Fully Engaged

More of that pride.

She scanned quickly for one of those industrial-looking uncomfy sofas they always had everywhere in places like this, and sure enough there was one right behind her. She plunked down to sit and hoped Rick would cut himself some slack and do the same.

“I was in town, heard through the grapevine that you were here and thought I would stop in to say hi for old time’s sake.” She lifted the aqua-and-white Tupperware container full of chocolate chip M&M’s cookies, raising it at just the right level where he would have to come to the sofa if he wanted a chance at a cookie. She hadn’t met a male yet who could say no to cookies. “Hospital food usually sucks, so I figured you might like this.”

Actually, she didn’t recall much about the hospital food since she hadn’t been able to keep anything down during chemo. But every man she’d met worshipped food, so she’d figured cookies would be a decent icebreaker.

Rick shuffled with studied practice—holy guacamole, this guy had pride by the buckets—until he dropped down beside her. Sweat dotted his upper lip but somehow he managed not to sigh when he sat.

“Thanks, you’re right.” He took the cookies, brow furrowing. “This is still…uh…unexpected.”

“I imagine so.” She knotted her fingers in her lap, wishing she had that container back so her hands wouldn’t feel so empty.

“I should let you get back to work.” He nodded to her flight suit.

“I’m done for the day.” She didn’t want to reference her own swing by the hospital to gather old lingering paperwork and say farewells to some remaining staff members. “What about you?”

“Me, too, but then I’m stuck here. Don’t you need to head home?”

“Nope.”

“No boyfriend or husband to call?”

“God, no.” Her eyes fell to his ring finger. Still bare. Her stomach did that little flip again. “Do you really think I would bring cookies to a guy if I had a boyfriend or, heaven forbid, a husband?”

“Why ‘heaven forbid’?”

Her ex shouldn’t still have the power to hurt her. She didn’t love the bastard anymore. But still, his defection when she’d needed him most cut deeper than any surgeon’s knife. “Been there, done that, got the scars and divorce papers to show for it.”

“Ah—” he popped open the container of cookies “—so you’re a card-carrying member of the Marriage Sucks Club, too, huh?” He shoved a cookie in his mouth and offered her one, as well.

“You could say that.” She selected a cookie and weighed her words and finally asked the question that had been nibbling at the edges of her mind the same way she nipped around the cookie. “Want to tell me what happened with the legs?”

He swallowed his treat. “Hurricane Katrina cleanup was hazardous.”

The simple words painted a vivid picture. “I’m sorry.”

Nola could also tell from his stony face the subject was closed. She understood the reticence well and had to respect the boundaries.

She should probably pack up and go—cookies delivered. Mission accomplished. Page turned and book closed. Except… She couldn’t make herself get up off the uncomfy sofa.

“When do you get sprung from this place?”

“Soon.”

“You’re such a crummy liar.”

He shrugged. “I really am out soon. I just have to hire a babysitter and then they’ll cut me loose.”

“I take it from your tone you don’t think you need one.”

“Don’t want one.”

Awkward silence settled, kind of like that first meeting, but they’d already exhausted the wrong-first-date topics. She reached for her purse beside her. “I should go and let you get a shower or something.”

Shower? Sooo not a memory from the past she needed right now with him all sweaty and hot beside her, with her going on five years of abstinence, with his touch the last she’d felt. She clenched her fists to keep her hand from protectively covering her scarred breast. Yes, she’d had reconstruction, but she wasn’t the same by any stretch.

Stop. She wasn’t going there today. Except how could she not?

Ah hell, this was gonna be a long night with more than likely a few tears. She was human and closing this book was hard.

Rick grabbed for his crutches at the end of the bars and nodded for the sergeant to pick up the cookies. “I’ll walk with you to the door.”

She started to tell him no need to bother but then thought of that prickly male ego and opted to keep her yap closed. Let him do what he pleased. She stayed silent while he worked his way to his feet, shuffling to reach for crutches in what must have been a painful maneuver, yet he never even winced.

