Stranger in Paradise (6 page)

“Ooofff. Dammit,” quickly followed by a gunshot, exploded in the dark. A moment later, the ornate glass and pewter chandelier usually over the dining room table, crashed to the floor.

Shielding herself from the gunfire, Kacey recoiled and made ready to take another swing at the intruder. “I’ve got him, Zack. Careful, he’s got a gun!”

“What the hell—Kacey, it’s me, Zack!”

The petrified weapon was ripped from her grasp just before a light illuminated the devastation made to the fixture now on the floor. “I thought that was you coming up the front porch.” Her gaze flew to the midsection of his gray T-shirt, sliced open by the sharp points of the driftwood. “You’re hurt.” She reached for him and he batted her hand away.

“You heard a noise out front?”

“Well, yes, but after that gunshot I’m sure they’re long gone.” She fought to keep up with him as he strode toward the front door, unlatched the locks and yanked open the door with no caution.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Kacey hurried to his side and peered around the door. Teetering on the porch rail sat a chubby raccoon, holding a partially eaten hot dog perched between his front paws.

“I should shoot you just because,” Zack muttered raising the nozzle of his gun with his eye on the animal.

“You wouldn’t!” Kacey blurted in horror. She heard the safety feature click on the firearm.

“You owe me a new shirt.” Her hunky guest/would-be-protector slammed the door and locked it as he raised a brow to her. Like he didn’t have a zillion gray T-shirts. Still, the look in his eye reminded her of just where they’d been before their furry friend showed up. And it reminded her of exactly why he was there, and why they couldn’t engage in any hanky-panky.

Even though her body wanted very much to hanky his
panky
. She sighed, shaking away those thoughts. “We better take a look at that wound.” She flipped on every light switch within reach as she made her way to the kitchen cabinet where she kept her medical supplies. “Surely I remembered to pack Bacitracin or some kind of salve we could use.” She pulled a container stuffed with a proverbial drugstore of items. “Maybe you should--” She glanced over her shoulder and her brain went dead, catching Zack in the process of peeling his shirt over his head. She stared blatantly at his washboard abs, reminding herself not to drool. She turned away, admonishing her weak hormones, and reminding herself that sex—the “just for the fun of it” kind—was highly overrated, unfulfilling, and, in the long run, just not wise.

Especially when he’s supposed to be protecting you.

You’re such a stick-in-the-mud,
her mused chided.

“Don’t think about sticks,” she argued quietly with her muse.

Chapter Five

Zack checked the safety on his gun and placed it atop the refrigerator, out of harm’s way. He winced as the gesture caused the fresh slice across his flesh to stretch. It wasn’t bad. He’d suffered worse. But he secretly liked the idea that Kacey saw herself the nurse to care for him. He had to give her credit--the woman was not afraid of defending herself if necessary.

“I’ve got
Steri-strips
, will that help?” Her back to him, he watched her spread out a variety of bandages and Band-Aids across the counter. She was her own mini-hospital. His eyes drifted down to her form-fitting yoga pants that she wore incessantly with oversized T-shirts or hoodies that hid her athletic build. He shook off the wayward thoughts and gingerly touched the red mark slashed across his torso by the sharp point on the driftwood. Gritting his teeth against the fiery sting, he decided pain was good. It kept him from thinking where they’d been heading not more than a few minutes ago.

She faced him, ointment in hand, and studied his naked torso. As if that weren’t enough for his agitated libido, she moved closer and looked up at him with soulful eyes. “That looks like it really hurts.”

He held her gaze for longer than necessary, and then took the tube of medicine from her.

“Do you want me to apply that? I can see a little bit better from my vantage point.”

“It’s not--” he started to protest even as she retrieved the salve and squeezed a generous blob on her fingers.

“This will help keep the skin moist.”

“Yeah.” He sucked in air as her fingers gently glided over his flesh. “This isn’t my first time being hurt, you know.” He tried to steel his body against her delicate touch, trying valiantly not to think about lubricants.

“Sorry, where else have you been hurt?” she asked, her attention focused within inches of his chest. Part of him wondered if she was doing research along with practicing those Clara Barton skills.

