Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (27 page)

Before I had a
chance to ask for a better explanation, the doctor came in. And then someone
from billing. And then another nurse. And then some fire investigator at a
higher level than the last guy who’d questioned me.

Looks like
I’m going to have to wait to hear the rest of the story…

* * * *

The length of my
ER visit stretched out farther and farther. Not that I had anything else
planned that night. Nope, not single, lonely, pathetic little me. But all that
talking and trying to concentrate was brutal, especially when my head felt like
an abused kettle drum.

Nurse Ann
refused to budge from her decision not to give me any pain medications because
I was still ‘inebriated’. I never should have admitted to having that glass and
a half of wine, or drank it so darned fast. Then again, it
had
helped to
blur my view of Torrunn slightly, which kept me from being preoccupied by his
presence. Sort of.

When it was
finally time for my discharge, I swung my legs over the side of the hospital
bed and tried to gracefully slide down. But that movement brought the pounding in
my head to a dizzying level, and overrode any sense of balance I usually had. Helpless,
I teetered on my feet, then fell back toward the bed. Nurse Ann caught one arm,
and Torrunn sprang out of his seat and caught my other.

“Do you have a
way home, Miss Williams, or should I call you a cab?”

“I’ll take her.”

I looked up at
Torrunn in surprise. Why he was still here, why he even seemed to care if I
made it home in one piece or not, was beyond me. At least it would spare me
from paying a cab fare.

Pay.

Tears suddenly
stung the corner of my eyes. I hadn’t even thought about how much this hospital
bill might be. No way the spa’s meager healthcare plan would cover all of this.
Or even most of it. My nest egg, as well as all my hopes and dreams, was slowly
going down the drain.

I fought to hold
back the waterworks. There would be a time and place for tonight’s pity party,
but it was neither here nor now. Not when I had an audience, and certainly not in
front of Torrunn.

“Thanks,” I said
as he and Nurse Ann pulled me back to my feet.

The room swayed
before me once more, and I clenched my eyes shut. There was a tug at my elbow
as Torrunn tucked me into his side, mumbled something to Ann as she handed him
my purse that sounded an awful lot like ‘drama queen’, and started toward the
door. My head swam with each step we took, and darn if we didn’t take a lot of
them.

My tour guide
had apparently been at St. John’s before, because he steered us without hesitation
through a small maze of hallways. We were nearly to the parking garage when
everything I’d consumed today decided it wanted to come back up. Now. I broke
off from him in a clumsy run and headed for the nearest women’s restroom.

After what felt
like an eternity, the stomach convulsions passed. Unfortunately, all that
retching had done nothing to help the pounding in my head. In fact, the
pounding had somehow managed to grow louder. As I sat back on my heels and
tried to keep from touching the public toilet any more than absolutely
possible, I could only hope Torrunn hadn’t stood outside the door listening the
whole time while I puked my brains out.

“You gonna
live?” Torrunn called from the door.

So much for that
idea.

“Maybe,” I tried
to reply, but it came out sounding much more like a croak than anything.

His voice took
on a deeper level of concern. “Do you need some help?”

I clenched both
hands into fists. This is why I rarely overindulged when drinking—I hated having
an audience around to witness this. When my stomach does somersaults, all I
want is to be left alone. So I grumbled for him to give me a chance to get
cleaned up, then slowly rose to standing. My head felt like it was going to
split in two. Somehow I managed to flush, wash my hands, and rinse out my mouth.
After that, it was game over. My knees gave way and I sank back down onto the floor.

“Liz?” Torrunn
peeked his head in through the restroom door and spied me seated on the ground,
legs sprawled out, head resting against the nearest metal stall. He cursed
under his breath, ducked his head to make sure no other stalls were inhabited,
and then stepped inside.

“Just leave me
to die with a scrap of dignity, will you?”

“No civilians
die on my watch,” he said as he tugged on the fire coat he’d been carrying
back. “Ever.”

His gaze flashed
down to my purse next. After a second, with teeth clenched he slung it over his
own shoulder. It would have been a hilarious sight, had I not felt like death
warmed over.

