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And then he’d truly exploded.
Everyone had appeared on the other end of the phone and she’d had to explain herself all over again.
Now, they were all mad at her for holding out on them. She hated when they were upset with her. It made her feel ill. She’d had to swear on her life that she was safe and that she didn’t need them to rescue her.
She was still kind of worried they were going to come charging in.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She yelped and stood up so fast that she hit her head on one of the fridge shelves. Food went flying, and she fell back on her ass.
Great. Now she was just adding to her boo-boos.
She closed her eyes to hold back her tears. This wasn’t what she needed right now.
“You need to wear a bell or come with a warning label,” she grumbled at Bernard as she opened her eyes to glare up at him.
He was looming over her, his hands on his hips. She braced herself for whatever he was going to say.
He huffed out an impatient sigh. “Now, I’ll need to clean up the mess you made.”
“No, I made it. I’ll clean it up.” She rubbed at her temples. “Just need my head to stop thumping.”
“Headache?”
Was that a hint of sympathy in his voice?
Surely not.
“I was going to get something to eat, so I wasn’t taking painkillers on an empty stomach.”
“You should have called me rather than coming in and messing up my tidy kitchen,” he grumbled.
“Wouldn’t want to interrupt your beauty sleep. You need plenty of it.”
He huffed out another breath, although she swore she saw his lips twitch.
Was Doomy Gloomy amused?
“Instead, you’d rather thump around like a gorilla, wake me up, bang your already sore head, and make a mess.”
“Yes,” she said in a serious voice. “That’s exactly what I wanted to achieve.”
He muttered something under his breath, then held out his hand to her.
She looked at his hand suspiciously.
“For goodness’ sake. I’m not going to bite you.”
“Good to know.”
“I just want you out of my kitchen.”
She took his hand. Wow. He was surprisingly strong. He lifted her up, then shooed her over to the counter where she sat on a barstool.
“What would you like to eat?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some cookies. Or bread and butter is fine.”
He started pulling vegetables out of the fridge and cutting them.
“That doesn’t look like cookies,” she told him.
“You need to eat something with some vitamins in it, otherwise you’re going to get scurvy and your teeth will fall out.”
That wasn’t true.
Was it?
Yikes. She really didn’t know, but she liked her teeth. They were awesome.
He set some cut up vegetables along with some ranch dip in front of her. She eyed everything suspiciously.
“None of it will bite you.”
“You sure you didn’t curse it?”
“I don’t work with curses,” he told her. “I’m more into voodoo dolls.”
She gaped at him.
He’d said that without even a twitch of his lips.
Scary.
“Eat or you’ll get sick.”
“Why Doomy Gloomy, I didn’t think you cared. I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. I’ve put too much time into my voodoo doll to want you to be taken out by the common cold.”
“Dude. Harsh.”
He filled up a glass of water, then grabbed a bottle of painkillers from a cupboard, placing a couple by the glass.
She swallowed them and ate her bread. Along with a few pieces of cheese. No need to waste it.
“Mr. De Leon, would you like something to eat?”
She shot her head up to see Alejandro standing in the doorway. He stared at her for a long moment. There was something odd about him . . . his face was blank.
She swallowed, suddenly feeling nervous.
“No thanks, Bernard. Mikey is coming to pick up a package by the door, but other than that, there’s nothing going on. You go to bed.”
“Very well. I’ll just clean up Miss Cat’s mess.”
“I’ll do it later. Go.”
She jumped at the tone of Alejandro’s voice. It was so cold. She opened her mouth to defend Doomy Gloomy.
Something she didn’t think she would ever do.
But Bernie just nodded and left the room.
“That was kind of abrupt,” she said.
“You’re awake late,” he replied, ignoring what she’d just said. “When I left, you were drooling on the pillow.”
“I was not!”
Yikes. Maybe she had been. She did tend to drool when she was extra tired.
“Uh, yeah. My friends called and woke me up. And then I had a headache from all the yelling.”
“Yelling?” There was more heat in his voice now, which had the tension in her shoulders easing.
“They were upset that I hadn’t told them I was staying here. I ended up having to tell them all of it. The attack, my apartment . . . so, yeah, there was a lot of yelling.”
“I don’t like that they were yelling at you. I need names. I’ll speak to them.”
