Janet Evanovich - Hero at Large

“Don’t touch my foot!” he shouted. “Just get me a towel so I don’t bleed all over my truck.”

By the time she returned with the towel, he’d already hobbled out to the curb.

Chris stopped for a light and nervously cracked her knuckles. It had been a long, silent ride to the hospital. Ken slouched in the seat next to her, staring stonily straight ahead, his arms crossed in front of him. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left the house, and Chris was afraid to begin conversation. What on earth do you say to a man after you’ve broken his toe? And his arm. Glorioski, Mr. Callahan, I’m really sorry! Chris felt tears burning behind her eyes. Thank goodness for the darkness, she breathed. This is awful enough, I don’t need to have him see me crying. I don’t even know why I’m feeling such anguish over this whole silly episode. She blinked back the tears and decided it must be hormones. The man was hell on hormones.

She heard him rustle in the seat beside her, and knew with a sinking heart that he was watching her. His fingertips brushed across her cheek.

“What’s this for?”

Chris ignored the question. She turned into the hospital lot and cut the motor. “Would you rather I come in with you? Or should I wait here?”

“I’d rather you tell me why you’re crying.”

Chris stared miserably down at her warm-up jacket.

He reached over with his good arm and hauled her across the seat, onto his lap.

“Be careful! Your arm! Your toe!”

He kissed the tears on her cheek and nestled her into the crook of his arm. “Honey, when I’ve got you on my lap I can’t even feel my arm or my toe.”

Chris closed her eyes and buried her flushed face into his shoulder.

His lips feathered lingering kisses in her orange curls. “You like me, don’t you?” he said in a husky whisper that sent her heart tumbling in her chest.

She couldn’t speak. She was overwhelmed with a rush of conflicting emotions. She did like him. Even more horrible, she might be falling in love with him. How else to explain the lump that was becoming a permanent fixture in her throat? How else to explain the sense of dread-of impending doom-of unwanted, fingertip-tingling excitement? She nodded her head yes, and pressed her cheek against his chest.

“And you’re sorry you broke my toe?”

She nodded again.

“Is there anything else?”

Chris sighed. There were about a million other things, but none she wanted to say out loud. And nothing she could coherently explain when he was kissing her hair. Warm waves of desire were washing away sensible thought. She concluded that if she stayed in his arms for another thirty seconds she would lose all control and attack him, and they’d probably be arrested for doing X-rated things in a hospital parking lot. She took a deep breath and pushed herself from his lap. “I suppose I do like you, a little,” Chris admitted. “And I’m sorry about your toe, but I think we should keep this living arrangement strictly business.”

“Why?”

Chris squeezed her finely arched eyebrows together into a frown. “Because I’m not too happy about having a man in my house. And I definitely don’t want one in my life. I like my life just the way it is…was…before yesterday.”

He regarded her with open amusement. “What a load of baloney.”

“Unh!” she grunted. “You are the most exasperating man.” She threw her hands into the air in frustration. “Go get your blasted toe fixed.”

Ken looked at the stretch of cold macadam between the truck and the reception room. He looked down at his blue-and-purple bare foot partially wrapped in an apricot hand towel.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I wasn’t thinking.” She started the truck and drove to the emergency entrance where he got out and hobbled inside.

Chris parked and joined him at the front desk, where he was filling out a form. An inquisitive nurse leaned over the desk and looked at his toe. “Weren’t you folks in here yesterday?”

Ken raised his bright green cast. “Yesterday she broke my arm,” he announced merrily.

A second nurse appeared. Chris felt her face flame as the two nurses studied her suspiciously.

Ken completed the form. He raised his foot. “Today she broke my toe.”

“It was an accident,” Chris gasped.

The nurses looked at each other knowingly and studiously returned to their work.

“How could you embarrass me like that?” Chris looked around furtively to see if anyone else had heard.

“It’s okay.” He grinned. “She probably thought it was part of some bizarre sexual ritual.”

“Good heavens.”

“You should probably call the rink now and tell them you’ll be late, again.”

Chris stared at Ken, struck by the unpleasant reality that she’d sent this man to the hospital two days in a row-and that if positions had been reversed, she doubted she could be so good-natured. “I suppose I should be happy you have a sense of humor,” she ventured.

“Honey, my good mood has little to do with my sense of humor.”

Aunt Edna’s eyes opened wide as she stood back from the door. “What the devil happened?”

Ken carefully swung his foot over the doorjamb and eased himself into the room with the help of a single crutch. “It’s nothing serious, Aunt Edna. I stubbed my toe in the dark this morning and broke it.”

Chris slammed the door behind them. “He did not. He got fresh with me, and I stomped on it.”

Ken rested on his crutch, and looked at her quizzically. “I thought you found that story embarrassing.”

“Oh, what the hell,” she exclaimed in an offhand huff. “So I broke it. What’s the big deal?”

Ken smiled at Aunt Edna. “She’s sorry she broke it.”

Edna looked at the swollen toe taped to the one next to it. “He got fresh with you, huh?”

“Yes. Well, no. He sort of got me…disturbed.”

“Hmmm,” Edna said. “Disturbed?”

Ken slouched into the wingback chair and stretched his long legs in front of him, watching Chris with unguarded affection. “Disturbed?” he asked, the twitching corners of his mouth the only evidence of strangled laughter.

“I’d love to stay and explain all of this,” Chris told them, “but I’ve got to get to the rink.”

“Will you be home for lunch?” Edna asked.

Chris kissed the old woman good-bye and headed for the door. “No, I have to do some choreography today. I probably won’t be back until suppertime.”

Chris checked her watch as she walked up the steps to her town house. It was six-fifteen, and she felt as if she hadn’t slept in days. She opened the door and sniffed. A delicious aroma of herbs and spices wafted through the house. Aunt Edna’s world-famous oven-fried chicken, she decided. She flung her bag into a corner of the hall and shuffled toward the kitchen. It was after a terribly long day like this that she was especially thankful for Aunt Edna. If it weren’t for Edna, Chris knew she’d be staring into the freezer right now, wondering what the heck she could shove into the microwave. If it weren’t for Edna, the role of breadwinner and single mother would leave little time for Chris to read Dr. Seuss or listen attentively to Lucy’s exploits in school. Chris pushed through the kitchen doors. “Aunt Edna-”

Ken turned from the stove and gave her a look like the cat who swallowed the canary. “Nope. Just me, slaving away over a hot stove.”

“Where’s Aunt Edna?”

“Kansas City.”

“What do you mean, Kansas City?”

“Your cousin Stephanie had the baby three weeks premature and Edna flew out to stay with the twins.”

“How could she do that?”

“Stephanie? I don’t think she had much choice. George said her water broke at three twenty-five and she went right into labor…”