“A PIZZA,” Cord said, repeating Lexi’s words as if he couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly.
“Yeah.” She could feel the tension and frustration pouring off him in waves. She understood it wasn’t directed at her. She understood a lot about anger, actually. Too much. She’d felt it after losing her parents. She’d felt it after losing Brad. “A pizza. Large, fully loaded?”
He just stared at her.
He’d lost weight. He’d always been built like a kick-boxer, tightly muscled, and though he was still solid sinew, there wasn’t a spare ounce on him, as if he’d been burning far more calories than he’d been taking in. He was also clearly in pain, and she’d never been able to resist anything in pain. “Cord?”
His gaze was slowly running down her body again, giving her more thrills on what had turned out to be a high-thrill day.
“Are you still on the pill?” he questioned.
“Now’s a fine time to ask.”
“I’m sorry. I—” He shook his head and then rubbed his temples as if exhausted, beyond exhausted, and she would have melted, but he’d already melted her completely.
“I’m on the pill,” she reassured him. Not that she’d even given a single thought to birth control once he’d touched her…
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She knew he was apologizing both for the fact that he’d been so lost in her he hadn’t thought of it either, and that it’d even happened in the first place. “I’m not,” she said frankly.
He let out a breath.
“So. Pizza?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He used his crutches to move in her direction, his movements painfully labored.
Her fingers itched to help but she forced herself to remain still. “Cord?”
“Yeah?”
She kept her smile easy and light, even though her heart was not either of those things. “I missed you.” It was true. When he wasn’t on a tour of duty, they spent a lot of time together, swimming, surfing, running, even just sitting around watching TV. They had a closeness born from years of being friends, and being there for each other through thick and thin. “A lot.”
He let out a slow breath, his gaze never leaving hers. “I missed you, too.”
She held her smile until he turned and made his way down the hall to the living room, then let it fall from her lips.
God. What had happened to him?
She moved back into the bathroom and quickly finger-combed her hair, the best she could do at the moment. Barefoot, she padded down the hall after Cord, slowing when she realized he stood, his back to her, his cell on speaker, volume earsplitting as he listened to his messages.
“Cord, Jesus. You left the hospital without a word.” The voice belonged to his brother, Jacob Madden, a Santa Rey undercover detective, a guy as big and tough and badass as Cord himself. “You shouldn’t be alone. Call me or I’m coming over.”
Cord hit a button. Message deleted.
Next message. “Cord, where the hell are you, man?” This was his other brother, Austin, also big and bad, and currently on leave from the air force. “Jacob’s shitting a brick. Call me.” Message deleted.
The next message came up before Lexi could make herself known. “Cord, baby, honey, I told you I’d stay with you.” This voice, sweetly female, sounded breathy. “I took the week off to take care of your every…little…need.”
“Damn.” This was from Cord himself as he again hit Delete.
As Lexi walked around to where he could see her, he began wrestling with a low cabinet beneath the bar. “Cord?” she whispered on his right and slightly behind him.
He didn’t react.
She moved to his left side, still back out of sight. “Cord,” she said loudly, and he turned his head and looked at her as he pulled out a phone book. “Yeah?”
“Nothing.” Except he still had hearing in his left ear, at least some. She didn’t ask him about it. She knew sure as she knew her own name that he most definitely wasn’t ready to talk about it.
And after hearing his messages, she understood some of his anger. Everyone wanted to baby the hell out of him, and his pride couldn’t take it.
Something else she understood.
Hadn’t her own family and friends tried to do the same thing for her when Brad had died? Everyone but Cord. Cord had given her the space and time she’d needed to heal.
He opened the phone book, trying to balance himself on one crutch. She was dying to help but, as if he knew it, he sent her a narrow-eyed glare. She simply smiled. “Do you want to get a salad, too?” she asked.
He paused. “Sure.” Flipping open his cell again, he began punching on the keypad.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer her, so she moved around the edge of the bar and into the kitchen, on his left side. He looked up, and for one beat she could see he was startled that she’d moved without him knowing it.
Startled and frustrated.
She ignored that, even as her heart tightened for him, hard. “What are you doing?”
“Texting in the order. Drink?”
“I have beer at my place.” She had a feeling they both needed it.
He finished the order, closed his phone, slid it into his pocket and stood at the bar, leaning heavily on it.
He needed to sit before he fell. Prone would probably be even better. She was certain he needed sleep, days of it, but hell if she’d mother him and allow him to lump her in with the rest of his family and friends, so she just waited him out.
“What?” he finally asked.
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
Yeah, it was. Something big. “How long will you be home?”
He turned his back on her and maneuvered his way to the couch. “Probably permanently.”
Her heart leaped. “What?” Following, she planted herself in front of him. “What?”
“I’ve been cut loose.” He shrugged his broad shoulders in a casual gesture that wasn’t casual. Cord was his work. Being in the army had been his entire life.
“Apparently,” he said, “my team actually needs me to be able to hear them on the equipment, not to mention being able to maneuver around without stumbling.”
That’s when she got it. He wasn’t just frustrated and angry.
He was scared.
