Her Fifth Husband?

by Dixie Browning

  Well, shoot. Now he even sounded sympathetic. She couldn’t handle sympathy. It had been in short supply back when she could have used it—back when she’d spent her lunch money on cheap makeup to conceal bruises inflicted by her father’s fists, only to have him accuse her of painting her face like a hussy. Which often as not earned her a few more bruises.

  Jake pulled up in front of the beach hospital and said, “Wait while I go get a wheelchair.”

  “Don’t be silly, I don’t need a wheelchair.” She had never even been to a hospital before, except as a visitor.

  “Okay then, put your arm over my shoulder.” He leaned into the open door and eased his arm under her knees.

  If she’d had a single rational thought in her head before, it was gone by the time he carried her inside. The man was definitely high-voltage.

  “You’ll have to do the paper work,” he told her, “but I’ll see if I can’t speed up the process.”

  Two women behind glass windows stared. Several people in the waiting room glanced up from their outdated People magazines.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, put me down,” Sasha muttered. At this rate she wouldn’t even need a doctor’s help. Being this close to Jake Smith, whoever he was—whatever he was—was distracting enough that she hardly even noticed her throbbing ankle, much less her stinging hand.

  Just under two hours later an orderly wheeled her out to the waiting room. Laying aside the newspaper he’d read without retaining a single word, Jake stood to meet her. “All done?” he asked. No cast, just a wrap job, which meant a bad sprain, not a break. “What’s with the hand?” Her right hand was bandaged, all but two fingers and her thumb.

  “Splinters. I lost three fingernails, too.”

  His eyes widened. “Good God, that’s awful!” he swallowed hard, fighting back nausea.

  “I think another one’s loose and I just had them done last week. Now I’ll have to get the whole right hand done over.” Glancing over her shoulder, she thanked the orderly. “I can make it from here just fine,” she assured him with a smile that was undiminished by chewed-off lipstick and smeared mascara.

  “It’s the rules, ma’am,” the orderly said, refusing to dump her out of the wheelchair.

  Jake shook his head. He crossed to the double glass doors and held it wide. “Come on, don’t be so stubborn.”

  Together, the two men eased her from the wheelchair onto the front seat. Jake slipped the orderly a few bucks—didn’t know if it was proper or not, but the kid was about Timmy’s age. Might even have been a classmate.

  They drove several miles in silence except for a few heavy sighs coming from the passenger side. The first time they stopped for a red light, Jake tried to get a handle on how bad she was hurting. “We’ll stop by and get your prescription filled, then we’ll cut over to the beach road and put the top up on your car. It should be all right there for a few days until you can drive.”

  “Oh, wait a minute—just hold on, I’m not leaving my car unattended.”

  “You feel up to driving?” He looked pointedly at her ankle, which was once again propped on the padded carton.

  “It’s not a stick shift.”

  “Sasha—Ms. Lasiter—look at it from my perspective. If I dump you out in Kitty Hawk, I won’t sleep a wink wondering if you made it home all right. It’d be criminal negligence at the very least if anything happened to you.” They must’ve given her something for pain. From the way she was blinking her eyes, the lady was floating around in la-la land.

  “I can call a taxi.”

  “That won’t help you move your car. Look, I got you safely to the hospital, didn’t I? Don’t you trust me to get you home?”

  Another milepost zipped past. He turned off onto the street that dead-ended at a row of oceanfront cottages that were identical but for color and the placement of a few exterior details. Driftwinds, where she’d left her car, was the next to last one on the cul-de-sac.

  “You shouldn’t have to drive me all the way to Muddy Landing.”

  She was softening, he could tell. Truth was, he didn’t know why he was going to all this trouble. He should be working on the Jamison case, especially since so far his stakeout had produced zilch.

  “You like barbecue?” he asked, climbing back into the SUV after pulling her car into the paved space underneath the cottage, putting the top up and locking it.

  Nice wheels. The lady had good taste. He handed her the keys and backed out onto the street.

  “Who doesn’t?” She was picking at the bandage on her hand, and he reached over and covered both of hers with one of his.

  “Leave it alone,” he said. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to pick at stuff like that?”

  That warranted a fleeting smile. He had a feeling she was hurting more than she wanted to let on, even after whatever they’d given her at the hospital. Which was kind of surprising, because judging by her looks alone he’d have figured her for a complainer.

  Not until some ten minutes later when he came out with two barbecue plates and climbed back under the wheel did it occur to Jake that either they were going to share a late lunch or he was going to eat his share cold somewhere else. “Should I have gotten some drinks to go with it?” he asked as they rolled onto the bridge over Currituck Sound.

  “I’ve got iced tea,” she said, which pretty much answered the question.

  “Tea’s good.” Jake pushed in a CD and whistled under his breath, keeping time with the music with his thumb tapping against the steering wheel.

  With work piling up, his home and his office in a mess and the Jamison case going nowhere, he had no business being where he was, doing what he was doing. He’d never been the impulsive type.

  On the other hand, when he started something, he always liked to carry it through. In his business, following procedure was the only way to get the job done.

  Oh, yeah? And what have you started this time?

