Dwayne had gone inside. He"d broken in, and from the sound of things, the son of a b.i.t.c.h was destroying Frisco"s home.
Mia leapt for her telephone and dialed 911.
Police cars--three of them--were parked haphazardly in the condominium lot.
Frisco threw a ten-dollar bill at the taxi driver and pulled himself and his crutches as quickly as he could out of the cab.
His heart was in his throat as he raced into the courtyard. People were outside of their units, standing around, watching the police officers, several of whom were outside of both his and Mia"s condos.
Both doors were open wide and one of the uniformed officers went into Mia"s place.
Still on his crutches, Frisco took the stairs dangerously fast. If he lost his balance, he"d seriously hurt himself, but he wasn"t going to lose his balance, dammit. He needed to get up those stairs.
"Mia," he called. "Tash?"
Thomas King stepped out of Mia"s condo. "It"s okay, Navy," he said. "No one was hurt."
But Frisco didn"t slow down. "Where are they?"
"Inside."
He went in, squinting to adjust his eyes to the sudden dimness. Despite Thomas"s rea.s.surance, he had to see with his own eyes that they were okay. Mia was standing near the kitchen, talking to one of the policewomen. She looked all right. She was still wearing the shorts and sleeveless top she"d had on earlier. Her hair was still back in a single braid. She looked calm and composed.
"Where"s Tasha?"
She looked up at him and a flurry of emotions crossed her face and he knew she wasn"t quite as composed as she looked. "Alan. Thank G.o.d. Tasha"s in my office, playing computer games. She"s fine." She took a step toward him as if she wanted to reach for him, but stopped, glancing back at the police officer, as if she were embarra.s.sed or uncertain as to his reception.
Frisco didn"t give a d.a.m.n who was watching. He wanted her in his arms, and he wanted her now. He dropped his crutches and pulled her close, closing his eyes and breathing in her sweet perfume. "When I saw those police cars..." He couldn"t continue. He just held her.
"Excuse me," the policewoman murmured, slipping past them and disappearing out of the open condo door.
"Dwayne came looking for you," Mia told him, tightening her arms around his waist.
Dwayne. He held her tighter, too. "Dammit, I shouldn"t have left you alone. Are you sure he didn"t hurt you?"
"I saw him coming and we stayed inside," she said, pulling back to look up at him. "Alan, he totally trashed your living room and kitchen. The rest of the apartment"s okay--I called the police and they came before he went into the bedrooms, but--"
"He didn"t talk to you, didn"t threaten you or Tash in any way?"
She shook her head. "He ran away when he heard the police sirens. He never even knew we were next door."
Frisco felt a rush of relief. "Good."
Her eyes were wide. "Good? But your living room is wrecked."
"To h.e.l.l with my living room. I don"t care about my living room."
He gazed down into her eyes, and at her beautiful lips parted softly in surprise, and he kissed her.
It was a strange kiss, having nothing to do with attraction and desire. He wasn"t kissing her because he wanted her. He kissed her because he wanted to vanquish the last of his fears. He wanted to convince himself without a doubt that she truly was all right. It had nothing to do with s.e.x and everything to do with the flood of emotions he"d felt while running up those stairs.
Her lips were warm and sweet and pliant under his own. She kissed him eagerly, both giving and taking comfort in return.
When they finally pulled apart, Mia had tears in her eyes. She wiped at them, forcing an apologetic smile. "I was scared out of my mind that Dwayne was going to somehow find you before you got home--"
"I can handle Dwayne."
She looked away, but not before he caught a glimpse of the skepticism in her eyes. He felt himself tense with frustration, but stopped himself from reacting. Why shouldn"t she doubt his ability to protect himself? Just yesterday, she"d watched Dwayne beat the c.r.a.p out of him.
He pulled her hand up, positioning it on the outside of his jacket, just underneath his left arm. There was surprise on her face as she felt the unmistakable bulge of his shoulder holster and gun.
"I can handle Dwayne," he said again.
"Excuse me, Lieutenant Francisco... ?"
Frisco released Mia and turned to see one of the cops standing just inside the door. He was an older man, balding and grey with a leathery face and a permanent squint to his eyes from the bright California sun. He was obviously the officer in charge of the investigation.
"I"m wondering if we might be able to ask you some questions, sir?"
Mia bent down and picked up Frisco"s crutches, her head spinning.
A gun. Her lover was carrying a gun. Of course, it made sense that he would have one. He was a professional soldier, for crying out loud. He probably had an entire collection of firearms. She simply hadn"t thought about it before this. Or maybe she hadn"t wanted to think about it. It was ludicrous, actually. She, who was so opposed to violence and weapons of any kind, had fallen in love with a man who not only wore a gun, but obviously knew how to use it.
"Thanks," he murmured to her, positioning his crutches under his arms. He started toward the policeman. "I"m not sure I can give you any answers," he said to the man. "I haven"t even seen the damage yet."
Mia followed him out the door. Thomas was still standing outside. "Will you stay with Tasha for a minute?" she asked him.
