Into the Storm (9 page)

“Damn straight it’s all your fault,” Izzy told her instead, opening the fridge and helping himself to a can of soda. “You totally blew it. Didn’t it occur to you to ask before you opened that door? That
was
stupid. What were you thinking?”

To her credit, she didn’t immediately dissolve into tears. She defended herself. “I heard the dog whining and tapping on the sliding glass door when I went past on my way to the bathroom. On the way back, I didn’t hear anything, so I opened the door and peeked in, and he was in that squat that dogs do? And all I could think was, outside—do it outside! I was trying to help.” The tears finally came. “I always screw everything up.”

Again, she wanted him to tell her she was wrong.

Again, he didn’t give it to her. But wow, it wasn’t easy. She so wanted to cry on his shoulder, even though she’d been doing that mating ritual fox-trot with Jenk just a short time ago.

Crying on his shoulder would involve her pressing her entire amazing body against his, which would’ve been a nice reward for having to sing
Rainy Days and Mondays
to Master Chaz. Seven times in a row.

Walking around, some kind of lonely clown…

He’d been right about Tracy, though. She flirted with anyone with a dick. Poor Weeble. All that hard work he’d done tonight was for naught.

“I suck at my job, in case you didn’t notice,” Tracy told Izzy, starting to get angry with him for just standing there like an idiot, watching her cry.

He took his time answering, taking a long drink of his soda. “I
have
heard rumors that it’s not going well,” he finally said, which, again, was way not what she wanted to hear. “But I thought you did okay this afternoon. Calling Tommy to tell him that the circus had come to town? That was good. I mean, basic common sense, sure, but still the right choice.”

“Great,” she said. “I did one
basic
thing right. In four days. And now there are rumors…? Everyone hates me, don’t they?”

Ach, Christ. “Come on, Shapiro, that’s overkill, even for you. Jenk doesn’t hate you,” Izzy pointed out. “He’s out there, right now, scrambling to save your ass. You know, that’s what you should be doing instead of having this pity party. You should be figuring out the best way to pay him back.”

Oh, yeah. Now she was frosty. Her tears instantly freeze-dried. “Are you telling me that Mark is doing all this because he wants to be
paid back
?”

The way she said it was pretty funny, like she was some kind of virgin high priestess being told she should sacrifice herself on the altar as a tip for the pizza deliveryman.

Izzy made
no way
noises. “Marky-Mark? He’s too nice. And he’s had a thing for you for ages. He wouldn’t expect it. He wouldn’t even think it. But he’s bent over backwards for you—getting you this job, and now cleaning up after your mistakes? So I’m just saying. You might want to return the favor.”

Now there was uncertainty in her eyes. “Mark has a thing for me?”

“Hello,” Izzy said. “Didn’t you just spend the past hour flirting with him. Are you blind? He’s extremely into you.”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “I could tell, but…” She shook her head, a furrow between her brows. There were definitely some deep thoughts going on inside that head. Her mouth quirked into a rueful smile. “Who knew he’d grow up to look like…that.”

“He’s pretty hot, our Marky,” Izzy agreed. “Although he’s a little short for me. I like my men taller.”

She looked at him.

“Kidding,” Izzy said. “Don’t you ever read body language? I’ve been sending out an
I would sell my sainted grandmother’s soul to the devil just to do you once
message ever since I first laid eyes on you.”

“Really?” she whispered.

And okay. All that eye contact was making the kitchen just a little too warm. She should have been offended. And yet…

She definitely wasn’t.

She was thinking again. Looking at him, and thinking.

Izzy backed out of the room. “I better go check on Charlie.”

The dog bolted.

It must’ve heard Jenk coming, and it just took off.

“Don’t,” Lindsey said, but Jenk was already in motion, diving for the dog, about to scare the poor thing out of his wits—and maybe get bitten for his trouble.

So she did the only thing she could.

She blocked him.

Which meant that instead of grabbing Oz, Jenk hit her like a wrecking ball. She was strong but a lightweight, and she would’ve gone flying into a chain-link fence if he hadn’t grabbed on to her and brought her to the ground with him.

