by Donya Lynne
He gave her a look like that wasn’t a persuasive argument.
“Seriously,” she said, “it’s hard for people to understand Reiki until they’ve experienced it. I often tell people like you, who doubt its power, that the best way for me to explain Reiki is to show them.”
“Show them?”
“Give them a treatment.”
He shook his head and looked away. “Nah. Sarah was into all that woo-woo stuff, but not me.”
“It’s not woo-woo,” Journey said.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, eyebrow arched.
“Okay, fine,” she said with an air of abdication, “it’s a little woo-woo.”
He slid the first aid kit to the corner of the counter like he was done using it for the night. “Admit it, it’s a lot woo-woo.”
“You don’t believe it works?”
He shrugged as if he didn’t want to offend her. “I never said it didn’t work. I’m just not sure it would work for me.”
“That’s the beauty of Reiki,” she said, pushing her luck, “you don’t have to believe that it works. It just does.”
His gaze dropped doubtfully to her hands, which now rested on her lap. “So, is that why your hands are so warm? Reiki energy or whatever?” He sounded a little more intrigued.
She nodded and raised her hands in front of her. “My hands have always been warm. People told me all my life that I had healing hands. When I was younger, I didn’t really understand what that meant. I just knew I could heal things by touching them. Like birds that had flown into a window and knocked themselves out, or an injured rabbit or whatever . . . even my little brother when he got food poisoning and my mom when she got migraines. Then I learned about Reiki and received my initiation, and it was like my hands became supercharged.” She held up her hands, palms facing her. “So, yeah, they’re always warm, but right now, they’re not just warm, they’re hot. And tingly. For me it feels kind of like a buzzing sensation under my skin.” She flexed and curled her fingers.
“What does that mean?”
She glanced up at him. “It means my hands want to work on you.”
Frowning, he took a step back and shot wary eyes at her hands like they were a pair of venomous snakes.
Laughing, she lowered her hands to her lap. “They’re not going to bite you. My hands just heat up when they’re around someone who needs healing work, that’s all.”
“I’m good, really.” Fumbling with the first aid kit, he grabbed it and hooked his thumb toward the hallway. “I’m going to put this away.” He placed his palm on the front of the kit. “Unless you think you’ll need it again later.”
She tapped her bandaged finger on her sore forehead. “I think I’ve hit my quota.”
The hint of a smile touched his lips as he arched one brow. “You sure?” He glanced at her trashed suitcase and all the glass on the floor, then bent to the side to look out the window as if reminding her about her car. “You do seem to be having a bad day.”
So Paul could be a smart-ass. Good to know. “If I cause any more damage to myself, I’ll just deal with it.”
“You could use your Reiki hands.” He winked, turned, and started down the hall, then called back, “Just . . . don’t move until I get back. I don’t need you setting my house on fire.” He chuckled.
She wasn’t sure if he was mocking her or just trying to be funny. Maybe a little of both? Either way, she found herself smiling at his lighthearted jabs as he disappeared down the hall, leaving her with her hot hands and nowhere to put them. He obviously wasn’t ready for Reiki. Or maybe he just wasn’t ready for a woman other than his late wife—Sarah—to touch him.
When he returned a few minutes later, he placed a folded stack of clothes on the counter: a pair of green-and-black flannel pajamas, jeans, a thick cream-colored sweater, and two pairs of socks.
“You can wear these until I get all the champagne washed out of your clothes,” he said, beelining for her suitcase, which was still sitting on the floor beside a trash can full of glass.
Did he really think his clothes would fit her?
“Thanks, but I don’t think they’ll fit.” She examined the thick knit of the sweater. “I’m half your size.”
“They’re not mine,” he said, kneeling beside her suitcase, his back facing her. “They’re Sarah’s.”
Journey’s eyes swung back around. He wanted her to wear his dead wife’s clothes?