Pain
. He drew in another sharp breath, putting his mind back on track. “Uh…let’s see, I’ve had my shoulder dislocated twice. A scar from when I hopped over a barbed wire fence in pursuit of a perp.” He frowned, having never really catalogued his injuries before, just glad for his good insurance. “I nearly severed my finger when I attempted to stop a guy stealing a car. Then there was the time I broke my ankle in interdepartmental football….”

“Wait,” she asked, blowing softly across the wound. “Go back to the finger story. How’d that happen? Did he have a knife?”

He looked down at the top of her head and the sensation of her breath blowing across his flesh flashed an image of him easing her head lower, and that sparked fresh guilt about his true purpose in being there. “No, he rolled up the window and started to take off with my hand stuck in the window.”

Kacey chuckled and offered him a passing grin. “You mind if I write this down?”

He was glad to see that she’d gotten her humor back--what little he’d seen of it, at any rate. “Sweetheart,” he said, offering his best Bogart vice, “I’ve got scars in places you wouldn’t believe.” Keeping the mood light was a good thing. He wasn’t entirely convinced that the pesky raccoon was all that was sneaking around the cabin tonight, but he’d let her think as much.

“Does that include your heart?” she asked, taking a step back. “There.” She wiped her hands on a towel.

“Trying to get inside a hero’s head, lady?” he joked.

She grinned. “Maybe.”

“Better than my pants. I thought maybe you were taking advantage of my injured state.”

“You wish,” she jabbed right back at him and turned to put away her triage set-up. “You need a gauze pad on that?”

He had a helluva time trying to understand this woman. Maybe he thought they’d pick up where they’d left off, but, unlike him, she’d obviously come to her senses.

“Uh, no. I’m sure it’ll be better by morning.”

“I know I shouldn’t go out alone, but I really need to go stand out by the lake.” She closed the cabinet and turned to face him. “Just for a few minutes?”

Yeah, she knew damn well the raccoon wasn’t all that they’d heard.

“Sure, get your jacket and we’ll both go. I could use some fresh air.”

Armed with a flashlight and pocketing his gun in his jacket, he followed her down the grassy knoll behind the cabin. The waves, leftover from the recent storm, crashed with fury against the rocky shore.

“It’s always amazes me how it appears as though someone has lost an ocean.” Kacey zipped up her hoodie and crossed her arms over her chest as she stared out over the turbulent water. Now and again, the moon would peek through the clouds, casting long ribbons of white light upon the dark waters. The beach was deserted. Lights from other cabins dotted the bay shoreline like fireflies in the dark.

Zack stood a few feet from her, not trusting his mixed emotions and cautioning himself that whatever happened between them was a momentary thing caused by too much wine and that old Karma Sutra magic. “It’s pretty awesome. I’ve not been to this particular lake before.”

“You’ve been to the lakes?”

He shrugged. “My grandfather used to take me and my brother fishing on the UP of Michigan. It was a wild trip. We had a blast.” He smiled to himself, thinking how his mother had hated the whole idea. Smelly clothes. Crap food. God-knows-what critters might crawl in their tent while they were camping…and a few did, though his mom never knew.

“Sounds like fun,” she said. “What does your brother do?”

He turned to find her seated on an old tree stump set around what would be a bonfire, one of many such intimate, rustic groupings dotting the rocky shore.
His brother.
Funny how he’d learned to tuck his memory deep inside. He picked up a few small pebbles and cast them across the water. Matt had always been better than him at skipping stones.

“Zack?”

He pulled himself back to the present. “Uh, yeah, well…Matt was always the daredevil kid, you know?” He looked at her and she smiled.

“Yeah, I’m beginning to see it runs in the family.”

He swallowed and toed the rocks, loosening a few more. He didn’t really want to go down this road. “Matt died when I was twelve. He was only nine.”

“Oh, God, how horrible.”

“It’s stupid, really. You know how you tell a kid not to do something and what do they do?” He glanced at her. “ The little idiot went out one morning alone on the lake after a big storm. The waters were still choppy. Gramps had told him a million times never to go out alone. He somehow capsized the kayak and, in the process, got his foot caught and couldn’t get free. We found him later that morning. We all thought he’d slept late.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Zack.”

He shrugged. “It still pisses me off.” He felt her hand on his arm and looked down at it.

“I can’t imagine what that must feel like. I’m so sorry. What your family must have gone through.”

