She smiled. “Do you want something to eat or drink?”
“Maybe some water.”
She got him a bottle of water and a pretzel from the attendant at the snack bar, then collected a cart for herself and headed out.
After turning in the prescription and collecting the medical supplies she would need, she walked back to the men’s department. She went for easy first, and perused the jeans. Kevin’s size information instantly made sense and she collected a pair to fit his specifications. They were new and a little stiff, so she made a mental note to do laundry tonight when they stopped.
Next up were shirts. She bought three, two short-sleeved T-shirts and a light blue polo shirt. Underwear was next. Haley felt her face flame as she pushed her cart into the rows of packaged briefs and boxer shorts. She grabbed two sets of three pairs, a bag of socks, and nearly ran toward the main aisle. A quick glance at her watch told her she had another fifteen minutes until the prescription would be ready.
She turned to go back to the snack bar, but slowed as she entered the women’s department. It was June and the aisles were filled with light, pretty summer clothes. There were sleeveless shirts, floral print skirts, T-shirts and shorts.
She stopped at a rack of shorts and fingered the light cotton material. As if it had happened yesterday, she remembered her eleventh birthday. She’d had a great party with lots of friends, but when it was over, two of the mothers had stayed to talk to her. They’d carefully explained that she was going to be developing into a young woman soon, and young women dressed appropriately. It wouldn’t do for the minister’s daughter to be seen showing off her body.
At first, Haley hadn’t understood, but eventually everything had been made clear. Shorts and shirts had been replaced by loose-fitting summer dresses that made her feel ugly. She’d been unable to climb trees or to even ride her bike. On her eleventh birthday she’d gone from being a kid to being a young lady, and she’d hated it.
Haley glanced down at her loose-fitting dress. It was sensible and not the least bit revealing. Allan had loved it. Then she turned her attention to cute summer clothes all around her. There were dozens of styles of shorts, with matching tops, and even cute little summer sweaters. She grabbed several of each in her size and moved toward the dressing room. On her way she picked up a sleeveless summer dress that would skim her curves, then came to stop in front of a display of feminine nighties and pj sets.
She picked out a light blue camisole with matching tap pants and a short nightgown with skinny straps and an appliqué declaring the wearer Queen of Everything.
Right in front of the dressing room was the lingerie. Haley stared at colored bras with matching bikini panties. There were bright colors and pastels, cotton, satin, nylon and—she gasped—animal prints. No plain white utilitarian undergarments in sight.
Instantly her conscience started telling her that she wasn’t that kind of girl. Could she really see herself in a tiger print bra and matching panty?
“But I want to be that kind of girl,” she murmured, and scooped up one of everything in her size.
After a flurry of activity in the dressing room, Haley settled on a week’s worth of lingerie, three different styles of pj’s, four pair of shorts with shirts for each, two sun-dresses that had nothing to do with the ugly garments she usually wore when it was warm, jeans and a denim skirt that didn’t come close to touching her knees.
On her way to pick up Kevin’s prescription she detoured through shoes and found a pair of strappy sandals and some white athletic shoes imprinted with rhinestones. She couldn’t wait to get settled for the night to try on all her clothes again. Haley tried to remember the last time she’d been this happy, but no event came to mind. Maybe running away had been the right thing to do.
Kevin finished his bottle of water, ignored the pretzel and wished for a double dose of pain medicine. Every part of him hurt, even his hair. He couldn’t tell how long Haley had been gone, but he sure as hell wished she would come back so they could leave.
Before he could figure out a way to have her paged, she appeared in front of him, pushing a cart overflowing with plastic bags.
“What did you buy?” he asked as he struggled to his feet.
“Just a few things.” She was instantly at his side, helping him get upright, then supporting him.
“You look awful,” she told him as they slowly made their way out of the store.
“Good. I feel awful. I like the two to match.”
“Wait here.”
She left him propped against the building and brought the car right up front, then eased him into the passenger seat. The world blurred a little as he leaned his head back.
He heard her putting away bags, then the driver’s door slammed shut. The sound made his head ache more.
“You need to rest,” she said as she placed her cool hand on his bruised cheek. “I’m going to get us a room for the night.”
He thought about protesting. It wasn’t even two in the afternoon and at her rate of travel, they couldn’t afford to lose a day. But the thought of driving anywhere was impossible. Right now he just wanted something to take away the pain and he wanted to sleep.
“Here.”
She pressed something into his hand. He opened one eye and saw a pill resting on his palm. She offered him a bottle of water. He downed the medicine and handed her back the bottle. She’d read his mind. He would have thought that was a bad quality in a woman, but in Haley’s case, he was willing to make an exception.
“Don’t worry,” she said as she started the engine. “I’ll take care of everything.”
He thought about protesting that she couldn’t take care of herself let alone someone else, but he couldn’t form the words. Besides, there was a part of him that was willing to put his fate in Haley’s small hands. Crazy, but true.
