The back of his throat burned. He never could manage not to get involved, could he? Even as isolated as he was these days, he couldn’t seem to look away.
“Did someone do it to you, then?” The bemusement in her tone got to him all over again.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you must know, yes.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, that sounds like a story.”
One he’d already told to the police. But he clearly wasn’t going to be able to avoid telling it again here. “I caught two blokes nicking a backpack.” He shrugged. He didn’t have to make it a good story. “The thieves didn’t like being confronted.” Or chased down, or tackled. Or nearly punched. He gestured at his knee. “One of them gave me this as a thank-you present.”
“Wow. So you’re like a hero, huh?” And it could’ve been so flippant. But coming from her...it wasn’t.
But it should’ve been. A hero. That was the last thing he was. If she knew...
“Hardly,” he said, and the darkness to his thoughts colored his speech.
After a moment, she cleared her throat. “I don’t know. You sound like one to me.”
That was not what Serena had been expecting. Her own story of breaking her leg had involved more klutziness than crime-fighting, and she’d figured this man’s situation would be much the same. But he’d interrupted a mugging? Something inside her gave a little shiver at the thought.
To keep her breathing even, she focused on arranging the remainder of a bag of Oreos that had been left from Max’s last visit on a tray. The kettle gave off the first hint of a whistle and she flipped off the heat, then poured the water into the teapot with the crooked handle that she never got the chance to use. After adding a sampler box of tea to the tray, she carried it all out into her living room. He sat up straighter as she approached.
Damn. He hadn’t gotten any less attractive in the handful of minutes she’d been in the other room.
She turned away from him as she set the tray down on her coffee table. “Can I fix you a cup?” She started to rattle off the half-dozen options, but he stopped her on the first one, voice clipped. Frowning, she placed the tea bag in his cup and poured. Leaving it to steep, she settled into the chair opposite his. He seemed more than content to watch the tea brew in silence, even going so far as to pull out his phone.
But she was still way too preoccupied by the whole running-down-a-mugger thing.
Even as his gaze darted toward the screen, she shifted forward, crossing her legs in front of her. “So, are you, like, a cop or something?”
That would be some sort of an explanation, at least.
“What?” The space between his eyes crinkled with what seemed like genuine confusion before he collected himself. “No. Not at all.”
Oh. “A firefighter?” Or a mixed martial artist, maybe?
“I’m—” He cut himself off, a shadow flickering across his features. “I used to be a professor.” He hesitated before adding, “Of mathematics.”
Definitely not a cop, then.
A dozen questions rose to her lips about what on earth a former professor was doing chasing criminals, but then her mind caught on that statement. “Wait, did you say math?”
And there were those lines between his brows again.
“I did.”
Oh hell, this was probably weird, but the question spilled out all the same. “You don’t do any tutoring or anything, do you?”
She’d been pestering Max about finding someone for weeks now, but he kept forgetting—or more likely, he was too embarrassed to ask. Her own efforts had come to nothing. So late in the year, all the best people were already booked.
“Tutoring?”
“Super basic stuff.” She stopped, stumbling over herself to explain. “It’s for my nephew. He’s only in fifth grade, but I’m trying to help him get into a private school for next year. The rest of his grades are great, but he needs to score really high on his entrance exams, and the math stuff is his problem area. I just need to get him caught up. A few hours a week, maybe.”
As she’d been talking, he’d shifted in his chair, his posture going more rigid and his hands tightening against the arms. “Fifth grade.”
She hesitated. “Is that a problem?”
“I...” His jaw flexed, the sharp point of it moving beneath the shadow of his stubble. “Children. I don’t have much experience.”
“But you have taught before, right?” Sure, different ages were different, but the principles were the same.
“Adults. College students.”
“Then a ten-year-old should be a piece of cake.”
Protests seemed to form on his lips, discomfort written on every line of him.
So she leapt to the first inducement she could think of. “I can pay you.” Not much. Her own job as a teacher offered all kinds of rewards, but monetary ones weren’t really among them.
And then it struck her.
“In services,” she said, perching closer to the edge of her seat. Oh, this was perfect. “I’ll call and cancel your cab and take you to the doctor’s myself. Wherever you need to go. You’re stuck on those crutches for how long?”
“Weeks.”
There was a deer-in-the-headlights element to him, and it probably should have made her slow down, but she pressed her advantage instead.
“You’ll need rides all over the place. Doctor’s appointments, trips to the grocery store. You name it. A cabbie isn’t going to help you get down the stairs, you know.”
At that, he bristled. “I don’t need help.” He practically spat the last word.
She waved him off, because who was he kidding. “Tell me it wasn’t easier getting down the stairs with only one crutch.”
As if swallowing glass, he narrowed his eyes at her. “I was managing. I don’t need charity.”
And there was her trump card. “But it wouldn’t be. Not if you helped me. It’d be an even trade.”
That had always been the key with Penny. Make it out like her sister was doing her the favor, allowing her to help.
