The sour cherry surprise

The footsteps retreated. They hadn’t heard him. There was so much noise going on outside between Emergency Services personnel and the weather that he’d gotten away with it. Damn, he had balls and luck. And now her hero was crawling his way toward her. Checking her over from head to foot with his light. Then he turned it on himself so she could get a look at him and be reassured. Which was straight out of the rescue manual.

Except Des almost choked on that damned rag when saw whose boyish face was grinning at her. He’d been through hell getting here. Face, neck and arms all scratched and bloodied, streaked with mud. He was soaked to the skin in his Mr. Ralph Lauren polo shirt. But she was seeing him and her whole body knew it-that same old fluttering sensation from her tummy to her toes told her so.

He pulled the rag from her mouth and whispered, “Didn’t expect to run into you here, thinny.” His breath smelling of… was it pastrami?

She swallowed down huge, blessed gulps of air before her own lips found his ear, which smelled of some fancy new hair gel. Also cologne, she could have sworn. Which was positively not Mitch. “Am… I… tripping?” she gasped.

“If you’re tripping, then we both are,” he whispered in response.

“B-But what are you…?”

“No big. I had a free evening so I thought I’d hop in the car and see what you were up to.” Gently, he probed the back of her head with his fingers. “Hey, you’ve been bleeding.”

“Concussion, maybe. I’m okay. Doughboy, what are you doing here?”

He took out his pocket knife and went to work on the ropes binding her wrists and ankles. “Helping out a neighbor.”

“Neighbor?” She sat up as soon as her limbs were free, flexing them gratefully. “What neighbor?”

“Molly Procter.”

“Molly’s…?” Des choked back a sob. “Clay didn’t shoot her?”

“Not so you’d notice. But you can ask her yourself. She’s waiting for us right outside that air vent.”

“She’s here?”

“Of course. How do you think I made it all this way without attracting any attention? Did you know she can actually see in the dark? I swear to God, that girl is part bat. Or maybe she’s actually a girl vampire who-”

Des clamped her hand over his mouth. Sometimes it needed doing when he got his jabber on. “Please tell me the hundred percent truth about something, will you?” she whispered.

He nodded his head up and down mutely.

“Am I tripping?”

CHAPTER 16

“You’re not tripping,” he whispered after Des had finally agreed to remove her slender, clammy hand from his mouth. But, strangely enough, he was. Just being near to her, even in this darkness, Mitch could feel his skin tingling all over. Insane. It was totally insane.

“But what about… I mean, you and me. We’re not…” Des shook her head, unable to string the words together.

No maybe about that concussion. She definitely needed to get looked at by a doctor right away.

“Listen, if Cary Grant can come to Ingrid Bergman’s rescue in Notorious even after she’s been schtupping Claude Rains left and right for months, then I’m man enough to come through for you.”

Actually, Mitch was pretty proud of how adroitly he was handling himself. This was the first time he’d been face-to-face with the green-eyed monster since she’d stomped on his heart. And yet here he was being nothing but gallant. “The truth is that I still have feelings for you,” he went on, determined to say what needed saying. “I guess I always will. You can’t turn it on and off like a faucet. Besides, I figured I owed you one.”

“For what?”

“All of the times you’ve saved my life. So now we’re even. And everything’s good between us, okay? Ready to get the hell out of here?”

“No need to stick around on my account.”

Together, they crawled their way toward the air vent. Mitch locked his fingers together to form a step and gave her a boost up and out with ease. She reached for Molly and embraced her. The girl buried her face in Des’s collarbone, sobbing with relief.

Next it was his turn. He was able to hoist himself up to the air vent on his own, no problem. But getting out was a whole other plot. Des had to grab him under the armpits and pull and pull with all of her might. He’d forgotten how strong she was, concussion or not. Strong enough to yank him right through that opening.

And now all three of them lay there in the mud and broken glass under the deck, Molly wiping the tears from her eyes.

Mitch dug the wire cutters and Baby Terrier from his jeans and jammed them into Des’s back pockets. “You found these down there,” he whispered. “Got loose on your own. We were never here, okay?”

“Why?”

“Better this way. Much cleaner. Got it?”

She nodded that she did.

Now the three of them slithered out from the under the deck and back across the wet grass to the big maple. It was still raining out, though not with quite as much intensity as before. The thunder and lightning had passed over.