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Garrett's attention strayed down, over himself. He frowned.
He was still wearing his front-pocket white T-shirt and his jockey shorts. That was all he wore. From mid-chest down he was draped by a thin, brightly colored sheet splashed with enormous…turtles? Yes, they were definitely turtles. Huge and deformed, the things were wearing eye-masks and carrying a variety of lethal, oriental weapons.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” she explained, apparently reading the question in his eyes. “You don't have kids, do you?”
Oddly enough, it wasn't the question Garrett had been entertaining. Oh, no, nothing so simple. Instead, he'd been wondering if this woman was the one who'd taken his clothes off. Wondering, also, how he could possibly have slept through such an event.
Deciding her question was safer than his, that was the one he addressed. “Kids? No, I don't. How can you tell?”
She nodded to the bedspread—which was crumpled in a ball near the door—then to the two inch thick wallpaper border edging the top of all four of the bedroom's walls. Garrett hadn't noticed the border before. He did now. It was decorated with those hulking, overgrown, armed-to-the-teeth turtles.
“If you had kids, you'd know who the Turtles are.”
“For the first time in my life,” Garrett grumbled, “I'm glad I don't have kids.”
The woman arched one brow and gazed at him levelly. “I'd suggest you get used to the Turtles. Especially since you're going to become real familiar with them in the near future.”
“I am?”
She nodded. “Yup. You're going to be buying Dana—that's my nephew, whose bed you're in—a
nother set of sheets and a bedspread to match. Ones that look just like those.” The woman wrinkled her nose. The gesture was oddly endearing. “You bled all over his. They're going to have to be replaced.”
Her smile faded. Garrett missed it, more than he should have. “Sorry,” he said. The word tasted rusty on his tongue, so rarely did he use it. “I guess now would be a good time to thank you for taking me in and fixing me up, huh?”
“You can thank me after you tell me where all that money and jewelry came from.”
Christ, she didn't let up, did she? Not that Garrett could blame her; were the situation reversed, he'd be interrogating the hell out of her. Of course, interrogation was part of his job…and he was good at his job.
“You don't want to know about the gun?”
“Not particularly. I put it where you can't find it, so it's no longer a major concern of mine.”
He assessed her in one sweeping glance, inwardly wondering if she would believe the truth if he told her. Especially since the truth sounded more outrageous than a badly prefabricated lie. In the end, he decided it would be in his best interest to change the subject, and change it quickly. “Do you have any aspirin? My leg is throbbing like a son-of-a—er, it's throbbing like mad.”
“You have a piece of metal embedded in your thigh,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I didn't even try to take it out.”
Garrett watched her walk to the door and noticed, not for the first time, what a nicely packaged woman she was. The baggy sweater did nothing to conceal her shape. Just the opposite, the way it draped from slender shoulders to shapely upper-thigh only whetted a man's appetite and left his hands hungry to find out if the curves beneath were really as soft and shapely as the woolen folds hiding them suggested.
She left the bedroom without a backward glance, closing the door firmly behind her. In the hall, he heard her talk softly to the cat. Moonshine. Who ever heard of a cat named Moonshine?
Garrett sighed and relaxed against the pillow. With effort, he resisted the urge to rub the fiery pain from his leg. It wouldn't help. Aspirin wouldn't either, but at least asking for them had given him a reprieve. And a few minutes alone.
He needed to think. To plan. To, hopefully, come up with some cockamamie story about the money and jewelry and gun that was so far from the truth it would have to be believable.
Yes, that was what he needed to do. Garrett frowned, his gaze shifting to the closed bedroom door. So why the hell wasn't he doing it?! Something was wrong here. Very wrong.
He must have hurt himself worse than he'd thought. It was the only reason he could think of to explain why, when he should be using this time to concoct an impromptu but reasonable lie, he instead spent the next few minutes contemplating the alluring curves hidden beneath a certain brunette's baggy sweater and snug jeans.
Chapter 4
Murphy's Law #4: If everything seems to be going well,
you have obviously overlooked something.
MURPHY GLANCED at the bottle of generic brand aspirin in her hand, sighed, and shook her head.
What was she doing? The man, who was at that moment laying on Dana's bed, seemed nice enough…what she knew of him. Admittedly, she didn't know much. He was a stranger to her. A big, strong stranger—even wounded, he was physically the most intimidating man Murphy had ever met. A stranger who had broken into her brother's house, badly wounded, carrying only a ratty old duffel bag crammed full of money, jewelry, and Benadryl.
