Nemesis (Southern Comfort) (14 page)

God knew she didn’t want to give Declan the wrong idea.

Grabbing the shampoo bottle in a two-handed grip to keep it from slipping, Sadie strode to the bedroom door.  It stood ajar, so she simply slid her foot into the crack and eased it open with her hip.

In the hallway, all was quiet.  She walked to the top of the stairs, listening for the sound of the television or some other noise indicating where the house’s other occupant might be. Only the quiet hum of normal household electrical noises greeted her, and Sadie wondered if Declan had gone back outside
to finish his demolition of the fence.

Only one way to find out.

She moved through the empty downstairs rooms, winding her way back toward the kitchen.  From the bay window, she’d have an unobstructed view of the side yard.

But it wasn’
t by the remains of the fence that she spotted him.  Instead, he was in his mother’s rose garden.  The bushes were mostly dormant, and Declan wielded a pair of pruning shears, trimming them back, pulling off yellowed leaves.  One of the bushes was apparently really industrious, because it still sported a few scraggly blooms.  Declan moved toward it with his shears, but instead of cutting the stem, he gently cupped the flower in his hand and leaned toward it, inhaling.

“Ouch,” Sadie said when the bottle of shampoo slipped from her hands, landing on her toe.  She didn’t think she’d exclaimed that loudly, but Declan’s head whipped around. 
He obviously saw her standing at the window, because his eyes narrowed. 

Sadie waved.
She figured it was the least awkward thing to do under the circumstances.

Then she
bent over, trying to wrangle the suddenly uncooperative shampoo bottle back into her grip, almost landing on her butt when the back door slammed open.

He stood there for a moment, watching her, saying nothing, and when Sadie finally looked up he arched a brow.

“Need some help?”

Butterflies danced in her stomach, at odds with the familiar irritation she felt at his dry tone.

“Gee, how could you tell?”

Nudging her aside, Declan stooped over and snagged the bottle effortlessly in one
gloved hand, which, a couple of days ago, wouldn’t have incited any envy in her at all.

He stared at the label on the bottle.

“You bleach your hair?”

“No, I
highlight
my hair. Color-treating does not mean bleaching.”  She started to snatch the shampoo back from him, but realized that was defeating her purpose.  Evidently Declan had cottoned onto her purpose too, because he looked at her bandaged hands and frowned. 

“You want me to help you
wash your hair?”

Given the way he was staring at her, you’d think she was asking him to donate a kidney.

“Just… never mind,” Sadie said.  Maybe she could put some baggies over her hands or something.  But when she went to grab the bottle, he held it out of her reach.

“Go over to the sink.”

“No, really, that’s –”

“Will you just stop arguing for once?”

Stemming her natural inclination to do exactly that, Sadie walked over to the sink.  Declan disappeared into the spacious laundry room that was off of the kitchen, and when he returned, he was sans gloves but had procured a fluffy white towel.

“Do you need a step stool?” he asked as
he stopped in front of her.

“I’m not
that
short.”

He snorted to indicate his opinion of that, and then turned on the water.  After running his hand under the stream to test the temperature, he curtly instructed her to lean over.

Sadie did, half expecting it to be either icy cold or scalding hot, but the water which streamed down her scalp was the perfect temperature – just a degree or two above lukewarm.  She closed her eyes, marveling at how good it felt.  It was like she hadn’t been able to fully let go of the trauma from last night while the dirt incurred during her struggle still clung to her body. 

Her shoulders sagged with relief.

“Close your eyes.”

“They’re closed.”  The water shut off, and Sadie heard the sound of the bottle cap being flicked open, and that squeaky, gassy sound it always seemed to make when you squeezed some shampoo into your palm.
  

The smell – a subtle lavender scent – drifted out, relaxing her even further.

And then Declan’s hands were in her hair, his long, strong fingers massaging her scalp, taking pleasure to new levels. She felt boneless and yet so alive with sensation that she groaned before she even realized what she was doing.

The fingers stilled.  “Am I hurting you?”

Was he kidding?  If anything, he was making her feel just a little too good.

Sadie shook her head, almost purring when his fingers shifted in her hair, and then realized that probably wasn’t the best way to communicate at the moment.

“No.”  God, no.

He started scrubbing again, and though Sadie was
almost certainly going to be mortified over the fact that she’d basically turned to butter, right now she couldn’t seem to care.  The feel of his hands, the mingled scent of good clean soap and the slightly musky smell of a man.  The warmth of his body close behind her. It was… okay, it was relaxing, sure, but Sadie would be lying if she didn’t admit that it was also incredibly erotic.

Either those drugs were still wreaking havoc with her common sense, or she was legitimately hot for Declan.

“Lean back over,” he said, his tone gruff, and it sent a shiver of delight down to her toes.  He rinsed away the shampoo, his fingers gently separating the locks of her hair, stroking over her neck.  And when he stilled, his breath coming a little heavier than before, Sadie realized she wasn’t the only one affected.

“I, uh, think that’s good,” she finally said, because she was afraid she was on the verge of doing something stupid.

“Right,” Declan said, shutting off the water, and then draping the towel over her shoulders.

Sadie closed her eyes,
feeling a little dizzy.

Then she stood back up, pulling herself together.  But when she turned to tell Declan thank you, he’d already left the room. 

CHAPTER TWELVE

SADIE
was almost unbearably relieved when the security contractors showed up, giving her the excuse she needed to get out of Declan’s house.  Not that he hadn’t been perfectly hospitable over the last couple of days, but being cooped up with him was becoming exhausting.                           