Next thing I
knew, he bent down and scooped me up into his arms. My stomach wasn’t happy
with the sudden movement, and I clamped my eyes shut, praying I wouldn’t throw
up on him. Thankfully, Torrunn was surprisingly light on his feet, and this
latest wave of nausea passed quickly. I kept my eyes shut as a precaution, but
allowed myself to relax into him.

What choice did
I have? There was no way I’d make it from here to the exit sign on my own, much
less to my apartment. His heavy, canvas coat pressed against my cheek, and
smelled of fire, sweat, and…Torrunn. I allowed myself to drink in that one
small pleasure. Because surely it’d be the last time. At least, I hoped he
wouldn’t be rescuing me from any more fires, or that I’d ever need any further
rescuing. From fires, that is.

Rescuing my
heart was still out of the question, no matter what Tony had said.

“You doing
okay?” His words fell upon my ears, soft as snow.

Just the thought
of nodding made my head pound harder. “Yeah. But if I don’t take some
painkillers soon, I might just black out.”

“They wrote you
a scrip, right?”

“Yeah, but
technically I’m not supposed to take them for another hour. And how am I
supposed to go and get it filled in this condition, anyway?”

“Trust me, they
did you a favor. If they fed it to you earlier, you would have just lost it back
there in the bathroom. Besides, here it probably would have cost the same as
your rent.”

A small groan
escaped me.

“Don’t worry,
Liz. We can hit a pharmacy on the way home.”

Home. I savored
the way it sounded coming from his lips. Ah, but it was all such a tease.

A big, comfy,
heartbreaking tease.

“Why are you
doing all of this?” I whispered.

We passed
through the hospital’s sliding glass exit and out into the cold, clammy air of
the parking garage. I shivered involuntarily, and then clenched my teeth until
the pain that small movement had triggered stopped radiating across my skull.

“Well, you sure
as heck couldn’t walk home by yourself, now could you?”

“No. But you
didn’t have to stay. And you could have just called me a cab.”

“You’re a cab.
Feel better?”

He’d stopped
walking now, and I opened my eyes to try and orient myself to our surroundings.
As my vision cleared, his knee came up to help cradle me while he dug in a coat
pocket for his keys. One boop-boop later, and the headlights of the vehicle
beside us flashed on. My gaze fell upon a mammoth 4x4 Dodge Ram. Where the hell
was his Charger?

“Funny, MacKay.
Almost as funny as you thinking I’m ever going to be able to climb up into that
behemoth.”

“Oh, you’re not
climbing.”

Torrunn flashed
me the first full grin I’d seen on him in an hour. Next thing I knew, he opened
the door and swung me up into the black leather passenger seat. I landed with a
gentle thump, and held my breath, waiting for the pain to come. Miraculously,
it didn’t.

“You want some
help with your seatbelt?” he asked as his arms moved carefully out from beneath
me.

“I’m not
completely helpless, thank you very much.”

I reached back
for the belt, and gave him a measured look. He held his hands up in surrender. “Have
it your way.”

He remained
beside me, though, as if intent on seeing if I was truly capable. After he
heard its latch click, he stepped back to close the door.

“Hey, Torrunn?”

He caught the
door and looked up at me, a look of concern replacing the smirk. “Yeah?”

“I forgot to
mention how good you look in pink.”

With narrowed
eyes he stripped my purse off his shoulder and planted it on my lap. I gave him
a wink. He gave me the finger.

* * * *

Chivalry, it
seemed, was not dead. As promised, Torrunn headed straight for the nearest
Walgreens to fill my prescription. Even bought me a bottled water so I could
take my meds right away. Then he drove me over to my apartment, where he
half-helped, half-carried me to and from the elevator. By the time he deposited
me on my welcome mat, I was punch drunk from the scent of him. And maybe those
drugs were starting to kick in a bit. I wobbled a little as I dug for my keys.

“It’s too bad I
don’t have a key to your place.”

I nearly dropped
my purse. “W-why’s that?”

“Because we
would’ve been inside by now.”

We? I blinked a
few times, trying to process where this was going. He scowled down at my open
shoulder bag. “Dang, Liz, you got the kitchen sink in there, too?”

