He pulled up at the Midtown tunnel toll booth, batted away her handful of dollars, and paid the toll himself. “You’re a sweet girl, Nancy.”
Nancy’s cheeks grew warm. “I’m not doing anything altruistic. Drafting Eoin into Mandrake is business. He’s saving my ass.”
“And the green card?”
“That’s in my best interests, too,” she retorted.
“Why does it embarrass you when I tell you that you’re sweet?”
She thought about it for a minute. “It makes me feel like you’re condescending to me,” she finally said.
“It makes you feel vulnerable, you mean.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel, please. And don’t psychoanalyze me,” she snapped. “I’m not in the mood.”
“She’s back,” he said. “The tough broad with the attitude. But you don’t fool me. You’re tough, yes. But sweet as honey. And I’m not condescending. Not at all. I salute you for it.”
She was speechless. The naked, exposed feeling was unbearable. The tunnel spat them up into Midtown, and she was intensely grateful for the necessity of giving directions.
“Take the FDR Drive south, to my place.” She held up her hand at his expression. “I swear, I kept my promise. I’m camped out at Nell’s, but I had to take my cat, and I didn’t have enough arms to carry all her stuff yesterday. I need food, I need toys, I need kitty litter. I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but—”
“It’s no goddamn inconvenience.”
That response squelched further attempts at conversation. She just muttered “right” and “left” at the appropriate times until she indicated her own door in Alphabet City. He drove on past without stopping, and found a parking space three blocks down.
Nancy was disconcerted. She hadn’t expected him to find parking. God knows, she never did. She’d expected that he’d drop her off at the stoop and wait as she hustled upstairs. But here he was, parked.
Liam Knightly, at her apartment, at three in the morning. It flung open doors in her mind that she just wasn’t ready to look through.
She lost patience with herself. For God’s sake, the man had just driven forty minutes out of his way to take her home in the middle of the night. The least she could do was to offer him coffee for the drive.
“Do you, uh, want to come up for coffee?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
The word reverberated, invested with infinite shades of meaning. Her knees went rubbery. “My apartment isn’t neutral ground.”
His eyes gleamed. “I’ll be good.”
Hah. Loaded words, if there ever were ones.
Liam slung his fiddle and flute and whistle bag cases over his shoulder and took her arm. He looked around at the block of cramped turn-of-the-century brick town houses as if he expected the garbage cans to animate and attack them. She hauled out her house keys. The bulb that lit the stairs was dim, flickering. The place looked so shabby at three A.M. She actually wanted to apologize for her apartment building. Make nervous excuses about real estate prices in Manhattan. She stopped herself. As if. Their footsteps echoed on the stairway. She groped for something to say to break the tension, but her brain had ceased nonessential functioning.
So when the black-clad guys hurtled around the corner of the landing above, she just stared, mouth wide.
Too startled to scream.
Chapter
6
“Aw, fuck,” Liam hissed. He flung her behind himself. She hit the wall with a grunt. Big. Dark clothes, stocking masks. Meant business.
He was in the air and spinning before his conscious brain kicked in. His heel connected to the chin of the closest guy, who reeled back, right into his companion. It gave Liam a second to regroup—and register the knife that appeared in the first guy’s hand. He danced back, keeping his eyes on the blade, evading his opponent’s lunges, but the landing was small. He had to keep that blade away from Nancy.
His opponent lunged again, jabbing high. Liam parried with his forearm, glad he wore the leather, and rammed the guy’s arm against the wall. The knife clattered to the tiles. He spun to jab a knee into the gut of the guy bolting toward Nancy, but the first attacker did a foot sweep, scooping Liam’s legs from under him. He stumbled against the wall, took an elbow slam to the ribs. In his peripheral vision, he saw the fiddle case slashing through the air. Crack. A masculine grunt of pain, limbs flailing, thuds. The second guy was falling down the stairs. Good.
But the first guy was diving for Nancy. She didn’t have time to load another swing with the fiddle case. The asshole barreled into her, knocking her against the wall of the staircase. Her legs gave, she slipped, and they toppled in agonizing slow motion, careening downward, out of Liam’s line of vision.
He hurled himself down the stairs, so fast his feet may not have even touched them. She dangled under the bastard’s meaty arm, her body slack. Stunned. Liam plowed into him with a shout and looped both arms around the guy’s neck. The other attacker was nowhere to be seen.
Nancy’s weight thudded to the floor. The door yawned open, and shadows spun as the guy took a flying somersaulting leap into the dark off the stoop and took Liam spinning with him, over his head.
The world twirled and spun. A battering rain of blows: head, shoulders, back. Pain followed pain in such quick succession, Liam barely had the time to perceive them. Then, a half second sprawled together on the sidewalk, trembling and panting. Christ, the guy’s breath was foul.
Then, the masked thing twisted against him like some huge, muscular serpent and slammed an elbow into Liam’s ear. The fight exploded into movement again. They grappled, grunted, heaved. Liam slammed a hand up under his attacker’s chin, knocking his teeth together. The guy was huge, but Liam whipped the man’s knife hand back with the strength of desperation, ramming it into the rails of the wrought-iron fence beside them that separated the garbage cans from the sidewalk. And again.
The knife fell. Liam jerked part of his weight out from under the guy so that their bodies were crossed. The other man attempted to use his thick legs for traction, spreading them wide. Liam’s hand flashed down, grabbed the guy’s balls. Squeezed, with all his strength.
The guy screamed. Liam lunged for the knife on the sidewalk, scooping it up, and rolled up to his feet in a wary crouch, brandishing the blade. The other guy leaped up, too, still wheezing in pain. Yeah. Come at me now, pig fucker.
Would be a fine joke on him if the guy pulled a gun.
The man hesitated and backed away. He turned and began to sprint, booted feet pounding the pavement. Liam started after him, but was brought up short, as if there were a rope around his neck. Every hunting instinct screamed to run down his prey.
Nancy. She had not stirred from where the guy had let her drop in the entryway, and the door was flung wide open to the night, and it was three in the morning, off Avenue B, and he had no fucking clue where that first guy had gone.
The guy darted around the corner. It was quiet and still.
Both men, gone. Liam’s jaw ached with frustration as he leaped up the steps of the stoop and sank down next to her, heart pounding.
He brushed the thick, glossy hair off her face. “Nancy? Are you okay?” His voice was breathless, quavering. “Talk to me, Nancy.”
“I’m okay.” Her eyes fluttered open, and she dragged herself up onto her hands and knees. “I think. Are they gone?”
“Yes.” He helped her up, scanning for injuries. She looked dazed, disoriented, and as pale as a ghost, but there were no obvious marks on her. She let him pull her to her feet, and they held each other for a long moment, swaying and correcting, clinging to each other for balance.