Wild Rain (6 page)

“How did you come to be a rehabilitator?”

The sudden intrusion of his raspy voice into the continual noise of the storm surprised him as much as it did her. He told himself he’d only asked as a means to take his mind off the storm and the small operation being performed on his thigh. Not out of any real curiosity.

She looked up, studying him warily for a moment, then turned back to tying off neat, precise little black knots in his torn flesh.

“My father was a professor,” she said after several seconds passed. “He taught a variety of things, but oceanography was his passion. He died when I was fairly young, but I’d already adopted his love of the ocean. Eventually I became more interested in the creatures that inhabited the water and the surrounding area. I took courses in marine biology, zoology, and several other related subjects. I eventually got involved with a group that specialized in helping birds caught in oil spills. I spent some time up in Alaska after the Valdez spill.”

“That’s a long way from the Gulf Coast.”

If Reese hadn’t been studying the narrow lines of her shoulders so closely, he would have missed the slight tightening of the muscles, the stiffening of her spine, even in her curved position. Sore subject? Which part?

Having already decided he wasn’t going to allow himself to get involved, he let it drop. It took a moment or two longer for him to erase the resurfacing image of the photo he’d found in her drawer. And yet, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t seem to find anything else in the small room to focus on. His gaze remained stubbornly on the small woman kneeling at his feet, tending to him with gentle hands.

“I had a contact with the Fish and Wildlife Department,” she said after another silent moment. “When I came back to Florida, I worked for several of the coastal area refuges. I started taking in some injured animals on my own, mostly brought to me by neighbors who knew my background.”

She paused as she tied off another knot. “After a while vacationers as well as locals brought injured animals and reptiles they’d found. My success rate of reintroducing them back into their original habitat was good enough that the word spread. I kept adding pens and eventually renovated the old garage to use as a clinic. It wasn’t much later that I decided to start a small full-time operation here.” She tied off another knot. “Two more and we’re done.”

Her voice while relating her background had
been matter-of-fact. So why did he get the feeling it had cost her more than she’d ever let on to talk about it so casually? And if so, why hadn’t she just told him to mind his own business?

There were a lot of holes in her story. Where the money came from to run her rehab service. Why she’d jumped from marine life to birds and reptiles. Why she’d gone to Alaska. Why she’d come back. Where her feud with her mother figured into all of that.

And why in the hell after all his internal lectures on not getting involved, he still wanted to find out. He’d been hired to keep her from killing herself in the storm, not to dig up dirt on her past.

“Reptiles?” he asked casually, forcing his gaze away from her bent head and back to his surroundings.

He caught her looking up at him out of the corner of his eye, but pretended not to notice. Then she smiled and he found himself turning toward it, naturally, like a plant does to the sun. It … warmed him somehow.

Strange. Until that moment, he’d never realized he was cold. Not skin cold, surface cold. Soul cold.

Her soft voice shook him from the disquieting thought.

“I get asked that a lot. No one thinks it’s strange to want to save a bird or sea mammal. But tell someone you’ve worked to save lizards and snakes and they wonder why you bother.” Her soft smile turned rueful as she dipped her head back to
finishing up her task. “I never could figure the reasoning for that. They’re all living things.”

“There’s a whole side of humanity who barely respects death, Jillian. Much less life.”

His quietly spoken words brought her head snapping back up. Gray eyes full of questions he had no intention of answering stared up at him. But the curiosity wasn’t the morbid type he found in some women’s expressions when he let something of his past slip out. Neither was it the carnal response he’d found some women had when they discovered a man had been intimate with danger. And death.

No. What he saw was far more unsettling. What he saw was … understanding.

The wind chose that moment to send something crashing into the side of the house. He didn’t so much as flinch. Jillian jumped. All but the hand holding the needle.

She looked away and quickly tied off the last knot, then began bandaging the neatly stitched wound. She had excellent concentration. A skill he readily admired. He imagined it was as crucial at times in her profession as it was in his. Or had been anyway.

