Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(40)

When she arrived, she left her key in the door and didn’t even bother to turn on the lights. She was in too much of a hurry to reach the bathroom. But as she dashed across the floor, she tripped over a pair of long legs that weren’t supposed to be there and hit her head on the corner of the coffee table.

“Ouch!” she cried at the blinding pain. “Don? What the hell are you doing in my house?”

A male voice responded, but it didn’t belong to her ex-fiancé. “Holy shit! Are you okay?”

Hudson. Her brain registered his identity as he jumped up and lifted her to her feet. “I’m sorry.”

While attempting to rub the pain from her temple, she encountered a wet substance that had to be blood. “What are you doing here, hiding out in the dark?” she asked as she staggered over to flip on the light.

He squinted against the sudden brightness but looked positively mortified when he saw her wound. “Yikes! Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay!” She scowled as she pressed her palm to her aching head. “What were you trying to do to me?”

“I wasn’t trying to do anything to you! I came to talk. But you weren’t here, and I fell asleep while I was waiting. I had no idea it’d grown dark or that you’d gotten home or anything else until...until you fell.”

But she’d left him in California the day before yesterday. What was he doing in Miami? “How’d you beat me across the country?”

“When I went back to the inn, and you were gone, I made arrangements to leave as soon as possible. Took the first direct flight, which left at dawn this morning.”

Her flight hadn’t left until one. And, trying to save money, she’d accepted an itinerary that included a layover. That was how he’d beaten her. But there were still a lot of other things that didn’t make sense. They hadn’t even known each other’s last name until three days ago. And here he was, sleeping in her house! “How’d you get my address?”

He didn’t answer right away.

“Hello?” she prompted.

“It’s called a reverse directory,” he muttered.

“A what?”

“On the internet.”

She was fairly sure her address wasn’t anywhere on the internet, but she didn’t argue. She’d never attempted to look it up, so she figured there could be a site out there. In this day and age, there seemed to be no privacy, so that wouldn’t be entirely surprising. “You haven’t explained how you got inside my locked house.”

“That wasn’t hard, either.”

She stared down at the blood she’d gotten on her fingers from touching the cut on her temple. “You broke in?”

“No! Of course not. That would be illegal. I used the key under the rock by the back door.” He tilted his head to catch her attention, since she was still a little dazed. “That’s not a smart place to hide a spare, by the way. Just because it’s in the back doesn’t mean no one’ll look there.”

“Obviously, if you found it,” she said. “But...you had no right to help yourself, to...to invade my personal space.”

“I had to resort to this! We need to talk, and you won’t answer when I text or call!”

“That should tell you something.” She swayed on her feet. He reached out to steady her, but she moved back and used the wall instead.

“It does tell me something—just not what I want to hear.” He grinned, turning on the old quarterback charm.

His smile was so alluring, Ellie looked away before she could be caught in its tractor beam. “Do you always get what you want?”

His grin took on a wicked slant. “Usually.”

“I can’t believe I flew clear across the country to create my own nightmare,” she complained. “That’s par for the course this year, I suppose.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said, his expression sheepish. “I’m not as bad as I seem.”

“Is there any chance you’ll forget I visited California? That I ever...said what I did?”

“No,” he replied, and now he was deadly serious.

“I was afraid of that.”

He frowned as she wiped away a fresh trickle of blood. “Come here. Let me take a look at that. I don’t think it’s too bad, but we should clean it up.”

She glared at him. “I’ll take care of it myself, thank you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel terrible.”

“Sure you do. Tell the truth, for crying out loud.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, sounding offended.

“Since when have you ever cared about anyone other than yourself?” As soon as those words came out of her mouth, she thought of the boys ranch, but refused to give him any credit for that. She was too angry.

His lips parted in surprise, but she didn’t regret what she’d said. Now that her system had gotten over the shock of her fall and that blow to the temple, the nausea she’d been experiencing when she ran in reasserted itself. “I really need you to go.”

“Can’t we talk first? Please?”

His stricken expression probably would’ve gotten to her, made her relent, but she was too sick. “Later.”