“I . . . I don’t—”
He made a noise that was between a huff and a laugh. “Well, the sweater was mine until she threw it in the dryer and it shrank two sizes.” He chuckled softly as he carefully gathered pieces of glass and placed them into his palm. “She said it was an accident, but I never believed her.”
“Why not?”
“Because she loved that sweater. I used to tease her that she shrank it on purpose so she could have it.” He looked over his shoulder at her as he dropped the chunks of glass into the trash can, then rested his elbows on his bent knees. “It might be a bit big on you. It was on her. But it’ll keep you warm.”
It wasn’t the sweater’s ability to keep her warm that bothered her. It was the fact that he wanted her to wear a dead woman’s clothes.
Why did he even still have them? Hanging on to things that belonged to the dead was never a good sign. Was he trying to hold on to her memory? Was it still too painful to part with things that might still hold her scent? Or that held fond memories of her sneaking his favorite sweater into the dryer so she could have it instead?
Either Paul was a heavy-duty procrastinator, or he still hadn’t fully dealt with his wife’s death.
“The jeans might be a little big around the waist and long in the leg too,” he added. “You’re a little smaller than she was.” He carefully shook glass out of a pair of her underwear, but Journey couldn’t get over the fact that he still possessed his late wife’s clothes to even begin to feel embarrassed that he was touching her intimates. “I would have brought you a pair of her shoes,” he added, “but her feet were bigger than yours.” He glanced pointedly at her size sixes.
She looked at her bare feet. “Yeah, I’m pretty petite.” She wiggled her toes and lifted her gaze back to his. “It’s hard to find clothes that fit unless I shop in the kids’ department.”
He stared at her like he wasn’t sure if he should frown or laugh.
“I’m joking,” she said, smiling at his confused expression.
His shoulders relaxed and he hung his head briefly before laughing at himself. “I thought you were serious. I was trying to imagine you browsing racks of glittering My Little Pony T-shirts and goofy Sesame Street pajamas.”
She didn’t want to know how he was so familiar with children’s cartoons, especially since there was no pitter-patter of little feet running around his home.
“My Little Pony and Sesame Street?” she said with a good-natured sneer as she brushed her hand in the air like he was talking crazy. “I’m a Pokémon girl. Or Godzilla.”
“Godzilla? Really?”
“Absolutely. I’ve always had a place in my heart for Godzilla.”
His cheery grin warmed the whole cabin as he shook his head and laughed. “I never would have taken you as a Godzilla girl.” He peered inside her suitcase as if making sure he’d gotten all the glass.
“Actually, I’m a Godzilla woman.”
His hypnotically gray eyes swung back around and raked her with a charitable but slightly smoky head to toe once-over before his gaze traveled back up to her face. “I stand corrected.” He continued studying her for several seconds, then he scooped up her champagne-soaked clothes and stood. “I’m going to throw these in the wash.”
She stared after him as he walked down the hall and disappeared yet again, leaving her with his dead wife’s clothing.
If he had moved all the way out here to forget her, he was failing miserably. You couldn’t forget someone when you couldn’t even get rid of their clothes.
/> She spun herself on the swivel seat of the barstool, glancing up at the artsy-fartsy black steel and gold LED chandelier over the island. Fancy light fixture for a cabin in the woods. Just like the rest of the decor.
He returned to the living room carrying a broom and dustpan, swept up the remaining glass, and dumped it in the trash.
“What do you want to do about your suitcase?” he asked as he carried the trash can back to its home under the sink.
Her poor suitcase would never recover from this. It would always reek of champagne, and anything she packed in it from this day forward would too.
“You might as well just throw it away.”
“Are you sure? I might be able to wash out the smell.”
With a resigned shrug, she shook her head. “No, it’s okay, don’t bother. I think it’s pretty much ruined.”
He picked it up and held it in front of him, inspecting it, then looked up at her with a shrug. “You could always store your wine in it.”
He delivered the goofy line with perfect deadpan timing while wearing an expression so serious he could have been a surgeon preparing for a heart transplant.