He nodded and went inside.
She caught up with Frisco as he was stepping into his condo. His face was expressionless as he gazed at what used to be his living room.
The gla.s.s-topped coffee table was shattered. The entertainment centre that had held his TV and a cheap stereo system had been toppled forward, away from the wall. The heavy wood of the shelves was intact, but the television was smashed. All of his lamps were broken, and the ugly plaid couch had been slashed and shredded, and wads of white stuffing and springs were exposed.
His dining area and kitchen contained more of the same. His table and chairs had been knocked over and the kitchen floor was littered with broken gla.s.ses and plates swept down from the cabinets. The refrigerator was open and tipped forward, its contents smashed and broken on the floor, oozing together in an awful mess.
Frisco looked, but didn"t say a word. The muscle in his jaw moved, though, as he clenched his teeth.
"Your... friend ID"d the man who broke in as someone named Dwayne... ?" the policeman said.
His friend. As Mia watched, Frisco"s eyes flickered in her direction at the officer"s tactful hesitation. The man could have called her his neighbour, but it was obvious to everyone that she was more than that. Mia tried not to blush, remembering the bright-coloured condom wrapper that surely still lay on Frisco"s bedroom floor. These police officers had been crawling all over this place for the past twenty-five minutes. They surely hadn"t missed seeing that wrapper--or the way Frisco had pulled her possessively into his arms when he"d arrived. These were seasoned cops. They were especially good at deductive reasoning.
"I don"t know anyone named Dwayne," Frisco told the policeman. He unb.u.t.toned his jacket, and carefully began manoeuvring his way through the mess toward his bedroom. "Mia must"ve been mistaken."
"Alan, I saw--"
He glanced at her, shaking his head, just once, in warning. "Trust me," he murmured. Mia closed her mouth. What was he doing? He knew d.a.m.n well who Dwayne was, and she wasn"t mistaken.
"I appreciate your coming all the way down here, Officer," he said, "but I won"t be pressing charges."
The policeman was respectful of Frisco"s uniform and his rows of medals. Mia could hear it in the man"s voice. But he was also obviously not happy with Frisco"s decision. "Lieutenant, we have four different witnesses who saw this man either entering or leaving your home." He spread his hands, gesturing to the destruction around them. "This is no small amount of damage that was done here this afternoon."
"No one was hurt," Frisco said quietly.
Mia couldn"t keep quiet. "No one was hurt?" she said in disbelief. "Yesterday someone was hurt...." She bit her lip to keep from saying more. Yesterday that man had sent Frisco to the hospital. His name had been Dwayne then, and it was still Dwayne today. And if Frisco had been home this afternoon...
But trust me, he"d whispered. And she did. She trusted him. So she had swallowed her words.
But her outburst had been enough, and for the first time since he"d stepped inside his condo, Frisco"s face flashed with emotion. "This is not something that"s going to go away by arresting this b.a.s.t.a.r.d on charges of breaking and entering and vandalism," he told her. "In fact, it"ll only make things worse." He looked from Mia to the cop, as if aware he"d nearly said too much. With effort, he erased all signs of his anger from his face and when he spoke again, his voice was matter of fact. "Like I said, I don"t want to press charges."
He started to turn away, but the policeman wouldn"t let him go. "Lieutenant Francisco, it sounds like you have some kind of problem here. Maybe if you talked to one of the detectives in the squad... ?"
Frisco remained expressionless. "Thank you, but no. Now, if you don"t mind, I want to change my clothes and start cleaning up this mess."
"I don"t know what"s going on here," the cop warned him, "but if you end up taking the law into your own hands, my friend, you"re only going to have a bigger problem."
"Excuse me." Frisco disappeared into his bedroom, and after a moment, the policeman went out the door, shaking his head in exasperation.
Mia followed Frisco. "Alan, it was Dwayne."
He was waiting for her at his bedroom door. "I know it was. Hey, don"t look at me that way." He pulled her inside and closed the door behind her, drawing her into his arms and kissing her hard on the mouth, as if trying to wipe the expression of confusion and apprehension off her face. "I"m sorry if I made you feel foolish in front of the police--claiming you were mistaken that way. But I didn"t know what else to say."
"I don"t understand why you won"t press charges."
She looked searchingly up at him and he met her gaze steadily. "I know. Thanks for trusting me despite that." His face softened into his familiar half smile and he kissed her again, more gently this time.
Mia felt herself melt. His clean-shaven cheeks felt sensuously smooth against her face as she deepened their kiss, and she felt a hot surge of desire. His arms tightened around her, and she knew he felt it, too.
But he gently pushed her away, laughing softly. "d.a.m.n, you"re dangerous. I"ve got a serious jones for you."
"A... jones?"
"Addiction," he explained. "Some guys get a traveling jones--they can"t stay in one place for very long. I"ve had friends with a skydiving jones, can"t go for more than a few days without making a jump." He crossed to his closet and leaned his crutches against the wall, turning back to smile at her again. "Looks like I"ve got myself a pretty severe Mia Summerton jones." His voice turned even softer and velvet smooth. "I can"t go for more than an hour or two without wanting to make love to you."
