Unforgiven (23 page)

“What are you doing, Bailey?”

“Waiting for the cops with you?”

“Come on, Bailey. You know what I’m talking about. You and Darren?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“No.”

“But something happened.”

“Something.”

“I see.” She was quiet for a moment. “I just don’t want to see you hurt.”

“And you think he wants to hurt me?”

“Not your body. It’s your heart I’m worried about. You’ve been through enough.”

“You sound like my mom.”

“Who made me swear I’d look after you.”

“Of course she did.”

“All I’m saying is, be careful. The old Darren would have risked his own life to save you from a burning building.”

“And you think this Darren would lock me in the burning building, toss some gas on it, and let me burn?”

“No.” Michelle looked at her seriously, and she sighed. “He’d risk his life rescuing you and then blame you for accidentally knocking over the candle that started the fire.”

“Impressive imagination.” She muttered it as a police car finally made its way down her long, winding, and overgrown driveway.

The two officers glared at Bailey venomously as they climbed out of their cruiser, and Michelle glared right back on Bailey’s behalf.

“Can’t say I’m surprised, what with your homicide MO.” The taller of the two, a man she vaguely recognized, was sneering while he spoke.

“Do you even know what MO stands for, Jim Thornton? Lord, how ’bout you treat this like an actual crime and not your personal roast of Bailey Trent!” Michelle was obviously in Bailey-defense mode.

“How ’bout you pick better friends, Shell?” the short, stocky officer retorted as Michelle shot daggers at them both with her eyes. “We’ll take a look around, and we’ll file a report, but other than that, ain’t a lot we can do here.”

“How about fingerprints? CSI shit? Don’t y’all know nothin’ ’bout how to do your jobs, or should I just do it for ya?” Michelle was obviously not a fan of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.

The tall one snapped some gloves on his hands, grabbed what Bailey could only assume was a fingerprint kit, shook it in the air tauntingly at Michelle, and headed for Bailey’s front door. Moments later, Darren came rolling in looking intimidating as hell in his aviator sunglasses, his dark hair perfectly mussed, and his trim-cut slacks and dress shirt.

“Oh boy. . .” was all Michelle could say to that one, and when he climbed from his SUV quickly, he looked up to her house, and he stilled. His focus took in every last ounce of her shame spelled in red, blue, and black letters, and then he shook his head and turned toward her. He ignored the officers when he approached her, and Michelle planted her hands on her hips. “Gee, good of ya to show up.” She was apparently on a roll, and even Darren was going to get a dose of her attitude.

He turned to her as he stood in front of Bailey, tossing his own attitude right back at her. “Well, I wouldn’t have to be here if you answered your damn phone, Michelle. I’m on shift, and I’ve been trying to reach you for the past twenty fucking minutes!”

Michelle fished her cell phone out of her pocket, now glaring at him, and when she glanced to her phone, she shrugged her shoulders. “Well, look at that. Ringer’s off.” She walked away to her car, and leaning up against it with her arms crossed, she started glaring at the officers who were standing knee-deep in garbage to dust Bailey’s doorknob for prints.

Bailey returned her attention to the less than enthusiastic man standing in front of her. “When you leave a message, how about leave it with a bit more detail. I thought you were here alone! I thought whoever did this could still be here! Dammit, Bailey.” She just gaped at him incredulously. Their morning had been bad enough, and this wasn’t helping any.

“Well, I wasn’t alone, and I’m fine!” She was talking too loudly, and as he exhaled deeply, she shook her head. “I didn’t know you were trying to reach me.” They both stared at the ground between them for a moment.

“Guess not everyone’s thrilled you came home.”

“Including you?” She was just in a defensive mood.

His failure to answer right away resulted in her crossing her arms and glaring. He saw it and finally decided to respond. “Am I treating you as though I’m unhappy you’re here?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact! Or . . . no. I don’t know! You’re treating me as though you want to fuck me and nothing else.”

“And yet I haven’t.”

“Yes, and why is that?” This was not the time, but apparently she wasn’t willing to let the opportunity slip her by. After his rejection the night before and his less than amicable behavior that morning, she was in no mood to guess just exactly what was going on in his head.

