“Did you space the pills out with food, as explicitly instructed on the bottles?”

Mrs. Burland glared at her.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Mallory said. Mrs. B’s color was off, and her blood pressure was far too low. “When was your last meal?”

“Hmph.”

“Mrs. Burland.” Mallory put her fingers on the woman’s narrow, frail, paper-thin wrist to check her pulse. “Did you eat lunch today?”

Mrs. Burland straightened to her full four-foot-eight inches, quivering with indignity. “I know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Mallory looked into her rheumy, pissy eyes and felt her heart clench. Dammit. She had a feeling she knew the problem—Mrs. B didn’t have any food. Probably she wasn’t feeling good enough to take care of herself, and since she’d long ago scared off family and friends with her mean, petty, vicious ways, she had no one to help her. Mallory picked up the room phone and called the cafeteria. “Stella, it’s Mallory. I need a full dinner tray for room three.”

“Sure thing, Sweet Cheeks. Is your hunk-o-burning love going to be making any more visits my way?”

Mallory rubbed her still-twitching eye. “Not today.”

When the tray came, Mallory stood over her grumpy patient. “Eat.”

Mrs. Burland tried to push the tray away but Mallory was one step ahead of her, holding it still. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re not going to have a little tantrum and spill it, not this time.”

Mrs. Burland’s eyes burned bright with temper, which Mallory was happy to see because it meant her patient was already feeling better. Mallory leaned close. “I’m stronger and meaner, and I’ve eaten today.”

“Well that’s obvious.” Mrs. Burland sniffed at the juice on the tray. “Hmph.”

“It’s apple.”

“I have eyes in my head, don’t I?” Mrs. Burland sipped the juice. In sixty seconds, her color was better. “You didn’t used to be so mean.”

“It’s a newly acquired skill,” Mallory said.

“I’m ready to go home now.”

“You can’t go home until I see you eat.”

“You’re making that up. This cafeteria food isn’t fit for a dog,” Mrs. Burland said.

Well, she had her there. Even Mallory, who’d eat just about anything, didn’t like the cafeteria food, not that she’d ever say so to the cook. “Fine.” Mallory went to the staff kitchen and pulled out her own lunch, which she brought back to Mrs. Burland’s room. “Try my sandwich. Turkey and cheese with spinach.” Which she’d only added because her mom kept asking if she was eating her vegetables. “There’s a little bit of mustard and probably too much mayo but your cholesterol is the least of your problems.” Mallory also tossed down a baggie of baby carrots and an apple.

Mrs. Burland took a bite of the sandwich first. “Awful,” she said, but took another bite. And then another, until there was nothing left but a few crumbs.

“The carrot sticks and the apple too,” Mallory said.

“Are they as horrid as the sandwich?”

“They’re as horrid as your bad attitude. And I’ll tell you this right now. You’re going to eat it all if I have to shove it down your throat myself.”

“Mallory,” a voice breathed in disbelief from the doorway.

Jane. Perfect. Mallory turned to face her boss, but not before she saw triumph and evil glee come into Mrs. Burland’s eyes.

“A moment,” Jane said, face tight.

“Certainly.” Mallory jabbed a finger at the carrots and apple. Mrs. Burland meekly picked up the apple.

In the hallway, Jane led Mallory just out of hearing range of Mrs. Burland. “New tactic?”

“Yes,” Mallory said, refusing to defend herself. “She finish it all?”

Jane took a look over Mallory’s shoulder at Mrs. B. “Every last bite. How did you do it?”

“By being a bigger bitch than she is.”

“Nicely done.”

By the time Mallory got in her car and left work, she was starving and exhausted. She solved the first problem by eating a handful of Jodi’s cookies. Then she pulled her phone out and took a quick peek to see if she had any texts before remembering she had Ty’s phone. She paused and eyed the remaining chocolate chip/walnut cookies. Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into Ty’s driveway.

The garage door was open, and the man himself was flat on his back beneath his car, one long denim-clad leg straight out, the other bent. His black T-shirt had risen up. Or maybe it was his Levi’s that had sunk almost indecently low on his hips. In either case, the revealed strip of his washboard abs had her mouth actually watering. She thought maybe she could stand here and just look at him all day long, but he seemed to enjoy looking at her right back and she’d had a hell of a long day and couldn’t possibly be worth looking at right now.

Not that it appeared to make any difference. Ty’s attraction to her was apparently based on some intangible thing she couldn’t fathom. She knew she could think about that for a million years and not get used to it, to the fact that no matter what she did or what she looked like, he seemed to want her.

The feeling was far too mutual.

Chapter 16

Nothing chocolate, nothing gained.

Ty sat up on the mechanic’s creeper and took in the sight of Mallory standing there. She was packing a plate of cookies, which he hoped to God were for him. He assumed she’d discovered the phone fiasco by now, but other than that, he wasn’t sure what sort of mood to expect from her.

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been face down on his bed, boneless and sated right into a coma of bliss. He’d stroked a strand of damp hair from her face and she’d smiled in her sleep. His heart had constricted at the sight, his sole thought, oh Christ, I am in trouble. He’d been torn by the urge to tug her close, but then claustrophobia had reached up and grabbed him by the throat. Just as he’d chosen retreat, she’d awakened and gotten dressed to go.

That must have been when she’d grabbed the wrong phone, although he hadn’t realized it then. He’d followed her home to make sure she got there safely, then driven back to his place and expected to crash. Instead he’d missed her.

Clearly he was losing it.

He had no idea what she was thinking, but he hadn’t expected to see her smile at the sight of him, a smile that was filled with relief.

Relief, he realized, and surprise that he was still here in town.

