Butterface(42)

But could she ever really trust him?

And that’s when she heard the unmistakable sound of a hammer hitting wood coming from the other side of her front door. Discombobulated, confused, and really pissed off at herself, she yanked open the door and stopped dead.

…

“What in the hell are you doing?” Gina’s question cut across the porch as sharp as the blade on a hockey skate.

Ford didn’t look up. He thought he’d have more time to finish the project. As it was, all he had done was leave the reception and pick-up the specially sourced wood Juan had ordered that matched the original planks. He had one laid out but not secured in place. Of course, he could only last so long without looking at her.

She stood in the doorway. The tip of her nose was red, and the ruby blotch of annoyance at the base of her throat was in full effect. But she was still beautiful in her full-on warrior mode. Really, she was magnificent, and for the first time since he realized he needed to show her that he would always be there for her, he had second thoughts. The woman looked like she might just murder him, and he couldn’t blame her. He stood up, careful to stand in front of the unfinished patch job.

“I had to fix it.” It sounded lame but putting his feelings into words wasn’t his forte.

“My porch?” she asked, suspicion thick in her voice. “You had to fix my porch.”

“I know how much you love this house and I wanted…” The planned speech he’d been practicing in his head about how this house was her heart and how he’d protect it and care for it no matter what fizzled into nothingness. Shit. He was fucking this all up. “No,” he finished, floundering for words. “I want to fix us.”

“Stop right there.” She held up her hand, palm forward. “I need to tell you something.”

That couldn’t happen. She had to hear him out. He took a step toward her, leaving his spot in front of the hole in the porch. “Gina—”

Chin trembling, she walked toward him and stepped just right on the unsecured planks. Her foot slipped, and her eyes went wide with shock. Ford could see it all happening in slow motion. She was going to go through the hole in the porch. He grabbed for her, curling his fingers around her waist and reaching with his other hand for the handrail surrounding the porch, but he missed it by millimeters. Before he could even holler out to warn her to brace herself, they were both waist-deep in the porch, the fronts of their bodies pressed together, his arm still around her waist, and their mouths within kissing distance.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Unable to stop himself, he swept his free hand over the parts of her body he could reach to make sure, a process made difficult by the fact that there was maybe an inch between her back and sides and the pointed edges of the wood, and because she glared at him the entire time as if she was plotting his death, which she probably was. He moved his hands so they were between her back and the broken wood.

“I’m fine,” she said, turning her face from his as if she could will him away.

His gut dropped. “Gina—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she interrupted. “I just want to get out of here.”

Ford looked around. The replacement planks of wood were scatted out of reach across the porch and down the steps. His feet were on solid ground, but the fit with the two of them stuck in the hole together was too tight for him to leverage either of them up. The truth of it was, they were well and good stuck.

“That’s not happening without help.” The first glimmer of a backup plan began to flicker in the back of his mind. “Can you reach your hand in my front pocket?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Really, you want me to cop a feel?”

Yes. No. Well, not at this moment. “My phone is in there. We have to call for help.”

“Fine,” she said with a huff.

It took a little adjusting in how they were squeezed together, but she managed to get her hand in his pants—or at least close enough to make his dick stand up and take notice.

Cool it, Hartigan. You’re not going to get another chance at this.

She bit her lip in concentration and pulled out his phone. “Got it.” She angled it so the camera zeroed in on his face, unlocking the screen.

“Go to contacts,” he said, working his new plan on the fly. “Hit the one that’s just the number six.”

“Is that your precinct number?”

He shook his head, praying silently that she’d understand what he was about to say next. “It’s Frankie’s station.”

Her finger hovered over the touchpad. “I thought you never wanted to call them for help because you’d get so much shit for it.”

“It’s worth it to make sure you’re okay.” And it was, a million times over.

“Let me stop you there. I don’t know where my brothers are, and since I don’t have any other ties to the Esposito family, you can just stop trying to butter me up.” She hit the contact listing for station six with a solid thunk.

“I’m not,” he said, and his heart sank as he watched the pain and anger flash in her eyes before she locked everything out, including him. He knew he had to tell her the truth, though. He owed her that much at least. “I know you won’t believe this, but I love you and I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

She laughed. It was the broken sound of a woman who’d reached her limit. “Well you better figure out how, because I’m done with liars and people who see me as a way to get ahead in their career. I know that’s why you came back. You thought my brothers had some Esposito secrets in that box.”

The relief that had gone through him when he’d realized there wasn’t anything related to the Espositos in that box had been so powerful that he’d nearly dropped into the nearby kitchen chair, because it wasn’t until that moment that he’d realized how far he was willing to go to protect her, the woman he loved.

“I did. And I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure none of the criminal repercussions came back to you.”

That got her attention. She stopped pretending to ignore him as if they weren’t practically glued together and looked up at him, her expression softening.

Of course, that was the exact moment when Frankie’s voice came out of his cell phone’s speaker. “Station Six, Hartigan speaking.”

…

Gina needed a minute to process. Heart beating against her ribs like it was getting ready for a jailbreak, she tore her gaze away from Ford—seeing him muddled her thoughts—and looked around at her neighbors’ houses. No one was out, but curtains were getting moved to the side, no doubt to figure out what the commotion was on her porch.

The chest-tightening, clammy-palmed anxiety about being stared at didn’t materialize, though. Even as mad as she was at Ford, there was no denying that being with him acted as a nerves minimizer.

She vaguely listened while Ford told Frankie what had happened and ordered him to get his ass out to her house to get them out. On autopilot, she hit the end-call button, unable to look away from the man who’d turned her life upside down.

“What do you mean, protect me?” she asked, trying to stay mad at him so she wouldn’t feel how every hard inch of him was pressed against her and how happy her pheromones—and girly bits—were to be near his pheromones—and more—again.

“My superiors knew about the box.” His hand rubbed soothing circles across the small of her back that set off a wave of awareness through her. “I didn’t tell them. They wanted to send someone else to check it out.”

“And you didn’t want that because…?”

“If there was something illegal in the box, I didn’t want it to fall back on you.” The circling against her back stopped as he adjusted his stance, something that brought them even closer together than they had been before. “I wanted to protect you.”

“Why?” It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Ford always followed the rules. She’d actually seen him reading the rules for Monopoly one night instead of just playing house rules like a normal person. Her breath hiccuped as the first hint of hope started to fill her up.

“Because I love you and I know you. You wouldn’t knowingly have anything to do with your brothers’ illegal activities.”

Of course not. It was ridiculous to assume, but how many times had other people done just that? Ford hadn’t, though. Not even that first night. She may have a problematic last name, but he’d never judged her on that. Her heartbeat sped up, and she had to dig her nails into her palms to keep from melting against him. He still was going to break her heart some day. Might as well be a clean break today.

The sounds of a fire truck’s sirens could be heard in the distance, getting closer with each heartbeat. If she could just make it through the next few minutes, then she’d be free—to do what, she had no idea.

“You lied to me about my brothers, about why you were in my house.” A bittersweet agony gripped her chest and squeezed tight because she he had a way of making her want to believe. She looked up at him, his face a little blurry because of the tears making her eyes watery, and then dropped her gaze. She couldn’t face seeing his reaction when the truth came out. “What else did you lie about?”