It doesn’t mean anything. He felt guilty. That’s all.
She understood that was true, but there was something about the understated carefulness of his selection that made it impossible for her to simply dismiss it as a guilt gift. He’d clearly thought about her and what might appeal to her when he’d made his purchase. And he’d gotten it—gotten her—perfectly.
* * *
LEO WAS ON the patio finishing up a modified workout with some rehabilitation exercises when the doorbell rang on Saturday afternoon. He set down the stress ball he’d been squeezing and made his way through the house to the front door. Rachel blinked when she saw him, her gaze dropping to his chest briefly before returning to his face.
“Hi,” she said.
“Come on in.”
She moved past him into the house, leaving behind the same sweet, light scent he’d noticed at the library.
“Mum rang five minutes ago to say she’s been held up at the shop,” he explained. “Something to do with the alarm. She said to make yourself at home and she shouldn’t be long.”
She blinked again. “I can come back later, if that’s easier...”
“She’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Okay. Sure.”
He gestured for her to precede him up the hallway, his eyes automatically dropping to her gently swaying backside. She was wearing jeans today—not those tight, fashionable hipster ones but well-worn straight-legged jeans that looked as though they had many stories to tell.
She had long legs, he couldn’t help noting. And a rather nice bottom.
She glanced over her shoulder at him as they neared the rear living room, and her brows were drawn together in a slight frown. Almost as though she’d overheard his thoughts. He raised his eyebrows in question and she shot her head to the front again.
If it was any other woman, he’d take it as a sign of awareness. The man-woman kind. But this was Rachel.
“Can I get you a coffee while you wait?” he asked as they entered the living room.
“Thanks, that would be great.”
He moved into the kitchen to put the kettle on. “Milk, no sugar, right?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s right.”
“Station-house trick. We live on coffee,” he said.
“Oh.”
He crossed to the fridge for the milk. She set her things down and shrugged out of her black cardigan, revealing a tailored white shirt made out of something that looked soft to the touch. Silk, maybe. He noticed the faint shadow of her bra underneath.
“I wanted to thank you for that book you recommended to me,” he said. “Turns out The Hobbit wasn’t a fluke. Apparently I’m a closet fantasy geek.”
“You’re enjoying it?”
“It’s awesome. Sex and death and blood and guts. Like you said, something for everyone.”
“Hey, that’s great. I’m glad.” She beamed at him. She clearly took pleasure in turning people on to books, which probably wasn’t surprising, given her profession.
“How many books are there in the series?”
“Five. At the moment. The bad news is he hasn’t finished writing the series yet.”
“So I should read slowly?”
“As a librarian, I endorse reading in all its forms. Fast, slow, electronic, with your lips moving, out loud.”
He laughed. She had a sense of humor. As well as a shirt that he wanted to touch and legs that went on forever.
He slid her coffee across the countertop toward her. “I managed to keep my lips still. Just.”
Her eyes dropped to his mouth for a second. “Good to hear.”
He heard the sound of the front door opening and closing and realized he was disappointed they’d run out of time together.
To do what, exactly?
Good question.
“Here I am. So sorry to keep you waiting,” his mother said as she bustled into the room.
“Not a problem,” Rachel said with an easy smile. “Leo and I were just talking books.”
His mother shot him an unfathomable look. “Oh, that’s nice.”
She and Rachel started talking about the quilt, and even though he was sweaty and sticky from his workout, he leaned against the sink, crossed his arms over his chest and sipped his own coffee. He watched the expressions play over Rachel’s face—a self-deprecating smile when she talked about her sewing efforts to date, a small frown when she described something she found frustrating, a warmth in her eyes as she listened to his mother.
She had a great chin. He wasn’t sure he’d ever noticed a woman’s chin before, but hers was small and delicate and determined. A perfect match for her cute little ski-jump nose. All in all, she was a baffling combination of girl-next-door pretty and leggy, statuesque model.
Okay, not so much baffling as enticing. Intriguing.
And that was before he took into account her sexy, abandoned laugh and her warm, intelligent eyes.
And there you go again. You remember who you are, right? The last man she’d ever look sideways at.
“I’m going to go shower,” he said, pushing away from the sink.
Neither woman so much as glanced at him as he made his way to the door, they were so engrossed in their conversation.
Which was as it should be. Rachel was there for his mother, not for him. In fact, if she had her choice, she’d probably prefer he not be there at all.
* * *
IT WAS FIFTEEN minutes past five on Monday when Rachel shut the door on the last of the library’s borrowers. A further fifteen minutes later, she and Jill had tidied up for the night, locked up and parted ways. Basket over her shoulder, Rachel headed for home, her head full of plans for the evening. She wanted to cut out more pieces for her appliqué border trial run, and then she needed to drive to Teresa the costume designer’s place to have a fitting for her dress for the dance final. Her first honest-to-God costume, since she’d borrowed a dress for the heats. She was dying to see what Teresa had done with all the red satin and black trim she’d bought.
