I Waxed My Legs for This? (5 page)

It probably wasn’t the most gentlemanly thing he’d ever done, but Jack hadn’t been able to help himself.

Carrie had been so trusting last night. She curled in his arms as he carried her from the taxi into the hotel. She’d felt good.

She’d felt right.

Jack had many thoughts about her over the years, but she’d always been a friend. A damsel he occasionally played white knight for as he rode to the rescue.

He’d never thought of her as a dateable woman before. He’d never realized how
right
she felt in his arms.

And now that he had, it was all he could think about.

An hour later the aspirin had kicked in and breakfast had gone down quite easily. Carrie was feeling remarkably revived.

“So, what are we doing today?” Jack asked.

Carrie was sitting at the table near the window. The view from the room was wonderful. Blue skies and even bluer water lapping against the sand. They had paradise at their disposal.

“The idea is we aren’t doing anything.”

Jack frowned “You can’t not do anything.”

“I can, too.” Carrie always felt she was a bit lacking. She had no grand aspirations, no drive to be a millionaire.

She loved designing dresses, even enjoyed sewing them, but she’d never longed to become a big designer in New York or Paris.

Establishing her own little niche in Erie was about as far as her aspirations went.

But, when she wasn’t at the store, she not only managed doing nothing, but she reveled in it.

“So, where are we doing nothing at?” Jack asked his tone suggesting he still wasn’t taking her seriously.

“On the beach, of course. I mean, why come to an island paradise and do nothing in your room?”

Oh, yes, she was going to teach Jack Templeton a thing or two about doing nothing.

He’d practically worked himself to death since Sandy left.

Thinking of Sandy made Carrie frown.

Not only was Jack going to relax, but he was going to laugh again. She’d see to it

“Well, if we’re on the beach doing nothing then we are in actuality doing something.” Ever the lawyer, Jack was a pro at picking sentences apart. “You’ll be tanning and I’ll be reading—”

“You better tell me you’re planning to read some novel for fun, because if you think you’re going to go out there and read some thoroughly boring briefs, well, I can’t be responsible for my actions.” She glared at him for good measure.

The lawyer in him wouldn’t be put aside with ease. She had her work cut out for her.

“Want to give me a clue what those actions might be?” He grinned.

So did she. The man had no idea how hard she’d worked to pull this vacation together and he was going to enjoy himself even if it killed her.

“No work. I brought fun books, just as you ordered, ma’am.”

He was teasing her—grinning like a fool and picking on her as if they were still in school.

Carrie loved it. “You’re lucky.”

“I wouldn’t have dared disobey. You had that look in your eyes when you issued your orders.”

“I don’t issue orders. I just make suggestions— sometimes strong ones.” She paused. “What look?”

“That look that says you might very well scream if I tried to sneak my work on this vacation. Lucky for you I didn’t. I brought a few books.” He smiled as primly as an altar boy at mass on Sunday.

“Good for you. What kind of books?” she asked suspiciously.

“Westerns.” He pointed an imaginary gun in her direction and tipped an imaginary hat.

Carrie grinned. “By who?”

“John Legg. He’s always been my favorite. Even when he’s writing under a pseudonym, I try to find his stuff. I haven’t read anything but contracts and the like for the last few years, so I hunted up the books I’d missed.”

“There’s a lot you haven’t remembered to do the last few years, especially the last few months.” She realized she sounded like a mother scolding a wayward child and backed off.

“But we’re going to change all that this week.” She smiled, trying to soften the fact that she was ordering him around. Jack tended to get very defensive when he thought he’d lost control. “We’re going to have fun.”

“We are?”

“Oh, yeah. Consider it a course of study. Today’s lesson is called,
How to do nothing and have a great time doing it
.”

He gave her a mock frown. “Sounds complicated.”

“Nope. It requires a bottle of sunscreen, a couple good books and our towels.”

“How about suits or are they optional here?” he asked, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

She shook her head. “Even if they’re optional, we’re wearing them.”

“We are?” he asked, sounding disappointed.

“We are,” she assured him.

“You do know how to spoil a man’s good time,” he groused.

“Well, I’ve heard that a certain amount of mystery is good. You can ogle all the other women who walk up and down the beach.”

Carrie was delighted. Jack was teasing and he seemed relaxed. Her plan was working.

“So, you’re going to teach me how to play and we’re going to begin with me ogling women on the beach? Let me just tell you that I like the way this trip is looking.”

“I said ogle, not accost. Remember, this is a couples-only resort so all those legs—and whatever else you choose to ogle—are not only attached to a body, but that body is attached to another body.”

“Spoilsport.”

“I’m a realist.” She hadn’t always been a realist. There had been a time, back in high school, when she’d dreamed big dreams. But, over the years she’d learned that some dreams just weren’t meant to come true and so she’d learned to accept things the way they were.

Suddenly she thought of the small
Carrington Rose
label that would be waiting for her when this vacation ended.

Maybe some dreams could come true.

She glanced at the dark-haired man standing next to her. Maybe, just maybe when he’d healed from his break with Sandy, some other dreams stood a chance.

“Ha, you’re the least realistic person I’ve ever met,” Jack insisted.

“Am, too.” Realizing she was agreeing with him, she added, “A realist. I am, too, a realist.”

“Carrie, you don’t live in the real world, never have.”

