The Harder They Fall (16 page)

She wanted to cry, laugh, scream. “You know what’s the matter. You’re going to sell, after you said you wouldn’t.”

“I never told you I wouldn’t.”

“You moved in here,” she pointed out. “I thought that meant—that you wouldn’t—Oh, hell,” she said softly, pushing her hair from her face. “I’m sorry. I...” She looked wildly about her, in desperate need of an escape. Her bike, lying against the side of the house, seemed the perfect getaway vehicle. “I’ve got to go.”

Without a thought for the jersey suit and heels she was wearing, she yanked the bike away from the house and got on.

“Trisha, wait.”

The fitted military jacket didn’t pose a problem, nor did the short, snug skirt. But her open-toed shoes gave her a rough moment when they got caught on the pedals. In less than two minutes, however, the house—and Hunter’s anxious, angry voice—had faded from view.

Moving wouldn’t be so bad, she reassured herself as she hit her stride, peddling along the quiet streets of South Pasadena. After all, she should be used to it.

And maybe, just maybe, if she got real lucky, the new owners of the duplex would want a tenant.

Hunter Adams would be just a bad, distant memory.

Right.

Hunter stood there for exactly half a second, rooted in shock at Trisha’s abrupt departure, before he jerked his keys out of his pocket and ran to his car.

He had absolutely not a clue as to what exactly he’d just witnessed, but he’d bet his last dollar it had been a panic attack. “Crazy woman is in no condition to be riding a bike,” he muttered, quickly unlocking the car with the intention of following her.

“Excuse me....” a female voice called from the street. “Wasn’t that Trisha going off on that bike?”

Hunter paused as a woman with bright red hair laced with a white streak shut the door of her car and hastened up the walk. He recognized her immediately from the day he’d visited Trisha’s shop. It’d been the day they’d shared that first volcanic kiss.

“Hello, again,” she said, waving as she came closer, the silver jewelry jangling in and on various body parts.

Hunter was positive that the last time he’d seen this woman, her hair had been jet-black. “Yes, that was Trisha,” he said hurriedly, still wanting to go after her, though he knew she wouldn’t welcome the intrusion.

“She looked upset.”

Hunter didn’t answer, but shut his car door with a sigh. Trisha had enough of a head start now that she could avoid him forever if she wanted to. He’d have to wait her out, and hope she didn’t get herself killed while she rode off her demons.

Celia was staring at him, and for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, he felt like squirming.

“What happened?” she asked, putting her hands on the hips of the shiny black cat suit she wore.

He wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but the torment he’d seen in Trisha’s eyes haunted him. “I told her I might sell.”

Celia’s gaze turned from pleasant to deadly solemn in less than a heartbeat. “I see.” Without a word, she headed back to her car.

“Wait!” he called. “Please, wait.”

“I’m going after her,” Celia said, not stopping. “I’ve got to find her.”

“
Please
,” he said again.

She stopped but didn’t turn around. “She’s got to be terribly upset.”

“She’s more than just upset,” he said, feeling helpless. “I think she had some sort of panic attack.”

As Celia swore vehemently, Hunter knew that he had to be missing a big piece of the puzzle that made up Trisha Malloy.

“Tell me why what I said upset her so much.”

“That should be obvious.” Celia glared at him. “She doesn’t want to move.”

“I understand that much,” he said sardonically. “She’s told me often enough. What I meant was, tell me
why
it matters so much. It’s just a house. And a rundown one at that.”

“What’s it to you?”

He couldn’t answer this question, only knew he was suddenly driven to understand the woman he knew he’d inadvertently hurt. “It’s important.”

She glanced anxiously down the street. “But Trisha—”

“Is long gone,” he assured her grimly, every bit as worried as she obviously was.

Celia sighed and looked at the house. Finally, with a resigned shrug, she walked back up the drive, her four-inch heels clicking. She stepped onto the patio, where she sat on the wooden bench beneath the bay window. “Might as well kill two birds with one stone,” she said to herself.

“What?”

“Sit,” she said, patting the bench. “Sit, Dr. Adams, and listen.”

He gladly complied.

Eleven

Two hours later darkness had fallen. Hunter still sat on the bench in front of the house, waiting. Fretting. Worrying. Seething, but not at Trisha.

Celia had left, but only after exacting a solemn promise that he would call her when Trisha returned. There’d been a heavy warning in her voice, one that he understood all too well.

She expected him to make it all better. The responsibility didn’t daunt him; he was more than used to NASA and his family expecting miracles from him. “Call Hunter, he’ll fix anything” seemed to be a motto the people who knew him adopted.

But this was different. Trisha had no family or work ties to him. She certainly hadn’t asked for his help, had in fact done everything in her power to avoid doing so. Which somehow only made the compulsion to solve the problem all the stronger.

But what exactly should he do?

She should have been back by now. Something had happened to her, something horrible. She hadn’t been thinking clearly, she’d been riding recklessly.

His fault, dammit, his fault
. He should have gone after her immediately, should have kept her here and forced her to talk about the house. Instead, he’d let her leave. If something had happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.

With the intention of calling the police and every hospital within twenty miles, he stood and walked to the end of the porch.

Then he went completely still as relief flooded through him.

The wheels on her bike squeaked; he knew this because she often rode it to the store and he could hear her coming from a quarter of a mile away. He heard her now.

The minute she turned into the driveway, he was there, holding the bike as she got off. Her hair looked like an explosion in a mattress factory, wild, long strands everywhere. Her eyes seemed huge in her pale and drawn face. Huge and red.

