didn’t weigh much, but then, he hadn’t expected that she would. She was five foot three something and filled with hot air. Hot air was never very heavy.
Teri wanted to protest, but she couldn’t find the energy. This was a whole lot better than trying to concentrate on placing one foot in front of the other. “I had no idea you were this gallant.”
He ignored the looks of officers who were vacating the roof. He’d never much cared about what people thought one way or another, as long as they didn’t get in his way. “I’m not. I’m pragmatic.”
She smiled at him. He could say what he wanted, but she knew he cared about her. This was a whole other side of Hawk she’d never seen before. Too bad it had taken her getting shot for it to emerge. Something warm began to stir within her. “Was that one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table?”
She was babbling more than usual. “Are you getting delirious on me?”
“Delirious,” she repeated as if trying to remember. “First handmaiden to Queen Guinevere, right?”
Either she really was delirious, or she was taking this opportunity to yank his chain. Either way, it didn’t improve his mood. “Shut up before I think better of this and throw you off the roof.”
“I’m shutting.”
Trying very hard to ignore the fire that was eating up her side, Teri threaded her arms around his neck. She was fairly certain that the bullet had only grazed her, but that didn’t change the fact that everything was spinning around her. Even though she would have hated to admit it, she wasn’t that much of a trouper when it came to looking at her own spilled blood. She liked keeping it just where it belonged. In her veins.
She forced a smile to her lips as she looked at him. “Am I supposed to be out of my head right now so I can’t remind you of this gallantry later on?”
Coming to the door, he let one of the remaining policemen open it for him. He ignored the look the man gave him. Ignored, too, the strange feeling he felt in response to holding her against him like this. “Far as I’m concerned, you’re always out of your head, Cavanaugh.”
Maybe if she talked, she could keep her head from spinning off. “Spoken like a true gentleman. At least you’re making progress.” He was taking the stairs down and each step vibrated along her side. “That was almost a complete sentence. There’s hope for you yet, Hawk.” She sucked in her breath as he jostled her.
She was hurting, he thought, frustrated because he was powerless to help her. He didn’t like seeing her in pain like this. “Hang in there,” he muttered.
“Don’t have much choice, do I?” Her mind jumped from topic to topic like a frog going from one lily pad to another in a pond. She thought of word leaking back about her wound. It would spread in no time like a prairie fire across dry grass. “Oh, God, Dad’s going to freak.”
The moment she said it, a protectiveness gripped her heart. Andrew Cavanaugh had had enough to contend with in his lifetime. She didn’t want this added to the pile, at least not until he could see for himself that she was all right. Since she lived at home, there was no way she could hide this indefinitely, but she wanted to spare him as much as possible for as long as possible.
She looked at Hawk, her eyes imploring him. “Don’t call my father and tell him about this.”
They’d finally made it to the landing. He’d gone as slowly as he dared. Hawk brought her over to the elevator. Angling for the best position in order to get at the button, he raised Teri up slightly in his arms, then pressed. He’d bench-pressed twice her weight just yesterday. Didn’t she eat?
“I have no intentions of calling your father.”
No, he wouldn’t, she realized. He wouldn’t see the need for it. Hawk didn’t understand the kind of closeness a family like theirs generated. She wondered if he’d ever experienced anything remotely resembling closeness amid all the foster families he’d been shipped off to during his youth.
Probably not.
She felt something stir in her heart. It wasn’t pity, just an overwhelming amount of sympathy, but he probably wouldn’t have understood that, either. In an odd way, he appeared to be content in his life with things just the way they were.
But she wasn’t.
“Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to,” she mumbled. Teri withdrew her arms from his neck, but he made no move to set her on the floor. Given a choice, she would have rather remained this way, in his arms, for a host of reasons. But it ate at her independence. “You can put me down now,” she said softly.
His eyes met hers and she almost expected him to try to argue her out of it. He didn’t. Instead, without a word, he allowed her to test her own legs.
And find herself wanting. Teri’s knees all but buckled out from under her.
“Any other bright ideas?” he asked as he picked her up into his arms again.
“Several, but they all involve less clothing.” She gave him a sexy, sidelong glance to mask the pain she felt shooting up and down her entire left side. It was a joke, purely a joke, or so she told herself. But for one moment, something telegraphed itself between them, something almost erotic. The next moment, it was gone and he was looking at her with what appeared to be confusion. “Gotcha,” she muttered in triumph.
He made no comment. With Teri, it was safer that way. He glared instead at the light, which testified that the elevator car had not left the second floor in all this time. More than likely, it’d temporarily been commandeered by the officers going over the victims’ apartment. There was no telling when they would release the elevator. Probably not before checking out the rest of the building in case the burglars had accomplices who had fled to other floors.
He also didn’t know how long he would be required to remain standing here with Teri. And she was in no shape to wait indefinitely. Making up his mind, Hawk headed back toward the stairwell. When he reached it, he pushed open the door with his back.
Teri stared at him. “Where are we going?”
“To never-never land,” he said between clenched teeth. There she went, asking more questions, butting heads with him at every turn. Why couldn’t she just be cooperative and pass out like any normal person in her place would have?
Teri blinked. “A joke. You made a joke. I must be dying. Is it that serious?”
Hawk sighed, trying hard not to jostle her any more than he had to. He didn’t even look at his partner. “If I said yes, would you shut up?”
She wanted to thread her arms back around his neck to secure herself, but she felt that if she didn’t keep pressing her hand against her side, everything would come tumbling out. “Now you’re starting to hurt my feelings, Hawk. And just when we were getting so close, too.”
“We’re not getting close,” he informed her tersely, taking the next set of stairs down. “I don’t get close.” And because there was a real danger of that happening here, he put out a special effort to keep her at arm’s length.
Deep down, he didn’t really believe that, she thought. It was just something he’d talked himself into. “Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.”
This
