In the Blink of an Eye

“Thanks.” It was Eli who answered.

But as she crossed through the dining room en route to Mac’s locked door, she noticed that neither officer chose to sit.

That unnerved feeling crept along her spine again. Not for the first time that morning, she wished she was home, locked in her own room with her books and the mementoes from her childhood. Locked up in the past where she didn’t have to deal with men and their egos and all the games they liked to play.

Fearing the volume of Mac’s scarred voice would reach their guests in the living room, Julia gritted her teeth and knocked quietly on the old oak door.

“Mac, there are two police officers here to see you.”

“Nice try.” His tortured rasp reached no farther than her own ears. “Leave me alone.”

She glanced down the hallway and offered an embarrassed smile to the two officers whose watchful gaze she could feel, even at this distance.

She knocked again. “It’s Joe Niederhaus and Eli Masterson from Internal Affairs. They need to speak to you.”

She rested her ear against the wood and listened for sounds of activity on the other side. She heard the creak of a mattress. But was he getting into bed or out?

When another minute of silence answered her, she assumed he’d gone to bed and dismissed her. Her disappointment hissed out on a breath of air. Great. Now she’d have to come up with some excuse to get the detectives out of the house. Something like, Mac’s on his pity pot right now and won’t come out. Or, the professor’s in the middle of an experiment, and doesn’t want any company until hell freezes over.

She jumped at the unexpected click of the lock. Her breath came in shallow, sporadic gasps as the door opened a slit and Mac’s blank gaze glowered into the hallway.

“If you’re lying to me…”

The accusation hurt. If only. If she was a better liar, she could have saved herself a lot of pain over the years. “I’m not. It’s one of my shortcomings.”

His eyes swiveled from side to side, as if searching. But for what? “Is that supposed to mean something?”

She looked up into his face and shrugged, behaving as if he could see her reaction. Acting as if the expression on her face could tell him all about how much believing in lies had cost her.

But he couldn’t really see her. Nobody could see inside to the insecurities of a lifetime. She covered the awkward moment as she always did. By turning it into a joke.

“It means your company’s waiting in the living room. It’s a hazard area, so we don’t want to leave them there for long.”

His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, as if the effort to figure her out made him weary.

“Internal Affairs?” he asked.

Julia nodded, then realized the foolishness of the gesture. She gave the verbal answer he needed. “Yes.”

The door opened wider. She watched in curious fascination as his long, eloquent fingers reached out through the doorway. She stepped aside when she realized he was coming on out, but didn’t move quickly enough to avoid the graze of his fingers across her cheek in an unintended caress.

Mac snatched his hand away as if he’d been burned. “Sorry.”

“No problem.” She failed to keep the catch from her voice. But at least she could spare herself the embarrassment of him seeing how the pink blotches of self-consciousness heating her face clashed with the honey-tan freckles that covered her skin.

For years, she’d fantasized about Mac Taylor touching her in a personal way. They’d collided more than once today, but she knew his hand skimming her breast or cheek meant nothing.

Whenever a man touched her, it meant nothing.

“We’d better get out there.” He nodded at the reminder. Julia swallowed what was left of her battered pride and made doubly sure to get out of his way as he marched Frankenstein-like across the hall.

When his hand hit the wall, he turned. Trailing the fingers of his right hand along the panelling, he reached out with his left, moving it back and forth in the uneven sway of a broken pendulum. Julia followed a step behind, chomping down on the urge to take his arm and guide him safely out to his guests.

“You really should have the rugs removed,” she admonished, when he stumbled on the dining room carpet. “Streamline the arrangement of furniture so you don’t have as many turns in your pathway.”

Mac stopped midstride and turned his face over his shoulder as if he could peer at her. “Drop the fix-it-up routine, okay?”

“I’m surprised the other nurses didn’t make those recommendations.” He turned so that his body faced her, and opened his mouth for another terse remark. But Julia cut him off. “I’ll bet they did. You’re just too pigheaded to let anybody try to help.”

“If you’re trying to goad me—”

“Officer Taylor?”

Mac stilled at the question from behind him. Julia’s combative energy whooshed out at the transformation on Mac’s face. Even sightless, even scarred and stiff, his features changed from defensive to startled to suddenly wary.

“Mac?” One golden brow dipped at the corner. She wondered what thoughts crossed that clever mind of his. “Mac?” she repeated.

Remembering their last encounter, when Mac reached out, she backed up. “No.”

Responding to body heat or instinct or pure luck, he clamped his hands around her shoulders and kept her in place. A fourth expression altered the contours of his face. The man was tucking away his pride.

Curious, yet disheartened at the same time, Julia held still as he trailed his fingers down the sleeve of her cotton sweater to the crook of her elbow. He held on and circled around her. She realized his intent when he aligned himself behind her left shoulder.

“Take me to the living room.”

Considering his aversion to any kind of help from her thus far, this display of trust surprised her. “You sure?”

“Internal Affairs never pays a social visit. I’d better find out what they want and send them on their way.”

“That sounds comforting.” With a shade of sarcasm coloring her voice, she covered her hand with his. She held off reminding him how his less than pleasant demeanor had been more than enough to chase away several people. These two cops shouldn’t be a problem. She led him on a straight path down through the dining room, without once allowing him to bump into anything.

The two detectives exchanged curious glances as they entered the living room.

“Recliner or sofa?” she asked, ready to forge a path to either seat.

Mac straightened behind her, standing almost a head taller than she, as if he could sense the surprised scrutiny of Niederhaus and Masterson. “I’ll stand. You boys never see a blind man before?”

Niederhaus seemed genuinely surprised to see the extent of Mac’s handicap. “We heard you were in the explosion that killed Jeff Ringlein.”

Mac’s grip tightened around her arm, betraying a tension that put her on guard. Was he about to bolt? Should she get rid of these two men?

But Mac patted her hand, and sounded perfectly at ease when he answered. “I was there, all right. What can I do for you?”

Amazed at the transition from hotheaded patient to cool-under-pressure cop, Julia disengaged herself from Mac. “Would you gentlemen like some coffee?”

Eli Masterson smiled and dismissed her at the same time. “Thank you. Black, please.”

“Yeah. Me, too,” said his partner.