Because much to her chagrin and Declan’s apparent disgust, their sexual tension was so thick
that you could spread it on toast.

What the hell was wrong with her?

Sadie wondered if it was a rebound thing – Declan was about as far from Rick as you could get – or possibly a weird offshoot of Stockholm syndrome, with her attributing heroic traits to her pseudo captor.  Except that Dec actually had been sort of heroic, whipping out that pistol to fend off the bad guys and carting her around. And he’d been… hell she couldn’t believe she was saying this, but he’d been unfailingly considerate of her since then. 

Who would have guessed he had it in him?  She theorized that perhaps her brush with danger had brought out some latent white knight-type tendencies, stirring his Y chromosomes into a territorial, protect-and-defend sort of frenzy, the natural outcome of that being the release of the testosterone which drives men to mate.

Either that or he was just horny.  Who knew what made him tick? 

So it was with gratitude that she greeted the two men who showed up at her grandmother’s
front door.

Until she got a look at their feet.  The sight of their work boots shot a thrill of pure terror through her veins.

“You okay?” the man who’d introduced himself as Doug asked.

“What?  Oh, fine.” She shook her head at her own ridiculousness.  “Come in, won’t you please?”  She stepped aside, gestured them in, where they followed along after
carefully wiping their heels on the doormat.

The chatty one noticed her bandages.  “Looks like you had some kind of accident,” he reckoned, while his partner began shooting assessing glances around the interior.

“Some kind,” she agreed, meeting his sympathetic dark eyes with a half-smile.  “I experienced a home invasion a few nights ago.”

“No kidding?”

“Afraid not.”

“They catch the guy?” Doug asked.

“Guys, plural.  And not yet.”  She hoped the sick gurgle in her stomach wasn’t audible.  “Which is one of the reasons I contacted you.”

“Smart move.”  He nodded
, his easy smile disarming, and Sadie relaxed a little more.  “Why don’t we get started?”

Sadie walked them around the first floor, where the window and door sensors would be installed, Doug making notations on a clipboard as they talked.  But he whistled when his partner opened up the electrical box in the closet under the stairs. 

He scratched behind his ear.  “When was the last
time you had your wiring checked?”

Sadie honestly had no idea. “I take it it’s out of date?”

“Well, what you have here is
called knob and tube wiring, which is pretty common in houses built around the turn of the last century.  Now, this is okay so long as the covering on the wire remains intact and the insulation hasn’t been damaged. A house like this, with all these big trees around, unless you’ve been real careful about pest control, there’s a good chance you’ve had a number of visits from mice or maybe even raccoons, being as you’re so close to the marsh.  Rodents, as I’m sure you know, like to chew.  And unfortunately they’re real fond of chewing things like insulation and wires.” 

Sadie’s heart sank as she recalled the dead rodent carcasses she’d tossed out
.

“So what you’re saying is that I need new wiring.”

“Well.”  He scratched his ear again.  “Your wiring
might
be okay.  It’s tough to say unless we have a look.  But if you’re adding the additional demands of a security system…”

He let his sentence hang, but Sadie didn’t have to be a mind-reader to finish it.
 
“So what’s all this going to cost?”

Doug informed her that they needed to have a look on the second floor and in the attic before they could give her a firm estimate, and she was just about to lead them upstairs when a knock sounded on the door. 

“I better get that,” she told them.  The locksmith that she’d called was due to arrive at any time.  “Why don’t you go on up and have a look around?  Oh, and the trapdoor to access the attic is in the hall.”

They thanked her, heading toward the stairs, and the knock
came again, this time more insistent.

“Alright already,” Sadie muttered as she
crossed the hall. She opened the door to find a veritable party happening on her doorstep.

“Ma’am,” Kathleen said, in a Joe Friday kind of voice that had Sadie’s eyes widening.  “My partner and I spotted this man attempting to pick your lock.  He claims that he’s a locksmith, but in light of
your recent trouble I figured I’d better check his story with you.”

The poor kid – for seriously, he looked
barely old enough to shave – started sputtering in his own defense, hot color staining his cheeks.  Sadie wondered what had possessed Kathleen to scare the bejesus out of the tyke, and gave her friend a questioning look before vouching for his credentials.  He sputtered his way into the hall, where Sadie invited him to get started on the back door lock, while she dealt with the Murphy Menace that continued to plague her existence.

“Did you have to intimidate my locksmith?  Now he’ll probably charge me double for the aggravation.”

“He had it coming,” Kathleen said breezily, pulling her suit jacket back over her holstered weapon.  “He made a rather…
inappropriate
comment before he realized I was a cop.  Then he got a look at Mac and pretty much dropped a load in his A-1 Locksmith coveralls.  You smell something funny later, that’s probably what it is.”

Sadie looked over Kathleen’s shoulder to see Mac leaning against his unmarked car, a veritable billboard of
you don’t want to mess with this
.  That man was damn scary, police detective or no.  No wonder the kid was a jellyfish.  

“Well.”  She looked back at Kathleen. “Thank you so much for bringing me my car.”  For that was the
point of this little visit.  “It saves me from having to take a taxi to the doctor’s.”

“You sure you’re okay to drive with those things?” Kathleen ge
stured to her bandaged hands. 

“They’re a lot more flexible than they were.”  Sadie wiggled her fingers back and forth in demonstration.  “And he’s taking off the bandages today.  The stitches will be in a little longer, but at least I won’t look like a walking personal hygiene product.”

“If you’re sure.”