He nodded toward the hallway and began thumping his way down the hall alongside her. The awkward silence grew heavier with each step down the hall closer to the door. The crisp November air outside along with the bright sun did nothing to lighten the moment.

“Thanks for the cookies.”

He cocked his head to the side, quizzical. Not rude enough to glance back at the rehab clinic, but she could sense his itchiness for her to leave.

What had she expected? A resurrection of the relationship? The attraction was still there, but Rick’s walls were high. More of that pride. He undoubtedly just wanted to get her in her car and return to his room without falling on his face. The longer she waited, the harder she made things for him.

She needed to quit being selfish. “I know it seems strange, my showing up like this out of the blue. I probably should have called first.”

She’d most definitely been selfish, because she’d feared if she’d called first he might have rejected the notion of her coming. God, she didn’t like what that said about her. Asserting her needs above the needs or wants of others.

Damn.

He stared at her for a whole cycle on the red light before shaking his head. “I gave up trying to understand women a long time ago. You did a nice thing coming here today for whatever reason. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”

She could see the strain of standing so long etched on his face, the color seeping away. Yet somehow that took nothing away from his strength, instead only adding to it because of the sheer will it must take to keep his feet under him. She understood well the grit it took to haul yourself through that kind of pain.

Whoa. Hold on. This was getting way too deep.

She backed toward her SUV, fishing in her purse for her keys so she could thumb the remote starter and warm the car. Texas in November wasn’t as cold as some of the Northern climates where she’d been stationed, but there was a definite chill in the air. Besides, she always started her car first to get the temperature right.

The weather matched her mood. This hadn’t gone at all as she’d expected. She should be happy. Instead she felt chilled.

Hollow.

Nola smiled her farewell to a man she knew she would never forget.

“Goodbye, Rick.” Her fingers closed around the keys. She thumbed the remote starter—

And the world blasted into a fireball of heat as her car exploded.

Chapter 2

Blast still ringing in his ears, Rick dropped his crutches and flung his body on top of Nola’s. Thank heaven his professional instincts hadn’t abandoned him in the rubble of Hurricane Katrina or that flying shard of fender would have caught Nola square on the temple.

He’d lived through his fair share of explosions overseas, but he’d never expected to face one on American soil. What the hell had just happened with Nola’s car?

The crackle of flames echoed in his ears, the stench of burning fuel stinging his nose. He stayed on top of Nola while he scanned the parking lot.

No sign of anyone suspicious. Just people with concerned and shocked faces pouring from around the medical park, others running or flattened to the concrete watching. A couple of persons had cell phones in hand, dialing. Good. Cops should be on the way soon.

“Nola?” he asked against her ear, working like hell not to think about how much better her hair smelled after months in a hospital. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. Squished, but okay,” she gasped. “What about you?”

“Fine,” he lied, his left knee already aching like a sonuvabitch.

Nola elbowed him gently in the gut. “Rick? Let me up, please.”

“Right.” He rolled to the side while still keeping an arm hooked around her waist to anchor her to the ground so she wouldn’t do something reckless like spring to her feet. She might be a trained combat vet, but he didn’t have any time in the field with her to know anything about her skills. “Sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize. Good God, you saved my butt from flying debris.” She kept her position, breaths steady as she grappled for her keys a few inches away. “I’m not some prickly ingrate. I just got a little smooshed. You’re a big fella.”

Not so much as he used to be, but hey, he hated the self-pity gig. No use dwelling on that. Since there didn’t seem to be any further immediate threat, time to haul his sorry hide the rest of the way up.

He shifted. His knee hollered back at him.

Damn.

How was he going to get to his feet and keep her safely at his side until the cops arrived? He searched around him for options to brace himself… If he rolled right, he could grab a bench for leverage, pull himself up and sit. From there, he could retrieve a crutch and stand.

Easy. In theory.

Nola reached for her purse from under a park bench and jammed her keys inside. “Do you need help?”

Like hell. “No. I’ve got it.”

“Prideful guy, aren’t you?”