She turned her back on him. There was no use arguing. Jack had always been of the opinion that Carrie was helpless and she doubted anything would ever change that view.

To be honest she had no wish to change it. Who was she to deny Jack the joy of playing the white knight?

She allowed him to rescue her. He’d never understood that simple fact and she wasn’t about to try to explain it at this late date. It was almost selfish. If he rescued her, he was at least in her life.

Sandy had made it clear to Carrie that she wasn’t woman enough to be a threat. Carrie knew that Jack had never viewed her as a woman. She was his buddy, someone to hang around with when Sandy was on one of her frequent trips out of town.

As much as his big brother attitude might annoy her at times, Carrie had learned to overlook it

Tearing herself away from serious thoughts, she pulled at his arm. “Come on. The day’s a wasting.”

“I thought the point was to waste the day,” he said in his infuriating logical way.

“On the beach. We’re wasting the day on the beach.” Carrie sighed.

She had her work cut out for her.

Later that evening, Carrie gazed in the bathroom mirror.

Doing nothing was more dangerous than anything she could ever have imagined.

“Carrie, are you ever coming out of there?” Jack called through the locked bathroom door.

“No.”

She sat on the edge of the bathtub looking at her pile of clothes on the counter. She couldn’t put them on, and she couldn’t leave the room without them.

Last night’s nakedness was understandable, but she didn’t plan on making being naked with Jack a habit.

“It can’t be that bad,” he called.

She gave a little sniff and grabbed a tissue. As it touched the tip of her nose, she gave up and went back to sniffing.

“It’s worse,” she called.

She gazed at the clothes. Pain was preferable to staying in the bathroom for the rest of the trip. She held up a scrap of silk. There was no way she was putting a bra on her sunburned skin, but she slipped the oversize T-shirt on with minimal pain. Maybe there was a reason to be pleased by her lack of endowments. No one would ever know she wasn’t wearing a bra.

Deciding that underwear would be just as uncomfortable, she left her panties next to the bra and gingerly pulled on the soft shorts.

“Did you use that lotion they gave you at the infirmary?” Jack called.

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of?”

She tried moving and found that the clothes weren’t quite as painful as she had thought they would be. “I couldn’t reach everywhere.”

“Oh.” Jack paused. “Would you like some help?”

She cracked open the bathroom door.

“You’re not even pink,” she accused him as she opened the door all the way.

“You know I never burn,” he explained.

“It doesn’t seem right,” she said with another sniff.

“Come on, give me the lotion.”

Carrie handed him the bottle and turned around. “I had problems in the center of my back. I could twist and get the top and bottom.”

She tugged the back of her shirt up with one hand and held the front of the shirt down with the other.

“Ah...you don’t have a bra on.”

“Of course not. I might have mishaps now and again, but I don’t set out to torture myself. Do you have any idea how much that strap would cut into me? Getting the shirt and shorts on was hard enough.”

“Oh.” He squirted a hefty portion of the lotion in his hand and held it a second until it was warm. Carrie almost purred with contentment as his hands gently massaged her tender skin. Slowly his hands spread the lotion over her back, which deadened the abused skin. But it wasn’t the relief that had Carrie sighing.

It was longing.

Over the years she’d learned to forget that Jack was her ideal man, but at moments like this, it was hard.

She felt guilty about the feelings.

Jack was grieving, working himself to death, and she was lusting.

Carrie tried not to think those thoughts.

Every other man she dated was held up to Jack’s standards and every one of them failed to live up to them. She’d wanted Jack back in high school with a teenager’s longing. But as they grew older she forgot her crush and focused on their friendship.

Except when his hands caressed her back—then she forgot to forget and she began to feel what could only be called desire.

Darn, why did she do this to herself?

Why was she torturing herself like this?

“Thanks,” she said, dropping her oversize T-shirt and taking the bottle. She’d had all she could stand. As she’d told Jack, torturing herself wasn’t something she enjoyed.

Trying to be cheerful, she asked, “How about a movie tonight? Not only am I sore, but lying around doing nothing is exhausting. We could hit the theater and just hang out.”

“We could get something on pay-per-view right here in the room,” he countered.

Carrie stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry in his direction.

“You really have forgotten how to have fun,” she said sadly. “Is there something about fun in the lawyer oath you took?”

Jack chuckled. “No.”

“Well then?”

“Why is it more fun to go to the theater, than to stay here in the room dear old Ted paid for?” He gave her an intense, searching look.

If she didn’t know better, Carrie would think he knew about her little scheme, but there was no way he could know, she assured herself.

“Ah, Jack, I’ve been an inattentive friend. I knew you were losing the ability to enjoy yourself, but I hadn’t realized how old you’d become.” She shook her head dramatically. “Well, I realize it now and before we leave you’re going to remember what having fun really means. I promise you.”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather stay in?” he asked, a sense of resignation in his voice.

“Come on, Jack. I’m inviting you to a movie, not to an execution. If you’re a good boy, I might even buy you some candy.”

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, but I’m holding you to the candy.”

A vision of Jack holding her flitted through her mind. Jack holding her, caressing her...

Carrie disregarded the thought almost immediately, but not soon enough for a little shiver to climb up her spine. She ignored it, just as she’d been ignoring her feelings for years.

She’d brought Jack to the resort so he could relax, not so she could satisfy her physical itch. She thought of her back, which had settled to a dull itching, and sighed. She could handle it, after all she had years of experience.