If You See Her (34 page)

“Maybe we can look around this weekend. There are some apartments and stuff in town,” he said softly, stroking a thumb over her lip. “Although Law’s going to lose it when you mention this to him. Especially with all the crazy stuff going on.”

He reached down and brushed his fingers over the scars on her wrists. “Hell,
I
don’t even like to think about it.”

“And what if we never find who did it?” Hope shook her head. “I can’t live in limbo.”

“No.” He looked back at the house, caught a glimpse of Reilly’s shadow passing in front of a window. “You can’t. And that’s the argument you’ll have to use with him. That … and the fact that you’ll let Ezra help you pick out a security system. Would help if you picked a place in town. All the stuff has happened out here in the rural parts, so if you’re in town, it might help.”

He slid her a look. “What about a dog?”

“A dog?” A cautious look entered her eyes. “What about a dog?”

He chuckled. “We’ll talk more later. I need to get home, and drown myself in work.”

“Okay.” She leaned over and kissed him.

“I need a few days to get caught up. But can I take you out Friday? Maybe you can stay the night and we can look around on Saturday?”

A smile curled her lips. “Yes. I think I’d like that.”

When he finally saw Hope climbing out of the car, Law did
not
rush the front door.

That was his first instinct. But he didn’t let it take over.

Instead, he sat in his chair, glaring at his computer and debating on whether he should take the pain medicine the doctor had prescribed him earlier. The office had worked him in before he’d gone by the Inn to talk to Lena. He hadn’t damaged anything, but he sure as hell felt like something had been damaged. His arm
hurt
.

Of course, focusing on the arm made it easier to
not
think about Hope.

Space.

She needed space.

She needed Remy more than she needed him now.

And while Law was glad she had somebody in her life now, it left him feeling a little hollow inside.

Jealous as hell. Which only pissed him off more.

He listened to the door close, lock. Listened to her footsteps start across the hallway and he braced himself for her to walk right on by. But then she stopped. Slowly, he shifted his gaze to her. She stood there, her hands in her back pockets, her head cocked.

“Hey.”

Leaning back in the chair, he said, “Hey.”

They heard the car engine rev outside as Remy pulled away. Hope glanced toward the front of the house, as though she was tracking the car with her eyes, even though she couldn’t see it.

When she looked back at him, there was a soft, happy little smile on her face. Law had seen a similar smile on Lena’s face a lot lately. Hell. Hope was really falling for Remy.

He was happy for her. He thought. Yeah, he was happy for her. Remy had already more than proved he had feelings for her.

Sourly, he wondered if he’d be giving her away at her wedding in a few months. If he hadn’t totally fucked up their friendship.

“I’ve got a question for you,” Hope blurted out.

Law shifted his gaze back to her and lifted a brow.

“Is it because you’re … ah … attracted to her? Is that why?”

A dull red flush started to creep up his neck. Briefly, he wondered if he could play dumb and get out of this. Hope looked miserably uncomfortable, but there was a steely glint in her eyes and he suspected getting out of it just wasn’t going to happen.

Sighing, he shut his laptop and shifted it over to the table. As he did, he knocked over the bottle of pain medication
and it went rolling off the table, hitting the floor and there, it decided to roll under his chair.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled. Standing up, he pushed the chair back and knelt down, grabbed the bottle. As he stood up, he looked up at Hope, met her eyes.

“I don’t
know
her,” he said flatly. “I can’t much say if I’m attracted or not.”

She just stared at him.

Law fought with the bottle until he managed to get the stupid childproof cap off—one-handed made it very interesting. As he took two of the pills, he grabbed his cold coffee from the table and tossed it back.

The coffee hit his raw stomach and reminded him he hadn’t eaten a damn thing. And he’d just taken a nice handful of codeine. Wonderful. Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck and met Hope’s eyes again. “I don’t know her,” he repeated. “But … well, before she jerked out the gun, there was definitely some part of me that was thinking I wanted to know her.”

He grimaced. “Wanted to know her a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at a woman and felt it hit me that fast. Then …”

“Then she pulls a gun out on us.” Hope looked away. Her narrow shoulders rose and fell on a sigh. “Okay.”

Law stared at her.

“Okay?” he repeated.

She looked back at him. “I’m
not
saying I’m all cool about what happened. But I’m not going to let it stick between us either.” Then she reached up and poked him in the chest, hard, her finger drilling into him. “But don’t do that again.”

“I won’t.” Shaking his head, he said quietly, “I promise.”

“Okay, then.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I’m heading to my room. I want to finish up and get to bed early. I’m going into Lexington tomorrow.”

“Why?”

She glanced down at her clothes, a grimace twisting her face. “Because I’m tired of Remy taking me out and him looking like a thousand bucks and I look like Raggedy Ann’s ugly redheaded stepsister.”

S
HE SPENT NEARLY THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS ON
clothes.

She felt almost giddy over it, too.

It should have seemed like a small thing—buying clothes. Okay, maybe not the
three hundred fricking dollars
part, but the buying clothes. It wasn’t really such a big deal, or it shouldn’t be.

It was, though. Especially for her. Hope hadn’t let herself think about it much—if she had, she might have had a nervous breakdown. But as she left the TJ Maxx in Lexington, she thought about what she’d just done.

Other than the clothes she’d picked up from thrift stores over the past couple of years, and the shopping trip with Lena a month or so earlier, this was the first time she’d ever really done any shopping for herself.

On her own. It shouldn’t be such a big deal. Just like the haircut shouldn’t have been such a big deal.

