The noise of the bell had almost been enough to take the top of his head off.Through the greasily nauseous roiling going on inside, he tried to take stock, but it wasn’t pretty.His hair hurt. His eyelashes hurt. His toenails hurt. And everything else in between hurt.The telephone rang again and hammered sharply pointed spikes into his skull. He tried to bring a hand up to his head, but there was something on his arm. Nick moved his hand—even that small movement caused pain—and touched a soft, springy mass. Hair. Human hair.He hoped.The way he was feeling, maybe he had spent the night with a very furry gremlin.He opened one eye. Cautiously.Nope. No gremlin. A girl.She was sleeping with her back to him and all he could see was a finely drawn pale profile surrounded by a cloud of brandy-colored hair. He knew her. He knew he knew her. If only his brain could shoot him messages through the thick fog that fouled his head. As it was, merely trying to conjure up the memory of the face—and of last night—taxed his pain threshold.The phone rang again, the bell echoing shrilly in his head for long seconds.
