Lori Foster - Bewitched

“Harry,” she warned.

“Hmm?”

“You’re being outrageous.” She started walking again, no better reply forthcoming.

“Thank you.” When she snorted, he said, “I did manage to distract you, didn’t I?”

She paused in her stride, but just for a moment. “I suppose. Now tell me why you were in that store, what a private investigator has to do with Floyd and Ralph. And, oh yeah, who’s Carlyle?”

“If I tell will you tell?”

“Kind of like, show me yours and I’ll show you mine?”

“I’m willing if you are. Of course, I don’t have the added pressure of having to produce something worth a man’s life.”

Charlie laughed, she couldn’t help herself. For several years now, she’d disdained men, her supposed father especially, though she didn’t remember the man all that well anymore, the long ago memories and her mother’s words mixing together in confusion. Today might have been the day to end the confusion, but everything had gone worse than wrong.

As to the others, the men who sat in her saloon night after night, drinking themselves into a stupor, claiming their wives were responsible or irresponsible or dull. And her mother’s old boyfriends, no accounts without a future or the urge to motivate. They were all jerks and users and she had nothing but contempt for them all.

Harry was different. He was outrageous, true, but he made her laugh and his outrageousness wasn’t a threat or an insult, but rather a game, a certain charming wit that he employed with skill. She had no fear he would force her, or that he’d actually try to humiliate her as Floyd had. He was big and brave, and something of a hero, a fact she couldn’t deny since she’d seen herself the efforts he’d made to try to protect her, even with a gun to his head.

“How old are you, Harry?”

“An odd question, coming out of the blue like that, but why not? As a conversational gambit, it beats the obvious chitchat of weather, and it’s as good as any other. I’m thirty-two. And you?”

“Are you a good private eye?”

“Meaning?”

“Do you make much money at it?”

He cleared his throat. “Less of a gambit, but yes, I support myself nicely if that’s what you mean.”

He was probably expensive, too expensive, but maybe she could figure something out. “How long have you been in the detecting business?”

“Detecting? Well, let’s see. About six years now.”

“Are you kind to animals?”

He laughed. “There’s a purpose to this interview? All right, I’ll trust there is. I have two dogs and a cat and they love me or at least they pretend to in order to get me to do their bidding or sometimes when I find a chewed up shoe or a mess in the corner. Does that answer your question?”

“Are you married?”

“Did you have an unemployed dog in mind that you’re hoping to foist off on me?”

A small lump of dread formed in her stomach and she struggled to keep her tone light. “So you are married?”

“Divorced, actually, not that it should concern you.”

She turned to face him. He was big and gorgeous and funny and a hero. He might well be the man she needed. God knew her level of success on her own hadn’t been anything to boast about, especially given today’s incredible fiasco. “I think I like you, Harry.”

“Look there,” Harry said, pointing over her head and studiously ignoring her last statement. “A building of some sort. I do believe salvation is at hand.”

Charlie looked in the direction he indicated. They’d wandered completely through the woods to another road. A small block building, bludgeoned by the rain, sat close to the road, looking indeed like salvation.

Harry, his face averted, plodded onward and Charlie gladly let him lead the way, content to follow behind. To say she trusted him now would definitely be going too far, but he’d made her laugh and that was a huge accomplishment. As to the rest, she’d just have to wait and see.

“WELL WHAT DO you know, it’s an abandoned gas station.”

Harry stood in a spot of grease, thankfully out of the rain, and studied their little Eden. He’d had to kick in the door, which had proved remarkably easy given the rotting wood and rusty lock. Likely inhabited by any number of critters, it was still dry and safe and a block against the growing breeze. The rain finally began to taper off, but with that concession came a chill that sank bone-deep. The temperature had dropped by several degrees and he could see Charlie’s lips shivering. Nice lips, sort of pouty in a seductive way, especially for a woman who wasn’t all that attractive and seemed to have a problem with cordial behavior. Would she have really let them shoot him?

Damn her, he just didn’t know.

“How long has it been empty do you think?”

She stood huddled in the middle of the floor, her arms wrapped tight around herself, her knees knocking together, determined not to utter a single complaint, as if admitting to the cold was a weakness. Strange woman.

A growing puddle formed around her. Her hair had mostly come loose from the rubber band and was starting to curl just the tiniest bit.

“Perhaps from the time they put in the highway some five years ago. This is the old county road. No one travels it anymore which is, I presume, the reason this particular station closed up.”

“The road must still lead somewhere though, to a house or two.”

“No doubt, but we won’t be finding any help in this storm. You’re the picture of misery, half-frozen and too tired to budge. Time to get as dry as possible.” He looked at her, saw her staring back wide-eyed, and added, “That means removing your ridiculous costume.”

She froze in the process of rubbing her arms, sluicing off more water. “Is that the only tune you know? All right, damn it, I lied. I wouldn’t have let them shoot you, not if I could help it. But I knew if they thought I cared, they’d think we were together. I wanted them to take you and forget about me.”

Well, that was brutal honesty of a sort. Not quite what he’d had in mind, but… “Believe it or not, Charlie, it was my wish as well.” He found a crate, tested it for sturdiness and sat down with a deep groan of pleasure. “I had no desire to be responsible for you, and in fact I could have defused this entire situation if you hadn’t screwed things up.”

“It was you—”

He held up a hand. “No more bickering. And no more ridiculous modesty. Your belated concern for my safety has nothing to do with anything. I don’t want to be lugging a half-dead woman back to town tomorrow, and that’s what you’ll be if you don’t make some effort to warm yourself. It has nothing to do with my curiosity over your precious body parts.”

“You have only my welfare in mind?”

“Quit sneering.” He felt a smile tug at his lips and firmly repressed the urge to grin at her. “Come now, you must be in your mid-twenties at least. Surely you can’t claim all that much modesty. I promise not to be impressed no matter what you unveil.”

She looked ready to strike him, so he quickly added, “I’ll make the grand sacrifice. My coat is still fairly dry on the inside, given that it’s made for this weather and water repellent. You can wrap up in it after you’ve gotten out of your wet clothes.”

She chewed her lips, thinking of heaven knew what, and finally shaking her head. More hair slipped free and clung to her forehead and cheeks. She didn’t look like a boy now; she looked like a drowned rat. A wide-eyed, nervous rat. “No.”

“What if I insist?”

She went stiff as a poker. “Insist all you want! I’m not taking anything off and I’m not—” Her voice dwindled into a very ratlike squeak when he started toward her. “Don’t you dare touch me!”