“When I fall on my ass you can help me.” He reached for the bench and kept his eyes open for surprise threats in spite of the seeming calm after the storm. Screw worrying about himself. Her safety had to be his first priority. “Until then, I’ve got it. How about that?”

“Fair enough, big guy.”

Deep breath. Thirteen teeth-gritting seconds later—yeah, he counted every one to keep his mind on something other than the grinding pain—he was on his feet again scanning the perimeter. And he damn well waved away the attendant coming toward him with a wheelchair. The smart young goon knew to back off and help somebody else who’d apparently twisted an ankle in the mayhem.

Meanwhile, Rick kept the lone crutch jammed under his arm, enough to hold his balance since the majority of the damage was to his left leg. In some portion of his brain, he heard the rustle behind him of Nola pushing to her feet, too. Good. That meant he truly hadn’t hurt her when he’d shoved her to the concrete.

Keeping the crutch tucked securely, he grabbed her wrist and urged her to the safety of the portico of the rehab center, into the anonymity of a cluster of nurses and orderlies in purple scrubs. That should serve as a decent safety net of anonymity for now in case someone was gunning for her and waiting around. Watching.

He continued to scan. Adrenaline surged. Damn, he’d forgotten the rush that compelled his body beyond normal endurance, but he welcomed it now.

Still, what kind of guardian did he make? Well, at least he was one more barrier between her and whoever was trying to blow her up. He had his brain and instincts.

And that brain and those instincts were telling him whatever threat there was to her had passed for the moment.

“Ohmigod, Rick!”

Her voice stalled him.

“What happened to your back?”

Hell. Now that she mentioned it… His back did sting almost as much as his knee.

Her hands skimmed over his shoulder blades. “Something hit you. It looks like you’ll need stitches.”

The glide of her touch almost made him forget the pain.

“Am I going to bleed to death until I get to the doc?”

She moved to his side, the loose blond curls of her bangs brushing along the top ridges of her furrowed brow. “I don’t think so.”

“Then it can wait.” He exhaled long and slow, his fingers itching to thread through that cap of whispery curls all around her face and pull her to his chest where nobody could hurt her. Except his chest wasn’t as invincible as he’d once thought. “Any chance your car was a rental?”

She shook her head, curls dancing. “I wish, but no. That was my car. My totally brand-new, just-off-the-lot SUV I’d bought because of my to-do list.”

To-do list? Whatever. Irrelevant really. And along the lines of irrelevant thoughts, he could have sworn her hair was straight before. But then women changed their hair. His ex-wife kept her hair permed on a regular basis. God, his mind was racing a million miles a minute.

“Damn. Sorry about the car being new.” He scratched his neck and resisted the urge to reach over to his throbbing back. “That sucks for you.”

Sirens whined in the background. The cops undoubtedly, a fire truck, too. With some luck they would have an easy answer, not to mention protection.

“Let’s just hope there’s some mobster who has a car that looks just like yours, who was supposed to be here today visiting his old infirm relative.”

Her nervous laugh didn’t reassure him in the least. She had a fatalistic look to her that said she accepted she was the target.

More of that adrenaline pumped, reminding him of missions past, the calling that had urged him to join the Air Force. Everything he’d been and done scrolled through his mind, nudging him, whispering at him to reclaim it all. He heard the cops’ siren drone closer and yet he couldn’t force himself to relinquish his post guarding her. There was no shaking the inevitable.

Uniformed or not, he was back on duty.

Apparently she had a new watchdog after all.

Rick hadn’t left her side except when the cops insisted on a solo interview. They’d acted as if they suspected him of being a stalker boyfriend or something worse.

His growl hadn’t done much to further his innocence.

She rolled her eyes. Men. She stopped by their uncomfy sofa—or at least that’s what she’d started to think of it as from their earlier chitchat in the rehab room. Given that most of the physical therapists had headed off for supper, the place was for the most part deserted except for the occasional health-care professional bustling by, past and away.

