by Geri Krotow
It was impossible not to have a purely female reaction. The robe hugged the lean contour of his hips, ending just above the knees. Long, trimly muscled legs extended bare beneath the hem. The casually knotted belt nipped the robe in at his narrow waist, but above that his chest and shoulders tugged the cloth apart, exposing golden skin and a light dusting of dark hair.
Pull yourself together, girl! She never did this. Never.
Once clients lay on the table, they ceased to be “people” in that way—they weren’t male or female, young or old, beautiful or homely. They certainly weren’t sexual.
They were simply exquisitely complex interlacings of muscle, tendon, nerves and needs. They were...well, it sounded silly but she sometimes thought of their bodies as works of art entrusted to her care. Art that had been damaged somehow. Misaligned. Knotted. Twisted, overtightened or blocked. Her job was to find the parts that had been disturbed and restore them to harmony.
Perhaps Jude was the most artful of all the works she’d ever been asked to restore. But so what? In her experience, athletes and body-builders and actors—all the physical perfectionists who populated Los Angeles—needed her help more than most.
They punished their bodies to take them to those heights of performance, and, once they relaxed, they proved to be masses of knotty pain and foreshortened tendons.
“Are there any injuries I should know about? Anything you’d particularly like addressed today?” She was glad to hear that her voice was normal.
He shook his head. “Nothing serious. I’ve got an ankle sprain that bugs me now and then, but massage helps, as a rule.”
Internally, she noted that.
“Okay, then. Good. There’s a sheet on the first table, and a light blanket, in case it feels a little cold to you. Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll be right back.”
Her crisp, competent tone made her feel less nervous, and Jude’s easy smile helped, too. “Sure thing,” he said.
She stayed away longer than was strictly necessary, giving him plenty of time to get covered, and giving herself plenty of time to get calm. Finally, she gathered the supplies she had chosen earlier, took a deep breath and moved down the hall, too.
He’d left the door open, so she walked in—slowly enough to alert him, and speaking as she entered. “Sorry. I don’t know where everything is, so it took me a minute to find it all.”
No response.
She moved to the counter nearest the massage table, where he lay on his stomach, his head not in the padded opening, but turned to one side, so that he presented his elegant profile. He was completely still.
“Mr. Calhoun?”
Tilting her head, she looked closer. He was so completely motionless he might have been dead...except that as she drew near he shifted once, sighed deeply and let out a low rumble that was...
Instinctively, she smiled. Yes, it was a snore. In the dim lighting, made more soothing with the addition of a few candles, with a Chopin Prelude playing on the sound system and the perfume of clean sheets and lavender oils floating in the air, he had fallen asleep.
She fiddled with her supplies, not banging things around, but not attempting to be particularly quiet. If he woke on his own, it would be much less awkward.
He didn’t. He wasn’t snoring anymore, but he remained utterly still, his eyes shut and his beautifully bowed lips slightly apart, glistening in the candlelight.
She allowed herself the indulgence of studying him. It wasn’t voyeurism. As a therapist, she could learn a lot by how he held himself, whether his shoulders relaxed into symmetry when he slept, whether his body twitched in those little ways that spoke of tension that dissipated only when the conscious mind shut down.
A couple of seconds passed before she could stop staring at his face, but when she finally transferred her gaze to his shoulders and back, she inhaled sharply.
The perfection stopped there. On either side of his spine, starting just below the neck and running down between the shoulder blades for at least five inches, were the unmistakable thin, thready scars left by a set of human fingernails.
She’d seen similar scars before, once or twice. But Jude’s were deeper than the average remnant of exuberant passion. These were more like...an attack.
“I suppose this is what Bree meant,” he said, “when she said she should probably warn you.”
Tess’s gaze flew to Jude’s face. His eyes were open, and he was smiling. She tamped down her momentary embarrassment and reached for her lotion.
She didn’t see any point in pretending she hadn’t been staring at the scars. His body was her business, right now.
“No need for a warning,” she said calmly. “I don’t think the scars present any special concern. They are clearly fully healed. Are they sensitive?”
“No.” He raised himself on his elbows and rubbed his thumbs across his eyelids, as if to scrape away the sleepiness. “I’m sorry I passed out. I was up all night with the baby, and I guess it caught up with me the minute I lay down.”
The baby?
The word surprised her. He didn’t look...
He didn’t look what? Like a father? How absurd was that? There was no “father” look. But then she realized that, on some subconscious level, she’d already observed that he didn’t wear a wedding ring.
Equally absurd. Her subconscious shouldn’t be registering such things in the first place, and, in the second place, wedding rings weren’t required in the baby-making process.
“No problem,” she assured him as placidly as she could. “You wouldn’t be the first client I’ve had who slept through a massage.” She warmed some lotion in her hands. “Though usually they do wait until I’ve begun, at least.”
As he chuckled, she touched gently between his shoulder blades. He automatically dropped down, as if he knew the drill well.
