Chapter 8
“No, I’ll definitely be in tomorrow,” Jodi said, struggling to ignore the constant itching that only seemed to be getting worse with every passing minute.
“Do you want me to double-check the supplies for the kid’s craft group?” Jenna, a volunteer who was covering for her at the library, asked as Jodi shifted the phone to her other ear so that she could bend down and take a peek in the oven to make sure the cookies were baking evenly.
“We should have everything but the glitter. Dan is supposed to drop that off along with the glue tomorrow, so we’ll be all set by Thursday morning.
Besides,” Jodi said, pausing to shut off the oven timer and don a pair of sturdy oven mittens, quickly pulling out the hot cookie sheets from the oven and replacing them with the pans she’d had waiting on the kitchen table, “we’re shutting the library down for the summer.
I’d rather use up everything that we already have so that we don’t have to worry about finding a place to store it. ”
“That’s what I figured,” Jenna said as Jodi carefully placed the hot pans on the counter to cool.
“Could you please tell Mr. Jennings that I’m working from home today,” Jodi asked, once again thankful that she had a job that allowed her to work from home when needed, and today she definitely needed to work from home.
Actually, what she really needed to do was go to the hospital and have the hive that seemed to be getting worse looked at, but she didn’t have health insurance at the moment.
Then again, if it got any worse, she wasn’t going to have much of a choice in the matter.
She’d have to suck it up, go down to the walk-in clinic and agree to a payment plan that she couldn’t afford, which, of course, was the reason why she’d been cooking ever since the jerk across the hallway dropped abandoned her, Jodi thought, biting back a sigh as she looked around the kitchen overrun with cakes, brownies, cookies, breads, and casseroles.
Her refrigerator was already overflowing with food and she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do with all of it.
She’d tried calling the guys, hoping they’d come relieve her of some of this food, but for some strange reason, none of them were answering their phones.
She’d briefly considered packing all the food in the car and bringing it down to the police station, but she’d quickly dismissed that idea.
She really wasn’t in the mood to explain why she looked like she had the plague.
“He already knows and he said that was fine. I hope you feel better, Jodi.”
“Thank you, Jenna. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She hoped she would, at least. But as she hung up the phone and contemplated taking another hot shower, she wasn’t sure that was going to be possible.
Trying to ignore the need to itch every last square inch of her body, Jodi picked up her spatula and began the task of placing the warm cookies on wax paper to cool when someone knocked on her door.
Sighing with relief and hoping that she could talk whoever it was at the door into running to the pharmacy and buying her some calamine lotion, she quickly headed to the door and opened it, only to frown in confusion when she met the curious gazes of two incredibly handsome men.
The youngest one looked down at her, looking a little lost, while the older man, an incredibly handsome older man that looked vaguely familiar, grinned hugely down at her.
“Tinkerbelle?” the younger man said, sounding unsure as she turned to glare up at him. She opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind when both men tilted their heads, sniffed the air, and groaned.
“God, something smells good,” the younger man said with a wistful smile that may have distracted her from his Tinkerbelle comment.
“Are we interrupting something?” the older man asked, sharing a look with the younger man that she couldn’t quite figure out.
“No,” Jodi said, shaking her head as she crossed her arms in a desperate attempt to stop herself from scratching. “I felt like cooking.”
“I see,” the older man said, his expression suddenly smug. “You enjoy cooking?”
“Yes,” Jodi said, eying the two men standing in front of her. “Umm, can I help you?”
“Actually,” the younger man said, absently gesturing to the hives covering her arms, neck, and face, “we came here to help you. My name is Dr. Aidan Bradford. My brother told me that you had a reaction to a substance that you came in contact with last night.”
“Your brother?” Jodi asked, narrowing her eyes as she looked the younger man over and noted the similarities between him and her tormentor living across the hallway from her.
“Yes, he’s my brother,” Aidan said with a long-suffering sigh that had her biting back a smile and instantly liking the large man.
“He’s also the one who told me that you might need some medical attention,” he explained with a charming smile that had her stepping back and gesturing for the men to come in.
With a nod and a smile, the men stepped into her apartment and followed her into the kitchen just as the oven timer chimed.
She hurried across the kitchen and grabbed her oven mitts.
She managed to shut the timer off and pull the cookies out of the oven before they burned.
As she set them on the counter, she caught her unexpected guests’ expressions.
Looking as though they were lost in a dream, they slowly looked around the kitchen, taking in every cookie, brownie, and delicious treat that she’d spent the last seven hours cooking and…
Was that a whimper?
Yup, definitely a whimper, Jodi decided, biting back another smile as she gestured to the food around them. “Are you hungry?”
“Always,” the men said in unison, looking deadly serious as they continued to gaze around them.
“Help yourselves,” she said, gesturing to the food.
“Bless you,” Aidan said, reaching for a brownie only to come up empty handed when the large plate overflowing with brownies suddenly disappeared.
“You should really be looking her over,” the older man said around a large brownie as he backed away, the plate of brownies lovingly cradled in his arms.
“Greedy bastard,” Aidan muttered as he reluctantly turned his attention away from the brownies and looked at her. “Can I see your arm?” he asked even as he couldn’t stop himself from sending the plate in the other man’s arms a wistful glance.
“Oh, God, these are so damn good,” the older man groaned, taking another large bite.
