Kael fell silent. He knew the injury had shattered not just his father’s hip, but his pride as well. Logan Strong was a strong man and it couldn’t have been easy for him to learn to walk again and admit he needed help. Having his son help him in and out the shower had to be a struggle that he fought hard not to show.
And the recent news from his doctor that he may never ride horses again was a total shift in everything he knew about the man he was. Logan Strong had been a ranch hand since his early teens and his love of horses had come to him even earlier than that. Although he didn’t discuss it, Kael knew that the news had to shake him to his core.
He reached over and hugged his father around his broad shoulders before patting his back and then moving quickly to ram his hands into the front pocket of his bell-bottom slacks. It was as if he did it quick enough, it was almost like he could fool him into thinking it never happened. His father was not a demonstrative man.
Logan scowled.
“What do you think all of that back there was about?” he asked, meaning to change the subject.
Logan opened the passenger door to the truck, but paused. He shook his head as he stared at Kael. “Son, if you can’t put two and two together on that then I’m worried about you.”
“What you talking about?” Kael asked, watching as his father stepped up onto the side rail with one foot and then the other before turning to sit on the seat and then swing his legs around.
Logan chuckled. “Lisha pulled rank on her cousin for you, boy. She cooled them hot heels quickly,” he said, still smiling before closing the passenger door soundly.
THUD.
Kael felt a smile spread across his face at the thought of Lisha blocking her cousin from coming on to him. But why would she care?
Or did she care?
And the real question was: Why did he care?
Kael came around the bed of the truck, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the truck. Flashes of pretty brown legs beneath a sunshine-colored hem kept teasing his thoughts even as he pondered if his father was right. Both he and his father were silent and obviously lost in their thoughts as they made the short drive back to the house.
He was surprised when he turned off the road onto the drive and spotted his sister’s car parked by the left side of the house. She usually didn’t drive down until late Sunday night and when she left on Friday they had all agreed that their father was self-sufficient enough that she would only come down every other week.
“I thought she wasn’t coming until next week,” Logan said, obviously just as surprised.
As he parked, the front door opened and Kelli came out to stand on the front porch. Moments later, another woman stepped out to join her.
“Get my cane, son.”
Kael shifted his eyes to his father and noticed the tightness of his jaw. He knew he was in pain or at least discomfort. He hopped from the truck and grabbed the cane from the truck bed before coming around to hand it to Logan who was sitting with the passenger door open.
His urge was to help his father, but he knew Logan would not want it. So Kael pretended to retrieve something from the truck bed, but in fact had has his eyes locked on his father. Thankfully, he maneuvered out of the truck with just a grunt before he pushed the door closed.
“Hey, Daddy,” Kelli said, smiling as he came down the walk and stepped up onto the porch.
“Hey there. We wasn’t looking for you ’til next week,” Logan said, pausing as he sniffed the air. “What’s that I smell?”
Kelli kissed his cheek as she wrapped her arms around one of his. “I got here while y’all were in church and made oxtails. My good friend Bea helped me. Ain’t that right, Bea?”
Kael looked over at the other woman and paused to see her eyes were steadily on him.
“That’s right. I sure did,” she said in a soft voice. “I just love making a good home-cooked meal for a Southern man who appreciates it.”
Logan chuckled.
Kael shifted under her direct gaze. “Nice to meet you, Bea. I’m—”
She eased past his father carefully and came to stand in front of him. She was tall and slender. “Kael Strong. Oh trust me, brotha, I know exactly who you are.”
He looked over the woman’s shoulder to see Kelli looking on with satisfaction.
“Bea lives in Walterboro. We went to school together. You remember, Bea, don’t you, Kael?” she asked, stepping back to open the screen door for their father.
Not quite sure the woman would unblock his path, Kael took a look at her. She was cute enough, but he didn’t remember her and said as much.
Bea wrapped both her arms around one of Kael’s and pressed the softness of her breast against it as they walked into the house behind his sister and father. “That’s cool, baby. We can get to know one another.”
Kael dislodged his arm from her tight grasp. “Excuse me,” he said, making a face once he was out of her line of vision. He headed straight to his bedroom and closed the door.
He kicked off his shoes and removed his jacket, tossing it onto the foot of his bed before he began to unbutton the navy wide-collared shirt he wore. He was half undone before he stopped and reached over to lock the door.
Tossing his shirt atop the blazer he squeezed between the dresser and the foot of the full-sized bed to turn on the large metal air conditioning unit in the window. He wished he’d left it on so the small room wasn’t so muggy and hot.
As a teenager, the room had been fine, but as a grown man used to his own place, Kael felt smothered in the room. Still he’d rather that than be smothered by his sister and her pick for the newest lady in his life.
Lying on his unmade bed, he tucked his hands behind his head and crossed his feet at the ankles, staring at the ceiling as he waited for the heat to subside. His chest and back were already damp with sweat.
Knock-knock.
“Kael, you asleep?”