He might have dozed or just passed out. Sometime later, he felt Haley lightly touching his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw that they were parked in front of a motel. At least it isn’t pink, he thought, just coherent enough to be grateful.
Haley helped him to his feet, then led him into the room. She didn’t look all that strong, but she didn’t seem to be crumbling under his weight.
“You need to eat,” she said as she opened the door and eased him inside. “But you should probably rest first.”
She was taking care of him. Kevin tried to remember the last time that had happened. It had been years—maybe before he’d screwed up for the last time at home and had been sent to military school. If he remembered right, he’d stolen old man Miller’s car. It had been a Caddy, too.
He chuckled at the similarity.
“What’s so funny?” Haley asked.
“Just my past catching up with me.”
“Let it catch up with you in bed. Here you go.”
She stopped beside the bed and let him fall into a sitting position. Even as he collapsed back, she was shifting his legs so he was stretched out on the mattress.
Haley sat next to him and once again put her cool hand on his face. He liked her touching him. In any other circumstances, he would have asked her to touch a little lower. But things being as they were, he simply opened his eyes and gazed at her.
“I was afraid to leave you on your own for the night,” she said, her blue-hazel eyes wide and serious-looking. “So we’re sharing a room. I hope that’s okay.”
He turned his head just enough to see the other bed. “Fine by me,” he rasped, feeling the pain medicine kick in. The edge came off his hurt and he was getting sleepy.
“I don’t want you to think—” she began, then stopped.
“Right now, I’m not thinking at all. If you’re expecting any action, kid, you’re gonna have to come and get it because I’m not gonna be good for squat tonight.”
He heard her suck in a breath and her cheeks might have been turning red, but things were starting to blur. He had one last coherent thought, and that was that she had a very kissable mouth.
Then the room shifted once and everything went black.
Chapter Five
Kevin woke to a wonderful smell. He opened his eyes and saw Haley setting out a dinner of fried chicken, coleslaw, corn and mashed potatoes on the small table by the window overlooking the parking lot. His stomach instantly cramped in anticipation of food. As he hadn’t had much more than cereal in the hospital, he had a bad feeling that his last real meal had been the burger in the bar, nearly forty-eight hours before.
He pushed himself into a sitting position, was pleased that he only got a little dizzy, then lowered his feet to the floor. That movement sent a razor-sharp pain of protest through his thigh, but he ignored it.
“I hope you got plenty,” he said, returning his attention to Haley. “Because I’m—”
Starved. That was the next word in the sentence. He knew it and he couldn’t say it. He doubted he could say anything. Ever again.
She glanced over and smiled at him. “You look a lot better than you did. You were out for nearly three hours. I guess you needed to rest. I broke my arm once, when I was little. It hurt a lot and I know I always felt better after sleeping. Not that a broken arm is anything like getting shot. Well, maybe it is. I don’t know.” She paused for breath and frowned. “Kevin? Are you all right?”
He was. At least he would be when consciousness returned. But until then he’d stepped into an alternative universe. Or hell. That was it. He’d died and this was hell. It couldn’t be heaven because there was no way God would approve of what Haley was wearing.
Logically, Kevin knew that in warm weather women dressed in things like T-shirts and shorts. It was common. Expected even. He agreed, in theory. Just not Haley. She wore shapeless ugly dresses that covered her body like a shroud. She would never put on a tiny white T-shirt that barely came down to her waist and she would never be caught dead in tiny white shorts that settled low enough on her hips to expose her flat stomach and her delicate belly button. Would she?
“What the hell are you wearing?” he demanded, the words coming out a little more forcefully than he’d intended.
Haley jumped and set down the container of chicken. She glanced at herself, then back at him.
“Clothes.”
He had a feeling she was doing her best to sound defiant. She didn’t come close, but he gave her points for trying.
“What happened to your dress?”
“Nothing, except I hate it. I haven’t worn shorts since I turned eleven. I figured it was long past time.”
She pulled a quart of milk out of an ice bucket on the floor and poured them each a glass. As she bent to reach the far side of the small table, the T-shirt not only rode up a little, it gaped at her neckline and he could see down the front to the swell of her breasts and the white lace of her bra.
Desire and pain seemed to be battling it out. He was curious as to which would win.
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Something about the set of her mouth and the tension in her shoulders told him she was expecting him not to approve. Kevin knew all about disappointing those who mattered most, and trying to balance between what was expected and what one really wanted. No way was he going to guilt Haley that way. Not on purpose anyway.
“You look nice,” he said finally, and reached for his cane.
Haley was at his side in an instant and helped him to his feet. “Do you really think I look okay? This isn’t too…brazen?”
Brazen? He held in a laugh. “If they sell it at Wal-Mart, it has to be all right.”
“I hope so. I bought some other shorts and shirts, along with other things. While you were sleeping, I washed everything, including your jeans. They’re not so stiff now.”
