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“Exactly. So, shouldn’t you be figuring that out, instead of asking me the same questions over and over again?” The woman flipped one stray blonde curl back over her shoulder. Despite being dragged from a burning building half an hour ago, she looked relatively put together.
Despite being bat shit crazy, she also looked completely sane.
Trouble,I reminded myself.
Beautiful women were always trouble. The world revolved around them. They were never at fault. This was a classic case. Albeit severe, but definitely textbook level crazy here.
“Fine,” I said. “What do you want me to put on the accident report? Someone’s out to get you and started a fire in your home?”
“Is that so difficult?” the woman asked. “That’s what happened.”
“We don’t know that’s what happened.” I was losing my patience. I couldn’t just write foul play on the report without any foundation to base it off of first.
“I’m telling you I didn’t do it. So, someone else must have.”
“God, woman. You are infuriating.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, attempting to lessen some of the pressure building there. “All right, you win.”
I reached for a clipboard hanging on one of the interior walls of the truck. “Let’s see, I’ll put it down right here: ‘Came home, someone tried to kill her with a candle.’”
She tugged down on the clipboard and met my gaze with her own infallible glare. “You’re being an ass.”
“I’m being an ass? You’re being unreasonable.” Were we seriously having this conversation? “There’s no way anyone is going to believe you didn’t light that candle yourself. You were the only person in the house.”
“That I know of.”
“Look.” I held up a hand in truce.
God, I need a strong drink after dealing with this woman.“If this is about getting the insurance money, we can maybe figure something out. But—”
“This is not about the insurance money,” she snapped. “This is about someone having it in for me.”
Fine. I’ll humor her.“Like who?”
“My family, first of all.”
Of course. It was always the family. I was surprised she didn’t say the FBI, the government, or something along the lines of fuzzy green aliens. “Your family is out to get you?”
I had tried to hide the disbelief in my voice. In the least, I hadn’t intended it to sound as mocking as it did when the words tumbled out of my mouth.
“Oh, just forget it,” she said, and leaped to her feet. She craned her neck around me, searching for an unknown object off in the distance. “Where’s Gerald? I’m sure he’ll be more likely to believe my story.”
“You don’t need Gerald.”
She pushed past me, but I looped my arm around her waist and drew her back against me. I hadn’t intended to hold her in place, or even to hold her against me at all again. Once had been enough to warn me that this woman was unlike any other I’d ever encountered.
I can’t get involved with a crazy woman.
Yet, the way she looked at me now, eyes wide and curious, filled me with a renewed sense of wonder. I wanted every part of this woman, to know exactly what sparked such fire in her spirit. I wanted the soft curve of her mouth pressed against me, her body melting into mine.
“I’m guessing this is the part where you tell me you’re the only man I’ll ever need,” she said, this time laced with a hint of seduction she wielded all too well.
Not trouble,I determined.Dangerous.
The warning fell on deaf ears.
She could have been radioactive at that moment, and I still would have wanted to kiss her. My hand slid into her hair. The fine strands entangled my fingertips like silk ribbons. Every inch of her skin blazed across my touch like tiny sparks of electricity. My thumb traced along the slope of her neck, tilting her chin and her lips upward. “I’d never assume to know your wants and needs, my dear.”
“You could just ask,” she whispered, breathless.