“Because I’m not sure I want to.” His voice was suddenly far quieter.

“Want to. . .”

He fidgeted for a moment, but it wasn’t nervousness, it was angst and irritation, and finally, he raked his fingers through his hair and growled at her. “Listen, I don’t have time to stand around and argue about fucking right now.” He turned and started walking back to his car, leaving her staring after him.

“Yeah? Well, it’s not like I asked you to come over.”

“Sorry for worrying. I won’t bother again.” He tossed the words over his shoulder, and when he passed Michelle, he said her name curtly, and she did the same. Then he was gone, and Bailey joined Michelle at her car.

“Do me a favor. If you’re going to argue with him, at least do it closer to me so I can eavesdrop a bit easier. What the hell was that about?”

“Nothing that has anything to do with this, oddly enough.”

They stared for a good ten minutes as the officers finished up, and they ignored Bailey like she was toxic as they left with nothing more than “We’ll call you if we get anything. Get this shit cleaned up. We have a public ordinance about garbage in people’s lawns. Hate to have to cite you for that too.” No, they wouldn’t.

Bailey grabbed Michelle’s wrist, quieting her quickly when she opened her mouth to respond. They watched as the cruiser backed out of her driveway, and then Michelle turned to her. “Bailey, my dad’s gonna have a cow if I don’t get back. You leave this shit until tonight. I’ll be over right after we close, and I’ll help you get this squared away. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

Bailey shook her head. “I can handle it.”

“Don’t even say that. I’m coming over.” Bailey gave up the fight, and she waited for Michelle to leave before she started collecting garbage and tossing it back in the garbage cans. It took her nearly an hour just to get the garbage collected, and she collapsed on her front steps in exhaustion once it was cleaned up. She didn’t get to rest long before a truck ambled down her driveway and pulled to a stop.
Ted’s Handyman Service
was stenciled on the side panel, and she stood, meeting a man she presumed was Ted as he got out of his truck.

“Doc Cory sent me over. Said you had some cleanup and painting that needed to be done. Said I should come right away.”

“Oh, no. I can’t let you do—”

“Said you’d say that too, and pardon the language, miss, but he told me to tell ya to shut up and let me do my job.” He smiled sweetly. She didn’t recognize the man, and that was likely why he didn’t seem to hate her. She tried to offer to help him, but when he started to sound annoyed after he told her
no
for the fourth time, she gave up and went inside. She took a cool shower, and when she was done and dressed in clean clothes, she called Michelle quickly to tell her not to bother coming over, and she fell asleep on the sofa.

She didn’t wake until midevening, and she only woke then because her phone was ringing. “Darren, thank you. You didn’t have to do that, but . . . I appreciate it.” She wandered outside with the cordless phone as she waited for him to respond.

“Is Ted gone?”

“Yeah.” She looked back up at the front of her house. Her windows were clean, the graffiti was gone, and the entire front of her house had been repainted—not that it was a big house by any means, but she was impressed. “Wow, it really looks good. Can I pay you back? Or can you take it out of my pay?”

“No. I don’t pay you nearly good enough to cover his cost. He’s going to come back and paint the rest of your house later this week, but I wanted to get the mess taken care of first.”

“You realize I don’t even own this house.”

“You realize your landlord probably doesn’t want his property vandalized. You can’t just paint the front side of a house. At least this way, you’ll get your security deposit back when you decide you hate me and want to run away.”

She didn’t have a clue what to say to that, and so she was silent for a moment. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to offer to come to him, change things, change the awful way this day had ended up going; basically she wanted to be near him, but at the moment, she was feeling just a bit too protective of her heart to say any of that. Perhaps some of Michelle was rubbing off on her. Instead she thanked him again and told him goodnight.

He didn’t see her for the next three days, and he hated it. He was anxious and uncomfortable all the time. He was also certain she was angry at him, and why the hell wouldn’t she be? He was a dick. He’d gotten remarkably good at being a dick, and it was exactly what he was being.

