Jill Shalvis - Serving Up Trouble

No good. He couldn’t concentrate. He bypassed the mess and reached for the news pa per from the day of the holdup. He looked at himself on the floor holding the most in credible woman, who was staring at him with stars in her eyes.

Not since the time he hadn’t taken her seriously in his office had she looked at him with those stars in her eyes.

And now, terrifyingly enough, he was the one with stars in his eyes.

Just work, he reminded himself. Work would get him through.

But beautiful dark brown eyes kept his thoughts murky, and he kept his ears cocked for a return call from Angie, which clearly meant no matter what he wanted to believe about what was happening between them, this was far more than work.

Angie opened the door of her car and stared out into the night that suddenly seemed dark and yawning.

From where she stood, she couldn’t see her front door. The path was covered by the yard she hadn’t yet trimmed back. What looked charming and full of personality during the day, with all its color and vibrant growth, now seemed thick and unwelcoming.

Slowly she started up the path, thinking she shouldn’t have just called Sam, she should have gone to the station.

After the last prank call on her way home, she’d decided to turn off her cell phone. Maybe that was like an ostrich putting her head in the sand, but it worked for her.

Someone seemed to think she knew more than she did. But she didn’t, and surely this nervousness was nothing a good hot shower wouldn’t cure. Maybe by then, she’d have heard from Sam, and he’d calm her down. He could do that, with just his low, husky voice and sharp, piercing eyes that didn’t miss a thing. He’d tell her if she was over reacting, whether she wanted to hear it or not.

Odd, how that could be soothing and a charge at the same time. He was an enigma, that man, no doubt there. The sexiest enigma she’d ever met.

She made it to the front door without event, and then inside, where she lit up the place like Christmas. Then she went into her bedroom and stripped out of her clothes, leaving them where they fell because it was already way past laundry day. She’d gather them tomorrow.

Tony had hated that habit. With him, everything had a place and had to be in it, at all times. Her happily cluttered apartment, with its plants scattered here and there, and mismatched throw rugs and shelves filled with books that were for reading not collecting drove him crazy. Basically, she drove him crazy. And as a result, she’d begun to doubt herself. Her looks, her smarts, her everything, which had only led to hurt.

She hadn’t imagined being happy without him, and yet she was happier now than she’d ever been.

Oddly enough, it was the holdup-the most terrifying moment in her life-that had taught her the life-changing lessons all in a flash.

When she thought of it that way, a good part of her nerves vanished. Relieved, she headed directly for the shower, where she stood for nearly half an hour under the spray of water.

Twice she imagined she heard some thing from the other side of the bathroom door and froze. And both times she ended up shaking her head at herself. She’d lived here for years, and no one had ever bothered her. Still, she poked her head from behind the curtain and glanced at the cell phone she’d placed on the counter. It was still off, damn it. which probably explained why Sam hadn’t called her back. But at least it was right there if she needed it, with 911 already programmed in.

The shower felt heavenly, both the tingle of water on her skin and the easing of her mind. For a moment, loose and relaxed, she wished she had a man with her in the water. Sam. Sam with slow, knowing hands and a body hungry for hers.

But that was a physical need and could be ignored. Still his face flickered in her mind, and the need tightened because she was quite certain when he set his mind to some thing, say making love, he’d do it right.

That thought made her quiver, but the water slowly turned less warm, then down right chilly. Finally she shut it off, purposely ignoring the deep yearning. It was just that she hadn’t had any sort of physical relationship since Tony, she told herself, and that had been nearly a year now.

A year without sex. She needed to remedy that.

Later. For now, sleep, and lots of it. She stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in the lone towel hanging on the rack.

Definitely laundry day tomorrow. Without a towel for her dripping hair, she combed it back from her face and opened the bathroom door.

All the steam escaped, and at first she couldn’t see. As the mist dissipated, two things hit her at once. First, the answering machine on her night-stand was blinking like crazy, and she realized she’d for got ten to listen to the messages when she’d gotten home.

But it was the second thing that rendered her a speech less, trembling mass of fear.

