I was still smiling later when Darling rested one big hand against the wall, his palm pressed flat about a foot above my shoulder. Leaning in close to me, he confessed he'd wanted to ask me out a time or two growing up.
I arched a brow, my lips curling up in surprise. "Why didn't you?"
"I always figured if Mike was going to let any of his friends date his baby sister, it would be Noah." He laughed just as the unlocked front screen swung open.
I looked to my right to find Noah standing in the doorway, his body framed by sunlight, his face in shadows.
"I don't think Mike would mind." I pushed off from the wall, offering Darling one last smile before I pointedly ignored Noah and headed into the kitchen.
The next few minutes were filled with the low rumble of male voices as Darling explained to Noah the work he'd done and answered questions on how the security system functioned. The whole scene was ridiculous -- Noah wouldn't be turning the alarm on or off. Hell, after Darling left and I reset the pass code, Noah wouldn't even know what it was. But he sure sounded like he would -- he sounded exactly as if it was his security system, his house, his family.
Mine.
The word rose unbidden in my mind, quickly followed by the memory of his voice last night as he had said it.
Mine. Mine to protect. Mine to...
I gave an angry shake of my head, forcing myself not to listen or care what Noah was saying in the next room. He hadn't finished his sentence last night but it was all too clear this morning what he'd left unsaid.
Fuck and dump.
That's what he'd done. Fucked me. Thoroughly. Even now, angry as I was, the memory made me wet and aching for him. I swiped a sponge along the kitchen counter, scrubbing furiously at a dot that was nothing more than a fleck of metal in the polished granite top.
"Dude, you look like you're going to clock me--" Darling's statement broke my concentration.
Both men were almost down to a whisper, their voices strained.
"You were flirting with her."
"Noah, I didn't realize--"
"Realize what?"
Darling's voice dropped even lower, the words almost indistinguishable. "I mean, I thought you were just taking care of Mike's little sister."
Noah cleared his throat, his tone sounding almost normal to someone who didn't know him like I did. "I am."
"I meant...you know -- is that all you're doing?"
Noah answered too low for me to hear it. Three seconds later the front screen banged shut and he was gone.
********************
I ate my southwestern bean pie alone -- not even the prospect of a future date with Phil Darling on the horizon.
I was okay with that. I wasn't attracted to him, hadn't been remotely attracted to any man other than Noah for a good three years. I'd felt like a liar on every one of my dates over that time period and I didn't want to lie to Phil.
Or lie with him.
I knew, however, I was going to have to find some guy to fuck Noah out of my system -- some guy other than my brother's old high school buddy. It was going to take a lot of fucking to erase last night. More than one man. Maybe more than one at a time. I had it that bad -- for so very long -- and last night had made it a hundred times worse.
Sighing, I cleared the table, made the cup of hot chocolate I'd missed out on the evening before and crawled back into bed with a fresh sketchbook.
No zombies this time. Instead, I drew my body from memory. My thighs, my calves, the full hips, the almost narrow waist and pert C cups, my pale auburn hair flowing down to cover my nipples in a faint nod to modesty.
It was a beautiful body -- at least it was on paper. I didn't know how it appeared to Noah. Judging by his dates, he seemed to prefer smaller women. Scowling, I started to draw a line through the picture but stopped before the pencil reached the first curve of flesh.
I pulled an eraser from my case, obliterating the harsh line. Noah might or might not have a problem with how I looked -- but I didn't. I wouldn't. I'd grown up with a big, beautiful mother my father had worshipped with his dying breath -- I wasn't going to tarnish that memory by hating what I saw in the mirror.
Too bad my parents belonged to another generation, one raised before sub-zero sizing had become standard in the department stores.
"Fuck." I tossed the eraser and pencil into the case, then dropped it and the sketchbook on the floor. I turned off the light and rolled onto my side, trying to remind myself that I didn't give a damn if Noah Lodge thought I was beautiful, or smart or talented or anything other than his best friend's sister or the plump chick three doors down.
I was done with him -- as done with him as he obviously was done with me.
Reminding myself a hundred times over, I finally fell asleep.
********************
Shouting woke me around midnight. Shouting and screams.
Horrible, horrible screams -- the kind they had tortured us with in those driver's ed movies in high school, pictures of teenagers in mangled cars flashing on the overhead screen, their limbs bent at odd angles, mouths open in pain, the volume turned all the way up.
I bolted upright, my gaze jerking to the left and the bedroom window. The Donovans had their flood lights on and the screaming came from that direction. I tossed my robe around me and scooped up my cell phone as I moved to the window. Drawing back the curtain, I saw a man I assumed was Mr. Donovan. He held a shotgun, the tip of its long barrel pointed at something on the ground.
Above that something was Noah, an arm twisted in his iron grip as his deep voice boomed at Donovan. "Take that fucking gun back inside before you kill someone!"
Noah turned his head, caught me watching him. He stared at me one long second, his gaze full of controlled fury as he applied more torque to the arm he held. The screaming started all over again, the body beneath Noah beginning to thrash.
Hitting the speed dial for 911, I put the phone to my ear just as I heard the first blare of sirens and saw the reflection of red and blue lights bouncing off the front of a nearby house. Seconds later uniformed officers piled onto the man beneath Noah, cuffing the guy and hauling him to his feet.
Dressed all in black, he towered over the cops, easily topping six-six. A black hood obscured the guy's face and Noah jerked it back, giving me my first real look at him.
A kid. A gigantic kid, but a kid all the same. He had a baby face -- freckled and round. With his red hair, he looked like he could be my kid brother or my big brother's kid. Dirt and tears streaked his face. A thin line of blood mixed with mucus ran from his nose, the side of his face starting to purple in a bruise.
