by Alison Kent
Enough. He turned off the fantasy and into his drive. Wondering how Leigh had fared this morning, he steered his truck on past his house and up beneath the carport attached to the garage he’d long since converted. Half now functioned as a workroom, the other half a gym.
Ah, well. Time to fetch the munchkin. And since it appeared he was going to be munchkin-sitting for the week, it was time to shop. Jen had left diapers and wipes and formula and food, but only enough for one evening because one evening was supposed to have been the extent of Leigh’s visit. Joel wasn’t prepared or supplied for seven days.
Since walking was a pain and it was a long way from the back of his driveway to the front entrance to Willa’s place, he cut through the stand of brush and pines separating his yard from hers. The short walk put him at her back door. He braced his weight on his cane, hobbled up the two steps, and knocked. A minute later she answered.
A minute after that he concluded that no wet T-shirt he’d seen held the appeal of the dry white tank top Willa wore. She hadn’t been wearing it this morning, or if she had, he hadn’t noticed. And that was highly unlikely, even though this morning he’d been mesmerized by her hands.
She’d held that tiny hairbrush of a dog in her strong fingers, stroked the fur with sure movements, taken Leigh’s tiny palm and patiently introduced baby to dog in low, calm, soothing tones. Nothing about Willa’s touch had been sexual. Still, his blood had been stirred.
Now he stood on the second step of three and Willa stood a head above in the doorway to her kitchen. She was a tall woman but he was taller still. His height and her height and that second step/third step combination put him eye-level with her chest, where ribbed cotton molded full breasts, where dark centers peaked against light material.
He forced his gaze higher but that wasn’t any better because she had these shoulders that were sensuously muscled and rounded and set back at a confident angle. He’d never noticed her strength before, a strength of health and softness and gentle feminine curves.
And, yeah, that stirred him, too.
He swallowed hard, wiped his palms on his jeans, and looked up into her eyes. Breathing would’ve been easier if the expression he encountered hadn’t seemed to be an invitation. To look. At will.
He couldn’t find his voice. He almost couldn’t move. He certainly couldn’t manage anything right then beyond keeping his balance on the steps.
“I had to change.” She gave a small shrug in punctuation and reached for a shirt lying on the counter closest to the door. When she looked his way again, her curves were draped in green and blue flannel and every hint of “what if” was gone.
He was relieved—and annoyed—but most of all confused by what just had or had not happened. Had not, most likely. He shook off what his imagination and restlessness had obviously conjured out of thin air.
An invitation. Right. He was really reaching if he believed that one.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, glad to hear the words coming from his mouth. “Leigh did that hawk-and-spit thing with her breakfast.”
Chuckling in that low soft way she had, Willa motioned him up the final step and inside. “The spitting I can see, but she’s a bit too young to have figured out the hawking part. But not to worry. It wasn’t Leigh. Just a very scared, very muddy, very strong dog.”
She closed the door behind him. Sunlight beamed through the crystal panes of the door’s inset window that remained curtain free. The light shone gold on her exposed skin, glinted off random strands of gilt-colored hair that refused the band at the back of her head. Her ponytail was thick and rich, and Joel was obviously out of his mind for letting his thoughts stray.
This wasn’t like him. Sure he got flustered and bothered at inappropriate times. He was a man. A man who lived alone, worked long hours, and had a social circle the size of a flea circus. But this was Willa. His neighbor. Willa Grace Darling.
And because she’d become his most recent fantasy, that bothered and flustered him most. “Trust me. It won’t be long. She has a couple of older nephews who think spitting contests rank right up there with belching.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.” Motioning Joel to take a seat at the rectangular pine table, Willa returned to the coffeemaker, added eight cups of water, and hit brew. “There’s a huge gap in my education when it comes to frogs and snails and puppy dog tails. Well, maybe not the puppy dog part.”
“Easy lesson.” Joel pulled out a chair, hooked his cane on the back, sat, and eased his not-sick leg straight out in front of him. Then he glanced around.
