To Die For

give ourselves some breathing room.”

“You gotta be kidding me. After the past five days, you think moving in with me would be rushing things?”

“Well, look at everything that’s happened. Nothing has been normal, not one single minute has been routine since last Thursday night. We’ve sort of been in an emergency situation, but that’s over. Now our real lives kick in, and we need to see how things go under those conditions.”

He didn’t like it at all. I wasn’t crazy about the idea myself, but I knew moving in with him would be a big mistake. I personally don’t think a woman should ever live with a man unless they’re married. I guess there are some really great guys out there who wouldn’t take advantage of having a live-in cook and maid, but guess how those arrangements usually turn out? No, sir. That’s not for me.

I was raised by a woman who knows her own worth, and her daughters firmly believe that life is much better for a woman when a man has to work really hard to get her. It’s human nature to take better care of something you’ve worked for, whether it’s a car or a wife. In my opinion, Wyatt hadn’t worked nearly hard enough for me to make up for what he’d done two years ago. Yes, I was still mad at him for that. I was beginning to get over it, but not enough to move in with him even if I hadn’t thought that it was, in general, not a good thing for a woman to do.

We got to my condo, and there was my sweet little white convertible parked under the portico where it belonged. Wyatt pulled in behind it, and then got both my bags from his back seat. He still had a disgruntled expression, but he wasn’t arguing. At least, right then he wasn’t arguing. I knew I hadn’t heard the last of it, but right then he was backing off the way I’d asked. He was probably busy planning a sneak attack.

I unlocked the side door and went in; the beeping noise from the security system proved that Siana had indeed set it when she left after packing my clothes. I disarmed it, then stood in my kitchen gloriously surrounded by my own Stuff, which I had missed dreadfully. Stuff is important in a woman’s life.

I told Wyatt which bedroom upstairs was mine, if he wasn’t capable of simply looking in the door and telling. He’d been in my condo, but had never been upstairs. Our scene of passion had been played out on my couch, which I had since had reupholstered, not because of stains or anything, because the scene of passion hadn’t gone that far, but because it was my version of washing that man right out of my hair. I had also changed the furniture around and painted the walls a different color. Nothing in my living room looked the same as when he had been there.

The message light on my answering machine was blinking. I walked over and saw that there were twenty-seven messages, which isn’t a lot considering how long I had been gone and that the day I’d left reporters had been trying to find me. I punched the play button and started deleting messages as soon as I verified they were from reporters. There were a couple of personal messages, employees wanting to know when Great Bods would reopen, but Siana had called everyone Friday afternoon and it was now a moot point anyway.

Then a familiar voice came out of the machine, and I listened in disbelief.

“Blair… this is Jason. Pick up if you’re there.” There was a pause, then he continued. “It was on the news this morning that you’d been shot. Sweetheart, that’s awful, though the reporter said you’d been treated and released, so I guess it isn’t too bad. Anyway, I was worried about you and just wanted to see how you’re doing. Give me a call.”

Behind me, Wyatt said, “Sweetheart?” in a dangerous tone.

“Sweetheart?” I echoed, but my tone was totally bewildered.

“I thought you said you haven’t seen him since the divorce.”

“I haven’t.” I turned and gave him a puzzled look. “Unless you want to count the time I saw him and his wife shopping in the mall, but since we didn’t speak, I don’t think that qualifies.”

“Why would he call you sweetheart? Is he trying to get something started between the two of you again?”

“I don’t know. You heard the same message I did. As for calling me sweetheart, that’s what he called me when we were married, so maybe it was just an unconscious thing.”

He made a disbelieving noise. “Yeah, right. After five years?”

“I don’t know what’s going on. He knows I’d never get back with him, period, so I have no idea why he’d call. Unless-Knowing Jason, he was just doing something for his political resume. You know: ‘The candidate has remained on friendly terms with his former wife, phoning her after an incident in which she was wounded by gunfire.’ That sort of thing. Setting it up so, if a reporter happened to ask me, I’d say yes, that he’d called. He does stuff like that, always thinking about future campaigns.” I hit the delete button and erased his noxious voice from my answering machine.

He put his hands on my waist and pulled me to him. “Don’t you dare call him back. The bastard.” His green eyes were narrow, and his face had that hard look a man gets when he’s feeling territorial.

“I wasn’t going to.” Now was the time for mildness, not for zinging him, because I knew how I’d feel if his ex-wife suddenly got in touch with him and left a message like that. I put my arms around him and nestled my head in the hollow of his shoulder. “I’m not interested in anything he has to say, anything he feels, and when he dies, I won’t go to the funeral. I won’t even send flowers. The bastard.”

He rubbed his chin against my temple. “If he calls you again, I’ll give him a call.”

“Yeah,” I said. “The bastard.”

He chuckled. “It’s okay, you can let up on the bastards. I get the idea.” He kissed me and patted my butt.

“Good,” I said cheerfully. “Now may I go to work?”

We both went out and got into our respective cars-I remembered to set the security system on my way out-and Wyatt reversed out of my short driveway into the street, backing up far enough to give me room to back out in front of him. I wondered if he intended to follow me all the way to Great Bods, maybe to make certain no ex-husband was lurking, waiting to talk to me.

I backed out of the driveway and shifted the gear lever to Drive. The engine purred as I gave it the gas, and Wyatt fell in behind me.

A hundred yards down the street was a stop sign, where the street intersected with a busy four-lane. I put on the brakes, and the pedal went right to the floor. I sailed through the stop sign and straight into four lanes of traffic.

Chapter Nineteen

My life didn’t flash before my eyes. I was too busy fighting the steering wheel and screaming “Shit!” to pause for any navel-gazing.

I wasted a precious few seconds desperately pumping the brake pedal, praying it would suddenly, miraculously work. It didn’t. Just before I went past the stop sign, as a last-ditch effort I stomped on the emergency brake pedal, and the car went into a hard spin, tires screaming and smoking, as I shot into the intersection. My seat belt snapped tight, jerking me back against my seat. I tried to get control of the spin, but an oncoming car, its own tires screaming as it tried to stop, clipped my right rear bumper and added to the momentum. It was like riding a very fast merry-go-round. In the split second I was facing traffic, I had a lightning flash of a red pickup coming right at me; then there was a hard jolt as my car hit the concrete bumper of the median and jumped it, backward, before slewing sideways across the grass and into the other two lanes of traffic. Terror-stricken, I glanced to the right and, through the passenger window, saw a woman’s face frozen in horror, and time itself seemed to freeze, too, in the instant before the impact. An enormous shock wave hit me like a body blow, and the world went black.

The blackness lasted for only a few seconds. I opened my eyes and blinked, both aware and