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police. His rightness irked her even more. “Keep your unsolicited advice. Why did you break into my store?”
    “I didn’t break in.” Sam put down the vase, tore off a length of paper towels and pressed them to his head. “Geez, you really see me as one step above pond scum, don’t you?”
    “Pond scum doesn’t skulk around, uninvited, in the shadows.”
    “Ivy gave me a key.” Sam fished it out of his pocket and twisted it in the air with all the melodrama of a blood-stained knife being exhibited at a trial. “So I could accept all the deliveries. Boxes have been coming in at a steady clip for about a week now.”
    She didn’t understand. Once, sure. But to do it for a week? That was a favor of enormous proportion. “You just drop everything and pop over?”
    “Sure. Not an inconvenience to walk ten steps and unlock a door.” He pointed across from them at a door she hadn’t noticed yet in the middle of the wall. “My shop’s right through there. I hear the doorbell, and I take a five-minute break. No big deal.”
    “You can come and go, into my store, whenever you like?” The idea of someone essentially trespassing at will snapped her back teeth into a grind. Even if that someone stood more than six feet and had biceps that bulged out of his T-shirt.
    “I call it being neighborly.” He shrugged, then immediately winced. Blood still dripped at a shockingly steady rate down his neck. A guillotine victim probably had less blood stains than Sam’s shirt. The poor man might need stitches, or even have a concussion. Guilt swamped Mira. Her privacy tirade could wait. She’d inflicted the injury to him, so it fell to her to clean him up. Just like she’d have to clean the red smears on the beautiful pine floor.
    “I’m sorry I hit you. And I’m worried about how much you’re bleeding. Let’s get you to the bathroom and assess the damage. Maybe I should take you to a hospital?”
    “Thought you didn’t have a car.” He sounded a little sulky, but calmer.
    “I don’t. But I’m not going to let you bleed to death on the floor, either. Calling a cab is not outside the realm of my abilities.”
    Sam waved a hand in the air as if erasing the suggestion. “I used to play hockey. This is just a scratch. Slap a bandage on it and I’ll be okay. Although I might have to add in a couple of drinks tonight to offset the massive headache that’s settling in.” Groaning, he bent over and grabbed a first-aid kit from under the sink. Great. He even knew his way around the place. Mira didn’t know they owned a first-aid kit, let alone where it lived. Sam was single-handedly taking the brand-new luster off of her shop.
    Remembering the layout from the floor plan Ivy had sent, Mira tromped down the hall to the bathroom. With Sam in and out on a daily basis, she assumed the electricity was, indeed, working. A flick of a switch illuminated the tiny room, painted crimson with black trim. It dripped with all the dark sensuality of a vampire’s lair. Sam loped in behind her and took a seat on the black toilet lid.
    Up close and in full light, the injury looked worse than she’d realized. A long gash slanted diagonally from his temple to just below his ear on the back of his head. On the plus side, it did give her hope that one more good swing would’ve taken him—or an actual burglar—down. Mira popped open the box he handed her and pulled out a fistful of gauze.
    “Hold this on your head while I get the antiseptic.”
    “Hang on.” In one smooth yank, Sam pulled off his shirt. She understood why. It was wet and sticky with his blood. What she couldn’t understand was how she was supposed to help him when all she could do was stare at the... God, the magnificence he’d revealed. Dark hair dusted each manly pec. Biceps that were too big to wrap her hand around rose to thickly muscled shoulders. Tanned skin stretched across tightly defined abs, bisected by a thick, dark, sexy line leading straight into the