“Might make it tricky to rate your technique, though,” he said, his voice muffled by the cushion of the face support. He seemed about to speak, but the word dissolved into a contented “mmm” as she began to massage the lotion into his skin.
From then on, he didn’t utter a sound. She didn’t worry that his silence meant a lack of appreciation, or that he’d fallen asleep. He was her favorite kind of client, the kind who understood that the body spoke for itself.
When a tight muscle began to relax under her fingers, she didn’t need a murmur of bliss to tell her about it. And when she encountered a knot of pain, she didn’t need a wince to alert her. She read the ridges, valleys, ribbons and rocks of his body as if he were a story written in braille. Any decent massage therapist could do the same.
The irregular embossing of the scars was harder to read. They weren’t sexual in nature, she felt sure of that. The gouges had been too deep, caused by true violence, whether intentional or accidental. And they had been painful.
She thought she might, with time, be able to break down some of the collagen build-up and reduce the scars, but that wasn’t her mission today. She’d been asked to demonstrate a Swedish massage, the kind that felt great and left the client purring.
Besides, Jude might not have any interest in having his scars worked on. He didn’t seem to be a bit self-conscious about them. She could tell when she hit a client’s sensitive spot, either physically or emotionally. Some vibration under the skin, through the nerves and muscles, changed slightly, hitting a new note like a string on a guitar. His vibration didn’t alter an iota when her fingers skimmed along the scars.
She found plenty of tender spots. The external abdominal obliques, especially, were too tight. His job... He probably didn’t stretch enough after a tough day. And warmth pooled in the small of his back...sometimes that meant there was a gait problem, though she hadn’t noticed one while he walked.
The time vanished, as it often did. She always set a timer to buzz in her
pocket as she needed to switch through the phases of the massage, because she knew she’d lose track of the hour if she didn’t. Today, though, she must have failed to do it. She worked on his back, then on the front, alternating long strokes and detail work on the pressure points.
She was lost—she couldn’t have said how long—in exploring the pressure points on the face and scalp when a light rap sounded on the door.
“So sorry, guys.” Chelsea’s throaty voice was soft as she cracked the door open. Tess recognized it instantly. Chelsea, the spa’s director, had put her through an extensive telephone interview before this working massage. No point bringing in Tess at all, unless she passed that initial phase.
Jude rose onto his elbows, stretching his neck slowly. “Time’s up already?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Chelsea waved two fingers at Tess. “I wouldn’t disturb you, except that we’ve got the Ardens out there, and they’re not the patient type.”
“No, of course.” Tess was annoyed with herself for letting the session run long. She liked to end with a short head massage, which seemed to make the transition to real life smoother. She began wiping her hands on a clean towel. “We were just about finished, anyhow.”
Chelsea nodded and ducked out. Jude sat up, keeping the sheet around his hips, and let out a long, satisfied sigh.
“Nice,” he said with feeling. He tested his shoulders, stretching out his obliques. “Oh, yeah. Very nice. Maybe the best I’ve ever had.” He grinned. “And that’s saying something, because I get a lot of massages.”
She smiled, but something in her eyes must have registered surprise, because he laughed. “I’m the official guinea pig around here. Ro always says she wants to check out new hires, but in reality she’s too busy. So...” He yawned and ran his hand through his hair, mussing it. Somehow the disheveled look suited him. “As I said, tough work, but someone has to do it.”
“Thanks,” she said, glancing away. Did that mean there was a high turnover of therapists at the ranch? She couldn’t ask, of course. “I’m glad you feel relaxed.”
She gathered her supplies and hurried toward the door. Behind her, she heard the soft whisper as the sheet fell to the floor.
Out by the front counter, the serenity had been jangled a bit. Rowena had returned, and was helping Mrs. Fillmore set up her next appointment. If the woman’s massage had relaxed her, she didn’t show it. She leaned over Rowena’s appointment book, as if challenging something, and reiterated in a brittle voice that she would accept Ashley and only Ashley.
In the waiting room, a long-limbed couple straight from the pages of Beautiful People Magazine were tapping manicured fingers against thousand-dollar boots and giving off restless vibes.
In that moment, Tess could easily imagine why there was high turnover of therapists at Bell River Ranch. It had positioned itself at the high end, and the clients were the entitled type, demanding and finicky. In Tess’s experience, these well-heeled clients often could be iffy, looking for any excuse to avoid tipping. Difficult clients, high turnover, possibly disappointing income...
That was three strikes....
But it didn’t matter. As she returned the lotions to the elegant chrome shelves, and listened to Rowena wryly but deftly handling Mrs. Fillmore, Tess realized the truth. She wanted to be a part of Bell River, even if only temporarily. Even if her true relationship were never revealed.
If she got the chance, nothing would prevent her from taking this job.
Copyright © 2014 by Kathleen O’Brien
ISBN-13: 9781460331989
NAVY RESCUE
Copyright © 2014 by Geri Krotow
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