Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sam called Lyndie every day after her return from San Robledo, wanting her to fly for him, but she said no, claiming exhaustion.
What she really had were two pains in her ass—the cat and Nina. She couldn’t just leave either of them and fly for days on end.
But she wanted to. And this morning, the third morning, was the day. She had a flight to Baja, and she was going. She showered, then stood in front of her closet with a towel wrapped around her, wishing she’d done laundry at some point since she’d been back.
Nina had offered, but Lyndie didn’t need a keeper. And neither, it turned out, did Nina. She’d spent her time researching her college options and looking for a job, being surprisingly self-sufficient.
“Mew.”
She glanced at the cat sitting on her bare, wet feet. “What do you want?”
Lucifer dropped and rolled to his back, exposing his belly.
“Yeah, yeah.” But she sighed and bent down to scratch the thing. “And how is Dead Kitty Walking today?”
“Mew.”
“Uh-huh.” Surging to her feet, she dropped the towel and pulled on a bra and panties. “Problem is, you’re always hungry. And anyway, tell me this. How does a woman all by herself end up with two extra mouths to feed?”
“I told you,” Nina said, coming into the one and only small bedroom of Lyndie’s house, looking perfectly put together as always in a crisp, bright Mexican sundress and fancy sandals.
“I have my own money. Some, anyway.” Silhouetted in front of the bedroom window, with the ocean behind her, she lifted a stack of papers.
“And I have college applications right here. Soon I will be getting my teaching credentials, thank you very much.”
On the pile closest to her bed, Lyndie found a pair of pants, but had no such luck finding a clean blouse. Turning around in a circle, she searched the room. “There’s got to be…ah.” She headed toward a pile of clothes on the chair by her window. “A college degree is going to take you years.”
“Yes, maybe, but in the meantime, I’ve got a lead on a job at a senior center—”
“Doing what, cleaning? No.”
Nina looked regal when she lifted a brow. “No?”
“It’s not good enough, not for you. You cleaned in Mexico, you might as well have stayed—” She broke off when her cell rang. “I’m nearly ready, Sam,” she promised in lieu of a greeting. “I just—”
“It’s Griffin.”
As if she hadn’t already registered the low, husky, unbearably familiar voice by the sudden leap in her pulse rate and her weakened knees. “Oh.”
“We need to talk.”
She let out a low laugh. “Conversations that start with those four words never turn out good in my experience.”
“What’s not good is how we left things.”
She sank to her bed because she was shaking. Shaking. “I think we left things just fine.”
“Because you like to stick your head in the sand. That doesn’t work for me.”
She sputtered. “I do not stick my head in the sand.”
“Yes, you do,” said Nina helpfully, lifting a shoulder when Lyndie glared at her.
“I want to see you,” Griffin said in that same voice he’d used at the fire, when his natural leader instincts had kicked in and he was in control of everyone and everything around him.
Too bad he wasn’t in control of her. With Nina looking at her, her hands on her hips, Lyndie closed her eyes. “Now’s a bad time to discuss this.”
Nina sighed. “Give up, Griffin,” she called out.
Lyndie turned her back on her. “A really bad time.”
Griffin was silent for a moment. Going over his options, no doubt. Making a plan. “Then tell me when,” he finally said.
When? When she could look at him without wanting to melt in a boneless heap. When she could tell herself it had been just lust and believe it. “Later.”
“Lyndie—”
“I’ve got to go, Griffin.”
“Wait. Please, wait.”
At the unexpected please, she hesitated.
“Look,” he said softly. “I’m scaring you. I know—”
“Nothing scares me.”
“Stop it. Stop with the Supergirl act. Yeah, you’re strong as hell, and tougher than just about anyone I know, but when it comes to you and me, you’re running scared.”
“As you should be. You’re not interested in just sex, remember? And yet you don’t want more.”
“Says who?”
“Says the woman who knows you’re still not ready for any of this.”
He was silent for a single beat. “I’m coming over. Now.”
“You can’t. I have a flight. Bye, Griffin.” Heart inexplicably pounding, she disconnected, then stared at the phone for a long moment, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do with all the emotion and drama and anticipation racing through her.
Why did he have to call?
Why did he have to sound so absolutely fierce—and so unbearably sexy?
“Well done, Lyndie,” Nina said, clapping.
“Once again you’ve cleared yourself of any…
what did we call it? Attachments.” She stood there so smug.
“Oh, and I won’t be cleaning at the senior center, as you were worried about.
I will be reading and teaching the seniors to speak Spanish. It’s a job to be proud of.”
Lyndie could hardly follow the conversation for remembering how Griffin’s voice had sounded in her ear. “It must be some rich senior center.”
“It is. They said they were looking to add ‘culture’ to their list of activities.” Nina watched Lyndie pull out a wrinkled blouse from the bottom of the pile and shake it out. “Tell me you’re not going to wear that today.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.” She slipped it on and started buttoning it up. What would Griffin do now? Would he back off?