He puckered his brow at the sound of Bea’s voice. What the hell she want? he thought.
Knock-knock.
Kael ignored her again. Kelli was in the mood to play matchmaker and Kael was having none of it. The kind of short-lived and uncommitted relationships he had with women these days was nothing his sister would want her prim and proper friends to deal with. Women like his sister were looking for marriage and commitment and Kael was not offering that to anyone. Not now.
He was an honest man, and if there was any woman on his radar to even consider dating, it was Alisha Rockmon, and he was avoiding that impulse like it was the plague.
His trust was shaken.
Kael clenched his fist as he thought of the shock and hurt he’d felt at discovering the woman he loved was screwing another man—maybe even multiple men—in the home he’d provided for them. The hurt was gone. He would never be shocked by anything again. The emotion that remained clawing in his throat was anger.
Even now, when people were new to discover that he was no longer with his ex, some were bold enough to tell him he should be glad to be free of her, or dropped names of men they heard she was dealing with behind his back, or looked at him in pity at having heard how he caught her.
He’d been made a fool of and it was not a good feeling.
Chapter 6
Lisha reached her hands out to her client, a teenaged football athlete recovering from a severe ankle break, as they stood in the heated pool of the clinic that was used for aqua therapy. The buoyancy of the water was ideal for resistance without the stress of using weights and the heat kept the muscles limber. “Okay, lean back into the flotation device and give me twenty knee lifts,” she instructed him, seeing his determination in the blue of his eyes.
As she finished the five-minute session with him, she assisted him to climb out of the pool via the steps and rails. The smell of the chlorine in the pool seemed trapped and heady in the glass-encased room and she was ready to head straight to the employee locker room to wash it from her skin. “Good job, Garrett,” she told him, dryi
ng her hands quickly to make notes on his chart.
He was her last client for the day and the pool therapy was the last portion of his treatment for the week. She handed his chart to one of the physical therapy aides who handed him a towel and guided him to the client locker room to change clothes.
Removing the white swim cap she wore to protect her hair from getting wet, she grabbed a towel as well and wrapped it around her waist in the red swimsuit and shorts she wore. She looked up before heading through the door leading into the changing rooms and paused at the sight of Kael standing at one of the windows surrounding the pool area.
Why is he here?
She started to raise her hand to wave, but lowered it before she did. He surprised her by lifting his chin to her in greeting. Doing the same, she pushed through the door and paused on the other side to take a deep breath. That man, that man, that man.
He was her distraction.
When she was working with his dad at their home she was constantly on edge if he was around and even more on edge if he wasn’t there and she didn’t know if he would suddenly appear. When she wasn’t working she found herself wondering about him . . . and she still barely knew the man.
She quickly rinsed off the chlorine before drying off and changing back into her uniform. She raked her fingers through her loose rod-set curls, applied mascara and lip gloss that she hadn’t bothered to put on when she got dressed for work earlier. Checking her appearance one last time in her compact, she pushed her purse back into her locker and went through the other door leading out to the clinic.
Her pulse was racing as she looked around the common area for him. She walked around, forcing herself to remain calm as she did. He was no longer by the area overlooking the pool. She didn’t see him near any of the treatment rooms. She even breezed past the office of the owner and head physical therapist of the clinic.
Feeling like a stalker, she gave up the hunt, heading back to the employee locker room to clock out and grab her purse. She felt disappointed as she waved her co-workers good-bye and left the clinic through the entrance leading onto the street. Nothing would ever develop between her and Kael. She was gun-shy and he was uninterested.
A man had a way of letting a woman know he wanted her and besides a few lingering glances and catching him checking out her walk-away on rare occasions, Kael Strong had not made a move. And she wanted him to.
Standing on the sidewalk as the August heat warmed her, she checked for oncoming traffic and crossed the street, looking up at the cloudy sky. It was far too dark out for a little after six on a summer evening.
She barely made it into her car and drove a few feet out of the parking lot before the thunder echoed and the skies opened as the rain poured down. Turning on her windshield wipers, Lisha didn’t bother with the radio as she enjoyed the sound of the rain pelting against the windows and the car.
She made the two right turns to get on the one-way street running in the opposite direction. She braked and slowed down when she spotted someone pushing a truck into one of the parking spots on the streets. Squinting, she sat up straight, recognizing Kael and his pickup truck.
Lisha pulled up beside him and reached over to roll down the window on the passenger side. Rain instantly pelted through the opening and dampened the seat and door. She blew the horn.
He looked over his shoulder, the rain already soaking his clothes to his body.
“Need a ride?” she hollered out.
Kael nodded and waved for her to park farther up the street.
She did and then watched in the rearview mirror as he finished pushing the truck into a parking spot on the street. He grabbed something from inside it and then dashed up the street to hop into her car.
Lisha took a breath to calm down. “I didn’t see your thumb, but I thought you could use a lift,” she joked, glancing over at him before she checked her side mirror and eased the car out into traffic.