It was the old “six of one, half dozen of another” adage in play, because although Lindsey didn’t wind up with permanent chain-link marks on her forehead, she did find herself between the very hard ground and a very solid man.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” Jenk said, trying to untangle himself from her and race off after Oz. “What are you doing? I coulda had him.”

Lindsey clutched at him and, ew. His T-shirt was cold and wet. Still, she hung on. “Let him go,” she wheezed, sounding like a dying mob boss.

The wind had been completely knocked out of her, and she struggled to breathe. “Get help,” she managed to gasp.

Her death rattle imitation was evidently even scarier for Jenk than it was for her, because he immediately got onto his phone. He tucked it between his ear and his shoulder. “Lopez! Where are you? I need a medic! Now!”

He was fumbling with her buttons, and he dropped his phone, to give her shirt his full attention. He was trying to loosen it, which was ridiculous, because it was already comfortably loose. But then Lindsey realized he was checking to see if he’d hit her windpipe, or damaged some other vital part of her breathing apparatus.

And as long as she couldn’t speak to correct him, it was fun to pretend that he was unbuttoning her shirt with such urgency for another reason entirely. She might’ve let him keep going if he weren’t so upset.

It took all the energy she should have been using to get air back into her lungs, but she managed a weak, “I’m okay.”

Jenk didn’t believe her. Or maybe he did, but he was just one of those people who had to see things for themselves. He touched her—her throat, her neck, her collarbone—as if he’d had some medical training. Which he surely had, being a SEAL. His hands were warm as he ran them across her, as if he would be able to tell just from touching that she was uninjured. And yet he hesitated, just slightly—which made it very different from a doctor or paramedic’s ultraconfident, impersonal touch.

It felt far more like that of a first-time lover.

Which was not at all helpful in the getting-her-breath-back department. Especially when he touched her neck and throat for the second time.

“God,” he breathed, more of an exhale than an actual word. For a half a second, time froze.

And Lindsey knew that she was doomed. If he kissed her, she was going to kiss him back. Try as she might, she would not be able to resist that temptation.

But reality crashed through.

“You have, like, the skinniest neck,” he told her, wonder in his voice. “How does it hold your head up?”

And people claimed that the days of romance were gone.

Jenk’s hands moved up to surround her head, checking to see if she’d hit it when she’d fallen—or so she thought until he laughed. “Your head’s tiny, too. That’s how it works.”

Lindsey tried to push his hands away. “I happen to be perfectly proportioned for a woman of my height, thank you,” she wheezed.

“Are you really okay?” he asked, catching her hands in his, peering down at her. Relief was a funny emotion. Even in the dimness of the night, Lindsey could read Jenk’s clearly in his eyes.

“Yeah.” Although she was still unable to do more than whisper. “I just lost my air. The help we need is to corner Oz. The way he went, he’s trapped. It’s fenced in back there.” She shifted against him. “Do you mind…?”

And then there was something else in his eyes entirely, as he realized that he was on top of her. Lindsey could see that he really hadn’t been aware of it before, but he was straddling her, his thighs warm against hers, his hands still holding hers.

For several long seconds he sat there, just looking down at her in the moonlight, as if maybe her having a pencil-neck wasn’t such a bad thing.

His phone rang, breaking the spell, thank God. He climbed off of her, answering it even as he helped her to sit up.

“Yeah, Card, sorry—belay that last order,” he said into the phone, obviously talking to WildCard Karmody, their makeshift dispatcher. “We don’t need a medic. Lindsey’s fine. Will you let everyone know where we are? We’re…Okay, good, that’s exactly where we are. The dog’s cornered, we’ll need to create a net. Tell ’em to move in quietly, though. He’s pretty spooked.”

He hung up, then reached to pull the two open sides of her shirt together. “Sorry,” he said. “I, uh…”

She’d been sitting there—lying there, too—with her Hawaiian shirt completely unbuttoned, revealing…

Oh, goody. She was wearing
that
bra. The transparent one. She had bras that covered more of her than her bathing suit did, but was she wearing one of those today? Of course not.

It really shouldn’t have been that big a deal. She had, after all, already told him her bra size.

And so what if he’d seen her nipples? She could see his in the moonlight, too, clearly outlined beneath his snug-fitting, disgustingly cold and soggy T-shirt.

