Shattered (31 page)

But what she found when she opened the door to her mother's room changed her mind. Defying all her expectations, the room was dark, the TV was off, and both her mother and Robin were sound asleep.

Robin even snored.

For a moment Lisa, nonplussed, stood at the foot of her mother's bed with a shaft of light from the hall providing the only illumination. Then she finally, reluctantly faced the truth: She couldn't stay. Waking up Robin from a sound sleep and asking her to leave wasn't something she was going to do. Not at such a late hour. She herself was going to have to leave instead. As in, go back to her hotel room and sleep in it all alone like a big girl. She would call a taxi to meet her at the front of the hospital, which subsequently would let her off at the Marriott's well-lit front entrance. Not risky at all.

With that plan in mind, Lisa quietly left the room, closed the door behind her, and started, slowly and reluctantly, to walk back toward the elevator bank, fishing in her purse for her phone as she went. The hall wasn't empty. A nurse and an intern conferred over a chart outside one of the rooms, and another nurse was on duty at the nurses' station. An elderly man in a cardigan sweater, worn presumably to combat the hospital's air-conditioning, because it was hot and sticky outside, walked toward her from the direction of the elevator bank carrying a plastic bag of food from Taco Bell. Lisa was just registering the spicy scent when she saw that another man had gotten off the elevator, too, and was coming toward her with the slightest of wry smiles on his face.

Scott.

Her eyes snapped open with surprise, and she forgot all about her phone. She'd been feeling sleepy, and slightly headachy, and even a little lonely and scared, but all that vanished in an instant. Her steps slowed as she waited for him to reach her.

"My mother's asleep," is how she greeted him.

"I didn't come to see your mother." He stopped in front of her, and for a moment they looked measuringly at each other. His hair was waving a little--proof of the humidity--and the scrape on his cheek stood out starkly in the unforgiving light. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, there were lines in his face she hadn't noticed before, and stubble darkened his jaw. He still wore his suit, but he had unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie.

Lisa's heart started to beat faster from just looking at him.

"You can give me a ride to my hotel," she said abruptly, and stepped around him, heading for the elevator bank. "I was going to send Robin home, but she's fallen asleep in my mother's room, and I don't want to wake her up."

"No problem." He fell into step beside her.

"So, what are you doing here?" They reached the elevators, and Lisa pushed the down button.

"Well, see, I had a theory."

She gave him a sharp look. "What kind of theory?"

"Once I really thought about it, I figured I know you well enough to be fairly certain that if you were sleeping with Peyton, you wouldn't be coming on to me. And if you weren't sleeping with Peyton, you'd show up here. So, I decided to test it out."

Indignation infused her voice. "You were checking up on me."

"I was trying to prove a theory."

Her eyes sparked at him. "That 's a load of crap and you know it." "Admit it. My theory was right. You're not sleeping with Loverboy."

The elevator arrived with a
ping,
and the doors slid open. Stepping inside it, she cast him a fulminating look as he followed her in.

"You know what your problem is, don't you?" She gave the lobby button a savage jab, then turned to glare at him as the elevator lurched into motion. They were facing each other now. Her back rested against the polished brass wall. She folded her arms over her chest. "You're jealous."

"Insanely," he agreed with a rueful little smile, astonishing her. Then he leaned forward and kissed her.

23

The touch of his mouth
on hers made her heart lurch. It was so unexpected that for a moment Lisa couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't respond at all. Her pulse drummed in her ears. Her stomach dropped clear to her toes. Every sense suspended. Then the reality of it hit--Scott was kissing her!--and her lips quivered and parted beneath his, and she closed her eyes and clutched at his shoulders.

And kissed him back.

His lips slanted across hers, warm and firm and fiercely hungry. His tongue came into her mouth, and she responded with a fierceness of her own. Planting his hands on either side of her head, he leaned into her, pressing her back against the wall with the whole long length of him so that she could feel every muscular inch. As the weight of his body pinned her in place, a hot spiral of arousal began to burn deep inside her. Arching against him, she gave herself up to the kiss she'd been waiting for for years.