Dammit, she’d been crying. His gut jerked. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Her shoulders automatically squared against him, making him regret his words. Why didn’t he just say he had been worried sick? That he cared what happened to her and wished she hadn’t run off? Women liked that sort of thing, he remembered belatedly, then wondered why the hell he was worried about pleasing her. He was mad as hell at what she’d put him through. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.” With that unusually cool, distant tone, she turned from him and walked toward the outside stairs.

“Wait.”

She didn’t, but he wasn’t surprised. He was beginning to know her better than he’d planned to, and she was stubborn as hell. With three easy strides, he caught up with her and gently took her arm, turning her to face him. “Please, Trisha. I want to talk to you.”

“No.”

One simple word, yet with layers of meaning behind it. Mostly panic. He understood some of that now, thanks to Celia, and his fury choked him. He wanted, quite badly, to go find her uncle and show him exactly what he thought of his child-rearing techniques. Though Hunter had never used physical force to prove anything, he found he wanted to do so now, quite violently. But that wouldn’t help Trisha.

“Come inside,” he said, trying to propel her resisting body toward the house.

She dug in her heels and he swore he could see steam coming from her ears. Frantically, he searched his mind for an incentive—women liked incentives, didn’t they? “I’ll make you dinner,” he offered quickly. “You must be starving after all that riding.”

She looked at him as if he were mad, and in truth, he felt that way. “No,” she said.

“Trisha, I—”

“I’m going upstairs now,” she said carefully, through her teeth. “I want you to go away and leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” he said with regret.

“Yes, you can!” she cried, pulling her arm free. “Just go on with your cozy little neat life, the way you always do. And leave me a-alone!”

Her voice cracked on the last word, breaking his heart, and he reached for her again. She tried to evade him, and for a moment they stood grappling under the glare of the porch light.

Hunter heard the footsteps first. A couple, out for an evening stroll, watched them curiously as they passed, obviously drawn by the raised voices.

“Go away,” Trisha whispered to him in a hiss as she raised a hand and smiled at their audience.

“Not until we talk,” he said between his teeth.

The next-door neighbor chose that moment to pull up his driveway, the headlights of his car illuminating them. Trisha closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

In that flash of time Hunter could see her clearly, the paleness of her usually flushed skin, the near translucence of her eyelids, the faint purple circles beneath them. Sick, he lifted his hands from her shoulders and sighed.

Mutinously, she stared at him, looking so damn vulnerable it made him ache for her. “Okay, that’s it.” As gently as he possibly could, he took her hand and tugged her close. “Inside. Your place or mine?”

“Not with you. Not again.” Her jaw tightened and she tried to pull away, but he held firm.

“To
talk
, Trisha.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“I realize that,” he said conversationally, pulling her as nicely as he could toward the stairs. No, he decided, changing direction in midstride, not her place. Too many memories for her there. He changed directions, heading to his front door.

“If you don’t let go of me, I’ll scream,” she warned.

She would, too. His heart aching, for he hated what he had to do, he stopped and turned to face her. “Go ahead, it might make you feel better.”

“You have no idea what will make me feel better. I—”

“I know why you’re upset, Trisha. I know why you flipped out about my selling this place. We’ve got to talk about it.”

“No, no we don’t.” She took a deep breath, visibly tried to pull herself together. “Look, I’m sorry about tonight, okay?” Now she smiled, and he could only call it such because she showed her teeth.

“I’ve been working a lot,” she said. “And not sleeping as much as I should ... the usual working-girl stuff, that’s all. I’m just cranky.” She backed up several steps.

“You are not just cranky,” he said. “You had a panic attack.”

Now she stepped off his porch, still walking backward. “It’s all in how you perceive it,” she told him. “And I—”

“Did you hear me, Trisha?” he asked her softly, not chasing her. “I said
I know
. I know what’s wrong with you.”

“Yeah. I need to go to bed.” Nervous energy practically rose off her in waves. A bubble of laughter escaped. “Alone,” she added swiftly.

Time to play the ace. “
Trisha
.”

“Good night—”

“You moved eighteen times in eighteen years.”

Turning dead white, she stopped short, nearly tripping. “What—what did you say?” she whispered.

“You were forced to wear the god-awful secondhand clothes your aunt purchased for you. Ugly clothes she purposely bought too big because you matured so early. She needed to make certain you were so unattractive, no one would look twice at you. She was afraid you’d become easy otherwise.” God, the expression on her face killed him. As he thought this she whirled, poised to run.

“It didn’t matter, though,” he said hoarsely to her stiff, proud back. “Because you just stuck out all the more. Moving so constantly didn’t help.”

Trisha froze, so still she could have been a statue.

“When you’d cry at night, your aunt would spray holy water on you and command you to stop being evil and wanting material things.”

Her shoulders hunched defensively, and he longed to hold her, but he couldn’t give in to the urge, not yet. “They stopped giving you a separate bedroom, so you couldn’t escape, making you sleep in the living room where anyone could see you. You never had even a small space you could call your own.”

Until now, he thought, with a sharp pang of regret.

Trisha still didn’t move.

“College was good,” he continued quietly. “You stayed in the dorm, though you had to work night and day to come up with the tuition money since you had no family willing to help. Directly after graduation, you came here, mortgaged yourself to the gills, and bought your store. Your aunt and uncle nearly had heart failure, but you haven’t had to move since.”

“You realize, of course, I’m going to have to kill Celia now,” she said finally, in a voice so low he almost missed it.