Embattled Hearts 1 (7 page)

Her heart softened and tears came to her eyes. Her tight throat made it hard to speak. “I know, John. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. I would appreciate it a lot more, though, if you were actually in the house and I didn’t have to worry about you freezing to death out there on the street. That would not be good for business.” Or my heart, she thought. “Come in. I have a spare bedroom, or you can sleep on the couch in the living room. Either one would be fine.”

John agreed with a sigh. “Okay. I’ll be over in a minute.”

Shannon slid off the bed and snatched her robe from the footboard, tossing her phone to the nightstand. She flicked on the lights when she padded into the spare bedroom. The bed already had fresh sheets on it, and the bathroom across the hall had clean towels.

Walking to the front door, she pulled it open just as he rolled up.

“Not very slick, am I? Can’t believe you spotted me.”

Shannon smiled at him, genuinely tickled that she had needled him. “Nope,” she agreed. “I promise I won’t tell the guys at work, though.”

Shannon thought he was maybe even blushing, but he turned away before she could confirm it, busying himself taking off his jacket. He tossed it on the bench by the door, and straightened in the chair. Shannon’s gaze was immediately drawn to the expanse of his chest, and the way the t-shirt strained against him, outlining his awesome pecs. Shannon felt her nipples react to the sight, and a heaviness settled low in her gut. It had been a long time, years actually, since she’d reacted to anybody with anything other than friendliness.

“Shannon?”

John’s voice made her realize she was staring, and she turned away abruptly. Snapping the light on next to the couch, she motioned with her hand. “You can stretch out here, or I have the guest room all made up and ready. It’s up to you.” Walking to the hearth, she threw a log into the grate, making the coals of the fire flare. It sucked greedily at the fresh wood.

“I think I may just stretch out here, if you don’t mind. There’s no need for me to mess up a bed.”

Shannon nodded her head, trying not to look at him directly. Moving to the hall closet, she pulled down a sheet and a couple of blankets.

“Actually,” she told him, “this couch is really comfortable. I slept on it for several nights when I was waiting for my bedroom furniture to get here. You should have plenty of room to stretch out.”

When she moved to make up the couch for him, he intercepted her. “I can do it, Shannon. Don’t worry about it.”

She bit her lip, trying to decide if she had offended him or something. Maybe he just wanted to make his own bed. That was fine.

“Okay. Good night, John. And thank you.”

He waved her thanks away and turned toward the couch. Shannon looked at him for a long moment before heading down the hallway. She had a feeling she was going to sleep better with him in the house, for more than one reason.

*****

John released the breath he had been holding until Shannon walked away. She was trying to kill him. She had to be. Telling him she had slept on the same couch. He definitely wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. Picking up the sheets, he inhaled. Shit. They smelled like her, too. Some kind of fabric softener mixed in with that smell she had, of womanliness and sweetness. John shook his head at himself and snapped the sheet out over the couch.

Hell, he may not even sleep. The whole point of him coming in was to watch her more closely, not stretch out on the couch. At least if something did happen he would be here. Maybe it was a good thing she’d spotted him. Even if it was damn humiliating.

*****

Shannon got up a few minutes early the next morning to start breakfast. She’d slept like a log the whole night through, knowing John was just a hallway away. When she walked out to the living room, she was not surprised to see him sitting in his wheelchair at the living room window. The sheets she had set out were refolded and sitting on the corner of the cushion. Had he slept at all?

She circled until she could see his face clearly. His dark eyes were sharp, but definitely a little heavy lidded. The beard on his jaw was thicker.

“Did you sleep at all?” she demanded.

John shrugged. “I cat-napped a bit. I don’t need a lot of sleep.”

Shannon frowned at him. She felt secure when he was in the house, but she didn’t want his health to suffer for it. Damn Mike for making her crazy like this. Maybe everything was just a coincidence, and nothing was actually going on. Maybe she was putting John through this for nothing. Guilt knotted her stomach.

