Just One Kiss (2 page)

“I can type.”

He turned to glare at her and, unwavering, she held his gaze. “Good for you.” He hobbled down the sidewalk away from her.

“I could type up your reports.” Once again she fell into step beside him. She smelled pretty, like a sun-drenched flower, and again he felt a flutter of heat in the pit of his stomach.

“I don't want you typing up my reports. You'd probably crash my computer.”

“How are you getting home?”

The question made him stop in his tracks. He'd been walking to get away from her, but now he contemplated her words. He'd jogged to the beach from his house, but there was no way he could now jog back. “I'll call for a cab.”

“That's ridiculous,” she replied. “I've got a car right here. I can take you home. Please.” She placed
a hand on his arm, her eyes luminous with need. “Let me at least do that much for you.”

Suddenly Jack was too tired, too much in pain to argue. All he wanted to do was get home and put his aching body to bed. “Okay,” he agreed, then frowned at the boy in her arms. “As long as you keep that monster away from me for the duration of the drive.”

Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink and her arms tightened around the child. “He's not a monster. He's really a very good little boy.”

“Yeah, I hear that's what they used to say about the Unabomber,” Jack retorted dryly.

Her blush deepened, and this time he thought it might be anger that colored her cheeks. She drew an audible breath, then pointed to the parking lot. “My car is over there. I'll just go get it.”

Jack nodded and leaned wearily against the building, wondering if she could manage to get him home without any major catastrophes. He couldn't help but feel a horrifying sense of impending doom.

I
t took Marissa several minutes to rearrange the car to make room for Jack. She quickly moved the diaper bag to the floor at Nathaniel's feet in the backseat. She then pushed the passenger seat back as far as it would go and reclined it. Jack Coffey was tall, and she knew he'd need as much leg room as he could get.

A moment later she pulled up against the curb where he stood waiting for her. She jumped out of the car to help him, but he waved her away. “Just take these,” he said as he held out the crutches. “I'd prefer to get into the car without your help. It's safer.”

He eased down onto the seat, then groaned as he lifted the cast-encased leg into the car. Marissa
placed the crutches between them, then got in behind the steering wheel.

“Are you okay?” she asked worriedly. Even with a scowl cutting into his forehead, the man was handsome as sin. His scent filled the interior of the car, a bold, masculine smell that was at once both attractive and disturbing.

“Just get me home,” he replied. His seat was reclined so far back, his head was almost even with Nathaniel. “He's buckled in real tight, isn't he?”

“Of course,” Marissa replied as she put the car into gear. “You'll have to tell me how to get to your house.”

“Go out the hospital exit and turn left.” He closed his eyes.

“By the way, my name is Marissa. Marissa Criswell. And that big guy in the backseat is my son, Nathaniel.”

“I prefer to think of you and your son as my own personal nightmare,” he returned without opening his eyes.

Marissa flushed, but reminded herself that his rudeness was warranted and probably intensified by the fact that he was in pain. “Do you have a wife? Somebody who can take care of you?” she asked.

His eyes opened. “A wife would be my other personal nightmare. I've been by myself for the last five years and that's the way I like it. Just get me home and I'll be fine.”

So, he had no wife and apparently no significant
other. Marissa frowned, wondering if he had any real concept of how a broken leg and a few broken fingers could complicate even the simplest things in life.

“You mentioned you have reports to type and cases to take care of. What kind of work do you do, Mr. Coffey?” she asked to break the stifling silence.

“I'm a ballet dancer. Think I'll be able to get tights over this baby?” He banged the cast with the back of his good hand.

“You don't have to get sarcastic,” she said softly.

He frowned and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I'm a private investigator.”

“Really? Are you any good?”

His eyes glittered and a small smile curved the corners of his lips. Marissa felt the power of his devastating smile right down to her toes. She tightened her hands on the steering wheel and tried to ignore how that smile of his affected her on a distinctly female level.

“I'm the best,” he said. In the blink of his eye, the smile disappeared, replaced by a scowl so menacing, Marissa decided to let the subject drop.

For the next few minutes he spoke only to give her directions. As he pointed her down a narrow road with tall trees and heavy vegetation on either side, a small flutter of anxiety whispered through Marissa. She could see no houses, no indication of civilization anywhere. They passed a tree with a sign reading No Trespassers.

Was it possible he was bringing her out in the woods to strangle her? She knew nothing about him other than his name. Maybe he intended to break her leg, just to teach her a lesson or vent his ire.

