Healing Hearts (The Challenge Series) (3 page)

Jay pulled her off the ground before she had time to think. The touch of his hand to hers sent a chill creeping up her spine. “Sorry,” he mumbled, letting her go and grabbing the cooler from her before it toppled over and joined them on the dirt. “I didn’t expect you tonight.”

She flushed red at how much she’d prepared for this moment, how desperate she must appear. “No, no, I have…a date. So thought I’d bring it over before I…um…anyway.” She tucked a lock of her unruly hair back up into the elastic band and looked away from him.

“Oh, okay then, let’s get you cleaned up before you go.” He pointed to her brown, smelly left foot. “I guess I should have warned you, every time it rains I get sinkholes.”

They went inside and she beheld what could be any random rental cabin on any lake in her memory. As a child whose father owned ten different rental properties around the tourist town of Torch Lake, she knew the sight well. She’d heard Jay had been out here for almost a year and the place felt barely lived in, as if he floated above the furniture and never used the kitchen—a ghost, or something with even less physical presence. She glanced back at him. His face flushed as he shifted his gaze from her legs. Abby tried not to smile. But still the whole thing had a surreal edge. He did what came naturally to a man—noticed her bare, tan, and fit legs. But acted like he didn’t really want to.

Oh crap. He’s gay
.

The realization made her heart pound with even more embarrassment as she maneuvered the clunky cooler over to the ancient fridge. She opened it, nervous about finding a stack of moldy, disgusting leftovers, shocked at the general lack of contents. “Do you ever….”

“Eat here?” He stood, shifting from foot to foot, as if unnerved by her presence. “Not often, no.” He turned away and stared out the window at the amazing view of Silver Lake.

A giant, brown, slobbering creature crashed through the screen door at the back of the cabin and made right for her. Abby held out a hand for the animal to sniff then crouched down to meet his eyes. “Wow. Cool. I didn’t think you were allowed to keep horses in here.”

“Yeah, he’s um, pretty big. C’mere, Dex. Leave her alone.”

“No, it’s okay. I love dogs.” She ran her fingers around his ears as he calmed but for his tail pounding the floor. “Oh, hey what happened here, big guy?” The animal’s left ear was a mere flap of skin. “Wow, that must have hurt. I hope you left the other guy in worse condition.” He whined once, then got up and walked to his master.

Jay reached down to touch him as a person with a service animal might do, for reassurance. “It’s fine, Dexter. Sorry, he’s a little funny about his ear. It’s like he knows when you’re talking about it.”

“What happened to him?” Abby resumed her appraisal of the half-gallon of expired milk, bunch of wilted grapes, and six-pack of beer that comprised the fridge’s inventory.

“He, ah, got the wrong end of a knife. Can I get you…anything?” he asked, changing the subject.

She peeked around the open refrigerator door at him. He stood there, hand on Dexter’s giant head, a pained expression on his face. She sighed.
Nicely played, Abby. Falling for a gay guy who now is afraid you’ll get your vagina germs on him
.

“No. I’ll put these away for you and be out of your hair. There’s enough lasagna to feed an army, a meat loaf with mashed potatoes, and what I think is chicken tikka masala and…oh fuck. You aren’t a vegetarian, are you? We didn’t even ask.” She tucked all the dishes into the freezer and repressed the urge to offer to bring him some fresh milk and juice.
Cut the crap. He doesn’t want your help
.

“No, I’m not.” His voice was soft, as if he’d moved into the larger living room. She took a step back, brushing more of her hair off her forehead, and bumped right into him. He grabbed her arm to keep her from stumbling. “Sorry,” he said, still holding onto her as if she were the last lifeboat on the Titanic. She turned her head and realized he’d leaned down to her face, his startling blue eyes narrowed, seeming to study her. Abby’s brain shut down for a split second. But he released her and backed away, and the moment passed.

“You’re very kind,” he muttered, his face flushed.

She cleared her throat and put a trembling hand on the tiny counter that held a two-burner cooktop and a bowl of rotting apples. “Uh, listen, Jay, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. I’m just, you know, being a good Samaritan, feeding the guy who almost passed out in my coffee shop.”