The heat coursing through her got thicker, hotter. I"ve got a serious jones for you--the words weren"t very romantic. Yet, when Frisco said it, with his husky voice and his liquid-fire eyes, and that incredibly s.e.xy half smile... it was. It was pure romance.
He turned away from her, somehow knowing that if he looked at her that way another moment longer, she"d end up in his arms, and they"d wind up in his bed again.
And there was no time for that now, as nice as it would have been. Thomas was back at her condo, watching Natasha. And Mia was still waiting for Frisco"s explanation.
"Why won"t you press charges?" she asked again.
She sat down on his bed, watching as he took off his jacket and hung it carefully in the closet.
"I saw Sharon," he told her, glancing back at her, his eyes grim and his smile gone. He was wearing a white shirt, and the dark nylon straps of his shoulder holster stood out conspicuously. He unfastened the holster and tossed it, gun included, next to her onto his bed.
Mia couldn"t help but stare at that gun lying there like that, several feet away from her. He"d treated it so casually, as if it weren"t a deadly weapon, capable of enabling him to take a human life with the slightest effort.
"It turns out that she does owe Dwayne some money. She says she "borrowed" about five grand when she moved out of his place a few months ago." He hopped on one leg over to the bed and sat down next to her. Bending down, he pulled off his shoes and socks. His shirt was unb.u.t.toned, revealing tantalizing glimpses of his tanned, muscular chest. But even that wasn"t enough to pull Mia"s attention away from the gun he"d thrown onto the bed.
"Please--I"d like it if you would move this," she interrupted him.
He glanced at her, and then down at his bolstered gun. "Sorry." He picked it up and set it down, away from her, on the floor. "I should"ve known you wouldn"t like guns."
"I don"t dislike them. I hate them."
"I"m a sharpshooter--was a sharpshooter, I"m a little rusty these days--and I know guns so well, I"d be lying if I told you I hated them. I"d also be lying if I told you I didn"t feel more secure when I"m carrying. What I do hate is when guns get into the wrong hands."
"In my opinion, any hands are the wrong hands. Guns should be banned from the surface of the earth."
"But they exist," Frisco pointed out. "It"s too late to simply wish them away."
"It"s not top late to set restrictions about who can have them," she said hotly.
"Legally," he added, heat slipping into his voice, too. "Who can have them legally. The people who shouldn"t have them--the bad guys, the criminals and the terrorists--they"re going to figure out some way to get their hands on them no matter what laws are made. And as long as they can get their hands on guns, I"m going to make d.a.m.n sure that I have one, too."
His jaw was set, his eyes hard, glittering with an intense blue fire. They were on opposite sides of the fence here, and Mia knew with certainty that he was no more likely to be swayed to her opinion than she was to his.
She shook her head in sudden disbelief. "I can"t believe I"m..." She looked away from him, shocked at the words she almost said aloud. I can"t believe I"m in love with a man who carries a gun.
He touched her, gently lifting her hand and intertwining their fingers, correctly guessing at half of what she nearly said. "We"re pretty different from each other, huh?"
She nodded, afraid to look into his eyes, afraid he"d guess the other half of her thoughts, too.
He smiled wryly. "Where do you stand on abortion? Or the death penalty?"
Mia smiled despite herself. "Don"t ask." No doubt their points of view were one hundred and eighty degrees apart on those issues, too.
"I like it this way," he said quietly. "I like it that you don"t agree with everything that I think."
She did look up at him then. "We probably belong to opposite political parties."
"Is that so bad?"
"Our votes will cancel each other out."
"Democracy in action."
His eyes were softer now, liquid instead of steel. Mia felt herself start to drown in their blueness. Frisco wasn"t the only one who had a Jones, an addiction. She leaned forward and he met her in a kiss. Her hands went up underneath his open shirt, skimming against his bare skin, and the sensation made them both groan.
But when Mia would"ve given in, when she would have fallen back with him onto his bed, Frisco made himself pull away. He was breathing hard and the fire in his eyes was unmistakable. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. He may have been addicted, but he had a h.e.l.l of a lot of willpower.
"We have to get out of here," he explained. "Dwayne"s going to come back, and I don"t want you and Tasha to be here when he does."
"I still don"t understand why you won"t press charges," Mia said. "Just because your sister owes this guy some money, that doesn"t give him the right to destroy your condo."
Frisco stood up, shrugging out of his shirt. He wadded it into a ball and tossed it into the corner of his room, on top of his mountain of dirty laundry. "His name is Dwayne Bell," he told her. "And he"s a professional sc.u.mbag--drugs, stolen goods, black-market guns--you name it, he"s involved. And he doesn"t earn six figures a year by being nice about unpaid loans."
He glanced at her as he unfastened and stepped out of his pants. Mia knew she shouldn"t be staring. It was hardly polite to stare at a man dressed only in utilitarian white briefs, but she couldn"t look away.