She cast him a quick glance, then relaxed. She could outrun him. Even with Nathaniel in her arms, she knew she could run faster than an angry maniac with a cast. Besides, his face was sickly pale and he looked as if just getting out of the car would provide challenge enough.

The woodland on either side of the road disappeared and suddenly they were on what appeared to be a sheltered private beach, the ocean a huge expanse of blue on their left.

Jack pointed to the single house on the right, a glass-fronted structure that seemed to be clinging to the hillside. “That's it.”

Marissa parked the car, slid out and grabbed the crutches, then hurried around to the passenger side to help him out.

“I'd like to say it's been a pleasure, but it hasn't,” he said as he situated the crutch pads beneath his arms. He started toward the house, then paused, looking up at the set of steep stairs that led to the door.

“I'd better help you,” Marissa said. She checked Nathaniel, who was safely buckled in, then moved to Jack's side and took one of his crutches. “You can lean on me, and that will make it easier.”

He hesitated a moment, obviously reluctant to accept her offer.

“Or you can do it yourself and risk the possibility of falling, in which case you'll have nobody to blame but yourself,” she said with a touch of impatience.

“And if I fall with you helping me, then I get to blame you?”

“Exactly,” she replied dryly. He nodded and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She placed a hand on his back to steady him. His skin was pleasantly warm, and as he leaned into her she smelled the faint scent of a spicy cologne.

It had been a very long time since she'd been this close to a man who was so overwhelmingly masculine. Despite her concern about him, pleasure winged through her at the tactile contact between her hand and his broad, muscled back.

“Aren't you afraid Baby-Face Nelson will steal the car while you're helping me?” he asked gruffly as they carefully maneuvered the first two steps.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “Nathaniel is just barely two, and he's certainly not a hardened criminal.” They went up two more stairs.

“Ah, the mother is always the last to admit there's a problem.”

Marissa halted their forward progress. “Mr. Coffey, you don't strike me as a stupid man. But it's incredibly stupid to malign a woman's child when
said woman is helping you up a very steep set of stairs.”

He turned and looked at her in surprise. “Touché.” The hint of a grudging smile glittered in his eyes. Marissa's breath caught in her chest.

She had a feeling that beneath the scratchy whiskers and without the lines of pain that tightened his features, Jack Coffey had the kind of face that could steal more than a heart.

With the curve of his lips, he could make a woman think of silky sheets and hot nights and arms and legs tangled in desire. She frowned, wondering if perhaps she'd suffered a touch of sunstroke. Surely that was the only explanation for her crazy, out-of-character thoughts.

Once again they continued the arduous climb up the remainder of the stairs. When they reached the top, Marissa handed him back his crutch and released her hold on him. “Are you sure you're going to be all right?” she asked worriedly.

Once again his face was unnaturally pale and a light sheen of perspiration shone on his forehead. “I told you, I'll be fine.” He turned and entered the house and shut the door in her face.

Marissa fought the impulse to bang on the door and tell him he was a rude jerk. Instead she reminded herself that pain often made people extremely ill-tempered.

As a nurse's aide, she'd seen pain transform ra
tional, intelligent, nice people into cursing, screaming creatures who hardly resembled human beings.

She turned, went down the stairs and got back into the car, smiling at her son in the rearview mirror. “Well, sweetie, I offered to help him, but he declined. I guess that's the end of our responsibility.”

Nathaniel laughed, the childish giggle that always wound itself around Marissa's heart. As she started the car and drove away from Jack Coffey's place, she wondered if Bill ever thought of her, ever wondered about his son. She wondered if he realized how much he'd given up when he'd chosen to walk away from them both.

As she drove to the motel that she and Nathaniel were calling home for the duration of their vacation, she filed thoughts of Bill away.

She hadn't realized at the time they were dating just how immature and selfish he was. She hadn't realized that until she'd gotten pregnant and he'd run for the hills. She didn't need a scared boy in her life, and Nathaniel certainly didn't need a scared boy for a father.

Better to have no father figure in Nathaniel's life than a bad one. She'd grown up with a father who'd been immature and unwilling to accept responsibility.

He'd drifted in and out of her life on his whims, bearing expensive gifts she didn't need, taking her to restaurants she didn't care about, giving her tan
gible things when all she wanted and needed was his love.

He'd been filed away with Bill in her “not worth thinking about” file. And now she had a third man to add. Jack Coffey.

But Jack simply refused to stay filed away. As she and Nathaniel ate dinner in a restaurant near her motel room, she wondered what Jack was eating for supper. With his splinted and bandaged hand, even making a sandwich could prove difficult.