Yeah, join my club. He was surprised, too.

She was in pale purple scrubs and white Nikes. She had two pens sticking out of her hip pocket, one red, one black. There were correlating ink marks on her scrubs. She followed his gaze and rubbed at the stains. “I’m a mess. Don’t ask.”

“Not a mess,” he said. “Are those cookies?”

“Yes. And I had to fight the staff to keep them for you.”

“Girl-on-girl fight?” he asked hopefully. “Did you get it on video?”

“You are such a guy.” She came closer and crouched at his side, holding the plate out for him. He took a big bite of a cookie and moaned in deep appreciation.

“Did you give the HSC ten thousand dollars?”

Ah, there it was, he thought, swallowing. He’d been hoping she wouldn’t find out, but he supposed that was unrealistic in a town like Lucky Harbor. Taking his time, he ate cookie number two, then reached for a third.

She held the plate out of his reach. “Did you?” she asked.

He eyed her for a long moment. “Which answer will get me the rest of the cookies?”

“Oh, Ty,” she breathed, looking worried as she lowered the plate. Worried for him, he realized.

“Why?” she asked. “You already gave.”

“HSC needed it.”

“But it’s so much money.”

“If you’re asking if I can afford it, I can.”

She just stared at him, so he shrugged. “The job pays well.” He paused. “Really well.”

She let out a breath. She was already hunkered at his side so it took little effort to lean over toward him and press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered, and went to kiss the other cheek, but he turned his head and caught her mouth with his. They were both gratifyingly out of breath by the time he pulled back.

“You’re welcome,” he said, surprised when she rose and sat on the stool at his work bench.

“Don’t let me keep you from what you were doing,” she said. “I’ll watch.”

He arched a brow, feeling amused for the first time all day. “You want me to get back under the car?”

“I just don’t want you to lose any time because of me.”

“Is that right?”

“Absolutely.”

Humoring the both of them, he lay back down onto the mechanic’s creeper and lifted his hands above his head to the edge of the car.

She nibbled on her lower lip. Watching him work turned her on. The knowledge shouldn’t have surprised him—she turned him on just breathing, but he laughed softly.

She blushed. “How did you know?”

“Your ni**les are hard.”

She made a sound in the back of her throat and covered her breasts, making him laugh.

“It’s your jeans,” she said. “They’re faded at your, um.” She waggled a finger in the direction of his crotch. “Stress spots. And your T-shirt, it’s tight on your biceps and shoulders. And when you’re flat on your back under the car, you look like you know what you’re doing.”

“That’s because I do.”

“It’s the whole package,” she agreed miserably.

He grinned. “If it helps, my package likes your package. A whole hell of a lot.”

“Work!” she demanded, closing her eyes.

Obliging, he rolled back beneath the car. He heard her get to her feet and walk close, peering into the opened hood above him. “So how much wrenching do you do at your work?”

She was as see-through as glass. He knew that she’d put him back beneath the car because she’d gotten him to talk beneath a car before. But she was so goddamned cute trying to outthink him that he gave her what she wanted.

Which in hindsight made her a hell of lot more dangerous than he’d thought. “I hotwired a tank once,” he said. “With my team. We stole it to disable rebel insurgents.”

She squatted at his side. “You’ve led a very different life than mine.” Her hand settled on his bad thigh. It’d been only recently that he’d even gotten feeling back in it, but he was having no trouble feeling anything now. It felt like her fingers had a direct line to his groin, and things stirred to life.

“Our phones got switched,” she said.

There was a new quality to her voice now, one that had him setting down his wrench and pulling himself back out from beneath the car.

She was still crouched low, and from his vantage point flat on his back, he looked up into her face. As usual, she could hide nothing from him, and for once, he wished he couldn’t see her every thought. They exchanged phones but her expression didn’t change. “Problem?” he asked.

“A woman called. Frances? She wants you to call her.”

“She always wants me to call her.”

Mallory nodded, looked down at the ground and then back into his eyes. “Are you dating her?”

“I’m not much of a dater.”

“You know what I mean.”

Yeah, he did. And he didn’t want to go there.

“I know,” she said quickly. “We agreed that this thing with you and me was…casual.”

He didn’t like where this was going.

“A fling,” she went on. “Right? Not a relationship.” She rose and turned away from him. “But I was thinking that maybe that last part isn’t true. I mean, we never actually said there wasn’t a relationship.”

“I’ll say it,” he said. “It’s not a relationship.”

She went still, turning back to stare at him with those eyes he’d never once been able to resist. “Why is that?” she asked. “Why can’t there be an us, if there’s a you and a someone else?”

He looked into her expressive face and felt a stab of pain right in the gut. He’d survived SEAL training. He’d lived through a plane crash. He’d kept on breathing when the rest of his team, his friends, his brothers, hadn’t been able to do the same. But he didn’t know how to do this. “There are some things I can’t tell you,” he said slowly. “Things that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

“So the reason we can’t be a we is classified?” she asked in disbelief. “Really, Ty?”

Well, hell. Yeah, that had been pretty f**king lame. Chalk it up to the panic now residing in his hollow gut. Whatever he did here, whatever he came up with, he needed her to want to keep her distance. Except Mallory Quinn was incapable of distance when her heart was involved. That was both painfully attractive and terrifying. “Don’t fall for me, Mallory. That wouldn’t be good for either of us. We’re too different. You said so yourself.”

She sucked in a breath like he’d slapped her. “And what, you and Frances are alike? Compatible?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Hands on hips, she narrowed her eyes. “If you’re sleeping with her, then why wouldn’t she just roll over and talk to you? Why is she yelling about you not returning her phone calls?”