Читать книгу Murphy's Law - Rebecca Sinclair - Страница 6

Murphy's Law #3: Just when things are looking up…

HE COULDN'T breathe.

There was a tightness in Garrett's chest that felt like a steel fist had clamped around his heart and lungs, squeezing the breath out of him. His eyes were closed; the inside of his eyelids felt like they'd been scrapped with sandpaper. As for the agony in his thigh…he didn't want to think about that.

He cracked one eye open. Had his throat not felt so dry and tight, he might have screamed.

Something was sitting on him.

Something big.

Something hairy.

Something that's brick-red nose was only a fraction away, and that's big blue eyes were only a scant bit farther.

Whatever it was, it was staring at Garrett intently.

With effort, Garrett traced the tightness in his chest to the weight of the creature lying on his chest, pinning him to the bed like a paperweight.

A sneeze tickled the back of Garrett's nose. His eyes began to water. The last time he'd felt like this had been six months ago, while visiting his grandmother's summer house. Unbeknownst to him, the old woman had acquired a kitten. Since Garrett rarely found his way up to Maine to visit her, Ruth Thayer hadn't felt compelled to worry about her grandson's allergies.

A cat.

Oh, Lord…that's what this thing is!

The thought had no more shot through Garrett's mind when two loud, hard sneezes exploded from his lungs. His sinuses filled, and he could barely see out of his puffy, watery eyes. Pain sliced like a knife up his right thigh when he attempted to roll to the side, and at the same time yell, “Help!”

His voice had no more bounced off the painted white walls of the small bedroom when he heard running feet in the hallway.

A shape filled the doorway, but he couldn't make it out, his vision was too blurry. “My bag,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and scratchy.

“What bag?”

That voice. It was familiar. Garrett didn't waste time trying to place it. Instead, he gestured impatiently with his hand and said, “Green. Nylon. Duffel—aaaaaacho!—bag.”

It took a second before the voice came again. High, cautious. “What do you want it for?”

“Just get it.” Sneeze, sniffle, sneeze! “Please. And a glass of water. Hurry!”

He could feel the woman's curious gaze rake him. While Garrett would like to have explained what he wanted, needed, he couldn't. He was rocked by three sneezes that were so violent they made the cat, who'd apparently been using his chest as a bed, yowl indignantly and jump to the floor.

It was an excellent start.

After a beat of hesitation, he heard the woman's footsteps retreat from the room. She was back almost immediately.

The mattress beneath his hip dipped, the springs creaking as she perched on the edge. He winced, and gritted his teeth to stifle a groan. The pain that cut through his right thigh was incredible.

“Here,” she said, and pushed something into his hands.

His fingertips recognized the scratchy nylon as his beat-up duffel bag. The rasp of the zipper sounded unnaturally loud against the backdrop of tense silence.

Garrett sneezed, twice in quick succession, then sniffled loudly. Since his eyes were too watery to see, he searched the bags contents using only his fingers. What he was looking for had been purposely stored in a small, zippered compartment on the inside, making it easy to find.

His fist closed around an amber prescription bottle with a white top. The pills inside rattled dully when he pulled it free.

“Oh, no,” the woman said. Judging by her tone, she'd just guessed what was wrong with him.

Before Garrett could react, she'd yanked the bottle from his grasp. Again, he heard the rattle of pills against plastic. The sound was quickly replaced by the creak of bedsprings as the woman leaned closer to him.

Garrett opened his mouth when she pressed two pills against his lips. One of her arms slipped beneath his neck, and his wounded leg screamed a protest when she angled him up and touched the rim of a cup—also plastic, by the feel of it—to his mouth.

Water trickled over his parched lips, down his equally parched throat. It tasted delicious, cold and sweet.

“Drink slow,” she instructed, letting only enough water for him to swallow the pills dribble into his mouth.

His breathing was labored; the harsh wheeze of it echoed in his ears. A palm stroked the hair back from his brow before turning inward, angling over his cheek, tracing the line of his shadow-stubbled jaw…

Garrett blamed his wound, the cat, his adverse reaction to the cat…he blamed anything he could think of for the tremor that coursed like sun-warmed honey down his spine.

“How long before they take affect?”

He shrugged tightly. It was all he could manage.

“You're allergic to cats, right?”

He nodded, and noticed—vaguely at first, then with mounting accuracy—that his head was being gently held. His left cheek nuzzled her breasts. As though being splashed by an invisible wave of heat, he felt her warmth radiate from that point throughout the rest of his body.