The elevator door opened with another
ping.

Opening her eyes, Lisa saw through a bedazzled fog that they had reached the lobby and there were people standing in front of the open elevator door waiting to board: two female medical types, either doctors or nurses, she couldn't be sure which; a man in a track suit; and a middle-aged woman holding a balloon. All stared in wide-eyed surprise at the entwined couple in the elevator, and in turn Lisa stared blankly back at them.

Just as she was recovering enough presence of mind to realize that (a) she needed to stop kissing Scott and (b) they needed to get off the elevator, he lifted his mouth from hers, levered himself upright, cast a quick, comprehensive look at their audience, and caught her hand, pulling her after him from the elevator. She gave the gaping onlookers a small embarrassed smile as she was hauled past them, then hurried after Scott, who kept her hand in a firm grip as he strode for the lobby and the exit.

Her heart was still hammering, her breathing was still erratic, and it was still hard to focus on anything besides the fact that he'd kissed her. But she took a deep breath and tried.

"Scott. Wait. Where are we going?"

"Somewhere private."

"I'm wearing heels," she protested. "The floor's slick. I can't walk this fast."

Not quite the conversation she had always dreamed of having with him after their first kiss, but needs must, as the saying went.

"Sorry." He slowed down, and she caught up. Then, as their eyes met, he smiled at her, a slow, intimate smile that had her melting inside just as quick as that. Her heart thundered anew. He was still holding her hand, and she loved how big and warm and strong his hand felt. "I forgot about the shoes. How you women can walk in those things is an eternal mystery to me."

She disregarded that and went straight to the point. "You kissed me."

"I know."

She waited in vain for more, then chose to abandon the topic for the moment as they reached the middle of the lobby and the big glass doors with the black night stretching endlessly beyond looming up in front of them.

"Stop a minute. I have to tell you--last night there was a white Ford Explorer. I think it was following me. It turned into the hospital. For all I know, it may be out there now. We need to be care--"

She broke off because they had reached the door by this time and he was pushing through it. Her fingers tightened urgently on his hand. She would have planted her feet, but given the slick terrazzo surface beneath her soles, it wasn't happening.

A wall of humid air hit her as she was propelled over the threshold. Outside, the entrance was lit by round white lights recessed in the concrete overhang, and she was instantly conscious of what a target they must make for anyone who might be waiting farther out in the dark parking lot for just such an opportunity.

"Scott--"

"It wasn't anything you need to worry about. In fact, you weren't supposed to know squat about it," he said. They were stepping off the sidewalk into the parking lot proper about then, and she was busy casting scared glances all around. As his words registered, she looked at him instead and frowned. "I asked a friend of mine to keep an eye on you while I was out of town. Make sure you got to the hospital safely, that kind of thing. He's a cop, he was off duty, he owed me a favor. I called it in."

Lisa stopped dead. He had perforce to stop too, which he did, turning to look at her inquiringly.

"What?" he asked.

"You had somebody following me?"

"Yeah, I did. Don't tell me you've got a problem with that."

"Oh my God. That is so typical of the high-handed way you do things. You could have at least told me."

"I didn't have time. I was on my way out of town, remember? And I didn't want to have to spend the whole night worrying about whether or not you were okay. I had enough on my plate, believe me. Besides, I figured you'd probably just pick a fight with me about it."

At his urging, they were walking again by that time, heading into the dark recesses of the parking lot, where she could just see his Jeep among the scattering of waiting vehicles. The lights out there were far apart, set high on tall metal poles, and cast only the most meager of yellow glows. The moon was big and round and high overhead now, and the stars were almost as thick as the twinkling lights in the tent earlier. In the distance, occasional explosions gave evidence that all the Independence Day celebrations weren't finished. His hand gripped hers firmly, and Lisa tingled all over at the contact. At her age, to react so strongly to a man holding her hand was probably ridiculous, she knew. But this wasn't any man, this was Scott, and react she did.