The whole scene—everything about it—was so ridiculous that before she knew what hit her, she laughed so hard she nearly tipped herself off the barstool.
“Whoa!” He dropped her suitcase and caught her by the shoulder just as she jerked back into the seat, still laughing.
Now he was laughing with her.
He had a nice laugh. Full and honest. Vibrant.
“You need to be more careful.” If not for his amusement, he would have sounded like he was scolding her. “You’re using up all my Band-Aids.”
This set off a second round of laughter for them both.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have put your first aid kit away.” She dabbed tears from the corners of her eyes, trying to stifle the worst case of the giggles she’d had in years, which only made her laugh harder.
But, damn, it felt good to laugh. She had been stressed all day. First, she’d overslept and had to rush to be ready in time for Natalie’s wedding. Then, she had worried about getting on the road before the storm. Then, of course, came her disastrous attempt to get home, which had landed her in a ditch.
She was like that damned champagne bottle. The pressure had been building inside her for hours, and now that Paul had popped her cork with his silly remark about storing her wine in her ruined suitcase, she couldn’t stop the bubbly from pouring out of her on waves of infectious laughter, with Paul laughing almost as uncontrollably as she was. In that moment, they were no longer strangers. They were friends sharing a lighthearted, pressure-releasing reprieve in the eye of a hurricane.
Until he dropped his hands to her hips and said through his laughter, “God, your laugh reminds me of my wife’s.”
Insert whiplash-inducing full stop.
All laughing ceased, bodies froze, air no longer flowed through the room.
Her eyes lifted to his. He looked almost petrified, the color draining from his face.
He stood less than a foot in front of her, his hands still holding her hips, her palms pressed against his chest. When had she done that? She couldn’t even remember lifting her arms, let alone touching him.
But, whoa, the Reiki was flowing. Her hands were like hot irons, her fingers tingling like someone had plugged her into a power socket.
He blinked and looked down at where her palms rested against his pecs, and the color crept back into his cheeks.
When he lifted his gaze to hers, she inhaled sharply at the deeply intimate, yet dumbfounded, glaze in his eyes. It was as if he didn’t know whether to kiss her or push her away.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. She wouldn’t mind kissing him. But like this? With the wound of his late wife’s memory hanging in the air? She wasn’t totally against the idea, but she couldn’t handle the thought of making his pain even worse.
She eased her hands from his chest, drawing them back into her own personal space. His body weaved forward like a magnet attracted to a piece of steel, as if an invisible thread connected his body to her palms. Then, as if waking from a dream, he blinked and sucked in his breath, rocking back on his heels as he snatched his hands from her hips.
“Sorry, uh . . . I, uh . . .” A quizzical frown burrowed into his brow, and he cleared his throat, taking a backward step as he glanced at his wife’s clothes still folded on the counter. A moment later, he hooked his thumb toward the stairs. “Why don’t I set you up in the guest room so you can get cleaned up?” Keeping his gaze downcast, he scooped up the pile of clothes and started for the stairs.
Too numb to speak, she slid off the barstool and followed, feeling as if she were floating at least six inches above the floor.
What the hell had just happened between them? And why did she want it to happen again?
Chapter Five
Paul’s spare bedroom was bigger than her apartment. Hell, the en suite bathroom of the spare bedroom was bigger than her apartment. White marble floors, silver and crystal light fixtures, walk-in shower with what appeared to be a floor made of pebbles grouted together and sealed, a private water closet, and a soaker tub deep enough to drown in. Just how rich was this guy?
She set her toiletry bag and cosmetic case on the counter beside the sink, then returned to the room, where Paul had set his wife’s clothes on the dresser and was standing beside the open door with his fingers tucked into his pockets.
“Go ahead and get settled,” he said, not making eye contact. He still seemed flustered by what had happened downstairs. “Towels are in the linen closet if you want to take a shower. There’s soap, too, but it’s been in there for a while. Should still be good, though.” He glanced around the room and out to the hall as if planning his escape route. “Okay then”—he awkwardly stepped into the hall—“I’ll be downstairs after you’ve gotten cleaned up.”
He closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in a room that made her doubt her previous definition of wealthy. Even the cloudlike comforter with scalloped corners looked like it had been custom made. He probably had to ship it to the city when he wanted it cleaned, because a comforter like that didn’t go in the washing machine.
She didn’t really need a shower, but she absolutely had to experience that beautiful slice of luxury in the bathroom.
After grabbing a pair of lavender towels thicker than the head on a good mug of beer from the linen closet, she flipped on the water, then fished her soap and shampoo from her toiletry kit while it warmed.
As she took off her clothes, she noticed the initials embroidered on one corner of each towel: AEV. The initials of his real name?
What did the A stand for? Adam? Austin? Archibald? She winced and shook her head as she stepped into the shower. Paul didn’t look like an Archibald. But maybe Anthony? Or Andrew? Or how about aggravatingly handsome? That started with an A. And it fit.
She tilted her head back in the hot water and sighed.
Suspended from the tiled ceiling was a square showerhead that had to be at least three feet by three feet and made her showerhead back home look like Dr. Banner as opposed to the Hulk. Water showered on her as if she were outside in a downpour.
Washing her hair and lathering up her skin had never felt so liberating. Like she could wash away all the bad mojo of her day and get a do-over.
When she shut off the water a few minutes later, she felt ten times better. Rejuvenated, relaxed, and refreshed.
That was until she walked back into the bedroom and stared down his late wife’s clothes.
Your laugh reminds me of my wife’s.
She picked up the plaid pajama top and held it by the shoulders, letting gravity unfold it. If her laugh had reminded Paul of Sarah, how was he going to react when he saw her in Sarah’s pajamas?
How could she wear these? But it wasn’t like she had much choice. It was either wear the pajamas or walk around in a towel until her clothes were washed and dried. And that wasn’t going
to happen.
Sighing, she dropped the towel to the floor, shrugged into the top, and buttoned the black plastic buttons, leaving just the top button open. Sarah must have been a lot taller than she was, because the nightshirt’s hem hit her midthigh. Or maybe that was just how it was made.
Other than the length, it fit her okay; although her small boobs swam in it.
Unfolding the pants, she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled them on. She hadn’t put her underwear back on, which left her feeling a bit naked, but once the rest of her clothes were washed and dried, she would put on a clean pair. The fabric of the pajamas was thick cotton, and with the shirt hanging well past her butt, even if the pants were too big and fell off, her privates would still be covered.
She cinched the drawstring around the waist and rolled up the pant legs, which were long enough to cover her feet, then pulled on one of the pairs of socks. They were the thick, cushy kind, so they swallowed her feet like clouds.
With her damp hair drying in blond spirals around her face, she ventured out into the hall to go back downstairs. The walls were lined with paintings in modern frames that looked like the kind you bought in New York galleries, not a department store.
At the top of the stairs was a sitting area that overlooked the living room and part of the kitchen. Photographs covered the walls. She peered closer at one of them to find a smiling—no, he was laughing—Paul hugging a beautiful blonde with large soulful eyes. Was this Sarah? Sarah’s hair was darker than hers, and it was long and wavy, with strands blowing over Paul’s handsome face. Journey yearned for hair like that, long and flowing and free. Perfect hair.
People envied her naturally curly hair, but all she wanted was for it to be straight. Sure, she could straighten it . . . if she wanted to spend two hours doing so. But she had better things to do with her time.
In the photograph, Paul’s hair was shorter than it was now, his face more youthful. The two of them were on the beach, seated on the sand, Sarah between his open knees and leaning back against his body, her hands holding his thick forearms, which crossed over her chest. Both were wearing khaki shorts and sweaters dusted with sand, and a large beach house with a sprawling deck sat behind them. It reminded her of homes in the Hamptons.
