Healing Hearts (The Challenge Series) (2 page)

The older woman touched her arm. “You know we’d spot you. I get how hard these last couple of years have been.”

She yanked away from her friend, embarrassed and angry.

Lynn stood back and crossed her arms over her chest. She and her sister Jane had opened Cuppa Jane five years ago and the second Abby’s lame ass ex had lit out for the hinterlands with every scrap of cash they possessed, they’d hired her, overpaid her, over-tipped her, and she knew it. But her friend had been like a sister to her for so long, it had been the first place she went once she got past being relieved that the loser was gone and realized what a total mess he’d left in his wake.

“Listen to me.” Lynn gripped her arms forcing her to look her in the eye. “You are better off. You will be fine. You’ll get your acceptance and the financial aid you need and be a nurse like you always wanted before you know it. Go ahead and moon over sexy sad man all you want. I’m sorry for riding you over it.”

The late summer sun hit the right angle in their bank of windows and turned the interior of the hip, popular space a rosy pink. “I don’t know. I’m…he’s so….”

“He’s so here,” her friend hissed.

Abby’s entire body broke out in a chill at the sight of him. He was different today. Dressed to work out, in shorts, running shoes, and a damp T-shirt that hugged his torso in a way that sent her nerve endings into a little St. Vitus dance. She gulped and glared when the other woman shoved her toward the counter. He kept his eyes up, on the coffee menu over her head. She rubbed her damp palms on her apron and smiled at him, willing him to look at her. When he did, she sucked in a breath at the pure agony etched in his face. Without thinking about it, she leaned forward. “Are you okay?”

He jerked away from her as if she’d asked him to go down on her in public. “Huh?” He stumbled back. The frown that replaced the unhappy confusion sent a definite message. She clapped her lips shut, resolved not to speak to him again. She felt like something steaming and nasty on the side of the road. Her face blazed.

“The usual?” she asked under her breath.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I mean….” She glanced up, something in his voice pulling at her. He touched his sweaty hair, glanced around as if completely bamboozled by his presence there. “Um, could I have…?”

She handed him a water bottle. The second his fingers grazed hers, he glanced down at them as if wondering where the human connection came from, before looking up at her again. She almost fell over at the intensity of despair she saw in his gaze. Her inner caretaker rose up, forced away the disgruntled, hopeful flirt. She put a hand on the arm that he still held out, clutching the water bottle. “Listen, mister…um…you need to sit down, I think. Whoa.” He was weaving on his feet, blinking fast, and that’s when she noticed how his shirt and shorts hung on his frame. “Lynn, help me out, will ya?”

Her friend put down the invoice she was studying and took her place behind the ordering station. Abby shot her a grateful look as she eased around the serving counter and stood by the tall, distraught man. She put on her best “it’s okay” smile and led him to a seat. Ignoring the pulsing in her temples at the proximity of such a perfect male specimen, she forced herself to remain attuned to his fragile emotional state. He was shaking by the time she got him into a chair, took the cap off the water, and put it back in his grip.

He looked at it, eyes wide like a toddler’s. Abby bit her lip, but let him take a breath before gently lifting his arm, putting the water near his mouth. He sipped, then downed the entire sixteen ounces, some of it leaking out the sides of his mouth. Something about that ripped her heart in two. Again, she let her body lead. Putting her palm on his shoulder when he dropped the empty plastic to the concrete floor, she felt him shiver as he lowered his head to the table.

She looked around, realized everyone was staring at them, but kept her hand on him, loving the thought she might be providing a small bit of comfort. When he looked up, his eyes were red-rimmed, his face as mask of fatigue. “Thanks.” His voice sounded raspy and rarely used. “I’m um, I guess I shouldn’t have run that far…or something. I don’t even know why….” His eyes suddenly sharpened and locked in on her. She pulled away from him, shocked by the way he pinned her with his steely blue gaze. The view of something else, something he must have been once, shimmered in her brain and then was gone when he blinked and glanced down at the floor.

“It’s okay.” She fiddled with her hair, more nervous than she should be.

