She stumbled, throwing up a hand in the universal stop gesture, even as he stepped forward, reaching out to steady her. Because, of course, she’d rather struggle than take help from him. And he’d earned that.
Liam curled his hands into fists to keep from touching her.
Riley let out a shaky breath and straightened. Whatever momentary softening had been brought on by fear was gone. “Jesus Christ, you about gave me a heart attack. What are you doing here?”
Clearly continuing to fuck things up with you.
He eyed her still clenched hands and tapped the tape clipped to his belt. “Measuring.”
“For what?”
“Mom’s decided she wants to rent out the apartment. She wanted me to look into doing some renovations up here.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
Liam found himself wanting to smooth away the furrow between her dark brows. Instead, he backed up a few paces to give them both some space and kicked back against the kitchen counter. “She only just decided at dinner. I ran out of projects at home, and I think she wants me out from underfoot. I’m making a floor plan.”
“At ten-thirty on a weeknight?” Riley demanded.
“It’s as good a time as any.”
“In the dark?”
“Most of the light bulbs are burned out. What are you still doing here? The pharmacy closed hours ago.”
“I’m working. Or I was, until you scared the bejeezus out of me.”
“Doing what?”
“Stocking.”
“What happened to Ruby?”
“Are you living under a rock? She’s out helping with Vivian Buckley’s wedding.”
Liam dimly remembered his friend Reuben Blanchard, who owned the local boxing gym, was standing up as best man in that wedding. He knelt to pick up the counting spatula Riley had dropped. “And you were planning on doing what with this?”
She scooped a hand through her dark brown hair and didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Intimidating the intruder.”
Liam lifted a brow. She scowled back at him, an expression he’d come to expect whenever he got within ten feet of her—which wasn’t often. It was a far cry from how she’d looked at him in high school.
“Good to know you still remember some of the self defense I taught you. That probably would’ve worked on somebody without combat training.” She could do with a refresher course, but now was absolutely not the time to bring that up.
Something flickered in her eyes before she held out her hand for the spatula. “Than
kfully, I haven’t had cause to use it until tonight.”
“Glad to hear it.” He’d worried about that after he’d enlisted. Not that she’d have believed it, and not that she’d given him opportunity to say so in the last twelve years.
“I’ll go ahead and warn you, the police are on their way.”
“Sensible to have called them. Why didn’t you wait for them?”
“Good question.” This came from the open doorway.
Of course the responding officer would be Judd. Because the best friend who’d had Liam’s back since fifth grade was going to walk into this situation and know something was up. Shit.
Judd stepped inside, thumbs hooked in his utility belt. He nodded a greeting to Liam before pegging Riley with a gimlet stare. “I know Janette told you to stay put.”