Rescued by a Stranger

by Lizbeth Selvig

“You’re blaming us on daddy issues?” Jill asked, incredulous. “Look, I talk to him as infrequently as possible, and he tells me to listen to you. I have little time for our father, Dee. He did a handful of lovely things around the house, and then he walked away. He said he’d always come back and take care of us, and he lied. Instead, he left us in charge of each other. Well, you can just stop worrying about that. It’s never been your job to look out for me, no matter what Julian Carpenter told you.”

  “Why did you really come here today?” Dee asked. “To tell me you wanted to become a physical therapist? Fine, good luck. You won’t need it.”

  “Now hang on!” Jill had had enough. “I came here willing to beg because I haven’t got a clue where to start with Jamie. I can’t believe you turned it into this.”

  “Then it’s my problem. Forget it.”

  “After everything you said?” Dee stared past her, lips pressed into a tight line. “If you only knew how small and inadequate I feel around you, you’d laugh yourself to death.”

  “Don’t try, Jill.”

  “Oh no, you tossed out your bombshell, now it’s my turn, like it or not. If I got good grades it was because I could never compete with you for popularity. If I did well at riding it was because the animals in my life seemed to understand me more than the people in my family did. As for vet school, it’s no different than what you do here—I would be good at it. And the Olympics? Oh, hah! That’s still the biggest pipe dream. Whatever I choose, someone will think it’s the wrong choice. My life is a poster for chaos theory,”

  “You really expect me to feel sorry for such hard horrible choices?”

  Jill stared at the floor. Of course nobody should feel sorry for her.

  “I’ve got nothing on your smarts, your looks, your settled career, Dee. To tell me we’re victims of jealousy is ridiculous.”

  “I’m not getting into a who’s-got-it-worse pissing match.” Dee’s voice rose in frustration. “It’s past. It’s done now.”

  “What if I don’t want it to be done now? For crying out loud, we’re sisters.”

  “Not really in any more than name.” Dee thrust the words like an epee jab.

  Jill stumbled back. “Are you serious?”

  “I have a patient coming any second.” Dee ignored her. “I’ll get some more information for you along with the name of an expert.”

  “C’mon, Dee, don’t. Don’t cut it off like this.”

  Dee’s shoulders sagged, but she braced her palms on the countertop in front of her. “If there was more to be said we’d certainly say it, and not even this nicely. Look, I really do have a patient coming.”

  Jill looked helplessly at the ceiling and drew a steadying breath. “No angry words will ever change the fact that you are my sister and that for some masochistic reason, I love you.” She paused and reached for the smallest sliver of humor through near tears. “Maybe this minute not so much.”

  But it fell flat in a sea of silence. They stood, not looking at each other until Jill had no choice but to walk away, wishing she’d never come.

  THE TRIUMPH ROLLED to a smooth stop in front of a palace-sized motorhome, and Chase braced his feet, letting the engine idle. This was no simple little RV on a campground camping spot. This was a land-based yacht on one of the most beautiful lake views he’d ever seen.

  Jill, his snug backstop for the past one hundred and thirty miles, released her arms and stretched them over her head. After Chase kicked down the stand and flicked off the engine, she popped off the bike like a cork from a Champagne bottle.

  “What do you think? Pretty cool, huh? Wasn’t this a good idea?” She chattered like a squirrel on caffeine as she dragged off the new helmet he’d bought for her. “This is what my grandparents left to Mom when they died. We don’t come nearly often enough anymore.”

  “Jill. Jill!” He laughed and took her upper arms in his hands. “Slow down. What the heck did Dee put in your tea this morning? It sounds like something questionable if not highly illegal.”

  The shadow of pain that flit in and out of her eyes was unmistakable but gone in the time it took her to lean forward and peck him on the lips.

  “No, no, I’m excited to be here with you, that’s all. Come on, let me show you the inside of the motorhome and then the beach.”

  He shook his head as she bounded away from him. She’d been wired ever since her meeting with Dee that morning. Now she bordered on hyper. It was her nature to bounce back, to find the positive, to smooth things over, to please. She’d come as close to full-on depression as he’d ever seen when Anita had pulled the girls from lessons. But this version of her was scarier.