When he was feeling exceptionally self-destructive, he’d mentally put himself in her position, and he’d let himself imagine what he’d put her through over the past few weeks. He’d asked her to stay, then he’d let her think he’d fucked Veronica, then he’d asked her to come home with him, he’d eaten her pussy, and then refused to let her touch him. Why? Because he didn’t want her to touch him? No! He was dying to feel her touch, but he was terrified. It should just be fucking, but it was never just fucking with her. It was never
just
touching, kissing, sucking, fucking with her. It couldn’t be. And he didn’t know what that meant and wasn’t at all sure he was ready to find out, but rather than say that, he was a dick to her.

He practically ran away from her the morning after, and again, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to be with her. He was literally the king of confusing botched signals with her. One would have thought he’d been furious with her when he’d gone to her home after he couldn’t reach her. In truth, he was nearly in a panic. The second he’d listened to her message, he had visions of her being attacked because some lunatic was there waiting for her.

The three days apart weren’t helping matters, and he was ready to be done with it. She had no idea he was leaving work early the next day thanks to being owed a few hours from one of the other ER attendings, and he had no intention of telling her. She’d avoided him enough.

He was already thinking about seeing her that morning when he ran into the coffee shop to grab a coffee on the way to the hospital when he heard a very familiar voice.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my favorite friend who hates my other friend but wants to bone her anyway and screw up her life because he’s a twisted, disturbed asshole.”

He rolled his eyes as he turned to see Michelle stepping into line behind him as he waited for his coffee. “Tell me how you really feel, Shell.”

She studied him with a smirk firmly planted on her face for a moment. “Okay. You need to end this thing with her before I have to scoop her lifeless, emotional soul off the highway after you’ve run it down with your Mack truck-sized anger issues.” The smirk was gone, and she was studying him quite seriously. He was caught off guard too, for a moment. End it? He wasn’t even sure there was anything to end, but he was sure as hell not going to end it—whatever
it
was.

“Sorry you feel that way.”

“I’m guessing that means you won’t be taking my good advice?”

“I’m smacking your good advice upside the head and telling it to butt the fuck out of my life.” He smiled as he said it, but her eyes narrowed.

“It’s her life too, and that means a hell of a lot to me. Try to remember you’re fucking about with a living, breathing human with a soul, will you? You’ll answer to me if you hurt her.” She said nothing else, and he grabbed his coffee, pecking her tauntingly on the cheek as he skirted around her. She was a feisty brat for sure, but he understood that protective nature well.

His half-day crawled by, and when he finally pulled up in front of his house, her bike was there, and he breathed a sigh of relief. When he approached the house, he could hear music and barking. He was intrigued. When he entered, the hip-hop got louder and so did the barking. When he finally made it into his living room, his heart nearly stopped. She was dancing with Macy. She was holding Macy’s front legs up as they both bounced and bopped to something that sounded very Beyoncé-ish. He stood there just watching. It was kind of heaven watching her this way. She looked happy, she looked young, and he knew the woman acting like a lunatic in his living room so well in that moment that he almost felt her happiness.

She looked up, shrieked, and dropped Macy’s paws. She ran to the stereo, turning it off quickly as Macy started racing around the room in an excited buzz. They both stood panting in front of him, and he forced the smile that was tugging at his lips to calm.

“Why are you here?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Want to? You sure? You weren’t entirely sure what you
wanted to
do the other day with me. Seems you have a hard time making up your mind.” She was still panting.

It was hard to take her bitterness seriously when she was standing in short exercise shorts, the sleeves of her T-shirt shoved up over her shoulders, and her hair in a high ponytail. “Well, right now, I want you to take a run with me, then I want you to stay for dinner, then I want to play with you.”

“Play?”

“Stop asking questions and go get changed.”

She nodded, but just as she grabbed her running bag from under the entryway table in his foyer, she turned back. “So, are you going to be rude to me again after we . . . play?”

He walked to her calmly, leaning to her ear. “I said I’m playing, you’re coming, and if there’s any question what I mean by coming, I’m referring to that incredibly tight pussy of yours trembling while all those amazing little nerve endings in your clit explode in pleasure.” He pulled back, watching her cheeks blush her beautiful shade of pink. “I’m not intentionally being rude to you. I’m trying.” He turned. He didn’t want to give her defenses a chance to react. He dressed quickly, meeting her back at the front door. Macy bounced between them as they left.