He laughs. “Put Blake on, will you?”

I look up to see Blake staring at me, a scowl fixed on his face as he takes the phone back from me. “Yeah,” he says into it, then rolls his eyes and hangs his head at whatever Cooper says. “No. I think maybe she was in shock.” His eyes lift and scan up my body, finally coming to rest on my face. “She seems okay now.”

I reach out and pluck the phone out of his hand again. “Good-bye, Cooper,” I say, disconnecting.

“You’re okay?” Blake asks, his forehead creasing with concern as he reclaims the phone and stuffs it in his pocket.

“Yeah. I just . . . I can’t believe this has all happened to me. I mean, it’s been one hell of a month, you know? Getting fired from the pharmacy, getting arrested, this,” I say, gesturing around the room. “If my mom wanted to prove I’m a total fuck-up, she couldn’t have scripted it any better.”

He settles into the chair next to mine. “I don’t know what your mother was thinking, Sam, but she couldn’t have anticipated this.”

“She was thinking I’m useless. She’s always thought that.”

“I doubt that’s what she thinks,” he says.

“You don’t know her,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “She’s always thought she needed to tell me what to do every second of every day, like I would forget to get out of bed if she didn’t remind me.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Would you have?”

“Probably not,” I say, throwing my hands in the air, “but it was everything with her. I wore my skirts too short and my hair too long. I either had the wrong friends or not enough of them. She corrected my homework every night all my life, and got mad when I refused to send her my college assignments. She didn’t trust me to do anything right without her input.”

“So, she was a little overbearing. At least you knew she cared.”

“Then why did she throw me out? That’s, like, the opposite of running my life. Everything to nothing.”

He presses back into his chair. “Maybe it was as much for her as it was for you.”

I glare at him. “Okay, Dad. Thanks for that useless pearl of wisdom.”

“I just mean, maybe she realized you would never learn to be responsible for yourself if she didn’t let go.”

My whole body tenses as I fight to contain my frustration, because if I have a hot button, it’s my mother. Nothing makes me want to punch something quite so much as someone defending her to me. But, deep inside, I’m totally relieved he’s making it so easy to hate him. “You think I’m irresponsible?”

He shrugs. “All I’m saying is, there comes a point for everyone when you pretty much need to sink or swim.”

I stand and glare down at him. “I was swimming just fine before the DEA decided to drown me.” I spin for my room. “I’m not very hungry. I’m going to take a shower.”

“Fine.” He moves to the counter and starts aggressively cracking eggs into a bowl. “If you want dinner, it’ll be ready in a few.”

I lock my door, then pull off the sling holding my arm against my ribs. When I straighten it, it’s stiff, and my shoulder’s a little sore, but not too bad. I throw the sling in the trash, deciding I’m done with it.

I strip, using my right arm gingerly to help, and toss my clothes on the floor as I move to the bathroom. My reflection in the mirror over the sink isn’t a pretty thing. I step closer and press my fingers to the bruises at my shoulder. They’re that in between color, transitioning from dark purple to green—the same color that surrounds the white gauze bandage taped to the right side of my face and fills in the semicircle under my right eye.

I lean into the counter and slowly pry back the bandages. Underneath, there’s a gash, held together with some sort of clear tape. The redness and swelling that were there the first time I saw it are mostly gone, and it’s just a thin red line with a little dried blood. I poke at it and it’s tender but not too bad.

I brush my teeth with the fresh toothbrush and new tube of toothpaste on the counter, then step into the hot water. The shower helps me to relax a little, and I stand in it for a long time after I’m done washing up, letting the warm spray massage out all my knots. When I’m finished, I wrap myself in a towel and move to the bedroom.

The room is dark, the sun having set sometime during the hour I spent in the bathroom. Out the window, San Francisco sparkles like a jewel across the black swath of the bay. I push open the French doors and the smell of fresh air and roasted vegetables wafts in on the gentle spring breeze.

My stomach gurgles like a drowning man, but I decide to skip dinner. There are definitely some things I need to figure out, and if I’m stuck here for months with Blake Montgomery, how I feel about him is one of the biggest. I can’t do that when I’m looking at him, because the memory of that body pressed against mine jumbles my thoughts.

