Key Of Knowledge by Nora Roberts Page A

don’t suppose you’d consider bunking at Flynn’s for the next little while. I can take my stuff over to Brad’s and hang there if that’s a factor.”
    She turned back slowly. “Are you being accommodating because I was hysterical?”
    â€œI’m being accommodating because I want you to feel safe. To be safe.”
    â€œNo need to put yourself out.”
    â€œI care about you.” He shifted, blocking her exit before she could move past him. There was a quick flash of rage over his face, almost as quickly banked.
    Where had that been hiding? she wondered. And how did he tuck it away again?
    â€œI care, Dana. Just for a minute, one damn minute, set aside the way things ended up. We cared about each other, and if you’d feel safer at Flynn’s, I’ll get out of your way.”
    â€œAll the way back to New York?”
    His mouth thinned as he took one of the bottles out of her hands. “No.”
    Maybe it was unfair to poke and prod at him. But what the hell did she care about fair when it came to Jordan? “I wouldn’t feel safer at Flynn’s—with or without you around. In spite of my condition when you knocked on the door, I can take care of myself. I did take care of myself. I got out of it without your help. And nobody, not you, not that bastard Kane, is going to run me out of my own apartment.”
    â€œWell.” He took a sip of beer. “I see you’ve moved to the pissed-off stage of tonight’s entertainment.”
    â€œI don’t like being manipulated. He used my own thoughts against me, and you’re using old feelings. We cared about each other?” she shot out. “Maybe we did, but remember, that’s past tense. If you want to be such a nice guy and get out of my way, then get out of it now. You’re crowding me.”
    â€œI’ve got things to say to you, and if I’ve got to block you in to get you to hear them, then that’s the way it is. I didn’t know you loved me. I don’t know what it would have changed, I just know it would’ve changed . . . something. Just like I know I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t smart enough or steady enough.”
    â€œYou were smart and steady enough to do what you wanted.”
    â€œThat’s exactly right.” With his eyes locked on hers, he nodded. “I was self-absorbed, broody, and restless. What the hell did you want with me, anyway?”
    â€œYou idiot.” Because she’d lost her taste for it, she set the beer aside. “You’ve just described the sort of guy every girl falls for at least once. Then you add those whiffs of recklessness, the brain, the looks, and the chemistry, and I didn’t have a chance. How can you make a living writing about people when you don’t understand half of them?”
    When she tried to push past him, he took her arm. The look she sent him could have melted steel. “Buy a clue, Hawke. I said girls fall for once . Girls generally evolve into smart and steady women who put away the childish things like self-absorbed assholes.”
    â€œThat’s good. I prefer women.” He put his beer on the counter. “I’ve always preferred you.”
    â€œDo you think that makes my heart go pitty-pat?”
    â€œNot yours, Stretch. But this might.”
    He caught her face in his free hand, allowed himself the perverse pleasure of seeing her fury leap out of her eyes, then covered her mouth with his.
    Thank God, he thought, thank God she was angry enough that he could do what he hadn’t been able to do when she was pale and shaken.
    There’d never been a taste he’d craved the way he craved Dana’s. He had never understood it. And never worried that he should. It simply was. She might rake him to the bone for it, but he had a point to prove. To both of them.
    He wasn’t gentle. She’d never seemed to expect or need gentleness from