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DEVIN ROLLED OVER, and his head throbbed in retaliation.
“I’m supposed to be dead,” he groaned.
His mouth felt as though somebody had filled it full of cotton. His body was stiff; his energy level was depleted by the rolling. And had he mentioned the head-throbbing?
Then he smelled her.
Calla. So full of hope and brightness.
Her warm vanilla scent surrounded him, comforting even though he didn’t deserve solace or sympathy. Maybe he had something to live for, after all.
Flashes of the night before, however, returned in a wave of panic and humiliation. Snippets of conversation about cake, three-ways and hits. Whether those were mob hits or his continual focus on the Yankees’ lousy batting average, he wasn’t sure. Him kissing her, shoving his hand beneath her skirt.
Please, oh, please, tell me I didn’t actually do that.
Course the Almighty wasn’t listening as a wave of nausea turned his stomach. Not that he deserved mercy regardless.
He chanced opening his eyes, surprised when no further pain assaulted him. The room was dark, with only a strip of light shining under the door and a star-shaped night-light plugged into the wall to his right.
Hold everything.
This wasn’t his apartment, and he certainly wasn’t in his bed. Squinting, he could make out the white-and-pink rose-laden comforter covering him. Beneath the sheet—also pink—he was naked.
Oh, man. Oh, no. Please. No.
Guilt shot through every cell in his body. Surely he hadn’t had sex with her. He wouldn’t have taken advantage of her that way. Not even he could have done that.
Fear drove him from the bed. Each movement caused his stomach to roll and his head to pound, but he gritted his teeth and kept going. He was in the midst of figuring out what he could wear when he saw his clothes neatly folded on the dresser.
He wasn’t sure what that level of care said, but knew he shouldn’t think about the implications too long.
And yet, the dread that he’d given into his baser needs with Calla when he’d promised himself not to go near her was nearly overwhelmed by the anxiety that she was, even now, planning their wedding. Both scenarios gave him the motivation to stumble into the bathroom, splash water on his face and hair, rinse with the mouthwash he found beneath the sink, get dressed then crack the bedroom door.
Immediately, he smelled bacon.
Surprisingly, his stomach whimpered with need. If he could get his hands on that bacon, a gallon of coffee and four or ten aspirin, he might make it through the day.
With a confidence he didn’t feel, he strode through the living room to the bar-high counter bordering the kitchen.
Wearing a robe the color of cotton candy, she stood in front of the stove. Her tanned and toned legs peaked from beneath the robe’s hem. Her long blond hair was piled on top of her head in a messy mass that turned him on in a big way.
But then wasn’t everything associated with her arousing?
“Bacon?” he managed to croak.
She smiled at him over her shoulder. “I thought I heard water running. Pretty fast shower.”
“I didn’t take a shower.”
The smile turned to a scowl. “Why not? I put out fresh soap and shampoo. Not my girly stuff, either.”
“I’m probably in your way.”
“You’re not. Don’t you want bacon?” When he nodded, she added, “Breakfast will take a few more minutes. Plenty of time for a shower.”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“It’s Sunday. Wanna take a shower or tell me about last night?”
He headed back to the bedroom. In the shower, he acknowledged the hot, powerful spray from overhead cleared much of his confusion.
One, sex between him and Calla was still imaginary. A realization that was both good and bad.
Two, his head didn’t hurt just because he’d overindulged in whiskey. He’d been whacked on the back of the head. Reaching behind him, he found a bandage and smooth skin around the edges. Hell. Somebody’d shaved a section of his head. He wasn’t vain about stuff like that but still … a bald spot?
Not only did he not have game, his game was on strike.
For the shaving and bandage, he recalled a hospital nurse. For the assault he drew a blank.
He shook his head, which did nothing but increase the incessant pounding.
Bracing his forehead against the tiled shower stall, he fought to push through the clouds clogging his memory, but the deluge of water only made him wonder if he was supposed to get his bandage wet, and, if he did, would he die of an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection or simply start leaking brain fluid that would swirl down the drain?
And, if so, would that please happen now?
Until one of those glorious moments occurred, he might as well make the woman who promised to feed him happy. He reached for the mini hotel shampoo she’d obviously set out for him, but was distracted by the large bottles belonging to her. Leaning close, he inhaled vanilla and sugar and his head immediately stopped pounding.
Contentment washed over him, even as hunger to be near her ran rampant. She’d tempted him for months, even though he knew they couldn’t be together. She was too bright and pure, and he wasn’t about to drag her into his crappy life and past.
He resisted the urge to cover himself in her scent and washed quickly with the hotel-size green tea products. Once he’d dressed and headed toward the kitchen a second time, he acknowleged she’d been right. The shower had steadied him.
Course a lot of his memory was muddled, and that was going to be a problem. From past experience, he knew she was relentless when she was after something. He sure didn’t think she’d let him get away with a free breakfast and hot shower.
As he walked from the bedroom toward the kitchen, she was dishing scrambled eggs onto a plate already groaning with bacon. His stomach grumbled in response.
