Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [48]
“What’s the matter with you?” She obviously didn’t see the dark wagon rolling in her direction.
He didn’t stop to explain. Instead, he merely charged her, sweeping her to the side and tackling her to the ground right behind the boulder, knowing it was less than five feet from the edge. But it was enormous and there was no way the carriage would have any impact on it, even if it hit the rock head on.
He hoped.
Fortunately, the theory wasn’t put to the test. Because about five seconds after he and Lottie had hit the ground—rolling over on the wet grass, both of them scraping themselves on the rocks and old dead tree limbs—the antique buggy went rolling past. Moving fast, having picked up speed as it rolled downhill, it missed the boulder by mere inches.
Shaking, rattling, it reached the edge of the lawn and barreled straight on, exactly where Lottie had been standing.
And went right over the cliff.
“ARE YOU SURE you’re all right?” Simon asked as he and Lottie sat in front of the fireplace in his office a short time later. She was curled up under a blanket on the sofa, shivering, though he knew she wasn’t cold.
She was terrified. “It would have killed me.”
“You’re fine,” he murmured.
“That thing would have nailed me and taken me over with it. I would have seen it a moment too late and been hit dead-on.”
Knowing he needed to calm her down, before her admittedly vivid imagination got too out of hand, he sat on the ottoman across from her, dropping his elbows onto his knees and leaning close. “You would have heard it in plenty of time, Lottie. The thing rattled like a freight train.”
She just shook her head. “I wouldn’t have, I was too busy, cursing you under my breath just like my great-aunt Carmela does whenever she’s mad at someone. I wouldn’t have heard a thing.”
Nice to have a little forewarning about what she did when she was mad at someone. But Simon didn’t waste time thinking about that now. He only wanted to calm her down, to reassure her that she was fine. Safe.
That he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
God, he would never let anything happen to her. He was still utterly terrified at just how close a call it had been.
“Where the hell did that thing come from, anyway?” Though her voice shook, a bit of toughness appeared in her expression.
“It’s been just a backyard decoration for years. It’s usually got blocks of wood stopping it from going anywhere. I have no idea how it could have started rolling.”
She looked him in the eye for a long moment, and in her dark eyes, he saw a number of questions. Concerns. Worries.
One thing he did not see, however, was fear. Not of him, anyway.
He couldn’t even begin to thank her for that trust. Nor could he begin to evaluate why he was so damned grateful for it when he’d been telling himself for months that he didn’t care what anyone thought of him. “I swear to you,” he murmured, “I would never do anything to put you at risk.”
She waved her hand, grunting. “Of course you wouldn’t. You can’t possibly think I suspect you just tried to bump me off.”
He didn’t answer at first. No, he hadn’t thought that…but it occurred to him that if his cleaning lady had been the one on the cliffs, that’s exactly what she’d have thought. What most people would have thought.
But Lottie trusted him. End of story. God, had he ever been that trusting? That quick to evaluate someone and put all your faith in them, to never doubt?
“Damn, Simon, what is going on with you?” she asked, appearing shocked and dismayed by his continued silence. “You actually think I’d suspect you? What on earth happened to you to give you this awful outlook on yourself and on other people?”
He knew she wanted answers. He couldn’t, however, give them to her. Instead, gently pulling her fingers open so he could look at her palm, he said, “Your hands are pretty cut up. You should go get these clean.”
Sighing audibly, she shook her head, silently expressing her disappointment. Then she flipped his hand over,