Kill Me Again

Her eyes widened, and the word no burst from her lips before she could give it any thought. A rush of heat suffused her cheeks, and she didn’t meet his eyes.

He lowered his head as if disappointed, and said, “So we’re just friends, then?”

She frowned at him, tipping her head to one side and searching his face as she finally caught on. “Are you teasing me? A man in your condition?”

“My condition isn’t all that bad. Doc Redhead out there tells me I’m fine. Aside from the fact that the only thing in my head right now is a massive ache, I actually feel pretty good for a guy who just took a bullet. And no, I wasn’t teasing. Not entirely. I was hoping to God they finally found someone who knows me. Intimately.” He sighed heavily, told himself to quit with the self-pity and get on with this. “So how do you know me, Olivia?”

“I don’t,” she said. “I’m sorry, but we’ve never actually met.”

Nodding, and trying not to literally deflate in disappointment, he said, “Figures. It’s just about in keeping with the way my day’s been going, I guess.”

He pursed his lips and reminded himself that this poor woman wasn’t the one who’d shot him. Then again, how could he even be sure of that much?

He looked at her again, and thought, no, she wasn’t the kind to put a bullet in a man. Not like that—not in the back of his head. She was stiff, kind of wary, maybe a little repressed, but not mean. Not a killer.

“Why don’t you sit down, Olivia, and tell me about myself?”

“I’ll try.” She moved to the chair beside the bed and adjusted it to a position she liked, a little closer, angled toward him so she could see his face. Then she sat down, her lithe frame folding itself into the chair in a smooth, easy motion. She crossed her legs at the ankles, leaned her knees to one side. “I didn’t expect you to be so…”

“What? Grouchy? Sarcastic? Getting shot in the head will do that to a guy. Sorry I’m not pouring on the charm.”

“I understand that,” she said. “It’s just that your books are so—”

“My books?”

She bit her lip, then nodded and shifted in the chair. “Maybe I’d better start at the beginning.”

“Maybe you’d better.” He sat up in the bed, though he’d been told not to.

“Okay.” Smoothing her skirt over her nicely shaped thighs, she seemed to organize her thoughts. “Okay,” she said again. “I’m Professor Olivia Dupree. I teach English over at the State University of Vermont’s Shadow Falls campus. Shadow Falls—that’s where you are now. I’ve been here for sixteen years, and I’ve been helping to plan this year’s summer fundraiser series for—”

“Excuse me.” He held up a hand, and she stopped speaking. “I really do want to know all about you at some point, Olivia, but right now, could you get to me?”

She held his gaze, and hers went stony. “Not if you keep interrupting.”

So, she had a bit of a temper. Good. He liked that. She wasn’t as tame as she appeared. Sighing, he felt around in the covers for the remote, then pressed a button to raise the bed so he could lean back without being entirely prone. His head felt loads better than when he’d been sitting upright, and he made a mental note that the redheaded doc had been right about that.

“Where was I?”

“Summer fundraiser for something or other,” he said.

“Short-term memory is all right, then?”

He met her eyes, saw the sarcasm, figured he had it coming. “I’ll try not to interrupt again.”

She nodded. “It’s all relevant, I promise.”

He nodded at her to continue.

“I’ve been reading Aaron Westhaven for years. He’s known to be very reclusive, very private. Still, I used to write to him once a year or so at a P.O. box that was listed in his first novel.”

“And you think I’m him?” he asked.

She lowered her head and lifted her brows at the same time, sending him a look that told him he’d interrupted her again.

“Sorry,” he said. “Continue.”

“I never heard back, and the address was missing from all the future books. But I kept writing. Every time a new book came out, I would read it and send a letter. I liked to think of him—you—getting my letters personally, not along with the piles through the publisher. I liked to think of…you reading them with the same eagerness I felt whenever I got the newest novel.”

He was frowning as he watched her go on. Her eyes actually lit up as she talked about a man she’d never even met. Until now. Maybe.

“I guess I should say thank you,” he said. “And, uh, maybe apologize for never writing back.”

She shrugged. “Don’t be silly. What celebrity answers his own fan mail?”

He shrugged. “A recluse can’t, by definition, be a celebrity, can he?”

“Of course he can.”

“Well, celebrity or not, it seems rude as hell to me.”

She smiled a little. “If you are him, you can apologize to me later.”

He was beginning to hope he was, so her doubt jabbed at him a little. “You’re not sure I’m him, then?”

“I’m fairly certain,” she said. “It’s just that Westhaven is so reclusive. No public appearances, no known photographs, even—”

“Damn,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Aaron Westhaven is an asshole, that’s what.”

Her eyes widened, and she’d risen from her chair before he’d stopped speaking. “He is—you are not!”

“If I’m him, I am. I mean, who do I think I am? Shakespeare? Where do I get off, anyway?”

“You are not an…an asshole,” she said, stumbling a bit over a word he was certain she’d never uttered in her life. “If you’ll let me finish my story, you’ll begin to see that.”

“Fine. Finish the story.”

She smoothed her hands over the seat of her skirt, forcing his eyes to follow, and sat down the way he imagined royalty would.

“All right. So, despite…your…understandable reluctance to answer what must have seemed like fan mail, I decided to write again, asking you to come and speak at the annual summer fundraiser lecture series for the English department. To my surprise, I received a response this time. An acceptance.”

“I said yes?” Then he rolled his eyes at his own question. “I guess I must have. I’m here.” Then he thought about it a bit further, because her explanation didn’t make a lot of sense. He wondered what reason she might have to lie to him, then wondered what reason anyone would have to execute him. And then he wondered if the two things were related.

He looked her up and down slowly. No. She really wasn’t the type.