“A wounded stranger who's allergic to cats. Isn't that just my luck? Okay, Moonshine, visiting hours are over.”

Garrett felt an odd stab of disappointment when the woman lowered his head back to the pillow. The bed jostled when she stood. He groaned. A few seconds later, he heard a disgruntled meow, followed by the soft but firm closing of the bedroom door.

Moonshine, he thought. Hell of a name for a cat.

“Feeling any better yet?” she asked. While her voice was close, there'd been no tell-tale jostle to let him know she was again sitting on the edge of the bed, no wave of her body heat, no jarring bolt of pain in his right thigh.

A stronger pang of disappointment arrowed through him, but it was short-lived. Her fingertips—soft and cool and gentle—were feathering his brow again, pushing back another wayward strand of hair. Garrett thought he could very quickly learn to like the feel of her skin against his. “Getting there,” he said, his voice hoarse and nasally. “What was that thing, a mountain lion?”

“No,” she said, then laughed.

The sound tickled Garrett's ears, seduced him into opening his eyes to catch a glimpse of the face and body it belonged to. His eyes were still puffy and watery; he couldn't see much more than a vague hint of curly brown hair and creamy white skin.

“Although,” she added, “he probably weighs as much as one. Moonshine is a Himalayan cat, born and very expensively bred. A chocolate-point one, to be exact.”

“Moonshine,” he repeated, still thinking the name odd.

Apparently, he wasn't the only one. The answer she supplied to his unasked question sounded like it had been said often. “I picked it up from a soap opera I watched in college.”

The antihistamine was beginning to work. His throat was starting to loosen and didn't feel as scratchy and dry. “Funny, where I went to college,” he said huskily, “we studied.”

“Poor guy.” Her tone was one of mock conciliation. “I'll bet you wish you went to URI then.”

“URI?”

“University of Rhode Island.”

“Nope, never did. Wish I'd gone there,” he clarified. His vision was starting to clear. The woman with the high yet authoritative, school teacher voice was now only a little fuzzy around what looked to be very attractive edges. Despite the pain in his leg, and the fact that his allergy medicine had yet to kick in full strength, Garrett grinned. It was a tight grin, but a grin all the same. “Until now.”

He couldn't decide which was her most attractive feature, her smile or those vaguely slanted, velvet green eyes. Both were intriguing enough to take his mind off the pain…if only for a few seconds.

“I put your medicine back in the duffel bag,” she said. Did he detect a hint of wariness in her tone? “And speaking of your duffel bag…I, um, think we need to talk.”

Garrett's lips thinned. “If you looked in my bag then, yeah, I'd say we do.”

“I've looked.” Her tone was wary. “I checked, but there wasn't a scrap of identification for you in it.”

“I know.”

“What I did find, on the other hand, was—”

“Money,” Garrett cut in, and she nodded. “About two thousand dollars, all in small bills.”

“Right…”

“And a bottle of antihistamine.”

“That, too…”

“Jewelry.”

“Lots of it. Mostly antique. And…”

Garrett sighed. There was no use lying to the woman, or denying it. She'd already looked inside the bag, already knew what else was in there. He decided to fill in the word her tongue stumbled over. “A gun,” he said finally. “You found a gun.”

“Yes,” she replied on a swift exhalation, as though his admission had punched the word out her lungs.

She'd been crouching next to the bed; she now plopped down on the floor beside it and, crossing her slim, denim-clad legs yoga-style, stared up at him. The baggy, cream-colored sweater pooled in softly knitted folds around her hips. She was in stocking feet, not a trace of the Reeboks he remembered from earlier in sight. Her feet, he noticed, were touchably small.

“I'm sure you have a good explanation.”

Garrett eyed her speculatively. “Are you asking me, or telling me?”

“Darned if I know. Right now, I'm just hoping you'll say yes, I have a very good, very plausible explanation as to why I'm wandering around in a blizzard with a torn up thigh, carrying an old green duffel bag crammed full of small bills, prescription strength Benadryl, more antique jewelry than I've ever seen in a lifetime…and a gun. Please, if you don't have a good explanation, feel free to make one up. Really. I won't mind.”

Garrett frowned. Outside the room, he heard the cat scratch at the door. The feline meowed a protest when access wasn't immediately granted. “You want me to lie?” he asked, his stuffy nose giving his voice a nasally timbre.

“Yes. No! I mean—” Her shoulders slumped and her chin dipped. She sighed heavily. On anyone else, that pose would have looked weak, defeated. Why didn't it look that way on her? “I don't know what I mean,” she admitted softly.