She was about to leave the last shop behind when she registered the man standing still as a statue on the other side of the road. Leo’s gaze was riveted on something in the side street, and even though he was several feet away, there was something in his posture that made her stop.
He was tight. Braced for pain.
Acting on instinct, she crossed to the other side. Leo was so focused he was oblivious to her approach. It wasn’t until she was almost at his side that she saw what held him transfixed.
The Sorrento Fire Department had its quarters on the side street, and all three trucks were out on the concrete apron in front of the fire station, their crews rolling hoses and attending to other maintenance issues. Some of the men were in full kit, others in their gray uniform T-shirts and yellow turnout gear. They talked as they worked, smiling and laughing and ragging on each other.
Leo watched them as though he was doing penance, as though it was both torture and pleasure for him. The longing and pain in his eyes made her chest tight.
This was what went on beneath that gruff, tough demeanor, then. A world of anguish and uncertainty.
“Leo.” She spoke softly and touched his arm gently.
He started, swinging to face her. For a second his gaze remained blank, unseeing, his mind clearly somewhere else entirely. Then he blinked and was back.
“Rachel.”
“Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “Yes.”
She wondered if he was aware that he was sending mixed signals. She glanced at the fire crew.
“Bit smaller than what you’re used to, I imagine.”
“A little.”
“How much longer do you have off from work?” she asked, wanting to keep
him talking. Wanting to somehow ease the lost look in his eyes.
“Until the doctors give me the all-clear to return to duty. I should really get going.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Gabby’s place.
She studied his face, the tension around his mouth, the stiff way he was holding himself. If he was a woman, he’d be crying right now. That’s what her gut told her, anyway. But he wasn’t, he was a man, the kind who thrived on adrenaline and risk and running around with an ax in his hand. Allowing himself to hurt, and to seek comfort for that hurt, was anathema to him.
“I could walk with you for a bit, if you like?” she heard herself offer. “We could go down to the beach.”
He looked away, his gaze going to the twinkling blue of the sea at the bottom of the hill. The silence stretched. He was going to reject her. Of course he was. They hardly knew each other. She was probably the last person he wanted to spend time with when he was so close to the edge.
“Okay.”
She blinked and hoped she didn’t look as surprised as she felt. “Well...good.”
He turned his back on the fire station and started down the hill. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed him. A few paces in, she’d matched the rhythm of her gait to his.
He didn’t say anything, and neither did she, the only sound the slap of their feet on the pavement. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes, not quite sure why she was even here, or why he’d agreed to let her be.
His jaw was set, his mouth grim. His eyes stayed on the ground, ignoring the beauty of the Sorrento foreshore—the tall cypress pines and the strip of pristine yellow sand and the rustic charm of the jetty, all set against the shiny azure blue of the sea.
“Your mom is worried about you, you know,” she said quietly.
He didn’t take his gaze from the pavement, but he tensed. “She shouldn’t be. I’m fine.”
He was probably regretting saying yes, wishing her to hell.
Well, tough. She would never walk away from someone who was clearly in pain. And it wasn’t as though she had anything to lose. Like his friendship, for example.
“What happened that night?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But maybe you should. Since the not-talking thing doesn’t seem to be working out so well for you.”
He shot her a glare. “How would you know?”
“Leo, if this is you happy and well-adjusted, I don’t want to meet you on a bad day.” His mouth curled into a grudging almost-smile. “Think of me as the world’s cheapest, most disposable therapist. You can spill your guts and walk away and not see me again for another fifteen years.”
He didn’t say anything as they reached the bottom of the hill and waited for a break in the traffic to cross to the beach. It was only October, so the wind coming off the water was on the bracing side, even if the sun was warm overhead. She buttoned her jacket and wondered if this was going to be the shortest, most silent walk in the history of humankind.
She bent down to tug off first one ballet flat, then the other when they reached the sand. After a moment he copied her, tugging off his boots and socks. As one they turned and started walking along the beach, the water on their left.
“It never should have happened.”
He said it so quietly, his voice so low, she almost didn’t hear him.
“The accident, you mean?”
“All of it. Cameron. This.” He indicated his shoulder. “It was a derelict building, slated for demolition. Typically, in that scenario, we’d concentrate on containment, let it burn itself out. But we had an emergency-call recording from someone saying they were trapped on the second floor. We had to check it out.”
His face twisted with anger and she stopped in her tracks, stunned by the thought that occurred to her.
“It wasn’t a prank?” she asked.
“There were no bodies found in that building, alive or dead,” he said grimly.
“Why would someone do that? That’s just perverse.”
He nodded. “Yeah. It is.”