He chuckled. “Appreciate it. My baby let me down,” he said, wiping the wetness from his face with both of his large hands.
“Nothing serious?” she asked, trying her best not to let her awareness of him shift her focus from driving safely in the rain. She felt jittery being in such close confines with him. Her heart was racing off the charts.
“No, I think it overheated,” he said.
“Overheated, huh?” she asked, her voice soft as she glanced over at him.
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . overheated,” he said, glancing over at her.
They both looked away.
Lisha’s grip tightened on the wheel as she bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes, feeling even steamier than his truck. She felt so uncomfortable around him. So awkward. So unsure. So unsteady. This man, this man . . . this man.
Kael looked back at Lisha, but she was gazing out the window. His entire day had been nothing but a string of surprises, some good and some bad.
Finding out that a section of the roofing on his home needed to be replaced? Bad. That was more money to be spent when he was already cash-strapped from setting up the ranch and not seeing any returns on it yet.
Happening to see Lisha in a bathing suit? Good and bad. The sight of the suit on her curvy frame was good. Trying to forget just how delectable she looked? Damn.
His truck stalling on him in downtown Charleston during heavy rain? Bad. Real bad.
And then that good and bad mixed again because he was grateful for Lisha happening upon him and offering him a ride, but now he was in this enclosed space with her and it was hard to fight the attraction in such an intimate setting.
“I’ll just have it towed back to the house tomorrow,” Kael finally said, trying to distract himself from the sweet scent of her perfume.
The same scent that still clung to the air at the house long after she was gone.
“I was surprised to see you at the clinic. Everything okay with your dad?” she asked, as the rain continued to pour.
“Had to settle a bill.”
Coming to a stop at a red light, she smiled at him with a twinkle in her eyes. “I’m the best and the best costs,” she teased.
He side-eyed her, liking how her face lit up with her smile. “I’m surprised you can fit your head inside the car,” he drawled.
She laughed.
His gut clenched. The sound of her laughter was light and full, the kind to make someone laugh along with her whether they knew what she found funny or not.
“I’m just kidding . . . kinda,” Lisha said, settling down into her seat as she sped up a little when the traffic cleared.
Kael pulled his damp shirt from his chest. “So the pool is for therapy?” he asked.
She nodded. “The pool is heated and there’s a ramp that lets the patients walk down into the pool if they’re not strong enough or confident enough to use the stairs yet.”
“I saw that.” Kael thought of seeing her in her bathing suit. It was an athletic cut but still far less fabric than the uniforms he was used to seeing her wear.
“Aqua therapy would be really great for your dad.”
Kael snorted. “Logan Strong?” he asked, sounding like he didn’t see it.
“Maybe we can talk him into it together,” she suggested.
“Probably you more than me,” he quipped. “He really likes you.”
“Well, I like him too,” she said. “He’s pretty damn funny.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he said dryly, ready to get home and out of his wet clothing.
Lisha laughed, accelerating the car forward down Savannah Highway. “I almost died when he told me about the time he got robbed . . .”
“In a juke joint down in Mississippi,” they finished together before laughing.
“I heard that tale many times,” Kael said, shaking his head.
“But I bet it’s just as funny each time he tells it, right?” she asked.
“That’s because he adds something new to the story every time he tells it,” Kael balked.
“True,”
Lisha agreed.
They fell silent as she drove. He looked toward her when she reached to turn on the radio. Soon the sounds of Gladys Knight & The Pips singing “If I Was Your Woman” filled the car.
Lisha was softly singing along with the music as she tapped her fingers against the steering wheel.
“‘You’d have no other woman . . . . you’d be weak as a lamb.’”
Kael looked to her again, believing one hundred percent that she would be able to weaken a man for any other woman. He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but he smiled, bit his bottom lip and swallowed the words. His eyes dipped down to take in her thick thighs pressed against the thin cotton of her uniform pants. He forced himself to look away.
He could easily see himself reach for her hand and play with her fingers as they listened to the soulful song as she drove. Easily.
Lisha was trouble for him with a capital T.
“‘I’d never, never, never stop loving you,’” she sang along, barely audible.
“You ever loved someone that deep?” Kael asked, surprising himself.
When he looked at her he saw that he’d caught her off guard with the question as well.
But then she locked eyes with him and said, “No. Never. But I’d like to.”
Kael couldn’t look away.
“You?” she asked, a hint of a smile at her lips.
“I thought so,” he answered her honestly with a shrug.
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” she told him. “Or however it goes.”
“Or something like that,” he said, their eyes still locked.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
The music. The rain. The close quarters. Lisha. The combo was heady.
The blare of a car horn behind them broke the intense moment.
Lisha was the first to look away as she faced the road and accelerated forward from where they had stopped at a light that had long since changed from red to green.
He forced himself to look out the window at the towering trees they passed as they neared Holtsville. He felt regret that their time together was coming to an end.
Strong Heat Page 7