Her place had been ran sacked. Blankets, pillows and sheets had been tossed every where, her dresser and closet drawers opened and dumped.

Shock immobilized her. She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, water from her hair dripping down her shoulders and back, still clinging to the towel wrapped around her. Her first instinct was to run back into the bathroom and lock the door. But that wouldn’t do her any good as the door didn’t lock-it never had.

Grabbing the cell phone, she pushed on the power button and stood in indecision for one horrifying second.

Was she alone?

Was someone even now listening to her panicked breathing, just waiting to make their move?

Oh, God. This couldn’t be happening, not again. She didn’t want to die in a towel, any more than she had wanted to die in a bank robbery.

Quietly as she could, she backed into the bathroom, pulling the door closed, wincing as it squeaked, desperately wishing she’d bothered to have the lock fixed as she’d been meaning to do for months.

Somehow she found the wits to crank back on the shower, which would hope fully muffle the sound of her voice. But because it was icy water now, not a drop of hot left, she left it running out of the tub spout as she hopped in and shut the curtain, crouching as far back as she could to avoid the spray.

She looked down at her cell phone and hoped to God she couldn’t get electrocuted while operating it with her feet in the water. She hit redial, a number she was becoming unfortunately familiar with, and waited with baited breath to be attacked before the dispatcher came on.

But she got Sam.

He answered on the first ring with, “Where the hell have you been?” making her realize 911 hadn’t been the last call she’d made after all.

It had been Sam’s cell phone.

She let out a shaky laugh, her feet frozen from the water running over them, her little towel that didn’t cover enough chilled skin slipping. “I need you,” she whispered.

She hadn’t meant to say that. In a million years she wouldn’t have planned to say it.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” he said right over her. “About those prank calls-”

“Sam.” She gripped the phone tight and shuddered. “Did you hear me? I need you. I…really need you. Right now.”

Utter silence. Then in a voice gone soft and regretful, he said, “Angie, you know we can’t. I’m a cop, and you’re a part of the job, and-”

Okay, damn it, she was not going to cry. So he’d misunderstood. So he’d rejected her out of hand. She’d known he would. “I mean someone broke into my apartment, Sam.”

“Where are you now?”

“Here.”

“Here where, Angie?” Now his voice was calm, alert. In control.

And very professional.

“In my apartment.”

He swore. Very unprofessionally.

And oddly enough, that soothed her more than anything else could have.

“Get out of there, now.”

She looked down at her very un dressed self and nearly let out a hysterical laugh. “I…can’t.”

“Angie, listen to me very care fully. Arm yourself with some thing.”

“Arm myself?”

“A vase. A golf club. Some thing.”

She peeked out the shower curtain and saw a can of hair spray, which she clutched to her chest. “Got it.”

“Did you call-”

“Nine-one-one. They’re next on my list.”

“I’ll do it. Hang tight. I’m on my way.”

Hang tight. Hanging tight. Knees knocking together, she sank to her knees on the floor of the tub and waited.

Ineed you.

Those three little words tore at Sam as he raced to Angie’s apartment. Why the hell hadn’t he just gone over there when he’d gotten her earlier message?

That she hadn’t answered her phone shouldn’t have stopped him.

That she scared him shouldn’t have stopped him.

He drove faster. He was a professional, and as a professional he willingly headed into situations similar to this all the time. It was his job.

But the cool, calm, professional cop he was inside had vanished and been replaced by a man-a terrified, protective, angry man he hardly recognized.

Why had this happened to Angie, a woman who deserved hearts and flowers and a white picket fence, not this sheer terror?

Damn it, she’d already been hurt. Josephine had told him that much. Hurt by a man who’d tried to mold her into his idea of the perfect woman.

How could someone do that to the vibrant, sweet, open Angie?

Shame furled in his belly as he remembered his first impression of her. Scattered. Flighty. Naive.

She wasn’t any of those things.

Please don’t let her be hurt, he prayed, and vowed right then and there to never add to that hurt of hers. And it wasn’t ego that told him he could do exactly that. Even he couldn’t deny there was some thing…undeniable between them.