Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            Mike opened his mouth to argue, then snapped it closed. “Fine. I’ll wait down here.”

            Yeah, buddy. You do that.

            Tom took the stairs two at a time, slowing when he reached the hall upstairs. He’d helped her move in, so he knew where her bedroom was. He’d even been in it a few times, when she had woken screaming from a nightmare that she wouldn’t discuss, no matter how many times he’d asked.

            That Mike the Groper had been here, too, even if only to tuck Liza safely into bed . . . Well, he didn’t like it. At all.

            He started to knock on her door, then stilled. He could hear her, and she was crying. Still.

            Goddammit. He felt horrible, made worse because he didn’t know what to apologize for. Carefully he knocked.

            “I’m fine, Mike,” he heard her say. “I already told you that. You can go home now.”

            That made Tom stand up straighter, and the tension released its grip on his chest. “It’s me, Liza. Can I come in?”

            Silence met his ears. Complete and suffocating.

            “Liza?” He rested his forehead on the door, suddenly weary. “Please?”

            She huffed out a breath. “Suit yourself.”

            He opened the door enough to make sure that she was decent before entering the room. A smile tugged at his lips at the sight of Pebbles curled up against Liza’s back, her head on the spare pillow. Pebbles lifted her head enough to see that it was him, then slumped back down with a doggy sigh.

            Liza was curled up as well, facing the window. She’d pulled the shade down, casting the room into semidarkness. “You can tell Irina that I’m fine. I know she told you to check on me.”

            Tom frowned, not sure what to say to that. If he acknowledged the statement, it made him look like he hadn’t cared enough to check himself. But it was true, so he couldn’t deny it, either.

            Instead he took a step forward, then another, until his knees were up against the mattress. “Why did you run from me?” he asked instead, because that was really what he wanted to know.

            “Why did you come here?”

            Her voice was hoarse, her nose stuffy. And he didn’t know how to help her.

            “I was worried today.” He wasn’t certain where the words came from, but once he’d said them, he realized this was where things had started to go wrong. “Not about Mercy and Abigail, because I knew you’d have shielded them with your own body if the bullets started flying. I knew they’d be fine.” A teensy exaggeration, but he figured no one would fault him. “I was worried about you. I was on that roof, Liza. I saw what that gunman would have seen, looking through that glass door. He would have seen you, wouldn’t he?”

            Another long silence, then, “Yeah. Probably.”

            Now she sounded small and vulnerable. He took a chance and rounded the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress near her knees. He stared at his hands. In the past he would have gathered her in his arms for a reassuring hug, but right now that seemed like a colossally poor idea.

            Her hair covered her face and he gently pushed it aside so that he could see her features. She was beautiful, but she always had been, from the moment he’d laid eyes on her when she’d only been seventeen. She’s not seventeen anymore. She really, really wasn’t.

            He shoved the thought aside because it felt so wrong. She was his friend. “Why did you run from me? What did I do?”

            Her eyes remained tightly closed. “Nothing,” she said in a tone that meant he’d done something. He hadn’t been born yesterday. He knew that women usually meant “something” when they said “nothing.” He also knew that pushing her was a bad plan.

            But not pushing hadn’t worked, either. “Something’s been bothering you,” he murmured, stroking her hair.

            For a moment she seemed to relax into his hand, but then she lurched back several inches, putting her out of his reach. “I’m all right,” she said through clenched teeth. “Why did you come here?”

            Tom recoiled as if she’d slapped him. She’d never pulled away from his touch. Not ever. His brain stalled and no words would come. “What did I do?” he whispered.