by Regina Kyle
“Thanks, Dad.” Jace found the remote stuck between the couch cushions and hit the power button, flicking through the channels to find the game. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Good.” His father kicked his feet up onto the table next to Jace’s. “Now about that pizza...”
* * *
“ARE YOU READY for this?” Sara asked, plunking herself down on the exercise bench across from Noelle.
“Shouldn’t you know the answer to that?” Noelle half joked. It was the first time she’d felt even remotely like laughing or smiling in the weeks since Jace left. But the next few minutes had the potential to improve her mood dramatically. “You’re the physical therapist.”
“You’re ready. You’ve been a model patient. Your rehab’s progressing right on schedule. I don’t make guarantees, but I’ll be surprised if Dr. Sun doesn’t clear you for the next phase of your treatment.”
“The next phase?”
“Phase four. Focusing on technique, power and performance by practicing sport-specific movements and tasks.”
“Speak English, not therapist.”
“If he gives the thumbs-up, you’re going back to New York to start dancing again.”
Noelle squealed. “You’re serious?”
“Down, girl.” Sara put a hand on her good knee. “Dr. Sun has to approve. And we’re talking baby steps. Pliés at the barre, not pirouettes across the floor.”
“I’m impressed you know what either of those are.”
Sara laughed. “It would have been impossible to spend all these weeks working with you and not pick up a little ballet terminology.”
“Ladies.” A distinguished looking man in what looked to be his midseventies poked his head through the door. Dr. Sun, Noelle presumed. He confirmed it a second later when he introduced himself and held out his hand to her. “And you must be Miss Nelson.”
“Noelle,” she corrected him, taking his hand and shaking it.
“Shall we get started?”
“Of course.” She stood. “The sooner the better.”
For the next half hour, he took her through a series of range-of-motion and strength-training exercises, grunting and scribbling in her chart after each set, not once revealing what he was thinking.
“Good, good,” he murmured finally.
“So I can dance?” Noelle took the water bottle Sara offered her, popped the top and drank.
“One more test.” Dr. Sun patted one of the exercise benches. “Lie on your back with your heel resting on the edge.”
She did as he asked, and he flexed her knee.
When he was done, Noelle sat up. “What’s the verdict, doc? Was leaving my family and friends and trekking more than halfway across the country worth it?”
“If by worth it you mean did coming here get you healed and healthy as fast as possible, then yes. You’re cleared to dance.” He held up a cautionary hand, palm out. “You’ll have to start slowly, of course. Basic, simple moves only. I’ll be sending your file to the company doctor in New York, and Sara will be consulting with your physical therapist there to make sure you stay on track.”
“Oh, I will, I promise. Thank you, Dr. Sun.” Noelle jumped up and hugged the surprised doctor then turned to her therapist, arms open. “And you, too, Sara. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
Sara returned the hug. “I don’t know about that. You’re one of the most motivated patients I’ve ever worked with. But if you’re offering it up, I’ll gladly take the credit for your success.”
Noelle gave Sara a quick squeeze before releasing her, and the two women said their goodbyes to Dr. Sun. When he was gone, Noelle sank back down onto the bench, still in a state of happy shock. Sure, she had a long way to go yet. It’d be months before she was strong enough to perform in front of an audience. But she was going to dance again. The career she’d worked so hard for was back within her grasp, so close she could taste it. “What happens next?”
“I’ll have the front office make arrangements for you to fly out as soon as possible.” Sara sat next to her. “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I think I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.”
“Thanks. I’ll miss you, too.” Noelle reached under the bench for her water bottle, suddenly itching to get back to her room, where she’d left her cell phone charging on the nightstand. News like this was too good not to share. She had to tell...
Jace.
Excitement traded places with regret, which settled on her like a cold, wet blanket. Jace was the one person she most wanted to talk to now, the one person who would best understand what it meant to be given your livelihood—no, your dream, your life, your goal since you could walk—back again.
Unfortunately, he was also the person who hadn’t bothered to communicate with her in the more than two weeks since his abrupt departure, save for one two-word text letting her know he’d arrived safely in Sacramento. And, okay, her response had been just as brief. But she had been following his lead. It was obvious he didn’t want anything more to do with her. Wasn’t it?
“Hey.” Sara tapped Noelle’s shoulder to get her attention. “Where’d you go? This is supposed to be good news, and you look like your man dumped you, your truck broke down and your dog died.”
“It is good news. It’s just...” Noelle stopped herself. The one drawback of keeping whatever it was she’d been doing with Jace quiet was that she had no one to confide in. Not even her sisters knew she’d broken down and slept with him. And slept with him. And slept with him. And...
“Ohmigod, it’s Jace, isn’t it?” Sara eyes went wide. “You wish he was still here so you could share this with him.”
Crappity crap crap crap. Noelle wondered what had given her away. Probably the Cheshire cat look on her face when she thought about sex with Jace. Maybe it wasn’t too late to bail herself out. “That’s not...”
Sara cut her off with a wave. “Don’t bother denying it. The whole staff’s been buzzing about you two.”
“What?”
