Page 33 of Floodgates

“You thought maybe I was your stalker?”

“I have a stalker now?” I asked him, annoyed. “Since when?”

He stepped out into the light from the hallway, and I saw him clearly. “Jesus,” I groaned, “you look like shit.”

He nodded. “Nice. Real nice. I’m going to forgive your rudeness since you’re all hopped up on pharmaceutical-grade narcotics.”

“Why are you here?” I asked pointedly, letting him hear clearly in my voice that I was only tolerating him, that I didn’t like him.

“Because I have to talk to you,” he said, his expression hardening.

I was about to ask the next logical question when his cell phone rang, and he shushed me to silence. I heard enough of the conversation to realize he was talking to some guy, and between his tone and his body language, I was certain he was blowing him off. I was not surprised in the least. Cord collected men and then discarded them; it had always been his way. And I understood how. The man exuded heat; everything about him was strong and hard. If I didn’t know him, I would have wanted him too, but that was all surface appeal. Underneath, the guy was an asshat even if he looked like he’d been carved from stone. What I found more interesting, though, was that some men thought he was just okay. Unlike Breckin, who men—and women—found equally appealing, Cord Nolan worked only on the senses of those who liked that wild, rebellious kind of guy. He came off cold, dangerous, and untamable. He was not the kind of man you made a home with.

“Hello,” he snapped at me, and I realized he had been done with his conversation for some time and my mind had been drifting.

“What?” I answered quietly, carefully crossing my arms over my chest.

“I have things to discuss with you,” he said. Picking up the chair beside the table, he walked across the room and put it down beside my bed. Finally taking a seat, he got comfortable and looked up at me. “You look pretty good for a guy who almost got brained with a bat.”

“Thanks,” I said irritably. “Is that what you came by to tell me?”

He shook his head before taking a deep breath. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”

“Do you actually have something useful to say, or are we just going to have our usual—”

“Fine,” he interrupted, exasperated. “Here it is. You got beat up in a club last night, and Celia Hughes got beat up at a football game the night before that.”

I stared at him hard, waiting for him to go on. The silence stretched out longer and longer, and finally I had to cave. “Who is Celia Hughes, and what does she have to do with me?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“Oh, for the love of God, just tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

He looked past me then, to the doorway of my room.

I glanced over my shoulder and found nothing there. Returning my gaze to his, I waited only seconds. “What? What is it? You’re making me nuts with this.”

“I—”

“Speak!”

He cleared his throat. “Celia got beat up just like you did. The lights got turned off, and she got hit with something hard. We don’t know what.”

“She got hit at a football game?”

“Yeah.”

“And?” It was like pulling teeth.

“It was a 49ers game.”

Why was that important? “What’s with you?”

“Nothing, I’m just telling you—you and Celia Hughes, same setup, dark bathroom, hit in the back, same outcome… except she’s pregnant.”

“Oh shit,” I gasped, horrified, distracted from my annoyance by the possibility of someone hurting an unborn child. “Is she okay? Is the baby okay?”

“Yeah, the baby’s fine. Celia had the presence of mind to roll into a ball and protect her kid.”