Getting drunk

He rose stiffly from the couch, picked up his gun off the floor and moved toward her. When he paused at the front door, she lifted her chin and met his heavy gaze, dared him to speak, to say just one thing. This time she wouldn’t hold back, and she sure as hell wouldn’t apologize.

His eyes went black with a mixture of anger and frustration, then he clamped his lips tightly together and stormed out the door.

It took tremendous restraint on her part not to slam the door after him. She closed it quietly, then leaned back against the cold wood and fought the threatening tears. He wasn’t worth it, she told herself over and over. He wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

She looked down at the doorknob and frowned. Miguel had just walked in, but she was certain she’d locked the door before she went to bed.

Hadn’t she?

She didn’t know what she was doing these past couple of days. It was easy to forget things when her mind was so preoccupied with Miguel. And now, after what had just happened between them, she’d be lucky if she remembered how to tie her shoes.

With a sigh she locked the door and headed back to her bed, but she had the distinct feeling she wouldn’t be getting much sleep.

Miguel was certain that a tiny little man with a great big hammer was trying to get out of his skull. The pounding centered in his temples and radiated upward to the top of his throbbing head. He attempted to move, and the pain shot through his brain like a red-hot pinball racking up championship points.

Very, very carefully, he opened his eyes, then slammed them shut again when he felt the burn of sunlight on his eyeballs. He imagined that vampires went through the same agony when their skin met daylight.

He reached for his pillow, but found empty air instead.

Confused, he shifted his weight from his back to his side, then gave a strangled yelp as he fell face first onto the floor. With a groan he opened his eyes again, blinked several times until the room came into focus.

What the hell was he doing on the sofa in the living room? Well, actually, he was now on the floor, if a person wanted to get technical. He just couldn’t quite remember how he happened to be here.

Closing his eyes, he laid his cheek on the cool tiles and drew in several slow breaths. When the pain in his head began to ease, he rolled to his back and carefully opened his eyes to stare up at the open-beam pine ceiling.

On a groan he closed his eyes again.

And remembered.

Damn.

Bella’s phone call, her bashing his head in. Her fingers sliding over his scalp, the feel of her soft, silky skin under his hands and mouth…

Oh, yes, he remembered, all right. In detail. He’d downed half a bottle of whisky after that, trying to wash the sweet taste of her out of his system. The need and the longing. It hadn’t worked, of course. And now he had to pay the consequences of his stupidity. Stupidity that went much farther than a cotton-dry mouth and pounding skull.

Some girls will do anything for a thousand dollars.

Swearing, he sat slowly, brought his legs up and rested his pulsating head on his knees. What had possessed him to say something so completely out of line? He knew she hadn’t pretended someone was breaking into her cabin just to get him over there. She might have lied to him the first time he’d laid eyes on her, when he’d caught her watching him from across the lake, but she’d been honest since then. She wasn’t the kind of woman
who played coy games of seduction, and even as much as she wanted him to come to Liverpool to see her father, he didn’t believe for a second she’d go to bed with him as a means of persuasion.

He believes that she was drunk while at Liverpool that was why she was out of line when she was brought to his bedroom then.

So why had he said it?

He could still see the slash of hurt and shock on her face when he’d accused her of lying. She’d recovered quickly, her face expressionless as she’d stared him square in the eye and asked him to leave. He wished she’d yelled at him, cried, hit him with that frying pan again—anything but given him that cold, empty stare.

Well, fine then, he thought irritably, lifting his head and testing the extent of the damage he’d done to himself. Maybe he’d be rid of her now. Maybe she’d stop bothering him about going to Liverpool to meet her father. He was sure she was a nice old man, but he wasn’t going. Nothing, and no one, was going to change that. But why does his grandfather has that so much bad reputation?

When the phone rang from the end table beside the sofa, he covered his ears and moaned. He wasn’t going to answer it. He didn’t want to talk to Jordan, she’d only increase the throbbing in his head with one of her tirades. It might be Drake, though, calling to remind him about dinner tonight at Victor and Julianna’s house, but Miguel decided he definitely needed some aspirin before talking to Lucas.

But what if it was someone else, someone with fiery green eyes and silky blond hair…

He had to crawl to the phone, which seemed fitting if it was Bella. He picked it up on the fourth ring.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, because that was all he could manage given the dust-dry state of his mouth.

“That you, Miguel?”

“Walt?” The mechanic’s drawl was unmistakable.

“The one and only. You still sleeping at eleven o’clock, son?”

He hadn’t realized how late it was. “You call for a reason, or just to see what my sleeping habits are?”

Walt’s chuckle was deep and gravelly. “Well, I tried calling Miss Bella first, but couldn’t get an answer. I thought it might be important, so seein’s how you’re friends and all—”

“Walt,” Miguel said with a sigh, “could you please get to the point?”