“You’re avoiding the question.”
I smiled over at him. “I mean, if it’s an hour or so, I may have to pee. I had a lot of coffee.”
“It’s going to be like that, huh? You know, running from your problems doesn’t fix them.”
I didn’t say anything. It was easy for him to generalize when he didn’t understand my situation. But I wasn’t having that discussion—not now, not ever. Disappear, get a new identity, and hit reset on my life was the plan, and that wasn’t changing. And, he was dead wrong. Disappearing was the only thing that could fix my problem.
He looked over. “Her place is another fifteen minutes or so.”
“It’s nice of you to help her out with her cat.”
He chuckled. “Not my favorite thing.” He was letting me off the hook.
“Why not?”
“Her cat hates me. And the feeling is mutual, but I take care of Brook. It’s what big brothers do.”
“The cat can’t be that bad.”
“Trust me. It’s worse than you could possibly imagine, and I have the scars to prove it.”
I thought back to the scars I’d found on his back this morning. I was pretty sure they weren’t made by a cat, but this gave me the opening to ask about them. “Are those the scars on your back?”
He looked solemnly out the windshield. “You never did tell me why you didn’t feel good about going home. ”
Message received. The tough guy couldn’t take certain topics—or at least he wouldn’t until I reciprocated. I guess I could understand that.
We rode on in silence. This temporary truce, however, didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to get an answer out of him later.
“We’re here,” he announced as he parked outside a long, two-story apartment building. It looked just like all the others on this street.
I followed him down the first-floor hallway, almost to the end.
He slid a key into the lock. “Watch out. It could be hiding anywhere.”
“You make it sound like a mountain lion.”
“I’m sure it’s related.”
“What’s its name?”
He turned the key and opened the door. “Racer.”I followed him inside, and he closed the door behind us.
He swung an arm across my path, stopping me in place. “Stay right here,” he said softly.
Only then did I see what alarmed him. The sight froze me in place. Glass littered the floor. The window across the room was shattered. Somebody had broken in. I backed up against the wall.
Luke lowered his stance and turned down the hallway, returning a few moments later. “Nobody here—at least not any longer. Her bedroom’s been tossed.”
“A burglar?” I asked.
A blur of black came from underneath the sofa, raced across the room past Luke, and disappeared down the hallway.
Luke jumped. “Fuck,” he yelled. “The damn thing scratched me.”
I didn’t strangle my laugh in time. It was like a scene out of a cartoon. The big hulking man bedeviled by a small creature he couldn’t catch.
Luke scowled at me. “What are you laughing at? Wait’ll it bites you. It probably has rabies.”
“Grow up. The cat’s just playing a game.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Voicemail,” he complained before he left a message. “Hey, Brook, this is Luke. I got some bad news and some worse news for you. I’m at your place checking on your cat, and your place is a mess. A window is broken, and it looks like whoever got in here rummaged through your bedroom. But I can’t tell what, if anything, was taken. That was the bad news. The worse news is your cat didn’t escape out the open window. Give me a call when you get a chance.” He hung up.
I laughed at that last bit—he really didn’t like her cat. “Now, what do we do?”
He wandered to the window. “I’ve got tools in the van and some wood I can use to patch it for now.”
We’d come to feed the cat. I looked around. “Where does she keep the cat food?”
“Not a clue. She keeps moving it around.”
I went down the hall to search for Racer’s food. Luke had been right; the first bedroom was a mess. I checked the closet there and came up empty.
The second bedroom had been set up as an office, and it had been ransacked as well. Things were strewn all over the floor. In that closet, I found what I was looking for.
With the bag of cat food in my good hand, I watched where I put my feet, being careful not to step on any of Brook’s things as I turned the corner into the hallway.
I ran smack into Luke. The cat food dropped from my hand. I would’ve fallen if he hadn’t grabbed me.
He didn’t release his arm from around me. A few awkward seconds later, he pulled my face up again with that same finger under my chin. “The next time you do this, I might think you want it and not let you go.”
A three-alarm blush rose from my chest to my cheeks, as I considered telling him I didn’t want him to let me go. My breasts pillowed against his hard chest, just like I’d imagined it would be like holding tight to him on the back of his Harley.
Then, he released me. “Keep that in mind, Red.”
I gave him a sly grin. “I will.” I leaned over to pick up the bag of cat food as my mind raced, wondering what it would feel like to be held by him as a woman he desired, not one he’d kept from falling on her stupid ass.
He nodded toward the door. “I’m going to get the stuff to fix the window.”
“I’ll just wait here,” I told him. I needed a minute to cool myself off, lest I intentionally bump into him again and call his bluff. Just the thought of doing that was a bigger chance than I’d taken in a very long time.
“Suit yourself,” he said. Those dimples appeared again for a second before he turned away.
After the door closed behind him, I sat on the low ottoman and started to click for the cat. It worked with Mom’s cat, so why not with this one?
It took about thirty seconds, but Racer poked his head out from underneath the chair he’d disappeared under.
“There you are.” I rubbed my fingers together down near ground level, another noise Mom’s cat always came for.
Wide, golden eyes appraised me for a few seconds before sauntering in my direction.
When the cat reached me, Racer rubbed his face against my fingers. I scratched behind his years and under his chin as he maneuvered his head against me, showing me where the itchy spots were. He purred like a large motor idling.
After half a minute of that, I picked the cat up and placed him on my lap. “You’re not so bad after all.”
As if understanding my words, the cat looked up and rubbed his face against my fingers again. Racer was the prototype for a Halloween kitty, completely jet black with golden eyes that would fit perfectly on a movie poster meant to frighten children. His purring continued. Although I assumed Racer was a he from the name, I didn’t dare to turn him over now that he was purring to search out the him or her bits.
Luke’s phone buzzed on the counter. The screen said Brooklyn.
After a pause, I hit accept on the phone.
The woman on the other end started before I got a chance to say anything.