“Uh…yeah. God, Mark, what are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer, and she already recognized the state he was in. It was the same version of him that had answered the door naked, and it wasn’t that he was half asleep. Crouched as he was, he looked like a wild animal. His clothing was plastered to his skin, and his hair was slicked straight down. As if he’d been siting just like that all night long, through the rain until the morning dried everything on his body. Without him moving an inch.
His nose twitched again, and she was grateful she’d made a full pot.
“I’ll get the coffee.” She started to move back to the kitchen but stopped long enough to look again at him. Whispers of the night’s eroticism filled her mind, showing her exactly what she’d dreamed about. A man who was more animal than human. More elemental than reason. More thrilling in his raw power than anything in the civilized world. She cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable with the lust pounding through her blood. “You’re freaking me out, you know,” she said. It wasn’t true. She was freaking herself out, but she couldn’t admit that to either of them just yet.
He didn’t respond, so she went for the coffee. Two mugs, poured and sweetened with shaking hands, and then she carried them carefully outside. Except when she stepped back onto the porch, he wasn’t there.
“Mark?”
She looked frantically around, disappointment blooming inside her belly. What the hell? Had she dreamed him? Was she going insane?
She moved to the porch railing, setting the extra mug down. Then she sipped her own drink, letting the heat burn her tongue and hopefully wake her brain cells. A sip. Another. Five more before she decided she’d gone insane.
Then he appeared on her opposite side, stepping up onto the porch in near silence. She didn’t see him until he reached for the mug on the railing.
She squeaked in alarm and jumped back. And when her heart steadied to twice its normal rate, she blinked hard and stared. Yup. He was still there and still looked like rumpled man in a handsome bad-boy kind of way. Even his morning beard looked sexy, and the lust-crazed part of her brain wondered where on her body she’d like to feel a beard burn.
“I thought I’d imagined you,” she said. She’d certainly dreamed about him.
His gaze never left her even as he drank his coffee. He was gulping it down, and she wondered if he’d just burned his throat.
“What are you doing here?” she asked again.
He pulled the mug away enough to speak. “Perimeter check.” His voice had that gravelly texture to it that hit her happy button on a visceral level. He should do morning radio.
She blinked. Of course. That’s where he’d been when she went to get coffee. “And it was quiet all night, wasn’t it?”
He shook his head.
It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. It hadn’t been quiet? But she hadn’t heard a thing. She hadn’t even known he was there. Her gaze strayed to the woods around her. What sort of evil creature had been out there? And was he just making it up to freak her out?
“I scared it away,” he said.
“I didn’t hear a thing.”
“I smelled it. Before it made the property line.” He looked out at the woods and growled. Yes, an honest-to-goodness growl. “It’s fast. Couldn’t catch it.”
Well, he was clearly pissed about that. Affront to his manhood and all that, which actually made her smile. This whole thing was bizarre, and she had no idea if this was all in his head or not. But either way, he believed it. He’d stayed out here in the rain all night long just to protect her. She had to be grateful for that. Not to mention being filled with all sorts of inappropriate feelings about being cherished.
But that was crazy talk. It had to be. Mark was the definition of flaky: über-Neanderthal one moment, über-rational the next. It was all part of his here again, gone again pattern, and she wasn’t getting sucked in. But she also couldn’t leave him sitting out here.
“Come inside, Mark. It’s cold out here.” It might be the height of summer, but early morning after a rainstorm could be downright chilly.
His gaze traveled out to the woods, clearly worried.
“What’s the plan, Mark? You going to sit here day and night protecting me? Don’t you think you’ll collapse or something?”
“You’re leaving today.” He spoke the words in his clipped way, but she thought she heard a plaintive note underneath. As if he didn’t want her to leave, but couldn’t express it normally. Lord, when he was in this state, it was like dissecting the words of a toddler.
“Come inside,” she said firmly. “I need to call the hospital about my dad. You need to warm up. Why don’t you call Carl?”
Mark’s eyes widened at her words, then he looked up at the sky. “It’s morning now. Carl will be awake.” He rubbed a hand over his face as he inhaled deeply. “Caffeine’s kicking in.”
She nodded. “Do you want me to call Carl for you?”
“No.” He straightened and pulled out his phone. “I’ll text him. You call the hospital.”
