Suzanne Brockmann - Tall, Dark and Fearless

Frisco held his breath. He’d sensed more than heard the movement of Tasha crossing the living room floor, but now he heard the telltale squeak of the front door being opened.

He opened his eyes and sat up, but she was already out the door.

“Natasha! Damn it!”

His cane had slipped underneath the couch and he scrambled for it, grabbing it and moving quickly to the door.

“Tash!”

He supported himself on the railing near his rope and pulley setup. Natasha looked up at him from the courtyard, eyes wide. “Where the hell are you going?” he growled.

“To see if Thomas is home.”

She didn’t get it. Frisco could tell just from looking at the little girl that she honestly didn’t understand why he was upset with her.

He took a deep breath and forced his racing pulse to slow. “You forgot to tell me where you were going.”

“You were asleep.”

“No, I wasn’t. And even if I was, that doesn’t mean you can just break the rules.”

She was silent, gazing up at him.

Frisco went down the stairs. “Come here.” He gestured with his head toward one of the courtyard benches. He sat down and she sat next to him. Her feet didn’t touch the ground, and she swung them back and forth. “Do you know what a rule is?” he asked.

Tasha chewed on her lower lip. She shook her head.

“Take a guess,” Frisco told her. “What’s a rule?”

“Something you want me to do that I don’t want to do?” she asked.

It took all that he had in him not to laugh. “It’s more than that,” he said. “It’s something that you have to do, whether or not you want to. And it’s always the same, whether I’m asleep or awake.”

She didn’t get it. He could see her confusion and disbelief written clearly on her face.

He ran one hand down his face, trying to clear his cobweb-encrusted mind. He was tired. He couldn’t think how to explain to Natasha that she had to follow his rules all of the time. He couldn’t figure out how to get through to her.

“Hi, guys.”

Frisco looked up to see Mia Summerton walking toward them. She was wearing a summery, sleeveless, flower-print dress with a long, sweeping skirt that reached almost all the way to the ground. She had sandals on her feet and a large-brimmed straw hat on her head and a friendly smile on her pretty face. She looked cool and fresh, like a long-awaited evening breeze in the suffocating late-afternoon heat.

Where had she been, all dressed up like that? On a lunch date with some boyfriend? Or maybe she wasn’t coming, maybe she was going. Maybe she was waiting for her dinner date to arrive. Lucky bastard. Frisco scowled, letting himself hate the guy, allowing himself that small luxury.

“There’s a furniture truck unloading in the driveway,” Mia said, ignoring his dark look. In fact, she was ignoring him completely. She spoke directly to Tash. “Does that pretty yellow dresser belong to you, by any chance?”

Natasha jumped up, their conversation all but forgotten. “Me,” she said, dashing toward the parking lot. “It belongs to me!”

“Don’t run too far ahead,” Frisco called out warningly, pulling himself to his feet. He tightened his mouth as he put his weight on his knee, resisting the urge to wince, not wanting to show Mia how much he was hurting. “And do not step off that sidewalk.”

But Mia somehow knew. “Are you all right?” she asked him, no longer ignoring him, her eyes filled with concern. She followed him after Natasha, back toward the parking lot.

“I’m fine,” he said brusquely.

“Have you been chasing around after her all day?”

“I’m fine,” he repeated.

“You’re allowed to be tired,” she said with a musical laugh. “I babysat a friend’s four-year-old last week, and I practically had to be carried out on a stretcher afterward.”

Frisco glanced at her. She gazed back at him innocently. She was giving him an out, pretending that the lines of pain and fatigue on his face were due to the fact that he wasn’t used to keeping up with the high energy of a young child, rather than the result of his old injury. “Yeah, right.”

Mia knew better than to show her disappointment at Frisco’s terse reply. She wanted to be this man’s friend, and she’d assumed they’d continue to build a friendship on the shaky foundation they’d recently established. But whatever understanding they’d reached this morning seemed to have been forgotten. The old, angry, tight-lipped Frisco had returned with a vengeance.

Unless…

It was possible his knee was hurting worse than she thought.

A delivery man approached. “You Alan Francisco?” he asked, not waiting for a reply before he held out his clipboard. “Sign at the X.”

Frisco signed. “It’s going up to Unit 2C. It’s right at the top of the stairs—”

“Sorry, pal, this is as far as I go.” The man didn’t sound even remotely apologetic. “My instructions are to get it off the truck. You’ve got to take it from here.”

“You’re kidding.” Frisco’s voice was flat, unbelieving. The furniture was standing there on the asphalt, next to the delivery vehicle.

The man closed the sliding back door of his truck with a crash. “Read the small print on your receipt. It’s free delivery—and you got exactly what you paid for.”

How was Frisco supposed to get all this up a flight of stairs? Mia saw the frustration and anger in his eyes and in the tight set of his mouth.

The man climbed into the cab and closed the door behind him.

“I bought this stuff from your store because you advertise a free delivery,” Frisco said roughly. “If you’re not going to deliver it, you can damn well load it up and take it back.”

“First of all, it’s not my store,” the man told him, starting the engine with a roar and grinding the gears as he put it into first, “and secondly, you already signed for it.”

It was all Frisco could do to keep himself from pulling himself up on the running board and slamming his fist into the man’s surly face. But Tash and Mia were watching him. So he did nothing. He stood there like a damned idiot as the truck pulled away.

He stared after it, feeling helpless and impotent and frustrated beyond belief.

And then Mia touched his arm. Her fingers felt cool against his hot skin. Her touch was hesitant and light, but she didn’t pull away even when he turned to glare down at her.

“I sent Tasha to see if Thomas is home,” she said quietly. “We’ll get this upstairs.”

“I hate this,” he said. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. They were dripping with despair and shame. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, to reveal so much of himself to her. It wasn’t a complaint, or even self-pity. It was a fact. He hated his limitations.

Her brown-green eyes grew warmer, more liquid. She slid her hand all the way down to his, and intertwined their fingers. “I know,” she said huskily. “I’m so sorry.”

He turned to look at her then, to really look at her. “You don’t even like me,” he said. “How can you stand to be so nice?”

“I do like you,” she said, trying to step back, away from the intensity of his gaze. But he wouldn’t let go of her hand. “I want to be your friend.”

Friend. She tugged again, and this time he released her. She wanted to be his friend. He wanted so much more….

“Yo, Frisco!”

Frisco turned. The voice was as familiar to him as breathing. It was Lucky O’Donlon. He’d parked his motorcycle in one of the visitor’s spaces, and now sauntered toward them. He was wearing his blue dress uniform and looked to be one hundred percent spit and polish. Frisco knew better.

“Hey, guy, having a tag sale or something?” Lucky’s wide smile and warm blue eyes traveled lazily over the furniture, Frisco’s damned cane, and Mia. He took an especially long time taking in Mia. “You gonna introduce me to your friend?”