Why did he care? I pushed myself up onto one shoulder, wincing. “I’m okay. It was just a bunch of idiots with paintball guns.”
“‘Idiots’ is not the word I’d use,” he said as he shifted to kneel in the colorful smears on the pavement. Reaching behind his neck, he grabbed the collar of his white T-shirt and pulled it over his head in one swift motion. “Don’t get up yet,” he commanded. He balled the shirt into a makeshift pillow, placing it where my head had lain.
I gaped at his bare chest, my heart slamming against my ribcage like another barrage of paintball pellets. His hands reached out to hover around my head, his fingers not quite connecting with my body.
“You can touch me, you know. It doesn’t hurt,” I added, collapsing back down. Wait. Did I really just say that? Oh. My. God. This time I probably did have a concussion.
He froze, a flicker of astonishment flashing across his face. His eyes narrowed as he carefully moved my hair away from my face without touching my skin. “You might be in shock. Rest for a second.”
“I’m ruining your shirt.”
He shrugged, his tanned shoulders flexing. “It’s just a shirt.”
“Right,” I said, trying to tear my gaze from the ridges of muscle lining his torso. I wished I could say his washboard abs were just a stomach.
“Are you going to give me some names?”
I rolled onto my back, shutting my eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun. After three full days of rain, the warm rays felt like a rare luxury. “It was just some seniors from my school,” I answered with a sigh. What difference did it make to him, anyway? And, more importantly, what was he doing outside my house?
“I’ll take care of them,” he said, his voice full of conviction. His fingers trailed through the ends of my hair.
Um, what? “That’s not necessary. Going after them only adds more fuel to the fire.”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking of reporting them to the principal.” His hand fisted in my curls, sending a gentle tug up to my scalp.
I turned my head to look over at him. His jaw was set in a hard, angry line. I had to nip this in the bud. “I’ll take care of it,” I lied. “Please don’t do anything,” I added as I struggled to sit up.
He released my hair and helped me, a firm grip on my waist. I felt no hum from his hands—my ruined short-sleeved sweater most likely served as a barrier—yet my own body responded with an uncomfortable heat. It was probably the bruises starting to form, I told myself. My upper body had taken a beating.
I shifted out of his grasp and examined myself in my car’s side mirror. Oh, no. My dark brown eyes peered out from a rainbow of paint splotches streaked with tear tracks. A riot of gummy curls stuck out in odd directions.
“Jamie,” he said as he bent to retrieve his shirt. “Why would they do that to you?” He shook the ruined T-shirt with a snap and pulled it back over his head.
Thank God. He shouldn’t be allowed to look that hot while I resembled someone who’d attended an all-night rave. “They hate me. It’s a long story.” One that I had no intention of explaining at the moment. Instead, I countered with a question of my own. “What are you doing here?”
That seemed to throw him off guard. He gazed down the street, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “I…have a friend that lives nearby.”
I didn’t believe that for a minute. But I had no time for a cross-examination. “I have to get cleaned up and get to work. I’m going to be really late.” I gestured toward the house.
“Wait. You live here?”
He put so much emphasis on the last word that I stopped to follow his incredulous gaze to see if my home had turned into a mansion while I was under fire. Nope, it remained an ordinary house. “Uh, yes. I live here. Actually, I live upstairs—it’s a separate apartment.” I gestured to the stairs that climbed up the side of the house, wondering why I was offering up additional information.
“Oh, I see. Like me.”
Huh? It took me a moment to understand that he meant we both essentially lived on property owned by our bosses.
I frowned, my mind whirling. So he wasn’t aware I lived here, but somehow knew my grandfather did. Stranger and stranger. But said grandfather was probably getting extremely impatient at this point. “I really have to get going. Thanks for helping me. Again.”
I waited a beat for the normal “you’re welcome” reply, but it never came. Instead, I watched conflicting emotions play across his handsome face. He seemed to be struggling with a difficult decision.
I had no time for this. With a sigh, I started for the stairs to the apartment.
“Jamie?”
