I Found You (4 page)

“And now?”

My lips compressed.

Turning away, I opened a cupboard and found a glass. “Do you want a drink?”

“No thanks.”

I filled the glass and drank, as again the images of the mirror breaking disturbed my thoughts.

I pushed the memory away. I was starting over and forgetting that.

I moved about the counter, and leaned back against it, facing him. “So what’s wrong between you?”

“Tonight? You. She thinks you’re going to either jump me in my sleep, or steal all my stuff, like I have anything worth stealing.” His hand lifted and swept forward indicating the virtually empty room.

“She might be right, though?” I did feel like jumping him in his sleep. It would be a great way to escape the blackness which kept threatening to swamp me.

His gaze focused up at me as he scanned my face. “She could be right, yes…”

Well, he didn’t know me, and I’d said nothing about myself, bar my name and my age. “She isn’t. You’re safe.”

“Phew, thank fuck for that.”

I laughed. He was a nice guy. There weren’t many of those in the world. I wasn’t used to them.

My eyes shifted to the white pillow on the hard floor behind him. Then I looked at him again.

“So anyway, seeing as I’ve promised not to jump you in your sleep, why don’t you share the mattress? If you’re safe, it seems silly you trying to sleep out here.” I’d be good. He deserved for me to be good. He’d been kind to me.

He looked at me for a long moment. I didn’t move, holding out against his assessment.

I wasn’t blind. I knew he liked what he saw. I was wearing his t-shirt, my legs were bare, and I’d nothing on underneath. It would be so easy to be bad. His gaze ran up my legs and my body then came to my face. But he wasn’t
that
sort of guy.

All men looked. It didn’t mean all men let themselves touch.

“Yeah, okay, I won’t get any sleep here anyway.”

He picked up his pillow and stood, then lifted the pillow indicating for me to walk ahead.

I went into the bathroom, while he lay down on the mattress, under the covers.

When I came back in, he was watching me, one arm behind his head.

I said nothing, walked to the other side and got in.

He probably wouldn’t mind if I jumped him, but he’d have a hell of a conscience the next day when he spoke to his Lindy.

I turned my back to him and felt him roll onto his stomach. My body was intensely aware of his, and all I could hear was his breathing as he drifted into sleep, while all I could smell was his shampoo, because he’d showered after I’d bathed.

This had been a weird day, I’d finally left Declan and within hours I’d acquired a stranger. My brain wasn’t on the same page as where my life had gotten to. I’d walked out on the life of rich egotistical playboys, and into an opposite extreme.

An ex had once called me a parasite––maybe I was. But maybe I didn’t want to be anymore.

Chapter Two

When I woke, Jason Macinlay was standing by the door of the bedroom, fully clothed, and looking down at me. He had on pants and a shirt and tie.

I had to think what day it was. Wednesday. It must be Wednesday.

Was he going to work? Did he want me to leave?

“I’m going now. Sorry to wake you, but I didn’t like to just leave…”

My eyes opened wider, and I met that brown gaze. It was even more distracting in daylight.

“Will you be okay if I go to work?”

“Yeah.” No. I didn’t know. I’d just woken up. I didn’t know how I felt. It always took a few minutes to gauge my mood.

He hesitated. He was a sexy guy with a tender heart. Where the hell had he come from? Oregon, I remembered.

“Are you sure? I could––” His voice was deep, and rugged with uncertainty.

“Stay home? Are you afraid I’ll steal your TV or your Xbox, after all?”

His hands slid into his pants' pockets as he smiled.

He’d looked good last night in sweatpants and a tight top, elemental. In his work gear, he looked sophisticated––but like he needed some girl to ruffle his hair and pull his tie loose.

I was tempted to be that girl and urge him back into bed with me. I’d feel better, but I didn’t doubt he’d be drowning in guilt after, if I got him to do it. He was too nice.

“You can go. I’ll be okay, and I won’t take your Xbox.”

“Right.” He laughed but still looked hesitant.

“Just fuck off, and go, if you’re going, I wanna go back to sleep…” My voice was dry, but I’d given him a half-hearted smile as I said it.

