Page 76 of Jack of Hearts
“What?” He didn’t like that guilty look in his brother’s eyes.
“She was at the hospital. Sat by your bedside, holding your hand, and talked to you until her voice was hoarse.”
“The hell, Nate? You didn’t think that was something you should tell me? Why wasn’t she there when I came to?”
“She asked us not to tell you, and after what she’d gone through, she had the right to ask almost anything of us.”
If that was what she’d wanted, he had to respect that, but it changed everything.
“Where you going?”
He glanced over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “To climb a fire escape.”
He’d tapped his signal twice now on her window, and she either wasn’t in her room or she was out. Was she on a date? That didn’t bear considering. A third possibility was that she was ignoring him. So be it. He’d come back the next night, and the next one, and the next one until she opened her damn window.
Although he could walk into her bookshop during the daylight hours and see her, he didn’t want to. This was how they’d started—with her opening her window to him, inviting him in. That was how he wanted it to be again.
He was halfway down the stairs when he heard the creak of her window opening, and he stilled.
“Alex.”
That soft, sleepy voice saying his name flowed through him, bringing a sigh to his lips. He walked back up to the landing. “Hello, Mad.” Her hair was a messy riot of curls around her face and down her back. He wanted to smile, wanted to tell her how sexy she looked, sitting there in her window, wearing a white tank top and red boxer underwear, her long legs sleek and pale in the moonlight. Her eyes were wary, though, so he didn’t tell her any of that.
“Why are you here?”
Because he was miserable without her, but he didn’t tell her that either. She put her hand on her knee, and the silver bracelet slid a few inches down her arm, catching his attention. His racing heart eased a little. If she hated him, she wouldn’t be wearing it.
“You’re beautiful, Madison,” he said, the speech he’d prepared forgotten.
Her gaze shifted away, looking back into her dark room, as if she were considering a retreat. He was screwing this up. Desperation drove him, words he hadn’t meant to say yet pouring out of his mouth.
“Dammit, I’m in love with you. The things I said—”
“Were for my own good?”
He let out a relieved breath. She understood. “Yes.”
“Men are so stupid.”
He couldn’t argue with that. She gave a snort that sounded uncomfortably sarcastic, slid out of the window seat, and slammed the window down. Okay, so she hadn’t understood. He stared at the pane of glass separating them, and thought about forcing his way in and making her listen, but then he’d only prove to her just how stupid men really were.
“This isn’t over, Madison,” he said before heading down the stairs.
The next night, he was back, and she didn’t take as long to open the window, which he took as a good sign. That, and she was still wearing the bracelet. The sexy little shorts and top were gone, replaced with sweatpants and a loose T-shirt, which was too bad. But she was still gorgeous, even when she was trying not to be.
This time, he was ready with what he wanted to say. “Give me five minutes, Madison. Then you can tell me to go to hell if you want, and I swear I’ll leave you alone.”
“Why not? I have nothing better to do tonight.”
Ouch. He leaned back, bracing his hands on the railing, and curled his fingers around the metal. He’d thought he had exactly what he wanted to say mapped out, but he was about to bare his soul, and what if she stomped on it?
“Four minutes, Alex.”
“Right, better get to it.” He took a deep breath. “The last night we made love, it rocked my world ... what I felt for you. And then you told me you loved me.” How could he make her understand how much that had meant to him?
“That sucker punched me, Mad. I watched you sleep for hours, and all I could think was, she doesn’t know me. How can she love me if she doesn’t know me? That’s what I thought.”
He pushed away from the railing, moving to the edge of the window, and leaned his shoulder against the frame. “I’m an FBI agent, and you didn’t know that. I got it in my head that we needed to start over, that if we had any chance of a future together, it could only happen if you knew the real me.”