  Two hours later, after she’d taken him on a tour of the two-acre, wooded lakefront parcel, cooked dinner, cleaned up, and aired the bedding, Jill’s bubble of hyperactivity finally burst. Chase left the bathroom to find the luxurious motorhome empty. He checked the bedroom at the end of the vehicle, taking in the fluffy down duvet cover, the etched-glass storage cupboards, and the built-in side tables. The sight made him both anticipate and dread the night. He wasn’t clueless. He’d already pushed his red-blooded maleness to its breaking point. But he was falling too fast in a way he hadn’t ever fallen before.

  He walked through the beautiful motorhome—nicer than most Memphis living rooms he’d seen in his life—and opened the door into a softly sultry twilight that hinted of welcome rain. She stood, as still as he’d seen her all day, leaning against a rough-barked maple tree, one hand in the pocket of her jeans shorts. Her lean, strong legs shone in the twilight, and the crescent of moon limned her hair in a glow against the lake.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Time to listen for the loons,” she replied, and took his hand.

  They wandered closer to the shore. The lake surface gleamed like a huge pewter platter set beneath the moonlight. Chase sat against an old paper birch a solid four feet in diameter, raised his knees, and pulled Jill to sit between them. As she settled onto the mossy grass, the haunting yodel of a loon echoed across the water. She leaned slowly backward and finally relaxed. She felt like safety personified, resting against his chest, nestled into his crotch. He put aside his misgivings about the night. This was peace.

  A few stars shone between smoky clouds that slipped across the expanse of heaven. He clasped his hands around her belly.

  “You finally ready?” he asked.

  “Ready?”

  “To tell me what really got you chasin’ like a pup after a weasel. I’ll fix anything I can, if I know what it is.”

  “Why do you think anything needs fixing?”

  “Jill. You are the least evasive person I know, and you’re answering questions with questions. This is about Dee, isn’t it?”

  Absolute stillness overcame her body. He waited.

  “It went like crap this morning,” she said at last. “I don’t know why I thought it wouldn’t.”

  “You can’t let her bully you, honey.”

  “She didn’t bully, she … She kind of blew me away with honesty. Dee really does hate me.”

  “Oh, now, why would you say that?”

  She made a rueful little grunt. “Her claim is that the only things she’s ever been better at than I am are catching men and physical therapy, and now I’m moving in on both of them. Seems her little geeky sister beat her out of the classiest guy she’s ever met. It was the only thing she said that I agreed with.”

  Chase swallowed the guilt. He pushed Jill away enough to wiggle from behind her and scoot around to look her in the eye.

  “She’s wrong and I hope you set her straight. You didn’t beat her out of anything. You fell out of that car window and kind of into my heart.” He kissed her forehead. “And you’ve been my best friend around here ever since.”

  “Is that still all we are? Friends?”

  “With a few benefits.”

  She shook her head. “You know what? Not good enough tonight.”

  Just that quickly, she’d chan
ged the subject, and desire burst over him like water over a broken dam. She traced a path down his jaw in a gesture too simple to be stimulating—but it was. The familiar, insistent throbbing began low in his abdomen, and turned him hard and willing. He tried to keep some self-control, but she placed her lips against his and spoke.

  “When I was done with Dee all I wanted was to come to you. She thinks my life is something perfect, but for years it’s been a big mess of loose ends. I know it hasn’t been long for us, but you make it all come together. I just want to feel like I’m all together tonight.”

  Her plea snapped Chase’s will as if it were one of the brittle sticks on the floor of the woods. He reached for her with a groan. “Be careful what you ask for.”

  “I’m tired of careful.”

  With more sweet skill than she’d ever shown, she kissed his lips apart and took his tongue into her hot, sweet mouth. He pulled her onto his lap and released the craving that poised like a panther within him.

  She continued her intimate assault until he was no longer master of his body. Her hands floated over his face, his head, his shoulders. Her strong, clever fingers slipped between their bodies to stroke his belly and his inner thighs, and he shifted to give her room.

