a better chance of—”
“I can’t keep you safe if I can’t think.”
“Being alone is not the answer.”
“It is for me.”
Damon pushed her into the hall and closed the door. He waited on his side, listening to her shocked silence and the well-deserved curse and stomp of footsteps that followed. He didn’t move until he heard the ratcheting sound of the freight elevator gate opening and closing.
When he heard the gears cranking against the elevator’s descent, he turned and faced the dramatic, two-story layout of his so-called home. The squared-off arches and steel stairs to the bedroom loft were purposeful, masculine touches. He’d stripped the penthouse of every trace of his wife, every trace of the love they’d shared. He changed the decor, changed the pictures, changed the warmth. Miranda was gone.
But he couldn’t seem to get the traces of Kit Snow out of his sanctuary. Her scent hung in the air. Her apple pie and bold kisses lingered on his tongue.
“You’ve got degrees from Mizzou, Johns Hopkins and MIT, and you still can make a stupid mistake like that?” Damon chastised himself and peeled off his clothes, tossing the scent of temptation into the hamper and stepping into the shower to let the coldest water he could stand beat some sense into him. “That was definitely not gratitude.”
Not on his part.
“Swashbuckler?” He was feeling a little piratical, taking advantage of Kit�
�s curiosity like that. He’d done her a disservice in thinking what she felt for him was pity. But he’d be doing himself a disservice if he was crazy enough to believe that anything beyond her innate scientific inquisitiveness had prompted her to respond to his kiss.
It sure wasn’t lust. It wasn’t caring. And it wasn’t going to happen again.
Not until he hunted down his enemy and made him pay.
After that, there’d be no reason for Kit Snow to barge into his life and mess with his head.
No reason at all.
Chapter Eight
“Aren’t you even the least bit concerned that a man who was living in the building where you work hasn’t been seen for three days? What if there’s been another accident? Your company could be liable.”
J. T. Kronemeyer popped an antacid tablet into his mouth before responding to Kit’s questions. “Henry Phipps does not live here. The fact that he’s labeled homeless indicates that this is not his home. Now can I get my glass of milk?”
Kit didn’t know whether to be angry that no one else seemed to be missing Henry, or afraid that he’d wandered off into the frozen night, searching for a wife he would never find. “None of your men have reported seeing him anywhere in the building?”
Kronemeyer gestured to the half-eaten dinner on the table in front of him. “Look, Miss Snow, I’m sorry that I had to get rough with you upstairs the other day. I’m under a lot of pressure to get this job done, and what with chasing out squatters, losing reliable men and having supply orders come in late, I’m getting further behind.”
“Have you lost another man?”
“Why do you think I’m staying in town tonight? I have to go back to the office.” He picked up his clipboard and waved it in the air as though the jumble of purchase orders and diagrams would give her an explanation he could not. “My chief engineer quit on me. Last time I hire a foreigner. He was supposed to be bringing the freight elevator up to code so we could use it to transport heavier supplies and equipment to the upper floors. He said he couldn’t do the work if I couldn’t get him the right replacement parts. Does he know what kind of antique that thing is? You punt. You create parts that will work. You don’t leave the job half-done.”
“I used the freight elevator yesterday.” To pay a disastrous visit to the hermit who lived in the penthouse. Maybe she’d taken an even bigger risk than she’d imagined. “Isn’t it safe?”
“For passenger use, yeah. But I’ve got limestone blocks and marble trim ready to move. I’ll either have to tear out a wall and lift it with a crane, or tell my men they have to transport it one brick at a time.” He rubbed at his chest as though his heartburn was acting up again. “My crew will be quittin’ in droves when I tell them that.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something. “I guess good help is hard to find.”
“Sane help is. I think he really quit because of the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“Said he heard voices in the elevator shaft. I think he gave in to the whole curse, jinx, bad-luck stories that are flying around this project. You tell me—have you ever heard voices in this building?”
“No.”
“Superstitious nut job.” J.T. was shaking his head. He picked up another forkful of beef and potatoes and stuffed it in his mouth. “I’m sorry about your friend. But I haven’t seen him myself, and I don’t have the manpower to spare to start searching for him. Now, please. I know you don’t get much of a dinner crowd. You don’t want to drive your only customer away, do you?”
Kit glanced around at the empty tables and counter waiting to be cleared. With twilight veiling the street outside, what passed for a dinner rush had already ended. She sighed with a different sort of worry. Twilight and the unbussed tables weren’t just bad for business. It meant Matt hadn’t shown up for work. Again.
“Miss Snow?” J.T. demanded a response.
Summoning a cordial smile, Kit buried her worry right next to where she’d tucked away her bruised ego after that unexpected, perspective-changing, completely misguided kiss she’d shared with Damon. “Milk, right. Could I get you some pie or ice cream to finish off that brisket?”
“If you’ve got a slice of coconut cream, I’ll take it.”
“Sure thing.” Kit picked up an armload of plates and glasses from the next table and carried them back to the kitchen. After depositing them, she washed her hands and prepped the milk and dessert. “Hey, Germane?”
