B008DKAYYQ EBOK (6 page)

“Nothing. I’d just erased it to free up space for yet another round of spring breakers at the beach. You know how the paper loves to run hot bods above the fold.”

“What was on it before you erased it?”

“My last assignment was at McKays’ Tennis Center. They started a program for disabled kids.”

“What about before that?”

She rubbed at the center of her forehead. “I did a photo illustration for the Features section. About cheese fondue. Then I did the golf resort, and then I was off for two days.”

“And before the fondue?”

She thought a moment. “Early afternoon was my first round of spring breakers. This year’s fashions. I was going back today for a story about this year’s vices. Tattoos and body piercings are still in, by the way.”

“Where are those photos?”

“I downloaded them at work. Why?”

“Maybe you got a shot of someone’s kid being bad.”

“I don’t take pictures of anyone without their permission.”

“So maybe you caught somebody in the background without realizing it,” he said.

“Then why wouldn’t they just ask me for it? Why resort to assault and burglary?”

“If it was something really juicy, tipping off the newspaper would be stupid.”

“No one was doing anything over the top. Just having fun.”

“It probably doesn’t have anything to do with spring break. Or even any of your assignments. But getting mugged and having your apartment trashed the same day is too much of a coincidence. And we have to start somewhere.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, her fatigue palpable.
 

He decided not to push her for more information until she’d had a chance to rest. The shadows under her eyes and the lines of strain around her mouth worried him.
 

“We can talk about it more later.” He slid an arm around her waist for support. “First, let’s get you out of here.”

She didn’t argue.

Chapter 8

Bailey stood at the foot of the white wooden steps and stared up at them. “You didn’t say you live on the second floor.”
 

“It didn’t come up.” Cole kept his grip light at her elbow. He knew what she was thinking and was right there with her.
 

For the first time, he wished he’d bypassed the apartment on the top floor of this older house near downtown. But he’d loved the yard that was outlined by a white picket fence and shaded by a massive banyan tree and one tall palm. Plus, Lena, the elderly widow who lived downstairs, knocked a hundred bucks off his rent every month because he did odd jobs for her, such as cutting the grass and trimming the bushes, laden now with yellow flowers.
 

Of course, there was nothing he could do about the stairs now. A.J. had called Cole’s cell while they were at the pharmacy getting prescriptions filled. She was in St. Petersburg, covering a massive pileup caused by fog on the Sunshine Skyway bridge and was going to be working overnight. She’d offered to drop everything, but Bailey had insisted that she was fine and that wasn’t necessary. A few more calls to various other people had gone much the same way.
 

Cole admired the way Bailey put her friends’ minds at ease, but the woman could have admitted she needed some help. He wondered why that was so difficult for her.
 

Now, she was gazing up at him, her eyes dark with fatigue. “Maybe you could just take me to A.J.’s. I have a key.”

“But you’d be there alone.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Not if you have a bad reaction to the pain killers. That’s not fun.”

“You have experience with that, too?”

“As a matter of fact—”

“For the love of Pete.”

“Bailey—” He stopped, took a breath. Christ, she was stubborn. And her almost desperate determination to be rid of him bugged the crap out of him.
 

“What?”
 

He focused. “What?”

“You were going to say something.”

“You know what? I’ll carry you up.”

“No, you won’t.”

He grinned at her comically appalled expression. “Sure, I will. Why not?”

She backed away, hands raised. “Because. If you drop me, you’ll kill me. Both of us.”

He stalked her at the foot of the stairs, hoping that being playful would help her recognize the silliness of her anxiety. “Then I won’t drop you. Come on. You’re not chicken, are you?”

“Don’t even go there.”

“Don’t make me cluck.”

“God, I can’t stand it when grown men cluck.” She studied the rise of steps. “It’s a lot of stairs, Goodman.”

“Come on, Chase. Let’s go halfway. If I’m the least bit winded, we’ll turn back and I’ll drive you to a hotel.”

She laughed, a little breathless as he cornered her against the side of the house. “Wow. You’re confident.”

He leaned toward her and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Under this shirt, I’m ripped, remember?”

Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and her jaw dropped just a fraction before she met his gaze. She swallowed, then smiled. “All right then. Let’s go.”

With a grin, he carefully swept her up and waited for her to catch her arms around his neck. Holding her so close, Cole got a whiff of perfume—something light, lemony. Feminine. As he mounted the steps he’d just a few weeks ago repainted white, he tried to think of something to say to steer his brain away from land littered with lust mines. One wrong step and kaboom. “You know, you wouldn’t be in this position if you’d been honest with your friends.”

She raised her head, which he thought might have been close to resting on his shoulder. “What?”
 

“You told them you were fine.”

“I am fine.”

“You need help, yet you told them all not to worry, that you’d figure something out.”

“Which is true.”

“You have a problem asking for what you need, don’t you?”

“Okay, how about this? I need you to shut up and concentrate on what you’re doing.”

He laughed low in his chest. She stiffened against him, and he froze in midstep. “Am I hurting you?”

A blush spread up her neck into her cheeks. “No,” she said, her voice huskier than before.
 

He took two more steps and paused. “Well, what do you know? The halfway mark. Want to stop and check my heart rate?”

Laughing softly, she rested her fingertips against the side of his neck, her touch as gentle as a caress. Cole wondered whether she felt his pulse jump at the contact.

“Interesting,” she said.

“What?”

