Falling for the Enemy (Private Pleasures 3)

“I’m fine. Pissed, but fine.” She accepted his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

Light from inside the salon poured through the open door. The yellow sundress was actually a lemon print, she wore dangly earrings with a cascade of green stones the exact shade as her eyes, and she had a small scratch on the underside of her chin where it had connected with the sidewalk. Temper burned through him at the sight—a temper he recognized as completely out of proportion to the situation, but was unable to get a leash on. “What the hell were you doing, leaving work all alone, at this time of night?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Are you serious?”

Before he could answer, she shook her head, sending the earrings dancing, and slapped her hand against the center of his chest. “No, you know what? You’re right. What was I thinking, staying late at my place of business to finish up a bunch of paperwork, and then braving the mean streets of Bluelick on my own? Having lived here…oh…all my life, I should know better. Back in 1997 some criminal mastermind broke into Dalton’s and stole a six-pack of beer. Shit gets serious around here after dark.”

He knew he owed her an apology, for jumping on her—the victim—because the asshole who deserved his temper had outrun him, but what came out of his mouth instead was, “It could have gotten serious tonight, if I hadn’t been here.”

She rolled her eyes, which lit another charge under his already volatile temper, but then she gingerly touched her fingers to the sore spot on her chin, and the small gesture immediately defused his anger.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was walking.”

Those keen green eyes found their way back to him. “Walking?” She looked around at the closed businesses along the street. “Walking where?”

Heat crawled up his neck. Busted. “Nowhere. I was just walking, and… Look, it doesn’t matter. What matters is somebody was out here tonight, and he jumped you, and it might not have ended there—”

“He didn’t jump me.” She put air quotes around the phrase. “He bumped into me. I surprised him when I came out the door. He ran, knocked me over, and kept on running. What I’d really like to know is what the hell he was doing hanging around outside my salon.”

With the question hanging in the air, they both looked in the direction he’d come. There, on the whitewashed brick exterior wall, someone had written the word “firecrotch” in red spray-paint.

She marched over, touched the paint with a fingertip, and then kicked the wall with the toe of her boot. “Lovely. Just what I needed.” Shoulders sagging, palm to her forehead, she stood there looking so uncharacteristically small and forlorn, he actually fought a rogue impulse to wrap his arms around her and…comfort her. As if he could comfort anybody.

He could do something, though. “Come on.” He took her arm and tugged her through the door of the salon, and over to one of the two guest chairs set up in the waiting area—one of the few pieces of furniture in the entire place that didn’t hold some memory of him buried deep inside her, letting her body exorcise every ragged frustration, every gnawing anxiety eating at him, hungrily absorbing everything she had to give. And if he kept thinking about last night, he’d never… “Sit.”

“You are all kinds of bossy,” she snapped, but she sat. That’s when he noticed she’d skinned her knee, too, and had a red patch on her arm.

“First aid kit?”

“It’s in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom. In back. I’ll get it—”

“Stay.” Hands on her shoulders, he re-planted her in the chair.

“This may come as a shock to you, but I’m not a dog,” she called after him.

Jesus, Buchanan, get your shit under control. He caught his reflection in the mirror above the sink and almost groaned. Try to look a little less like you’re on a suicide mission. Kit in hand, he relaxed his jaw, took a deep breath, and then walked back into the salon. After a quick stop at the shampoo sink to wet a hand towel, he made his way to where she sat, watching him.

He snagged the other chair, positioned it in front of hers, and sat down facing her.

“Dr. Feelgood, I presume?”

“Something like that. You have a phone in your bag?” He gestured to the purse she’d placed beside her chair.

“Yes.”

He opened the first aid kit. “Call the sheriff’s department. Ask them to send someone out to take a report.”

“Nothing will come of it. I didn’t see the guy, and neither did you, so they won’t do anything.”

“They’ll take the report. Maybe our wall artist gets caught next time he’s out expressing himself, and the sheriff can charge him with vandalism and battery for tonight, too.”

She eyed him skeptically, but dug her phone out of her bag, did a search, and dialed. “You give the county sheriffs more credit than they deserve—Hello? Yes, I’d like to report a crime.”

He cleaned her knee as carefully as possible while she spoke to the sheriff’s department. The scrape was superficial, but he dabbed antibacterial cream on and covered it with a Band-Aid.

She ended the call and dropped her phone back into her bag, then looked at her leg. “I don’t think I’ve worn a Band-Aid on my knee since I was seven.” As she spoke she absently fiddled with the front of his hair. She probably didn’t even realize it, but he registered her touch immediately, and knew he’d nursed his way back into her good graces.