A Better Man

by Candis Terry

  For the past few years Lucy had tried to put away those kinds of feelings toward the opposite sex. She’d been fooled once by a pretty boy exterior; she didn’t need a second go-­round.

  On second thought, Jordan wasn’t pretty. He was manly and gorgeous. With his dark, wavy hair casually pushed off his forehead, those thick almost black brows lowered over a pair of striking blue eyes, and at least two days of beard scruff on his chiseled jaw, he looked intense, powerful, and passionate.

  He played a violent game for a living, one that drew thousands to pump their fists in the air when blood was drawn. She’d seen a few of his games on TV and she’d been astonished at the level of brutality. Knowing what he was capable of and the way those intense blue eyes looked at her now, she should feel threatened. At the very least, tense.

  Incredibly, she felt something very different.

  On a weird, illogical, purely core level, Jordan made her feel . . . safe.

  The idea almost made her laugh out loud.

  “I’ll make some tea,” she said, breaking the spell. “Then you can fill me in on your ‘something really important.’ ”

  “I’m not really a tea kind of guy.” He followed her into the kitchen.

  Tail wagging, Ziggy brought up the rear, completely demolishing his part of the whole I’ll-­protect-­you-­and-­you-­protect-­me deal.

  “In that case”—­she reached into the cupboard for her jar of green tea—­“I guess you can say whatever you have to say and then be on your way.”

  “On second thought . . .” He sat down at her antique whitewashed table and Ziggy lay at his feet with a groan. “Tea sounds great.”

  “You don’t seem very sure.”

  “I’m totally onboard. I . . . Ummm.” He waved a hand in front of his face. “I think your dog just—­”

  “Oh. Yes. He does that.” Lucy held back a laugh. “A lot.”

  “You probably buy a lot of air freshener.”

  “As a matter of fact I do.” The conversation was odd and it did nothing to alleviate the awareness wrapped around her spine like a boa constrictor.

  He pointed to the bench on the opposite side of the table. “Is that a church pew?”

  “It is. I found it at a flea market in Oregon last summer.”

  While she put the kettle on the stove and dropped the teabags into mugs, he studied her kitchen from a chair that seemed two sizes too small.

  “A chandelier of Mason jars. A vintage hotel sign. And cupboards filled with milk glass. You sure like old and white stuff.”

  “I’m fond of the simplicity.”

  “I’ll say. Is there something specific that prompts that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Usually when someone cuts clutter from their lives there’s a reason behind it.”

  Yikes. Nail on the head. “So I can’t just like clean and simple?”

  “You can like anything you want. You’ve made a really nice home here. Maybe all this white just makes me think of the trips I’ve taken to an ER to stitch something up or put it back in place.”

  The idea turned her stomach. “I’m sure you get injured a lot in your job.”

  “More than I’d like.”

  “Judging by your tone I’m guessing it’s not the injuries themselves that you’re opposed to so much as losing the battle.”

  “I definitely don’t like to lose.”

  The wistfulness in his voice made her wonder if for him, losing the battle could also mean losing loved ones.

  There was nothing harder to see than a gladiator brought to his knees by something he couldn’t control. Sympathy unexpectedly tugged at her heart. Before she got too buried in it, like a saving grace, the teakettle whistled. She pulled it from the burner, poured the hot liquid into mugs, and set one in front of him.

  “I like sugar.”

  “I’m sure in your line of business you can use all the sweetening you can get.” She handed him the sugar bowl, then she sat on the church pew and set her mug on the white linen placemat in front of her. “So, Mr. Kincade, tell me . . . exactly what is your ‘something really important.’ ”

  “Ah, ah, ah. Private moment, Lucy.” He dropped two spoonfuls of sugar into his mug, and stirred. “Aren’t you supposed to call me Jordan?”

  She smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to quench my curiosity?”

  “Cagey.” He grinned. “I like that.”

  “Don’t get used to it. Spill.”

  “Something came up tonight.”

  “And it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

  “Sometimes things can’t wait.” A frown crinkled the smooth skin between his eyes as he sipped the hot tea. “The one thing I’ve learned in the past couple of weeks is that nothing can wait. If something needs to be said, now is better than later. You never know when your time is up. And if I’m going to help Nicki get past this trouble she’s going through, it has to be now. No one ever knows if they’ll get another tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry.” Unable to meet the dark emotion in his eyes, Lucy briefly glanced away. “Of course. I completely understand your urgency. So how can I help?”

  “I bought her a journal. You know, one of those fancy ones with flowers all over it. And I got her a set of colorful gel pens too. I thought maybe if she had something pretty to look at she might be inspired to write things down and get them out of her system.”

  His thoughtfulness and sincerity touched her deeply. Lucy didn’t know why it surprised her that he’d gone the extra mile for his sister with no prompting from anyone, but it definitely made her take an extra look. The man sitting at her little kitchen table appeared to be nothing like the person she’d imagined all those years.

  “That’s a great idea.”

  He shrugged. “I was just walking down the aisle of some artsy store in town and—­”

  “Punkydoodles?”

