The Harder They Fall

“It’s just that you never lose your cool,” Heidi said, breaking the silence. “You’re always so in control.”

Maybe, but he’d lost it, hadn’t he? “Thank you, Heidi,” he said calmly. “Tonight should be… interesting.”

“To say the least.”

Hunter realized exactly how much she’d risked to warn him. After all, they didn’t talk often. He typically wasn’t even in his office much, spending most of his time in the lab. But he appreciated what she’d done. “I guess I’m the main topic in the secretarial pool these days.”

“Yes, you beat out Dr. Jansen, who was caught in the buff under his desk with Dr. Phillips.” Now she grinned, more relaxed. “Don’t take it personally, Dr. Adams. The men are just jealous, and the women…”

He was sure he didn’t want to know the rest. “And the women…?”

“They just wished that they were on the receiving end of the Devil’s attention.”

Once Trisha came to the startling if not slightly terrifying realization about her feelings for Hunter, everything made more sense.

Or at least it did until she came home one evening at the end of the week and found a realtor scoping the place out.

“Excuse me,” she said to the small, weaselly-looking man in a red jacket holding a clipboard, pacing out the perimeter of the property.

He lifted his nose from his board. “Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

He was rather young. And given the way he eyeballed her, allowing his gaze to rove slowly over Celia’s latest creation – a deep green jersey mini-suit – she figured his interest in measurement extended to more than the property.

Long before he’d finished introducing himself as Sam Walters, real-estate agent, Trisha started to sweat. Her lungs labored, and her knees felt weak. It was a familiar panic attack, one that she hadn’t had since the last time she’d been forced to move, but she knew how to deal with it.

All she had to do was lock her knees and remember to breathe.

“I’m measuring the size of the lot,” Sam Walters said with a smile meant to charm. He moved closer. “You live here?”

“Why -” Her voice sounded so hoarse, she had to clear her throat and start over. “Why are you measuring the lot?” Breathe, she reminded herself as she felt the panic surge, double in force. Breathe.

“Trisha.”

She whirled at the sound of Hunter’s voice and dragged in a deep gasping breath. He stood there, having just gotten out of his car. She had been so intent on the way her heart was racing, on her feelings of betrayal, fear, worry, and a million other things, she hadn’t even heard him drive up.

Though they’d seen each other on and off during the week, they hadn’t really spoken since that night of the fire-alarm incident when he’d… Trisha swallowed hard, shoved away the heated memory, and faced the horror of the moment. By now she could feel the sweat pooled at the base of her spine, could feel herself start to hyperventilate. “You’ve decided… to put… the house on the market.” The last part of the sentence came out in one breathless rush.

Hunter frowned with concern and stepped closer.

The agent shifted on his feet, ears perked up. Probably hoping for a scene, Trisha thought with disgust, and promised herself she wouldn’t give him one. But breathing became more difficult at the shuttered truth in Hunter’s eyes.

“Please, answer me,” she said, struggling to take in more air.

“You’re so pale. Are you all right?”

She added fury to her present panic. Except for that kiss in the driveway, he’d avoided her after giving her the most erotic experience of her life. Now he was going to take away the only home she’d ever had, and he wanted to know if she was all right. “Are you… or are you not putting this place… up for sale?”

His frown deepened. “Trisha.”

The weasel Walters divided his attention between the two of them, moving his head back and forth as if watching a tennis match. Trisha wanted to smack him, but the loss of oxygen had spots swimming before her eyes. “Just tell me,” she said to Hunter as softly as she could – not difficult when her lungs had refused to work. “Is it true?”

Hunter’s eyebrows came sharply together as he stared at her. “I’m thinking about it.”

“I have a lease.” Dammit, her voice shook. “You can’t break it. Eloise promised me.”

“Mr. Walters, thank you for your time. I’ll speak to you another day,” Hunter said, dismissing the other man.

The weasel’s nose twitched, sensing defeat. “But -”

“I’ll be in touch,” Hunter said firmly, his eyes never leaving Trisha’s. “Again, thank you.”

Trisha watched the real-estate agent walk down the long drive, lined with the rosebushes she herself had planted last spring, and concentrated on dragging air into her aching, shaking body.

Hunter was going to sell.

As Walters drove off she took in the old but absolutely charming white house and experienced a pang so sharp she bit her lip against it. The pain reminded her to suck in some more air, which was a good thing since her vision had started to waver with the lack of oxygen.

“Trisha.”

Selling. Moving. Packing. Losing all sense of place, of being. Could she do it again?

No. No, she thought with welling panic, she couldn’t.

From far away, she heard a soft oath, then felt a hand grip her upper arm. Next thing she knew, she was sitting on the porch step, her head thrust between her knees and held there by a firm hand. She struggled violently.

“Stay still, dammit,” Hunter said in a low, rough voice. His hands held her. “And breathe, for God’s sake.”

She tried, and made a horrendous gulping noise that would have immobilized her with humiliation if she could have thought beyond her own misery.

“Again,” he demanded, and she realized from her limited view from beneath her knees that he’d sat down next to her. Vaguely, she wondered about the obviously costly trousers he wore, and what sitting on the step was going to do to the fabric. He’d have an expensive dry-cleaning bill.

Great. Between his car and the damage to the bathroom and kitchen floors, she didn’t owe him nearly enough already.

“Keep breathing… That’s it,” he said quietly when her next breath came easier.

“Let me up,” she snapped.

“Well, you’re talking, at least.”

The hand that held her head down loosened its hold to stroke her hair, soothe the taut muscles in her neck and shoulders, reminding her yet again of another night when he’d touched her with that same tenderness. She gulped in more air.

“Much better,” he said softly, encouraging.

When she could, she lifted her head, torn between embarrassment and bitterness. “I’m fine.” But her hands shook as she smoothed down the skirt of her suit, which had risen high on her thighs.

“Are you really?”

That was it. Exploding off the stairs, she wavered for a minute, flinging off the supporting arm he had placed around her waist. “No, actually I’m not fine,” she said, her heart still racing, her palms damp. In the face of her anger and betrayal, the panic had receded for now.

Hunter’s hands were tucked casually in his trouser pockets, his feet planted firmly apart, as if ready for battle. His voice came quietly. “What’s the matter, Trisha?”

She wanted to cry, laugh, scream. “You know what’s the matter. You’re going to sell, after you said you wouldn’t.”

“I never told you I wouldn’t.”

“You moved in here,” she pointed out. “I thought that meant – that you wouldn’t – Oh, hell,” she said softly, pushing her hair from her face. “I’m sorry. I… ” She looked wildly about her, in desperate need of an escape. Her bike, lying against the side of the house, seemed the perfect getaway vehicle. “I’ve got to go.”