He intended to Hugh Heffner his way through the decades.“I’m goin’ to die old and robed while happily bouncin’ some bird on my lap,”he liked to say.
“Hey.” He bumped a knuckle under her chin. “What is it?”
She hated it when he looked at her like that. She worried he’d be able to see inside her most secret self. See the truth of her. The truth she’d managed to keep from him for four long years.
“I just wanted to ask you how you do it.” She clung to the first excuse that came to mind.
“Do what?”
“Keep going after witnessing such—” She couldn’t find the right word.
Horror? Tragedy? Atrocity? None of them came close to describing the scope of the slaughter.
She didn’t need to finish. He knew what she was asking.
“Ya want the depressin’ answer? Or the flippant one?”
“I’ll take the flippant one,” she decided quickly. “I can’t manage any more bad news tonight.”
“When life’s chewed ya up and shit ya out, ya just got to persevere. Like a piece of corn.”
She blinked. Then she blinked again and shook her head. “I miss the time before I ever heard that sparkling bit of wisdom. You couldn’t have come up with a pithy poem aboutjust hanging oninstead?”
His wide grin drew her gaze to his mouth—that wonderful, kissable mouth. And it wasn’t just her gaze that was mutinying. It was her lungs too. When he tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear, she sucked in a soft breath.
“Eliza?” His low, rich voice reached out to her as surely as his hand did. He used his thumb and forefinger to grip her chin and force her eyes to his face. “Do ya want to talk about it? Would it help?”
No. Talking about it wouldn’t help.Thinkingabout it wouldn’t help. What would help wasforgettingabout it. What would help was if he made love to her so passionately and so thoroughly that there was no room for thoughts in her head because her entire focus would be on her body.
“I—” The ring of her cell phone made her jump guiltily.
Saved by the bell.
5
“I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call. I was rushed to the ER and then, as soon as I got home, I jumped in the shower because I was covered in blood.”
Fisher watched Eliza’s fingers instinctively curl around the locket that held her mother’s photograph. He’d noticed she reached for the piece anytime she got nervous—which she did every time she spoke to her father.
Not that he blamed her. Leanord Meadows was as sharp as a tack and as gruff as a grizzly bear hungry from hibernation. It was an intimidating combination.
“No, no.” He watched her press a hand to her forehead. “I don’t want you to fly me to D.C. I’d rather stay here.”
Even through the phone’s small speaker, her father’s voice was low and commanding. Fisher couldn’t make out everything the man said, but he was pretty sure he caught the phrasesafer here with me.
“Safer?” Eliza scrunched up her face and then quickly wiped the expression clean as if the movement hurt.
It probably did. The swelling near her temple would dissipate in a day or two. But the bruise on her cheek?Thatwas going to last for weeks.
He’d learned many things in Delta Force. How to assess an injury was one of them. The bruise she’d sustained from having her face slammed into the ground when Charles McClean dove on top of her was a doozy.
Ol’ Charlie boy hadn’t exactly been a small man. What he’d lacked in height—Fisher would’ve guessed he topped out at about 5’11”—he’d more than made up for with muscle.
That’s what fine food and expensive personal trainers will do for a man,he mused resentfully and then reminded himself of two things. One, there was no longer any reason to be jealous of Charles McClean. And two, instead of disparaging the man’s lifestyle, he should be thanking the guy for saving the only woman Fisher had ever…
What?
Whatwasit Fisher felt for Eliza?
