The Harder They Fall (30 page)

Well, he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see her either. If he understood this situation correctly, they were hospital roommates. How that was possible he didn’t have a clue. He remembered a blast—apparently Boom Boom Carbone had been at it again—being forced into an ambulance, and then being conked on the head after a deafening crash of sorts. But nothing else until waking and getting a real good look at Paige Hart’s fine bottom.

His forehead hurt. He lifted a hand to it, to find gauze taped over his left eyebrow. Apparently that conk on the head had drawn blood.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said with a grin he didn’t mean. The thought of being forced to stay in a room with this fast-talking, faster-thinking shrew gave him a headache of mammoth proportions.

Paige was clutching the back of her hospital gown, even though she was facing him. He wasn’t about to complain. The action tightened the fabric across her slender waist and hips, giving him an eyeful. A very pleasant eyeful.

Man, she had great breasts. Nice legs, too. Too bad she had the ferocity of a shark.

Not that he didn’t appreciate shark tendencies. After all, he was a lawyer, too.

“Looks like we’re roomies,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry as sawdust.

“This must be a mistake. How did we get here?”

“I couldn’t begin to tell you, darlin’. I don’t even know where
here
is.”

She eyed him balefully, but as her gaze wandered up to the top of his head, her expression slid from contemptuous to somewhat concerned. Nodding at it she said, “I hope I didn’t cause that.”

Ross shrugged noncommittally. He knew she wasn’t responsible for the blow to his head. That had happened in the crash. How ironic. If not for the zealousness of the EMT, he wouldn’t be injured at all. If he were the contentious sort, he’d be writing up a lawsuit the moment he was released from the hospital.

Still, he was nothing if not an opportunist. He could milk this. “Last I remember, you were throwing yourself at me. Really, Paige, all you had to do was ask.”

She scowled. “Do you know what happened?”

“No, but somehow I have the feeling Boom Boom or one of his goons had something to do with it.”

She rubbed her temple with one hand while clutching at the back of her gown with the other. She glanced over her shoulder while shuffling backwards toward a door at the other side of the room.

“Have any nurses or doctors been in here?” she asked, reaching for the knob.

“Your guess is as good as mine, darlin’. I woke up two minutes ago.”

She glared. “I am not your darlin’, Bennett.”

An idiotic desire to ask her if she was anyone’s darlin’ had his mouth forming the question, but he squelched it. That was none of his business and besides he didn’t like the sour feeling he got at the thought of a positive response.

He’d checked on her enough to know she wasn’t married. Routine investigation, naturally. He always learned as much as he could about the adversarial attorneys with which he dealt. That was just common sense.

So he also knew Paige Hart was not a divorce attorney. When he’d learned that he’d practically rubbed his hands together. Piece of cake—or so he’d thought.

And then he’d met her. He practically shuddered as he recalled that first encounter. He’d vowed there and then never to underestimate another attorney again as long as he practiced law.

Realization suddenly struck him. He was hospitalized. For a blow to the head? That seemed a little extreme. Taking stock, he felt battered and bruised all over, but not severely enough to warrant admission to a hospital. He had a slight ringing in his ears, which was annoying, but not painful. He hoped it was from the noise of the blast, and that it was temporary.

“Dammit, what are we doing here?” Paige complained.

Ross raised a brow. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was the first swear word he’d ever heard out of her mouth. Her luscious, pink mouth.

“And why aren’t they answering?” she continued, pointing at her bed. “I rang for a nurse.”

“Well—”

“Try yours,” she demanded in an annoying, imperious tone he’d begun to associate with her. She was one pushy broad. Just on principle—and to annoy her in return—he didn’t comply.

“Has it occurred to you,” he asked, “that the hospital might be overrun with casualties? My guess is you and I weren’t the only ones hurt in the blast. In fact, we might be a couple of the lucky ones.”

She shot him a withering look. “Lucky? To be holed up with you? Somehow it doesn’t feel quite the same as winning the lottery.”

Good thing Ross didn’t wither easily. In fact, now that he thought about it, the woman was kind of cute when she bristled. Not all that interested in dying anytime soon, he decided not to voice that observation.