Now his life was blessedly quiet, the tension level kept at a minimum since he controlled what sort of work he did. Most times the jobs he took didn’t require a tenth of the skills he’d spent all of his adult years honing. It was a facet of his new life he’d expected to enjoy.

After all, he’d more than earned the right not to worry. Not to spend every waking minute wondering if others would die if he made the wrong move, made the wrong decision.

So why was he sitting there, savoring the rush of adrenaline being pumped into his veins? The rush of knowing that, this time, his goal would not be easily accomplished? The rush of knowing that he was going to be challenged?

As Jillian stood and efficiently began gathering up her supplies, Reese found his attention drawn to her again. He openly eyed her dark cropped-off hair, her plain face, devoid of any makeup, her clothes, baggy on her boyish frame even when damp, her callused hands with nails trimmed down almost to the quick.

She wrapped up the small pile she’d made in the sterile cloth, then glanced up, with a look that said she knew he’d been watching her. Assessing her.

“Would you like that drink now? The Novocain will wear off soon.” Her voice was even, still soft. But her gray eyes were flat.

“No.” He felt the cold emptiness yawning open again deep inside him and wished he could risk the warmth the alcohol would bring. “Make it three aspirin. Extra strength.”

She simply nodded and left the kitchen.

Reese stared through the empty doorway for a long moment, wondering why her shift in mood bothered him. Wishing like hell he’d stop feeling like he should apologize.

He turned his attention to his leg. He probed around the bandaged area, then cautiously shifted his leg to the floor. Despite the local, his thigh throbbed, more heated than painful. But he knew that would change shortly and decided it was better to get a handle on his limitations now rather than wait until a crisis forced him to.

Using his shoulder and arm muscles, he levered himself to a stand, then paused, waiting for gravity to do its number on his blood flow. The rush of pain wasn’t intolerable. Good. He’d ask Jillian if she could spare a broom handle or something he could use for support. In the meantime, he hopped over to the counter and began taking the lanterns and flashlights out of the box, checking to make sure each worked.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

“What in the hell does it look like I’m doing?” He didn’t bother looking up from his task. Nor did he bother to acknowledge the return of that tiny kernel of warmth her voice—despite its tone—seemed to inspire. And he refused to even consider that it felt sort of nice to have someone care about him. On any level.

She crossed the room and took the lantern from his hand. “You should be sitting down with your leg elevated.”

He pinned her with a hard gaze, stomping flat his irrational emotional response to her concern. “One thing you should know about me, lady, is that I don’t do a lot of things other people think I
should.” She was close, only inches away. He should just take the lantern back and continue on with what he’d been doing. Even with a leg half out of commission, she would be no match for him.

Yet he didn’t move. All he seemed to see was that her eyes weren’t lifeless anymore.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she shot back, apparently not intimidated in the least by his fierce words.

He half expected her to try to forcibly move him back to the table. After treating him to her best glare, she just huffed a small sigh and grabbed another lantern.

“End of lecture already?” He silently cursed the almost plaintive note that had crept into his voice.

“Yep.” She shoved fresh batteries into the base compartment and snapped the cover back on.

“Is this how you treat all your patients?” He had no idea why he was badgering her. After all, it wasn’t like he wanted her hanging all over him, dripping with unnecessary concern he didn’t need or want.

She turned to rummage in another box on the counter. “No. Though I should thank you for one thing.”

He refused to take the bait. But her continued calm, when he felt anything but, gave him the uneasy feeling that he’d wandered too close to the edge of a cliff. He fell back on old defensive tactics in his scramble for safer footing. “Don’t bother, I’m sure it was my pleasure.”

She lifted hard flat eyes to his. “Yes, there was never any doubt of that.”

He sighed heavily. “Would you mind telling me exactly what in the hell we’re talking about?” Too late he realized she’d maneuvered him into asking anyway. He scowled, but didn’t stop her from answering.

She set the lantern on the counter and faced him squarely. “I’ve dealt with all sorts of creatures, suffering in a variety of ways. Your attitude merely reinforces my belief that, when it comes to help, human beings are the least appreciative of the lot.”