“I’m sorry, John. Why don’t you go home and sleep for a while? I’m not going anywhere today. I don’t even know if you need to be here.” Running her hand through her hair, she crossed her arms over her tummy. “Maybe I’m just going crazy, and these things are just flukes. I mean, anybody could have turned around in my driveway. And my tires going flat could have been anything.”

John regarded her silently, letting her vent. “Did the tire shop find anything in the tires? Any reason for them to go flat?”

“No,” she conceded.

“So, why would two brand new tires go flat, unless somebody had deflated them by hand?”

Shannon had no answer to that, and it shut her up. Turning away, she headed in to the kitchen. Crossing the floor to the fridge, she pulled onions, green peppers, ham, cheese and eggs out, assembling an omelet. John rolled in silently behind her and positioned himself at the table in the same spot Chris normally sat at. She plunked a steaming cup of black coffee in front of him, and he curled his hands around it.

“Don’t worry about my sleep, Shannon. I’m fine. Until we find out what’s going on, I think I should be here.” He coughed into his hand before continuing. “This isn’t going to cause problems with a boyfriend or anything, is it?”

Shannon looked at him in surprise. Not because of the question itself, but because of the hesitancy she thought she heard in his voice. She turned her concentration back to beating the eggs. “No, no boyfriend.”

“Do you date? Any chance this could be another boyfriend doing these things?”

Shaking her head from side to side, she told him, “Nope.”

Pouring the onions and other ingredients in the pan, she tried not to let her hands shake. John asking about her dating life was a little strange, because she had been imagining dating
him
for so long.

“You do date, though?”

She nodded her head, still not looking at him. “Of course I date.”

“Why don’t you have a boyfriend, then?” he asked finally.

Pouring the eggs into the pan, she paused, then turned to look at him directly. Her heart was almost pounding out of her chest as she debated what to tell him. From the first moment she’d seen him, backlit by the sunlight from the office window, she wanted to know more about him. Six freaking months she’d been mooning after an impossible need.
What the hell.

“I’m pretty picky in who I date, and I’m waiting for the right guy to ask me.” She stared at him for several seconds, then turned back to the stove.

*****

Unease curled through John’s stomach at her words. Hell, not even her words so much as her actions. Did she mean what he thought she meant? Was she telling him she was waiting on him?

She continued to stir the eggs, and he couldn’t see her face clearly any more. Clenching his teeth, he tried to control his galloping heart.

Breakfast, he was sure, was wonderful, but he barely tasted it. He was too busy tossing her words around. As soon as was polite, he made his excuses and headed out the door, promising to be back in a few hours.

John drove to his apartment in a daze. What had she meant, “waiting for the right guy”? He tried to twist things around, but he kept coming back to the same conclusion. With her words and the fact that she was staring at him so hard at the time she said it, only one thing was possible. Shannon was waiting on him to ask her out.

The thought chilled him to the bone.

What on earth did he have to offer a woman like her? She appeared to be his exact opposite. He’d grown up in foster homes and group orphanages with no family to speak of. She had grown up in rural Ohio with parents and siblings that loved her. When he signed up to go to war, she had signed up to go to college. And when he returned a broken man, she was growing into being a professional woman. What could they possibly have in common?

A matching desire to be together?

Snorting out loud, he turned into the parking lot of his apartment complex, automatically winding his way through the generic boxes to his own. He pulled past the spot assigned to him, with its very own bright blue handicapped sign, and slid into one further down, not marked. That fucking sign pissed him off to no end. He knew the anger was irrational. But he couldn’t help it.

Hell, he should thank them for having the spot at all. Not every business did.

John’s mood was sour, to say the least, when he finally let himself into his apartment.

He knew what the problem was. It was Shannon.

What the hell was he going to do with her?

Reclining on his couch hours later, the question still nagged at him. What if he did make a move on her? And she laughed her ass off?

What if he made a move on her, and she
didn’t
laugh her ass off?

That was even scarier.