Pleased that he was enjoying the brownie, a recipe she’d created a few years ago, Jodi pulled up her sleeve and tried not to cringe as she showed the incredibly handsome doctor the hive thingies covering her arms. With a frown, he shifted his attention from the brownies to her arm.
He gently traced the outer edge of one hive with the tips of his fingers.
“You had prolonged exposure,” Aidan said, sighing heavily as he pulled the backpack off his shoulder and started rummaging through it.
“Is it contagious?” Jodi whispered, throwing the food around them a nervous glance and calling herself all kinds of stupid for not considering that before she offered them any food.
“No,” Aidan said with an unconcerned shake of his head as he searched through his bag. “Tell me, did you take anything after you were exposed?”
“Benadryl,” she answered, looking down at the things on her arm with a frown, wondering if she was going to need to have them surgically removed.
“Are you allergic to anything?” he asked, pulling out a small vial of medicine.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I just-Ouch!” she nearly shouted when he took her by surprise and jammed a needle in her bicep.
“Sorry about that, but I needed your muscles completely relaxed. The medicine seems to work faster if your muscles aren’t constricted as they would be if…
are you okay?” Aidan asked, his words trailing off as he studied her, looking concerned and probably for a good reason, she mused as she felt the full force of the medicine work its way through her system.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jodi said, nodding to herself as she looked around the kitchen and wondered why she hadn’t baked anything with jelly. God, she loved jelly…
“Help!” came the scream that woke him up. The second scream for help had him throwing his legs over the bed. The third had him muttering a curse and racing to the door as he registered the sound of his little brother screaming for help.
“Danny!” Aidan yelled just as he stumbled to a stop in his living room. “Help us, you bastard!” Aidan demanded as Danny stood there frozen, trying to make sense of the scene before him.
His Uncle Jared was on the floor, his arms wrapped around Tinkerbelle, who was squirming wildly in an attempt to get to the front door, while his brother wrestled with her legs, struggling to get her to stop kicking their uncle.
Tinkerbelle didn’t seem all that concerned with having two large men trying to restrain her.
In fact, she didn’t really seem to notice them at all.
But she did notice him.
As soon as she spotted him, she stopped struggling, propped her head up on her hands, sighed dramatically and said, “I need to run to the store and get some jelly.”
It was at that moment that he realized that he was in for one hell of a night.
“But-”
“No,” Danny said firmly, rubbing the back of his neck as the small woman sitting across from him continued to glare in his direction.
“But-”
“No,” he said, gesturing to the sandwich that he’d made for her. “Eat your sandwich.”
“But-”
“Just accept the fact that they cleaned you out and eat your sandwich,” Danny said, once again cursing his uncle to hell and back for not only ditching his ass with his drugged-up neighbor but for eating what he’d surmised was an incredibly delicious buffet made by none other than the woman that he was currently stuck with.
“If you’d just let me go to my apartment, I’ll grab some flour and sugar and-”
“Try to run off to the store again,” he finished for her, in absolutely no mood to deal with this, not tonight.
All he wanted to do was to grab one of his books, sit in a corner and read.
That was it. It’s how he spent most of his nights when he didn’t force himself to go to one of his relative’s houses for dinner, slap a smile on his face and pretend for their sake that everything was okay.
It wasn’t, but they didn’t need to know that.
“But I need jelly to-”
“I’m not letting you near the stove,” Danny pointed out for probably the hundredth time that night, praying that she would just let it go and pass out so that he could salvage the rest of this night.
When she didn’t argue, he looked up and swore when he spotted her empty chair.
Getting to his feet, he headed towards his front door only to pause, tip his head to the side and listen.
With a shake of his head and a muttered promise to kick his brother’s ass, he turned around, got down on his haunches and peered beneath the table to find Tinkerbelle on her hands and knees with that delectable ass that he’d tried to ignore pointed in his direction.
For a minute, he watched her as she peered out beneath one of the chairs, no doubt trying to make sure that the coast was clear before she tried to make a run for it, but there was only one problem with that.
She was facing the wall.
It was sad, really, Danny decided as he reached beneath the table, grabbed hold of her hips and pulled her out.
She didn’t struggle or put up a fight. Instead, she sighed as she turned in his arms, threw her arms around his neck and laid her head against his chest as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do.
For a moment, Danny stood there, holding her in his arms and savoring her touch against his better judgment. He should put her down and put some distance between them. He didn’t need to hold her to keep her safe, but at the moment, it felt…necessary.
Since he came back from the war, he’d felt lost, felt like something was missing, but right now, for the first time in his life, he felt whole.
When she snuggled closer, he absently pressed a kiss against her forehead and headed for his room.
He didn’t bother turning the light on as he walked inside.
He kept his place clean and organized, a habit the Marines had made damn sure that he would remember for the rest of his life so he wasn’t worried about tripping over anything.
Carefully, he laid her down on his bed and pulled the covers over her, hoping that it would be enough to help him resist the urge to pull her back in his arms. It wasn’t, but he still managed to step away before he did anything stupid. That is until she reached out and grabbed his hand.
“Stay with me?” Jodi asked softly, her beautiful green eyes pleading with him. He opened his mouth to refuse, only to close his eyes in defeat when she added, “Please, Danny.”