“Come on,” she said. “At least give it a try. I’ll take you to your appointment today either way.” Depending on how long it took, she might have to run to pick Max up from practice right after. But that made this even better. “You can meet Max on the ride home. You’ll love him.” How could anyone not?
“And if I don’t?”
Ugh. Please. “Then we call the whole thing off. But he’s a sweet kid. I promise.”
He was wavering; she was sure of it. She held her breath as he seemed to mull it over.
And it didn’t make much sense, why she was suddenly so invested in this. She didn’t know this man. He could be lying to her about his qualifications, and even those were sparse. But she was desperate to get Max into that school, and this was the best lead she’d gotten so far.
And there was more to it, too. Not just the dark beauty to his eyes or the full lines of his mouth. The way his shirt draped across the musculature of his chest. There was the way she’d found him, defeated at the top of the stairs. The pride with which he’d tried to turn her down.
He needed help. And help was the one thing she always had to give.
Her heart in her throat, she stood. Took the two steps toward him and held out her hand. “So? What do you say?”
What Cole wanted to say was, “Are you completely insane?”
But he stared at the open palm extended toward him, the brave set to her jaw, and the kindness in her eyes.
And what he heard himself ask was, simply, “Why?”
Her half-smile faltered for a fraction of a second. Then, regrouping, she replied, “Why not?”
Only any of a thousand possible reasons.
He gestured to the hamper and then to the overflowing messenger bag near the door. “Surely you have better things to be doing than ferrying around a...a cripple.”
She shook her head. “We don’t use that
kind of ableist language around here.”
She had to be kidding him.
“You didn’t want me to say ‘fuck,’ either, and yet...”
Huffing, she extended her hand a little farther into his space. “Well, this time I really mean it. Now do we have a deal or not?”
He wanted to check the room for hidden cameras. This had to be a joke, or a terrible reality TV show. Something. People didn’t make these kinds of offers. Especially when he had so little to give her in return. Only four square walls and a particular tragedy. The beginning of a story that couldn’t possibly end well.
One last time, he balked. “I don’t even know your name, and you expect me to get into your car?”
At that, the corners of her mouth turned up. “Serena,” she said.
And he was running out of options here.
Everything in him screamed at him to decline. Even if her generosity were real, she wanted him to—what? Spend time with a child? Teach it arithmetic or some such nonsense? No. He couldn’t possibly. His heart pounded painfully behind his ribs, memories of blood and glass too close to the surface, of raising a hand against the boys who had made him their own personal punching bag. The look on Helen’s face the last time he’d seen her. He dug his nails in hard against his palm. He didn’t trust himself, and she shouldn’t, either. It was too big a risk.
It was too far to have fallen. All his degrees, his publications, and to be reduced to explaining the most basic concepts...
“Honestly,” she said, and a sadness colored that smile. “What have you got to lose?”
His chest squeezed even harder, making it impossible to breathe.
Nothing. There was nothing left for him to lose.
And for a moment, she looked so much like Helen, sounded so much like the voice inside his head. Cajoling him and pulling him out of his own misery. They both should have left him there. But Helen never would, and this woman, Serena—she wouldn’t, either, would she?
He wanted so badly to reach out and take her hand.
It was the briefest moment of flickering indecision, but that was all it took. The next thing he knew, he’d placed his palm in hers, and her skin was so soft. Something deep inside him melted, his blood pulsing with a life, a warmth he hadn’t known in so long. Grief was an ever-present specter hovering just behind his shoulder, but for an instant, the emptiness of it cut less bitterly into his heart.
And she smiled at him. Warm and beautiful, the rosy curve of her mouth tilting upward until its brightness threatened to blind him.
He nearly faltered. That smile. It couldn’t be for him. It wouldn’t be—not for long. This had been a mistake. He moved to pull back, but she was stronger than she looked.
Holding firm, she squeezed his palm. “This is going to work out so great. I can just feel it.”
With that, she was in motion, dropping his hand and crossing the room. His skin burned with the sudden loss of her touch, and his mind reeled. She grabbed her phone and a little blue handbag from a table near the door, swinging her hair out of the way before she dialed and held the speaker to her ear. She looked to him and motioned for him to come along. He hadn’t so much as begun to rise when she turned away.
“Yes, I ordered a cab a few minutes ago. I need to cancel that.”
For a blessed second, her attention was diverted, and he closed his eyes against the stinging there. He took a rough, deep breath and then another.
This woman was a storm, one he’d already walked out into without so much as an umbrella. He was going to end up soaked to the bone.
But he was a desert, and after so many years of stagnant air, her whirlwind, her rush...it was such a relief.
He opened his eyes again as she ended the call. This time, he didn’t wait to be persuaded or cajoled. He got his hand on the grip of his crutch. Slow and hobbling, he crossed the bit of carpet to her door. She held it open for him, the full power of her grin still turned on him.
He soaked it in. And stepped right out into her deluge.
CHAPTER THREE
Cole?”
At the sound of his name, Cole looked up from his mobile to find a woman in teddy bear scrubs scanning the waiting room expectantly. About bloody time.
