Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(8)

Oh, please. Back off. Don't go there.

She didn't want that image in her head, but it was too late. She was already picturing Connor's big, hard, sinewy body. Stark naked.

Her eyes dropped, flustered. She focused on the cigarette butts that littered the ground beside his battered boots. Three of them.

She glanced up. "Three cigarettes? Looks like lurking to me."

His face tightened. "I was just working up my nerve."

"To ring my doorbell?" She couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Oh, please. I'm not that scary."

His lips twitched. "Believe me, you are. For me, you are."

"Hmm. I'm glad I have that effect on somebody, because the rest of the world doesn't seem too impressed with me these days," she said.

His eyes were so unwavering that the urge to babble was coming over her. "Why do you need to work up the nerve to talk to me?"

"Your last words to me were less than cordial," he said wryly. "Something along the lines of 'Get away from me, you sick bastard.'"

She bit her lip. "Oh, dear. Did I really say that to you?"

"It was a bad scene," he conceded. "You were upset."

"I'm sorry," she said. "For the record, you didn't deserve it."

His eyes were so intensely bright. How could such a cool color give out such an impression of heat? It scorched her face, made something clench up low and hot and tight in her body. She wrapped her arms around herself. "There were extenuating circumstances."

"Yeah, there sure as hell were. Are you OK, Erin?"

Wind gusted around them, setting his long canvas coat flapping around his knees. She shivered and clutched her thin denim jacket tightly around her. No one had asked that question in such a long time, she'd forgotten how to answer it. "Is that what you waited three whole cigarettes outside my building to ask?" she hedged.

A quick, hard shake of his head was her answer.

"So… what, then?"

"I asked my question first," he said.

She looked down, away, around, anywhere else, but his gaze was like a magnet, pulling her eyes back and dragging the truth right out of her. Dad used to say that McCloud was a goddamn psychic. It had made Dad nervous. Rightly so, as it happened.

"Never mind," Connor said. "Shouldn't have asked. I need to talk to you, Erin. Can I come up to your place?"

The thought of his potent male presence filling her dingy little apartment sent shivers all down her spine. She backed up, and bumped into the wrought iron railing. "I'm, uh, on my way to visit Mom, and I'm in kind of a hurry, because the bus is about to come, so I—"

"I'll give you a ride to your mom's house. We can talk in the car."

Oh, great. That would be even worse. Stuck all alone in a car with a huge barbarian warrior. She couldn't bear his burning scrutiny when she felt so weepy and shaky and vulnerable. She shook her head and backed away from him, toward the bus stop. "No. Sorry. Please, Connor. Just… stay away from me." She turned, and fled.

"Erin." His arms closed around her from behind. "Listen to me."

His solid heat pressed against her body nudged her shaky nerves toward what felt like panic. "Don't touch me," she warned. "I'll scream."

His arms tightened around her ruthlessly. "Please. Don't," he said. "Listen to me, Erin. Novak's broken out of prison."

A cloud of black spots danced in front of her eyes. She sagged, and was abruptly grateful for his strong arms, holding her upright. "Novak?" Her voice was a wispy thread of sound.

"He broke out the other night. With two of his goons. Georg Luksch was one of them."

Her fingers dug into his rock-hard forearms. Her head spun, and her stomach with it. "I think I'm going to be sick," she said.

"Sit down, on the steps. Put your head down." He crouched beside her and rested his arm across her shoulder. His touch was light and careful, but the contact reverberated through her entire body.

"I hate to scare you," he said gently. "But you had to know."

"Oh yeah?" She looked up at him. "What good does it do me?"

"So you can take steps to protect yourself." He sounded as if he were stating something too obvious to put into words.

She dropped her face down against her knees. She shook with bitter laughter, like a dry coughing fit. Protect herself. Hah. What could she do? Hire an army? Buy a cannon? Move into a fortress? She'd been trying so hard to put this nightmare behind her, but she'd just swung around in a big circle and smacked into it again, face-first.

She lifted her face, and stared into blank, empty space. "I can't deal with this," she said. "I don't want to know. I've had enough."

"It doesn't matter what you want. You have to—"

"I'll tell you what I have to do, Connor McCloud." She wrenched herself away from him and rose up onto unsteady feet. "I have to go to my mother's house to pay her bills and mortgage, and get her phone turned back on because she won't get out of bed. Then I have to call Cindy's school and beg them not to withdraw her scholarship. I take the bus because I lost my job and my car got repossessed. I'll worry about homicidal maniacs another time. And here comes my bus. So thank you for your concern, and have a nice evening."