LITMIR.BIZ

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Alberta McKane for giving her any useful set of values to judge a man by. But he was as dependable as he was curiously aloof, and that was a quality Lucy valued more than several framed degrees or the amount of money a man made. She vowed to be a good friend to her socially awkward neighbor, but she didn’t have to torture her dreams with the vivid memory of his body flattened against hers as he pinned her to the wall. If he was a different man he’d have kissed her then. And chances are, she would have responded to that kiss with a purely female instinct.

      But Niall Watson wasn’t that man. He had a set of rules he lived by, an order of right and wrong he believed in. He wasn’t a smooth talker. He wasn’t much of a talker, period. But, awkward body contact aside, he treated her with respect. He put Tommy’s and his family’s needs above anything he and his hormones might feel. And that made him so much more attractive to her than anything her mother could have envisioned.

      Stress, fatigue, the rhythmic sound of the dryer and the warmth of the insulated laundry area were beginning to have the same hypnotic effect on Lucy as they did on Tommy. After several big blinks, her thoughts drifted and her hands came to rest in the pile of warm cotton garments. Her chin was dropping toward her chest when hushed voices entered her dreams. “Down here.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “If her car’s outside, but she’s not at her place, then yes.”

      “This is a mistake.”

      “I just have to know—”

      “Get out of here.”

      Lucy snapped her head up at the slam of a heavy door from somewhere above her. The muffle of words weren’t inside her head. They were as real as the terse, angry exchange of voices bouncing off the concrete-block walls outside the laundry room. She touched the gentle rise and fall of Tommy’s small chest, reassuring herself that he was safe, while she blinked the grogginess from her eyes and reoriented herself to the waking world. “Hello? Is someone there?”

      “I know you’re here,” came a heavily accented voice. “You can’t take what is mine.”

      Lucy thought she heard a bell. Someone getting off the elevator?

      Or on it. “Move. Don’t let him see you. Go!”

      “Where is she?” the louder voice shouted. “You know what I want.”

      Lucy whirled around to the vicious argument, wondering if she was still half-asleep since she couldn’t make out all the words.

      “You stay away from her.”

      “You mind your own business.”

      Then she heard a grunt and a gasp plainly enough, before running feet stomped up the stairs.

      “Diana?” Had she heard a woman’s voice in the middle of all that? Or only dreamed it? Lucy fingered the phone in her jeans pocket. But the sounds of the argument were fading and she didn’t want to panic the good doctor upstairs unnecessarily by waking him from a sound sleep.

      “You stay away from her.”

      Oh, no. “Stay away from me?” Maybe Niall was already awake and dealing with some kind of trouble that she’d missed. What if someone had followed her to their apartment building and her neighbor had come downstairs to confront him? “Niall?”

      If he got hurt, it would be her fault for getting him into this mess.

      After ensuring that Tommy was still sleeping, Lucy ventured out into the hallway. It was empty now. Nothing but concrete walls and utility lights. Had the two parties she’d overheard arguing split up? The elevator was moving on the higher floors of the building, and whomever she’d heard run up the stairs had exited either out the side entrance to the parking lot or into the building’s lobby. “Niall? Is that you? Who was—”

      Lucy jumped at the loud thump against the steel door at the top of the stairs. Outside. They’d taken what could only be a fight, judging by the low-voiced curses and rattling door, out to the parking lot. “Niall!”

      Lucy charged up the stairs, pulling her key card from her jeans and hurrying out the door to the harsh sounds of a revving engine and tires squealing to find traction along the pavement. She saw the silhouette of a man racing between the cars. “Niall? Hey! Don’t hurt him!”

      She glanced toward the front entrance as one of the glass doors swung open. Was help coming? Or more trouble? She should call 911. She reached for her phone.

      But when she saw the running figure lurch as if some invisible force had jerked him back a step, she sprinted forward to help. “Stop!”

      There were two men trading blows out there. One had ambushed the other.

      “Lucy!” The warning barely registered as her feet hit the pavement. She glimpsed the man hitting the ground a split second before a pair of headlights flashed on their high beams and blinded her.

      Forced to turn away, she stumbled back a step. She thought she heard another car door open. She knew she heard the terrible sound of a transmission grinding too quickly through its gears. The headlights grew bigger, like a nocturnal predator bearing down on her. The lights filled up her vision. The roar of the engine deafened her. The heat of the powerful car distorted the chill of the early February morning.

      “Lucy!”

      Two arms slammed around her body and lifted her out of harm’s way. She hit the hard earth with a jolt and tumbled, rolling two or three times until she wound up flat on her back with Niall Watson’s long body pinning her to the ground.

      She noted the flash of a silver sports car speeding past, bouncing over the curb into the street and disappearing into the night before the strong thigh pressed between her legs and the muscled chest crushing her breasts and the hot gasps of Niall’s deep breaths against her neck even registered. “I knew that car was following me...” Lucy’s triumphant words trailed away in a painful gurgle as the pain of that tackle bloomed through her chest. “Oh, man. That hurts.”

      “Not as much as getting mowed down by that Camaro would have.” She flattened her palms against his shoulders and tried to push, but he only rose up onto his elbows on either side of her, leaving their hips locked together. He glared down at her through those dark frames. “What were you thinking? Didn’t you see him driving right at you?”

      “I thought you were hurt.” She sucked in a deeper breath and found more voice as the ache in her lungs eased. “There was a fight outside the laundry room. He knocked the other man down. I thought it was you.”

      “It wasn’t.”

      “Duh.” Her breath returned in shallow gasps. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

      “Saving you, apparently.”

      “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

      “You’re supposed to be in my apartment.”

      Lucy was blatantly aware of cold ground and damp clothes and the black KCPD T-shirt that left little of that sleekly muscled torso to her imagination now. But Niall flattened himself right back on top of her when another vehicle engine roared to life in the parking lot. She found herself flat on her back a second time, pinned beneath Niall’s body as the second car raced past.

      Only after it turned into the street and sped away after the silver Camaro did Niall raise his head again. “Do you recognize that vehicle, too?”

      Lucy shook her head. She hadn’t even gotten a look at it. A fat lot of help she was. As her body warmed in places it shouldn’t, Lucy gave him another push. “You can get off me now.”

      Without even so much as a sorry for invading your personal space and making your brain short-circuit again, Niall rolled to his feet and extended a hand to help her stand up beside him. While she brushed at the mud on her knees and bottom, he bent down to pick up her key card and phone and pressed them into her hands. “Are you hurt?”

      “No.”

      Despite

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