Would he ever call her again?
“Dios mío, at least iron it. Let me iron it.”
Lyndie frowned and looked the clothing over. “And what in our history together suggests to you that I even own an iron? So tell me, what did Tom say when you called him?”
“Didn’t you say you were late for a flight?”
Lyndie went very still. “Nina. Tell me you called him when I told you to two days ago.”
“Sure, I could tell you that.”
“But it would be a lie?” Lyndie let out a noise of disgust when Nina just lifted a cool brow. “Damn it. Damn it, he’s probably worried sick.” Stalking back over to her phone, she started punching numbers.
“If he’s worried sick, it’s because he didn’t read my text,” said Nina with a derisive sniff. “But I doubt you will find him surprised.”
Lyndie glared at her while she waited for Tom to pick up his phone.
He didn’t.
“Damn it all to hell,” she muttered while his machine clicked on.
Tsking at Lyndie’s use of the language, Nina started folding the clothes she’d just tossed aside and came up with a blouse slightly cleaner than the one Lyndie had on. “Switch,” she demanded.
“This one is fine.”
“You have a stain on your breast, you look like a slob. Switch.”
Lyndie started unbuttoning and leaving a message for Tom at the same time. “Tom, look, your errant daughter took it upon herself to stowaway on my plane. I thought she’d have called you by now, but I should have known better, as the girl—”
“Woman,” Nina corrected.
Lyndie glared at her. “As she does whatever the hell she wants. Call me.”
Just as she hung up the phone, someone knocked on her door.
“Grand Frigging Central Station.” Lyndie stalked to the door.
“I’m five little minutes late and the man can’t give me a break.
Look,” she called back to Nina, “I’m going to be gone until late, late tonight, it can’t be helped. Stay out of trouble.”
“Are you talking to me or the cat?” Nina asked.
“Both of you.”
“I will be out of your hair by this afternoon.” Nina turned her back, her thin shoulders stiff and distant.
And Lyndie felt like slime. “Come on, don’t get like that.”
“I know how inconvenient it is, having me here.”
“I never said—”
“And I know how much of a loner you are—”
“Well, I’m not—”
“I am very sorry I bothered you.”
“Nina, damn it, would you listen—”
The knock at the door came again, louder and more impatient this time. Lyndie pointed at Nina. “Don’t move.”
Nina crossed her arms. Lyndie recognized the stance all too well. “I mean it.” She hauled open the door. “Jeez, Sam, I have my hands full here, and—”
“Let me guess how you have your hands full.” Brody Moore, gorgeous as ever and looking quite tense, stepped over the threshold. “Where is she?”
Lyndie blinked. “How did you know where I live?” She tried to see the street from her porch—had Griffin come with him?—but couldn’t see anything past Sam’s huge mansion.
“Just tell me you’ve got her,” Brody said. “I talked to Tom, and he said I’d probably locate her here—”
“Her who?” Nina moved into the room and eyed Brody with a cool smile. “Her me?”
“Thank God.” He reached her in less than two strides, hauling her against him, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “Jesus, you give me gray hair.”
Nina rumpled his already rumpled hair with her long fingers. “Stop it. There’s not a gray in the mix. Men. Always exaggerating.”
But she encircled him with her arms and hugged him back, closing her eyes, inhaling him in, a look of such rapture on her face that Lyndie found herself staring.
It took her back—the sigh factor she hadn’t expected, the dreamy sense of something going so right between two people she cared about. It took her back and also left her a little unsettled because, once again, here she stood on the outside looking in. Always slightly detached.
Her own fault, but she didn’t know how to change it. She seemed to be missing the get-attached gene. “I have a flight,” she said.
But they were kissing now, and not just a how-do-you-do kiss, but a holding each other’s faces, eyes open, I’m-going-to-gobble-you-up kiss that did something funny to her knees. “So, uh, I guess we’ll talk later.”
No answer, just more sucky-face noises. “Really,” she said, fingers tapping on the opened front door. “I have to go.”
Behind Brody’s back, Nina waved a hand at her. Go.
Lyndie started to walk out, then stopped. “Don’t let Dummy Kitty out, okay? I don’t want the coyotes to get him.” Why she was worried about such a thing happening, when it would only save her from buying cat food, she had no idea.
But Brody and Nina were really getting into it now, complete with sounds that made her wish for earplugs. She wondered if Griffin looked like that when he kissed her, with his entire heart in his eyes, if it showed in every touch and whisper.
She’d never looked at him while he’d kissed her, but now she wished she had.
And yet wishes were for someone who harbored regrets, something Lyndie never did. She lived her life for the here and now—forget the past, don’t think about the future.
With that in mind, she slammed the door behind her and headed toward her day.