The Penalty Box (7 page)

Deep in thought, he failed to notice when the light at the corner of Church Street and Main turned red. Running out into the street, he barely had time to register the screeching breaks before he was out cold, darkness dropping down on him as fast as a curtain.

Teeth clacking like castanets, Katie threw her car into park and lurched out the driver's side door, too preoccupied to close it. One minute she was cruising down Main Street looking for someplace,
anyplace
, that might serve lattes; the next Paul had run into her path and she was smashing down on the brake, bringing the car to a screeching halt.

“Paul?”

He was breathing. Hearing his name, his eyes fluttered open, straining to focus. His face was red from physical exertion. Sweat soaked his T-shirt, gluing it to his muscular upper torso like a second skin. Blood flowed from a cut to his scalp. Katie wondered if he'd been trying to commit suicide. If so, she sure wished he'd picked someone else's car to hurl himself in front of.

“I saw the whole thing!” a young woman pushing a stroller called breathlessly from the curb. “He wasn't even looking where he was going!”

Katie barely heard; her eyes remained riveted on Paul. He seemed intact, but you never knew. What if he was bleeding internally, his life slowly slipping away, the same way hers would when she was on trial for vehicular manslaughter? Oh God. Tearing off the silk scarf around her neck, she pressed it to his bleeding head. Paul groaned, opening his eyes briefly before closing them again.

“Do you have a cell phone?” Katie called to the woman. The woman nodded. “Could you call an ambulance?”

“No.” Paul groaned. “No ambulance.”

He was sprawled in the middle of Main Street like a limp rag doll, but that didn't stop him from trying to call the shots, Katie noticed.

“No ambulance,” he repeated more forcefully.

By now, a small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, murmuring, “That's Paul van Dorn!” Thankfully, the observation wasn't followed with, “He was just mowed down by Katie Fisher.”

Katie put her face close to his. “Paul?”

“Katie?” He looked up at her woozily. “What are you doing here?”

“That was my bumper you just tried to kiss.”

Paul chuckled, then grimaced. Clearly, laughing hurt. “Getting revenge for high school, huh?”

“Actually, I thought you were trying to end it all.”

“Believe me, if that was the case there are a lot more pleasant ways to go about it.”

“Such as—?”

“A hotel room, two hookers, some downers and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

“Nice to see you've put some thought into it,” Katie said dryly. As he struggled to push himself up on his elbows, she said, “What are you doing? Don't move!”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Katie, listen to me.” He gently removed her hand from his head, replacing it with his own. “I don't need an ambulance.”

“You don't know that.”

“I
do
know that. Believe me, I've had worse knocks than this out on the ice.”

“You could be bleeding internally. You could be concussed from hitting your head on the pavement. You don't know.”

“Okay, look.” Paul continued pressing the scarf to his head. “If it'll make you feel better, you can drive me over to the emergency room, okay? But there's no need to trouble EMS. Agreed?”

Katie mulled this over. He
was
sitting up and talking. Then again, what if she agreed and he died in her car? Would she be liable?

“Katie?”

“Okay, I'll drive you over to the hospital. You'll need stitches to the head, at the very least.”

Paul pulled the scarf away and pressed his fingers to the cut on his head. “It's nothing. A scrape.” He wiped his bloody fingers on his T-shirt.

“C'mon, macho man, let's get you in the car.”

 

 

Katie leapt out of her butt-torturing chair the minute Paul reentered the emergency room waiting area. She'd read every outdated issue of
Woman's Day
and had memorized all the top stories on Headline News while she waited for the doctors to release him. It didn't help that the woman sitting next to her kept groaning with a stomachache.

Paul was a sight. Blood smeared his running clothes, and his face remained pale. A small patch of his head had been shaved and covered with a gauze bandage.

“Four stitches,” he told her. “No biggie.”

Katie felt awful. “That's it? Are you sure?”

He shrugged. “A few bruised ribs.”

“No concussion?”

“I'm fine,” he replied curtly. He glanced around the emergency room with a shudder. “Let's get out of here.”

Katie walked out with him, glad to be free of the hospital's oppressive atmosphere. Should she take his elbow and guide him to the car? He seemed to be walking all right.

Pausing at the curb, Paul peered at the parking lot. “Which car is yours again?”

“The blue Neon.” He didn't remember? Was he concussed?

He turned to her, embarrassed. “Would you mind giving me a lift home?”

She led him to her car, rushing to open the passenger door for him.

“It's
stitches
, Katie,” Paul said with amusement as he ducked into the passenger seat. “I'm not an invalid.”

“I was just trying to be nice,” she countered, closing the door. “I wasn't going to let you
jog
home, was I?” Sliding into the driver's seat, she turned on the ignition. “Where to?”

“Dover Street. One-fourteen.”

“Oh.”

“You seem surprised.”

“I am. I guess. I mean—”

“You thought I'd be living in Ladybarn, right?”

Katie nodded. Paul was right. Her natural assumption was that he'd be living in the wealthiest part of town, the part he'd grown up in. Instead, he'd chosen a solidly middle-class neighborhood to call home. She wondered why. As if reading her mind, he said, “I didn't want to run into my folks all the time.”

“I see.” Throwing the car into drive, she eased out of the parking space and followed the winding, tree-lined road that led out of the hospital grounds. Dover Street . . . Dover Street . . .

“Make the right onto Scudder, turn left down Laurel, follow it all the way to Dempsey, then make the final right onto Dover.”

Katie glanced at him. “Did that blow to the head give you psychic powers?”

“No.”

“Then how did you know I was trying to figure out how to get there?”

“Your face. You're scowling. You looked pained.”

“That's because I'm nervous,” Katie admitted, following his first instruction to make the right onto Scudder Road. “I've never driven with a celebrity before.”

