Dixie Browning - The Virgin And The Vengeful Groom

“Charges! What charges? You’re crazy, you know that? I’m going to call 911 right now and report—”

“Fine. Then you can explain how you came to be in possession of six boxes of my personal, private property!”

Gray eyes. Clear as rainwater. You’d think a woman with eyes like that couldn’t hide a damned thing, but she was hiding something, all right. Guilt, obviously, because if she’d been innocent, she wouldn’t have run away. “I’m waiting. Want to make the call or shall I make it for you? I’ve got a cell phone in my truck.”

She was leaning against the door now, one hand gripping the edge so hard the tips of her fingers were white. She wasn’t anywhere near as cool as she would like him to believe, not by a long shot.

He shoved his foot another inch through the crack and hoped to hell she didn’t throw her weight against the door. His metatarsals were about the only bones that hadn’t been busted at one time or another in his colorful career. He would kind of like to keep it that way. “You going to call the cops?”

“The cops,” she repeated numbly.

“Right, O’Malley. The men in blue. So I can reclaim my boxes and you can get your boyfriend off your back. That is, if you want him off your back?”

Heavy sigh. Her fingers slid down the edge of the door. They both knew she was fighting a losing battle—evidently fighting it on two fronts. Hell, even the U.S. armed forces had trouble doing that in these days of military cutbacks. “Miss O’Malley? You want to talk about this?”

Somewhat to his surprise, a few protective instincts kicked in. It was part of the code every SEAL team operated under, only this was no team operation. If there were rules to cover a situation like this, he’d never heard of them. With his back on the verge of spasms, his left leg giving him fits and his gut complaining about the pastrami and horseradish he’d had earlier, he had to reach deep for patience. “Look, there’s obviously something going on here. You need to call 911. I can wait out here, or I can wait inside. Either way, I’m not leaving.”

Small gasp. Could’ve been a sob, but he didn’t think so. And then the chain fell and she opened the door. Roughly 110 pounds, swathed in a shapeless velvet tent, hair spilling over her shoulders like a dark waterfall, not a speck of color in her face except for those wide gray eyes…and she was mad as hell. Ready to knock his head off.

Ignoring an inappropriate and totally unexpected sexual response, he held up both hands. “Unarmed, see?”

She backed down half an inch but still had that pit-bull look on her face. He couldn’t blame her. Evidently there was more going on here than six boxes of stuff he owned and she was trying to claim. “You want to make that call now or shall we get our personal business done first?”

“Personal business.” She was stalling, trying to come up with a good story, so he pushed a little harder.

“We can do this the easy way, or we can fight it out in court. Your choice.”

“You’re still upset about those papers? I’ve got this fruitcake who won’t let me alone—someone breaks into my apartment, meddles in my underwear drawer, and you’re worried about some papers?”

Oh, boy. “You want to run that by me again? Your underwear?”

“It probably wasn’t you, because you were right here at the door when he called, but…but—oh, dammit, I am so tired of this…this harassment!”

“It’s happened before?” He was inside her door now, automatically sizing the place up. A few nice pieces—way too much clutter. Potted plants, books, papers—bottom line, it looked like a cross between one of those house-and-garden spreads and a city dump.

“It happens almost every day. Not the…the flower and the awful underwear, but the calls.”

“The, uh, awful underwear?”

“Some creep left a rose and a pair of really disgusting panties in my underwear drawer day before yesterday, and then he had the nerve to call me and brag about it. I just want it to stop!”

“Have you reported it?”

“Well, of course I’ve reported it, what do you take me for, an idiot?”

He didn’t think she really wanted him to answer the question, and so he didn’t. “What did they advise?”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Change my phone number, change my lock—go on an extended vacation until the creep loses interest.”

“And?” Curt prompted. He needed to get on with his own business, but no officer who called himself a gentleman would walk away, leaving a lady in this much distress. Not that he was much of a gentleman—in name only, maybe.

And not that she was that much of a lady.

“Oh, I did it all—the works. The caller missed one day, and then he started in again. I hope he fries in hell. I hope he catches an awful disease and rots from the toes up. Slowly!”

“Remind me never to tick you off,” he said dryly. “Uh, about the other. My boxes?”

She took a deep breath and crossed her arms over her small but definitely feminine chest. “Look, whether you like it or not, I bought those boxes. They’re mine, along with whatever happens to be inside them, end of argument.”

“End of defense argument,” he corrected smoothly. “Now it’s my turn.”

“I’m expecting my lawyer at any moment. If you have anything further to say, you may take it up with her.”

“All prepared, huh? Lawyer already on the hook. I’d say that’s a pretty good indication of guilt.”

“Just what is your problem, Mr. Powers? Hearing or understanding?”

“My problem? I think I stated it pretty clearly, but for the record those papers you took from my storage unit are my property. I lost them through no fault of my own.”

“The sale was perfectly legitimate. I have a receipt to prove it.”

He could have told her what she could do with her receipt, but he had better manners. Marginally. Instead, he gave her a smile that would have done credit to a barracuda and deliberately allowed his gaze to move over her, from the crown of her head to her bare toes.

She was tall?

He was taller.

She was tough?

He was tougher.

Two sets of arms crossed over two chests. Full battle stations.

Lily did her best to stare him down, but her best wasn’t working. There was a crude name for this kind of contest. Little boys—and even big ones—were equipped for it. Women weren’t. Even so, if it weren’t for this other thing that had her nerves so ragged that all she wanted to do was run and bury her head under a blanket, she could have taken him, easy. At least she could have run.

Only she had nowhere left to run. It was all she could do when she thought about that creepy voice not to cry, and she had never been a crier, not even in the bad old days. So she took another deep breath and offered him the smile she had perfected in front of her bathroom mirror. Lily the Diplomat. Lily the Gracious Lady. “Tell you what, Mr. Powers, why don’t you leave your card and I promise I’ll let you have anything I don’t need, once I’ve had time to go through it. Is that acceptable?”

Smile still in place, she looked him directly in the eye. She knew better than to look a strange dog in the eyes, but as a last resort it occasionally worked on bullies. Having come up through a tough school, she had seen her share of both, including her mother’s so-called boyfriends, one of whom had locked her in the basement and tried to starve her into letting him teach her “a new game.”

“My card,” he repeated, sounding as if he might actually be considering it.

Way to go, girl! She lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug, something else she’d practiced in front of a mirror. “Or you can jot down your address and I’ll mail them to you.”