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She let him guide her through the debris to the bedroom door, where sudden visions of her undies scattered about the room made her hesitate.

“What?” Cole asked.

Oh, hell, she thought. What difference did it make? “Nothing.”

Sure enough, every piece of clothing from her dresser had been tossed onto the floor and strewn over the orange comforter on her bed. Bras, underwear, nighties, slips, T-shirts. And, oh God, the hot red negligee that her ex had bought her as a joke lay on top of the mess on the bed. It reminded her of happier times, when she had let herself fall in love without hesitation, blissfully unaware of what a careless man could do to a vulnerable heart. Squaring her shoulders, she resisted the urge to check Cole’s expression.
 

“Cool ceiling,” he said.

She glanced up at the fluffy clouds that the former tenant, an artist, had painted against a sky blue background. The landlord had offered to cover it with white, but she’d found it refreshing. She wouldn’t mind taking a nap under those clouds right now.
 

But she had to figure out how to get the soft duffle out from under her bed when her knees already trembled. If she got down on them, she feared she wouldn’t have the strength or coordination to get back up.

“Um, there’s an overnight bag under the bed. Do you think you could—”

Cole dropped to his knees and braced on his hands to peer under her bed. “I don’t see it.” Popping back up, he scanned the room. “Is that it?” He gestured at a navy nylon sports bag in the corner.

“Yeah, that’s it.” That the burglar, or burglars, or whoever they were, had rooted around under her bed puzzled her. She couldn’t imagine what they had hoped to find. No one she knew kept valuables under the bed. Under the mattress, sure, but not under the bed.
 

“Do you need some help?” Cole asked.

His voice tugged her attention back to him, and even though his tone hadn’t sounded the least bit impatient, she felt a surge of irritation. She took the sports duffle from him. “I bet that when you stop to help little old ladies cross the street, you fuss at them for being too slow.”

His grin made his blue eyes sparkle. “So you think I’d stop to help little old ladies cross the street? You have a much higher opinion of me than I thought.”

Rolling her eyes, she began digging through the pile of clothing on the bed.

“Want me to hold that for you?” He extended a hand to take the bag back.

“Hold this, too.” She slapped the sexy negligee into his waiting hand and went on picking out what she’d need. When she faced him, a few days’ worth of bras, panties and T-shirts clutched to her chest as discreetly as possible, she found him waiting with the bag spread open for her deposit. Dropping the clothing in, she saw the red lingerie settled at the bottom of the bag.

Her laugh ended on a choked sob, and she covered her mouth to stop the one that tried to follow.

Cole’s mischievous expression fled as he set down the bag and reached for her. “Hey.”

She stepped back, a hand up to ward him off. “Don’t.”

He froze. “All right.”

Bailey closed her eyes.
Deep breaths. Happy thoughts.
Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. The water caressing the beach on Sanibel Island while the sun warmed her skin. Austin’s smile like a burst of sunshine when he saw her.
 

She reminded herself that, yes, her apartment had been trashed, her belongings destroyed. Her laptop, with decades of digitized family photos, not to mention years of photos she’d taken for the newspaper, was gone. But no one had gotten hurt. That was the important thing. She’d learned to appreciate that more than once over the years, starting at seventeen with the loss of her mother to a stroke.
Don’t go there.

Gradually, the emotion subsided, and she opened her eyes. “Weak moment passed.”

Cole nodded, though he looked a little pale. “It’s okay, you know.”

“What is?”

“To cry. I won’t think less of you.”

“You
can’t
think less of me, can you?” She said it more sharply than she’d intended and felt like a jerk when his jaw tightened and he turned his attention to her closet.

“Anything in here you need?”
 

She nudged by him, relieved to see most of what she put on hangers still hanging, though what had been folded on the shelves—shorts and the few sweaters and sweatshirts she owned for the cool Florida nights in winter—had met the same fate as the clothing in her dresser. She gathered two pairs of jeans off of hangers, then bent to scoop a pair of khaki shorts off the closet floor.

Pain ripped through her side, and her knees instantly buckled. Cole caught her arm.

“Whoops,” he said, his tone casual as he calmly supported her without trying to move her or make her straighten.

Bailey, her head down, fought off the stars that danced before her eyes. “That was stupid,” she wheezed.

“Undoubtedly.”

She panted like a pregnant woman enduring a contraction. “God, it hurts.”

“Told you you’d want that pain medication.”

“You don’t have to gloat.”

“Just stating a fact.”
 

“Well, here’s a fact, I’m going to be sick.”

She expected him to do the guy thing and back off in abject horror. But he slipped an arm around her waist, steering clear of her injured side, ducked his head under her arm and quickly half-carried, half-walked her into the bathroom. With his support, she lowered herself to her knees in front of the toilet. He scooped her hair back from her face just in time.
 

When it was over, she sat back on her heels, eyes closed, perspiration cold and damp on her skin. Could this day get any more humiliating?

She heard running water, sensed Cole kneeling beside her but kept her eyes shut.
 

A cool cloth stroked over her temple and down the side of her face. The tenderness of the gesture struck her as far too intimate. Fingers trembling, she took the light purple washcloth from him.
 

“Put it on the back of your neck.”

She followed the suggestion and sighed because it felt so good. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He stayed where he was, showing no signs of budging. “You might have ripped out some stitches.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.”

“We should make sure.”

What was it with him and this “we” business? Just because he’d helped her didn’t make them BFFs. “I can do it,” she said.

“If you faint again, I’m hauling you back to the hospital, and I got the impression you didn’t like it there.”