Reese stared at her for a long moment. She looked at him without so much as a blink. He’d lifted his hand halfway to her face before he realized he meant to touch her. He let his hand drop. “Is that why you refused to let me help you? Just being human?” He’d meant the words to be harsh, but his voice sounded damnably gentle.

“I refused to leave with you because I’d made a commitment. I don’t make them lightly, and I don’t walk away from them just because things get a bit rough.”

He lifted his hand again, this time following through on the motion, letting the backs of his knuckles trace softly down the side of her face. Her skin was remarkably smooth and fine. Delicate. Quite the opposite of her personality.

When she didn’t smack his hand—or his face—he brought his fingers to rest under her chin. Tilting
it up slightly, he was again drawn to the stormy tempest raging quietly inside her.

A dozen questions sprang to his lips, but he asked her nothing. “I won’t apologize for trying to save your life. But I am sorry I asked you to compromise your principles.” His thumb drifted up to rub softly across her bottom lip. Warm, velvety. Seductive textures so unexpected he was at a loss at how to handle his quick response to them. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a rough growl. “It’s been so long since I’ve run across a person who had any, I’d stopped expecting to find them.”

As the echo of his words faded away, a strange quiet descended between them, a vacuum amidst the howling wind that pounded mercilessly against the house. Reese didn’t move his hand, Jillian didn’t break their locked gaze. His heart began to pound a heavier rhythm, his body tightened, the finger touching her lip tensed. Unmistakable signs. Arousal. He didn’t want it. Couldn’t half believe it.

He also couldn’t deny it.

Before he could decide what, if anything, he was going to do about it, Jillian stepped back and turned away. The moment dissolved instantly, making him wonder if he’d imagined it. He hadn’t. But he had to admit it made him feel strange, sort of like having an out-of-body experience.

He shifted his weight, the twinge of pain in his thigh reassuring. He belatedly wondered if anything of what he’d begun to feel during that off
moment in time had been reflected in his face. He doubted it. Keeping his expression unreadable was second nature.

Of course, so was maintaining complete control over his mental and physical responses—regardless of the stimulus. Lacking constant challenges, he was apparently getting rusty. His gaze wandered back to her again, completely detached now that she’d moved away. Rusty and desperate, he amended, chalking the whole thing up to repressed hormones and the combined events of the last several hours.

After quietly putting batteries into another flashlight, Jillian looked up at him. One glance into those steady eyes and he felt a tremor rock his sturdily built walls.

Lying to others had been part and parcel of his career, he’d done it many times without a flicker of remorse. It had saved his butt too many times for him to question the practice. But never, ever, had he lied to himself. No matter how harsh, it was the one and only truth he could count on.

Until now.

Because damn if he didn’t want to pull her into his arms and find out how those warm, velvety lips would feel under his.

Weak. He was weak. And soft. A year ago he’d have never allowed himself to respond to
anyone
like this, much less a mousy little Yank. Abruptly he grabbed the last lantern and a package of batteries and hopped back to the table. The jolting pain was
much stronger now. He’d been unaware of just when the Novocain had worn off.

Good. Pain he could handle. Solid, direct, mind-clearing pain.

Angling himself beside the chairs, he lowered himself and propped his foot up, not caring in the least what she thought about his actions as long as she stayed on the other side of the room for the next five minutes while he sorted things out.

“I’m guilty of the same thing, you know.”

After the prolonged silence, her quiet statement grabbed his full attention. It probably shouldn’t have. Careful to stay focused on his leg, he asked, “What’s that?”

“Expecting others to act only in their own best interest. I may not like your methods, but I don’t deny that you have principles. Although if you’d asked me an hour ago, I’d have refused to admit it.”

A smile entered her voice, prompting him to look over at her. Even in the shadows cast by the lantern, he saw the soft curve of her lips. He found his own lips twitching in response and wasn’t quite sure whether or not to stifle the rare notion.