  Three

  Sasha desperately needed to reach her own front door unaided, if only to assert her independence, but after the first few steps she grudgingly accepted Jake’s help. This had definitely not been one of her better days. Awkwardly, she dug out her keys. He took them from her uninjured hand. “It’s the key with the fingernail polish,” she told him.

  Independence could wait another few minutes.

  Without releasing her, he managed to unlock the front door. “Want me to carry you over the threshold?”

  Her look said it all. Over my dead body. Sprained, splintered and disheveled didn’t count.

  Once inside, he steered her toward the three-cushion sofa. “First, let’s get you elevated. Then if you’ll point me to the kitchen, I’ll make you an ice pack.”

  “How do you know what I need?”

  This time it was his look that said it all. “Trust me, I’ve seen a sprain or two. Underneath that bandage you’re probably already turning purple.”

  Sasha wanted to tell him to take his sympathy and his barbecue plate and go back to wherever he came from, because she didn’t need him.

  Only she did. This was Faylene’s day to work for Lily, and Marty was just back from her honeymoon, still busy washing sand and salt out of her trousseau.

  “The doctor called it a type-II sprain. He said something about torn ligaments, but I wasn’t really listening.” Admittedly, she had a few bad habits, one of them being deflecting bad news by concentrating on something else. In this case, she’d been focused on the possibility of insuring her more expensive shoes. “He mentioned ice. I think there’s a gel pack somewhere in the freezer, but I usually use frozen vegetables.”

  “You do this often?”

  While she gave him her patented supercilious look—naturally arched eyebrows tinted half a shade darker than her hair helped—he eased her down onto the sofa and gently lifted her legs up onto the cushions, which involved a lot more touching than she needed at the moment. Her skirt twisted around her hips and she tugged at it with her good hand, w
ishing she’d worn something longer. She had mini and maxi, nothing in between.

  “Here, let’s lift your foot up and slide a pillow under your heel.” His voice was like blackstrap molasses—rich and sweet, but with a definite bite.

  While she wondered where he came by his expertise, he slipped another pillow under her knee, which involved more touching. Considering she was still in appreciable pain, even after a dose of prescription-strength anti-inflammatory medication, she shouldn’t even have noticed. If she didn’t know better, she might think her whole body had been sensitized. The slightest brush with sumac and she broke out in a rash. The slightest brush of Jake Smith’s hands on her thigh or the back of her knee raised goose bumps in places he hadn’t even touched.

  Granted, she’d been on a self-imposed diet these past few years, but she wasn’t that starved for masculine attention.

  He stepped back and looked her over. “There, that better?”

  Wordlessly, she nodded, feeling her cheeks burn. The curse of a redhead’s thin skin. “This is so embarrassing.”

  “No need to be embarrassed, it could happen to anybody.”

  If she read him right—and she was good at reading people—he might as well have added, Anybody crazy enough to wear skyscraper shoes lashed to her ankles. Was there such a thing as breakaway ankle straps?

  “How’s the hand?” His were on his hips. Tanned, capable hands planted firmly on narrow masculine hips.

  Just quit thinking what you’re thinking! “It’s fine.” She looked down at the fingers she’d jammed. Her newly exposed natural nails looked like naked little orphans.

  “Sit tight, I’ll be back with your ice pack in a minute.”

  “No hurry. I think I’ll get up and tap dance on the coffee table.”

  He shot her a quick grin as he headed for the kitchen. Distracted, she almost forgot her misery. He had a nice smile. He had a really nice backside, which she noticed only because it was more or less at her eye level as he left the room. Strong legs, too—at least he hadn’t dropped her when he was carrying her down all those steps.

  Not that she would have fallen too far, the way she’d clung to him with both arms.

  “Peas or corn, either one will do fine,” she called after him.

  “Got it.”

  “You do this a lot?” he asked again a few moments later as he shaped a bag of frozen peas around her bandaged ankle. “Use ice packs, I mean.”

  “Headaches,” she said, and then snapped her mouth shut. Just because he happened to be there when she’d needed a hand—just because he’d driven her to the hospital and waited for her, stopped at the drive-in window of the pharmacy while her prescription was being filled, taken care of her car for her and then driven her home after stopping to get barbecue—that didn’t mean he needed to know her entire life history.

  On the other hand, there was Lily, who definitely needed a man if Faylene could be believed. This one just might fill the bill if he happened to be available. The fact that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring didn’t mean he was single. Some men didn’t.

  “Won’t your wife be worried?” Well, that was really subtle, wasn’t it?

  “I called the office to say I might be late.”

  Was that a yes or a no? Even if he was single, he might not be right for Lily. Men who stayed single past their midthirties were usually confirmed bachelors. She’d read that somewhere.

  On the other hand, Muddy Landing’s primo matchmakers never actually forced a couple to the altar. They simply engineered meetings between needy people in a setting that ensured they’d have to spend a little time together. Not all relationships had to end in marriage. The truth was, marriage itself ended many a good relationship, as both Sasha and Marty could confirm. Between them they’d gone through six husbands, Marty’s current bridegroom not included.

  “Nice pictures,” Jake said, glancing around the cluttered living room.