The tall black man straightened behind the grill where he’d been cleaning. “You got an order for me?”
“No. We’re down to the last customer for the day, I think. Have you seen Matt yet?”
“I haven’t heard a peep out of that boy.” Germane went back to scraping the grill and had to raise his voice to be heard over the clash of metal on metal. “He sure was worried about you yesterday. I kind of figured he’d be stickin’ closer to home for a while. He took it hard when your folks died. I think he thought he was gonna lose you, too.”
“I’m tougher than he thinks.”
“Maybe he’s tougher than you think.” The scraping stopped. “You know he offered to pay the hospital bill? In installments, of course.”
She didn’t know. “We have insurance for that. And I can come up with the money to meet the deductible.”
Germane held up the scraper in surrender. “He just wanted to help. A man likes to take care of his family.”
“A woman does, too.” Kit squirted a swirl of whipped cream on top of the pie, which she was sure J.T. didn’t need. The heavyset man was a heart attack waiting to happen. Maybe she should have suggested a lower-cholesterol alternative. But then, didn’t she already have enough men in her life to worry about? “Damon said he thought Matt sounded like a responsible adult. I wonder what side my brother is showing to the rest of the world that he isn’t showing me.”
“Damon? Who’s Damon?”
“Dr. Sinclair. He—” Kit stopped abruptly, with the pie plate poised above the serving tray. She set it down before she continued. “He came to see me in the hospital. He’s the man Helen Hodges works for.” She pointed to the ceiling, knowing her explanation was woefully inadequate for the twisted relationship she and Damon were working so hard not to share. “He lives in the penthouse upstairs.”
“Rich old fart, is he?”
“His father might have been.” Images of strong, dexterous hands and a tall, lean body sheathed in black blipped through her brain. Had Germane fired up the grill again? “This Dr. Sinclair is in his thirties. He may be a bit eccentric…” Okay, a lot eccentric. “But he’s young and vital. Silver-haired. A brilliant inventor…” Germane was grinning from ear to ear. “What?”
“You know, your brother isn’t the only one who disappears from this place for stretches at a time. Just where exactly was this silver-haired doctor when you took off with a basket of leftovers yesterday afternoon?”
Kit picked up the tray. “I wanted to thank him for helping me at the hospital. So I took him a free lunch. I thought he might be as concerned about building safety as I am.”
“Handsome devil, is he?”
“You’re half-right.”
“Uh-huh. You were pretty flushed when you came back downstairs. And my barbecue sauce isn’t that hot.”
“We argued, okay?” She skipped the entire sweep-her-off-her-feet-and-kiss-her-senseless part of the visit and got to the issue that really counted. “Apparently, I’ve made a pest of myself, intruding on his life, messing with his routine. His work is everything to him, and he doesn’t like to be disturbed.”
Germane’s teasing smile dimmed. “Was this guy rude to you? I don’t care if he does own the building—I will talk with him. After all you do for folks around here—”
“It’s okay. Really.” Bless his heart for wanting to go to bat for her. But Germane’s arthritic knees would put him at a distinct disadvantage against a man who created death serums and miracle cures, as well as the enemies wh
o had no qualms about getting rid of anyone who stood in the way of obtaining those formulas for themselves. “I think the doctor and I have agreed to keep our distance from each other.”
“You sure there’s nothin’ goin’ on I need to worry about?”
“Besides little old ladies getting assaulted in our alley and homeless friends vanishing?” Kit reached across the counter to give Germane’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “Trust me, old friend, Damon Sinclair is not our problem.”
“If you say so.” With both his curiosity and concern appeased for the moment, Germane patted her hand and went back to work. “Why don’t you give that brother of yours a call in the meantime. That’s what that cell phone’s for, isn’t it?”
Several minutes later, after Kronemeyer had gone and she’d cleared the tables, Kit pulled her cell phone from her apron pocket and slid into one of the booths at the front window. She punched in Matt’s number and tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear while she lined up napkins and silverware to roll them up for the next day.
Other than Germane’s tuneless singing in the kitchen, the phone ringing in her ear was the only sound she heard. The diner was dead now. With nightfall, the streetlights came on and Hannity’s Bar across the street picked up some business. But she wouldn’t see any more customers tonight unless one of Hannity’s patrons needed some food to sober up or prevent a hangover.
Or if Henry should finally show up.
“C’mon, Matt. Answer.”
If Matt had his phone turned on, he could alleviate her worry in a matter of seconds. If he didn’t, then she’d be left with her imagination to create all sorts of terrible scenarios. He’d missed his bus. He’d been hurt. He was roaming the streets with a gang and getting himself into trouble. He was making time in the backseat of some girl’s car. Or he wasn’t doing anything risky at all—he just resented Kit and her rules so much that—
“Yo.”
Yo?
She’d never heard her brother talk like that before. Was that music playing? And that mechanical hum in the background was familiar. But out of context over the phone, she couldn’t place it. “Who is this?”