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His feet halted. She’d given him the grocery store, dim sum, and his favorite coffee place. He couldn’t repay her generosity by a pursuit she’d rejected.
The fact was, she had made it abundantly clear she didn’t want to see him again.
Fuck. Fuck. Now all ten fingers were curled into frustrated fists as his brain struggled against his gut instincts. They demanded he go to Lilly, to hold her hand again, to smell her hair, to do what he could to erase that disquiet on her face.
But she’d given him the damn dim sum, so he had to keep his distance.
A commotion behind him caught his attention. He swung around at the shouts and the sounds of chair legs screeching. Shit.
In one sweeping glance he understood the trouble. Rambunctious puppy Buster had freed himself somehow and was scampering about, evading capture by going under loungers and around people. Kane nearly cornered the pooch, but then he zigged and Alec’s father had to zag to head off the pup so he wouldn’t fall into the pool. That gave Buster a clear shot at the adjacent lobby.
And Buster took it, his leash trailing behind him.
The action had drawn Lilly’s attention and Alec saw her head toward the lobby as well. The woman and puppy’s paths should cross.
“Can you get a hold of him?” he called out to her from across the pool.
“I’ll try!” she called back and reached for the speeding pup.
It just eluded her grasp. Still, she followed after him and Alec followed after her, their own little parade through the lobby as the dog dashed around chairs and people and suitcases, toward the wide opening that led to the portico covering the wide drive.
Cars came and went there. Shit.
“Lilly—”
“I’m on it,” she yelled, her pretty legs churning, the hem of her dress riding up her thighs. The sight distracted Alec for a second and when he managed to yank his gaze back to the dog it was to see the pet dart out and around a parking attendant who made his own unsuccessful yet valiant effort that left him crashing into the valet stand.
Buster was still moving. Lilly was still in full pursuit. At that moment, a limo came speeding up to the entrance, all three on a collision course.
Alec’s blood ran cold and his gut seized. The sound of alarmed shouts dimmed as horror filled him. With a noiseless plea for mercy, he raced headlong toward what looked like certain disaster.
Lilly wanted to be anywhere but poolside, sitting in a cushioned chair and surrounded by a ring of people, their attention focused on her. “Really, I’m fine,” she said for the dozenth time, trying to rise.
Alec pushed her back down with a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Not until you’re patched up.”
“In my room—”
“Here, Alec,” a handsome, thirtyish man said, pushing through the small crowd to stand beside him.
“Thanks, Kane.” Alec grabbed the round bar tray bearing various first aid supplies.
Lilly’s eyes bugged out. “Is that a disposable scalpel? I don’t need to lose any more skin.”
The handsome stranger grinned at her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I just grabbed everything we had on hand.”
Alec muttered something that might have been “She’s not your sweetheart” and then crouched down to inspect Lilly’s skinned knees again, sliding the tray onto the pool deck at her feet. He pushed up the hem of her skirt a little, then glanced up, sincere contrition in his eyes. “I really am sorry.”
“You’ve already said,” she replied, a little testily. The scraped skin was stinging and she really just wanted to go back to her room where she could be away from Alec and his hands and the way she felt when he did something as innocuous as slipping her dress two inches up her thighs. Both gave her the most childish urge to give in to tears and she never did that.
Her surreptitious little sniff did not go unheard, however.
“You can go ahead and cry,” he said quietly, and pressed a tissue into her hand.
She threw it back in his face. “I never cry,” she said, her voice low.
Alec’s eyebrows rose. “Okay. I believe you.”
“Good.”
He bent his head over the worst injury, and blew gently on it. “I shouldn’t have asked you to chase after Buster,” he said. He took up a brown bottle of something and a cotton ball.