Scared of living a life he hadn’t planned on. Throat tight, she waited until he looked at her. If she said how sorry she was, he’d kick her ass out, she knew it. If she so much as offered a single beat of empathy, it’d be over. “I’m going to get the beer,” she said, and forced herself to walk out the door.
THE MINUTE she was gone, Cord gave in to his quaking leg muscles and sat at a barstool. He dropped his head to the granite top and closed his eyes, letting the silence wash over him, a staggering quiet utterly devoid of anything that reminded him of the Middle East.
It’d been three weeks since all hell had broken loose on his mission. He and two others from his team had nearly been blown to bits, had certainly been blown from their Humvee. It’d taken twelve hours to get to a medical facility, during which time he’d nearly bled out because of the eighteen-inch gash in his leg.
His ears were still ringing. He had complete loss in his right ear, sixty-five-percent loss in his left. The doctors were fairly certain he’d get at least fifty percent back.
They’d been more optimistic about his leg. Lying in 105-degree heat in the dirt with his leg sliced wide open to the elements for several hours hadn’t been exactly ideal, and he was lucky to still have the limb at all, but he was slowly recovering.
But his basketball-playing days were over, and so were his covert-op missions. No one wanted a gimp for a partner, and he sure as hell couldn’t blame them.
But it still sucked.
He caught a flash of movement and lifted his head, expecting to see Lexi letting herself back in.
It was Jacob and Austin.
Both of his brothers had flown back east when he’d landed stateside. Not easy in their line of work. But they’d come and babysat him at the hospital until he’d been out of danger.
And then they’d remained on him like white on rice, convinced he was still in danger, this time from himself.
He was pissed.
Frustrated.
But definitely not suicidal, not even close. “Jesus,” he muttered when they flanked him, sitting one on either side of him at the bar. “I’m fine.”
Across the kitchen, the late sun slanted in the window, momentarily rendering it into a looking glass. Their three faces reflected back to Cord, all of them looking so much alike: dark hair, dark eyes, matching grim mouths. Their broad shoulders nearly touched, and Cord forced himself to push to his feet when what he really wanted was to drop his head to the bar and sleep right there on the spot.
“Come home with me,” Austin said. “I’ve got a fully stocked refrigerator and the pool, which the doctor said would be great for rehabbing your leg—”
“I want to stay here, at my place.”
“Told you,” Jacob said to Austin. He looked at Cord. “Okay, we’re not asking. Pack your stubborn ass up and let’s go.”
Austin, the middle brother, the peacemaker, knew better. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jacob, when has that ever worked?”
Jacob wouldn’t care. They were brothers, they fought more than not, but the bottom line was that they took care of each other. Always had. Cord knew that Jacob didn’t see anything wrong with using strong-arm tactics to get his way.
But he wasn’t going.
“There’s no reason for you to be alone,” Jacob tried in the low, reasonable tone that made him such a good cop. “We can—”
“I want to be alone.”
They just looked at Cord, silently considering the best way to muscle him through this. And into that tense silence, Lexi sauntered back through the front door, swinging a six-pack, wearing her sweet, sexy grin.
So sexy. Cord wondered how he’d never noticed just how much until she’d come for him.
Or how long her legs were until she’d wrapped them around his hips.
Or how her eyes promised that they’d only just gotten started…
“Hi,” she said, and sent his brothers a little wave. “You two joining us for pizza and beer?”
“No,” Jacob said. “We’re dragging his sorry ass back with us.”
“No,” Cord told her. “They’re not.”
“Cord,” Austin said. “We don’t want you to be alone.”
“He’s not.” Though Lexi kept her smile in place, her eyes were on Cord, quiet and assessing. “Alone, that is. I’m here.”
“Lexi,” Jacob said, just as quiet and assessing. “I know you’re a good friend, but knowing my knuckle-headed brother, he’s underplayed his injuries. He needs daily PT, around-the-clock care, and—”
“Yes,” Lexi said, nodding, her eyes still on Cord’s, holding his gaze prisoner. “I understand. But it’s going to be fine. He wants to be home, and I’m here.”
Austin turned to Cord, shaking his head. “It’s your choice, man. But—”
“I’m staying,” Cord said, looking at Lexi, who nodded. “And, like she said, it’s going to be fine.”
“Better than fine,” she said firmly. “I plan to make sure of it.”
“She’ll make sure of it,” Cord repeated to his brothers, wishing that could involve seeing her naked again. Because that had done more for his body than anything had in weeks.
But he had to make sure it didn’t happen. He had no business leading her on.
Jacob narrowed his eyes, dividing a look between Cord and Lexi. “Is something happening between you two?”
“Do we need to go over curfew time, Dad?” Cord asked drily.
As always, Austin stepped in. “I know you mean well, Lexi, but it’s a huge responsibility to lay on you.”
“It’s what friends are for,” Lexi murmured.
Right.
Friends.
They were just friends, and no matter what happened, or how many times she dropped her towel—and, how he’d loved that—they were just friends.
Unless…unless they changed their minds. No one had said they couldn’t change their minds. Thing was, he didn’t see her doing that. She played it cool and she played it tough. She protected herself always, and he knew she wouldn’t easily let down that guard for anyone.
And he didn’t know if he could let down his own guard enough to even want her to.