She repressed a yelp of surprise when he reached out and grabbed her arm. His skin was clammy, and the innate healer in her automatically thought he could use a hot meal and a long nap. But he clutched at her so long without speaking she felt sweat gathering under her shirt. She sat, trying to figure out how to ask him what was wrong. “Uh, I gotta get back….” She tried to pull away from him. He tightened his grip.

“I came here to see you,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “You’re always so…nice and…calm and…shit.” He let go of her and shook his head, unhappiness stealing over his face once more. He put both palms flat on the table, then met her eyes again. Abby gulped but remained frozen in her seat, alone in the world but for the two of them in the middle of a bustling, touristy coffee shop. “I’m sorry. I ran out of the house without eating or water, ran too far, and found myself nearby and thought…I don’t know. I’m a little rattled.” He stood, bumping the underside of the table and shoving it toward her.

His face flushed an alarming shade of red.

“You know, mister…um…anyway, you need to eat. Let me get you a bagel.” She rose slowly, hoping not to startle him into bolting. “Sit, please.”

He dropped like a stone back into the chair. His tall body seemed shrunken then, helpless, boneless, and bereft. She stood a second, until he lifted those sapphire blues, and her whole world coalesced around the pain on his face.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’m Jay.”

“I’m Abby. And I’ll be right back with your food.”

***

Jay stared down at the round, perfectly toasted bagel, watched the glistening butter melt. He sucked in a breath and forced his hand to move, to pick it up and put it to his lips. It smelled fantastic. But it tasted like cardboard. He ate anyway, knowing he was on verge of a total blood sugar meltdown otherwise. He chewed, swallowed, then did it all again. Feeding the physical self he still seemed responsible for, he observed Abby working behind the coffee bar, taking orders and filling them, her bright white smile making his pulse race a little faster each time he saw it.

He shut his eyes a split second, then opened them when instead of the face of his dying, brutalized wife he saw her—Abby—the woman he’d come to count on behind the coffee counter—smiling and handing him an outrageously expensive concoction he never drank. At that realization, he sucked a huge chunk of bread down his windpipe, making his throat reject it with a loud, public, near-choking experience. By the time Abby had saved him once more with a well-timed, strong-armed Heimlich, he was limp again.

“Damn,” he gasped, sucking back another entire bottle of water that she put in front of him. “I’m high maintenance.” He rubbed his neck, wincing at the stinging sensation when he spoke.

“Oh, it’s okay. Good practice for me.” She smiled at him, the deep chocolate of her eyes and the warm olive of her skin a beacon—one he’d been drawn to for weeks now without understanding why. And for the first time in over a year and a half he smiled back at a pretty woman and let himself feel it—the tingly, buzzy, pull of attraction.

Alarmed, he leapt to his feet, knocking over another water bottle but no longer caring. The last sight of her, of Abby, her long black hair scraped back in a ponytail, her deep, expressive eyes dark with concern, made his skin get hot and his lizard brain click into gear. Mortified at the tent he’d made in his shorts, he crashed out of the place determined never to come back, never to let himself feel that about any woman ever again.

Chapter Four

“No, I’m not avoiding you.” Jay ran a hand down his face and leaned back against the rickety deck railing. “I’m coming into town tomorrow. I have to. Our court date is the twentieth.”

“Listen, Jay.” His sister, the emergency room doctor’s voice filled his brain, reminding him of his failings , “I think you need to consider this as a—”

“I know,” he interrupted, his chest tight and head pounding. “I know, Madison. Trust me, I’ve read your emails and seen the reports. She’s never going to wake up.” He glanced up at the bruised looking sky as a thunderstorm gathered strength in the general direction of Chicago. “You’re right. You’ve been right all along.”

“Jay, I don’t want to be right. Trust me.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow. I should be in by noon. Is your key in the normal place?”

“Yeah. Drive safe, brother. Love you.”

He put the brick of a wireless handset on a ratty deck chair. When it rang again within seconds, he jumped. Only a few people had this number. “Hello?” He hated how weak his voice sounded.

“Uh, Hi. Jay. It’s…um…me…Abby from the coffee shop?”

He frowned when his skin pebbled at the sound of her voice. Willing himself calm, he choked out an answer. “Hello. Can I help you with something?” He winced, realizing how stilted and asshole-ish he sounded. “I mean….”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m actually calling to see if you need anything. My friend Lynn and her sister Jane—they own the coffee shop—they also do small catering jobs and um, meals for people who are housebound and stuff. And we thought, maybe you could use…a sandwich or something?”

