Touch Me (27 page)

A man answered the door.

Payne blinked, his mind not prepared to find a stranger. “Uh…”

Lily’s house. Her husband. A slow smile curved the man’s mouth. “I think you must be Payne Colson.”

“Yeah.”

A woman hurried up to join the man. A baby was draped over her shoulder and though she looked vaguely familiar, he wouldn’t have picked her out of a line-up as his former high school girlfriend. The bones of her face were more finely etched now. Her hair darker. The laughter in her eyes unfamiliar.

Because he suspected it was at his own expense.

“Well, well, well,” she said. “Payne.”

“Hey, Lily.” He played it cool, sliding his hands in his pockets and looking over her baby-decorated shoulder and farther into the house. “Rose home?”

“Not right at the moment. Would you like to come in?”

He’d like Rose. “That’s okay. I was just wondering about her because she didn’t show up at the yard today.”

The man spoke up now. “I’m Gavin Newkirk. Lily’s husband.”

They shook hands. “Nice to meet you. Um…Rose?”

Gavin and Lily exchanged amused glances, making Payne a bit irritable. Was he being unintentionally funny?

“Rose?” he asked again. How many times was that?

“She had some car trouble this morning. Took us a while to sort it out.”

Car trouble? Car trouble was his trouble. He scowled. “She didn’t call me.”

“No worries,” Gavin said with a wave of his hand. “I’m a firefighter. I took it to the station and one of my buddies did the job.”

Did what job? And was that where she was now? With the buddy? Paying back some
firefighter
by sitting across the table from him, allowing him to gaze on her beautiful eyes?

“Are you all right, Payne?” Lily asked, with a concerned expression and more laughter in her voice. “Your face looks a little red.”

Her husband glanced at her and mouthed something. And the something he mouthed was the word “green.”

They both looked ready to crack up at that.

Green. Damn it, green. They thought he was jealous.

Payne had never been jealous in his life.

Until fucking now.

He narrowed his eyes at his old high school girlfriend. “Can you please just tell me where I can find Rose?”

She tapped her finger on her chin. “Hmm…”

“Don’t lie to me Lily.”

“Like you did, telling all those women I was your ex and you were still hung up on me?”

Oh, shit. “You heard about that?”

“We know some of the same people, Payne. Word reached me.”

“What do I need to do to make it up to you?” He swiped his hand over his face. “It was kind of a dick move, I see that, but it was a way not to…not to…”

“Hurt the ladies.”

“Yeah,” he said, relieved she understood.

“And I don’t want you to hurt Rose, Payne. And that might partly be on me because I encouraged her to…” She glanced at Gavin.

“Make whoopee?” he suggested.

Whoopee
? “I need to talk to her, Lily.”

To see if she was just…whoopeeing it up with him or if there was…

How could there be something more?

But it seemed like there must be because over the years he’d forgotten what her sister looked like while Rose had been indelibly etched.

He squeezed shut his eyes and that must have touched Lily because she called his name, soft and low. “Payne.”

Opening them, he saw she wasn’t laughing at him any longer. “She left for your salvage yard to get some files. Not long before you arrived here.”

Over his shoulder, he called his thanks, because he was already hurrying to his car, trying to come to grips with the knowledge that over all these years, Rose had…been there. Inside him.

Because of that kiss.

He’d never forgotten a single thing about her and that kiss, that girlish, awkward, amazing kiss. And he’d stopped kissing other women because he hadn’t wanted to replace that kiss with any other.

The car was speeding, heading toward the yard as thoughts circled in his head. That one night, the women who had come after.

Oh, he hadn’t given up kissing the others at eighteen, but once he’d struck upon the notion, he hadn’t missed that particular intimacy. Until now.

Now he wanted to spend hours and hours kissing Rose Dailey’s mouth.

The knowledge was weird. Ridiculous.

True.

All this time, he’d been faithful to one woman. All this time, he’d been saving his very best for her, because she was deeply rooted inside him.

In his heart.

The trill of his hands-free phone system interrupted this revelation. His foot faltered on the gas pedal when the screen showed the number of the salvage yard.

He couldn’t answer it fast enough. “Hi.” His breath was caught in his throat. “Rose?”