She was on her own to get her head together before she said goodbye to Rick once and for all, a more emotional event than she’d expected, what with them almost getting blown up. He could have so easily been injured worse if he’d been standing closer to her car. She could have died if she hadn’t bothered to warm up her car with the remote starter.

Her knees folded and she flopped to sit on the couch, her black leather boots thudding on the tile floor.

“Are you okay?” He joined her, the cops having stopped keeping them apart.

“I was just thinking how lucky we both are. What if I’d waited to start the car from inside and you’d been standing beside? God. We both could have died.” She swallowed hard.

“Two warriors taken down by a car bomb.” He shook his head. “Quite an ignominious end.”

“No kidding. Is your back okay?”

He shrugged his shoulders, only wincing a hint as the Air Force PT T-shirt tugged at the blood on his back. “Doc put butterfly bandages on while you were interviewed by the cops.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t hurt worse because of me.” She hated to think about causing him more pain.

“You’re certain this was meant for you?”

She might as well be up-front with him. She was surprised he hadn’t found out during the interview with the police.

Nola slid her purse from her shoulder, unzipped the leather bag and withdrew a manila envelope. She plopped the envelope onto his lap.

“What’s that?”

“Go ahead and open it.”

Without answering, he pried apart the metal prongs and poured out a dozen or so sheaves of paper, all black-and-white copies of notes comprised of words clipped from magazines.

“The originals are with the police back in Charleston, South Carolina, where I’m stationed, but I keep these with me at all times in case another comes when I’m on the road so I can show local cops.”

She watched while he thumbed through the stack of her stalker’s notes about how he was watching her. How he’d seen what she chose at the mall. When he’d noticed the specific date she’d come home from a flight.

An outfit of hers he liked most.

The low hum of life in the hall continued while he read. A cart rattled by. A television squawked and talked and blared laughter. Conversation echoed from the chow hall.

All the while Rick’s jaw grew tighter with each Xerox copy before he finally replaced the stack into the envelope. “The explosion’s not coincidental.”

“I don’t think so.” She’d kept the notes because the police instructed her to do so, but she hadn’t taken the whole thing too seriously until now. She’d been so certain her training would be enough to protect herself against anything anyone could bring her way.

She hadn’t factored in car bombs.

“Jesus, lady. How can you sit there so calmly?”

He thought she was calm? Hah.

She pulled a tight smile. “Trust me, my heart’s racing like a newbie pilot during a check ride.”

“Have you had other accidents like this?”

“This was the first, actually. Before now, I’ve only gotten letters. I lead a simple life. Work and more work.” Of course he was curious, but she’d answered these questions so many times she wanted to bang her head against a wall. “Believe me, the police and I have both been over and over this. We have no idea.”

“What about an ex?”

Was he asking about a boyfriend? “There’s none in the picture, and certainly none of the psycho type.”

“What about your ex-husband?”

More questions about her love life? She certainly didn’t have any romance going on now or anytime recently, and she didn’t dare wrap her brain around the notion Rick might be interested in jump-starting their short-lived affair. “Peter Grant and I haven’t been together in over five years. I even went back to my maiden name the minute we separated.”

Which brought to mind the fact that she and Rick had been together just after her marriage breakup, a timing he apparently noticed, as well. The remembered weekend tingled through her mind, as real as if it had happened yesterday as she stared into his eyes, seeing herself and want reflected.

He blinked slowly, without looking away. “Who else could it be then? Stats show a stalker is usually someone you know.”

She shook her head to break the contact more than to negate his statement. “This has to be some bizarre coincidence, a threat meant for somebody else, like your mobster theory. I’m not even home, for heaven’s sake. And the letters… I can’t even hazard a guess. It has to be some freak, one of those strange people you walk past who decides there’s some cosmic connection and reads signs where there are none.”

“Whatever his reason, there’s a huge leap from letter writing to blowing up your car.”

His face went hard, protective, a visage she recognized well from working with these guys on a daily basis. He was in defender mode, and all she could think was that Rick had been injured because of her.

She reached to touch his shoulder gingerly. “I’m sorry about your back.”

He went stock-still. “It’s barely a ding. I’m fine.”

