Shifting Gears (8 page)

“He came over looking for you, and
after about thirty minutes of waiting, he started calling you. I
heard some of the voicemails he was leaving you before he left
here. He was mad, Niki. I mean
mad
. Have you listened to any
of them yet?”

“What do you mean when he left? You
let him in the condo?”

“Well, um, yeah. What was I supposed
to do? That man is scary as shit. He asked me if I knew where you
were, and I lied and told him I didn’t know. That maybe there was
an emergency at the hospital. I swear to God, I just knew he was
going to know I was lying to him, but those damn acting classes
must’ve kicked in because I even shocked my damn self at how
convincing I sounded.”

He was in our house. Sitting in our
living room, looking at my things. That completely pissed me off.
How fucking dare he barge back into my life like this? He doesn’t
deserve it. Any of it. He doesn’t deserve to know me anymore. To
see my accomplishments, to see what I’ve become.

To know what his actions did to me,
what he made me: untrusting and lonely.

“He stuck around for a while, but then
he left without even telling me. I went to the bathroom, and when I
came back, he was gone. Niki, he was mad as hell and, God, after
about the second or third message he left you, he started texting
like crazy and then just got madder and madder. I was glad he left
when he did, because he was starting to scare the shit out of
me.”

I brace myself up against the counter
as I listen to her words. He’s serious. He really wants to talk to
me. Shit.

“Where are you at right
now?”

“I’m still at work, about to walk out.
I’m meeting Clay at the diner. We’re gonna get a coffee or
something so I can make sure he’s good with how things went down
last night. I talked to him earlier for a little bit, but you know
how Clay is.”

“Okay, well, be careful. He had that
same look in his face like when he gave dumb-ass the beat
down.”

“Cass, I’m sure by now he’s figured
out I have no intention of calling him back. He’s probably in
somebody’s bed, probably hers, as we speak.”

“Hmm. We’ll see. You didn’t see his
face, and you obviously haven’t listened to any of his voicemails
either.”

I hang up with Cass, after telling her
I’ll be home in an hour or so. I walk outside to leave, but stop
dead in my tracks as I look out into the darkness of the parking
lot. Sitting on the hood of his car, looking right at me is Holt.
Shit. So much for being in somebody else’s bed. Damn it. What the
hell am I going to do?

There’s no way to avoid him. He’s
right in front of me. I can almost feel the anger rolling off him
from across the parking lot, burning my skin.

You can do
this.

I suck in a deep breath and, before he
can get the upper hand and approach me, walk straight to
him.

When I reach him, I clearly see he’s
not mad, he’s a ticking time bomb ready to explode.

Scary.

“Holt, look, I’m sorry I didn’t call
you back. Last night was a mistake. I should never have agreed to
go to dinner with you. There’s nothing you can say that will make
me understand why you left like you did. That was a long time ago.
I’ve moved on. I can learn to deal with the fact that you’re back
in town, if you are, and that we’re going to run into each other.
We’re both adults, and I don’t see why we can’t be civil to one
another.”

“Are you done?” Holt
growls.

Oh yeah. That stiff, tight jaw. Those
eyes deadlocked on me. Just like Cass said. Shit.

“Um, yeah. There’s not much more I
need to say.” I take a few steps back from him, in the direction of
my car.

“Good. Now get in the car.”

Should’ve known it wasn’t going to be
that easy.

“Did you not just hear what I
said?”

He slides off the hood and crosses his
arms across his chest, grinning. “Yeah, I heard it, babe, and now
I’m telling you to get in the car. You owe me dinner.”

“Holt, I’m not going anywhere with
you.” I put my hand on my hip as I let out a nervous breath. “I’m
meeting Clay.”

Why the hell did I tell him that? I’ve
just sealed Clay’s fate of sudden death or, at the very least, a
trip to the emergency room.

“Call him and tell him why you have to
cancel on him, Nicolette. That you forgot you made plans with
me.”

Fucking hell, there it is again. My
face must show my reaction to the sound of my name, as he lifts his
hand to my shoulder and strokes it.

God. Stop. Just stop. I
can’t do this.

When he touches me, I’m so fucking
weak. No willpower. Nothing.

His tone is softer now as he continues
to stroke my arm, sending a trail of sparks up and down. “It’s just
dinner. Give me a chance to talk, to explain things to you, to tell
you what I should have, but couldn’t, before I left.” He backs away
from me, leaning up against Sex on Wheels, waiting for my answer.
“If, after you hear me out, you feel the same, you can walk
away.”

I watch as he shoves his hands into
his pockets. He’s fighting for control too. I know it. He’s trying
to stay calm. I can see it in the stiffness of his body.

“I won’t try to follow.” He nods his
head back and forth. “You have my word. This has to be all you,
Nicolette. I know what I want.”

I know even with his calmness, he’s
not going to take no for an answer, and I don’t want to put Clay in
front of his anger again.

“Okay, just dinner.” I look away from
him, but I’m very aware his gaze is still on me.

I quickly dig for my cell in my purse
and call Clay to stop him from coming to the diner. No way in hell
I want him near Holt. His actions have been totally and utterly
unpredictable since he came back, so I have no clue what he might
be capable of.

We drive in silence to the only
twenty-four- hour diner in town: Sammy’s, a small Mom and Pop place
where the food is hot and the coffee strong. It’s pretty much a
given I’m going to run into somebody I know, I just hope it isn’t
someone from the hospital. Not wanting to have to explain why I’m
out after midnight with a client… Not that it matters, really. I
just don’t want anybody to see us. Together. Then would come
questions.

When we walk in, I glance around the
crowded diner. Thank God. Nobody from the hospital. I spot a booth
in the back, where we sit across from each other. I wave a friendly
hello to Laine, who eyes the two of us as we sit down. She’s
Sammy’s daughter, who normally works nights. When I’m covering the
night shift, I stop here for a coffee and an apple turnover
(melt-in-your-mouth good) before heading home.

