Catherine Mann - Fully Engaged

Time to help the man out. He’d obviously been through hell and she understood the bite of those flames well.

“People profile, and you’re a really big guy.” Ego stroke time. “A police dog?”

“You’re good at the suck-up game.” He surprised her with a half smile.

A really surprisingly cute half smile on that rugged big mug of his. She had trouble remembering what she planned to say and that was so not good.

So she grinned right back. She could do this. She was good at putting distance between herself and men, after all, she worked in an almost exclusively male environment. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not insinuating that we pick up where we left off five years ago.”

His smile went wider than hers. “You mean the point where I woke up in a bed by myself with a letter that said, ‘Thanks for a great weekend. Have a nice life.’”

Her smile faded, contrition biting. “The letter wasn’t that…uh…”

“Callous?”

“Curt.”

“However you want to remember it.” He passed the envelope of stalker notes back to her.

“I’m very sorry if I was rude. That was an amazing weekend during a difficult time for me.” She gathered up the envelope to her chest and made a stab at backing out of this setup after all. “It was a silly idea that we should move in together. I shouldn’t have asked you to put yourself in danger. Forget I said anything. I’m just…I don’t know. Shaken up, I guess.”

He watched her silently which made her all fidgety when she prided herself on her poise under fire.

She got off the fake leather sofa ASAP before she did something reckless like move close enough to share leg-to-leg body heat with him. “It was good to see you again. Enjoy the cookies.”

“Nola.”

She backed away, hoping the rental car company would show up with a temporary vehicle for her soon. She definitely needed to get out of here.

“Nola.” His voice swelled to a growl.

Her spine stiffened but her feet kept inching her toward the door.

“Nola, damn it.”

She stopped.

“I never said no.”

“Oh.”

He’d let her babble on just to see what she would say?

Rick nodded toward the window showcasing the burned-out shell of her SUV. “The minute that car blew, you had yourself a new roommate.”

Rick dropped onto the edge of the bed in his empty room, resting his crutches against the nightstand. He’d used up his reserves today walking around with Nola. He’d been on his feet more this afternoon than any day since the accident—and he wasn’t a slacker around this place by any standards.

He carried his weight on the rehab circuit. He wanted the hell out. Not just out, but on his own two feet. Whole, back to some kind of productive work. He knew he couldn’t return to his pararescue life at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. That part of his life was packed up tighter than his furniture in storage.

All of which he would think about later. Right now he had a more immediate goal—finding out what was going on in Nola Seabrook’s life.

She was with the cops again while they finished up a few more last-minute details about her vehicle. He didn’t like being shuffled away for the second time. Who did they think he was? An overbearing boyfriend in a wife-beater T-shirt? He told them he hadn’t seen the woman in five years, but cops didn’t have reason to trust what people said.

Might as well make the best of this time alone. He figured he had about a half hour to catch his breath before he would see her. Then they would start to make plans to move in together—strangers who knew what the other looked like naked. Except he didn’t look the same anymore.

Regardless, he would be out of this place by morning.

He would be living with a woman for the first time in ten years. Holy hell, he really did need a shrink after all because this was the craziest thing he’d ever done and in his line of work, he’d taken more than a few insane risks. Rick shook his head and focused on practical concerns, rather than perfumed and naked notions of sharing a place with a female.

Practical. Focus. Living at her house would serve a dual purpose. He could provide some extra protection, and he could push himself harder on the rehabilitation path than they allowed him here.

A win-win situation.

His cell phone rang from the table beside him, jerking him back to the present. Scooping it up, he checked the screen…and cursed. Truth was he lived to see that number. Now he didn’t know what to say to her.

His kid. His daughter. Not a baby anymore.

At fifteen years old, Lauren had expectations and rightly so. Even at full speed, he hadn’t been the best of dads, but at least he’d been someone she could brag about. She deserved that hero father who could do more than hobble in and out of her life. He’d never been much when it came to the emotional quotient—just ask his ex. Still, in the minimal time he’d spent in the States he’d tried his best to do something with his daughter. Camping and hiking. Amusement parks and air shows. Beach surfing marathons.

Now he couldn’t do more than write checks.

Hell.

His thumb hovered over the On button…then he pitched the phone on the bed. He would have to speak to Lauren eventually. Now just wasn’t the best time, right after he almost had his butt blown up by a car bomb…

Then agreed to move in with a woman he’d slept with five years ago. Talk about another sort of bomb in his life.

The phone jangled again.

He stared as if he could will it to silence, prepared to wait it out again…but his hand stretched out with a mind of its own and clasped the receiver. Hell, he couldn’t ignore her call anymore than he could ignore her baby cry at 2:00 a.m. no matter how many times his ex vowed their kid would never learn to sleep through the night that way.

He thumbed the On button. “Hello, Lauren.”

“Hey, Dad.” Her familiar voice greeted him through the airwaves along with the sounds of some fast-food joint. She always enjoyed hanging out with friends over a burger after school. “How come you didn’t answer before?”

“Sorry, kiddo, I didn’t have my phone with me.” His head thumped back against the wall as he lied to his child. Guilt sucked.

“You always have your phone with you. I mean, God, like whenever I see you your cell phone is like an extension of your arm.”

“Like father, like daughter.” He swung his legs up on the bed. Might as well get comfortable. She was chatty like her mother, but damn, he’d missed Lauren’s voice so much he wanted to take in every second of this conversation.

“Dad, I’m not that bad.”

“Kiddo, I pay your cell phone bill. I’ve seen the number of text messages.”

She giggled over the airwaves at their ritual pseudo-bickering. “I’ll try to cut back on the LOL responses.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m just ragging you.” He held the phone and wished he could give her more than a few flipping extra text messages. “It’s good to hear your voice. But why aren’t you using the home phone?”

“I’m at a friend’s house for the Thanksgiving week. I wish I could see you, though.”

Damn. More of that guilt.

He stared out the window at Nola breaking away from the cops in the parking lot near the greasy spoon across the street. She would be back inside before he knew it. His time with Lauren was short.

“Soon, kiddo.

“Sure. It’s just…”

He hated hearing the disappointment in her voice. He loved his kid, but better to make sure she had lower expectations than to let her down. “The job makes it tough for me to get away sometimes, you know that.”

“Yeah, yeah, you have important things to do.” Her laugh thinned. “You would tell me about them, but then you would have to kill me.”