“Still, is it okay if I say you’ve got enough on your plate medically?”

“Not really.” He growled. Then gave her a begrudging smile. “But then I guess because of that full plate I barely notice this. Now can we drop the subject of the scratches on my back?”

Her mind winged back to other scratches on his back, ones left by her fingernails, the intensity of their sex wringing responses from her she’d never felt before or after.

Actually, she had no encounters after her surgery at all to go by. Showing her scarred body to a man had been a more difficult hurdle to overcome than she’d expected. She’d found it easier simply to focus on work. There was plenty of work to go around these days with conflicts all over the world.

One day blended into the next until suddenly here she was, five years later after her encounter at the bar with Rick and her mastectomy. Ready to face the rest of her life but suddenly having her foundation blown to bits again—literally.

Rick rubbed along his jaw. “You mentioned telling the police about the letters…” he continued like a dog with a bone.

“Of course. I told the cops at home about the third letter. These are copies.”

He stared at her and she stared back, sinking into the moment the way she’d done five years ago during their “say all the wrong things” fun moment and before she knew it her mouth was moving. “I want you to feel free to say no because this could really be dangerous. But I was thinking it might be in my best interest to have a man living under my roof right now.”

The minute the words fell out of her mouth she almost looked over her shoulder to see who’d said them. But yep. She’d been the one to voice the outrageous offer. She had most definitely said the wrong first date thing.

She desperately wanted to call the words back. Some maniac was trying to blow her up and now she’d done more to lure a watchdog of a man into her life? Rick had already been one foot on his way toward following her home. Now she would never shake him loose. She didn’t need or want this. She’d meant to say goodbye.

Right?

God. How convenient that there were four pretty walls nearby for her to bang her hard head against. The stalker must have been scaring her more than she’d been willing to admit.

“So, Rick? What do you think about my idea?” Maybe he would say no.

And maybe pigs would fly out of her ears.

He scratched along the back of his neck. “How about run it by me again, because I think my hearing’s gone bad.”

“Never mind. Forget about it.”

“Let me see if I follow. It goes something like this. After over a year in a hospital, I need a babysitter who won’t drive me crazy. You’re an independent soul, and I know you can kick any stalker’s butt. But having a man around can give off a first line of defense.”

Might as well go with it. “Kind of like having a dog with a loud bark.”

He picked at the rubber on the top of his crutch. “I’m not sure whether you’re complimenting or insulting me.”

“I’m not calling you a Chihuahua if that helps.” She grinned for the first time since she’d blurted the impulsive offer. “My garage has been converted into a studio apartment so you would have plenty of privacy. It’s a first floor, no stairs to worry about.”

Ooops. She could see his back getting up about her mentioning his injuries. Men could so miss the big picture. But then who was she to talk? She couldn’t bring herself to be with a man because she was wrapped up in her own self-image.

Time to help the man out. He’d obviously been through hell and she understood the bite of those flames well.

“People profile, and you’re a really big guy.” Ego stroke time. “A police dog?”

“You’re good at the suck-up game.” He surprised her with a half smile.

A really surprisingly cute half smile on that rugged big mug of his. She had trouble remembering what she planned to say and that was so not good.

So she grinned right back. She could do this. She was good at putting distance between herself and men, after all, she worked in an almost exclusively male environment. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not insinuating that we pick up where we left off five years ago.”

His smile went wider than hers. “You mean the point where I woke up in a bed by myself with a letter that said, ‘Thanks for a great weekend. Have a nice life.’”

Her smile faded, contrition biting. “The letter wasn’t that…uh…”

“Callous?”

“Curt.”

“However you want to remember it.” He passed the envelope of stalker notes back to her.

“I’m very sorry if I was rude. That was an amazing weekend during a difficult time for me.” She gathered up the envelope to her chest and made a stab at backing out of this setup after all. “It was a silly idea that we should move in together. I shouldn’t have asked you to put yourself in danger. Forget I said anything. I’m just…I don’t know. Shaken up, I guess.”