Not my problem, she reminded herself. She'd offered to help and he'd declined. From her brief encounter with him, she had a feeling Jack Coffey was a man who would have difficulty asking for help under any circumstances.

Much later, tucked into bed with Nathaniel sleeping next to her in the crib the motel had provided, the scent of his baby sweetness surrounding her, she once again worried about Jack.

She couldn't help feeling responsible for him and his injuries. What if he tried to maneuver down those steep stairs on his own? As isolated as his house was, he could fall and hurt himself badly and it might be days before anyone would find him.

When she finally fell asleep, her dreams were nightmares of Jack Coffey chasing her down the beach, only in her dreams it was her leg that was encased in heavy plaster. Nathaniel sat on the sand, clapping his hands and laughing with glee each time Jack tried to grab her.

She awoke with a start just after dawn, grateful to leave the nightmares behind. But the night of restless dreams had made her realize she couldn't just go on her merry vacation knowing a man was suffering because of her and her son's actions. Her conscience simply wouldn't allow it.

By eight, she and Nathaniel were dressed and on their way back to Jack's house. In a sack in the backseat she had all the makings of a good, old-fashioned, home-cooked breakfast. She didn't know a man alive who would say no to biscuits and gravy, thick slabs of ham and fresh eggs.

When she pulled up outside Jack's house, she was surprised to see an old, beat-up station wagon. She sat for a moment, wondering if she should go up or not. After all, the station wagon indicated he wasn't alone.

As she was trying to make up her mind what to do, the front door flew open and an older, heavyset, gray-haired woman exited. She went halfway down the stairs, then turned back as Jack appeared in the doorway.

“Don't come back, Maria. You're fired!” Jack bellowed, causing several seagulls who'd been walking the beach to squawk and take flight.

“Okay.” Maria nodded and smiled. “I'm fired.” She continued down the stairs as Jack slammed the door. As Maria hurried to the station wagon, she offered Marissa a wide grin. “Be careful. He's very cranky this morning.”

“Thanks,” Marissa replied, surprised by the woman's friendliness. She got Nathaniel from his car seat, grabbed the sack of groceries and the diaper bag, then stared up the staircase. “Very cranky,” she repeated beneath her breath. “He wasn't exactly Mr. Sunshine yesterday. How much worse can it be?”

She climbed the stairs and set the sack of groceries down, then knocked on the door.

“Go away.” Jack's voice came from somewhere inside the house. “I said you were fired.”

Marissa drew a deep breath, then cracked open the door. “Mr. Coffey? It's me, Marissa.” The door jerked out of her hand and she found herself face-to-face with the man himself.

“What in the hell are you doing here?”

It was apparent that he'd had a rough night. His hair stood askew and the stubble that darkened his cheeks and chin was thicker. His eyes were midnight-blue, with dark, bruiselike circles beneath. His appearance provoked a renewed burst of heartfelt guilt to seep through Marissa.

“I've come to make you some breakfast,” she said. He stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. She grabbed the sack. “I—I brought everything I need.”

Nathaniel wiggled in her arms and pointed to Jack, who scowled irritably. “What did you bring?” he asked grudgingly.

“Ham and eggs, biscuits and milk to make gravy.”

He hesitated a moment, then stumbled away from the door. “Knock yourself out.”

Marissa entered the house and caught her breath. The first thing that stole her breath away was the view. The living room had one wall of glass, offering a splendid panorama of the beach and the ocean.

The second thing that made her catch her breath was the utter chaos that reigned in the room. The surface of the coffee table was covered with old newspapers, empty soda cans and a variety of fast-food wrappers.

The computer workstation in one corner of the room appeared to be an extension of the coffee table. More fast-food wrappers, empty cans and bottles of juice and stacks of paperwork covered the entire area. The carpeting needed vacuuming and what little wood she saw needed polishing.

“Don't mind the mess,” he said as he sank onto the sofa where a bed pillow and a blanket awaited him. “I just fired my housekeeper.”

“I think I met her on the way in,” Marissa replied.

“She was supposed to work for me today, but stopped by to tell me there was an important bingo game and her sister the psychic told her today was her lucky day.”

“I wouldn't consider getting fired particularly lucky,” Marissa exclaimed. “But she didn't look too upset about losing her job.”

Jack sighed and raked a hand through his hair.
“Hell no, she wasn't upset. She intentionally aggravates me so I'll fire her because she knows I'll call her to come back and she'll decline and I'll offer her a raise and she'll come back.”