Page 48 of To Die For

“I was just showing—” I began.

“I saw what you were ‘just’ doing! For God’s sake, Blair, you were shot just twenty-four hours ago! You lost a lot of blood! Tell me how, under those conditions, doing a handstand is even remotely reasonable?”

“Since I did it, I’d say it was within the realm of possibility. If you hadn’t startled me, I’d have been just fine.” My tone was remarkably mild, because we had frightened him. I understood. I patted his arm. “Everything’s okay. Why don’t you just sit down and I’ll get you something to drink. Iced tea? Milk?”

“You’ll be okay,” his mother said soothingly. “I know you had a scare, but really, we had everything under control.”

“Under control?She—you . . .” He stopped sputtering and shook his head. “She isn’t any safer here than she would be at home. A broken neck can kill her just as dead as a bullet can. That’s it. I’m going to have to handcuff her to the vanity in the bathroom, and leave her at my house all day.”

Chapter

Sixteen

Needless to say, supper wasn’t a very cheerful occasion. We were mad at Wyatt, and he was mad at us. That didn’t interfere with my appetite; I had to rebuild my blood supply, you know.

His mood didn’t improve when, as we were leaving after he’d helped his mother clean up the kitchen, she delivered a parting shot by hugging me and then saying, “Take my advice, honey, and don’t sleep with him.”

“Gee, Mother, thanks,” he said sarcastically, which earned him a sniff and a cold shoulder.

“I completely agree with you,” I told her.

“Will you be back tomorrow?” she asked me.

“No,” he sourly replied, even though she hadn’t askedhim.“You’re a bad influence on each other. I’m going to chain her in the bathroom just like I said.”

“I don’t want to go with you,” I said, scowling at him. “I want to stay with her.”

“Tough. You’re going with me, and that’s that.” He clamped a strong hand around my right wrist and, on that note, hauled me out to the car.

It was a silent drive to his house while I ruminated on what this latest show of temper meant. From him, not from us. I knew what was up with us, so there was no point in thinking about it.

I’d scared him. Not just momentarily, as I’d thought at first, the way someone is startled by something unexpected, but all the way to the bone. He’d been stricken with fear.

That was it, plain and simple. He’d seen me shot right in front of him; then the very next day he’d stashed me at what he thought was the safest place in town, his mother’s house, and after a stressful day he’d walked in to find me trying my level best, in his view, to break my neck or at least tear out all my new stitches.

Inmyview, one adult apology deserved another. If he could do it, so could I.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare you, and we shouldn’t have teamed up on you.”

He gave me a brooding glance and didn’t reply. Okay, so he wasn’t as gracious about accepting apologies as I was. I let that slide, because his surliness meant he did care for me, after all; he wasn’t driven just by sexual chemistry and that competitive streak of his. Whether he cared about me enough for us to have something to build on was still up in the air, but at least I wasn’t in this alone.

Just before we reached his house, he muttered, “Don’t ever do that again.”

“What?” I asked in bewilderment. “Scare you, or team up on you? You can’t mean doing a handstand, because you, like, know what I do for a living, right? I practice gymnastics every week. The members of Great Bods see me practicing and they’re reassured that I know what I’m doing. It’s good business.”

“You could kill yourself,” he growled, and with shock I realized that in fact he was, in a very manlike way, seizing on what he saw as the cause of his scare.

“Wyatt, you’re a cop, and you want to lecture me on how dangerousmyjob is?”

“I’m a lieutenant, not a patrol officer. I don’t serve warrants, make traffic stops, or do undercover drug buys. The guys on the street are the ones in danger.”

“You may not do them now, but you did. You weren’t hatched out of the academy as a lieutenant, after all.” I paused. “And if you were still a beat cop and I pitched a fit because of the danger, what would you do?”

He didn’t say anything as he turned into his driveway and pulled into the garage. As the door was coming down behind us, he said grudgingly, “I’d tell you it was my job and I’d do it to the best of my ability. Which has absolutely nothing in common with you doing a handstand in my mother’s kitchen the day after being shot.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “I’m glad you realize it. Just stay focused on what you’re mad at so we don’t get sidetracked into arguments about how I run my business.”

He came around to open the door for me and help me out of the car, then got the bag with my clothes Siana had packed from the backseat, and led the way inside. Then he dropped the bag on the floor, put his arm around my waist, and pulled me to him for a long, hard kiss.

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