Larger Than Life by Alison Kent (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

Not if he expected to be successful, if he expected to remain alive. That was the reason he'd come here, to figure out how he'd managed to give himself away. He couldn't name another woman—woman, hell, another person—who'd scrambled his instincts so completely.

He wanted to know why Nevada Case did.

Still she said nothing, though she'd stopped with the pacing. Now she simply leaned against a porch post and stared out toward the barn that seemed to be the root of her trouble. He wasn't clear on any of that, except for the fact that the barn wasn't a barn. It was some sort of store where a girl who might or might not be a runaway had been working.

That much he'd managed to pick up from eavesdropping on the tail end of the party. Didn't seem to be enough reason to call out the law and a big shot attorney, but then what did he know beyond the best ways for taking out moving objects, dropping other targets where they stood?

"Oh, hey. I brought you something." He leaned back, stretched out one leg, and stifled a groan to dig into the front pocket of the jeans he wore. He pulled out a small white box tied in a gold ribbon that he tried to smooth out before offering it to her. "Chocolate."

Neva pushed away from the post and walked over, taking it from his hand and turning it over as if searching for suspicious punctures. "You went to Patsy Cline's."

He nodded, watching her study the box, watching, too, the emotions that flittered through her eyes. Wonderment that he'd thought of her while he was out. Wariness that he had. An interesting pair of reactions. "Yeah. For dinner. Ed took me."

At that, she finally looked up. And this time she didn't even try to hide her surprise. "You went to dinner with Ed Hill?"

"Yep. Then he took me out to get my ride. I stopped back by for the fudge later on my own." Mick was pretty clear on how the doctor still felt about the woman. Now, for some abominably stupid reason, he was curious to know her side. "I didn't want to hear anymore about how I needed to stay away from you."

She shook her head-slowly, more in response to her own thoughts than anything he'd said. "He likes to watch out for me. He thinks he's a guardian angel or something."

Mick adjusted his weight, cringed at the scrape of denim over patches of raw skin, at the pull of medical tape on others. "Would that something be a man who's still in love with you no matter how many times you've told him it's over?"

Neva gave a soft huff. "He told you that?"

"He didn't have to." But having Neva confirm his suspicions left Mick on a steadier footing. It was his nature to size up his surroundings, his situation, including the personalities involved. "I figured it out before you'd rolled me out of the back of the truck."

"Amazing." She shook her head. "I'm even more transparent than I realized. You should've been too out of it to notice much at all."

He let her think that. "Trust me. The vibes weren't all coming from you. Doc Ed wasn't overjoyed that you were the one who found me."

"Or that I was the one who cut you out of your clothes, no doubt," she added with a smile.

That smile had him wanting to hand her another pair of scissors. "Too bad you stopped before the getting got good."

She waved an encompassing hand. "Is this more of that horse comparison thing? Because, really, that's a visual I can do without."

He laughed, then groaned, placed a hand over his bandaged ribs. "I've got to stop doing that."

She toyed with the ribbon on the box she still hadn't opened. "I'd say it serves you right, but I hate to see anyone hurting."

"Including Ed?" he asked, continuing to pry when he no longer had need. It was her compassion, her concern making him press. He wasn't used to being on the receiving end of either.

She sighed, came over and sat beside him, rocking the swing. "Yes, including Ed. He's a good man, but he has to be in charge of everything in any situation."

Mick waited for the movement of the swing and the accompanying wave of slow-motion hurt to subside. "A real hands-on guy."

She nodded, tilting her head side to side with her list. "He would choose the drinks, the dinner, the movie. What time a date would start. What time it would end."

What bed they would share, she might as well have added. What position he wanted to take her in. Mick found himself grinding his jaw, and this time it wasn't so much about rough fabric on roughed-up skin. "Could be just a case of his work carrying over into his off-hours."

"Could be," she agreed with a shrug. "But a guy's going to get a lot further with me if he doesn't treat me like I've no more mind of my own than an animal."

Small talk. Personal talk. Banter. Getting to know her better was fine and all, but he also wanted to know about the man in the suit and the one with the badge and the gun. He wanted to know what they'd been doing here because of how angry they'd made her.

He inclined his head to indicate the barn. "You did a good job speaking your mind out there earlier."

"Holden Wagner, ugh. Some nerve that bastard has, bringing the sheriff out here. If I had time, or thought it would do any good, I'd sue him for harassment." Her grin was wry as she pointed toward the shingle swinging from the overhang of the porch. "I can do that, you know. I am a lawyer."

"I noticed." He'd been doing a lot of sizing her up since he'd sat down, and it would've been hard to miss the shingle. "You have him showing up a lot?"

"It's been awhile, but yes." She