Dealing with Annie Read online

  Broad chest with small, tight nipples…flat, ridged belly… Her brain registered both of these things in that split second, before she’d let her gaze drop south.

  “Oh, my God.” She held the door shut with one hand, the other over her mouth, eyes wide as saucers.

  Then the door whipped open again, and there stood Ian—tall, broad and still wet, but now with a towel around his hips, thankfully.

  Or not so thankfully.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered around her fingers, and took a step back. Then another, and another, until she sank to the bed. She dropped her hands and pointed at him, her fingers shaking. “You lied.”

  He closed his eyes, then opened and leveled them on her with an expression of pain and regret. “I didn’t lie, exactly. I…omitted.”

  “You omitted a hell of a lot. I assumed you’d pulled a muscle. Or something.” She looked him in the eyes when he sat down next to her. “But you were shot. Recently.”

  “I was shot. Recently.” With a grim set to his mouth, he parted the white towel slightly, enough to expose his thigh. And the horrific surgery scar alongside the unmistakable puckered one from a bullet.

  “Good Lord, Ian. Tell me you’re on the right side of the law. Please.”

  “I’m on the right side of the law.” He let out a disparaging breath when she just stared at him. “I’m a DEA agent.”

  Annie jerked to her feet and paced away from him. She stared out the window for a long moment, then slowly shook her head. “Well I’d figured something of the sort. You certainly weren’t a farmer.”

  “I’ve never even been on a farm, before Thomas brought me here.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? All those times I asked…”

  “I…don’t know.” He sighed. “Look, it’s all tied into my last case, and how badly I’d screwed it up. It didn’t have anything to do with you—” He blew out a breath. “I know it doesn’t make any sense—”

  “You were shot on the job.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you healing all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes. “God. I just feel like such an idiot, spilling everything to you whenever you wanted, and you’ve spilled nothing, not ever.”

  “Annie—”

  She heard him coming toward her, and knew if she looked at him, if she had to see his nearly nude body again, she’d melt. “No.” She shrugged his hands off her shoulders. She was back at ground zero—with no one to turn to. She moved toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  She looked at him. A mistake. That body was gleaming, his eyes deep and fathomless, and it made her heart hurt. “Why? Do you feel the sudden need to share yourself with me?”

  “Okay, I deserved that,” he muttered, and reached for her again. “I screwed up, okay? I’m sorry, I’m not used to sharing—”

  “Stick with that, Ian, the not-sharing thing. You’re quite good at it.” She shook him off and headed toward the door, with absolutely no destination in mind, or why she was so upset.

  “You’re not dressed.”

  She glanced down at her tank top and flannel pj bottoms. Her sweatshirt was lying on the foot of the bed, and she grabbed it. “Look who’s talking.”

  Obviously not caring, Ian followed her through the house and beat her to the front door.

  “I’m going for a run,” she said. “I want to clear my head.”

  “Annie—”

  “If you want to try to keep up…”

  “You know I can’t,” he said tightly.

  She shot him a grim smile. “That’s right, you were shot. You’re probably not up for a run. I should have known that, considering how close I thought we were, but heaven forbid you share anything with me, because we’re not friends.”

  “Be mad all you want, you’re still not going for a run.”

  “Try to stop me.” She jerked the door open just as her cell phone rang. Still furious, she glanced at it. New York area code, but she didn’t recognize the number. “Hello,” she answered shortly.

  “You think you’re safe,” said the creepy, unrecognizable voice. “But you’re not…”

  A perfect addition to a perfectly rotten day.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I FEEL LIKE A PRISONER,” Annie said to Aunt Gerdie that night before bed.

  Aunt Gerdie only smiled and put on her nightcap. It held her hair in place and protected her weekly ’do. Annie had never seen her sleep without it.

  “Now, dear. I think prisoner is the wrong word.”

  Annie sat cross-legged on Aunt Gerdie’s bed. To release some of the tension, she rolled her neck. It didn’t help. “What would you call having my entire life out of my control?”

  “I’d call it being cared about, maybe even loved, by a very wonderful man.”

  Annie stopped stretching and stared at her. “What?”

  “Ian isn’t trying to make you feel like a prisoner. He’s afraid, and a man like that doesn’t handle fear very well. Just look at the man. He’s desperate to keep you safe, and he’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “Yeah, without a thought as to how I feel about it.”

  Aunt Gerdie smiled sympathetically. “Like I said, he’s a man. He isn’t thinking about your tender little feelings at the moment, he’s in his save-the-girl mode.”

  “I can handle the situation myself.”

  “Well, it would appear you’re going to be handling it with some help.”

  Annie let out a rude sound and turned to the window. They’d called Officer Hunter, reported the new threat. The call had been made from a small motel about five miles from Annie’s Garden.

  Not Cooper’s Corner, which helped.

  She watched the dark night, lit only by the moon and the glow of the snow on the hills. “I started to fall for him, you know. The scary kind of fall.”

  “I know.”

  “It hasn’t been very long, but I really thought I’d finally found someone I could share with.” She blew out a breath. “But as it turns out, I was the only one feeling that way.”

  “I don’t believe that, Annie. Not for one minute.”

  Annie forced a smile and kissed Aunt Gerdie’s cheek. “You know what? I’m going to sleep. Maybe it’ll help.”

  Back in her own room across the hall, Annie called Quinn. At the sound of his bright, cheerful voice saying “hello,” an inexplicable lump grew in her throat.

  “Thank God you’re home.” She needed a friend, needed the familiarity. “I really—”

  “I’d love to chat,” Quinn said. “But I’m not available right now. You know what to do at the beep.”

  Annie stared at the phone, then shook her head. She hung up on Quinn’s machine and plopped backward on the bed. She wanted to pout, sulk, brood, but the truth was, she understood Ian’s fears.

  She felt them for herself.

  What had happened to her quiet, cozy little life?

  A soft knock sounded, but before she could so much as turn her head, the door opened. Ian stepped inside the door, shut it behind him.

  Just looking at him in his soft, threadbare jeans and thermal shirt, untucked and snug against his beautiful torso, made her ache. Then she remembered what he looked like in nothing at all, and that ache liquefied. Spread.

  “Want to go for a ride?” he asked.

  She sat straight up. “On the Harley?”

  “I’m not offering a horseback ride.”

  “If you’re just teasing me, I’ll—”

  “I’m not. It’s safe—there’s no ice on the roads and they’re not even wet tonight.”

  She was off the bed and scrambling for her shoes so fast he laughed. “Cabin fever, huh?”

  “Yeah.” She straightened and looked at him. “What made you think of it?”

  “I’m not blind, Annie.” Reaching out, he stroked a finger over her jaw, smoothed a strand of hair off her face. “I know you’re going stir crazy.”