But when she’d gone shopping while married to Joey, he’d always been there and
nothing
had been bought without his approval. He’d even helped her pick out her wedding dress. The clothes for the honeymoon. He picked out and bought all her damned underclothes.

Everything. Not this time.

She’d done it all by herself and she’d only bought the stuff
she
wanted … and a few things she thought that Remy might like. Jubilant, and in the mood for a celebration, after she stashed her clothes in the car, she treated herself to some ice cream before starting the drive home.

She was tempted to stay out longer, just to enjoy the feel of it … 
without being afraid
. But if she was gone too long, Law would start calling, and even though she was still disgruntled with him, she didn’t want to worry him.

With that mind of his, it didn’t take much for him to start getting paranoid.

Even as that thought was circling through her mind, she glanced in her rearview mirror and caught sight of a light blue sedan, a few cars back.

Frowned. Because she’d seen one just like it on the drive in.

Light blue sedan.

She couldn’t make out anybody through the windshield, at least not without wrecking. Focusing back on the road, she waited a minute and then looked again.

There it was. She crossed a few lanes of traffic. It crossed with her, hanging back, but staying there. Almost like the driver
wanted
to be seen …

“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself.

It looked like … well, probably a million blue sedans in the world. But the sight of it sent a chill down her spine. Convulsively, her hand tightened around the ice cream cone and it crunched in her hand. Swearing, she dumped it in the open cup that held the dregs of her coffee. Then she shot her rearview mirror another glance.

Still there. Farther back.

But still there.

Her heart started to race and the euphoria she’d been feeling only moments earlier started to die.

Now it tasted like ashes on her tongue. Was the driver following her?

Or was it just all in her head?

And that was
not
a question somebody who had often doubted her sanity really wanted to ask … not at all.

Joe smiled as he trailed after Hope.

She’d made him—knew he was following her.

Oh, other than that one lane change she’d made, she hadn’t shown much of a reaction, but his gut said she’d made him, and he believed in listening to his gut. He was tempted to close the distance between them. Tempted to drive alongside her, maybe even smile at her, wave.

See how she reacted.

But he didn’t. When he let her see him, it was going to be when they had plenty of time alone. Not on a damn freeway.

Torn between disgust and amusement, he watched as Joe Carson hung on to his ex-wife’s bumper. He suspected Hope had seen him—probably didn’t know
who
was following her. But she knew somebody was. And the cop thought he was so damn smart.

Although, he had to admit, he did understand the appeal of the chase.

The chase, after all, was what led to his current mess … and his predicament.

He burned, ached for another chase. Needed it, hungered for it.

But he was going to have to hold off. Had to wait until there wasn’t so much interest, so much focus. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t have a distraction.

Watching this fool chasing after Hope was actually very,
very
amusing.

It was Saturday.

In just over three hours, she was meeting Remy in town and they were looking at an apartment. The plans to spend the night at his place had fallen through—he’d been stuck dealing with things in his office for a lot later than he’d planned. But that was fine.

She’d spend tonight at his place instead. Even thinking about it made her smile.

But first, the apartment. It was in her price range—
just
—and she could just drive out to Law’s for work. He wasn’t going to like it, she suspected, but hey … he hadn’t expected her to stay forever, right?

This was only supposed to be temporary. A fact she had to remind him of, repeatedly, the moment she told him her plans.

“You’re
what
?” he demanded some thirty minutes later.

“Looking at an apartment,” she repeated calmly. “This wasn’t ever supposed to be long term, and you know it.”

“Long term? Hell, it’s barely been a couple of months.” He looked dazed. Then he shook his head. “But … no. Look, Hope, I know we’ve got some problems here, but there’s no reason to go leaving—”

She clapped her hand over his mouth. “Stop,” she said flatly. “It’s not about … that. It’s about me. I need my own place, Law. I’m strangling here. And I need to prove to myself I can do this. That I can have a place, on my own, and not feel so terrified that I need to bolt. This is for
me
, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you. At all. It’s for me.”

“How much of it has to do with Remy?” he asked sourly. His hazel eyes darkened as he studied her face.

And she noticed that he looked tired. Very tired.

“Not much,” she replied. “It’s about me, for me. It’s
not about him. Or you. Or even Joe. Can you try to understand that?”

Law blew out a harsh sigh. Then he caught her hand, twined their fingers. “We went all this time and never had any trouble, you know. I never once hurt you. Why all of a sudden are we doing this?”

“Growing pains?” she offered with a smile. Maybe part of the problem was the fact they’d never once had any major bumps in their friendship—not between
them
. There had been external factors … like Joe. But nothing between them, not until recently. Maybe that was why she still had that faint resentment and for both of their sakes, she needed to let it go.

Pushing it aside, she eased close, wrapped an arm around his waist. His lean, rangy body felt harder, leaner. He hadn’t been eating well or sleeping well lately and she wondered how much of that had to do with her. “Law, you’ve got to stop worrying about me so much. I’m going to be fine, I promise.”

“You better be,” he muttered, his voice gruff. He wrapped his good arm around her and squeezed. “Otherwise, I’ll be pissed off.”

That went okay, all in all
, she decided as she pulled away from Law’s house.

She was heading into town an hour early, but she couldn’t just hang around Law’s now. She felt too edgy. Restless.

She’d just walk around the square some, maybe hit the bookstore. She could use a book or two. Actually, that would be nice … she hadn’t done much reading lately, and then she could go by the café—