“What?” He looked around, and didn’t see what she did.

“This is our tree,” she croaked out. “You know, from the last time.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Damn good tree. Always there when you need it.”

She rested heavily against the rough bark. Sure. Damn good tree.

He smoothed her hair from her face. What strands hadn’t already been slipping from the crappy ponytail she’d pulled it into before leaving her apartment were now flying around her face from her first—and last—run. “Aileen . . . why’d you run?”

“I thought . . . that’s what . . . people did here,” she said slowly, using deep breaths between the words.

“Most people don’t come to the trails to sprint hell for leather, like they’re running to catch a bus. Especially when the most workout they’ve done recently is—”

She glared at him.

“—pick up a bowling ball,” he finished innocently.

She pushed at his shoulder. He didn’t budge.

“Come on, that was a good one.”

His boyish grin, so satisfied with himself, had her fighting a grin of her own. In these unguarded moments, it was all she could do not to yank his mouth down on hers and show him exactly how irresistible his true personality was. How much he shined when he opened himself up to someone else.

Journalistic integrity, Aileen . . .

Okay, another tack. She waited for her heart to slow to something resembling a human’s heartbeat, instead of a jackrabbit’s, and asked, “Is it my day, or yours?”

He blinked, and it was as if she could see him mentally taking a huge step away from her. For the best. Still hurt. “I’m not sure anymore. It’s . . . someone’s.”

She laughed. “Bunch of professionals, aren’t we? Maybe we’ll call today a wash and start tomorrow. You can have it, though I’m still not sure what you’re up to and why you want interview days with me.”

He watched as she straightened and took a few wobbly steps. His hands were by his sides now, but his alert posture told her if she started to pitch forward, he’d catch her without hesitation. “I’d feel better if you came back to the apartment with me. You’re a little shaky right now.”

“No, I’m good. Besides, you have to take me to my place anyway,” she reminded him, then took a chance and headed back to the path without any support. He didn’t argue when she turned back toward the parking lot. “Just watch to make sure I get inside my door, if you’re worried. That should satisfy your manly complex.”

“I don’t have a manly complex. I have an I give a shit about you complex.” He all but growled it, but she heard him clearly enough. “Is it so hard to believe I’d care about another human being?”

“Hard to believe you’d care about a journalist. Just think, if I stroked out, you’d be free and clear.” She said it lightly, with no malice, but his hand viced around her wrist and forced her to stop her slow trek. “What?”

“Don’t joke about shit like that. It’s not funny.” He was staring at her as if he had blinders on, oblivious to the world around. A jogger approached, slowed, then sighed and detoured around their statue-like bodies. She heard him grumble something about them being assholes before he continued.

“It was a joke,” she said slowly, tugging a little on her arm. He didn’t relent. “I’m sorry, it’s just a saying. I didn’t mean . . .”

He shook his head, then kept walking beside her. But she could tell he wasn’t happy with her.

Why had she made the joke in the first place? Death had never been an amusing topic for her, especially after her parents’ crash. All the sudden, she felt the need to make an awkward pun about dying? What was wrong with her?

She felt uncomfortable, that’s what. She was on shaky ground with Killian. Journalist/subject? Friends? More than friends? She’d let the lines blur in that hotel room in San Francisco, and that was her fault.

But worse than that, she wasn’t sure anymore where she wanted the needle to officially land when the fuzziness had cleared.

Chapter Thirteen

Killian approached the sad row of apartments. Each one looked more decrepit and ramshackle than the last, until she pointed to the final building on the right. “That’s me. I’m on the top floor.”

He glanced around, unimpressed by the area. A few beer cans littered the parking lot, the grass was either burned out or completely missing in patches, and . . . was that a bong, just sitting under that bush? Christ in-between the uprights, the place was filthy.

“Lived here long?” he asked in a neutral tone as he got out of the car. He hurried around to open her door, still concerned about how bone-white she’d turned after exerting herself on the trail. She was a bit too shaky for his taste, even half an hour later.

She raised a brow as she opened the door herself a second before he could reach it. “About three years. Why?”

“Nothing. Just curious.” He hovered, there was no other word for it. But he refused to be anywhere but right next to her, in case she actually did pitch forward and try to face plant on the cement sidewalk. He kept his hands to himself, however. That seemed to be where the trouble with Aileen always began. Touching.

She laughed, a little huff of breath. “Just curious, my ass. I know it’s a dump. But I’m saving up. Eventually I want to buy a condo, so while I do that, I put as little money as I can into rent and as much as possible into savings for my down payment. It’s an eyesore, but it’s not like I own it, so I don’t care if it looks run down or grosses people out.”

“Is it safe?” He avoided touching the railings as they went up. They were rusted. “I mean, ever had problems with break-ins?”

“Once, about a year ago.” She took her key from her jacket pocket and opened her door. “But then again, anyone can get broken into. I figure once in three years isn’t that big a deal. They got my spare change jar and my cell phone charger, sans cell phone. I’d had my laptop and phone with me, luckily. The TV was one of those old tubes, too heavy to grab and run. I basically live like a broke college student, so there’s next to nothing to take.”

She swung the door wide open, and he saw she wasn’t kidding. The entire apartment was likely less than five hundred square feet. And other than the bathroom, it was all one big room, studio-style. Clean, functional, but worn down in a way that had nothing to do with housekeeping and everything to do with the age of the building, and the clearly second-hand furniture.

He wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and run—not walk—to the nearest safe apartment complex and deposit her there. But there was no way she’d allow it. And he had no right. He took a few steps in and nodded, glancing around. “Not bad.”

She snorted and toed off her shoes, kicking them toward the end of the bed. He followed suit, though he placed his own running shoes near the door. “You don’t have to take your own shoes off. I’m not a dirt freak.”

“Habit.”

“Well, it’s cool if you want to keep them on. It’s not a great place, I know that. It’s pathetic. I mean, you don’t live in a palace or anything—”

“Don’t hold back,” he murmured with a smile.

“But I know it’s better than this. Some of us just don’t have the golden foot.”

He fought back the pang of guilt over that comment, joking though it was. He’d always felt a tinge of conscience about making the kind of money he did . . . for kicking things. It just seemed so absurd, especially since he had never been that little boy in Pee Wee football dreaming NFL dreams and wishing for a pro jersey. “Yeah, well, I’ve got the golden foot, you’ve got the golden pen.”