“Payne?” She sounded out of air too.

“Yeah, baby. You’re at the yard?”

She didn’t ask how he knew. Instead, she said, “I need you to get to me, fast.”

Every hair on his body shot up. “Why? What’s going on, Rose?”

“Um…” Her swallow was audible. “Maylo. Maylo is here and wants into the safe.” Then the phone connection broke.

It was the most important race of his life.

But Payne’s grip was steady on the wheel and he didn’t break a sweat as he sped toward the yard. It was as if all his years on a track facing down danger were in preparation for this single crisis.

Rose was in trouble.

He willed his heart to calm as his car took the corner into the commercial district. Smoothly navigating each turn, he slowed only slightly as his business came into sight, Rose’s car parked out front.

His eyes narrowed. The place looked normal. Locked up for the night. The cyclone fence gate padlocked. The front office dark. It seemed deserted.

Finally, fear clawed.

Was Rose gone? Had she been taken somewhere?

Beating back the anxiety, he continued his approach, his foot cautious on the accelerator. Then, suddenly, the front door burst open. He was still a block away when he saw Rose tear through the entry and race into the street.

Maylo limped after her, his right hand raised. Light from a streetlamp bounced off the blade of a knife.

Payne’s blood burned like fire, then ice. He flipped off his headlights and pressed his foot to the gas.

Rose was all out sprinting in his direction. Time stretched and slowed, reminding him of that endless flight in the Formula E car, when he’d sailed over the barrier for long, weightless moments.

Now Maylo was gaining on his prey and time snapped back into place. Payne heavy-footed the accelerator, passing Rose and then with a turn of his wheel, knifing the car straight into Maylo’s path. The man didn’t have the chance to change direction and he slammed into the car with a solid thud, then bounced off.

Payne had stopped his car and was out of his seat in an instant, vaulting over the hood to make sure the villain didn’t get away. His eye caught on the knife first—just out of Maylo’s reach—and he stomped his foot down on the blade just as the little fucker grabbed for the handle. “Not gonna happen,” Payne said, and kicked at the weapon to send it scurrying along the asphalt.

Then he fisted the guy’s T-shirt, lifting him partway off the street before the cloth ripped and Maylo fell back, his skull bouncing on the pavement. The groan of pain was no deterrent. Payne hauled him up by the shoulders until the creep was swaying on his feet. Then he drew back his arm and punched the snake right in his ugly face.

Maylo crumpled.

Hands on his hips, Payne sucked air in and out, staring down at the guy, daring him to move. “Rose?” he called, not moving his gaze. “Rose?”

When she didn’t reply, he glanced around. Had she just kept on running, Forrest Gumping her way to the next county? “Rose!”

In the answering silence, he finally saw her, curled up in the gutter fifty yards away, unmoving.

His heart lurched. Then he was running, adrenaline pouring into his blood, but it was like a nightmare in which the target kept getting farther away with each step. The finish line eluding him for the first time no matter what his speed. No matter how badly he wanted,
needed
to win.

Rose heard her name. She lifted her hand to bat away the intrusion. Male fingers caught hers. “Sweetheart. Baby. Open your eyes,” a voice implored.

Payne’s voice.

“That’s right,” he continued. “Wake up. Stay with me.”

Blinking, she tried to sit up, but he put his hand on her shoulder. “Lie still, love.”

“What happened?” The streetlight above her was shining directly in her eyes. She squinted. “It’s too much.”

Payne shifted, blocking some of the brightness. “Is that better?”

“Better.” In the distance she heard sirens. Knowledge rushed in. “The yard. Maylo.” Anxiety tightened her throat. “Payne—”

“Maylo’s down.”

“He has a knife!”

“Shh, love.” Payne squeezed her hand. “Not anywhere on him anymore.”

Then the sirens sounded closer and the noise was like relentless screams in her head. She shut her eyes to block them out and then darkness completely closed around her.

Payne sat in the waiting area off the emergency room, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Rock Royalty continued to stream through the doors, but he didn’t look up.

He heard Reed greeting Ren. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” his friend said to his brother. “I hate hospitals.”