She forced herself to relax. He was gay. They could be buddies, and she could practice her caretaking on him. He’d spill his guts about the lover who’d dumped him or died of AIDS or whatever was making him so fragile. All would be fine. She bit her lip, when her body tingled, as she watched him shrug and lean back against the counter, near enough for her to reach out and run a finger down his bearded jaw.
Gay, Abigail. As in “does not do girls
.”

“So.” She reached down to remove the muddy shoe. “Do you have paper towels or anything? I need to get cleaned up and out of here.”

“Oh, right. Your date.” He pulled some off a roll and ran them under the faucet then handed them to her. “Hope he’s a nice guy, this boyfriend.”

“He’s not a boyfriend,” Abby breezed, trying to sound like she went out all the time. “Just, a date.”

“Oh, then….” He tossed the dirty paper towels she handed him into the trash and stood there, looking at her. “You look nice. I hope he appreciates it. Especially the extra clean up effort.” The corners of his full lips turned up a bit and transformed his already handsome face into something resembling movie star level hotness. She gulped and turned from him, stumbling over the dog.

“Wow. I’m not always such a klutz, I swear it.” She patted Dexter’s head, avoiding his stump of an ear. She shut her eyes a split second, and collected her rattled nerves, determined to get the hell out of there, fast. “Hey, you said you were going out of town tomorrow. Will you take Dexter with you?”

“No, I have a dog sitter. Some kid who walks him, feeds him, and makes sure he didn’t take a dump in the house overnight.” He shot her a ghostly smile.

“How about I take him? You know, to my place?” She shocked herself with this bold proposal. But something told her Dexter would not do well left alone. And why not? She’d paid a pet deposit on her place, intending to get something to keep her company, but never had. The dog’s tail thumped harder.

“Uh, sure. I mean, I’ll pay you for it.”

“No, it’s okay. Let’s pack up some food and his leash. My uncle is a vet so if there’s an emergency, I’ll have it covered.”

Stop babbling Abby. Go home
.

Jay’s eyes narrowed at her, his mouth in its familiar position of unhappy pensiveness once more. “Who are you, anyway? I mean, you don’t know me, but you’ve filled my fridge with food I didn’t ask for and want to keep my smelly giant dog for three days while I leave and, for all you know, never come back.”

A small flicker of anger licked at her brain. She cleared her throat and fiddled with a straggling end of hair that had escaped her attempt at a tie back. “I’m Abigail Powers. I’m a twenty-seven year old divorcee who works at the coffee shop where you hang out and stare at the window for hours. And where you nearly passed out from low blood sugar yesterday. I’ve lived in Traverse City my whole life and plan to move to Ann Arbor once I get accepted to the U of M nursing school. I know pretty much every soul in this town, even the tourist regulars. I’m afraid of only one thing—spiders. And I have decided that you’re right, maybe you don’t need my help after all. So I’ll be going.” She turned and grasped the doorknob. He was an asshole, and that she understood, having been married to one for three years. She had no time for assholes, no matter how good looking.

Abby did not believe in love anymore. She had third-degree burns from the last and only time she’d felt such a strong attraction to a man and had been avoiding them ever since. Instead, her focus was on herself, her goal, and getting her mom straight. The near constant pull of need from the woman who’d raised her but who’d fallen down a black hole of alcohol abuse took everything she had most days. And the dilemma of leaving her mother behind in the fall when she moved to Ann Arbor and went to school had yet to be addressed. She sighed and turned when she felt Jay’s hand on her shoulder, prepared to listen to his apology then make her escape.

“I’m…sorry,” he choked out between gritted teeth, his face a mask of confused agony. “Abigail Powers, you are amazing and I…want to kiss you.”

She blinked, thinking she’d imagined what he’d said. But let him pull her close, molding herself into his long, lean frame, all thoughts of asshole, gay friends, and escape evaporating from her psyche. “I’m good with that,” she whispered, running a hand down his jaw, loving the soft curl of his beard under her palm. When his lips touched hers, she wrapped herself around him, having to go way up on her tiptoes to reach.

So, not gay. And a championship kisser to boot
. Something in her gave way at that moment, something she’d tug back into place later, shielding herself from emotional attachment, but right now, all she wanted was Jay.

