McIver's Mission (22 page)

"Didn't get much sleep last night?"

Arden frowned. She hadn't managed to get
any
sleep last night, but somehow she knew that she was missing something here. For
some reason that she had yet to understand, Shaun was annoyed with her. Okay,
maybe she should have taken a few minutes to call him, to let him know where
she was. But it wasn't as if they'd had any plans.

She measured grounds into the filter, remembering that
Shaun hadn't been thrilled when she'd told him about her meeting with Warren
Blake. Now he was here, and ready to blow a gasket. She slid the basket into
place, flipped the switch and turned to him.

"Where do you think I was last night?"

He folded his arms over his chest. "Why don't you
tell me?"

She felt her heart sink, just a little. It shouldn't
matter what he thought of her. She'd learned a long time ago not to measure
herself by anyone else's expectations. But she'd thought Shaun was different.
She'd wanted to believe that he was different.

But she knew now that his macho routine wasn't because
he was worried about her or because he'd wanted to be with her. He was angry
because he thought she'd spent the night with Warren Blake. As if the ADA was
even her type. She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, fought against
them. No way in hell was she going to cry over a man who would think so little
of her.

"Apparently you have this all figured out, so why
don't you make this easy on both of us and leave? I'm not in the mood to fight
with you."

She could tell that her response surprised him. That
he'd expected her to deny his accusations. What was the point? If he didn't
know her well enough to know that she wouldn't have spent the night in another
man's bed, he didn't know her at all.

"Is that what you want—you want me to
leave?"

She nodded. "Yes. Please."

He took a step toward the door, then turned back again
abruptly. "No."

"No?"

"No," he said again. "I'm not going to
make this easy for you."

Her eyes were burning with fatigue, and she let them
drift shut for half, a minute. She was too exhausted, mentally and physically,
to handle a confrontation right now, but she knew he wouldn't give her any
choice.

"Dammit, Arden, I was worried about you."

"Because you thought I was with Warren?"

"Because some nutcase has been sending you
threatening letters and I had no idea where you were last night. I tried your
cell phone, almost every hour all night, but I kept getting your voice mail. I
tried to page you, but you never responded. I was frantic."

She felt the first nudge of guilt at her subconscious.
She'd been so wrapped up in what was happening that she hadn't thought about
the letters or Shaun or anything else. She wasn't used to having people worry
about her. "I didn't ask for this," she said defiantly.

"I didn't either," he said. "But this
is what we've got."

"If you have a problem with the way I conduct my
life, maybe you shouldn't be a part of it."

"Nice try, Arden."

She rubbed at the center of her forehead, trying to
massage away the building pain. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I care about you."

The simple honesty of the statement, the heartfelt
emotion in his eyes, dissipated the last lingering vestiges of annoyance.
Still, she sighed. "I'm not good at this."

"What 'this'?"

"Relationships."

He set his hands gently on her shoulders, rubbed them
down her arms. "You'll get better."

"I'm not used to having to explain myself."

"I'm not used to pacing a hole through my carpet
at 3:00 a.m."

"I'm sorry. I was paged by an intake worker at
the shelter before Warren and I had even finished dinner. She asked me to meet
her at the hospital to speak to a woman who'd been beaten unconscious by her
husband. I went straight to the hospital, and I left my briefcase, including my
pager and my cell phone, in the car.

"I spent most of the night with her, explaining
her options, then I went to the office to draft the documents to get a
restraining order, then I went back to the hospital to get her to sign them,
then I came home."

"It sounds like you had a rough night."

"Yeah, I did."

"And the last thing you needed was for me to jump
all over you when you got home this morning."

"Just about," she agreed.

Shaun took a deep breath, prepared to grovel.
"I'm sorry."

Arden just nodded wearily, and her obvious fatigue
made him feel a million times worse than if she'd yelled and screamed at him.
He put his arms around her, breathed a silent sigh of relief when she leaned into
him, because he knew it meant that he was forgiven.

When she tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a yawn, he
lifted her off her feet and carried her toward the bedroom.

"What are you doing?" Arden demanded.

"I'm taking you to bed."

"Make-up sex?"

"To sleep," he corrected.

"Oh."

He grinned. "Don't sound so disappointed. I think
your body needs rest more than stimulation right now."

She yawned again. "You're probably right."

"After you've had a few hours of shut-eye, then
we'll see what happens."

"You're going to stay?"

She sounded surprised, which made him frown. Was he
only here when he was getting her naked? Did she think that was all he wanted
from her? He pulled back the covers on her bed and laid her down gently.
"Yes, I'm going to stay."

Her lips curved, her eyes already closing. "I
like having you here."

It was as big an admission as he was likely to get
from her, and it pleased him. He lay down beside her, slipped his arm around
her to hold her close. "I like being here with you."

* * *

When
Arden awoke, the sun was filtering through the blinds, painting horizontal
lines of light across the bed. She felt the weight of Shaun's arm across her
waist, took comfort in his presence. After a week of going to sleep beside him
almost every night, waking in his arms, it still boggled her mind that he
wanted to be with her.

When she'd first decided to become intimate with
Shaun, she'd based the decision on logic and reason. It was a natural
progression of the attraction between them. She didn't expect it to last.

She still knew it wouldn't, it couldn't. But she was
determined to savor every moment so long as it did. He'd become more than just
a lover. He'd become a friend, a confidant. And she knew that—for the very
first time in her life—she was starting to fall in love.