He and Serena had made it to the office with half an hour to spare, but it hadn’t gotten them in any faster. One more minute of whatever ridiculous soap opera had been blaring away on the television and he’d have put his fist through the screen.
Worse, Serena had insisted on waiting with him. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. For her to have gone home, perhaps, or out for a cup of tea, since they’d left theirs sitting untouched in her flat in their hurry to leave. But no. She’d followed him in, getting doors and grating against every misgiving floating around in his heart. Sitting right next to him in an uncomfortable, pink, fake leather chair, her arm brushing his and the sweetness of her scent crowding him, setting him more on edge than the daytime television, even.
It was torture and perfection, heaven and hell, and he couldn’t have gotten up out of his chair faster if he’d tried.
As he rose, something inside him unclenched. He didn’t relish being poked and prodded by doctors, but at least it would be a respite. A moment away from this woman who’d forced her way into his space and his day and—it was starting to seem—his life.
So of course she followed him.
He stopped cold, and his voice was a barely restrained hiss. “This isn’t necessary.”
“It kind of is.” She put a hand on his arm to keep him moving forward, leaning in close, and his thoughts spun. “I hate these waiting rooms. The awful TV.” She dropped to a near-whisper, an exaggerated shudder shaking her frame. “And all the germs.”
He swallowed his questions about why on earth she’d come in, then. What was the point? He felt the same, would’ve done the same.
The nurse gave them a tight smile as she showed them to an empty exam room. He sat on the table, leaving Serena one of the chairs, and recited off the particulars of his injury in response to the nurse’s questions. When she was satisfied, the nurse closed her computer and opened a drawer to hand him a flimsy paper sheet. “The doc’ll want to see your leg.”
Of course he would.
“Naturally,” he gritted out.
And then the nurse was leaving, closing the door behind her, and it was just him and this woman. And instructions for him to take his trousers off.
He swallowed hard, the back of his throat aching as he gripped the sheet, crinkling the scratchy fabric between his hands.
Color rose across her cheeks. “I can...”
“Just. I know it’s silly, but...” He made a twirling motion with a finger in the air.
He couldn’t be arsed about her seeing his legs, but he didn’t need her gawking while he strained to unlace his bloody shoes.
“Right.” Except she didn’t turn around at all, just stared at him, and what if this were different? If he were baring himself for her for real. If she were going to touch him—
If he were allowed to touch her.
His reverie broke, shattering like so much glass. When he cleared his throat, the sound broke the air. She blinked, eyes wide, the flush on her pretty, pale skin deepening. She whirled around almost too fast.
He had to take a long, deep breath.
It was as much of a struggle getting his shoes off as it had been the day before, his leg painful and stiff, the brace unyielding. But he managed. They clunked against the tile, and then there was nothing but to untie the drawstring of the trousers he would never have worn outside his apartment, not in a million years, but he hadn’t had a choice. He pushed the fabric off and away, staring down at his own naked legs until his vision threatened to dissolve.
He settled the sheet over his lap and worked his jaw. “You can look now.”
And she did.
Heat bloomed through his body, an ancient pleasure humming just beneath his skin as her gaze took him in. Hungry, and Go
d, fuck, but no one had looked at him like that in so long. He hadn’t let them. He crushed the sheet in his fists, everything in him going tight.
It was too much.
“Oh.” Her lashes fluttered. When they opened again, her eyes were clearer, and the iron bars around his ribs relaxed. She dropped her gaze and muttered, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
It was as far from fine as it could be.
If awkwardness were something you could drown in, Serena really, really should’ve brought a life jacket. Worse, it was basically all her fault. She’d been the one to insist on following him in here, and she was the one who’d frozen up when it was time for him to change. She should have left him alone for that part if nothing else, but it was as if her feet were bolted to the floor.
Even now, she kept glancing over at him. His legs were so long that the sheet only covered part of them. With his socks still on, it shouldn’t have been sexy at all, but he had these lean, muscular calves, his skin faintly golden through the dusting of hair. The starchy, white drape only did so much to hide the shapes of strong thighs or the dark outline of what she was pretty sure were boxer briefs.
The black, boxy shape of the brace he wore around his knee.
A knock at the door had her jerking her gaze away from his legs.
Cole—that was the name they’d called in the lobby—sat up straighter. His voice came out strained when he called, “Come in.”
The doctor was a woman, mid-fifties maybe. She shook Cole’s hand and nodded at Serena before opening her laptop and scanning the screen. “So what do we have here?”
“Dislocated patella,” Cole said.
The doctor went through the details of the injury with him, and Cole sighed. Huh. Maybe that was why he’d seemed so put upon when Serena had asked. He must have recited the story a hundred times by now. And yet as he told it again, he left out all the best parts, the robbers and his heroics, and she wanted to jump in. To make sure this doctor knew what kind of person she was treating.
Then again, maybe the fact that he didn’t mention it spoke more to that than the story ever could.
Confessions in the Dark Page 3