  When her palm cupped him at last, a convulsive swallow turned to groans, and he lay back in the grass, while she stayed upright, seated on his thighs, playing, outlining him through his jeans, exploring until he had to stop her or fear for his control. By pulling her forward, he replaced her maddeningly erotic touch with the coupling of their bodies. Hard beneath soft, his hips undulated, and he drove his fingers into her hair, calloused tips against honeyed silk. Greedily he pulled her soft sounds into his open kiss.

  When she arched over him, Chase slowed his rhythmic movement and rolled them to their sides. The buttons of her summer camisole slipped open at his touch, and he feathered kisses downward until his lips met lace and satin. When he lifted the delicate fabric and freed her breast into his hand, the skin was richest velvet to his fingers, her textured nipple, rough and stimulating to his tongue. He wanted to draw with force enough to assuage his need, but he summoned gentleness and, when his tongue circled, she gasped her approval.

  She held him to her breast and he laved gently, rhythmically. One hand slid down the flat plane of her stomach, and he delved beneath the waistband of her shorts. Her little spasms sent lightning deep into his body. She grasped at the hem of his T-shirt.

  “Off,” she demanded.

  He pulled his mouth reluctantly from her breast and obeyed. Flattening her palm, she swept across his chest and stopped to send shocks skittering through his system by ruffling through the patch of hair between his pecs. Slowly one finger skimmed down the line of hair on his belly to the button above his fly. She worked it open and spread the denim just enough to give her lips teasing room above the elastic of his boxers.

  The breath hissed from his lungs.

  Once again, he could only stand her torture for mere moments before he pushed her onto her back where he could hover over her, kiss her forehead, her lips, her cheeks, and circle his fingers around the sweet indentation of her navel. The button of her shorts popped open at his touch, and he slid the zipper, then burrowed once more to the waistband of her underpants. She pulled his head close, sucking her stomach to concave when his fingers found the soft boundary of curls he sought.

  “Yesss …” The sibilant whisper sent gooseflesh on an assault down his spine and jarred him out of his self-absorbed pleasure.

  “Shhh …” he soothed.

  “I love you, Chase.”

  The words slammed him like bullets. Everything inside stilled. Goose bumps turned to dread chills. He clung to her as irrational fear stole through him like suffocating smoke.

  “I think I fell in love the instant you made me climb on the Triumph. The first time.”

  How many times had he reminded himself in the past two months that the worst thing he could do was fall in love? He ran down the litany now of why he couldn’t love Jill Carpenter. He would leave. She would leave. His real self would disgust her. Although he hadn’t physically pulled the trigger, he’d killed a child. A beautiful barely-older-than-a-baby child. If he said the words—if he returned her “I love you,” no matter true it was—it would mean he was ready to face what he’d done and stop running.

  As long as his growing feelings for her had remained undeclared, he’d fooled himself into believing it was possible to leave without hurting her. But deep down he’d known she was waiting patiently to learn his secrets even though she had no idea what they were. Wasn’t that the definition of a woman who’d accept him for who he was?

  He withdrew his hand from where it had stilled in its ardent search. She tensed when he rested his lips against her hair, and she waited as she’d been doing all summer. It wasn’t fair to lead her on any longer. Although it would be the hardest thing he’d ever done, Chase knew what he had to say. Like a man about to make a cliff dive, his throat constricted.

  “You know something?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I love you, too.”

  The words embarrassed him, as if he’d spoken too loudly in a hushed room. But after long seconds the panic subsided, and the truth shimmered inside him like sun on his soul. For a glorious moment his reason for hiding held no power compared to “I love you.”

  He felt more than heard her sob, and he pulled away to see a tear course down her cheek, followed by another.

  “Hey, now.” He thumbed them away. “Please believe I want you. I want to make love to you all night long.”

  She quivered. “And yet, there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

  “C’mere.”

  He cradled her and stroked her hair. He calmed her but no longer strove to excite her even though his body remained excruciatingly unsatisfied.

  “Making love to you will be the best thing that’s ever happened.”