As she spoke, she put her arm around his waist and led him to the table. He could feel her breast brushing again his side and he inhaled the sweet scent of her body. Speaking of stiff, he thought and sighed. In the battle of pain and desire, it seemed that baser instincts were going to win. He shouldn’t even be surprised.
“I appreciate you doing the laundry,” he said when he was at the table. “You got yourself into more than you bargained for by offering to drive me home.”
She sat opposite him and picked up a napkin. “I don’t mind. This is fun. If I were home I would be—” She stopped talking and pressed her full lips together.
“What would you be doing?”
“Nothing interesting.”
“If you call driving me around and doing my laundry interesting, then you were right to run away.”
She laughed. “You have a point. If nothing else, the motel has great cable.”
“Aren’t minister’s daughters allowed to watch cable at home?”
“Sure, but there isn’t much time for leisure activities.”
“What sort of leisure activities was there time for?”
Haley took a bite of chicken and chewed slowly. Kevin couldn’t help wondering if she was just being polite or stalling for an answer.
“I don’t mean to make my life sound horrible,” she said at last. “My father is a wonderful man who loves me very much.”
“I don’t doubt that. But sometimes it’s hard living with a lot of expectations and rules.”
Her eyebrows pulled together. “It is for me.”
“Me, too.” He shrugged. “My brother was always the perfect kid and I was always the one getting into trouble. I was forever getting grounded, then sneaking out, getting caught and being grounded again.”
Haley nibbled on her coleslaw. “I never got in trouble at all. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t even think a bad thought without someone figuring it out.”
“That would have been tough,” he said. “I’m the kid who brought a box of cockroaches to school when I was seven and let ’em loose.”
She stared at him. “You didn’t.”
He made an X over his chest. “Cross my heart.”
“What happened?”
“There was a lot of screaming. I had detention for about six years. At least it felt that long.”
She smiled. “I never had detention.”
“It’s not as fun as it sounds.”
“I guess not. What else did you do?”
He wasn’t sure if her curiosity about his checkered past was good or bad. “I got two of my friends drunk when we were nine, got caught shoplifting when I was fourteen. That was my first arrest. The first girl I kissed was fifteen and I was twelve and the first woman I ever—”
The self-editing switch kicked in just in time. Haley leaned forward. “Don’t stop there.”
He caught himself before he shook his head. There was no need to tempt fate with movements designed to leave him in agony. Besides, his loose lips had already gotten him into enough trouble.
“Let’s just say she was an older woman.”
“How old?”
“Nineteen.”
“How old were you?”
He picked up an ear of corn. “This is a really great dinner.”
“Kevin! How old?”
He sighed. “Fifteen.”
She gasped. “You were fifteen the first time you ever…”
Her voice trailed off. Her expression hovered somewhere between horrified and impressed. He hoped she settled on the latter.
“I was a curious kid,” he said.
“Obviously. And since then?”
He didn’t catch the movement in time and shook his head. Instantly, pain exploded. He closed his eyes against it and when he opened them, he found her staring at him expectantly.
“No way,” he told her. “I’m not getting into numbers.”
“Can you give me a range?”
“Less than a hundred.”
“More than ten?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“More than—”
“I’ll tell you how many if you’ll tell me what you’re running away from.”
As he suspected, that shut her up. She picked up another piece of chicken and took a bite. “I
t’s not anything bad.”
He grinned. “Haley, I doubt you’ve ever done anything wrong in your life.”
“You’re right. Which is why this is the perfect time to start.”
Just what he needed. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Wait to start a life of being bad until you’ve dropped me off home. I don’t want to be responsible for leading you astray.”
“But wouldn’t you be really good at it?”
“Probably the best. But I’m already on shaky ground where my redemption is concerned. Taking you over to the dark side would push me over the edge. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
Not exactly the answer he’d been hoping for.
Haley tried to concentrate on the cosmetics line being demonstrated on the television shopping channel. She’d never been one to wear much makeup and the skill required to line her upper lids had always eluded her, so the idea of a flat brush, almost like a mini paintbrush, to help with the application seemed sensible. Plus there were about a dozen color choices. She was leaning toward the dark purple, but then thought she might want to start with a more neutral brown or gray. Under other circumstances, she might have called and placed an order. Only two things stopped her.
The first was that she no longer had an actual address. She’d run away from home with no real destination in mind and she didn’t plan on returning to her father’s house anytime soon. The second problem was that she couldn’t completely pay attention to the show. She was trying to, but at the same time she was listening intently for any sound coming from the bathroom.
Despite her protests, Kevin had insisted on taking a shower. She didn’t think he should be standing for that long, nor was she sure he actually could. He’d sworn he would be fine and had even agreed to take his cane into the bathroom. At least there was a big bar in the shower, so he would have something to hold on to if he lost his balance. Still, she couldn’t help worrying. If he fell, he could hurt himself even more than he already was. Plus, there was no way she was strong enough to lift him to safety.
Completely Smitten Page 6
