He wrestled with the detachment he would need to get through the next hour, a difficult battle. He looked past her into the room to the sheet over a body on the floor. Closing his eyes, he swallowed and winged a quick prayer for the dead man. There was nothing more he could do for Owens.
Nikki needed him.
Carson knelt beside her, too aware of the cops standing guard a few feet away. "Nikki?"
Finally, he let himself look at her face again even as he steeled himself for the unshakable draw combined with guilt that made it tough to think around her, much less speak. He worked to read her expression, but her face was blank. Still he couldn't miss the pale cast under her olive complexion.
She glanced up, frowning, confused. Or disoriented? Her shaky hand rose toward his face. "Your mustache. It's gone."
er 1
Where was she, and where the hell were her clothes?
Flat on her back in a strange bed, Nikki Price stared up at the ceiling fan moving slower than the spinning ceiling. Click, click, click. Blades cycled overhead in the dim light, swaying the chain with a tiny wood pull dangling from the end.
"Ohmigod, ohmigod. Oh. My. God." What had she done last night?
She tried to look around but her eyeballs seemed stuck, all swollen and gritty in their sockets, her head too heavy to lift off the fabric-softener-fresh pillow, sheets equally as soft against her bare skin. All over bare. Goose bumps prickled over her completely n**ed body.
"Not right," she whispered to herself, her quiet voice bouncing around the quieter room sporting a hotel-generic decor. "Not right, not right."
Her bedroom fan pull sported a miniature soccer ball with tiny flowers painted on the white patches, a gift from her brother last Christmas. "Okay, I'm not totally losing it if I'm noticing silly details like overhead fixtures, right?"
No one answered. Thank God.
Still, nothing was familiar in the dim bedroom, only a hint of early sunrise streaking through the blinds. Voices swelled outside the walls. Her stomach clenched.
Okay, almost definitely a hotel.
She inched her fingers under the covers across the mattress, farther, farther again. Empty. She searched her mind for clues before she would have to turn her head and confront whoever might be in the room with her.
Panic stilled her more than even the nauseating ache stabbing through her skull. She hadn't drunk much the night before. Had she? She scrolled through the evening, getting ready to go to Beachcombers Bar and Grill for the live music—and a neutral place to break things off with Gary. But she couldn't recall much of anything after asking for a second amaretto sour. She wasn't an angel, but she'd never expected to wake up in a strange bed.
Of course she hadn't expected to do a lot of the reckless things she'd done over the past seven months since Carson Hunt tromped her heart. Truly tromped. Not the sort of temporary hurt that came from having a crush go south or getting dumped by a guy she'd just met. No. He'd deep down damaged her soul so much that even thinking about him still made it difficult to breathe. The ache of betrayal by her first real love might never go away.
Although these days she was more mad than hurt.
Could she have been mad enough last night to do something beyond reckless? Something totally stupid. Apparently she had since here she was. She'd thought she was ready to break up with the latest loser she'd been dating in hopes of filling that empty spot left by Carson. Finally she would move on with her life.
Okay, so she dated Air Force pilots—like Carson. From the base where Carson was stationed. And most of them happened to be tall and blond like, well, Carson. It had only taken her seven months to make the connection—hello?—but once she had, she'd resolved to set her life right again and end things with her latest Carson substitute, Gary Owens.
No wonder she'd frozen up when any of those dates so much as kissed her. She wasn't interested in them. Which made her feel even worse. No guy—even a loser—deserved to be used as a replacement for another man.
Her stomach rebelled. So why was she n**ed in a hotel room? Apparently she'd gotten over her kissing aversion.
She swallowed down fear along with a prayer that whoever she'd been with had used a condom. From here on out, she would stop being such a loser. She risked a deeper breath, inhaling the scent of laundry detergent. Masculine cologne—ohmigod.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in...cologne and an air of something else, an unfamiliar smell she couldn't quite identify, but her body shivered in disgust all the same. Somebody was in the room with her. Still asleep? Or in the bathroom?
Please, please, please at least let it be Gary, even if they'd never slept together before. He hadn't been at the bar last night for those few minutes and couple of drinks she could remember, but he'd been the one to set up the meeting by sending her an e-mail asking her for a date.
Bracing herself for the worst anyway, she arched her aching body, her head pounding as she rolled onto her side under the cotton sheets. Fresh pain pounded as her cheek met the pillow, but she stifled the urge to moan. The room appeared as empty as the bed. She gulped in gasping breaths, her heart now hammering harder than her head, relief making her darn near dizzy. At least if he was in the bathroom, she would have a second to collect herself.
Palms flattened to the mattress, she angled up, cool morning air prickling along her skin. Winters in South Carolina were all the chillier for the humidity. Cold and damp, like the ancient tombs her junior high students were currently studying in honors history class—and ohmigod, she was going to be late for work.