  “That’s the place.” He set his mug down. “I saw all the bright, colored stuff in the window and figured it couldn’t hurt to check it out. Then I saw the journal and pens in an aisle full of total girly stuff. It just looked like Nicole.”

  “Did you give it to her already?”

  Expression solemn, he nodded.

  “And it wasn’t well received?”

  “I don’t know. She was so busy hating me I only got the chance to put the bag on her bed and get out of there before she threw an all-­out hissy fit.” He shook his head. “She reminds me of a kitten. You know, one of those tiny ones who gets all fired up and starts hissing and spitting like they’re ready to take on the world?”

  Lucy nodded. That was exactly how she saw Nicole too.

  “I threw in a king-­sized Snickers bar for good measure,” he said. “Figured if I couldn’t win her over with the journal and pens, chocolate might do the trick.”

  After the fiasco on their graduation night, Lucy had imagined many things about Jordan Kincade, starting with wrapping her hands around his throat and squeezing until his eyes bulged. Before tonight she would have sworn he was a man with a gigantic ego. Instead he appeared to be a man with a gigantic heart. Of course, time would tell. Not everyone revealed his or her true self in the beginning.

  She’d learned that the hard way.

  “Chocolate is always a good choice,” she agreed, feeling herself melt a little at his thoughtfulness.

  “If it helps, I’ll buy her a whole damn store full of the stuff.”

  “So, besides being willing to buy massive quantities of white chocolate chunk with macadamia nuts cookies and Snickers bars . . .” Lucy fidgeted with the antique lace doily beneath the Mason jar that held a small bouquet of daisies. “I take it you’d like me to encourage her to write down her thoughts and feelings?”

  “Do you think that might give us some insight to what’s going on with her
?”

  “I doubt we’d ever be able to read what she’s written.”

  “True. Unless I played secret agent, snuck into her room, and stole it.”

  Laughter bubbled from her chest. “You don’t really fit the part.”

  “What? You don’t find me debonair like 007?”

  She found him hot, sexy, and even a little sweet. “I think you might lean a little more toward the Hulk.”

  He tossed his hands up and smiled. “Well, there goes all the money I spent on spy school.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, she laughed. For her, laughter didn’t happen very often. She’d always been the serious sort. Tonight, she was learning that laughing felt pretty darned good.

  “There’s a good chance Nicole had a bonfire with the stuff after I left,” he said.

  “I doubt it.”

  He shook his head, and the light from the overhead chandelier made his dark hair shine. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “Maybe all she really wants is your attention.”

  “Hell of a way to get it.”

  “She’s a teenager.” Lucy leaned back, feeling more at ease than she had in a while. “Don’t you remember what it was like?”

  “I remember being a jerk.” His eyes searched her face. “I’m sure you can attest to that.”

  Lucky for him she was rethinking that very thing. “We’re not talking about me.”

  “We should.”

  Her silence verified she didn’t feel comfortable being the topic of discussion.

  “So why the name change?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Your last name used to be Nutter.”

  “And I hardly ever got any crap about that.”

  “So you changed it for professional reasons?”

  “No.” She pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to go there. Not with Jordan. Not with anyone. She’d blocked out that part of her life and she liked the deep, dark grave in which she’d buried it. “I was married.”

  “And you’re not now?”

  “It ended several years ago.”

  “Yet you kept his name? Why? Do you have kids?”

  “No kids.” Thank God. Not that she didn’t want any. She did. She loved children, but she was thankful that she’d been very careful about birth control during that time in her life. No child needed to grow up in an abusive environment. She had firsthand knowledge of that, growing up with verbally abusive alcoholic parents. “And I didn’t keep his name. After my divorce I wanted a fresh start. So I took the name from one of my favorite Beatles songs. Although now some of my students sing the song to tease me. So maybe I should have just picked a last name out of the hat.”

  “Yeah.” His dark eyes brightened. “You could have gotten real creative . . . Lucy Lovelace, Lucy Luscious . . .”

  The names were so ridiculous she laughed. Again.

  “You have a beautiful smile.” His expression turned serious. “You should do it more often.”

  Compliments had rarely been a part of her life. Maybe that was the only reason his observation made her feel like lightning bugs were waltzing with butterflies in her stomach. Completely unsure of how to respond, she sipped her tea.

  “You’re not used to compliments, are you?” He leaned back in the chair, folded his arms, and studied her.

  She shook her head.

  “I can’t imagine why not.”

  When she threw him a skeptical look he said, “I can’t imagine why you aren’t told daily what a beautiful smile you have, or how pretty you are, or that when you bite your bottom lip like you’re doing now, what it can do to a man.”

  If he’d smiled when he said those words she’d have known he was having a laugh at her expense. No smile crossed his lips. He appeared to be dead serious. Lucy didn’t quite know what to do with that.

  “What happened to your marriage?”

  The question wasn’t out of line. But that didn’t make it any easier to answer.

  “That’s personal.” She lifted her mug that was too small to hide behind.

  “It is personal.” He leaned forward, stretched his long, muscular arms out on the table. “But we were friends once. And as a long-­ago friend who’s trying to get reacquainted, I’m interested in what’s happened in your life.”

