Page 27 of Red Hunt

Fuck.

I got out of my truck. I would just try the door, see if it was unlocked. It shouldn’t be since the grocery store looked dark and closed.

I took a couple of steps toward the entrance. Let it be locked; let it be locked. Then I could turn around, drive back home, and rejoin Peaches and Goofy. But when I pushed, the door opened without resistance. Not safe. “Hello.”

The store was indeed dark and empty. I turned to the staircase. As soon as I opened the door, I heard some pounding.

I looked up. There she was. Sitting on the stairs, hitting the crap out of the stairs beneath her with her crutch.

“Hey.” I took two steps at a time but stopped short before entering the radius of danger.

She stopped swinging as soon as she realized she had a visitor. But I saw the anger and helplessness in her eyes before she could mask it.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, what the hell are you doing here?”

Wow. She was clearly on the offense. So, I backed down another step. “Just checking in. Shouldn’t you be on your way to the hospital?”

I saw her struggle for control, her flaring nostrils a surefire sign she was angry. At me? Why? Though even if she was indeed angry, it beat seeing her in pain, or fearful, or weak…like yesterday.

Yesterday, I got the impression of a timid, beat-down woman. Today? Not so much. She was in fighting mode, with a fire in her that triggered relief and something else in me. Desire? Since when was an angry woman a turn-on?

“I don’t have to be there until later this afternoon,” she finally said through gritted teeth.

I suppressed my smile. “Then what were you doing on the stairs? Shouldn’t you be on the sofa, taking it easy?”

She pursed her full lips, which turned them into a lovely shade of pink.

God, seriously, could I maybe focus on more important things?

Probably not, because my eyes went from her lips to her perky breasts. Would her nipples be the same shade of pink, or would they be more like the natural nude of her lips?

Fuuuck.

I was on the verge of losing control over my body when my eyes went farther down to her pale and soft-looking thighs, visible with the short shorts she wore.

Okay, seriously. Time to get my head out of the gutter, and a tactical retreat!

“I can take care of myself.”

The venom in her words slid off me like nothing. But at least it got my head back in the game and my eyes back on hers instead of lusting after her body. “Where’s your sister?”

That seemed to piss her off even more. “As I said. I can take care of myself.”

Somehow, she said the words, but her eyes betrayed her. If I had to bet, she was trying to be mean on purpose, to hide her pain…and her bruised ego. Nobody liked to get caught in their weakest moments.

I sat down on the stairs below her. Maybe if I wasn’t looming, she could drop her facade and let me help her. Even though she clearly didn’t want my help, didn’t want me to see her like that. I couldn’t get myself to just leave her.

“What did you want to do downstairs anyhow?”

“Open the shop,” she said, now tired, as if being angry and frustrated had zapped her energy.

Now the vulnerable woman I’d met last night was back. And my protective instinct roared. Damn. “But why?”

She looked down and played with the hem of her shorts. “Because there’s nobody else but me to do it.”

Goddamn.

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