talking about lettuce, kale, spinach, that sort of thing?” He sipped at the coffee, which had turned out fragrant, flavorful and perfect, three things she had thought totally beyond her Mr. Coffee.
“No, greens as in surgical scrubs. I dreamed about them last night.”
Wellington looked at her as if that was the worst possible thing he could think to dream about, which it probably was. She bet he dreamed Technicolor fantasies starring tall blondes with chest measurements roughly equivalent to their IQs.
“So?”
She leaned forward. “That’s how he got out of the darkroom. My greens. I keep a set in there for changing the developer chemicals. What do you want to bet they’re not there anymore?”
Genie smiled when he nodded agreement, and was surprised to feel the tension across her shoulders loosen a little. Talking to Wellington over pancakes seemed to be making the events of the day before a little more bearable. A little less awful.
Not smart, her brain supplied, remember Archer. And she did. She remembered Archer in all his golden, popular glory. He might not have broken her heart, but he’d certainly shattered her pride.
“Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I’ll mention it to the detectives when I see them later today.”
Nick stood and piled his dishes in the sink before he grabbed his keys off the breakfast bar. Genie wondered fleetingly why he’d left them there when there was a perfectly good key rack just inside the door. Then she sighed. It was a timely reminder of their differences. She had racks, he had piles.
Magnetic north and south. She’d do well to remember it.
“I’m going to run an errand or two, check in at the lab and speak with the detectives. You going to be okay?”
So that was it, then. Genie tried to ignore the faint sadness that trickled through her. “Sure, I’ll be fine. My car’s parked in Chinatown so I’ll catch a cab to the commuter rail.”
He paused halfway out the door. “You’re not planning on going to work today, are you?”
Though the very thought of it made her queasy, she said, “Of course I am.”
He blew out a slow breath and abandoned subtlety. “You were beat up yesterday, Genie. You’ve got stitches in your eyebrow and I can tell your head’s killing you. Can’t you take the day off?”
Sure she could, but she didn’t want to. Already the idea of taking the elevator up to their shared floor and walking past the developer room was filling Genie with prickles of dread. She knew it would only get worse the longer she stalled. Her brain might be filling the emptiness with irrelevant thoughts of Nick Wellington in her shower and annoyingly apropos mental notes, but her soul knew the truth.
A big, tough guy like Wellington might not understand, but she was scared. Deep-down, bone-thumping scared.
What if the man was still in the darkroom? What if he’d hidden in the little office closet where she kept a change of clothes? She could feel him looking over her shoulder right now, breathing on her neck; the bruises on her stomach ached when she shivered.
What if the police found him near the lab and he told them that he’d been watching her for weeks, just waiting for his chance?
Or even worse, what if they didn’t find him at all? Would she spend the rest of her life trying to remember him, jumping at every shadow that might remind her of what she couldn’t know? Or would she remember him one day, remember what he had said, what he had done.
And wish that she could forget it again.
She shivered and rubbed an absent hand across a sore spot on her neck. “I could stay home, but I don’t want to.” Her self-appointed guardian scowled and she frowned right back. “I need to walk into that lab today, Wellington. I need to prove to myself that I can go back there and function.” She paused. “Otherwise he’s taken away more than just my feeling of safety. He’s taken away the lab.”
And although Wellington would have no way of knowing it, the lab was more than just a workplace to Genie. It was her life. Her salvation.
Her world.
He sighed and nodded. When he scrubbed a hand down the golden stubble on his jaw, Genie noticed for the first time that he looked tired. Worn. And very sexy in a grumpy, I’m-wearing-yesterday’s-clothes kind of way.
“Okay,” he said, “I can understand that. But let me drive you. I’m going to swing by my place.” He named a nearby section of town, surprising her. She hadn’t realized they were almost neighbors. “Once I’ve changed, I’m going to take care of a few things, then I’ll come back here and get you. Okay?”
He nodded and scratched the stubble on his jaw, clearly satisfied with his own plan. Taking lack of disagreement for an agreement, he gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze and left. The condo seemed much bigger and emptier in his absence.
Her shoulder tingled where he had touched it.
And the silence was as loud as a thousand freezer alarms shrieking at once.
Genie shivered. She was alone. Beef Wellington and his space-hogging tendencies were gone. There was no one else here. She was alone. The shadows seemed to pulse with it.
“Get over it, Watson,” she ordered herself. “You’ve been on your own for a long time and it hasn’t hurt you yet.”
Yet, throbbed the bruises on her breasts and belly as her brave words echoed through the silent space. She shivered again, suddenly sure that there were eyes in the empty darkness of the hallway beyond the kitchen.
What if he knew where she lived?
“Prr-meow?”
Genie jumped a mile and the kitten skittered away. She forced a little laugh. That was why she kept pets, after all. For those times when the quiet was too loud.
“Meep?” Galore inquired again, and set her miniature claws in the jeans Genie had pulled on that morning, unwilling to face Nick in her robe again. He’d been in the kitchen already and had dispelled any awkwardness between them by serving her breakfast, checking her pupils, and not mentioning her nightmares or the man-size imprint on her bed.
Looking at the jeans, she muttered, “Hell with it. I’m going casual,” and slid off the bar stool, slinging the limp kitten over her shoulder where it buzzed contentedly.
She couldn’t bear the thought of her usual work clothes—professional, grown-up, boring, the kind of things she’d originally chosen to make herself seem older. Now it was a habit, though she often wished she could wear her jeans and soft cashmere turtlenecks to the lab, and dreamed of leaving her hair long, or tucking it back in a simple braid that made her look carefree.
Young.
Maybe even pretty? said a soft Georgian accent in the back of her head. Genie shook her head with a half smile. Marilynn always had been an optimist.
“Hell with it,” she muttered again. “I’m wearing jeans today. I deserve it.” She was sore and grumpy and the thought of French-twisting her hair over the bump on the back of her head was enough to make her scream. She pulled a soft bra over her head and scowled at the bruises on her arm and stomach. “Bastard.”
She was going to find out who had wrecked the developer room and she was going to make him pay. Her brain was going to help her whether it wanted to or not. She was going to figure out what had happened and why—and if she had to go right through handsome Nick Wellington and his pat-the-little-ladyon-the-head-and-leave-her-at-home-while-the-big-strong-man-talks-to-the-police attitude, then so be it.
Chapter Four
She hadn’t waited for him. Of course she hadn’t. Nick scowled as he jammed the Bronco into a miniscule space between two identical minivans on the Massachusetts Turnpike. One of the drivers swerved, honked and made a rude gesture that was immediately