Mean Streak

“I don’t believe you.”

With supreme unconcern, he raised one shoulder and blew on his coffee before taking a sip. When he returned his mug to the table, he caught her looking up at the metal bar suspended between the rafters. When she looked back at him, and their eyes connected, she felt a jolt like a sock in the belly. She wasn’t about to ask him about that bar, afraid of what the answer would be.

Feeling the weight of his stare, she traced the wood grain on the tabletop with her thumbnail. “What did you do?”

“When?”

“Your crime. What was it?” She held off looking at him for as long as she could stand it. When she dared to meet his eyes, they glittered like multifaceted gemstones. She would have thought them beautiful if she hadn’t been afraid of them. “‘I’m keeping them out.’ That’s what you said.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The police? You’re hiding from the authorities?”

“You’re batting a thousand, Doc.”

“Stop calling me that. It sounds like a pet name. And I’m not going to be your pet.”

“Not a docile one anyway. You scratch.”

She’d tried to avoid looking at the long, bloody mark across his cheekbone. The blood had clotted, but it looked painful and nasty. “You should put some of your peroxide on that to keep it from getting infected.”

“Yeah, I should. But I didn’t want to breach the wall of Jericho over there to get into the bathroom.” He tilted his head toward the screen. “I was afraid of being set upon again.”

“I didn’t hurt you that badly.”

“I wasn’t afraid of you hurting me. I was afraid of hurting you.” At her shocked expression, he clarified. “Not on purpose. But if I have to defend myself from you, you could wind up hurt because I’m so much bigger than you are.”

His size would have been intimidating if she’d been standing behind him in the checkout line at the supermarket, or sharing an elevator, or sitting beside him on an airplane. He didn’t have to work at being imposing, his height was sufficient. Today’s cream-colored cable-knit sweater was form fitting and emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and chest.

His hands, folded around the earthenware coffee mug, made it look as delicate as a cup from the china tea service she’d played with when she was a little girl. Even dormant, his hands intimidated her. From the knob of his wrist bone to the tips of his long fingers, they looked capable of doing…

Lots of things.

She remembered how gently those fingers had explored the skin on the back of her neck. You’re sopping wet. Her cheeks grew hot over the thoughts that flickered through her mind. She drank from her glass of water, then picked up her interrogation where she’d left off. “Were you in the military?”

“What makes you ask?”

“Your tidiness. Everything folded uniformly, stored neatly. Boots lined up in pairs.”

“You must’ve given the place a thorough search.”

“Didn’t you expect me to?”

“Yeah.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him, at an angle to the table. “I knew you’d snoop.”

“So what did you hide in advance of my search? Handcuffs? Leather straps?”

“Only my laptop. Not well enough, as it turns out. But I didn’t think you’d have the strength to move the locker out from under the bed.”

“It took every ounce of energy I had.”

“You had enough to pounce on me.”

“But not enough to hold on.”

“You should have thought of that.”

“I did.”