was why she’d come home early from her trip—not even her assistant Lilly knew she was back. She’d intended to go on some botanical-search hikes, but she was too eager to test the decoction her lab had created and finalize the formula for her last product.
She paid the disgruntled taxi driver, then glanced at Charlie, but decided she’d scoot inside without his assistance. There were plenty of elderly residents he should be helping, but he always insisted on carrying her bags all the way to her top-floor apartment.
She pushed the handle-release button on her large wheeled suitcase, but it didn’t open. She jiggled the handle and twisted the button, but nothing moved. She could feel Charlie heading her way. “I’ve got it,” she called to him, continuing to struggle.
But she didn’t have it, and soon a tall shadow blocked the sun and a man’s hand touched her bag. “Allow me,” said a voice too low and gruff to be Charlie’s.
A chill of recognition slid like an ice cube down Miranda’s back, and she looked up into a face she remembered from the hottest night of her life. Nick. In a doorman’s uniform, of all things. He didn’t look at her, just adjusted the handle so it clicked sharply into place.
What the heck was Nick doing here? She felt herself turn red. Her hat shaded her face and she wore sunglasses, so maybe he wouldn’t recognize her after all this time. She kept looking down to avoid his gaze.
“Hello, Miranda.” He recognized her, all right, and the huskiness of his voice told her he remembered all of that long, amazing night they’d spent together. Miranda cringed inside.
“Hi.” She dragged her eyes up to meet his. Her tongue felt thick in her suddenly dry mouth. “Nick, right?”
“You remembered,” he said wryly.
As if she could forget. It had been Nick, oh, Nick all night long. She remembered everything about him. His face, wide cheekbones, dark brows, sleepy-looking eyes, and a sensuous smile that lifted higher on one side than the other so that he looked wise—and wise-assed. She’d know Nick anywhere—even under that goofy cap. “It’s been a while,” she said.
“Yeah. A while.” Nick pushed the cap off his head and banged it against his thigh, obviously as uncomfortable as she was. “So, how are you?”
“Fine.” He seemed too close, so she stepped back. “Just f—” Her heel slipped off the curb, but she caught herself before she tilted over. “Just fine.” She smiled, trying not to look nonplussed. “How are you? I…I read in the paper about the…um…incident.”
He shrugged. “Occupational hazard. No big deal.” And none of your business, his eyes said, tightening at the edges. “Protect and serve, that’s what we do.” He pushed back his hair—longer than when she’d last seen him and too shaggy for a cop, but still a rich chestnut that begged to be touched. He resituated the cap in a way that made the silly thing look sexy.
“I was glad it turned out okay,” she said.
Nearly a year ago and not long after their night together, Nick had been shot, once in the heart, she remembered, during a drug bust gone wrong—the wounds so severe he’d hovered near death for days. Each morning during that time, she’d opened the newspaper with shaking fingers, her eyes wild for the headline that would declare his condition, praying he still lived. When she read he’d been upgraded to “stable” and regained consciousness, she’d been so relieved she’d cried—as if he’d been a member of her family or something.
“Yep. Good as new,” Nick said. He rotated his shoulder to prove it, but stiffness in the movement and the way his mouth tensed told her he still suffered.
“You’re doing security work now?”
“I’m just helping Charlie out. He’s a friend.” He looked down at himself. “The suit’s his.”
“I see.” Though she had no reason to care, she was relieved he hadn’t gone from being a heroic police officer to a doorman. Charlie was retired and wanted to keep busy, but Nick was thirty-five at the most.
She studied him in the too-tight uniform. The floret-adorned jacket stretched so snugly across his broad chest that the buttons appeared tight enough to snap off any second. The wool pants were like a second skin. His muscled thighs erased the crease altogether. The high-water effect at his ankles, and the way his wrists dangled below the gold-trimmed sleeves, didn’t make a dent in his good looks, though. Even in that dippy suit, he was gorgeous. “So you’re back on the force, then.”
“Nope. Took medical retirement.”
“That makes sense. I guess, after being nearly killed, it would be, uh, unsettling to go back.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “Getting shot was a wake-up call. I decided life was short and there was more I wanted to do with mine.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but uneasily. It seemed as though he had his doubts. “I’d cleared my share of bad guys off the street.”
He gave her an up-and-down meant to turn the tables, followed by a wicked half grin. “That’s some hat. Amazing you can make it through a doorway.”
“You think it’s too much?”
“Not for the Mexican hat dance.”
Even though he was teasing, his scrutiny made her uncomfortable. She forced a smile. “You’re a fine one to talk. Looks like you borrowed a band uniform from a midget.” She indicated his full-to-bursting uniform.
“Yeah.” He gave a short laugh. “I could make a few extra bucks playing Sousa for pedestrians.”
He’d been funny that night in the bar, too, she remembered, and that had almost dissolved the humiliation she’d felt about Donald. He’d been funny. And kind. And protective of her. And so attractive. With a lazy sexuality that said he knew he’d get what he wanted, no need to rush things.
He’d gotten what he wanted that night, all right. So had she. But after that, their goals had diverged.
“Well, I should get going,” she said, wanting to stop thinking about Nick on that long-ago night. She grabbed the suitcase handle, but nervous perspiration made her hand slide off the grip and the suitcase tipped over.
“Better leave this to the professional.” Nick uprighted the bag. She reached for one of the totes, but he gripped her elbow, stopping her. “Let me do my job, Miranda.” He gave her a long look, his brown eyes intense.
She backed up, letting him take over, still feeling the warmth of his hand on her elbow.
Nick collapsed the suitcase handle and lifted the bag by the side grip, acting as if it weighed no more than a purse—despite its load of clothes, hiking boots, herbal reference tomes and New Mexico travel books.
Putting her two totes under his other arm, he loped to the building door. Even dressed like a nerd on parade, he looked as masculine and in charge as he had that night when she’d slid onto the stool next to him.
He held the lobby door for her, then carried her bags into the elevator, which he held open. “Floor?” he asked, his finger over the button plate.
“I can take it from here,” she said, wanting to escape him.
“Charlie