Laine walks over to us and, not having
a shy bone in her body, immediately turns to Holt. “Well, hello,
handsome. You must be someone special, seeing as my girl here never
brings anybody in here when she comes for her cup of
Joe.”

He grins. “I am. She just doesn’t know
it yet.”

Oh my God, really?

Laine turns to me, giggling, and says,
“Honey, grab ahold of that one and have fun on the
ride.”

My cheeks burning, I bury my head in
the menu. I don’t know why I bother, because I can’t hide from
their laughter. How fucking dare he laugh? None of this is a joke.
I’m not laughing. I don’t think a damn thing is funny.

Please get me the hell out
of here.

Why oh why did I allow myself to be
alone with him...again?

There’s no way in hell my nerves are
going to let me eat, so I order a coffee, and Holt does the
same.

I take in what he’s wearing tonight: a
navy blue fitted shirt that shows off his toned upper body, and a
pair of dark denim jeans. His scent was teasing me inside Sex on
Wheels on the ride here, and it’s still in the air now. I almost
caved, remembering how utterly euphoric it was to wake up with
traces of him on my body. My willpower when it comes to Holt is
about equivalent to me being able to say no to that fourth pancake.
A shame to let such a tasty treat go to waste...

Damn it. Check it,
Niki.

“Nicolette, I don’t know how much you
remember from what I told you before but—”

Really? If he only knew how I clung to
every tiny detail he’d shared with me. “Yeah, Holt, I remember
Sid.” I instantly wish I hadn’t blurted it out, considering the
fierce look it gets me.

“Yeah, right, like Sid. He’s not the
only person I work for, though. I contract out to whoever needs my
services. I’m not going to tell you the specifics of my jobs,
because if you haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t exactly follow
the law. I deal with people who live in the shadows, and all the
ugly shit they bring into the world. I get the fuckers off the
street, and justice is served one way or another, just not
necessarily in the ways the law sees fit.”

Has he killed before?

“I followed a mark to Coral Springs. I
didn’t know when I took the job just how personal it was going to
become for me, but it did. So I couldn’t quit until I had the
fucker. Because of other shit that was going down with him, I had
to follow him out of state, away from Coral Springs. That’s where
I’ve been all this time, trapped until I could finish the
job.”

He shifts his body, leaning toward me
across the table that separates us.

“I couldn’t tell you I was leaving or
where I was going. These people, the men I do business with, and
the fuckers I’m hired to track, they have ways of finding shit out.
Shit about me, shit about my life. It was for your safety and your
safety alone that I cut all ties with you. It was the hardest
fucking thing for me to do, to just leave you like that, but I had
no choice. I had every intention of coming back to you, but I
didn’t know I’d be gone that long. No fucking clue.”

His eyes are on me, watching as he
speaks. Trying to read my thoughts?

“I remember so many fucking nights
being on the verge of picking up the phone to call you, but I
didn’t want to risk it. I knew by then you hated me anyway, with
the way I left, and I couldn’t offer you anything, couldn’t make
any promises to you, so I convinced myself to forget about you so
you could get on with your life.”

If he only knew.

“After the job was over, though, I
couldn’t keep myself from driving back here. I had to see you
again, to see you were okay, and then I was going to leave. But
after seeing you at The Rox that night, I couldn’t go. I had to
talk to you, to touch you again, to claim you back for myself.” He
leans further in and whispers, “You are mine, Nicolette. Always
have been. From the first night I laid eyes on you.”

I ignore the rush of his breath
tantalizing my skin again. Yeah, my plans of just sitting and
listening...gone. I can’t help myself. He needed to know how fucked
up wrong he’d been. No matter how worried he was about my safety,
he should’ve found some way to let me know. And shit, he hasn’t
even brought
her
up yet.

“Holt, when you left the way you did,
I had nothing.”

I lift my face to him to see his eyes
are dead on me. Listening. And intense as hell. I fight back a
shiver as I feel it come across my spine and look away, focusing on
the window, looking out into the darkness.

Get the words out, Niki.
Just do it already. You’ve wanted this for so long, don’t mess this
up. Remember.

I take a deep breath, fidget with my
hands, holding them so he doesn’t see how much they’re trembling.
Funny how one minute I can be so angry at him, ready to charge, and
then the next minute end up a blustering mess.

“When you didn’t show up for dinner
like you promised that morning, I went through all the emotions.
First came fear, thinking something had happened to you. That you’d
been shot or killed. That you were lying in an alley somewhere. I
called all the hospitals in Georgia. I called your cellphone, left
you message after message. Every time, nothing. Then I started
thinking. And that’s when the reality of what had happened dug
itself into my skin. You left, and you weren’t coming
back.

“Nicolette,” Holt whispers, almost
under his breath.

I put my hand up, glaring at him,
finding the courage to stand up to him. “Save it! I don’t want to
hear it. Doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

He has no fucking clue what him
leaving like that did to me. And he never will. Clay hit the nail
right on the head when he mentioned my shield. It’s there. I just
didn’t realize people could actually see it. The few guys I did try
to date after Holt didn’t work out. He ruined them for me. No other
man could match the fire he set off in me with a simple touch. And
no man could bring back the trust I’d lost, because of him. I’m
damaged goods, without a doubt. So I just gave up. Some people were
meant to be single. Forever. I’m one of them, so I stick with the
one thing I know can’t hurt me: my animals.

“Holt, what you said last night, how
things have changed, you’re right. You just don’t realize how much.
But you know what, there’s no need for me to even go down that road
with you. It serves no purpose now. It’s in the past, and it’s a
past I don’t want to relive.”