I watched her hit the stairs at a jog, descending with speed and grace.
“I think you can do better than what I have to offer.” I hadn’t been to a grocery store in… Okay, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ventured into Grover’s Groceries to buy food. I’d been living off takeout when I remembered to eat.
Lina stopped on the last step, putting us eye-to-eye, and gave me a slow once-over. The smile became a full-fledged grin. “Don’t sell yourself short, hotshot.”
She’d called me that for the first time a handful of weeks ago when she’d cleaned up the mess I’d made of my stitches saving my brother’s ass. At the time, I should have been thinking about the avalanche of paperwork I was going to have to deal with thanks to an abduction and the ensuing shoot-out. Instead, I’d sat propped against the wall, distracted by Lina’s calm, competent hands, her clean, fresh scent.
“You flirting with me?” I hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but I was hanging on by sheer will.
At least I hadn’t told her I liked the smell of her laundry detergent.
She arched an eyebrow. “You’re my handsome new neighbor, the chief of police, and my college boyfriend’s brother.”
She leaned in an inch closer, and a single spark of something warm stirred in my belly. I wanted to cling to it, to cup it in my hands until it thawed my icy blood.
“I really love bad ideas. Don’t you?” Her smile was dangerous now.
Old Me would have turned on the charm. Would have enjoyed a good flirt. Would have appreciated the mutual attraction. But I wasn’t that man anymore.
I held up her bag by the strap. Her fingers got tangled around mine when she reached for it. Our gazes met and held. That spark multiplied into a dozen tiny little embers, almost enough for me to remember what it was like to feel something.
Almost.
She was watching me intently. Those whiskey-brown eyes peered into me like I was an open book.
I extricated my fingers from hers. “What did you say you do for a living?” I asked. She’d mentioned it in passing, called it boring, and changed the subject. But she had eyes that missed nothing, and I was curious what job would let her hang out in Nowhere, Virginia, for weeks at a time.
“Insurance,” she said, slinging the backpack over one shoulder.
Neither one of us retreated. Me because those embers were the only good thing I’d felt in weeks.
“What kind of insurance?”
“Why? Are you in the market for a new policy?” she teased as she started to pull away.
But I wanted her to stay close. Needed her to fan those weak sparks to see if there was anything inside me worth burning.
“Want me to grab that?” I offered, hooking my thumb at the box of files against the door.
The smile disappeared. “I’ve got it,” she said briskly, making a move to step past me.
I blocked her. “Mrs. Tweedy would have my hide if she found out I made you haul that box up those stairs,” I insisted.
“Mrs. Tweedy?”
I pointed up. “2C. She’s out with her weight-lifting group. But you’ll meet her soon enough. She’ll make sure of it.”
“If she’s out, she won’t know that you didn’t aggravate your bullet wounds by insisting on lugging a box up a flight of stairs,” Lina pointed out. “How are they healing?”
“Fine,” I lied.
She hummed and raised that eyebrow again. “Really?”
She didn’t believe me. But my craving for those tiny slivers of feeling was so strong, so desperate, I didn’t care.
“Right as rain,” I insisted.
I heard a low ringtone and saw the flash of annoyance as Lina retrieved her phone from some hidden pocket in the waistband of her leggings. It was only a glimpse, but I caught “Mom” on the screen before she hit Ignore. It looked like we both were avoiding family.
I took a chance and used the distraction to retrieve the box, making a point to use my left arm. My shoulder throbbed, and a cold bead of sweat worked its way down my back. But as soon as I locked eyes with her again, the sparks came back.
I didn’t know what this was, only that I needed it.
“I see the Morgan stubbornness is just as strong in you as it is in your brother,” she observed, tucking the phone back into her pocket. She gave me another assessing look before turning and starting up the stairs.
“Speaking of Knox,” I said, fighting to keep my voice sounding natural, “I take it you’re in 2B?” My brother owned the building, which included the bar and barbershop on the first floor.
“I am now. I was staying at the motel,” she said.
I sent up a prayer of thanks that she was taking the stairs slower than she had on the way down.
“Can’t believe you lasted that long there.”
“This morning, I saw a rat get into a slap fight with a roach the size of a rat. Last straw,” she said.
“Coulda stayed with Knox and Naomi,” I said, forcing the words out before I was too out of breath to speak. I was out of condition, and her shapely ass in those leggings wasn’t helping my cardiovascular endurance.
“I like my own space,” she said.
We made it to the top of the stairs, and I followed her to the open door next to mine as a river of icy sweat snaked down my back. I really needed to get back to the gym. If I was going to be a walking corpse for the rest of my life, I should at least be one who could handle a conversation on a flight of stairs.
Lina dropped her backpack inside before turning to take the box from me.
Once again, our fingers touched.
Once again, I felt something. And it wasn’t just the ache in my shoulder, the emptiness in my chest.
“Thanks for the help,” she said, taking the box from me.
“If you need anything, I’m right next door,” I said.
Those lips curved ever so slightly. “Good to know. See you around, hotshot.”
I stood rooted to the spot even after she shut the door, waiting until every single one of those embers went cold.
TWO
AVOIDANCE TACTICS
Lina
Iclosed my new front door on all six feet one inches of wounded, broody Nash Morgan.
“Don’t even think about it,” I muttered to myself.
Usually, I didn’t mind taking a risk, playing with a little fire. And that was exactly what getting to know Studly Do-Right, as the ladies of Knockemout had dubbed him, would be. But I had more urgent things to do than flirting away the sadness that Nash wore like a cloak.
Wounded and broody, I thought again as I lugged my files across the room.
I wasn’t surprised that I was attracted. While I preferred the enjoy ’em and leave ’em lifestyle, there was nothing I loved more than a challenge. And getting under that facade, digging into what put those shadows in his sad hero eyes would be exactly that.
But Nash struck me as the settling-down type, and I was allergic to relationships.
Once you showed an interest in someone, they started thinking it meant they had the right to tell you what to do and how to do it, two of my least favorite things. I liked good times, the thrill of the chase. I enjoyed playing with the pieces of a puzzle until I had the full picture, then moving on to the next one. And in between, I liked walking into my place, full of my things, and ordering food I liked without having to argue with anyone about what to watch on TV.