“No,” I snapped,
and went back to digging. A few seconds later, my fumbling fingers brushed
against a familiar set of keys. I managed to unlock the door and step inside
without blacking out from the pain triggered by those movements, then turned
around to thank him for his help and send him on his way.

Only, Torrunn
followed me inside. And kept right on going.

“Uh, hey,” I
said, forcing my feet forward after him. “Um, thanks, you know, for everything
and all. But you don’t have to stay.”

He shrugged, but
made no move to leave. “I know. But I don’t feel right leaving you by yourself,
either. Besides, Stevens gave me the rest of the night off.”

I dropped my
purse onto the sofa table, kicked off my shoes, then promptly caught my pinky
toe square with the table’s leg. A fresh wave of pain washed over me as I bit
back a string of expletives. “I’ll be fine,” I lied through clenched teeth.
“Being on my own isn’t exactly something new.”

“But being on
your own and hunted by a psychotic pyromaniac probably is.”

“True.”

I hobbled over
to my—Dawn’s—couch, sank down at one end, and turned so that I could rest the
non-throbbing side of my head against the cool leather. All I wanted was to go
to sleep, and forget this day ever happened. Torrunn, apparently intent on
playing the hero a while longer, shrugged out of his coat and came around to sit
down beside me. His eyes focused on my picture window, and the ball diamond
beyond. There were no bright lights or cheering crowds tonight, only silence.

Thank God for
small miracles.

“So tell me how
you knew Bunni wasn’t the perp.”

“The perp?
Listen to you.” He chuckled and then shook his head. “I knew because I had her
place searched.”

“Searched? When?”

“The other
night, when I sent her over here to see you.”

“Wait—you sent
her on an errand so you could break into her place and start looking for
matches?”

“Ah, but it’s
not breaking in if you have a key.”

I pulled my feet
up onto the couch and curled them under me. “Remind me to never give you a key
to my place.”

“Hey, I’m a
handy guy to have around.” He threw me a crooked grin. “Anyway, she’d been
acting weird lately. Distant. I didn’t really think she was capable of
something like this, but I wasn’t going to sleep soundly until I knew for sure it
wasn’t her.”

“So, did you
find anything?”

“Joe was
actually the one who did the searching. He’s much better at looking for
evidence than me, was an investigator years ago. Lucky for Bunni, he didn’t
find anything.”

“Uh, huh. So
what? You stood guard to make sure she didn’t come back before he was done?”

It all sounded
so devious. And yet, because it was her, I couldn’t help but smile. Or maybe
that was just the hydrocodone starting to really kick in.

“No, I was here.
Watching to make sure Bunni was behaving herself.”

“You were
here
?”

He shrugged. “I
have a friend that works security for this building. Met him after a game last
year. He has full access to all the surveillance cameras.”

“Lovely. Does
your buddy watch us eat breakfast and take showers, too, or are these magical
cameras only out in the halls and elevators?”

“Just the
latter, though I may have to share your suggestion with him,” he said and
waggled his eyebrows.

“Then I’m
moving.” My eyelids felt more and more heavy as my body started to relax. Thankfully,
the throbbing at the back of my head began to diminish. “So, did you catch
Bunni doing anything odd on camera? Spit on my welcome mat? Pick a wedgie?”

“No,” he
chuckled.

“Good. I’d have
to kick her ass if she hurt my rug.” My speech was starting to slur. I felt
dizzy now, the pain killers kicking into overdrive. “Hey, you mind movin’ so I
can stretch out?”

“Not at all,” he
said, and I felt the cushion shift beside me. I opened one eye and began to
crawl my way toward the other end when I realized Torrunn hadn’t gotten up,
he’d just moved over. Now he was facing me, one leg along the back of the
cushion, the other dangling over the front edge. He patted the space between
his legs. “Come on, I’ll keep you from falling off.”

Falling off the
couch was the least of my worries right now. Falling for
him
? That was a
much bigger concern. And behaving myself if I was pressed against him? A major
concern.

But my head was
hurting and my thoughts jumbled. So instead of wasting what little energy I had
left arguing with him, I crawled across the cushion between us and lowered
myself awkwardly into a seated position between his legs.