“Former celebrity. Let's get our terms right.” His gaze turned curious. “You weren't nervous on the ride
to
the hospital.”

“I was too busy thinking you were going to croak in my car.”

Paul laughed loudly. “You would have had to get new seat covers!”

“What, are you kidding me? I would have sold the car intact on eBay. Too bad there are no bloodstains or anything. Think of the value it would have added.”

He laughed again. “You're funny,” he said, as if it surprised him.

And you're nice
, Katie thought, feeling equally surprised.

Paul looked down at her bloody scarf crumpled in his hand. “You have to let me get you a new one.”

Katie clucked her tongue dismissively. “Don't worry about it.”

“No, I insist.”

“Keep it as a souvenir: ‘Baby's first pedestrian accident. ' ”

Paul laughed again. “You're a real wiseass, you know that?”

“I try,” said Katie, marveling over the fact she was sitting in a car bantering with Paul van Dorn. Never in a million years could she have imagined this scene, nor how alive it made her feel. “If you don't mind me asking, what were you thinking about so deeply that you jogged out in front of a car?”

Paul slumped in his seat. “Youth hockey. I'm coaching this year.”

“And this is bad because—?”

“I'm coaching squirts.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“Younger boys, nine- and ten-year-olds.”

Katie smiled. “Maybe you'll be coaching my nephew, then.”

“If he makes the team.”

“Right.” She hadn't even thought of that. These kids had to try out, and some of them might not make the team, Tuck included. “Why don't you want to coach squirts?”

“It's not that I don't want to,” Paul said carefully. “I would just prefer coaching the teenage boys. They're more skilled.”

“Which must mean coaching them is more prestigious,” Katie observed.

“Well . . . yeah.”

“So this is purely an ego issue, then.” She turned the car down Laurel Avenue.

“Are you analyzing me, Miss Sociologist?”

“Maybe.”

“You still want to interview me for that book?”

Katie's heart jumped. “I would love to. What's your schedule like?”

“Late mornings, early afternoons are best.”

“I could take you out to lunch, if you'd like. I hear the curly fries at the Penalty Box are to die for.”

“Yeah?” Paul sounded pleased. “Where'd you hear that?”

“My mom. Your bar is the talk of the Episcopal Church.”

“Not the clientele I'm seeking but what the hell, I'll take the free PR. You want to do it there, then?”

With you I'd do it anywhere.
Katie smiled brightly to cover the sudden surge of desire shooting through her. “Sure. When?”

“How's Friday sound?”

“Sounds good. Should I just meet you there?”

“That makes the most sense. Katie?”

“Yeah?”

“You're going the wrong way down Laurel.”

“What?” Katie slowed the car. “You said right.”

“Left. It's not a big deal.”

No, except she looked like a ditz. She quickly pulled into an empty driveway and turning the car around, drove off in the right direction. She could feel Paul watching her as she concentrated on her driving. The more he looked at her, the more she thought
she
might be the one to die in the car—of a sheer heart attack brought on by acute anxiety and lust. Finally she couldn't take it anymore.

“What?”

Paul shook his head, marveling at her. “I still can't get over how great you look.”

Katie colored. Praise made her feel vulnerable. Praise from a man this gorgeous made her feel like she was sitting behind the steering wheel naked.

“Thank you,” she managed.

“How did you do it?”

“Diet and exercise. I run, too.”

“Yeah?” Paul's eyes lit up. “Maybe we could run together sometime.”

“Maybe.”

Perhaps she was wrong, but she could have sworn she saw disappointment flit across his face. She was baffled. Why would he want to run with
her
? Maybe that was an ego thing, too. Maybe he thought he could kick former fat girl Katie's ass out on the open road. If so, he was in for a big surprise.

“So,” Paul said casually, “do you have a boyfriend?”

Katie clutched the steering wheel hard to avoid driving up onto the sidewalk. “Not right now, no. How about you? Do you have a boyfriend? Oh God—I mean girlfriend.”

Paul put his hand on her knee and Katie's foot nearly shot through the floorboard.

“
Relax.
I don't bite.” Paul removed his hand. “I used to.”

“What? Bite?”

“No, have a girlfriend. She dumped me when I retired.”

“Nice.”

“Happens all the time.” He sounded resigned as he gazed out the window. “Where you living now?”

“Where I've always lived. On Herbert Place. I'm staying with my mother.”

“I don't know where Herbert Place is,” Paul admitted.

“Over the tracks, close to the printing factory.”

He turned back to her, concerned. “Is it safe to run there?”

“Of course,” Katie retorted with a frown. “Why wouldn't it be?”

Shrugging, Paul leaned back against the headrest with his eyes closed. They drove the rest of the way in tense silence.

“I'm sorry,” he said as they rolled to a stop in front of his house, a modest split-level that Katie thought was pretty nondescript. “I didn't mean to insult you.”

Katie switched off the ignition. “It's okay. I can be a little touchy sometimes. I'm sorry, too.”

The silence returned, but this time it was tense in a new, different way. Katie took a deep breath. She wanted this to be over. No, what she really wanted was him. She'd settle for a candy bar.

“Friday, then?” Paul reconfirmed.

“Friday.”

“Thanks for the ride, Katie,” Paul said softly.

He leaned over and kissed her. Soft enough to be sweet, but just enough pressure for it to mean something.

Katie's mind reeled. She'd just been kissed by the boy she used to fantasize about kissing, the same one who used to call her “Bubble Butt” in high school.

“I—I better go. I've got research to do at the library.”

“Okay,” Paul said easily, opening the car door. “See you Friday, then. Thanks again for everything you've done for me today, especially not killing me.”