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“See, I knew you could be reasonable. Give me one minute.”
Rafe couldn’t be sure, but he was pretty certain he heard her say, “You better know what you’re doing.”
He ran back to the driver’s side and pulled his car up several feet, then threw it into park and engaged the hand brake. Next he ran to his trunk and pulled out his rappelling gear. He had his harness on in seconds. He just hoped she didn’t ask too many questions about why the hell he had rappelling gear. What would he say to that? Oh, you know, I just like to do a little building scaling on the weekends. And this was why he could never have a normal life.
Once he had the harness on, he dropped the rope as close to the lights as possible. When he was secured in, h
e steadied himself on the ledge and stepped backward. Then, foot by foot, he dropped gently, calling out to the woman down below. She was right; the mud was slippery as hell. When he reached her, she was only a few feet up from where the car was. She wore only a thin dress, and her feet were bare.
Shit. She was lucky she didn’t have hypothermia. “Hi. I’m Rafe. I’m going to help you out of here.”
Even wet, shivering, and resembling a tiny drowned animal, she was beautiful. Those dark eyes of hers bore into him as she stared at him. “You were serious about coming down for me?”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “You know, as rescue-ees go, you are a tad ungrateful.” Rafe had the harness around her in seconds and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close. He inhaled for a moment and caught a whiff of vanilla.
So not the right time to realize she was cute and smelled amazing. Focus, man.
Her lips twitched as she met his gaze. “Oh, I’m grateful. I just think you’re crazy. You better have a whole army up there ready to pull us up. Because this mud—”
“Do you always talk this much?”
She opened her mouth, very likely to give him some kind of scathing retort, but then he pressed the electronic switch on his rope ascender and they were zooming up. Definitely not as fast as the system was capable of, given his weight and his rough approximation of hers, but it would do. He had to physically pull them up the last couple of feet, but she helped, mostly by not getting in the way and just clinging to him tightly.
Once they were on solid ground, she still clung to him and Rafe let her. For several beats they stood like that, with her wrapped around him and him encasing her in his arms, giving her some of his warmth.
But then she pulled back. And that mouth of hers started again. “So, are we going to talk about why you have burglary equipment handy?”
Despite himself, he laughed. “So, this is you being grateful? And for your information, I’m a rappeller. It’s a sport.” It was the best he could do in a pinch.
“This is me making sure I haven’t been rescued by a serial killer.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “I promise you, I’m not Dexter. Why don’t you sit in the car and warm up while we wait for an ambulance to come and check you out.”
Her eyes went wide. “I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance. Just point me in the direction of downtown, and I have it from here.”
“Are you crazy? It’s miles to Manhattan.”
She squared her shoulders. “So? I’m strong. Thank you very much for your rescue or whatever. But I can take it from here.”
Rafe stared down at her. She was tiny. At least compared to him. “You’re insane if you think I’m going to let you walk. And have you not noticed that you’re barefoot?”
She looked at her feet and wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m fine. I don’t need your help. I’ll just call an Uber or something.”
Rafe stared at her. “Oh yeah? With what phone?”
She narrowed her gaze at him but stayed silent. When she turned her back on him and started walking in the wrong direction, he fought an inner battle with himself. The fact that she didn’t want medical attention and was insistent on walking away from this told him she was in trouble. And the last thing he needed was trouble in his life.
The problem was, as soon as she was ten feet away from him, he was calling after her. “Hey. Let me give you a ride.”
She turned to face him. “Thank you, Rafe. But I have this.”
He chuckled low. “So, is now a good time to tell you you’re walking in the wrong direction?”
And then he saw it, the telltale quiver of her bottom lip. Shit. She was about to cry. He strode up to her and wrapped her in his arms. There was a reason he kept his life simple. There was a reason he stayed alone. The problem was this girl slid under all his defenses. He knew he shouldn’t take her home. But she clearly needed help. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t have the best security in the world. She was one tiny girl. How much damage could she really do?
“Look, something tells me you’re in trouble.”
“I am not in trouble. I just need somewhere to lay low for a while.”
