Blair Mallory 01 - To Die For by Linda Howard

Author:Linda Howard [Howard, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Physical Fitness Centers, Detective and Mystery Stories, Mistaken Identity, Fiction, Romance, Murder, Suspense, Women - Crimes Against, Lookalikes, Mystery Fiction, General, Suspense Fiction, thriller, Women
ISBN: 9780345476258
Google: lKZhOAtaRIMC
Amazon: 0345476255
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2004-12-28T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Needless to say, supper wasn’t a very cheerful occasion. We were mad at Wyatt, and he was mad at us. That didn’t interfere with my appetite; I had to rebuild my blood supply, you know.

His mood didn’t improve when, as we were leaving after he’d helped his mother clean up the kitchen, she delivered a parting shot by hugging me and then saying, “Take my advice, honey, and don’t sleep with him.”

“Gee, Mother, thanks,” he said sarcastically, which earned him a sniff and a cold shoulder.

“I completely agree with you,” I told her.

“Will you be back tomorrow?” she asked me.

“No,” he sourly replied, even though she hadn’t asked him. “You’re a bad influence on each other. I’m going to chain her in the bathroom just like I said.”

“I don’t want to go with you,” I said, scowling at him. “I want to stay with her.”

“Tough. You’re going with me, and that’s that.” He clamped a strong hand around my right wrist and, on that note, hauled me out to the car.

It was a silent drive to his house while I ruminated on what this latest show of temper meant. From him, not from us. I knew what was up with us, so there was no point in thinking about it.

I’d scared him. Not just momentarily, as I’d thought at first, the way someone is startled by something unexpected, but all the way to the bone. He’d been stricken with fear.

That was it, plain and simple. He’d seen me shot right in front of him; then the very next day he’d stashed me at what he thought was the safest place in town, his mother’s house, and after a stressful day he’d walked in to find me trying my level best, in his view, to break my neck or at least tear out all my new stitches.

In my view, one adult apology deserved another. If he could do it, so could I.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare you, and we shouldn’t have teamed up on you.”

He gave me a brooding glance and didn’t reply. Okay, so he wasn’t as gracious about accepting apologies as I was. I let that slide, because his surliness meant he did care for me, after all; he wasn’t driven just by sexual chemistry and that competitive streak of his. Whether he cared about me enough for us to have something to build on was still up in the air, but at least I wasn’t in this alone.

Just before we reached his house, he muttered, “Don’t ever do that again.”

“What?” I asked in bewilderment. “Scare you, or team up on you? You can’t mean doing a handstand, because you, like, know what I do for a living, right? I practice gymnastics every week. The members of Great Bods see me practicing and they’re reassured that I know what I’m doing. It’s good business.”

“You could kill yourself,” he growled, and with shock I realized that in fact he was, in a very manlike way, seizing on what he saw as the cause of his scare.

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