“What? Is Danni okay?” Reeves’s intake of breath came loud and clear.
“She’s safe for now. But you need to get us out of here. We’re at the ACME Pet Store. We’ll come out of the back door in the alley. How long?”
“Not long. The backup team just left LAX once Sophie’s flight took off.”
Lars hung up.
“Where is your cell phone? We need to get rid of the SIM card.”
“God, I left it in the T-shirt store. I had a bag, but I dropped it on the floor when I was discovered by the men. My ID and everything was in the bag.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll get Reeves on it once we’re out of here.” He pulled the second chair close to Danni. “I’m going to put your ankle up. I’ll try not to jostle it.”
Danni nodded, chewing on her lower lip in anticipation of the pain.
He grasped her ankle, stabilizing the heel to prevent any motion. The tight-laced boots that caused her fall were at least keeping the swelling contained until he could get her medical care.
Lars tried to ignore how short her skirt was, but his gaze travelled up her thigh, giving him a glimpse under her skirt. Damn, the woman had on red panties. If backup wasn’t here soon, he’d need to lie down as well.
Chapter Nine
Danni floated in a sea of sensations. The hydrocodone made her feel loopy, but not a happy loopy like Dom Perignon. Fortunately, the agonizing headache and excruciating pain in her wrist that almost made her toss her cookies in the SUV had faded.
Now all she wanted to do was nap and forget the armed man who stirred up all the frightening memories of being held at gunpoint by her kidnappers. She never wanted to be a victim again. She wanted to get on with tracking down the brazen assholes, not be cloistered in some fancy safe house in exclusive Brentwood, home to the Hollywood stars.
Propped up in bed, with her wrist wrapped in ice and elevated on two pillows, she watched Lars unlace her knee-high platform boot. Her elevated leg brought her short skirt barely to the top of her thighs. This was too intimate, as he scrutinized her face while he carefully lifted her leg.
A tender and compassionate Lars was more than she could handle at this low point. She didn’t want him soothing and sweet. She couldn’t stand it. She might end up crying and throwing herself into his arms. And then what? She liked not liking him.
“I can undo my own boot.”
“One-handed?” He raised his right eyebrow—the one that had a small white scar running through it. The man had more scars than a prowling tomcat.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, his hip close to her leg, he studied her face, his penetrating gaze seeing more than she wanted. Damn the man. Who knew he could be sensitive?
“When does the real doctor arrive?”
“Any minute now.”
God, she hated that he wasn’t responding to her barbs. Despite the pain hovering on the periphery, she was aware of the heat radiating from his hip as well as his salty smell of sweat and cedar.
“The doctor can unlace my boot when he arrives.” She had never before been injured badly enough to require medical attention or narcotics. She hated being tended to or pampered, especially by a virile male whom she had successfully avoided for weeks.
He chuckled, the growly sound washing over her skin.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since the moment you stepped out of the car. Don’t ruin my fantasy after what you’ve put me through today.”
“Put you through?” She jerked forward, pain ricocheting through her head with the motion. “I’m the one who was chased and almost run down.”
His eyes darkened as his lips compressed into a taut line. She had never seen this haunted look on the face of the man who never took anything seriously. It couldn’t be fear. He was never afraid. He hadn’t been afraid to jump in front of the terrorist who planned to shoot her. He was a scary marine who exuded alpha pheromones. He was so damn self-assured, confident that the world would do his bidding and that all women would welcome him into their bed. He was right, of course. And didn’t he know it?
“I never want to live through that again. Seeing that car barreling toward you.”
“You came through it fine from my perspective.” She pointed to her elevated wrist.
She planned to avoid any discussion on how scary today was, to move right past the experience. She had worked hard to take back control of her life. She needed to get away from the memories, away from this man, and back to investigating.
He loosened the shoestrings, exposing her leg. His hot hand soothed the skin along her shin, causing goosebumps up her thighs. She chewed on her lip to fight the urge to squirm at his touch.
“When are you going to explain why you were following me?”
His head was bent over her as he worked the shoelace down to her ankle.
“No, ‘thank you, Lars, for saving my bacon?’ Sweet bacon that it is.”
“I’m not sure I like being compared to a pig.”
He shot her a grin. The man had smoldering blue eyes and long dark lashes that she could only achieve with makeup.
She struggled to suppress sensations from the rough touch of his calloused fingers as he slowly peeled the shoe from her ankle.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.”
She hissed between her teeth as he tugged on the ill-fitting boot. The cheap boots hadn’t been worth the money that she had saved. If she had known she would have to run for her life, she would have splurged on comfortable boots.
“You definitely have swelling, but not enough to make me think you’ve broken a bone. But like wrists, ankles can be tricky. There are a lot of small bones.”
His thick hand explored the swelling around her ankle. “The doc will manipulate your ankle and your wrist to check for tenderness. I’m way too nice to put you through it twice. Let’s get ice on your ankle until he arrives. Has the hydrocodone kicked in? Covering your pain?”
“Champagne would be better.”
She refused to be charmed by his lopsided, winsome grin. Jax had a million-dollar smile and the body of an underwear model and look how that turned out.
“How do you know so much about injuries? From being a marine? Or having insane brothers?”
“Earned first aid and lifesaving merit badges as an Eagle Scout.”
“You, an Eagle Scout? That’s a joke, right?”
“All the Jenkins brothers were Eagle Scouts, like our father and our Uncle Harry. And all Marine Raiders except for Finn, who had to be different.”
He threw the boot on the floor and started on her left boot. “I can’t believe you were able to run in these contraptions. But I’m damn glad that you were.”
“You don’t need to remove the other one.”
“You’ll eventually need to get up, and you don’t want to be lopsided. And the ties look like they were irritating your skin.” As he undid the second, his hand gently stroked the red marks where the cheap metal eyelets had abraded her skin.
“Let’s go over details again. Now that you’re not in pain, you might remember something more about Miro and his companion.”
Lars had been relentless in questioning her once she had been tucked into the safety of their exit SUV and under the protection of two no-nonsense, thick-necked, armed guys. After giving her the pain pills from the medical kit in the SUV, he’d interrogated her about every detail of her time in the store and its occupants. He’d never stopped during the entire thirty-minute drive across LA to the Richard Dean safe house.