Hawk's Way Grooms (6 page)

He gave a relieved sigh. “That's exactly what I'd like to do. It was an accident. I never intended for it to happen. I wish I could promise it won't happen again, but—” He shot her a chagrined look. “I'll be sure you're never embarrassed again. Am I forgiven?”

“There's no need—”

“Just say yes,” he said.

“Yes.”

She turned abruptly and started walking again, and he followed after her.

“I'm glad that's over with,” he said. “I can't afford to lose a friend as good as you, Jewel.”

“And I can't afford to lose a friend like you, Mac.”

Jewel's eyes were as brown and sad as a motherless calf. Mac wished she had told him why she was crying last night. He wished she had let him comfort her. If she ever gave him another chance, he was going to do it right. He wasn't going to let his hormones get in the way of their friendship.

When they got back to the house, she hurried up the back steps ahead of him. “I get the shower first!”

“We could always share,” he teased. He could have bitten his tongue out. That sort of sexual innuendo had to cease.

To his relief, Jewel gave him a wide smile and said, “In your dreams, Mac! I'll try to save you a little hot water.”

Then she was gone.

Mac settled on the back stoop and rubbed the calf muscles of his injured leg. It was getting easier to walk. Practice was helping. And it would get easier to treat Jewel as merely a friend. All he had needed was a little more practice at that, too.

 

A
FTER HE HAD SHOWERED
, M
AC MADE
a point of seeking Jewel out, determined to work on reestablishing their friendship. He found her in the barn, cleaning stalls and shoveling in new hay for the dozen or so ponies Camp LittleHawk kept available for horseback rides. “Can I help?” he said.

“There's another pitchfork over by the door. Be my guest.”

Mac noticed she didn't even look up from her work. Not a very promising sign. He grabbed the pitchfork and went to work in the stall next to the one she was working in. “I thought your mom usually hired someone to do this kind of heavy labor.”

“I don't have anything better to do with my time,” Jewel said.

“Why not?” Mac asked. “Pretty girl like you ought to be out enjoying herself.”

Jewel stuck her pitchfork into the hay and turned to stare at him. “I enjoy my work.”

“I'm sure you do,” he said, throwing a pitchfork of manure into the nearby wheelbarrow. “But there's a time for work and a time for play. I don't see you doing enough playing.”

“I'm a grown-up woman, Mac. Playing is for kids.”

“You're never too old to play, Jewel.” Mac filled his pitchfork with clean straw and threw it up over the stall so it landed on Jewel's head.

She came out of her stall sputtering and picking straw out of her mouth, mad as a peeled rattler. She confronted him, hands on hips and said, “That wasn't funny!”

He set his pitchfork against the stall and laughed. “I think you look darned cute with straw sticking out of your hair every whichaway.” He headed toward her to help pull out some of the straw.

When he got close enough, she gave him a shove that sent him onto his behind. Only the straw Mac landed in wasn't clean. He gave a howl of outrage and struggled up out of the muck, glaring at the stain on the back of his jeans. “What'd you do that for?”

She grinned. “I think you look darned cute, all covered with muck.”

“You know this means war.”

“No, Mac. We're even now. Don't—”

He lunged toward her, caught her by the waist and threw her up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

“Watch out for your leg!” Jewel cried. “You're going to hurt yourself carrying me like this.”

“My leg is fine,” Mac growled. “Good enough to get you where I want you.”

Mac headed for the short stack of hay at one end of the barn and when he got there, dropped Jewel into it. When she tried to jump free, he came down on top of her and pinned her hands on either side of her.

“Mac,” she said breathlessly, laughing. “Get up.”

“I want to play some more, Emerald, my dear,” he said sprinkling her hair with hay.

“You're more green than I am,” she taunted.

Mac took a look at the back of his jeans. “Yes, and I think you should pay a forfeit for that.”

“You can have the shower first,” she said with a bubbly laugh. “You need it!”

His laugh was cut off when he realized that what he really wanted was a kiss. He stared at her curving mouth, at the way her nose wrinkled when she laughed, at the teasing sparkle in her brown eyes. “I think I'll take something now.”

He watched her face sober when she realized what he intended. He knew she must be able to feel his arousal, cradled as he was between her jean-clad thighs. He waited for her to tell him to let go, that the game was over. She stared up at him with luminous eyes and slicked her tongue quickly, nervously over her lips. But she didn't say get up or get off. And she didn't say no.

Friends, Mac. Not lovers. Friends.

Mac made himself kiss her eyelids closed before he kissed each cheek and then her nose and then…her forehead.

He rose abruptly and pulled her to her feet. She was dizzy, because her eyes had been closed, so he was forced to hold her in his arms until she was steady. She felt so good there, so very right. And so very wrong.

“I'm sorry, Jewel,” he said. “That was totally out of line.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, I suppose it was. I think it's your turn to pay a forfeit, Mac.”

He tensed. “What did you have in mind?”

She reached out, and for a moment he thought she was going to lay her hand on his chest and give him another shove. Instead, she grasped a nearby pitchfork and held it out to him. “You get to finish what I started. I'm going to get another shower and wash off all this itchy straw.”

“Hey! That's not fair,” he protested.

But she had already turned and stalked away.