“Well, maybe not the whole staff. Just the ones with eyes. And ears. And half a brain.”
“Great.” Looked like they hadn’t fooled anyone. Noelle let her head fall into her hands and groaned. “Just what I wanted. My love life the hot topic at the water cooler.”
Again.
“Don’t worry.” Sara gave Noelle’s arm a reassuring pat. “We may not be blind, deaf or dumb, but we can be discreet. And if it counts for anything, consensus is you guys make a great couple.”
“You mean made.”
“No, I mean make.” The pat turned into a squeeze. “You balance each other out. He makes you...I don’t know...lighter. Less serious. And I probably shouldn’t be telling you this—you know, patient confidentiality and all—but he was way easier to work with after you two hooked up. Even followed my directions...most of the time.”
Sara rolled her eyes.
“We left things sort of...” Noelle waved a hand absently “...up in the air. And he hasn’t called or texted since the day he left.”
“So? You’ve got dialing fingers. Call him.”
“I don’t know...”
“Don’t know what?” Sara smacked the arm she’d been squeezing. “Get with the program. This is the twenty-first century, girlfriend. Take the initiative. Your future is in your hands. Female empowerment and all that jazz.”
“Thanks. I’ll think about it.” Noelle got up. “I’m going for a swim.”
“Good idea.” Sara rose, joining her. “You can work out the kinks in your knee. And your head.”
Exactly what Noelle was hoping. Thirty minutes in the pool had a way of loosening up not just her muscles but her mind. Maybe she’d figure out some way to have her career and her man, too.
If that’s even what he wants, a little voice deep inside her whispered. She squashed it down and crossed to the door. When she reached it, she turned back to Sara. “I meant what I said before. I owe you, big time.”
“Go.” Sara shooed her away. “Before this gets all sappy and sentimental. And neither of us wants that.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, Noelle was in her swimsuit and in the pool. Breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, freestyle. A childhood spent swimming in Long Island Sound had taught her well, and now she worked her way through them all in methodical order, switching every third lap. With each length of the pool, her knee felt better, stronger, more stable.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for her muddled brain. Twenty laps and she was no closer to solving the Jace dilemma. Her mind kept drifting back to the night he’d found her swimming and given her one of the best orgasms of her life with only his fingers.
Sputtering, she stopped midlap and floated on her back. Sara was right. There was no way around it. If she wanted him—and she did—she was going to have to go out on a limb and pick up the phone. After all, what was the worst that could happen? Flat-out rejection? Utter humiliation? Been there, survived that, thanks to Yannick.
Although something told her it’d be worse this time around if Jace was the one doing the rejecting. What she’d felt for Yannick was a schoolgirl crush. What she felt for Jace was...different. Bigger. Maybe even big enough to be—dare she say—love. And the bigger the love, the harder the fall. Still, it was a risk she had to take if she wanted the reward.
And she wanted it. Bad.
Mind made up, Noelle hauled herself out of the pool. A quick shower later, she was on her bed, staring at the cell phone in her hand like it was a live grenade.
Sara’s words echoed in her head. Twenty-first century. Take the initiative. In your hands. Female empowerment.
Before she could change her mind, Noelle pulled Jace’s name up in her contacts list and hit Talk.
15
THERE WAS NOTHING quite like waking up to the strains of “Welcome to the Jungle,” played through the tinny speakers of a cell phone.
“Hang on,” Jace muttered to no one as he groped, eyes still closed, on the nightstand for his phone. After a few seconds of fruitless searching and a disturbing thud that told him he’d knocked something over, he cracked one eye open and spied the offending device on the floor next to the bed, still ringing and apparently unharmed.
“’Lo?” he answered, his voice gravelly and his words slurred as if he’d been sleeping. Which, of course, he had been. What the hell time was it?
He opened his other eye to get a good look at the bedside clock. Barely 8:00 a.m. No civilized person would dare call at that hour without a damn good reason. Which meant, whoever it was, odds were it wasn’t good news.
“Hello?” he repeated, slightly more articulate this time now that he was starting to join the land of the living. “Anybody there?”
“Ohmigod, did I wake you?” a familiar female voice came across the line. “Crap. I forgot about the time difference. I’ll call back later.”
“Noelle. Don’t hang up.” He was fully awake now, and he struggled to sit. If he’d been more alert, he’d have seen her name on his caller ID. “I take it you got my package.”
“Your what?”
“I sent you a care package.” He’d wanted to reach out to her with more than a simple phone call.
“Like the one your buddies sent you?” He could almost picture her arching one perfectly tweezed brow.
“Not quite.” He chuckled. “So if you haven’t gotten my little surprise yet, to what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”
“It’s a pleasure?”
His gut twisted at the uncertainty in her voice. His fault, he knew. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I wasn’t sure. The way you left...and then your text...”
She trailed off, sounding a bit like a jilted lover. Which she was, thanks to him. But that didn’t mean he wanted her to sound like one. Or stay one.
“Yeah, about that.” He paused, not exactly sure what he was going to say. He was walking a tightrope, trying to balance on a thin wire with love and commitment on one side and his hard-drinking, hard-partying, man-whore days on the other. “My life is...complicated right now. But I’d like it if we could be...”
