Hot and Bothered - Erika Wilde Page 0,16
nurse, and if you need me for anything at all, here’s my cell phone number.” He jotted his number on a napkin and set it by the hospital phone beside the bed. “Don’t hesitate to call me, even if it’s just to hear my voice.”
She inhaled deeply, as if inflating her courage. “You must think I’m a complete basket case.”
No, he didn’t think that at all. Her nerves and fears were legitimately based, but he wasn’t about to enlighten her of that fact, or the reasons why. She didn’t need any more stress to deal with at the moment.
“I’m not always this clingy, am I?” she asked, even as her lashes grew heavy and drooped.
She sounded so embarrassed at the thought that he couldn’t help but grin. “You’re only clingy when it counts, sweetheart,” he teased.
“Good.” Her eyes closed completely, and she mumbled drowsily, “Will you bring me back fresh clothes, too?”
She thought he could because she believed they lived together. “You bet.” Luckily for him he’d claimed her car keys and ID from her purse before handing over her personal effects to the nurses, so he had everything he needed to get into her apartment and confiscate enough items to make it appear as though she’d moved into his house. But first, he had to call a cab to take him back to his car, which was still parked at Murphy’s.
He remained by her bedside until her breathing grew deep and he knew she’d fallen asleep before leaving her room. He stopped at the nurses’ station, flashed his PI badge and gave them adamant orders that other than personnel, no one was to go into her room without someone calling and asking him first.
He wasn’t taking any chances with her safety.
* * *
Hands on his hips, Noah glanced around what had once been his masculine bathroom, but now shared space with Natalie’s feminine toiletries, and knew his cherished bachelorhood as he’d once known it was over—at least temporarily. The thought of trading in meaningless flings for a day-to-day intimacy with a woman didn’t bother him as much as it should have, though—because it was Natalie, a woman he’d been chasing for so long. A woman who intrigued him and evoked the kind of emotions that, with other women, had sent him running in the other direction, but with her seemed so perfectly, inexplicably right.
At the moment, he refused to analyze his changing emotions, because he had a job to do and his feelings for Natalie couldn’t get in the way of higher priorities, like keeping her safe and protected. Once she regained her memory and was no longer in danger, then they’d focus on them.
He headed back into his bedroom, made room in his closet for her stuff, and finished putting away the clothes he’d taken from her apartment. While going through her belongings, he’d learned that she favored jeans and sweats, loose shirts, and bulky sweaters. There wasn’t a sexy outfit to be had in all of her attire, or the kind of clingy, flattering clothes most women with her kind of figure would have worn. It was as if she’d sought to hide her assets, rather than accentuate them.
That had been an interesting eye-opener, and he’d found the rest of her small studio apartment equally revealing. Instead of the warmth and intimacy he’d expected to find upon entering, the accommodations she called home had felt cold, sparse, and lonely. Her apartment was a compact place where she slept, ate meals, and studied, as indicated by the pile of books stacked on a corner table near the only window in the room. There was nothing to indicate she led anything more than a quiet, solitary life.
The apartment had been filled with only the bare living necessities—a box spring and mattress in the combo bedroom-living room, along with a nightstand and dresser drawers that were old and scarred and didn’t even match. An older model TV sat on a plastic crate, and her small dining table was flanked by two wooden chairs. Even her cupboards and refrigerator only held a few staple items.
He’d gotten the distinct impression that she could get up and go at a moment’s notice and not miss anything she left behind. There was nothing permanent to indicate she’d settled down for good in Oakland. Her belongings were meager, and he hadn’t found anything to disclose who she was beyond what he already knew.
He’d even gone so far as to search drawers, hoping to find some