I stopped in mid-stride, curiosity winning out over my desire to get upstairs. What on earth would make him want to prolong a conversation with me? I really didn’t want to face him again looking like a tragic clown. Plus, my legs were starting to shake in some kind of delayed reaction to the attack. But I turned back toward him anyway.
“Yeah?” I crossed my arms over my aching middle, my fingertips digging into my palms. A calculating glint in his eyes sent a shiver racing up my spine.
“I was thinking…maybe we should go out sometime.”
My mouth dropped open. That phrase wasn’t even on the long list of things I could ever imagine him saying. Clearly I was misinterpreting something, I decided as I cast about wildly for something to say. “But I thought you weren’t a people-person.” Oh, God. Nailed it.
“Good point.” His lips twitched. With a nod of resignation, he turned away.
Oh, hell. No one ever asked me out. Even if this was some sort of pity date, it was a chance to interact with someone—someone I wanted to know more about, I admitted grudgingly. “Maybe Friday night? I have to close the shop, but you could meet me there at seven.” I assumed he had access to a car, since he was inexplicably wandering a neighborhood located miles from the stable.
“You’ll be alone?”
Warning bells clanged in my head. I silenced them by reminding myself he probably just didn’t want to have to deal with anyone else. He’d already informed me he wasn’t a fan of people. “Yes, I’ll be alone, unless there’s a stray customer that late.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice laced with something that sounded like guilt. I caught the unsettling impression of a predator with a conscience, ashamed he was about to eat his prey. “I’ll probably see you at the barn, but if not, I’ll pick you up Friday.”
“Great. I’ve really got to get going,” I said, watching him as I walked backwards toward my stairs. He was studying my house as if it held the Holy Grail. “Have fun at…your friend’s?” I raised my eyebrows and my voice just enough to emphasize the fact I wasn’t as gullible as he seemed to believe.
His gaze slid from his survey of the house back to me. “Right.” With a cool nod, he turned and strode down Locust Street, leaving me more confused than ever.
Chapter 6
I stared at the pot on the stove, willing the water to boil. On the neighboring burner, slow fat bubbles were already rising to the top of the tomato sauce. I reminded myself of the old adage about watching pots and set the box of pasta on the counter.
I pulled a piece of dry spaghetti out and nibbled on it as I wandered into the living room of the main floor of our house. These were Nathaniel’s rooms, technically, but I was always welcome here. And on most weeknights, we had dinner together in his cozy little kitchen.
The old grandfather clock in the corner reminded me it was 7:10. I hurried back to check the water. I was running late—Nathaniel would be home in five minutes unless he had a last-minute customer. On the days he worked by himself from open to close, he came home hungry. He didn’t ask much of me, but he liked for dinner to be ready.
It was Dothan’s fault. He’d actually stopped to talk to me while I was grooming Beau this afternoon. I wasn’t really sure if he’d sought me out on purpose or just happened by us during his normal duties, but he had grabbed another brush from my tack box and started on Beau’
s opposite shoulder.
“You okay today?” he’d asked, a thread of anger woven through his usual cool tone.
I nodded at him across Beau’s back. “Fine,” I lied. Physically, red welts bloomed along my abdomen, flaring with pain every time something rubbed against them. However, the psychological fallout concerned me more. I was pretty sure I knew the group responsible, based on the car, and I ignored them as usual at school. But I was experiencing a new level of paranoia following the sneak attack. Being sixteen came with enough paranoia already; this I didn’t need.
“Blue roan,” Dothan commented, running the brush over Beau’s withers.
Unusual response, I thought. Not to mention just plain unusual for him to know that. Maybe he learned about my horse’s striking gray-blue coat in the same class that covered porcupine-quill removal.
“Yep.” Not to be outdone, I added, “If you look closely, you can see it’s an even mixture of black and white hairs that give him the bluish cast. Most people think he’s just a gray, but true gray horses lighten over time, and roans don’t.”