This was the first time he’d seen Willa’s kitchen or any of her house for that matter. He liked what he saw. Clean and uncluttered and Amish plain. White cabinets and white tile countertops and stainless-steel sink. Much like his place. A guy’s kitchen.
Except for the row of tiny clay pots in her windowsill. Pots with enough greenery to color more than one thumb. Bushy leaves and trailing leaves, tiny fronds that dangled almost to the sink and climbing vines that reached for the sky.
“Part one,” he continued after deciding that several of the plants were herbs. “When it comes to boys, the more goo and mess the better. And, part two, when you can buy it prepackaged in neon colors as advertised on TV... Hey, who needs mud pies and swamp things?”
“You sound like a man who knows his way around children.” She’d turned to face him, her back against the counter’s edge, her arms crossed over her middle. Steam rose from the coffeemaker in rich spurts and fragrant gurgles.
He’d been wrong. The flannel didn’t cover her curves at all. He inhaled and savored the aroma of dark coffee almost as much as the picture Willa made there. “Only the Wolfsley children. Carolyn, sister number two,” he held up two fingers, “has three boys, six, eight and ten, and Jen’s husband, Rob, has a son who’s nine. I think.”
“You think,” she reiterated.
“Hey, I’ve got a lot to keep up with here. Moira, that’s sister number three,” he added another finger, “has a daughter she’s raising alone. If not for Laura, poor Leigh wouldn’t have anyone to side with her in the battle of the sexes.”
Slowly, as slow as the smile that formed on her mouth, Willa turned, reaching high to pull mugs from the cupboard. Her arms were longer than Joel had realized. As was her back from her nape to her hips where her blue jeans rode low.
A strip of skin peeked between her waistband and the hem of her flannel and Joel discovered a sudden interest in the pattern of the pine tabletop. He continued that study until Willa set a plain white ceramic mug filled with black coffee between his hands. For a moment, he stared at the line where the black met the white.
When at last he looked up, she was back to standing against the counter smiling. “I didn’t know you had sisters. I’ve lived next door to you for a year now and I didn’t know that about you.”
A year, huh? Joel wasn’t sure if he was ruing his mistake of not getting to know her then, or the sudden certainty that he was going to get to know her now. That he was going to get to know her well. That he was going to get to know her soon and more intimately than any fantasy he’d concocted so far.
“So how did you know I took my coffee black?” he asked as she moved to sit in the chair across from his.
Her booted foot bumped his cast and she grimaced in apology. “You look like a black coffee kinda guy. Straightforward and all that.”
Interesting she’d gauged that when they’d never had a conversation of more than five or six paragraphs. His expression must’ve been as easy to read as he apparently always was because she lowered her mug without sipping.
“It’s a simple observation, Joel. You needed a sitter. You didn’t beat around the bush. You came and asked me. Like I said, straightforward.”
“And all that,” he added. She inclined her head in a silent touché.
Okay. He could deal with her assessment; first of all, because she was right. He was a black coffee kinda guy. And, secondly, she seemed
equally candid. He liked that about her. “How’s Leigh?”
“Leigh’s been a doll. No mess but for a diaper or two.” She took that sip of coffee, then raised one hand as a thought crossed her mind. “In fact, she slept through the whole commotion.”
“Commotion?” His ears pricked. Finally. A distraction up his alley. “What commotion?”
“Relax, Detective. Nothing of the law-and-order variety.” She smiled again. Good cheer and good humor and good nature combined in one sweet upward curve of her mouth. That smile reached all the way to her eyes. And all the way to his hunger.
His gut was a mess.
But, those eyes. They were going to be the death of him. “Let me guess. If not the law-and-order variety, it must’ve been canine. The scared and muddy and very strong canine.”
As slowly as that expression had brightened her face earlier, it now began a slow fade, darkening and growing grim. The morning’s ordeal, whatever it was, had left her shaken.
