“It’s not your fault.” She looked away.
Rage flowed through his system, the urge to beat that miscreant in Justin’s custody so bad he was incapable of ever raising a hand to a woman again was hard to contain. “Where else did he hit you?”
She didn’t answer.
He scooped her into his arms, with the utmost care, and carried her to the passenger door. “When I get you home I’m going to strip off your clothes and examine every inch of you.” Objectively. Impersonally. With complete focus on his mission: To identify injury and evaluate for need of medical treatment. Oh, who the hell was he trying to kid?
“You’ll have to knock me unconscious to do it.” She struggled to get free.
“The only place you’re going is from my arms into that car seat. Now hand me the keys because I’m wet and angry and not in the mood to get shot or knifed by any of the scumbags who frequent this neighborhood.”
She gave him the keys.
As he slid her into the car he gave into the urge and whispered, “For the record, I’m not a fan of the new look.” If he hadn’t known it was Jaci, he never would have recognized her.
“Good,” she snapped. “First thing tomorrow I’ll make it permanent.”
He closed the door and smiled, remembered the stimulating, entertaining banter between them, the companionship, friendship and lust, and felt almost normal. But since his return from Iraq, his life had been anything but.
After adjusting the driver’s seat to accommodate his six foot, probably down to one hundred and eighty-five-pound frame, Ian turned the key in the ignition and the old car sputtered to life. “This is your choice for a getaway car?” Thing probably wouldn’t reach fifty miles per hour without a good push and the benefit of a downward slope.
“It’s not like I was robbing a bank.” Jaci turned to look out the window, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “It blends in,” she added quietly.
Yeah. More than her little red BMW would.
Ian turned right out of the parking lot. A few more turns and he was on the highway heading home. A tense quiet filled the car broken only by the rapid slap of the windshield wipers. Most definitely not the kind of quiet the shrink at the rehab had recommended. A bomb blast echoed in the deep recesses of his mind.
Not now.
He imagined Jaci chatting. The way she spoke so fast and used her hands when she got excited. The melodic fluctuations in her tone. The movement of her sensual lips. Her smile. The way she elbowed him or punched him when he made a snide comment or teased her.
The yelling of soldiers filled his ears. Chaos. “Medic. I need a medic over here!”
Deep breath. Keep it together Ice.
Focus.
He searched for something to say, to keep him in the present, and homed in on the first thing that came to mind. “Do you have a death wish or something? Showing up at the most dangerous housing complex in the south side of Mount Vernon, in the dark, alone. It was a total rookie move. One that could have gotten you killed.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel to keep from reaching over to shake some sense into her. Anger boiled deep in his gut. Not good. Convincing wealthy benefactors to part with their cash in support of her crisis center was where she belonged. Not on the front line, dealing with reprobates and confronting danger.
His heart pounded. A trickle of sweat wove its way down his temple.
“I’ll have you know I’ve been doing this for three years,” she said, “since I started the Women’s Crisis Center. And I have never run into a problem until tonight.”
Three years? “Pure dumb luck.” His heart skipped a beat. “At some point your luck will run out.” Just like his had. He wanted to hit something. “Did Justin know?”
“As of tonight he does,” she said.
“This woman, the one you set out to rescue tonight. She’s so special her safety is worth putting yours at risk?”
“You don’t know anything about me, do you?” she asked.
He knew everything that mattered. She was smart, funny, thoughtful, beautiful, sexy, and there was a time he’d rather spend his time with her than with anyone else.
She shifted in her seat to face him. “Come on, Ian. Tell the truth. You never looked me up on the Internet? Never gave in to that niggling interest people seem to have about just how much I’m worth?”
Eyes focused on the road, he shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint but I prefer to get to know people on my own terms rather than reading what others have to say about them, and I’m more interested in your body than your bank account.” Was interested. Was, as in past tense. He could not allow Jaci to distract him from what he had to do.
She smiled. “You always tell it like it is, don’t you?”
He glanced over and smiled right back. “That’s why you love me.”
Her smile vanished.
Wrong thing to say. Idiot. Because she didn’t love him. At the moment she barely liked him, her scorn totally justified. It was for the best, for both of them. That didn’t mean he had to like it.
He waited for her to lay into him.
Instead she said, “When you get home tonight, go online and keyword Piermont Tragedy, Scarsdale, New York. Then you’ll understand why I will do whatever I can to help women escape abusive relationships. And since I’m of legal age, no one gets a say in how I go about doing it.” She turned back toward the window. “This conversation is over.”
In the interest of peace between them, he let the topic slide. “I, uh, got your letter.” Perfectly formed cursive written on classy pale pink stationery in purple ink. Five pages front and back, upbeat, with no mention of her proposal of marriage or his rude, hasty retreat. The woman could make the simple act of doing laundry entertaining. And the scent. Her perfume. He’d stored it in a zipper-lock plastic bag to preserve the aroma, carried it in his pocket, slept with it, jerked off to it.
“If you’d left me a way to contact you before you took off, if you’d put forth the slightest effort by writing me back or e-mailing me or in some way letting me know it got to you, maybe I would have sent you more.” She spoke without moving, still looking out the window. But the emotion in her voice let him know he’d hurt her feelings.
So much for peace between them.
He tried to explain. “When I’m in a warzone I can’t be distracted by thoughts of home. I’m there to do a job, to complete the tasks I’m assigned and get out alive.” He glanced at her. “And I thought it’d be easier on you to not feel obligated to write me or think about me.” Or worry or search for lists of dead and wounded every time a bloody battle made the news. Like his mother had each time his father had been deployed overseas.
“So let me get this straight.” She turned to him and finally took off that ridiculous wig. “For the better part of four