I drift out the French doors, expecting it to be cold after the hot shower, but the air’s unseasonably warm tonight. A thin crescent of a moon hangs over the city, casting almost no light, and below it, a blanket of fog is rolling in off the water. The only thing that ruins the beauty of the scene is the country music wafting out the open French doors of the living room balcony.

“My eardrums are going to rupture,” I mutter.

“Give it time. It grows on you.”

I jump and look to my right. On the balcony off the living room, I see a dark silhouette, leaning on the rail. I pull my towel tighter and back a step toward my door. “I didn’t know you were out here.”

Blake pushes off the rail and moves to my side of his balcony. “You have everything you need?”

I nod, then realize he probably can’t see that gesture in the dark. “Yeah.”

“Good.” For several beats of my heart neither of us moves, but I feel the weight of his gaze traveling slowly over me. “How’s your arm?”

I roll my shoulder in a circle. “A little sore, but okay.”

“I’m glad it’s better.” He backs toward the open French doors behind him. “There’s dinner in the fridge if you want to warm some up. I’ll be downstairs . . . if you need anything.”

“I’m fine.”

He hesitates again at the door. “Good night, Sam.”

His smooth drawl roughens into something that says sex, even though those weren’t his actual words, and it turns the tingle in my tummy into an ache. “ ’Night.”

He slips through the doors and closes them behind him, and a minute later the music stops and I hear him on the stairs across the hall from my room. I step inside and move to my closet. There’s no way I’m going to wear the granny gown, but a tank and a pair of underwear will do. I reach into the drawer and pull out a pair of the white cotton panties, and that’s when the red strap of something deeper in the stack catches my attention. I dig to the bottom of the stack and pull out a strappy red thong, very similar to the one that peaked out from my black satin shorts the night I met Blake.

I drop my towel and slip it on, then pull a long white tank top over it. And as I pass my bedroom door on the way to my bed, there’s one thing I know for sure.

Nichols didn’t pick out all my new panties.

Chapter Nineteen

THE SMELL OF coffee and my empty stomach wake me. I tug on jeans and crack my door open. Blake’s in the kitchen, and I consider waiting him out, but I’m shaking from both caffeine withdrawal and starvation. I make a beeline to the cupboard I’m pretty sure I saw coffee mugs in last night and open it. Sure enough, there are several mismatched mugs from different tourist destinations. I choose the one from Alcatraz, huffing out a sardonic laugh at the symbolism.

Blake looks at me curiously as he peels a waffle out of the waffle iron with a fork. His short hair is damp, sticking up as if he toweled it dry, and for the first time, he’s in a T-shirt instead of his typical button-down. I see the black lines of the tattoo that covers the left side of his torso and chest extend down his arm to just above the elbow. His faded jeans fit him just . . . mmm. It’s taking some serious self-control to keep my eyes off him.

I concentrate on filling my mug from the pot, then start back to my room.

“Sam, I can’t let you starve to death.”

I look over my shoulder at him and see him holding up a plate with a waffle on it. I spin and give him my best smirk. “Would that look bad on your résumé?”

He flings the plate onto the counter, where it clatters for a few seconds before coming to rest dangerously close to the edge. “I’m usually pretty good at reading people, but not you . . .” His eyes narrow a little, as if he’s trying to see past my skin. “One second you’re . . .” He tosses a hand in the air. “. . . and the next you . . .” His jaw tightens again, and he shakes his head in dismay. “You’re the most frustrating individual I’ve ever met, and I’ve only known you for, like, five minutes.”

“If it’s any consolation, the feeling’s mutual,” I say, turning for my room.

“If you eat, I’ll let you call your mom.”

I stop. The thing is, I don’t really want to talk to Mom, so I could just keep walking. But I should talk to Mom. And I’m seriously starving. “Isn’t coercion against the Geneva Convention?”

“The Geneva Convention only applies to prisoners of war.”

I turn and give him my most cutting glare. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking this isn’t war.”

“Strawberries?” he asks with a tip of his head, picking up the waffle plate.

“Fine.”

“Whipped cream?”

I take a mental fly swatter to the image of what I’d really like to do with that whipped cream and start back across the living room. “Fine.”