He smiled, too, though it showed no more enthusiasm than mine, and said, “Okay.” Then he turned, and went.

A few moments later, the front door shut.

Dammit. I couldn’t go out. There was blood all over my clothes. And I hadn’t any underwear. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to wear a bra and knickers. But then last night was now only a clutter of confused images in my mind. I couldn’t even remember getting dressed and getting out of Declan’s anymore, only him having sex with me, and me pushing him off, and then the breaking mirror, and the feel of it in my hand.

I rolled over onto the side of the mattress Jason Macinlay slept in and smelt his shampoo, and him. It was still a little warm with his body heat. It was comforting. I didn’t want to think about Declan, or about any moment of my life before now––before this good guy had come to my rescue on Manhattan Bridge.

I’d never been with a nice guy in my life. I’d always preferred the risks a bad guy brought. Or maybe I was just so down on myself, I needed the bad guys to mess me up. Declan had messed me up. But when I’d got with him it had been exciting, he’d made my heart race with adrenaline. I’d been flattered and thrilled by his domineering, debauched ways. By the end, he’d just made me feel sick. Declan was shallow, cruel and arrogant like the rest. Jason Macinlay had hidden depths, like the shifting water I’d looked down at last night. There was so much I didn’t know.

Perhaps I really ought to try a nice guy.

But not this one; this one had a perfect girl, Lindy, to go with his perfect self.

Maybe he had a nice guy friend he could hook me up with.

But then I’d feel guilty when it reached the point it all went horribly wrong, and I’d lose Jason Macinlay’s respect.

All my relationships went horribly wrong at some point. There wasn’t really any reason in trying to make them work. They all crumbled in the end.

I felt tears on my cheeks. I wiped them away, forgetting my bad hand. A sharp pain caught in my palm where the wound was healing beneath the bandage.

All I wished to do was curl up in a ball and shut the world out today. I was too deep in a dark tunnel; the room was only a pinprick at the end of it, but it was there to remind me there was something outside to reach for.

This was the sort of day which made me avoid nice guys, when I was in a black melancholy mood. They’d just piss me off, trying to cheer me up. At least bad guys wouldn’t annoy me with any misdirected kindness when I felt like this.

I rolled onto my stomach and lay as he’d lain in this space, smelling his scent and crying, like a child. I was so tired of life.

I’d been nervous about coming home all day. I was nervous about opening the door. My key seemed heavier, as it turned the lock.

A part of me wondered if she’d still be here.

I’d told the only person I’d call anything near a friend at work, about the woman I’d found on Manhattan Bridge. Justin’s response had been to tell half the office, and start them laying odds on whether or not, when I got back, my Xbox, my TV, and Rachel, would be gone. Someone else had implied she might’ve simply changed all the locks and shut me out.

I didn’t think she’d do either, but now I was opening the door, the air stuck in my lungs.

The noise hit me first. She was playing my
Need for Speed
game. There was a screech of wheels as she turned the car. She didn’t look up.

I’d forgotten just how stunning her figure was though, her long pale legs were stretched out in front her, bent up a little, and she was wearing a pair of my socks, with one of my shirts covering her upper body to the top of her thighs.

I remembered seeing her naked in the bath last night, lying in the water like some sultry model striking a pose. She hadn’t even seemed to care that I looked.

Lindy hated me looking. She always covered herself up whenever she could.

But I shouldn’t have been looking. I had a girl. And Rachel needed me to help her, not lust after her.

She still hadn’t looked up from the game. She was concentrating over-hard. Her knuckles were white as they gripped the controller.

I wondered if she even knew I was there, she seemed to have screened my presence out as she’d done last night on the bridge.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

“Hey.”

She did know I was there then, just hadn’t been willing to speak.

“Did you have a good day?”

She glanced up. The car crashed. “Shit.”

“Have you been playing that all day?” I walked over to the counter and put my keys down then went to the fridge and took out a bottle of beer. “Do you want one?” I held it up as she looked at me.

Her eyes were bloodshot, swollen and red. She’d been crying, probably most of the day. She’d not cried last night.

She shook her head.

I popped the top off my beer then left it on the counter as I took off my scarf and coat and went to hang them on the hook beside the door.

