An Unexpected Love (4 page)

“Does your ankle hurt? They gave you a prescription for some pain pills—I can go down to Rite Aid and get it filled for you.”

“No, it doesn’t hurt that bad. I think the inside of my mouth hurts worse than my ankle.”

We were silent for a moment, listening to the wind slapping across the ancient windows of my apartment, making them rattle. Then, without saying anything, he put his arm around me and eased me down so I was stretched out, my head pillowed in his lap. After another moment, he started stroking my hair. My eyes were closed, my breathing shallow.

“Lex.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“What? Why? You yell at me all the time.”

“No I don’t.”

“Wanna bet?” I waited for him to argue, but he didn’t.

“I’m sorry for all those times.”

Another long silence, as if our conversation was taking place in slow motion, or underwater.

“Dan?”

“Hmm?” His hand still stroked my hair, his fingers lifting single strands, then dropping them.

“Are you saying you’re sorry because they told you to at the hospital? ‘Be nice to her, she’s terribly overwrought.’”

“Shhh. Relax.”

“See? You sound like a hostage negotiator.”

He sighed heavily. It was the sigh he always used to let me know how much I tried his patience. It was familiar, comforting. I went to sleep.

My throbbing ankle woke me a few hours later. I lifted my head and saw that Dan was asleep, his head bent at an awkward angle against the back of the couch. I sat up and looked at him. His eyelashes were ridiculously long for a man. They were black, and looked like tiny little fans against his cheeks. His mouth was open a bit, and I had a weird desire to touch his bottom lip with the pad of my index finger, so I did.

“Huh,” he groaned as he opened his eyes. He accidentally kissed my finger before I had the chance to pull it away.

“Dan, it’s four in the morning. You can go home now. Or if you’re too tired to drive, go sleep in my bed—I’m fine here on the couch.”

“No, I’m okay. Lie back down, you need to rest.” His voice was so comforting, it was like he was singing a lullaby.

“My mom used to make me tomato soup and Ritz crackers when I wasn’t feeling well,” I murmured. Where did that come from?

“Would you like some?” he asked, rubbing his eyes roughly with the heels of his hands.

“No, no…I was just remembering. I don’t even like tomato soup, but I never told my mom. I didn’t have the heart.”

“My mom always made me grilled cheese sandwiches. With Velveeta cheese.” He looked down at me, his gaze wistful. I wondered if he was thinking about his mom in the nursing home. I changed the subject.

“My ankle hurts.”

“I can go to Rite Aid and get you those pills. The one down the street is open twenty-four hours.”

“No, it’s okay, it’s not that bad. But I do have some ibuprofen in the bathroom—would you mind getting it for me? It’s in the medicine cabinet by the sink.”

“Sure.”

When he came back he had the ibuprofen, and a blanket and pillow from my bed. He helped me sit up and gave me the pills and some water, then eased me down onto the pillow. He tucked me in with the blanket, and I felt awkward—exposed, almost.

He stood beside the couch for a long moment. “When I was a kid, my mom would tuck me in, and we’d play this game where she traced messages on the palm of my hand, and I had to guess what she had written.” He smiled at the memory.

“Do it to me,” I demanded sleepily.

So he picked up my hand and started tracing letters gently on my skin.

“Close your eyes, Lexi,” I whispered.

“Good.” He traced some more.

“I’m glad you are okay.” My voice broke on “okay”. I figured it was because I was so tired.

He squeezed my hand and placed it under the blanket. Then he sat on the floor with his back propped against the couch. We both fell asleep, but when I woke up, he was gone.

As soon as Jack heard what happened to me, he came to my place with Chinese takeout and a half-dozen DVDs, which made me feel guilty for sneaking out of his house to begin with.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded, propping my foot up with a cushion, a little ill-at-ease in the caretaker role. Jack’s entire life revolved around people catering to him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you. I seriously thought I’d just get up, dust off my skirt, and walk the rest of the way to the T, but then the cops and the ambulance showed up…” I didn’t want to tell him the real reason I hadn’t called.

“Well, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.” He sat beside me on the bed.