“Friends?”
He stretched and scratched his stomach. “I was hoping for a little bit more than that.”
“Friends with benefits, then?” she suggested.
He grimaced. He’d never minded the expression before. But he sure as hell minded it now. It was too small, too crude for what he had—or wanted to have—with Noelle. “Do we have to put a label on it?”
“No,” she said after a long minute during which their entire relationship flashed before his eyes. Her falling through the therapy room door. Walking in on him with that damned blowup doll. Practically jumping into his lap at Fright Fest. And then there was the sex...
“We’re both adults,” she continued, interrupting his erotic daydream. “We know the score.”
“Good.” He breathed a relieved sigh and leaned back against his pillow. “Now that we’ve got that settled, why don’t you tell me what prompted this call?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“No.” He crossed his arms behind his head. “But knowing you, you’ve got one.”
“I do. I’m going home.”
In an instant, the few hundred miles between them became a few thousand. Still, he couldn’t help the admiration for her that swelled his chest. She’d worked her ass off and now she was reaping the reward. “So they’re letting you hit the dance floor again?”
“Only baby steps at first, but...”
“No buts.” Jace ran a hand through his hair. Christ, he wished he was back at Spaulding so he could take her in his arms and kiss her until they were both out of breath and out of their minds with lust. “That’s fantastic. I knew you could do it.”
“That makes one of us.”
He couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not. “Seriously. You’ll be doing those fancy turns across the stage in no time.”
She laughed. “I think you mean fouettés.”
“You’re the expert.” He flung off the covers, leaving him naked as the day he was born. He imagined her expression if she could see him now. An instant of shock, quickly morphing into glassy-eyed desire. Too bad they weren’t on Skype. “When do you leave for New York?”
“I’m not sure. Tomorrow, probably. The front office is taking care of it.”
Damn. No time for a quick trip to the desert. He’d have to wait until things with his father were settled before he could see her in the Big Apple. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for a pair of boxers in the pile of—he hoped—clean clothes on the floor. “You’d better get packing then. Promise you’ll call when you get there.”
“Will do.”
“And let me know when you get my package.”
“What if I’m gone by the time it gets here?”
“Don’t worry.” He pulled his boxers on over his morning wood and stood, scratching his stomach again. “I’m sure they’ll forward it to you.”
“What is it? Can’t you at least give me a hint?”
“And ruin the surprise?” He clucked his tongue. “Fat chance. You’ll just have to wait.”
“Spoilsport.”
“I prefer to think of it as heightening the anticipation. You know what they say. Good things come to those who wait.”
He sure as hell hoped so. Because it looked like he was going to have to wait awhile longer for the best part of getting back together—make-up sex.
* * *
“SHE’S HERE! ELENA, she’s here!”
Her father’s voice boomed from the porch of the Nelson family homestead as Noelle climbed out of her Mini Cooper. Within seconds, her mother, brother, sisters and their respective spouses spilled out into the gravel driveway to greet her.
You’d think she’d been gone two years instead of two months.
“Come inside,” her mother more ordered than requested after everyone had doled out hugs
, kisses and, in Cade’s case, noogies. “I made rigatoni bolognese. And insalata caprese to start. Your favorites, passerotta.”
Little sparrow. Her mother’s nickname for her. She said Noelle went straight from crawling to dancing, flitting from place to place like a bird.
“Everything you make is my favorite, Ma.” Not that she could eat much of it. Her mother’s idea of a balanced meal was carbs, carbs and more carbs, with a little protein on the side.
Sunday dinner was a tradition at the Nelsons, but it had been a while since the whole family sat down at the table together. Between Holly’s newfound success as a playwright, Gabe’s duties as Manhattan’s District Attorney, Ivy’s growing photography business and Noelle’s performance schedule, at least one of them was usually missing in action.
“To what do we owe this rare pleasure?” Noelle asked, pulling out a chair at the big oak table that dominated the farmhouse kitchen. “All six Nelsons in the same hemisphere. And it’s not even a holiday.”
“Are you kidding?” Gabe plunked himself down in the chair opposite her, elbows on the table. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Miss what?” Noelle asked.
Nick sat next to Gabe with a smirk. “The grilling you’re going to get from Holly and Ivy.”
“What’s there to grill me about?” As if she didn’t know.
“Jace Monroe,” Nick answered. “Your new boy toy.”
“Traitor,” Holly muttered, giving her husband a not-so-subtle smack upside the head as she took the seat on his other side.
“Yeah,” Ivy said, joining them at the table with Cade, who settled in beside her. “We were going to wait until after dinner. At least let her enjoy her rigatoni.”
“What little of it she’ll eat,” Holly added.
“Don’t you have a baby to take care of?” Noelle reached for a piece of bread from the basket at the center of the table. The carbs would be worth it. If she had her mouth full, she couldn’t be expected to answer questions.
“Joy’s upstairs, napping in her Pack ’n Play,” Holly said. “Which means I’ve got about forty-five minutes. Let the third degree begin.”
