Hot Rocks

he’d accepted her abbreviated account of events.
    She’d given it while she sat on the ground outside the cabin, with a blanket around her shoulders. Though she’d come through her ordeal with Crew with nothing more serious than cuts and bruises, she didn’t object when Max cut off the police questioning, scooped her off the ground and carried her to his car.
    It gave her a lot of satisfaction to watch Crew hauled out on a stretcher.
    A lot of satisfaction.
    Jack O’Hara’s daughter still had the moves.
    Grateful, was all Laine could think as she spent a full twenty minutes under the hot pulsing spray of the shower. She was so grateful to Max, to Vince, to fate. Hell, she was grateful for digital communication. So much so she was going to retire her cell phone, have it mounted and hung in a place of honor.
    And she would never drink cabernet again as long as she lived.
    She stepped out of the shower, dried herself gingerly. The numbness was long gone, and every bump, scrape and bruise ached like fury. She swallowed four aspirin, then gathered her courage and took a look at herself in the full-length mirror.
    “Oh. Ouch.” She hissed out a breath as she turned for the rear view. She was a colorful mess of bruises. Hips, shins, knees, arms. And the beaut she’d predicted on her right cheek.
    But they’d fade, she thought. They’d fade and be forgotten as she went back to living her life. And Alex Crew would spend the rest of his behind bars. She hoped he cursed her name every day of that life. And she hoped he spent every night dreaming of diamonds.
    As a concession to the bruises, she dressed in loose sweats, tied her damp hair back loosely. As a concession to vanity, she spent some time with makeup to downplay the mark of violence on her face.
    Then she turned, spread her arms and addressed Henry, who’d shadowed her—even in the bathroom—since she’d retrieved him from Jenny’s. “Not too bad, right?”
    She found Max in the kitchen, heating the contents of a can of soup on the stove. “Thought you might be hungry.”
    “You thought right.”
    He stepped to her, played his fingers over the bruise. “I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.”
    “If you’re sorry, you’re diminishing my own courage and cleverness and I’ve been congratulating myself on them.”
    “Wouldn’t want to do that, but I’ve got to say, I feel cheated. You robbed me of a chance to beat that son of a bitch into pulp.”
    “Next time we deal with a homicidal sociopath, you can take him down.”
    “Next time.” He turned back to stir the soup. Laine linked her hands.
    “We’ve rushed into all this, Max.”
    “Sure have.”
    “People . . . I imagine people who come together in intense or dangerous situations often rush into things. All those emotions spiking. When things level off, they probably regret following those impulses.”
    “Logical.”
    “We could regret it if we move ahead the way we talked about before. We could regret rushing into a relationship, much less marriage.”
    “We could.” He tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot, then set it down and turned to her. “Do you care?”
    She pressed her lips together before they could tremble. There he was, at her stove, all tall and rangy, with those dangerous eyes and that easy stance. “No. No, I don’t care. Not even a little.” She flew into him, rising up on her toes when his arms clamped around her. “Oh God, I don’t care. I love you so much.”
    “Whew. That’s good.” His mouth crushed to hers, then softened, then lingered. “I don’t care either. Besides, I just picked this up for you in New York. It’d be wasted if you wanted to start getting sensible on me now.”
    He tugged the box out of his pocket. “Pretty sure I remember what you said you liked.”
    “You took time to buy me a ring in all of this?”
    He blinked. “Oh. You wanted a ring?”
    “Smart-ass.” She opened the box, and her heart turned slowly, beautifully, over in her breast as she stared at the square-cut diamond in the simple platinum setting. “It’s perfect. You know it’s perfect.”
    “Not yet.” He took it out, slipped it on her finger. “Now it is.” He kissed her scraped knuckles just beneath it. “I’m going to spend my life with you, Laine. We’ll start tonight with you sitting down there and me making you soup. Nothing intense about that.”
    “Sounds nice. Nice and normal.”
    “We can even bicker if you want.”
    “That doesn’t sound so