It was as though a floodgate opened then. “Cameron and I were sent in to clear the building. Visibility was low and we crawled to the stairway at the back of the building.” His face tightened. “I stepped onto the stair and it just collapsed beneath me. I went down on my arm. Tore my tendon, broke my collarbone,” he said matter-of-factly. “Cameron got me out of there before going back in with someone else from the crew. Then there was an explosion and all hell broke loose.
“One second we were turning the tide, gaining control, the next...” He fell silent and she knew he was remembering the horror, the helplessness. “He got trapped. We couldn’t get him out.”
Such a simple explanation, but she could only imagine how it must have felt for Leo and his crew to stand outside a burning building and know they were unable to save one of their own.
“Tell me about Cameron,” she said.
And he did. How they’d met at training, how Leo had pegged Cameron as the guy to beat and vice versa, how they’d pushed each other harder, faster, higher. How there was no one Leo would rather have at his back, no one he trusted more. No better guy, no one he’d looked up to more.
“When you go into fire, you have to know in your bones the other guy has got you. He would have died for me, and I would have died for him.”
But he hadn’t had the chance. He’d been in the back of an ambulance being pumped full of painkillers when a disused oil tank had blown. Despite his injuries, he’d insisted on leaving the hospital that night and being there when Cameron’s fiancée was told.
“She’s four months pregnant—unplanned. They were moving up the wedding to keep her parents happy.”
The bleak misery in his face brought tears to Rachel’s eyes. So much wasted life. A dream that had never had a chance to bloom. A woman who would now raise her child alone.
And Leo, who would forever wonder if he could have saved his mate. Or if he would have died trying. Funny how she understood that without him articulating it.
At some point they’d gravitated to the dry sand near the seawall, sitting and leaning back against the sun-warmed stone. Now Rachel regarded Leo’s set jaw and dry eyes and wished there was something she could say or do that would ease him through this sad, broken time. But there wasn’t. There was no shortcut through grief.
“I’m really sorry, Leo.”
He nodded, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon. He looked so self-contained, so tightly wound. As though he was afraid to let himself go in case he fell completely apart. If she’d known him better, if theirs had been an established friendship instead of a tentatively burgeoning one, she wouldn’t hesitate to put her arms around him. She settled for resting her hand between his shoulder blades, her body leaning against his enough to bring his right side into contact with her left. A little human warmth, nothing more, nothing less.
They sat like that for a long while, neither of them speaking. Finally, he stirred, pulling up the cuff on his sweater to check his watch.
“It’s going to get dark soon,” he said.
In fact, the sun was already on its way to setting, the sky a hazy apricot over their shoulders. He stood and offered her his good hand. She let him pull her to her feet, but when she tried to slip her hand free he tightened his grip.
“Thanks, Rachel,” he said, his gaze holding hers.
This close, she could see the starburst of amber-brown that surrounded his pupils, could see the exact place where that brown transformed into brilliant blue. She realized he was still holding her hand and that she’d swayed forward an inch or two toward him. Blinking, she tugged her hand free and took a step backward.
“You don’t need to thank me. Talk is cheap. Walking on the beach is free.” She made a throwaway gesture with
her hand, trying to smooth over that little lean-forward moment. Wishing that her body hadn’t so obviously betrayed her.
“And you owe me nothing. Therefore, I appreciate the gift of your time and patience.”
Before she understood what he intended, he was leaning forward. Her heart gave an odd little leap as he pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“Thank you,” he said again.
Then, before she could respond, he collected his shoes and started back up the beach. This time she didn’t follow. She simply watched him walk away, trying to pretend she couldn’t still feel the warm pressure of his lips on her skin.
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER TALKING TO RACHEL, Leo slept the whole night through for the first time in over a month. It wasn’t that she’d said anything profound, or that he’d come to any amazing realizations while they’d talked, it was simply that he felt calmer after having vented some of the thoughts and emotions that had been brewing inside him.
She was a good listener. She was also incredibly easy to be with. It felt comfortable, almost familiar. As though they’d been friends for a long time.
Lying in bed the next morning, Leo could still feel the warm, gentle weight of her hand on his back. He hadn’t been able to accept comfort from anyone else, but the simple, uncomplicated empathy of the gesture had somehow sneaked past his guard. He’d allowed himself to be sad, to acknowledge that he was hurting. Without guilt. He’d been so busy chastising himself for being alive, for being injured, for not being able to take all of this in stride, that he hadn’t allowed himself the small, human luxury of simply sitting with his feelings.
After a while, though, he’d been more aware of the press of her body against his. The weight of her breast against his arm. The rhythm of her breathing. The smell of her perfume.
So... Time to be honest with himself: he was developing a bit of a thing for the town librarian. Given their history, it was probably doomed to be a one-sided thing. His past actions were so beyond the pale, it was a wonder she had even stopped to give him the time of day, let alone extended the hand of friendship to him.
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