“How do you take your coffee?” she asked in a cheerful, if low volume, voice.
His pounding head appreciated the care. Why was she so good to him when he didn’t deserve to be in the same room with her? “Black, thanks.”
He sat on one of the two stools pushed up against the bar bracketing the kitchen on two sides. She handed him a heavy-looking mug, though he imagined her cupboards were full of dainty teacups. A quick scan of the counter proved his guess—a cream scallop-edged cup with a bouquet of pink roses decorating the side sat beside the stove.
As he took the first sip of coffee, their gazes locked. Weak as he was, he quickly looked away. He didn’t need to complicate his already tangled life with his confusing feelings for her.
The silence lingered until she set a filled plate on the bar before him. Maybe he could slink away, after all.
But he’d barely taken his first bite when she slid onto the stool next to him and asked, “So, wanna tell me about last night?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Very.”
She pushed a small glass filled with orange juice toward him. “This will help.”
Shrugging, he drank the juice in a quick swallow.
As soon as he set the empty glass on the bar, she pushed another one in his line of vision. This one held tomato juice, complete with celery stalk artistically leaning against the side.
He curled his lip. “I don’t like—”
“Drink it.”
As he often found in her presence, he did as she ordered, though he would swear he hadn’t made a conscious decision to do so.
Surprisingly, the juice wasn’t bland, watery tomatoes. The drink had a spicy kick, as if she’d made a Bloody Mary without the shot of vodka. Though he had a feeling, based on the determined look on her face, that he could use the added buzz.
“The vitamins in oranges, tomatoes and celery are good for you,” she said.
He also had the feeling she’d told him that before. Not surprising. This wasn’t his first ride around the block with hangovers. “Goody. You know how I like to take care of myself.”
“Eat the celery.” When he started to argue, she added, “Think of the celery as a carrot for the bacon reward.”
He chomped the stalk in two bites, then grabbed two slices of bacon from the plate before she could come up with some other healthy barrier to his fat-laden breakfast.
His obedience bought him silence, as she said nothing while he inhaled the food.
“You’re not eating?” he asked when he paused long enough to notice she wasn’t.
“I had a spinach omelet earlier.”
In his opinion, the only place for something green in eggs was in children’s stories that rhyme. But also knowing she’d go back to the subject of last night, he commented, “You’ve got a nice place.”
“Thanks. Because of all my pageant winnings, I went to college on a full scholarship, so my parents gave me the money they’d been saving for school.”
“Pageant? Like bikini contest?” He could certainly imagine her figure earning piles of cash.
“No, like Miss America. You know, evening gowns, crowns and sashes, questions about world peace.”
She was a beauty queen; he was a master marksman. If ever two people were less compatible, he couldn’t imagine who, when or where. “You have a lot of roses in here.”
“When your name is a flower, you have to go with it.”
“So why not lilies?”
“Too obvious. You’re not going to divert my attention from asking about last night, by the way.”
“I figured it was worth a shot.”
“How about if we start with an easy question? Who hit you over the head?”
He shook his head. “No idea.”
“Okay, not a good start.”
“Everything’s pretty fuzzy.”
“I’ll bet. How ‘bout we start from the beginning? What’s the last thing you remember clearly?”
He struggled to think back. “I picked up my suit from the dry cleaners.” His only suit, come to think of it.
“You were coming to the wedding,” Calla said, gazing at him with wonder.
“I was invited.”
“So you were. After dry cleaning?”
“Hung around my apartment awhile, fixed my neighbor’s ceiling fan, then went to the bar down the street to watch football.”
When he stopped, she asked, “Did you get into an argument with somebody at the bar?”
“No, I—” What? He recalled watching the Syracuse-Rutgers game of all things, but had no idea what happened afterward.
“Try to picture yourself.”
When he did, he was rewarded with a sharp jab of pain to the back of his skull. Wincing, he shook his head.
She slid off her stool. “Why don’t you take one of your pain pills? You’ve eaten now, so you can—”
“What pain pills?”
“The ones the E.R. doctor prescribed, but you didn’t pick up, instead choosing to drown yourself in whiskey.” She pursed her lips in censure. “Which was not prescribed, by the way.”
He grabbed her wrist as she started off. “No, thanks. They’ll make my thoughts even more jumbled.” He realized he was touching her when heat shot up his arm. He let go immediately and picked up his coffee mug. “Thanks for getting them, though. I’ll pay you back.”
She returned to her seat, and he got a mouthwatering glimpse of her upper thigh. “You’re racking up quite a tab.”
Tab. He pausing before drinking the coffee. “I paid my tab at the bar and left. I headed down the street … toward my apartment, but I saw … something.”
“Somebody you knew?”
Automatically, he shook his head. He didn’t think he’d talked to anybody. Since he wasn’t much on conversation, he was fairly certain he’d remember having one. Hell, he could have tripped over a damn dog and banged his head on the sidewalk for all he knew.
But even a bungling move like that wouldn’t have sent him to drown his sorrows at O’Leary’s.
“Somebody hit you,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.
Startled, he stared at her. “How do you—”
