She closed her mouth.
So did he.
Fine. A crossroads. The story of their lives.
He strode down the hallway with her in his arms as if she weighed nothing. After the surgery, she’d definitely lost some weight. She wasn’t fully back on her game, and yeah, she might never be, but she could handle herself. “This is really going over and above the call of duty.”
“Which you would think would bring me some gratitude,” he said.
“I don’t do gratitude. You must really have hated those temps.”
“Actually, they were all quite polite. Not one of them argued with me on a daily basis.”
“And yet you scared them all away.”
He didn’t say anything to that, and she didn’t know what she’d expected. A confession that he’d done so because he’d missed her? She might as well wait for an invitation to fly to the moon. “I can walk.”
He shot her a quick glare, then stopped on the landing, still not winded.
She really hated him.
“I assume your bedroom is up here. That’s where you were watching me from when I first got here, right? Probably having a helluva laugh over sending your sister to the door instead of coming yourself.”
“I wasn’t laughing.”
He slanted her another look, also unreadable. “Where’s your shoulder brace?”
“My physical therapist said I could go without it now, unless I’m hurting.”
“You are hurting.”
“Yes, because some idiot decided to wrestle with me.”
“Who’s the idiot with the knife?”
Before she could object to his calling her the idiot, he went on in a scathing tone. “A knife. You held a fucking knife on me like I was the fucking bad guy.”
“I’m out of the airport for a month, and your language goes all to hell.”
“Six weeks.”
“What?”
“You’ve been out of the airport for six weeks, and you’re still in pain.” At that, he stopped talking. Just stopped and put his forehead to hers. He didn’t move a muscle, but she could feel the tension in his big, tough body. They stood just like that, utterly still, for that one beat in time united in their frustration.
“You’re killing me,” he whispered. “You know that?”
His misery stopped her cold and drained her temper. Somehow, her hand came up and touched his jaw. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“You should have been safe there.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Brody.”
He shouldered open her bedroom door and then stopped short in the doorway at the sight of Cowgirl Central, complete with leather and pink lace everywhere. “Your bed.”
Oh, God. She’d forgotten. “It’s not mine.”
“It’s pink,” he said, sounding as stunned as he looked, which pissed her off. “Lace.”
“I didn’t pick it.”
He stared at the huge, high four-poster bed barely visible through the heaping piles of pillows and soft, luxurious bedding done up in, indeed, pink lace. “It’s…”
“Girly. I know. It’s my arm and shoulder, Brody. Not my legs.”
As if mesmerized, he moved to the bed. The headboard was an old brown barn door, lacquered to a high shine. Above it, a lasso hung on the wall in the shape of a halo. “Wow.”
She wriggled, and he slowly, carefully set her down in the center of the froufrou setup.
She had to remind herself that she was playing weak and hurt in order to get him out of her hair. But damn, the hardest thing she’d ever done was allow herself to sag back as if she didn’t have the energy to even get beneath the covers.
“You’re surrounded by mountains of pink.” He looked confused. “And miles of lace. You.”
She shouldn’t have been insulted, but she was. “It’s ridiculous, I realize that.”
“No, it’s-”
“I didn’t pick it out, okay?” If he smiled, she was going to kill him.
“Okay.” His mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile. Smart man. “Your sister’s staying here with you?”
“Sort of.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us you had a sister?”
Us. As in him, Noah, and Shayne. She wondered if the word choice was a subtle way of distancing himself, of being just someone from work.
Distance worked for her. “Why should I have? She doesn’t affect my ability to do my job.”
“Maddie.”
The low, soft chiding tone to his voice cut right through her righteousness and unexpectedly left her feeling stripped bare. Closing her eyes, she lay back, suddenly not having to fake being weak.
And stupid.
Let’s not forget very, very stupid. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to someone…”
“Caring?”
“Yes.”
“Well, at least you know I do care. I’ll take that as a good sign. Now if I could just get you to stop kicking at me.”
God, she knew it. “I’m sorry for that, too. And I’m sorry I said we weren’t friends.”
The light that came into his eyes would have warmed her soul if not for the knowledge that soon, she was leaving. For good. “I’m tired,” she whispered, throat tight. “I’m going to rest.” Lifting her arm, she settled it over her eyes to keep her from being tempted to keep looking at him, needing her fill.
But then she felt his hands on her foot, and then came the rasp of a zipper before he tugged her boot off.
And her other.
Which left her bare feet in his big, work-roughened palms. He took in her toenails, painted purple today, which didn’t mean anything except she’d been bored the other night. She had a silver ring on her second toe, which didn’t mean anything either. Nothing around her meant much, especially lately, and honestly, she was getting a little worried about that.
She needed something to mean something. And she wished it could be him. God, she wished that she could stop pushing and just let him in, really in.
Then his thumb skimmed over her instep, and she felt the touch in all the places she shouldn’t. She did her best not to melt under his touch, once again asking him the burning question of the day. “Where did you learn to fight?”
His eyes met hers, stubborn to the depths. “Where did you?”
“Do you always answer a question with another question?”
He sighed. “I grew up in Compton. Skinny little white boys didn’t fare so well unless they knew how to protect themselves.”
Staring up into his inscrutable face, she tried to see any of that vulnerability that must have been a part of him then. “You don’t talk about your family.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because.” When she just looked at him, he gave in. “My parents were barely able to score their next fix, much less worry about their street brat.”
“I see.” She knew it’d been bad, she just didn’t know how bad. She’d been lusting after the tall, enigmatic, gorgeous pilot for what, nearly a year now, and yet in all that time, she’d never seen him as anything less than a sure, steady, sharp, sophisticated man, a man who could, by turns, make her laugh, want to tear her hair out in both lust and temper, and in general, drive her mad.
She’d never pictured him doing as she had, overcoming mountains of shit to be where he was, and that was her selfish shame. “So you learned how to fight out of necessity.”