A body dropped into the chair beside his. A hard hand clapped his back. “It’s not serious, right?” Reed said.

“Yes, it’s fucking serious,” Payne muttered. “The love of my life was chased down the street by a guy with a knife.”

The atmosphere surrounding his tribe suddenly shifted. Ren cleared his throat. “Uh…the love of your life?”

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” Reed said, glee in his voice.

Payne straightened, shot the man a glare. “It’s not funny. I’ve never been so miserable in my life.”

Reed grinned at Ren and stretched his long legs in front of him. “It’s love all right.”

“No teasing,” Cilla said, leaning across her fiancé to pat Payne’s knee. “You know how much we all like Rose. That’s wonderful.”

Cami came rushing through the doors of the emergency room. Spotting them, she slowed a little. “What do we have?” she said. “I heard that twit Maylo cornered Rose in the back office of the yard.”

“He saw her go in,” Cilla supplied, “and followed.”

Cami nodded. “Lucy had told him about the safe in the office, right?”

“Yeah.” Walsh joined the discussion. “She’s torn up about that—as is Honey.”

“There was no money in there,” Payne said, disgusted. “Rose got hurt for nothing.”

“It’s a cut on the head?” Cami asked. “Maylo got her with the knife?”

“Maylo got what was coming to him.”

Payne shot to his feet as Lily and her husband approached. They’d gone into the treatment area where Rose had been delivered by the ambulance.

“You saw her? You talked to her?” he demanded. She’d come around again after the paramedics arrived and told the police some of her story, but then she’d been whisked away. “Is she all right?”

“Yep. And she’s going to be fine.”

Payne put a hand on Reed’s shoulder to steady himself. “When can I see her?” he asked.

“They’ll bring her out soon,” Lily said. “But she’s very tired.”

“Adrenaline crash.” Payne knew the exhaustion well.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Cami asked. “Does she remember everything?”

“I think so.” Lily leaned against her husband. “This Maylo guy was hanging around the yard, saw her enter the building, and followed right behind. He demanded she open the safe and then demanded she call Payne when she said she didn’t know the combination.”

“How’d she end up on the street?” Payne asked. That part he didn’t know.

“Whether he was high or just plain stupid, he apparently didn’t consider her much of a threat. She—”

“Used her awesome self-defense skills,” a new voice put in.

They all turned to see Rose being wheeled out in a chair pushed by a guy in green scrubs. Payne found he couldn’t move, he could only drink in the preciousness of her—from the bandage at her hairline to her dirty jeans and scuffed shoes.

Cami grinned. “From those classes you’re taking? Did you flip him over your shoulder?”

“I kicked him in the nuts,” Rose admitted, with a sheepish smile. “I was taught that self-defense move in something like first grade.”

Payne’s sister applauded anyway. “Then how’d you hurt your head?”

“On my great escape I tripped over something—possibly my own feet—and fell. My skull met the curb.” Her gaze shifted to Payne. “You saved me.”

“You saved you.” A shudder ran through him as he remembered seeing her curled on the ground. “But I lost a life in the time it took to make sure you were still breathing.”

“Sorry.” She made a face. “I don’t think you have any lives left to spare.”

And then he couldn’t stand the distance between them any longer. “There’s probably a better time,” he said, walking toward her then squatting down in front of her. “There’s probably a better place.”

Her gray eyes were wide but there were shadows beneath them that he hated.

“There’s probably better company too,” Reed called out. “But please don’t let that stop you.”

Without looking away from Rose’s face, he shot the other man the finger. Then he winced. “There’s probably a better way than that to begin this conversation too.”

She looked puzzled. “Payne?”

He gathered her hands in his, then rested his forehead on her knuckles. “This might be reckless of me, but I can’t risk losing another moment without you.”

Feet shuffled around him and he looked up. “We’re going, big brother,” Cami said.

He glanced around at them, at his sister and brother and the rest of the tribe that had sat in this same hospital waiting for word on his injuries. Injuries from a dangerous sport he’d used to fill his days that he’d expected to be forever empty of this big, powerful thing he was feeling now. He’d been trying to escape the idea that he’d never have a woman to call his own. “I wish you wouldn’t.”