Damn him if he didn't chuckle with his eyes still closed.
"No good. I was hooked on that, too."
Timmie wanted to laugh, damn him. "Anything you weren't hooked on?"
He considered. "Not that I can remember."
"A full life lived, huh? I'll just go throw out all the cough syrup and aftershave so you don't end up crawling across the floor in the dead of night."
"Won't happen," he said, then offered another crooked grin. "Not this time, anyway."
Timmie had been about to get to her feet. That one stopped her cold. Well, wasn't that just the story of her life? The man she'd dreamed about was a disappointment, and the one she was attracted to was a dead-end proposition. Not this time. It pretty much closed the conversation.
"Well, then," she said, wiping her hands as she finished her climb. "I guess I should probably at least get the name of your next of kin, so I know who to contact if you croak on my floor."
He seemed to think about that, too. "My wife, I guess."
Another double take. Her third in only five minutes. It was definitely not her night. "I thought you said you had three strikes against you."
He grinned again, which was making her testy. "I do. I just haven't worked up the energy to walk away from the plate... Oh, God, I must feel bad. I'm doing baseball analogies."
This time Timmie did laugh as she walked over to the phone. "So, what's the opera equivalent? The fat lady's sung but the curtain puller's asleep?"
He laughed back and groaned. Served him right. Timmie was just about to lift the receiver when the thing rang. For a second, all she could do was stare at it.
"I think it's for you," Murphy suggested in that hurt-rib-careful voice he was using.
"Uh-uh," she disagreed, shaking her head. "The way my luck's been going tonight, it's probably Jason wanting to gloat about breaking in."
The phone kept ringing, shrill and threatening in the early-morning quiet.
"Breaking in? What are you talking about?"
"The board over the door," she said. "You weren't the first one to make a surprise appearance tonight."
Timmie looked over to see Murphy open his eyes, assess the hastily attached boards on the graying door. "Leary..."
But she couldn't wait anymore. She just picked up the phone. "What?"
"You didn't listen."
Oh, shit. It wasn't Jason at all.
"I think I'm getting my phone threat," she informed Murphy dourly, then turned to her caller. "Okay," she said, infuriated by the fact that her heart rate had just doubled. "I give up. Who is this?" She also hit the Record button on her answering machine, because half-whispered threats in the dead of night pissed her off.
"Your voice of reason. You should have listened."
"Listened to what?" she demanded. "You think I'm going to pay attention to somebody who cuts his threats out of a Cosmo?"
"Take a look at Mr. Murphy. You think that's a joke? How about your front door?"
Her front door. Wonderful. Better and better. She had the creeps harder than she'd ever had them in L.A. Well, at least that meant that Jason wasn't harassing her. Yet. He'd probably show up right after she got the glass replaced. And she didn't even want to think right now about what the hell they'd done to her house if she hadn't noticed anything out of place.
"Okay, I'll bite," she drawled. "Who are you and what are we supposed to stop doing?"
"We're just people with the welfare of this town in mind. You and Air. Murphy obviously aren't."
Timmie probably shouldn't have, but she laughed. "Great. I'm being threatened by the Puckett Chamber of Commerce. I would have thought you guys were too busy printing up complimentary calendars to bother with breaking and entering."
"You're not taking this seriously enough."
"You still haven't told me what we've done."
"You know what you've done. Do you think Dr. Raymond would still see you if he knew you were trying to ruin him?"
Timmie actually found herself spluttering. Stunned, furious, frightened all over again.
Alex.
No, no, no. It couldn't be Alex.
She tried to form a coherent answer, at least a noise of real outrage, but the caller had already hung up.
"Leary?" Murphy asked from behind her.
"Well, that tears it," she snapped, slamming the receiver down so hard the phone jumped in its little alcove. "I'm on the next stage out of town. Los Angeles was way more fun than this."
"Leary? Who was it?"
That finally got her to turn around, only to find that Murphy wasn't where she'd left him. He was, in fact, tottering toward her, his free hand leaving bloody smudges on the dingy brown couch, his arm tight around his ribs, his face the color of her front door.
"You idiot!" she snapped, truly mad. "Lie down somewhere before you fall again and knock all this crap over and I just have to clean it up right after I clean you!"
His grin was probably about sixty watts shy of what he was trying to project. "It is an... interesting room."
"Shut up." She stalked over and grabbed him by the armpit.
"Ouch."
Timmie at least got him on the couch—after she'd swept it clean of the insurance forms her grandmother had seemed to collect on a par with Christmas cookie recipes.
"Hey, Leary?" Murphy asked as she stuffed another pillow under his head.
"What?"
"Tell me that's not a tattoo on your thigh."
Timmie instinctively looked down to make sure her dress hadn't hiked up. It hadn't. But it did tend to float out a bit.
"Great view from the floor," Murphy allowed, eyes half open. "Good thing I'm an honorable man. Is it a tattoo?"
"What's it to you?" she demanded, hand instinctively covering the spot even over her dress.
Murphy groaned. "It's a rose, isn't it, Leary? I love rose tattoos. They're sexy as hell, especially there. I don't suppose you'd want to have my babies, would you?"
There he went again. How could he be this offensive and this funny at the same time? How could he make her feel so itchy with just that damn smile? Timmie grabbed a particularly vile puce afghan and plopped it over him as if she were burying not only him, but every wayward thought in her head. "I'd rather skin myself alive with a nail file than have another relationship with an unreformed drunk, Murphy."
He smiled. He smiled! "Okay, then, how about some meaningless sex?"
For just that second before her better sense kicked in, Timmie actually considered it. Thankfully, her better sense was stronger than her libido, and she remembered just what a disaster it had been when she'd followed the meaningless-sex dictates of stage three of divorce. "I only have sex after I jog, Murphy. If you can get off that couch and run six miles right now, it's a deal."
She got another groan. "You're heartless, Leary."
"No, I'm not," she said, feeling a little better. "If I were heartless, I'd tell Barb what you just said before I let her stitch you up."
And with that, finally, she went to call her friend.
* * *
"This probably isn't a good idea," Murphy managed almost an hour later.
"Shut up," both Timmie and Barb answered in unison.
"But you shouldn't be involved," Murphy insisted as the sleep-tousled giantess pulled his shirt off to check him.
He was colorful, that was for sure. The bruises were brick red and purpling, even with the Baggie-loads of ice Timmie had already supplied. Clad in bright orange sweats, Barb examined him with gentle efficiency. Murphy winced and cursed under his breath as they moved him, but he behaved. Having already seen the worst when she'd cleaned him, Timmie kept her mouth shut and her mind on the newest problems they had.