Garrett felt an odd, yanking sensation in his chest. At first he thought his allergy was intensifying, in spite of the medicine. He soon realized that wasn't the case. The feeling had something to do with this woman. Whenever he looked at the top of her curly brown head, now bent so he couldn't see her face, he felt that same warm tug. It was something he hadn't felt in years, something he was surprised as hell to feel now…especially for a complete stranger.

He cleared his throat. “I do have a good explanation.”

“Great! I'd like to hear it. So far, I've only come up with two possibilities.” She glanced at the duffel bag, now resting on the carpeted floor near her hip. “Neither is very flattering.”

“This should be good.” Garrett stared at her until her attention reluctantly returned to him. Anxious green meshed with inquisitive blue. “Let's hear them.”

The fringe of brown curls brushed her shoulders when she shook her head. “You don't want to. Trust me.”

“Yes, I do. Go ahead, tell me.”

She hesitated, shrugged. “Okay, let's see.” She pushed to her feet, crossed the room, coming to stand in front of the window at the foot of the bed. Tucking the tips of her fingers in the back pockets of her jeans, she leaned a slender shoulder against the window frame. Her gaze strayed out over the snowy night. “Obviously, you could be a bank robber. That would easily explain the money in your duffel bag. Only that doesn't quite work.”

“Why's that?” Garrett asked, his gaze straying down the taper of her neck, over the tight set of her shoulders, the slender line of her back. The hem of her sweater had ridden up when she stood. His gaze caressed the curve of her bottom, temptingly outlined by the jeans.

“It's Saturday,” she said. “All the banks are closed.”

“Not all of them. Besides, they were open yesterday. I could have robbed a bank then.”

The woman glanced at him from over her shoulder. A sketchy smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “The last town I passed on my way here was Greenville, and that was a good hour's drive. In dry weather. I'm guessing it would take a lot longer in a blizzard. To be honest, it didn't strike me as the Banking Capitol of the World. I wouldn't be surprised if the bank—I doubt a town that size would have more than one—rolls up it's drive-thru teller window at five o'clock sharp every Friday, right along with its sidewalks. If it has a drive-thru window, and I doubt it. Besides, that doesn't explain the jewelry. Unless you want to add housebreaking to bank robbing.”

“What was your other guess?” He'd figured robbery would be her first. She hadn't disappointed him.

She shrugged, averting her gaze back out the window. “My second was that the money and jewelry and…and whatnot, are really yours. But that doesn't make sense, either. I'm no expert, but that jewelry's got to be worth a fortune. And who in their right mind carries around so much money in an old duffel bag? Isn't that what God made banks for? As for the gun…I don't want to talk about that.”

Garrett grinned. He had to give her credit, not only was she pretty, she was smart. “Didn't you say the banks around here are all closed for the weekend?”

“I said I think they are. That's why it doesn't make any sense.”

“Explain.” Garrett stared at her profile, saw the way she nibbled thoughtfully on her lower lip. He swallowed hard.

“Okay. The money and jewelry had to come from somewhere, right? Now, maybe I'm wrong, but a couple thousand dollars isn't the amount of money anyone who lives in the backwoods of Maine could earn in a day.”

“Who said I earned it in a day?”

She glanced at him. “You did. You said the banks were open yesterday.”

“So?”

“So,” she said, “if you had the jewelry yesterday, you would have put it in a safety deposit box and opened a bank account for the money. Put it somewhere where it would be safe.”

“You know me that well, do you?”

“I don't know you at all. I'm just going by impressions.”

“And what kind of impression have I given you?”

She shook her head, studying him carefully. “The leather bomber jacket you were wearing when I found you was not cheap, or second-hand. The jeans I cut off you weren't bargain brand. A man doesn't earn the kind of money to buy clothes like those working for a logging company. And logging companies don't pay in jewelry.”

Garrett sneezed, sniffled, nodded. Yup, she was smart. Too much so. “So where does that leave us?”

“Damned if I know!” The woman pushed away from the window and approached the bed. “Okay, mister, let me give it to you straight.” She counted each complaint off on long, slender fingers. “First, I've had a real bad week. Second, I've been on the road since dawn. Third, my car broke down three times between Providence and here. Fourth, between buying a new tire and a used battery, I'm broke. Third, I'm so tired I could spit.” Her gaze narrowed on him. “Does this give you any indication at all of what kind of mood I'm in?”