Her eyes lost a bit of their fire. “You might be right,” she said grudgingly. “About the number of injured, that is.”

Two seconds earlier he’d have bet a million bucks that those words wouldn’t pass her lips in this lifetime. At least not directed at him.

She ruined his small flame of triumph by adding, “Going to take up personal injury now, too? Maybe walk down the hall and pass out business cards?”

Her sexy pink mouth suddenly lost a whole lot of appeal. He hid a growl behind a feral grin. “I couldn’t possibly compete with you in getting people more compensation than they deserve.”

The fire came back to life in her sparkling green eyes, which for some unknown reason made him want to smile. She bared her teeth. “I can’t help it if you’re a hack.”

Before he could retort, she broke eye contact, then continued blindly to grope for the doorknob. She kept her front to him, denying him another view of her very sexy rump. Too bad. His favorite view of her had always been from the rear. Because that meant she was leaving. But he didn’t think he’d ever again watch her back end walking away from him without remembering exactly how it appeared in all its naked glory.

He bit back another smile at her fruitless attempts to get the door open. She was way off, and, considering he needed to use the facility as well, he decided to help her out. “A little higher and about six inches that way,” he said, hiking his thumb to the right.

She followed through and connected, twisting the knob and shoving the door open. Then she reached in, flipped the switch, and glanced over her shoulder. With a sigh of relief that carried to his ears, she shuffled backward into the bathroom, then slammed the door shut.

As soon as
she disappeared Ross lifted his bed-sheet and saw he was wearing a gown similar to Paige’s. Tossing back the sheets, he gingerly swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing a bit when the movement managed to make him a little dizzy. Okay, maybe the hospital was just being cautious.

Paige, on the other hand, didn’t outwardly appear injured at all, except the way she squinted occasionally and massaged her temple. But if she’d suffered a head injury, shouldn’t she remain in bed? She spoke lucidly enough—snappily enough—that he supposed it could simply be a concussion. But even if all she had was a concussion, he didn’t think she should be up and about. If she suddenly fainted or something, he wouldn’t be much good at carrying her to bed, considering he felt somewhat weak right now.

Curiously, the mental image of hauling her into bed affected him. Sexually. Good God, he knew it had been awhile since he’d had a girlfriend, but he wasn’t that hard up, was he? Getting turned on by a shark lawyer who was trying to bleed his client dry? Impossible. Except the tightness in his groin was calling him a liar.

Ignoring that particular part of his anatomy, Ross pushed to his feet, automatically checking his left wrist for the time. But it seemed their clothing wasn’t all that the staff had confiscated. He glanced around, but there was no clock in the room. He was due back in court at three o’clock—if there was any courthouse left.

He estimated that the blast happened between twelve and twelve-fifteen, since Paige had waylaid him the moment he’d emerged from the courtroom at the lunch recess. Of course, that didn’t mean anything because he didn’t have any idea how long he’d been out of it.

If he couldn’t make his court date, he’d better get his assistant to request a continuance. Then again, he supposed that if he didn’t appear they could easily presume he’d been hurt in the bombing.

Still, he wanted to be certain. With that in mind, he rang the call button. He needed to blow this pop stand fast if for no other reason than to get away from a half-naked Paige Hart and the strange feelings she caused in his lower belly.

She emerged from the bathroom looking slightly less pucker-faced, but still her green eyes held a wealth of disdain. Ross was about to make another butt remark. But then lights outside their room blazed to life.

By the sound of Paige’s squealed gasp, he knew she saw the same huge, stenciled word as he did. It was emblazoned on the window separating their room from the one outside their door.

ENITNARAUQ

STUCK WITH YOU, available everywhere books are sold.

Trish Jensen decided to become a romance writer when she learned the rule about romance writers not having to do housework. Really! It’s an honest-to-goodness rule! Well, okay, it was the most creative excuse she could come up with when she tried to explain her theory on dustballs to visitors. (Dustballs don’t kill, people do.)

In truth, she discovered writing on her way to getting an MBA. The MBA has long been abandoned in favor of a computer and characters she argues with out loud. (The dog has finally stopped looking around the room, wondering who she’s talking to.) Trish and her black lab reside in Amish country, the mountains of central Pennsylvania.