*****

Shannon had not intended to make John uncomfortable with that statement at the table. Just wanted to…open his eyes a bit. For months she had hoped he would look at her as something other than an employee. Even though it was wrong, she had not looked at John as an employer for a long time, rather as a potential mate. He had every characteristic she had always wanted in a man. Humor, strength, level-headedness. The physical characteristics came in a distant second to his quiet personality and sardonic humor.
They
were what had drawn her most at the beginning. As well as his unrelenting loneliness. Shannon felt special in that he seemed to relate to her on a level that he didn’t with anybody else, so he opened up much more with her than anybody. Granted, she was the only female in the office, but Shannon had a feeling it was more than that. Possibly much more.

While he was gone, Shannon spot-cleaned and went from window to window putting little tiny pieces of blue tape over the crack where the window met the sill. She had heard once that you could tell if somebody had opened a window that way. If the tape was loose, there was a high probability that somebody had been in the house.

She felt neurotic doing it, and a little stupid, but it made her feel better. Every piece of tape was hidden out of sight from the exterior. It didn’t make sense to do it at the garage door, because she used it so much. The French doors at the kitchen she put two pieces on.

At noon, she sat down to watch the news. It wasn’t good. A cold front was sweeping down from the north. When it hit the warmer air over Colorado, it was expected to dump a boatload of snow. The mountain passes were already closed, and were expected to be closed for several days, if not weeks.

Shannon took stock of her pantry and set candles and gas lamps out, in case she lost power. What little laundry there was she finished, then ran several buckets of fresh water, and filled several large soup pots as well, leaving them sitting on the back burners. She emailed her family, telling them she would probably be without power for a couple days. Courtney, her sister, lived about four hundred miles south, and would probably get the same, if not worse, weather. Shannon debated telling her family about the Pepsi can and the fears that had been nagging her, but changed her mind. It wouldn’t be fair to scare them without concrete information yet.

John arrived shortly after four, laden down with several bags of groceries.

“Oh, wow. You didn’t have to do that, John.” Shannon struggled to relieve him of them, and even the small contact of his fingers on hers transferring the bags sent a thrill through her. He had on the standard leather, but this coat was longer than the bomber jacket he normally wore, with a wool collar around his neck. The dark brown complemented the color of his skin perfectly, and the beard stubble growing in made him look dangerous.
More
dangerous, actually. There was an army-green duffel hanging off the back of his wheelchair.

“If you take the groceries, I’ll get my bag.”

Nodding, she carried what she could into the kitchen, then returned for a second load. He must have bought two of everything. Two packages of steaks, two containers of potato salad, two bags of chips. Ten cans of miscellaneous veggies and fruit. There were also several bags of the frozen steamer bags of vegetables she preferred. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Her heart warmed as she found her favorite dark chocolate treat. Times four.

Tears actually came to her eyes. Why would he do that for her?

Heading back out, she found him in the guest room, pulling clothes from the bag.

“I hope you don’t think I’m too presumptuous. I claimed the closet.” With a big hand, he motioned to the closet to the right of the door. “I think I’ll probably sleep out on the couch, more central, but I’ll keep my things in here.”

Shannon nodded, trying not to let the sight of his clothing hanging in the closet mean too much. “That’s fine. I’m sorry you have to go to so much trouble, but I really appreciate you being here, John. I slept better last night than I have in several days.”

He nodded. “I checked on you once, and you were totally out. You looked exhausted.”

Shannon felt color creep up her neck at the thought of being watched in her sleep, especially by John. “Was I snoring?” she asked with a laugh.

John shook his head firmly. “Nah, you were just deep asleep. Hey, uh, I talked to Jamison. He called a friend of a friend, and Michael J. Gerbowski is still behind bars in the state penitentiary.”

Shannon plopped down on the end of the couch, her legs suddenly boneless. What a relief that was. She had logged onto the prison website to try to find out if he was still there, but the computer kept locking up on her. After several attempts she had stopped looking.