She sat on the edge of the mattress. Garrett saw her eyes widen when he winced and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Oh, no. Oh, sheesh, I'm sorry.” The woman jumped to her feet, then knelt on the carpeted floor beside the bed. Her cool fingertips instinctively smoothed the pain-deep creases from his brow. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

The concern in her tone made Garrett suppress the sarcastic reply that automatically sprang to mind. It didn't hurt that at the same moment a whiff of her Ivory Soap scent tickled his nostrils.

“A little,” he lied tightly. “Don't worry about it, I'm fine.”

Fine, if one discounted the agony that was tearing through his thigh like a bolt of white-heat. He couldn't discount it, although he tried. The woman obviously felt guilty enough about inadvertently jarring his leg. Why make her feel worse? Besides, the sweetness of her touch was melting the pain away with surprising speed. And speaking of his wounded leg…

Garrett's attention strayed down, over himself. He frowned.

He was still wearing his front-pocket white T-shirt and his jockey shorts. That was all he wore. From mid-chest down he was draped by a thin, brightly colored sheet splashed with enormous…turtles? Yes, they were definitely turtles. Huge and deformed, the things were wearing eye-masks and carrying a variety of lethal, oriental weapons.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” she explained, apparently reading the question in his eyes. “You don't have kids, do you?”

Oddly enough, it wasn't the question Garrett had been entertaining. Oh, no, nothing so simple. Instead, he'd been wondering if this woman was the one who'd taken his clothes off. Wondering, also, how he could possibly have slept through such an event.

Deciding her question was safer than his, that was the one he addressed. “Kids? No, I don't. How can you tell?”

She nodded to the bedspread—which was crumpled in a ball near the door—then to the two inch thick wallpaper border edging the top of all four of the bedroom's walls. Garrett hadn't noticed the border before. He did now. It was decorated with those hulking, overgrown, armed-to-the-teeth turtles.

“If you had kids, you'd know who the Turtles are.”

“For the first time in my life,” Garrett grumbled, “I'm glad I don't have kids.”

The woman arched one brow and gazed at him levelly. “I'd suggest you get used to the Turtles. Especially since you're going to become real familiar with them in the near future.”

“I am?”

She nodded. “Yup. You're going to be buying Dana—that's my nephew, whose bed you're in—another set of sheets and a bedspread to match. Ones that look just like those.” The woman wrinkled her nose. The gesture was oddly endearing. “You bled all over his. They're going to have to be replaced.”

Her smile faded. Garrett missed it, more than he should have. “Sorry,” he said. The word tasted rusty on his tongue, so rarely did he use it. “I guess now would be a good time to thank you for taking me in and fixing me up, huh?”

“You can thank me after you tell me where all that money and jewelry came from.”

Christ, she didn't let up, did she? Not that Garrett could blame her; were the situation reversed, he'd be interrogating the hell out of her. Of course, interrogation was part of his job…and he was good at his job.

“You don't want to know about the gun?”

“Not particularly. I put it where you can't find it, so it's no longer a major concern of mine.”

He assessed her in one sweeping glance, inwardly wondering if she would believe the truth if he told her. Especially since the truth sounded more outrageous than a badly prefabricated lie. In the end, he decided it would be in his best interest to change the subject, and change it quickly. “Do you have any aspirin? My leg is throbbing like a son-of-a—er, it's throbbing like mad.”

“You have a piece of metal embedded in your thigh,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I didn't even try to take it out.”

Garrett watched her walk to the door and noticed, not for the first time, what a nicely packaged woman she was. The baggy sweater did nothing to conceal her shape. Just the opposite, the way it draped from slender shoulders to shapely upper-thigh only whetted a man's appetite and left his hands hungry to find out if the curves beneath were really as soft and shapely as the woolen folds hiding them suggested.

She left the bedroom without a backward glance, closing the door firmly behind her. In the hall, he heard her talk softly to the cat. Moonshine. Who ever heard of a cat named Moonshine?

Garrett sighed and relaxed against the pillow. With effort, he resisted the urge to rub the fiery pain from his leg. It wouldn't help. Aspirin wouldn't either, but at least asking for them had given him a reprieve. And a few minutes alone.

He needed to think. To plan. To, hopefully, come up with some cockamamie story about the money and jewelry and gun that was so far from the truth it would have to be believable.

Yes, that was what he needed to do. Garrett frowned, his gaze shifting to the closed bedroom door. So why the hell wasn't he doing it?! Something was wrong here. Very wrong.

He must have hurt himself worse than he'd thought. It was the only reason he could think of to explain why, when he should be using this time to concoct an impromptu but reasonable lie, he instead spent the next few minutes contemplating the alluring curves hidden beneath a certain brunette's baggy sweater and snug jeans.