The realization terrified her. Love made rational
people do crazy things. Love made people hurt each other, and forgive each
other, and open themselves up to more hurt and heartache.

Shaking off the thought, she cast a quick glance at
the clock on the dresser. It was just past noon, which meant that she'd slept
for almost three hours.

"Sleep well?" His lips cruised over her
earlobe, causing shivers of anticipation to dance over her skin.

She turned to him willingly, slid her arms around his
neck and pulled his head down to meet his lips with her own. It was easier to
accept the physical aspects of their relationship than the emotional ones, so
that was what she focused on now.

She felt his hands skim under her blouse. His touch
was warm and familiar, although the intensity of her reaction continued to
surprise her. He skimmed a hand over her hip, upward to toy with her breast.
She felt her nipple pebble beneath his touch, and the heat coil in her belly.

"Are we going to have make-up sex now?" she
asked breathlessly.

She felt his smile against her lips. "Have you
forgiven me?"

"Yes," she said.

"Yes," he responded to her question in turn.

Chapter
13

«
^
»

A
rden
heard the sirens in the distance. She pushed open the courthouse doors, stepped
into the night. The fire trucks whizzed past—a blur of flashing lights and
screaming alarms. Icy fingers of trepidation trailed down her spine. She could
smell the smoke. Its acrid scent hung in the air like a noxious perfume.
Assaulting her nostrils. Churning her stomach.

She clutched the handle of her briefcase tighter as
she slowly moved across the parking lot to her car. Traffic on the street was
at a standstill. Pedestrians clogged the sidewalk. She dumped her research into
her car, then made her way through the crowd to stare, horrified, fascinated,
as the fire department battled against the flames that poured out of the third
floor windows of the apartment.

Her windows.

YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL.

She could see the bold red ink, the menacing message,
as clearly as if the letter was in her hand.

Arden shook her head, tried to shake off the thought.
It was a coincidence, nothing more.

She so desperately wanted to believe that, but she
knew better.

This was personal.

And she was terrified.

She'd seen enough reports of fires on the
eleven-o'clock news, but nothing she'd watched in the safety of her living room
had prepared her for this. Nothing had prepared her for the shock of seeing her
own home engulfed in flames. The heat was staggering in its intensity; the air
was heavy with smoke, burning her eyes, her nose, her throat. Greedy tongues of
flame licked at the building, ravenous, devouring.

She scanned the gathering of spectators, breathed a
sigh of relief when she saw Mrs. Dempsey dressed in a neon-green housecoat with
Rocky tucked under her arm. She also spotted Kelly and Rick Larsen, the
newlyweds who'd recently moved in on the second floor, and Mr. Fitzsimmons, the
first-floor tenant who was older than the building itself. At last she spotted
Gary Morningstar, the landlord, and she slowly meandered through the maze of
people toward him.

"Is everyone out of the building?" she
asked, shouting to be heard over all the other noise.

Gary turned, the relief on his face palpable. He
nodded. "Now that we know you're here, everyone's accounted for." His
eyes were tired, his face strained.

"Any idea what happened?"

He shook his head. "It looks like it started
upstairs, but it escalated so quickly it's hard to say for sure."

Arden could only nod, her eyes stinging with smoke,
with grief, with guilt. All she had left were the clothes on her back: a faded
pair of jeans and her University of Michigan sweatshirt, a battered pair of
sneakers, jacket, and her cell phone. But it wasn't the loss that bothered
her—it was the fear. Not just for herself but for everyone who had been in the
building. She knew the fire had started in her apartment. She knew it had been
deliberately set. And she knew that she would have been responsible if anyone
had been hurt.

She was jostled aside by a television crew moving in
for better footage of the fire. To them it was news. To her it was her life.

A life that was so completely out of her control.

* * *

Arden
went to Nikki's. She knew her cousin would worry if she saw reports of the fire
on the news, so she preempted her concern by going over there. Nikki made a
fresh pot of coffee for her, and Colin liberally laced her cup with whiskey.
Their care and concern made her smile in spite of everything.

A brief knock sounded at the back door, but before
either Nikki or Colin could get up to respond, Shaun came into the kitchen. He
ignored his brother and sister-in-law, pulled Arden off the chair and into his
arms. He held her so tightly she couldn't breathe, but it felt good to have him
there.

"Why didn't you call me?" be demanded.

She swallowed, not certain how to respond to the raw
hurt she could see in the depths of his green eyes. Not willing to admit that
it had been her first instinct to do so. She'd ignored the impulse to turn to
him for comfort and support. She'd been relying on him too much. She prided
herself on her independence, her ability to be strong and self-sufficient. She
was afraid of losing that to Shaun. She was more afraid that she'd relinquish
it willingly.

"I went by your building. Your apartment—"
He couldn't complete the thought "God, Arden. I thought you might have
been in there and—"

She laid her palm against his cheek, reassuring him
with the comfort of her touch. "I wasn't. I'm fine." Her lips twisted
into a wry smile. "Homeless, but fine."

"Of course you're not homeless," Nikki
interrupted. "You can stay here as long as you need to."

Arden dropped her hand from Shaun's cheek and turned
to her cousin, embarrassed to realize she'd forgotten, however briefly, that
she was there. "I can't stay here," she protested. "You've just
started redoing the spare room for the baby."