Of course his “skinny neck, tiny head” comment was still ringing in her ears. Thankfully, he kept any similar critiques of her breasts to himself.

He did clear his throat about three times. “I’m confused about your strategy,” he finally said. “I could’ve had him.”

“I didn’t want him to bite you.” Lindsey could hear the others coming and tried to button her shirt more quickly. It was hard to see in the darkness.

“There are worse things,” Jenk told her.

“Such as Tom getting home to find the dog missing?”

She heard more than saw him smile. “That’s definitely on the list.”

“I scouted out this area,” she said. Shit, her buttons were askew, the whole front of her shirt off-kilter. “I knew there were two fences creating a corner. If he headed the way he headed, I knew he’d be trapped.”

He saw what was happening and helped, reaching out and matching up the first button with the correct buttonhole.

“There are also plenty of dense shrubs, perfect for hiding.” She pretended that having their fingers bump as he kept going and she tried to take over didn’t affect her. “I got it, thanks,” she said, and he turned his attention to removing the pieces of grass and leaves in her hair.

Okay, so that felt a little too good, too.

Lindsey cleared her throat. “My plan is to go in there, with more hamburger—he already ate everything I had with me,” she continued. “You have more, don’t you?”

He reached into his pocket. “Oh, crap.”

She knew before he told her, and tried not to laugh. “Green crap or regular?”

“Very funny. The baggie broke, and I now have raw hamburger in my pocket, and…Oh,
crap.
”

Lindsey gave up trying not to laugh. Instead, she tried to laugh quietly, so as not to frighten poor Oz.

“These pockets are mesh and it’s, like, all down my leg. Oh, man.” He lay back in the grass. “Congratulations to me. I have uncooked picnic food where the sun doesn’t shine. My evening is now truly complete.”

“Not quite,” Lindsey said. “We’ve still got a dog to catch, and you’re the bait. I think you’ve got a few more new experiences still in store.”

He rolled his head to look at her. “One new experience I’d particularly like to avoid has to do with getting too close to Oz.”

“Oh, come on, Jenkins,” she said, holding out her hands to help him to his feet. “Where’s your sense of adventure? You haven’t lived until you’ve risked getting your balls licked by a hungry lapdog.”

Jenk cracked up.

“I’d like to point out that said risk, although present, will be extremely low,” she continued. “Because I’ll be with you. I’ll protect you.”

He took her hands and let her haul him up.

But as he followed her into the deeper darkness of the yard, she couldn’t keep herself from adding, “Yes, indeed. Me and my pencil-neck and pinhead will keep you safe from the tiny little doggy.”

“Hey.” He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Hang on. I didn’t say that. And I certainly didn’t mean it like…” He took his hand away as if touching her felt too intimate as they stood there in the light from the moon. “It’s, well, I don’t often get a chance to feel, you know…Large. And please don’t make a dick joke, because that’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“I wasn’t going to make a dick joke,” Lindsey said, “and actually, I prefer to call them johnson jokes. It’s more dignified. Classier.”

He smiled, shaking his head. “Aren’t you ever serious?”

She nodded. “Yeah. When I have to be.”

“Can you be serious for a sec, right now?”

She knew it wasn’t a good idea. Serious meant being honest, and honestly, she wasn’t up for that. Not with this guy, in the moonlight. But he was looking at her so imploringly, she caved. “All right.”

“I used the wrong word,” Jenk told her, and as she looked into his eyes, she realized that she’d been wrong about him. Intensity, determination, assertiveness, fortitude. He had it all, along with an inability to understand the word
quit.
“I shouldn’t have said
skinny.
I should have said
willowy,
or I don’t know…
graceful. Delicate
maybe. Bottom line, I happen to think you’re extremely beautiful. And, yes, very nicely proportioned.”

Oh, God. Lindsey had to look away, afraid that he’d see her crush on him blooming into a redwood-sized monster, right there in her eyes.

And okay, that was all the seriousness she could take, without fainting. “Thanks,” she said. “I think you’re full of it, but thanks. Good effort. Good attempt at a save.”

“I’m serious,” he insisted, God help her. “If I were single, I’d be all over you.”

Oh, great. He’d figured out that she was enormously attracted to him. It probably had something to do with the way she drooled whenever he touched her.