  “Right. Will be.” She pulled away and sat up, her big, sad eyes showing the first spark of anger. “I don’t understand you, Chase Preston. Tell me who you are.”

  It was his cue, his chance to stop running then and there, but he didn’t. He couldn’t do it like this, when it would look like he was using this passion and heat as a way to make her feel sorry for him. Or to cure the wounds her sister had dished out. No, she needed honesty and full disclosure. And the chance to turn him away.

  “I’m a lot of things,” he said. “Mostly I’m Abigail Preston’s oldest baby boy, who didn’t turn out remotely like she—or the good Lord—hoped he would.”

  “Oh my good Lord. Preston!” Her voice rose slightly. “That’s the stupidest, hokiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I’m a hokey kind of guy.” He tried a little half grin—the one that always made her giggle. It failed. “I’m not too hokey to know there are some things that shouldn’t be between us when we make love the first time.”

  “Then tell me!” She balled her fist against his chest and beat without power. “What is this bizarre politeness? You’re the most ethical, honest person I know, but I hate that right now.”

  His lungs felt airless. Those words were exactly why he feared telling her. What would she do when she found out how ethical and honest he wasn’t?

  “I ain’t no more special than a hound at the pound, Jill. If you pick me out, I need to make sure you know what you’re getting.”

  “You said ‘I love you.’ You aren’t the kind of guy who’d say it to appease me. I know what I’m getting.”

  They sat, the ethereal chirps of cicadas and grunts of frogs swelling in the night air. For a long moment he feared he’d gotten this moment dead wrong and she was done, but the loon sang again and a mate answered. Jill bounced up, disturbingly cheerful once more, like she’d been on the trip up and during dinner. Like she was after everything that slammed her down.

  “Come on. I need the equivalent to a cold shower.” She grabbed his hand. “We’re going skinny dipping.”

  His eyes
widened. “Jill …”

  “Fine—skivvy dipping.”

  As if that would be any better.

  SHE DIDN’T MUCH care if Chase thought stripping to their underwear was ridiculous, inappropriate, or even titillating. She barely thought anything when she reached the lakeshore and ripped off her shorts and the camisole that was still half unbuttoned. She laughed outwardly and smothered the anger and hurt inside. By the time she stood in her bikinis and bra, Chase barely had his shirt off, and he stared a little like a boy at a peep show. At least he wasn’t completely immune to her.

  “Last one in …” she cried, and dashed for the water.

  “Hey! Be careful, you. It’s dark!”

  It didn’t matter; she knew the lake with its sand-and-smooth-pebble bottom that deepened gradually. She ignored his warning and let her laughter ring out falsely into the night.

  The first splatter of cool lake on her shins and thighs shocked her, but she splashed all the way in, her legs dragging against the moon-sprinkled water until it forced her to slow to a cartoonlike slog. The slight fish-and-algae tang cleared her head of everything plugging up her emotions. Tears welled and she dove, letting the water close over her head and bury her sadness. When she surfaced, she wiped her face clear of water and traces of her crying.

  She screeched when Chase rose unexpectedly behind her, his hair plastered into his eyes, his face dripping like a surfacing sea creature.

  “Are you crazy?” he asked. “Who runs full tilt into a dark lake?”

  “Didn’t you just see me do it?” She wasn’t sure whether anger, hurt, or captivation ruled her. The perfect diamond of hair on his chest, not thick or furry and not wimpy or thin, glistened with droplets of water. She wanted to run her fingers through it again and move on to his shoulders, hard, but not too rocklike when wrapped around her.

  You know exactly what they feel like around you. Tears formed again. What on this side of Mars was wrong with her? She had no reason or right to feel wounded. He hadn’t hurt her. He’d said he loved her. Ten sexy hot models kissing her at once couldn’t do to her what Chase did with one nibble on her bottom lip. And she didn’t want ten sexy models—even if they would make love to her and he wouldn’t. She wanted to keep coming home to Chase, whether it was here or Memphis or Florida or Zanzibar. She hadn’t lied. It was too soon, too fast, too pushy, and, with her disarray of a life, too unfair a thing to do, but she’d fallen in love with him.