Catching me staring at the kid, Noah jerked a thumb at the cops. "Get this piece -- put him in the fucking squad car."
One of the uniformed officers started to obey. The kid's knees buckled. He folded to the ground and the cop looked at Noah.
"I think you broke the little bastard's arm, Lodge."
Noah's glance cut my way for half a second before he looked back to the cop. "Then put him in an ambulance. Just get him the hell out of here!"
One of the cops standing in the circle had stopped gaping at the kid on the ground and was watching me through the window. Noah caught the direction of the guy's gaze. His arm shot out, grabbed hold of the cop's collar and pulled him close. Noah's lips moved, the words too softly spoken for me to hear through the window, and then the cop nodded. Noah let go of the guy, glaring at me as the man quick stepped out of sight and I snapped the curtains shut.
Ten minutes later, I sat on my couch, shaking violently as a female police officer took my statement.
"It was pretty much over before I knew what was going on," I explained. "The screaming woke me."
Making a note in the small pad balanced on her knee, she tittered nervously. "Yeah, his arm is pretty jacked. He's lucky Noah didn't break it."
Her response to the boy's injury unnerved me. "He looked pretty young."
"Seventeen, but he's built like a linebacker." She shrugged. "I helped serve a warrant last week on a fifteen year old who beat and..." She stopped, seemed to reconsider what she was going to say and shrugged again. "Baby face or not, he'll get charged as an adult."
She stared at me until I was ready to squirm in my seat.
I cleared my throat, tried to smile even though the boy's screams still echoed in my head. "Was there something else, Officer Hicks?"
She blushed, surprising me. "I've been expecting to meet you for a long time, just not like this."
I lifted a brow. I'd never heard of Amanda Hicks before she'd stepped through my front door and introduced herself fifteen minutes ago. She was a good decade older than me, but trim and athletic. Age aside, she might be Noah's type. I couldn't think of any other reason she'd expect to be introduced to me.
"How's that?" I asked.
"I mean, you know, someone at the station is always throwing a cookout -- and the way Noah's always talking about you..." She trailed off and glanced at the front door before her head tilted intimately in my direction. "We've got this room at the station for kids, for when..."
Her face clouded for a minute and she brushed the room's purpose away with a wave of her hand. "Well, you know. We've got stuffed animals in it, boxes of crayons and picture books -- every last one of yours, I think. He brings the books in, leaves them at his desk for the first few days while he shows them to anyone who'll pay attention. Then he puts them in the room for the kids."
I blinked, not knowing what to say or think. Another uncomfortable second ticked by before I mumbled something I hoped would shut her up. "He's always been very supportive of my work."
Laughing, she rolled her eyes at me and flipped her notepad shut. "Honey, supportive isn't the word for it."
Before I could ask what that was supposed to mean, someone knocked against the screen's vinyl frame. The front door was open. I looked over to see Noah standing in the pale circle of my porch light.
Hicks stood, offering her hand as she said good-bye. "I hope we can meet again, under different circumstances."
I nodded and forced another smile on my face. There would be no police union cookout or Christmas party in my future. She was mistaken about Noah's feelings. She didn't know him like I did, didn't realize he was choosing to stand outside and knock rather than come in and that the choice wasn't without meaning. I knew what it meant and the realization cut deeper than I wanted to admit.
I followed her to the door, still smiling. She nodded at Noah, he nodded back, his gaze leaving my face for no more than a second. When Hicks was out of ear shot, he looked down, one hand running nervously along the door frame.
He was holding a set of keys in his other hand, metal grinding against metal as he clenched his fist. "I figured you might want to spend the night at a hotel or something."
A hotel -- another telling choice. Not him in my bed or on my couch or me sleeping at his place. Just me, at a hotel, Noah's duty to Mike executed. The annoying little sister and one night stand secured and safe.
I shook my head, rejecting the idea of him taking me anywhere. He reached for the screen's handle. I grabbed it first and clicked the lock. "I don't need you to keep an eye on me anymore, Noah. The kid's in the hospital. I don't think he's going to be bothering me any time soon."
He swallowed, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His eyes drifted open and crawled slowly up my face. "That's what you really want?"
Knowing I'd never get the lie past my lips, I nodded. I started to shut the door, but he raised his hand, stopping me.
"You remember how to set the alarm, right?"
"Yeah, I kn--"
"I can...double check it." He gripped the screen handle, the knob rattling from the tension of his fingers tightening around it. "If you want me to, that is."
I shook another lie out and finished closing the door. I threw the dead bolt and punched the new pass code in to set the alarm. Then I walked slowly through the house, shutting off the lights as I went.
In my bedroom, I left the lamp on and crawled into bed crying.
********************
My cell phone vibrated straight off the night stand at around six thirty am. I picked it up from the floor, glanced at the number I didn't recognize and considered hitting dismiss. Instead, I suppressed a groan, hit answer and mumbled a greeting.
A high-pitched voice with just a trace of masculinity burst through the speaker. "Did that fucking pervert escape or something?"
I looked at the phone's display again to see if the caller's information had miraculously populated. Still just a number I didn't recognize.
"Who is this?" Rude as the jackass calling me was, I managed to keep my tone polite. The area code was the same as mine, so it could be a neighbor.
"Don Donovan -- now answer my question. Did that fuck get loose or something?"
Two thoughts struck me at the same time. The first was more a feeling of dread at the prospect of the kid making his way to my house to finish whatever he had planned to start last night. The second thing was that Donovan's parents must not have liked him very much to name him Don.