When she sighed, the sound spoke volumes. He waited for her to gather her thoughts, waited for her voice. Waited for anything that would give him a due as to why his reaction to her was so far out of context as to be out of line.
She strolled a finger around the rim of her mug, dipped the tip close to the coffee she’d creamed and sugared. Then she placed both hands flat on the table, leaned forward with a sense of urgency, and very succinctly enunciated, “I do not understand people.”
It was a broad comment, but Joel knew exactly what she meant. Several clever responses came to mind, but he decided not to voice them. He wanted her to go on. He found he liked her voice as much as her tendency to say what she was thinking.
“What happened?” he gently prodded.
She blinked and glanced first at her mug then looked up, cocked her head to one side and met his steady gaze. “You would think that humans would be inherently humane. But I suppose the Latin root doesn’t always apply.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t,” he said and sat back. “If it did, my job would be a lot easier.”
“Oh, yes. Yours even more so than mine.” She nodded then shook her head, moving from one thought to the next. “What happened today happens too often. And right about this time of year. Once owners come to realize that Christmas puppies aren’t quite so cute and cuddly four months later.”
She lifted her mug, stared out the back window. “This one had been randomly fed and regularly beaten. It’s a laugh riot when a cartoon Dalmatian plays tug-o’-war with an old shoe. Not quite so funny when you’re running late for work and finally find your missing two-hundred-dollar Ferragamo flats in three pieces.”
She didn’t seem to be in the mood for a joke, but humor had always worked with his sisters. “I’ll take a stab that a Ferragamo flat is a shoe.”
“A two-hundred dollar shoe.” She frowned. “A one-hundred dollar shoe if you want to get divisive, but since one is no good without the other, I’m afraid it’s the pair that has to be depreciated.”
“You own a pair of these... flats?” Sounded like a tire. He’d thought so ever since Moira had slapped around the family kitchen in a five-sizes-too-big pair that belonged to their mother.
“Me?” Willa leaned back in her chair, swung her leg up and around and plopped her foot on the corner of the table. “Waterproof, oiled split leather. Padded tongue. Steel shank. Air-cushioned midsole. Molded rubber heel protector. These”—she pointed her toe, managing to make the chunky boots seem feminine—“are worth two hundred dollars.”
He couldn’t resist. He twisted to the side in his chair, lifted his leg, and balanced the heel of his cast on the very edge of the table. He wasn’t totally uncouth. “I’ve got you beat. This is worth... hmm, I’ve lost track of the medical bills.”
Returning her chair to rights, Willa sipped her coffee, staring into his eyes as she did so. Hers were blue. Not baby blue or navy blue or even that peacock turquoise that ninety-nine percent of the time owed its color to contact lenses.
No, this was the blue of clear water, of the sky at high noon. Corny sounding, he knew. But her eyes appeared to be lit from within. She had that type of energy. He’d seen the proof in the way she ran her place, from dawn to dusk.
Reaching across the table, she tapped his exposed toes with one finger. “Line of duty?”
He nodded, because he hadn’t yet let go of her eyes. And because a tickle was working its way up his foot, his calf, his knee... He squashed it before it climbed higher. “Yep. Line of duty.”
“Then I’m sure the department considers it money well spent.”
“They haven’t seen the final bill. This puppy doesn’t come off for three more weeks.” He raised his cast and returned his foot to the floor.
“And once it’s off?”
“Physical therapy for sure. I’m not about to go back on the street without being in top form.” Though he could ride a desk if the doc would let him.
She frowned. “Was there a lot of damage?”
“Enough.” He didn’t want to spell out every gory detail. “It wasn’t pretty.”
“A bullet?”
“To start with. It grazed my calf. Plowed quite a row through the muscle. Most of the damage happened when the shooter ran... and tried to take me out with his car. I dived but he clipped my leg as I went down.”
The pain returned, a memory that was but a moment yet played out like a slow-motion film. Funny how when he thought of the incident now, he saw the gun come up, saw his body go down, saw the car lay rubber in its flight. He even saw, rather than felt, the smashing impact of the bumper against his shin.