“You have a pulse.”

“You thought I was heartless?”

“I wondered.”

“You know, I might be ripped, but I’m not Superman. Shall I keep going or what?”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

He groaned but figured he deserved the ribbing. If he had thought he could have done so without hurting her, he would have acted like he was about to drop her. Having her arms clamp around his neck as she held on for dear life would have been fun. He imagined she’d squeal like a girl.
 

Resigned to behaving, he carried her up the rest of the way and set her on her feet in front of his door.

He noticed her hand lingered briefly on his biceps, her fingers applying slight pressure, as if she surreptitiously checked out his muscle. Suppressing a grin, he slid the key into the lock and opened the door to his apartment.

With an exaggerated sweeping gesture, he said, “After you.”

* * *

Bailey stepped into his apartment, braced for a mess. He was a single guy who hadn’t expected a guest, and every unattached guy she’d ever known rushed to clean up when someone rapped on the door. There were exceptions, of course. Cole, as it turned out, was one of them. His apartment—the top floor of an older home that had at once struck her as sweet and charming—might have been cleaner and more organized than her own had been when she’d left it that morning.
 

“Do you have a maid?”

Cole chuckled. “A guy has a clean apartment and the only way you figure that’s possible is if there’s a maid?”

A thought struck her that she didn’t find at all appealing. “A girlfriend then.”

“Geez, Chase. Why don’t you just ask if I’m gay?”

“Just because a guy’s apartment is neat doesn’t mean he’s gay.”
 

“Just because a guy’s apartment is neat doesn’t mean he has a maid,” he countered.

“Then you have a girlfriend.” Mentally, her shoulders sagged. She’d actually started to like him. He’d gone above and beyond for her, and she had to admit that the way he’d handled it when she’d gotten sick spoke volumes. She reminded herself that it didn’t matter if he had a girlfriend. Daniel had shown her in vivid Technicolor how it felt when a relationship imploded. She hadn’t sworn off relationships, but she
had
sworn off relationships with co-workers.

Cole shut the door and gestured toward the tiny living room to the left. “Why don’t you get settled? I’ll make us something to eat.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He dangled the pharmacy bag from one hand. “If you take any of these on an empty stomach, I’m going to be holding your hair for you. I’m guessing neither of us is eager for that encore.” He gave her a gentle nudge toward his black leather sofa. “Go ahead, get comfortable.”
 

She really didn’t have the energy to argue. “Can I use your phone? I usually pick my nephew up from school, but I need to call my brother to get him to do it.”

Cole’s brows quirked. “Uh, sure.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t know you had a brother.”

“And a nephew. Why does it matter?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t. I’ll bring you the phone.”

She took her time getting to the sofa, wishing she could have wolfed down a couple of those pain pills right now. Her side was on fire, every step seeming to tug at the stitches. She would have traded anything to be in her own home, making her way to her own sofa, surrounded by her own belongings. But that wasn’t how it was going to be, so she needed to buck up. No use spilling over cried milk, her dad used to say.

Tears welled. He’d had a knack for coaxing a smile out of her when she was down. Silly sayings, like “Keep your eyes on the wheel and your hands on the road.” Goofy faces and dances. God, she missed him. He’d been gone for five years, and the ache remained.

Shaking her head, she focused on her surroundings before she could fall head first into the pity pool. At the rate she was going, she’d land in the deep end and drown.

The décor of Cole’s apartment surprised her. She’d expected a ratty recliner, a monstrous flat-screen TV, video game consoles and some kind of football or basketball paraphernalia. Maybe that was why she was so impressed by the polished wood floors, freshly painted white walls and beautiful, most likely original, molding in dark wood.
 

The dining room she had just crossed, which appeared to be the center of the apartment, contained a modest, square oak table on an Oriental rug of emerald green, red and royal blue. A ficus tree much like her own thrived in one corner, where it caught plenty of sunlight from the three large windows that covered the longest wall.

The living room, separated from the dining room by a wide, arched entryway was only big enough for the sofa, a matching black leather chair and a coffee table. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, crammed with more books than she’d ever seen in one place that wasn’t a bookstore or library.
 

A TV resided in the corner on white built-in bookshelves. Double doors led onto a porch, and she would have liked to check out the view—the house sat on the banks of the winding Caloosahatchee River—but her knees were trembling.

After lowering herself gingerly onto the couch, she let her head rest against the comfy cushions. A skylight let in warm, relaxing light.

She thought of her promise to take Austin to a new mini-golf place with a jungle theme down on Kendall Falls Beach after school. The six-year-old loved mini-golf. Maybe, if she got some sleep, she’d manage to pull herself together enough to putt some golf balls with him before dark.
 

Cole returned, carrying a pillow, blue plaid blanket and a cordless phone. “How do you feel about tomato soup and grilled cheese?” he asked as he handed her the phone. Then he tucked the pillow behind her and spread the blanket over her, just like her father used to do when she was sick.

She managed a smile, despite the lump in her throat. “That’s my favorite.”

He arched a brow. “Really?”

“Unless you have lobster bisque and a broiled crab cake, yes.”

Chuckling, he walked into the kitchen. She tried James first, not surprised when he didn’t answer his home phone or cell. He’d become increasingly unreliable in the past few weeks, which worried the hell out of her. She’d thought things were improving, with the job offer and prospect of tech school. But he’d gone from cheerful to morose in one day. God, she hoped he wasn’t slipping.