“What, that I should stick to my own neighborhood, where the criminals know I’m broke?”

“No, that you should never leave my bed until I’m done with you.” He grinned and edged his palm between my thighs. God, he was gorgeous. Like movie-star, fairy-tale-prince gorgeous. When he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the edges. They were the color of twilight. A familiar twinge of desire shot down my spine, and heat pooled between my legs.

“Jack,” I said reluctantly, as he leaned in for a kiss.

“Hmm?” He planted his lips on my neck when I turned my head to the side.

“I can’t…I mean, I’m pretty bruised up, I think I’d better lay off the heavy petting for a day or two.”

He lifted his head to look at me blankly. I seriously doubted that anyone had ever denied Jack Brogan sex.

“Are you sure?” His grin was back, his hand sliding farther up my thigh, cupping me fully. He took my hand and placed it on his crotch.

“Jack…” God knew it was tempting, but I felt like I’d been hit by a Mack truck. He sighed and moved away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. You just drive me crazy.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll leave you to rest. But if you need anything, promise you’ll call me, okay?”

I nodded, even though his phone number was in my stolen cell phone, and I didn’t have it memorized. But it didn’t matter.

I went back to work on Tuesday, so embarrassed by the huge, plastic boot on my foot that I used the garage entrance to the building. I limped to my desk, my head low, feeling awkward and embarrassed to see Dan, who didn’t even look up from his computer screen.

“Morning,” I muttered. He acted surprised to see me, even though I knew he wasn’t.

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

“Better. Thanks.”

He nodded, then looked back at his computer. I was dismissed.

“Thanks for Friday night too. I mean, you kind of snuck out, and I didn’t get a chance to tell you how much I appreciated your help.”

“No problem.”

“No, really, you saved me. I didn’t have anyone else to call.”

He said nothing. I knew my attempts at conversation were making him uncomfortable, so I shut up. I opened my bottom drawer and shoved my purse in it. He went back to a report he was working on, and I turned on my printer.

“Why didn’t you call Jack?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“I guess I just—”

“I said never mind,” he mumbled, and then he stood up and left.

Chapter Five

For the next four days, Dan was out of the office more often than he was there. I had no idea what was up, and since he remained his usual chatty self, I remained in the dark. At first, it seemed strange to work alone, like I was a kid left at home by my parents for the first time. By the end of the week, though, I was behaving like a Kardashian, cranking up the radio on my desk, eating honey-roasted peanuts out of the can, shopping online for some face cream April swore would make my skin as soft as velvet. In fact, I was engaging in all of the above when Dan walked in the office on Friday afternoon. Of course I didn’t hear him come in. Dan’s
raison d’être
was to scare the living crap out of me.

“What the hell?”

“Oh, shit.” My mouth was full of peanuts. I dropped the can on my desk and slapped the top of the radio to turn it off.

And then I almost fell off my chair, because Dan grinned. Honest-to-God
grinned.
He had really nice teeth—not too big, but straight and white.

“C’mon,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Come. On.” He paused for a second. “No questions.”

My mind started spinning. Was he mad? Had the peanuts crossed some invisible line? Was he going to fire me so he would no longer be bothered with tawdry late-night rescue missions?

“Where are we going?”

“Just come on,” he moaned, but then he grinned—again! I couldn’t help it, I grinned back.

“Fine, Mr. Mysterious, no questions. What’s in the bag?”

“
Jeee
sus.”

“Okay, okay…”

By the time we got to his car, I was feeling downright giddy. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and I couldn’t remember leaving the office so early in…ever.

“Can you at least give me a hint?”

“No.”

“If I guess and I’m right, will you tell me?”

“No.”

“Are we going somewhere nice? Do I need lipstick?”

“No.”

“No, we’re not going somewhere nice, or no, I don’t need lipstick?”

“God, are you incapable of shutting up?”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“May I ask a question that’s not about where we’re going?”

“No.”

“Please?”

He pretended to think about it. “Okay.”

“Do you think I talk too much?”