He shook his head, swallowed his coffee, held his mug against the table. Then looked up at Willa. If he’d thought her eyes were bright before, they shimmered now. And the jolt they packed this time hit him square in the chest.
“Hey, now, don’t go making me out a hero. It’s just part of the job. Like dealing with scared and muddy puppies is part of what you do.” He reached across the table, placed her hand, palm up, in his, and pushed the sleeve of her flannel to her elbow. That gave him access to the scratches crisscrossing her wrist and forearm in a tic-tac-toe welt.
He hadn’t expected that her skin would be as soft as Leigh’s. For all the work she did outdoors, the work that put those muscles in her arms and shoulders, her skin remained that of a woman who rarely saw the sun and certainly never battled a clawing canine.
The salve on her wounds hadn’t been absorbed completely. He thumbed a smear of the clear substance into her palm, swirled it in a slow circle over the heel of her hand, drew it in a line along the base of her fingers, pressed the pad of his thumb to her pulse.
He measured each beat, found the rhythm in sync with the blood in his veins. He took a deep breath. Arousal moved from his body to his brain, burying the warnings of playing with fire beneath thoughts of the pleasure of getting burned.
Willa cleared her throat.
Joel jumped. What the hell was he doing? “You need to see a doctor for this?”
She shook her head, but left her hand where it rested on his. “All my shots are up to date. Just like the dogs I keep here.”
“The rescued dogs, too?”
“If I don’t know for certain and have no way to find out, they get the full battery before they even get a bath. No need to calm them once only to have to do it all over again”
He nodded at that, then pulled his hand from beneath hers so he could finish his coffee even though he already had one free hand perfectly capable of lifting mug to mouth
When he’d swallowed the last drop and there was really no reason to stay longer, no reason that made sense or possessed a shred of logic, he scooted back his chair and prepared to go. “I’d better grab Scout and hit the road.”
“Taking her home?”
He couldn’t keep the irony from his laugh. Last night’s series of phone calls to track down his parents was Marx Brothers comical in retrospect. “Only to my home. Jennifer dropped off Leigh
last night on the way to the airport. I was going to keep her until our folks got home.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh is right. Seems Mom and Dad got a wild hair and took off for LA to see Annie.”
“Sister number four?”
He nodded. “That would be her.”
“When is Jennifer due back?”
“Next Sunday.”
“Uh-oh,” she said again. Her expression was contemplative, then she added, “What’re you going to do?”
He shrugged then smiled when he heard Leigh giggle. “Take care of that munchkin in there until her momma gets home.”
Leaving him with a look that strangely enough seemed an expression of pleasure, Willa was out of her chair before Joel could find his balance, retrieve his cane, and lever his butt out of his seat. She hadn’t even given his uncle instincts a chance to kick in, but had gone for Scout herself.
He watched her walk away. Enjoyed the curvy rear and lower view as much as he had the rest of Willa Darling. He smiled at the built-in endearment of her name, words that gave the impression of a gentle feminine soul. He was sure she was just that, exactly, and more.
The more was what intrigued him now. The more he hadn’t witnessed until today, even having been aware that this very beautiful woman lived next door.
Aware. That was what he found so amazing. In the space of half a day, he was so aware of Willa that his blood was surging, his nerves humming, his body alive and willing in a way it hadn’t been for longer than he cared to remember.
His loner status didn’t mean he was celibate, but neither did he play games or engage in intimacies without thought. The women he’d chosen to spend time with in the past had chosen him for much the same reason. They provided one another with companionship and met one another’s physical needs, no long-term expectations.
He’d been without a woman for a while now, except for the one in his fantasies.
He missed the warmth, the softness, the sweet and sweaty smells. He missed laughter as much as low throaty moans. He missed exerting control as well as having the same wrested away. He had no problem with either surrender or aggression as long as mutual satisfaction resulted.
