Page 13 of The Deadbeat Next Door

“Right,” I said, feeling like a complete and total moron. I had never been good in a crisis situation. I moved up to his forehead and wiped away what blood I could, but it seemed mostly dry and I didn’t want to rip away a newly formed scab and cause more bleeding, so I moved slowly, doing my best not to hurt him.

I finally found the small cut, right between his eyes. “This is tiny,” I said. “I can’t believe it caused this much blood.”

“Head wounds bleed a lot.”

I bandaged the small cut and cleaned his face, becoming more aware of his nearness, of the hard planes of his body and his smooth, tanned skin as I worked. Now that I was no longer worried he might be near death, I relaxed a bit and just felt like the worst human being on the planet. I cleaned off the rest of the blood and stepped away to examine his face. He watched me with dark, hooded eyes, his mouth tipped up in a tiny, wicked smile. I took another step away from him and my back hit the wall.

He put a hand to his head and felt the small band-aid I’d put there. “I probably won’t even have a scar,” he said. “Thanks for fixing me up.”

“How do you feel? Still no dizziness? Headache?”

“Nope.” He stood and swayed toward me, his eyes dilating and his face paling. He didn’t look good.

“I think you should stay here tonight,” I said. “I want to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

His smile grew. “I’ll be fine. I don’t feel dizzy at all.”

“You look a bit off. Are you sleepy?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Well, I’d feel better if you stayed here tonight,” I said. “If anything happened to you…Please, just stay. I’ll make dinner and you can watch whatever you want on T.V.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” he said. “How can I refuse?”

“Great. Can you walk on your own or do you need to lean on me?”

He smirked. “I think it’s safer if I walk on my own. Lead the way.”

I walked to the kitchen, looking back over my shoulder every three seconds, and got him seated at the kitchen table. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water? Orange juice?”

“A beer would be good,” he said, amusement lacing his gruff voice.

“I don’t have beer,” I said. “I could run out. What kind do you like?”

He grabbed my hand in his big warm one and electricity spiked through me like I’d been struck by lightning. “I don’t think you should leave me right now,” he said. “Water will be fine.”

“Good.” I pulled my hand from his. “Great.” I filled a glass with water and ice and placed it in front of him. “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t aiming at you when I threw that trowel? I was having a really bad day and I just…I overreacted. Usually, I’m terrible at throwing and hitting my target. If I had been aiming for you, I probably would have missed.”

“Remind me never to play darts with you.”

“You’re taking this awfully well. Shouldn’t you be mad at me?”

His expression softened. “Hard to be mad when I’ve got a beautiful woman taking such good care of me.”

My cheeks heated and I swallowed down the lust that shot through me. I’d almost killed the man and now I was lusting after him? I was insane. “Okay,” I said. “Well, good. Um, what would you like for dinner? I’ve got a wide array of TV dinners or I can make, um, spaghetti, but I don’t have any sauce…” I really had nothing else. I hated to cook and I wasn’t very good at it.

Cody’s smile dropped and something like disgust took over. “If you’re trying to kill me, that would be a good way to do it. You eat like that every day?”

I shrugged. “I eat a lot of dinner salads and sandwiches. I could make you a sandwich…Except I’m out of bread and, well, salad. I usually go shopping on the weekends, but I…I just didn’t get around to it.”

“How about we order a pizza?” he asked. “I’ll pay.”

“I’ll call it in.” I crossed the room and grabbed the wall phone. I dialed the number for the pizza place from memory. I had no intention of letting him pay for pizza after I’d nearly killed him, but I didn’t need to tell him that. I’d just answer the door and pay when it was delivered. I hung up and turned to see Cody smirking at me.

“What?”

“I just haven’t seen a landline phone since I was at Norma Jane’s for tea yesterday.”

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