That earned me a sideways smile, and I felt warm inside, pleased to have pleased him. By now I’d figured out that we were going to my apartment, and I began to get a little nervous, trying to remember if I’d left dirty dishes in the sink, or my bras hanging off the mantel to dry. By the time we pulled up to my front door, I’d done a mental inventory and decided there was nothing there Dan couldn’t see.

“Well, thanks for the ride home, Boss.” I opened the door and let myself out, and he followed me silently. He had the bag in his hand again, so I reached over and grabbed it while I was pretending to search for my keys in the bottom of my purse. He didn’t try to take it back, just followed me through the front door. When I peeked in the bag, I let out a snort of laughter.

“What did you do, mug a women’s self-defense instructor?” One by one, I pulled out pepper spray, a flashlight, a keychain alarm that looked more like a vibrator—I snorted again as I imagined Dan buying it—and some contraption that resembled a plastic clock radio with too many wires. “What’s this?”

“It’s an alarm for your door—you can connect it to the front windows too.”

“What in the world for?” I asked. My apartment complex was large and well-lit. It may not be in the best neighborhood, but I never feared for my safety.

“Well, if you’re determined to walk the streets of Boston alone at all hours of the night, I thought you might want some protection.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, like you did last Friday?” His tone was just patronizing enough to tick me off.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” I huffed.

“No, your friend April asked for my help. You were so stupid you weren’t going to ask for anyone’s help, were you? What if you’d ended up dead in a ditch?”

“Then I guess you’d be stuck without an assistant. But hey, there are plenty more where I came from, so don’t knock yourself out.” God, why was I being such a bitch?

“Lexi.” His look wasn’t angry, it was dead serious. “When I got that call…” He closed his eyes. “When they told me what happened… Those guys could have done a lot more than just take your purse.”

“They wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“How the hell do you know?” he roared.

I shut up. He dropped his head, and I noticed his hands were balled into tight fists by his sides.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat. He’d been scared for me…worried about me. And I was acting like an inconsiderate brat. He didn’t say anything, just turned around and stared out the window. It had started to snow.

“I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It’s just that no one’s ever worried about me before.” I paused for a second. “Well, April worries about me. But she worries that everyone on
Gilligan’s Island
will end up with skin cancer, so I’m not sure if she counts.”

Dan didn’t speak, but his hands unclenched a bit. I couldn’t stand the silence, so I kept up my nervous chatter. “Listen, I was going to make chicken spaghetti for dinner. If you put up that alarm thingy for me, I will treat you to the culinary experience of your life. Seriously, people have driven from Dayton to Cincinnati for my chicken spaghetti.”

“I didn’t know you cooked.” He was still facing the window, mesmerized by the snow.

“Well, chicken spaghetti and fried egg sandwiches. Would you like one of those instead?” I was already halfway to the kitchen, jumping at the chance to atone for my poor behavior.

“Lexi, you don’t have to cook for me.” He followed me to the kitchen.

“But I want to. Please?” My voice sounded small, almost desperate.

“Okay, but no fried egg sandwich. It sounds like prison food.”

“You’ve never had a fried egg sandwich?” I asked incredulously.

“I’m not a big egg eater. The yellow part makes me gag.”

“God, Dan, I thought better of you. My fried egg sandwiches are Nirvana on toast.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

We worked in companionable silence, me in the kitchen, Dan in the front foyer hooking up the alarm, until the sun started to set and the aroma of chicken and pasta brought Dan into the kitchen, nose first, sniffing appreciatively.

“Holy Rachael Ray, it smells good in here.”

I think I actually blushed, but the heat in the kitchen hid my pleasure. He reached over to dip his pinky in the sauce I was stirring, but I swatted it away.

“Wash your hands,” I commanded, and he held both palms up to me in mock surrender.

“Sorry,” I said. “My grandmother taught me to cook. She was a bit of a germaphobe. ‘Wash your hands, you’ll get a stomachache,’ she’d say. That and ‘Don’t eat bananas after five o’clock.’ Oh, and ‘If your lips itch, it means you want to be kissed.’“

Dan stopped drying his hands on the dishtowel. “How do your lips feel?” He was right behind me. I turned around, expecting to see a teasing gleam in his eyes, but they weren’t teasing. At all.