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“And,” Detective Noles continued, “I suspect she fell off the stepstool.” He pointed to a white two-step stool sitting crooked. “Have I got that right, Lillian?”
She laughed nervously. “You caught me. I knew you were a sharp detective.”
I frowned. That wasn’t what Lillian had told me. “What makes you think she fell off the stool?”
“Easy.” He held up one finger. “That stool should be way over there in that corner.”
When he raised a second finger while speaking, I sneaked a peek at his ring finger—his naked ring finger.
“And second, Lillian has been trying to ignore the out-of-place stool when I know it’s driving her crazy.”
I’d been Lillian’s next-door neighbor for three years, and this guy had been here for what? A couple of months? How could he know so much about her and her habits?
The two paramedics squatted beside Lillian and began to take vital signs. Zack and I stepped over to the side.
“How do you know Lillian?” I asked.
“She’s a neighbor. I like to meet all my neighbors.”
I arched an eyebrow—a feat that’d taken a lot of time in a mirror to perfect. “I’m your neighbor, and you haven’t been over to my house to meet me.”
“When I looked up who lived there, I realized we’d already met.”
My heart began to race. He was studying me, like a wolf eyeing a bunny for dinner. His gray eyes twinkled under an arched brow. His gorgeous brown hair with its unruly waves. His massively large hands. I remembered it all, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to believe I’d been fantasizing about him for the past thirteen years.
“Have we?” I asked, hoping to stall, hoping to give myself time to catch my breath and slow my runaway heart.
His response was the smile of someone who knew something others didn’t…the smile of a man who knew me intimately.
I turned toward Lillian and the medics. They loaded her onto the ambulance gurney for transport.
“Andi.” Lillian waved me over. She grabbed my hand and held tight. “Promise me you’ll take care of Baxter. He’s very valuable. Promise me you’ll protect him.”
I squeezed her hand. “Of course I will, Lillian. Don’t worry about him at all.”
“No, I need you to promise me.” She squeezed my hand with surprising and unexpected strength. “Promise me that no one else will take him from you. Promise you’ll keep him until I get home.”
“I promise,” I said, dragging fingers across my chest in an X. “I cross my heart I will take care of Baxter. You just need to focus on getting better.”
The older woman relaxed against the gurney. “Thank you.”
“I’m happy to have Baxter as a houseguest,” I assured her. What I didn’t add was the word temporary, as in this being a temporary arrangement. I’d never had a house pet. We’d had horses that had lived on someone else’s ranch, but never a pet in in our house. Still, I’d promised her, so I felt obligated to care for him.
After the ambulance left, I turned toward Zack. “Would it do any good to pretend I don’t remember you?” I asked with a sigh.
He chuckled. His smile released a bevy of butterflies in my stomach, but it always had. “Hmm, nope.” He cleared his throat and began to sing. “Texas fight, Texas fight. And…” He sang the entire University of Texas fight song, which stirred up emotions and memories I’d thought long buried deep.
“How are you doing Zack Noles, semi-famous Texas Longhorn quarterback?”
He bowed. “Very well, Ms. Carmichael.” His eyebrows arched. “Semi-famous?” He grabbed at his chest. “Damn, woman. That hurt.”
Of course, I remembered every minute of every hour we’d spent together. Our time together, including our one and only one-night stand, had been magical. I’d convinced myself that my fairy-tale feelings toward him and about him couldn’t be real, and even if it had been real, we’d been young. When the time had come to make the hard decisions about my future, I’d walked away, convinced that kind of fire couldn’t last a lifetime. I’d comforted myself by saying I’d experienced a love like few people ever had and I needed to be satisfied with that.
Zack had changed during the intervening years. He’d filled out. Now, he had the body of a man, not a muscular jock, not that I didn’t think he probably still had some nice muscles under a jacket that pulled across his shoulders. Plus, back at UT, he’d kept his hair very short. He’d let it grow out. The sexy waves with the touch of silver at the temples didn’t look much like the hair of the boy from Austin. Under heavy, dark eyebrows, his eyes bore deep-crinkled laugh lines. His nose had a slight bump that was new to me. Probably a break from his NFL days. A scar I didn’t remember cut a tiny groove into the left side of his forehead. But even through the scruff, I could see that dimple in his chin. Yeah, my tongue might have played around in that dimple a time or two. But his luscious lips hadn’t changed. Even back in college, he’d known what to do with them. I could only imagine what he’d learned since then. Studying him, jet streams of lust rocked through me.
Thirteen years ago, during a birthday night out with my sisters, I’d met Zack. I felt the sparks between us then, much as I was tonight.
Two