Chapter Five

Jay’s brain clanged with warning. Alarms sounded all through what remained of his logical self. This was patently insane. He’d become a borderline stalker, and he knew it. But he had developed a strange attachment to the sexy, exotic female whose face, smile, and positive attitude he found soothing. And he had been a total jerk to her. He shook his head, wondering where that had come from. He’d been one of the most positive guys going, his whole life. It had been one thing Christy loved about him—his constant positive attitude.

Even when they hit dark days, when the second restaurant struggled in the early years and they were alternating credit cards to buy the family groceries, he never let it get him down. It made her crazy, but it was how he rolled. By the time they’d tucked their first million in the bank and labeled it “college fund,” it had become a running joke. She’d stare at the profit and loss statements and make worried noises, and he’d pour her a beer and kiss her out of her funk.

But now…Abigail—she of the wild, curly hair and curvy, womanly perfection. And that scent—it made him dizzy, a crazy combination of spicy floral—almost overwhelming but perfect at the same time. He shoved his hands in his pockets when she took the five steps toward the door after his sarcastic outburst and let the yearlong need for a connection with someone other than people who pitied him force his action.

Christy, baby. I’m so sorry
. The familiar words, the mantra that had imprinted on his brain like a hot brand rose again, but he shoved them away and let his body take over. He touched Abby’s shoulder, tugged her away from the door, and kept pulling until he held her close. A woman, not his wife, in his arms—he felt himself shaking but clenched his jaw and spoke. “I’m sorry. Abigail Powers, you are amazing. And I…want to kiss you.”

“I’m good with that.”

Her words turned the small pile of kindling in his gut into a blazing roar of need so hot and loud he had to suppress a groan as he slanted his lips over hers and drowned in her. The images he’d lived with for so long were gone in the time it took to bury his hands in the thick fall of her hair. He parted her lips with his tongue, relishing her taste, loving the way her body fit into his. She met him halfway, and he pushed her back so she leaned against the wall, roaming all over the luscious landscape of her body.

Pain bloomed in his chest, his gut, his head pounded but he had never felt such an urgent need for physical contact. He shoved her shirt up and flipped open her bra. The fullness of her breast filled his palm and he groaned when she sucked his tongue into her mouth as he passed his thumb over the stiff peak of her nipple.

His brain kept up its steady beat of
wrong, wrong, wrong, stop, stop, stop
, But he silenced it with a firm yank of her skirt up around her waist. He needed this, damn it. His body was a huge pulsing nerve ending centered right at the tip of his cock, held in her hand. She’d divested him of his jeans at some point along the way. He broke from her lips, kissed his way down the delicious, brown-skinned line of her neck. She tilted her hips toward him, encouraging the finger he had hooked in her silky panties. With a quick twist of his wrist, they were in two pieces on the floor and his entire palm pressed against her bare, warm, sex.

“Jay,” she whispered, gasping when he touched her. “God, I need…yes….” Her hiss turned into a low moan of need that made his aching cock leak against her belly. He filled all his senses with her—her lusty smell, her sweet noises of satisfaction, the soft touch of her sex, the taste of those lips. Dear Christ in heaven help him, he could not stop kissing her.

He grunted when she ran her thumb across the over-sensitized head of his cock. “I need to….” He sighed into her hair, his hips already thrusting as she fisted his length. “I want…shit…I can’t do this.” He ripped himself away from her when his brain finally won the war over his weak flesh. He stared at her, saw the fury creep into her eyes.

She stood, her skirt hiked up and her amazing breasts exposed, nipples hard and inviting. Putting her palms on her hips and tossing that incredible mane of hair back she glared at him.

“What’s the matter, Jay,” she said, still breathing heavy. She pulled her skirt down then, to his utter surprise, she yanked her shirt off, dropped it to the floor, and closed the small gap he’d put between them. He sucked in a breath. “I won’t bite.”

“I know.” He shivered, mesmerized by the smooth, deep hue of her skin. She took his hand, put it back on her breast, and the small shred of control he’d brought to the table in an attempt to spare her his drama shredded and fluttered down to his feet. He picked her up, carried her to the small bedroom, and dropped her down on the old-fashioned quilt.

“I can’t promise anything more than the here and now Abigail.” He peeled off his shirt, watching her wiggle out of her skirt.