He covered her hand, patting it as he’d done a million times for others grieving over the loss of a loved one. “Mom and dad divorced eventually. She blamed his dad. I blamed Matt. I ended up with Mom. Dad became the town drunk.” He spread out his hands. “There’s my story.” He bent down and handed her a stone. “You know how to skip stones?”

She smiled and took it from him. “I’ve had lots of practice.”

“Yeah? How’d you wind up coming here? Did you summer here with your folks?”

She chuckled and pivoted away from him, slicing the stone over the water’s surface. It leapt three or four times over the ripples. “I stumbled on it a few years ago when I was attending a writer’s workshop in Duluth. We took a little research trip up the lakeshore road and during a stop at Betsy’s Pies--”

“Let me guess, bumbleberry?”

“Yep,” she answered and picked up a handful of rocks. One by one, she leveled them across the water. “I fell in love with the area. Its colors, the isolation, the water—it all speaks to me. Then I found this place and I’ve made it my annual retreat ever since.”

Zack hadn’t bothered with skipping any more stones; he was too busy watching and wanting Kacey Winters. It was time to turn in before he did something stupid. “Have you had enough fresh air? I don’t know about you, but I’m going to sleep really well.”

“Liar,” she stated, brushing off her hands. “You won’t sleep at all until you know who or what was lurking outside the cabin earlier.”

Having only recently met, she knew him pretty well. That could backfire. He learned the hard way the lesson of letting people get too close. It was safer not to. “You’re probably right. That’s why I get paid the big bucks to get you safely tucked in, and then I can bunk out in my chair and keep an eye on things.”

“Big bucks, huh? I’ll have to speak to Harry about that.” They walked through the short, wooded trail leading to the cabin. “By the way,” she said, touching his arm, “you don’t need to sleep in the chair tonight.”

His body went on full alert.

Her hand dropped away as she realized what she’d implied. “I meant there are plenty of bedrooms to choose from.”

He grinned. “Down the opposite way of your bedroom, you mean.”

She took a deep breath, preparing to launch into some explanation, and he stopped her by taking her arm and bringing her around to face him. “No explanations necessary, Kacey. I’m here to do a job. And you’re here to do yours. We both want you to feel safe.”

“I-I do feel safe with you.” She met his gaze in the dim light of the cabin lights they’d left on.

“Yeah, I’m not sure you should consider me
that
noble.”

She held his eyes a moment longer, then started out ahead of him without a response.

He unlocked the front door and had her wait in the foyer while he did a quick check of the cabin. Comfortable the house was safe, he came to the bottom of the stairs. “All clear, madam author.”

She appeared from the hallway, her hoodie draped over one arm and her hair, once banded in a ponytail, now loose. He fought the urge to thread his fingers through it and kiss the tired look shadowing her eyes. “It’s been a crazy night, huh?” he asked.

She nodded with a weak smile as she passed him and started up the steps. “Thank you.” She turned to face him, eye-to-eye. “Sorry about the whole driftwood thing.”

“It’s okay…it’s…aw, shit.” He said quietly as he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, not knowing why or even if she’d respond. God help him. She did.

Her hands clutched his shirt as she slanted her mouth over his, giving as much as she took. Zack pulled away before he hauled her over his shoulder and up the stairs to—hell, whichever bedroom came first.

She released his shirt. “Goodnight,” she said and hurried up the steps.

Zack ran his hands down his face, hoping to awaken himself from the unexplainable pull he had toward her. It wasn’t due to a lack of women in his life. He was a good-looking guy, amazing in bed, if rumors were true. Mostly out of loneliness, there’d been one or two one-night stands since Jessie. Kacey, however, wasn’t the one-night stand type. Tapping the railing with his fingers, he eyed the stairs, considering the possibilities if he followed through. With an ache in his chest and places lower, he released a deep sigh and decided to make one last check around the parameter of the cabin. “I’m going to take one more look around the house, but I’ll lock the door and be right outside, ok?” he called up the steps.

“Do you need me to come with you?” she responded from her room.

Zack raised his brows. “That thought is going to linger,” he muttered. “No, go ahead and get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“’Night, Zack.”

He gently hit the top of the stairwell post with his fist. “Yeah, g’night.”