Girl Gear 6: Indiscreet by Alison Kent

was needed, no matter how many times and with how many arguments her body insisted otherwise. Just like her mother, Patrick would continue to live in his insular world as long as he was coddled.
    Kicking him out of her life represented her defiant refusal to coddle.
    So why was she less than confident about her plan’s chances for success?
    The ride back to the loft from Central Market continued to pass in total silence. No. That wasn’t quite right because, as she drove, she heard everything Patrick wasn’t saying. She maneuvered her Jaguar back down Westheimer, seeing the expression on his face that said he was plotting the many ways he could use her.
    She hated him for that, for making her shiver and sweat with the heady anticipation. For making her weak with wanting him. Because she was. And she did.
    She pulled into the garage and parked, popping the trunk and wordlessly reaching for the grocery bags. Patrick, cursing under his breath, slammed the car door and followed. Having apparently given up his vow of silence, he grabbed all but the one bag she already held.
    She closed the trunk, lifted a brow, prepared to demand that he leave his attitude here in the garage or she would send him packing now and agree to Newvale’sreplacement caterer, last-minute hassles be damned. She had no idea what was going on in Patrick’s shaved head, but she was tired of his mood swings, the ups, the downs, the in-betweens that raised her hopes when she knew better.
    She knew better.
    But just as she opened her mouth to speak, Patrick’s head came up. His eyes grew wide. His body froze. And then his head, nothing more, slowly turned. His eyes blinked once, then narrowed. His nostrils flared as if he were a fox sniffing the air.
    “Patr—” was all she got out before he cut her off with one sharp shake of his head.
    He slowly lowered the grocery bags to the concrete floor, soundlessly crept along the length of her car. He stopped beside the support post in front of the Jag’s bumper. She heard the click of his knife blade latching in its grip, and her heart shot into her throat.
    Knees locked, she stood unmoving at the rear of her car. He peered around the post’s corner to the street below. He was so still it was as if his heart had stopped beating. As if his lungs had ceased to inflate. As if his eyes no longer needed the blinking wash from his eyelids. He was a jungle cat, the picture of a predator, stealth standing on two feet.
    And she could barely breathe.
    Her hands grew damp as she instinctively waited for his word that she was safe. Safe from what, she had no idea. But Patrick’s demeanor left little doubt that he sensed a real threat. She’d never seen him like this. Frightened barely defined what she felt. She couldn’t even work her throat to swallow.
    His body flat to the concrete pillar, he switched his lookout from right to left. Annabel hadn’t moved a muscle, wasn’t sure moving a muscle was even a possibility. Her arms burned from holding herself and the groceries unnaturally tight and still.
    He looked down then, dropped to one palm and one knee and reached beneath her car. She heard the sharp scratchy clinck of metal on concrete as he stabbed the knifepoint into the garage floor. Seconds ticked by before he pushed himself back to his feet and pocketed the blade.
    Dusting chalky dirt from his knees, he walked back to where he’d left her standing. He took the bag she still held and she shook her arms until tingles of feeling returned.
    Rolling her head from side to side on her shoulders, she nodded toward his free hand. “What did you find?”
    He opened his palm to reveal a cigarette butt.
    She stopped moving; her rapid heartbeat resumed its pounding against the wall of her chest. “All of that for a cigarette butt?”
    He shrugged. “I thought I smelled something burning.”
    She was going to kill him. Kill him where he was standing. “For God’s sake, Patrick. It’s just a cigarette butt.”
    He