“You and your bright ideas,” Mac muttered to himself as he pitched manure into the wheelbarrow. “What were you thinking? Maybe you could throw straw around when you were kids and it was funny, but there was nothing funny about what almost happened in that haystack. What if you'd kissed her lips? How would you have felt when she got upset?

How do you know she'd have been upset?

Mac mused over that question for the next hour as he finished cleaning stalls. Actually, Jewel had seemed more upset that he hadn't kissed her lips. Could she have feelings for him that weren't merely friendly?

Don't even think about it, Macready. The woman's off-limits. She's your friend, and she needs your friendship. Concentrate on somebody else's needs for a change and forget what you want.

Mac knew why he was having all these lurid thoughts about Jewel. He probably would be having such thoughts about any woman he came in close contact with at this stage in his life. It didn't help that Jewel turned him on so hard and fast.

Get over it, Mac.

“I intend to,” Mac muttered as he set the pitchfork back where it belonged and headed for the house. “Jewel is my friend. And that's the way it's going to stay.”

 

A
T THE END OF TWO WEEKS
M
AC
was walking the mile to the canyon without the aid of a cane and doing it in seven minutes flat. Jewel had difficulty keeping up with him when he broke into a jog. His leg was getting better; hers never would. She could picture him moving away from her, going on with his life, leaving her behind. She was going to miss him. She was going to miss playing with him.

The scene in the barn hadn't been repeated. Nor had Mac teased her or taunted her or done any of the playful things he might have done when they were teenagers. He had become a serious grown-up over the past two weeks. She hadn't realized how much she had needed him to play with her. To her surprise, she hadn't been intimidated or frightened by him in the barn. Not even when she had thought he might kiss her.

She had wanted that kiss, she realized, and been sorely disappointed when he kissed her forehead instead. Then she'd realized he had been carried away by their physical closeness, and when he'd realized it was her—his old friend, Jewel—he had backed off. He liked her, but not that way. They were just friends.

It should have been enough. But lately, Jewel was realizing she wanted more. She was going to have to control those feelings, or she would ruin everything. Mac would be leaving soon enough. She didn't want to drive him away by asking for things from him he wasn't willing to give.

“Hey,” she called ahead to him. “How about taking a break at the bottom of the canyon.”

“You got it.” He dropped onto the warm, sandy ground with his back against the stone wall that bore the primitive Native American drawings and sifted the soil through his fingers. She sank down across from him, leaning back on her palms, her legs in front of her.

“You'll be running full out by this time next week,” she said.

“I expect so.”

“I won't be coming with you then.”

“Why not?”

She sat up and rubbed at the sore muscles in her thigh. “I can't keep up with you, Mac.” In more ways than one. He would be going places, while she stayed behind.

Mac dusted off his hands on his shorts, scooted around to her side and, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, began to massage her thigh. She hadn't let a man touch her like that since she had broken her engagement. Chill bumps rose on her skin at the feel of Mac's callused fingers on her flesh. It felt amazingly good. It dawned on her that she didn't feel the least bit afraid. But then, this was Mac. He would never hurt her.

The past two weeks of waiting for Mac to repeat his behavior in the barn had been wonderful and horrible. She loved being with Mac. And she dreaded it. Since the night he had come home early from Evelyn Latham's house, he had remained an avuncular friend. He had been a tremendous help planning activities for the children. He had made her laugh often. But with the exception of that brief, unfulfilled promise in the barn, there was nothing the least bit sexual in his behavior toward her.

She was unsure of what her feelings were for Mac, but there was no doubting her profound physical reaction to his touch. It was difficult not to look at him as a virile, attractive man, rather than merely as a friend. Even now, she couldn't keep her eyes off of him.

The Texas sun had turned him a warm bronze, but a white strip of flesh showed around the waist of his running shorts, confirming the hidden skin was lighter. She caught herself wondering what he would look like without the shorts.

“How does that feel?” he asked as he massaged her thigh. “Better?”

She nodded because she couldn't speak.
It feels wonderful.
She wanted his hands to move higher, between her legs. As though she had willed it, his fingertips moved upward on her thigh. She let him keep up the massage, because it felt good. Then stopped him because it felt too good.

“Wait.” She gripped his wrist with her hand, afraid that he would read her mind and realize that the last thing she wanted him to do was stop.

“If you exercised more, maybe your limp wouldn't be so bad,” he said.

She brushed his hand away from where it lingered on her flesh. “One leg is slightly shorter than the other, Mac. That isn't going to change with exercise.”

“It might with surgery. They can do remarkable things these days. Have you thought about—”

“What's going on here, Mac?” she interrupted. “You never said a word to me in the past about my limp. You always told me to ignore it, to pretend it didn't exist, that it didn't keep me from being who I am. What's changed?”

Mac backed up against the wall again. His gaze was concentrated on the sand he began once more sifting through his fingers.

“Mac?” she persisted. “Answer me.”

He looked up at her, his eyes searching her face. “How can you stand it—not being able to run?”

She shrugged. “I manage.”

“I'd hate it if something like that happened to me.”

“Something like that
has
happened to you.”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh. I'm temporarily out of commission. I'm going to be as good as new.”

Did he really believe that? Jewel wondered. Yes, he had made astonishing progress in two weeks, but even she could see the effort it had taken. One look at his leg—at the scar tissue on his leg—suggested there was never going to be as much muscle to work with as there had been in the past. “What if you can never run again like you used to, Mac? What if you can't get back to where you were?”