She hadn’t got up, or restarted the game.

I walked back over to the counter to collect my beer, and loosened off my tie. “I’ll take you out for dinner, where’d you like to eat?”

“I can’t go out. I’ve got nothing to wear.”

Right, duh, of course she hadn’t. I knew what she’d been wearing. I’d put her stuff in the washer-drier before I’d gone to work. There had been one thing lacking though. There had been no underwear among the clothes she’d stripped off. But I didn’t want to think of that right now, not when she was sitting there wearing one of my shirts, which barely covered anything.

I’d been physically aware of her in bed, all last night. I didn’t need my mind heading in that direction again. “The mall will still be open. Let’s go and get you something then.”

“I haven’t any money either.”

“No, but I have. So we’ll get you some stuff and something to eat. No point sitting here moping about what you can’t fix, let’s fix what you can.”

“You don’t know I can’t fix things?”

She was strange. I’d never met anyone quite so guarded before.

Her lips compressed in a thin line, like they’d kept doing every time she’d clammed up last night.

City folk
. That’s what Mom had said when I’d called her on the way to work. Like no one had ever got into trouble and needed help back home. And our town wasn’t even that far from the city in Oregon. Portland was only a short drive away.

Mom hadn’t liked the idea of Rachel Shears being in my apartment any more than Lindy. But she was the one who’d taught me to help people and look for the best in them. I didn’t know Rachel, but I did know she’d got herself in a mess, somehow, and she needed help. I was going to give her the chance to prove Mom, Lindy, and everyone at work, wrong.

“You going to get dressed then, and let me help you out? Whether you can fix whatever led you to Manhattan Bridge or not, you need some clothes to do it.”

“And what am I gonna wear to the shops?”

“What you wore last night. I put your stuff in the washer-drier. Did you not think to check?”

“God, you’re so domesticated,” she mocked as she stood.

I held her gaze for a moment, that oddly deceptive green, and then turned to collect her stuff from the machine. “We can walk down to Fulton Street.”

When I turned back, she was behind me.

I held her clothes out.

Her blonde hair hung thin and straight. It was the definition of her cheekbones, her large eyes and broad lips that made her beautiful. Lindy was pretty too, but Rachel Shears’ beauty was haunting. Her image had hung in my head all day, in a way Lindy’s never did.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to reach out and grip her nape and bring her mouth to mine. I didn’t. I shouldn’t even be thinking about doing it. Maybe it was a good thing Lindy was coming for Christmas. Maybe I’d just missed her, and things would be okay when she came.

“Go get ready. Borrow a sweater from the shelf in my cupboard, in fact take two, I’d layer. It’s freezing out there still.”

Rachel took her clothes from my hand and her lips twisted sideways in a mocking smile, then she said, “You sound so like a mom,” just before she disappeared.

I could be hurt by her teasing, but I wasn’t. I had thick skin.

My conscience pricking, I crossed the room, pulled my cell phone out of my coat, and then brought up my contacts. Lindy. I pressed my thumb on her number and called. “Hi.”

“You’re calling early.”

“I’m not going to run tonight, but I’m going out, I thought I’d call before I left.”

“Going out where, Jason? You haven’t still got that girl there have you?”

“Yep.”

“Jason! And I suppose you can’t talk ‘cause she’s listening.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t doubt Rachel could hear me in the other room; she’d heard last night.

“Where are you going?”

“Taking her to buy something to wear. She’s only got the clothes I found her in, and––”

“And you’re paying. She’s ripping you off. I told you last night. You’re too gullible. You shouldn’t let people take advantage.”

“I’m just helping her out.”

“Yeah right, like she’d help you back if you needed. She’s a stranger you picked up on the street. You––”

“Look Lindy, you weren’t there last night, and you aren’t here now. You can’t judge. You don’t know her.” But I didn’t know her either.

At that moment Rachel came back into the room, pulling on a sweater. She made a face at me. I made a face back. She actually laughed. That shocked me.

“Is that her? Just watch out, Jason. I wish I was there. If I was, I’d stop her taking you for a ride.”

“That isn’t what’s happening, Lindy.”