He ignored the relief racing through his body, the tightening of his muscles at the sensual sound of her voice, and the instant hard-on that never quite went away when he thought about her-which was all the time. “Damn it, Saber, don’t you dare tell me you landed yourself in jail again.” He really was going to strangle her. A man could only take so much.
Her sigh was exaggerated. “Honestly, Jesse, do you have to bring that silly incident up every time something goes wrong? It’s not like I tried to get arrested.”
“Saber,” he said in exasperation, “holding out your hands with your wrists together is asking to be arrested.”
“It was for a good cause,” she protested.
“Chaining yourself to an old folks’ home to call attention to conditions is not exactly the right way to go about changing things. Where the hell are you?”
“You sound like an old grumpy bear with a sore tooth.” Saber tapped out a rhythm with a long fingernail on the booth wall, one of the nervous habits she’d never overcome. “I’m stuck out here near the old warehouses, sort of, um, like by myself-without a car.”
“Damn it, Saber!”
“You already said that,” she pointed out judiciously.
“You stay put.” Cold steel was in the deep timbre of his voice. “Don’t leave that phone booth. You hear me, Saber? I’d better not find you throwing dice with a bunch of deadbeats down there.”
“Very funny, Jesse.”
She laughed, actually laughed, the little brat. Jess slammed down the phone, itching to shake her. The thought of her, so fragile and unprotected, down near the warehouses, one of the worst parts of town, scared him to death.
Saber hung up and leaned weakly against the wall of the phone booth, momentarily closing her eyes. She was trembling so hard she could barely stand. It took an effort to pry her fingers, one by one, from the receiver. She hated the dark, the demons lurking in the shadows, the way the black night could turn people into savage animals. Her job at the radio station, the job she owed to Jess, couldn’t have been better suited to her, because she could stay up all night.