“You can also tell by the dark head and legs,” he said, his strokes moving up Beau’s neck toward his black head. “The roan pattern in animals is the result of a simple dominant trait, although the exact genetic mutation responsible hasn’t been identified yet.”
Huh? A wave of irritation crashed over me, tightening my fingers until I had a vise-like grip on the brush. How did he know so much about everything? Based on his book selections from the other night, he obviously enjoyed learning about obscure facts. Still, horses were my area of expertise. I searched my brain for something else I could say to showcase my own knowledge, but his scientific comments had apparently rendered me speechless.
“Right,” I said in agreement. It was the best I could do, and hopefully vague enough to suggest I already understood the genetics behind Beau’s silvery coat. I watched Dothan comb his fingers through the forelock of Beau’s midnight mane, wondering once again if animals felt the electric tingle of his touch. Judging from my horse’s calm demeanor, I guessed not. It was probably just some haywire reaction that happened only to me—the result of a nervous system generally deprived of human contact suddenly being exposed to someone ridiculously gorgeous.
No, that didn’t quite fit. Even if I was the only one reacting to him that way, he felt it too. Dothan had obviously been going out of his way to avoid skin-to-skin contact with me. Whatever this phenomenon was, it went beyond my own perception of reality.
For once, Dothan picked up the conversation before it spiraled into awkward silence. “He really is beautiful. His name suits him well.” He scratched the wide space between Beau’s solemn eyes and murmured something unintelligible in a soothing tone.
So Dothan knew French as well as random archaic languages. Shocker. I resisted the urge to question him about it, but I filed away the information—more evidence that didn’t support the high school drop-out scenario.
“I can’t take credit for the name,” I said, grabbing the hoof pick from my box. “But his first owner certainly got it right.” I patted Beau’s dark leg before I pulled it up to clean his hoof.
“So, are we still on for tomorrow night?”
The abrupt change to that particular subject unleashed a torrent of butterflies in my stomach. Thankfully, he couldn’t see my expression. My breath hitched, though, when I realized what part of my body he probably was addressing.
The words slipped out before I could stop them, what with sarcasm being my default response when faced with nervous tension. “Well, I haven’t had any better offers as of yet, so I suppose we are.” I squeezed my eyes shut, clamping my lips together too late. Would he understand I was joking? I released Beau’s leg and stood up, hoping he’d attribute my flushed face to being bent over.
The spark of confusion melted from his topaz eyes as comprehension dawned. He smirked at me. “You’re risking the first date flowers I was going to bring you.”
First date flowers? A devastatingly sexy smile still played across his face, so I assumed he was now teasing me. I was certainly no expert, but I didn’t think flowers usually came into play unless the date involved a dance of some sort.
“That’s fine,” I’d pointed out breezily. “Beau and I prefer peppermints anyway.” I had fished through the pocket of my riding breeches, pulling out the last red and white mint with a flourish.
The sound of the front door opening pulled me back to the present with a jarring force. My eyes refocused on the pots on the stove. I hurriedly dumped the noodles into the boiling water and set the timer for six minutes.
“Hi, Nathaniel,” I called. At least I had a salad ready to go. I gave it a final toss and placed it in the middle of the antique round pedestal table. “Dinner’s just about ready—we can start on the salad whenever you’re ready.”
“Well now, it’s really starting to feel like autumn in the evenings,” Nathaniel said as he entered the kitchen. He rubbed his large hands together briskly as he took a seat at the table. “So. How was your day, my dear Jamie?”
I smiled at the endearment. Nathaniel wasn’t a very physical man in terms of showing affection. But his kind words and gentle protectiveness always served as reminders of how much he loved me. And I loved him, despite the fact that we weren’t actually bound by blood. In every way that counted, Nathaniel was my true grandfather.
“My day was really great,” I answered, giving the pasta a final stir before turning off the burner. Warmth pooled in my belly as I pictured Dothan brushing Beau.
“Oh?” Nathaniel’s dark eyebrows lifted, his green eyes going wide. He knew the general state of affairs at school. I tried to spare him the gory details; he would share my pain, and worry incessantly, but in the end, I was sure an adult’s interference would only make matters worse.