"I do not pick fights with you."

"Baby, you've been picking fights with me since you were twelve years old."

Not wanting to prove his point, Lisa switched gears. "I ran his plates. They came up as being registered to a company called Diurnal Plastics."

"He does PI work on the side. I guess he likes keeping things on the down-low."

"I was scared to death!"

"I'm sorry about that. You weren't supposed to even notice he was there."

"Believe me, I noticed."

They reached the Jeep, and he opened the passenger door for her. Fixing him with a mildly reproving look, Lisa slid inside. No sooner had she settled into her seat than he leaned in and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, hard and possessive, scarcely more than a hot branding of her mouth by his lips and tongue, certainly nothing to make her senses go into instant meltdown. But they did.

Looking up at him as he straightened away from her, she was so entranced she forgot all about the off-duty cop in the Explorer. Forgot about everything, in fact, except him and the way he made her feel.

"Put your seat belt on," he told her, and closed the door on her. As he walked around the hood of the car and she struggled to get her breathing under control, she did as he said.

"The Marriott?" he asked as he got behind the wheel, and she nodded.

"Thank you," she said after a moment. He had already started the car and was driving out of the lot.

"For?"

"Caring enough to ask somebody to follow me."

The smile he gave her was enough to make her stomach tighten. "You're welcome."

Except for the occasional slash of headlights through the interior, it was dark in the car, and quiet enough so that she could hear the swoosh of tires on the pavement. For so late at night, there was a surprising amount of traffic on the road, and she remembered again that it was the Fourth of July--well, the fifth of July now. Letting her head drop back against the smooth leather seat, she looked at him meditatively. Just the sight of that hard, handsome profile silhouetted against the window made her feel warm all over. She knew him so well and had wanted him for so long. A lifetime, it felt like.

And now, this.

"Okay, what happened to the whole 'You and me, no way' thing?" If there was a wary note in her voice, she considered that he'd earned it. "What's with you kissing me all of a sudden?"

"I knew you were going to want to talk about this."

"You were right. So talk."

"I've been in a filthy mood for almost a month now."

"So everyone at the office has been telling me. Now I, I just thought you were being your regular self." He made a face at her. "But I don't see what that has to do with why you kissed me."

"I've been in a filthy mood because of you. Since you guilted me into hiring you."

"I
guilted
you?" She was indignant.

"Don't interrupt." He threw her a semi-humorous look. "I figure it's like a dieter locked in a room with a Hershey bar. The dieter's going to fight temptation as long as he can. He's going to turn his back, he's going to grit his teeth, he's going to get cranky. But in the end, temptation is going to win every time."

"Are you comparing me to a Hershey bar?"

"Premium dark chocolate, baby."

"Let me get this straight: You're saying you kissed me because tonight you're fresh out of willpower?"

"More like I decided willpower is overrated." They reached the hotel parking lot, and he pulled in, circling the rows of parked cars as he searched for a space. "I kissed you because I've wanted to kiss you for most of my life. Tonight I just decided to quit fighting it. This thing between us--this attraction, whatever you want to call it--has been there ever since we were kids. Tonight it finally occurred to me that the really dumb thing to do would be to keep turning my back on it."

He said it in such a quiet, serious tone that butterflies overtook Lisa's stomach.

"So, now what?" Her heart speeded up like a marathon runner's as he found a space, parked the Jeep, and switched off the ignition.

"I guess that's pretty much up to you." He released his seat belt. "Come on, I'll walk you in."

I'm as nervous as a teenager.
The thought came with its own little thrill.

He got out of the car. Before he could make it around to her door she was out, standing up on legs that felt rubbery, taking a deep breath of too warm, too thick, exhaust-scented air.
Not exactly the head-clearing combination I was hoping for.
He smiled at her, and her pulse raced.

It's the middle of the night, Scott's walking me up to my hotel room, and he kissed me.