Jay put a shaking hand to his eyes, trying to banish the memory of the woman’s exotic features from his brain. He was not that guy. Not the man who lost his wife and reached out for the first available woman for company. No way. He loved Christy with every ounce of his being and would never feel the same way about another female again.

“Jay!” Her phantom scream tore through him, making him push up off the railing and pace the small deck. “Jay….” He saw her then. His Christy—the woman he’d met and fallen for in grad school, pursued, been rejected by then finally convinced to marry him. Her face was a mess of blood, and her whole body jerked and thumped against the hardwood kitchen floor while he lay paralyzed from the waist down from a blow to the spine.

“Listen,” he said, his voice tight. “I’m fine. I mean, I thank you for the save at the coffee shop, but you guys don’t have to ….” He gave up and sank into a chair, letting the memories fill every recessed corner of his tired brain like poisonous gas. Christy, screaming his name while she was raped, three times, then had her throat cut. Jason, lying in a bloody heap near the door, his little boy’s effort to save his mother ended with a single blow to the temple. “I gotta go,” he whispered.

“Jay.” He heard another female voice say his name, coming from the phone handset. He stopped. “Jay, you need food. Real food. I don’t know what your deal is but…you gotta eat.” Her firm voice soothed him. He leaned over on his knees and willed himself not to puke.

“Sure, fine. But I’m leaving day after tomorrow and won’t be back for a few days.”

“Where are you going?”

He took a breath and leaned back, relishing for a half second something resembling a normal conversation between him and a woman not his sister or one of his therapists. While part of him wanted to resist it, a bigger one allowed him a small measure of comfort at the sound of her voice. “Back to Ann Arbor. For a…um, business thing.”

“Oh, okay. Why don’t I drop off a few dishes then. You can put them all in your freezer. Then you can pop them in the microwave when you get back.”

“Uh, sure.” He looked into the tiny kitchen, unsure if there even was a microwave in there. A sudden wave of ravenous hunger roiled through him. He gulped and acknowledged the first true physical sensation other than pain or sorrow he’d experienced in months. Including getting an ill-timed hard-on yesterday like some middle school kid called to the chalkboard after the prettiest girl in the room smiled at him. He groaned.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m… anyway, I’m home. My place is at—”

“I know already. My cousin cleans your cabin once a week.”

“Oh.” He looked down at the deck’s rotting boards, his mind awash with unbidden images. Abby’s gorgeous dark skin, tumultuous curly hair. He stood, cursing himself.

“Yeah, I know, small town and all. Sorry. Anyway, will you be there or should I leave the cooler by the door?”

“I’ll be here.” His voice was barely a whisper. He could not square what his body was telling him versus what his poor, aching brain kept spewing into his vision—his beloved wife, his son, and the horrific screams of his daughter upstairs. “Gotta go,” he croaked before tossing the phone down and heading to meet the toilet once again, their ritual, daily dance not through until he’d lost everything he’d eaten. Even after a year, he could not erase it—the sounds, sights, and smells of his family being attacked while he watched and, in the case of his daughter, Mia, heard loud and clear, helpless and useless and unable to protect any of them.

***

Abigail straightened her skirt, fussed with her hair, glanced at herself in the rear view mirror to make sure the lip-gloss she’d applied remained. She narrowed her eyes and glared at the image of her Latina skin and barely tamed thick black hair. You
are here to bring this man food. Not to flirt, seduce, or in any way interact with him as a woman. Get a fucking grip
. Cursing herself, she climbed from behind the wheel of her beater Ford Escort and pulled out the cooler Lynn and Jane had prepared.

It took some doing to roll it to Jay’s door, since the front lawn consisted of dirt and pine needles underneath a stand of huge trees. By the time she had tugged the damn thing up the single short step to his precarious front porch, she had broken a sweat and a nail and one of her shoes was mud covered.

“Damn it.” She wiped her forehead and tried not to fall through the rotting boards. Before she could touch the door with her knuckles, it opened. Startled, she took a step back and landed square on her ass on the sorry excuse for a front lawn.