I turned away to drain the spaghetti, willing the blood to leave my cheeks. “Well, school was fine.” That much was true anyway. Nothing good had happened, but nothing terribly awful had happened either. As usual, I’d eaten lunch at the end of the table claimed by the girls’ soccer team. The teammates had enough respect for Sam to allow me to exist on the fringes of their social network. I wasn’t one of them, but I wasn’t sitting completely by myself, either.
“But I had a great day at the barn,” I continued, suddenly very uncomfortable. I’d been about to blurt out my plans for Friday night, which would entail telling Nathaniel I was going out on a date with a mysterious stable hand whose last name I didn’t even know. Bad idea. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I wouldn’t have the answers to his inevitable questions.
“And what was so great?” he asked as I set a bowl of spaghetti smothered in tomato sauce in front of him. He dug right in, twirling the noodles around his fork.
“Well, I met some new people at the barn.” True enough, if I lumped Dothan in with the older woman who just started boarding her horse at the stable. Busying myself over the stove, I prepared for the blatant lie.
I lied by omission to Nathaniel all the time when it came to the bullying I endured at school. It occurred to me that I’d kept the fact that I knew the person who had spent a thousand dollars at the shop last week from him as well. I briefly wondered why as I launched into my fabrication.
“They invited me to come to the movies with them tomorrow night. I’d like to go—I’d be meeting them after work,” I finished in a rush. If I replaced “they” with “Dothan”, it was essentially the truth. But I figured a group situation sounded safer.
I wasn’t completely ignorant; I knew meeting Dothan alone involved risk. But I’d thought it through—sadly, I found myself thinking of Dothan a lot these days—and I felt he’d had plenty of opportunities already to hurt me, if that was his plan. He knew I worked alone at the store on quiet weeknights. He knew Beau and I went for long, solitary trail rides through the woods. With all the hate directed at me from my classmates, going anywhere was hazardous for me. I’d take my pepper spray and stay alert.
“That’s wonderful,” he said sincerely, a smile spreading across his handsome features. Although Nathaniel was 72, he didn’t look a day older than 60 in my opinion. His hair had turned pewter gray, but it remained thick and wavy. The years had added lines to his face and spots to his skin, but his emerald eyes shone brightly from the network of crinkles around his lids. Nathaniel was still fit and strong enough to move heavy antiques around the shop. He had an inherent gracefulness that reminded me of Dothan.
Ugh, there I went again. I made an agreeable noise and grabbed my fork, attacking my spaghetti with enthusiasm.
“Will Sam go with you?”
Shrugging, I swallowed audibly. “Not sure yet. But I won’t be late. Is it all right?”
We both knew this question was just a pretense. Nathaniel had agreed long ago to stand in as my legal guardian, not believing it would ever become necessary. Then my mother died suddenly last year. But Nathaniel and I both liked our privacy, and while we shared our grief, we maintained our separate living spaces. Nathaniel would have no idea if I stayed out later or what time I came home.
Up until now, it was rarely an issue anyway. My universe this past year consisted of five places: this house, Sam’s house, school, the store, and Fox Run Stables. I tried to remember to carry my phone in case Nathaniel needed to reach me, but I hated the thing now. It reminded me of the life a normal 16-year-old girl would live—texting, Facebooking, Tweeting—making plans with friends and taking stupid selfies to laugh at later.
“Of course it’s all right, sweetheart,” Nathaniel said, reaching for the green plastic canister of parmesan cheese. “You should be going out and having fun. And after the…” He pursed his lips and searched for a word. “Incident last winter, I think you’ve more than proved you’re capable of making good decisions.”
Guilt hovered over my shoulder, pricking at my conscience, but I shoved it away. Nathaniel was right; I should be going out and having fun. And I had proven myself in the past, much to my social life’s detriment. This time I was going to take a chance, since the only person that stood to get hurt was me.
Divine Fall Page 4