  The rest of her house was even worse. Her personal art collection, which could best be called eclectic, hung in a haphazard pattern on the lime-washed cedar paneling—haphazard because whenever she added to it, she was forced to shift things to make room. Stacked on the floor were nine framed reproductions for two offices she was presently doing.

  “Food and a cold drink coming up,” Jake said.

  In the kitchen, humming under his breath, Jake took a moment to get his bearings. The lady sure did like color. Nothing matched except for a couple of the appliances. One red wall, a couple of pink ones. No curtains at the window, but a bunch of vines hanging down both sides that looked more like sweet potatoes than flowers. But then, he was no gardener—that had been Rosemary’s department.

  He filled two tumblers with ice, covered the ice with tea from a pitcher in the refrigerator and looked around for a serving tray.

  Two o’clock on a workday—not that every day wasn’t a workday—and he was goofing off as if he had all the time in the world. The last time he’d had lunch with a lady was—

  Hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time.

  “Here we go, two barbecue plates, two iced teas,” he said, sounding like a snake-oil salesman as he walked into the living room. “You want your barbecue reheated?”

  “No thanks, it’s fine this way.”

  “Me, too. Reheating always does something to the flavor.”

  His social skills had grown rusty with disuse. Small talk defeated him. Besides, what could a hot babe who lived in a lavender house and drove a red Lexus convertible possibly have in common with a middle-aged widower who lived in a half-furnished white-on-white duplex—one who drove a six-year-old SUV with a primer-coated fender he’d never gotten around to repainting?

  He watched as she reached for a hush puppy with her good hand. “Why don’t I bring a towel to spread over your lap? Eating sideways is kind of awkward.”

  What was awkward was his being here. He should have just brought her home and left her. Although if he’d done that, she might have gone without lunch. Supper, too.

  Ah, hell, she had plenty of friends she could’ve called on for help. With her looks she probably had to beat off men with a stick. “Look, I can eat in the kitchen if you’d rather be alone. Or leave and take mine with me.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, pull up a chair and use the coffee table. Move the rest of that stuff onto the floor.”

  He slid her magazines, books and mail to one side to clear a space on the table and drew up a cane-bottomed chair that had two monkeys carved on one of the back panels. She had unique tastes, he’d say that for her. Colorful, too. The rug was one of those oriental types, mostly orange and black. As for the pictures on the wall…yeah, unique just about covered it.

  “It’s an Eisher,” she said, following his gaze. “The one beside the escritoire.”

  As he didn’t know an escritoire from an estuary, Jake only nodded. “Interesting,” he said, which was usually a safe comment. “You want catsup for those fries?” That was even safer.

  Condiments at hand, they applied themselves to the late lunch. It was getting on toward three. Oddly enough, the silence wasn’t all that uncomfortable. At least it wouldn’t have been if he could have stopped watching her trying to manage with one injured hand and the other one handicapped by long, red fingernails and several rings.

  He’d have offered to feed her, but he didn’t trust himself to get that close. As it was, it might take a while before he could forget the way she’d felt in his arms when he’d carried her down the outside stairs at the cottage, and from there in to the hospital. As small as she was, there was nothing fragile about her. She was firm, but soft where a woman should be soft.

  And then there was the way she smelled, like orange blossoms and incense with a few exotic spices tossed in. Under the right circumstances something like that could easily set off a riot.

  In other words, look, but don’t touch.

  So he looked. The suntan stopped a few inches from the bandage on her bum ankle. Did tha
t mean it was one of those spray-on jobs?

  Yeah, probably. With legs like hers, she could’ve painted them blue and it wouldn’t have mattered. Her lips were shiny from the fries and the hush puppies and those thick black eyelashes made her eyes look like the color of the surf in August, before the storms got it all churned up.

  Hmm, that was odd. He could’ve sworn they were tan just yesterday.

  Oh, man. That perfume must be messing with his head.

  He cleared his throat. “If you’re finished, I can take your tray. You want your cell phone handy?” Rising, he looked around for her purse.

  “Why would I want that?”

  “In case it rings so you won’t have to get up? Or to call someone to come stay with you?”

  “If it’s important they’ll call back, and I’m not in the mood for company.”

  “I just meant—” He started to explain and gave up on it. When it came to defenses, the lady could give lessons to a porcupine.

  So he took her leavings to the kitchen, refilled the tumbler with ice and sweet tea and brought it back. Then he removed the cold pack, which was mostly melted, anyway. “Wait a little while, then ice up again. In the meantime, keep your foot elevated. I’ll put your prescription here where you can reach it. Let’s see…you took the last dose about two.” He glanced around for a clock. She looked at her wrist. One of her several bracelets turned out to be a wristwatch. “Every four hours or as needed,” he reminded her.

  Sasha was glad he’d turned away. She hated being seen at a disadvantage, she purely hated it! She must look like a lump of raw dough with her clothes all twisted around her; with her hair falling out of the carefully casual do she’d started out with this morning and her lipstick chewed off. Heaven only knew what had happened to her eye makeup. At least she’d done nothing to smear her eyeliner or dislodge any of her eyelashes.