  “There’s not much to tell.” She lied. There was a lot. “He presented himself as someone other than he really was.”

  “Such as?”

  Her hesitation to respond spilled over into an awkward silence. Jordan touched her arm with enough leverage to pull the mug of tea down and away from her face. “It was bad?”

  She nodded. “I can’t talk about it. I swore I’d never relive it all. And that’s what talking about it does.”

  “Seems to me like you might feel better if you did.”

  “No.” Hating the bite of the old terror sneaking up, she shook her head and looked away. “I can’t.”

  “Okay.”

  He withdrew his strong hand and she watched it slide back across the table. The memory of other strong hands flashed like a bad nightmare. Oddly, while Jordan had large hands, he didn’t appear to be the type who’d use them on a defenseless woman. But she pitied the men he faced on the ice.

  “If you ever do feel like talking, I’m the last person on earth who’d ever judge anyone,” he said. “Just give me a call.”

  “Thank you, but that day will never come.”

  He shrugged. “Never say never.”

  “Is that your philosophy on life?”

  He laughed. “I’ve never had a philosophy. I never thought I’d have regrets. I even thought of having ‘No Regrets’ tattooed somewhere. Glad I didn’t.”

  “Because they aren’t created with erasable ink?”

  “Yep.”

  “So you have other tattoos?”

  “A few.”

  Lucy swallowed. Tattoos on a man were sexy. She didn’t like when men were so covered you couldn’t see their skin or you couldn’t figure out the design, but she did appreciate a few well-­placed pieces of art on a strong, hot body.

  “You?” he asked.

  “No ink for me.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I’m too chicken.”

  “It only hurts a little.”

  “Says the man who throws punches for a living.”

  He laughed. “That’s inaccurate. I hit a puck for a living.”

  He took the last sip of his tea, then stood. “Come on. Walk me to the door.”

  “As opposed to kicking you out the door?”

  When he reached for the handle on the front door, he stopped and turned toward her. “I’m hoping you’ll never do that.”

  “It all depends on how I grade your behavior. You know, I grade my students on more than academics.”

  “Then how about you grade me on this.” He cupped her face in one hand, leaned in, and pressed his mouth to hers.

  Caught off guard, Lucy froze. The warmth and softness of his lips melted her surprise. When his other hand came up to cup her face, a low moan rumbled from her throat.

  Jordan Kincade was kissing her.

  Wow.

  She slid her hands up beneath the back of his leather jacket, and his warmth seeped through the cotton of his T-­shirt. Her palms settled on firm muscle. His delicious scent rolled over her like an intoxicating wave. His tongue teased the crease of her lips, and she didn’t even think about pushing him away. The kiss deepened as he pulled her closer. Bodies pressed together, Lucy got the message that given time and circumstance, Jordan could rock her boat like it had never been rocked before.

  Too soon he ended the kiss with two smaller presses of his lips to hers.

  “How’d I do?” he asked. “Did I pass?”

 
; “I don’t know. I might have to have you come in after class to make sure.”

  “If you promise to wear garters under your skirt, I promise to bring you a shiny red apple.”

  Maybe she should still be surprised he’d kissed her, but she figured she’d enjoyed it too much to complain. “Oh, the shameless flirting, Mr. Kincade.”

  “Do I get extra credit for that?”

  “A wise man once told me, never say never.”

  Chapter 8

  “Rumor has it that the superstar of the Kincade brothers has come home to stay.”

  Lucy walked the hall of Sunshine Valley High next to Claudia Locke, a woman who could be considered her best friend on a good day and her pain-­in-­the-­ass friend on a day when she was trying to pry Lucy from her comfort zone. Lucy had a sneaky suspicion that was going on right now.

  “And where did you hear this earth-­shattering bit of info?” she asked as they approached their classrooms.

  Claudia shoved a thin newspaper in Lucy’s hands. “This morning’s edition of Talk of the Town.”

  CAROLINA VIPERS STRUGGLE AS

  HOCKEY HUNK COMES HOME TO STAY

  Lucy stopped. “Seriously? That made the news­paper?”

  “Of course.” Claudia juggled books as she reached for her classroom door. “Don’t give me that look. First of all you have to consider that the Kincade brothers are hot and hunky. Then you have to consider that the brother in question is a rich and famous hockey player who has left his team in the lurch while they head toward the playoffs.”

  Lucy didn’t have to ask how Claudia knew that. Her friend followed sports. She’d had no choice, growing up in a household with three brothers, and now she was married to the king of watching sports on TV all weekend, every weekend. Where Lucy didn’t know the difference between offsides and a false start, Claudia could recite exactly who the Seattle Seahawks had taken in the NFL draft and how much they’d been paid.

  “He didn’t leave his team in the lurch. In case you’ve forgotten, his parents were killed.” Not that Lucy felt the need to defend him—­even after the hot kiss they’d shared—­but as she glanced toward her own classroom door, she saw Nicole walk inside and some kind of weird protectiveness thing emerged.