“Oh, and the hospital is one of your favorite hangouts?”

“It sure doesn’t freak me out as much as it does you.”

She leaned her head back against the wall and swallowed. And she’d thought she’d hidden her anxiety so well. “I don’t have the energy for this.”

“Then let me check you out, so we can move on.”

“Fine.” She scooted down against the wall and drew up the hem of her scrubs top.

“Damn,” he breathed.

Her heart tripped at the consternation in his tone. “What?”

“You’re bleeding again.”

“Great.”

He bent over her, fingers gentle as he peeled back the tape along one edge of the three-inch-square gauze. His thick dark hair was in need of a comb, though she wondered if tidying it up would take away his boyish charm. God, he smelled good, too. Like … like a sunshiny breeze on a bright white sail boat.
 

He raised his head and gave her a comforting smile that made a dimple appear in his right cheek. “Looks like the stitches are intact.”
 

She’d never noticed that dimple before and wondered at the sudden catch in her breath. It wasn’t
that
adorable.
 

“I’m going to have to replace the bandage,” he said. “Let me run down to the SUV and get the supplies the nurse gave us. I’ll be just a minute. You’ll be okay?”

He was being so nice, so unlike anything she had expected from him. “I don’t imagine I’ll be doing cartwheels while you’re gone, but I’m sure I’ll manage to keep breathing.”

Grinning, he got to his feet. “If you do get the urge to do cartwheels, try not to rip out your stitches.”

 
Alone, she buried her face in the wet washcloth to soak up the hot tears springing to her eyes. She tried not to think about everything she’d lost between her stolen camera bag and missing MacBook. She’d have to replace so much. Credit cards. Driver’s license. Insurance cards. Car keys. House keys. At least she had an external hard drive with backups of most of her MacBook files, but—

Cole returned, his face flushed and his breathing heavy, as if he’d raced to the SUV and back up the stairs at top speed. Kneeling beside her, he dumped the contents of the white plastic bag and went to work ripping open a small, square packet that contained an alcohol-soaked swab of cotton.
 

“Miss me while I was gone?” he asked as he dabbed at her stitches.
 

She sucked in air at the answering sting. “So much I cried into my washcloth.”

“I had a feeling. Almost done.”

She closed her eyes, willing him to hurry. Having him touch her like this was too personal. And
tender
. God, who knew this man would be so …
sweet
?
 

“What happened here?”

The tips of his fingers grazed the scar that was barely a year old, and her pulse stuttered, both at the question and the contact that felt like a caress. Heat began a slow climb up her neck. She prayed he wouldn’t notice that, too.
 

“An accident.” Her voice sounded strangled.
 

“Looks recent.”

“I learned the hard way that when you wave a red blanket in front of a bull, it charges.”

He grinned as he tore the wrapping from a square of gauze with adhesive edges. “You were gored by a bull.”

She shrugged. “Happens to the best of us.”

“Uh huh.” He bent forward to spread the gauze over her stitches and gently press its sticky edges against her skin.

“Don’t tell anybody, okay?”
 

“About the bull?” he asked.

“That I’m such a wimp.”

His gaze met hers, and his amusement faded. “You’re not a wimp, Bailey.” He touched her cheek, his palm warm against her skin as his fingers grazed the sensitive spot just under her earlobe. The kindness in his eyes lasted only a moment before a teasing glint appeared. “Wimps don’t usually survive being gored by bulls.”

While she tried not to laugh—it hurt, dang it—he straightened. “Take it easy while I gather some more things for you.” He turned to go.

“Could you do me a favor?”
 

“Of course.”

“Could you do a quick tour of the apartment and tell me if there’s an external hard drive lying around in one of the other rooms? Silver, about the size of a man’s wallet.”

“Sure.”

* * *

Cole returned to the bathroom to find that Bailey had inched her way up the wall so that she was in more of a sitting position. One hand covered the clean white bandage he’d applied, as if to hold in pain. Her color had improved, but the glaze of exhaustion dulled her eyes. The clutch in his belly surprised him, and he glanced away from her, giving himself a second to swallow the lump in his throat.
 

Her bathroom was undeniably feminine but not in a frilly way. Red, purple and yellow tropical fish adorned the royal blue shower curtain. Tubes of moisturizing cream, plastic containers of vitamins and frosted-glass bottles of perfume scattered the vanity, as if she used each item then set it down wherever. The room smelled like her, fresh with just a hint of citrus.
 

Sexy.

He almost groaned aloud. He was
such
an idiot. He cleared his throat. “No sign of an external hard drive.”

She sagged as though he’d just told her the puppy didn’t make it.
 

“I take it it contained some important stuff.”

“Pictures. Videos.”

“Personal or professional?”

“Both. I’d salvaged hundreds of family photos after Hurricane Dennis flooded my storage unit. I had no choice but to get rid of them because of mold. So I scanned in everything. It took months—”

The crack in her voice gave away her mounting distress. He rubbed the back of his neck. “So this morning someone swiped your camera equipment, and now your Mac and external hard drive are missing, both of which hold a bunch of photos. Is it possible you’ve got an incriminating photo of someone? Perhaps you have a friend who wants to run for president and you have an old picture of him smoking a joint?”

“If that were the case, he—or
she
—wouldn’t have to break into my apartment to get it.”

She struggled to her feet, and he reached out a hand to help, but she ignored it. As she walked, albeit slowly, into the bedroom, he followed. “What about the camera that was swiped this morning? What was on the memory card?”