by Cathie Linz
“He was really good-looking, popular with women. Like you.”
Jack wanted to shout that he was nothing like her ex-husband.
“We met in college. My first week there, in fact. I was so surprised that he paid any attention to me, that he asked me out.”
“Why should that surprise you? I told you before, you’re a beautiful woman.”
“I am not. I was dumpy in high school and even that first year in college. Definitely what you’d call a late bloomer, if I bloomed at all.”
“Oh, you’ve bloomed, all right,” he growled, tugging her to him and running his thumb over her nipple. Her blue knit top amplified the raw power of his caress.
“Stop playing games with me,” she said.
Deciding that actions spoke louder than words, he grabbed her hand and placed it over the placket of his jeans. “Does this feel like I’m playing games? Lady, I’m dead serious here.”
She hurriedly snatched her hand away, more because she was tempted to keep it where it was than out of any sense of outrage. “I already told you, I’m not interested in a one-night stand.”
“It’s gonna take more than one night for the fire between us to burn out,” Jack replied in a sexy whisper. “Trust me, I’m an expert at these things.”
He’d meant he was an expert with fire, but she took him to mean with affairs. “I know you’re an expert, you’ve done this lots of times before, had lots of women.”
“Not all that many,” he muttered. “I’m healthy, if that’s what you’re asking. I just gave blood at the firehouse last month....”
“That’s not what I was asking.”
“Well, you should. It’s a dangerous world out there.”
“And you’re making it a more dangerous one.”
Her accusation stung. “How do you figure that?”
“Because I’ve seen the pattern before.”
“I’m not like you’re ex-husband.” There—he’d said the words. Growled them, actually.
“He was happy-go-lucky like you.”
Offended, Jack muttered, “I am not happy-go-lucky.”
“We were happy at first,” Kayla said, ignoring Jack’s comment. “At least I like to think we were. I was happy. Even though I was working long hours and we didn’t see enough of each other.”
“Why was that?”
“Because Bruce was studying. He was in medical school. I worked to help out.”
“You mean you paid his way?”
“He had a scholarship that helped out some.”
“Some? The guy sounds like a no-good moocher to me.”
“I found that out when he divorced me, after he finished his internship. He’d met someone else. Someone from a wealthy Oak Brook family. She had the background he’d always wanted. So he left.”
“He left his wife and kid for some rich chick from the suburbs?”
“Yeah, go figure,” she said on the edge of a sob.
“If there weren’t a kid in the other room, I’d give you a few choice words to describe the bastard you married.”
“If there weren’t a child in the other room, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But Ashley is the most important thing in my life, and I’m not going to let anything threaten her well-being.”
Jack’s smoky eyes turned bleak.
“I don’t mean that you’re a threat to her,” Kayla quickly clarified. “I don’t mean that at all. I mean that getting involved with you would give my ex-husband the ammunition he needs to get custody of Ashley.”
“He wants custody?”
“He’s talked about it. They’ve recently found out that his new wife can’t have children of her own.”
“So she wants yours?”
His words were very similar to the ones Kayla had used a few weeks ago.
“Is your ex-husband threatening you?” Jack demanded.
“He’s talked about taking Ashley.”
“What does your attorney say? Surely no court would give a kid to the man who deserted his wife and baby. Ashley must have been just a baby when this happened.”
Kayla nodded. “She was only a few months old. Her crying prevented Bruce from getting enough sleep. He used to complain bitterly about that. A surgeon needs his sleep, he’d tell me over and over again.”
“And what? Now that she’s past that stage, she’s convenient to have around again? Is that it?”
“I don’t know what Bruce is thinking,” Kayla wearily admitted. “But I do know that he’d use anything he could against me. So there’s no way I can get...involved with anyone at this point in my life.”
“So what do you plan on doing? Keeping your sex life on hold until your daughter is eighteen? You’re a passionate woman. You need a man—”
She angrily interrupted him. “If I did need a man, it would be one who was willing to...”
“Go on,” he taunted her. “Willing to what?”
“Willing to commit. A man who is looking for more than a fleeting affair. A man who’s looking for forever. Is that what you’re looking for?” she challenged him.
The answer was in his eyes and his silence.
“I didn’t think so,” she whispered.
“I don’t believe in forever anymore. But if I did...”
It didn’t matter. Kayla wasn’t there to hear his words any longer. She’d gone to bed; to her daughter and her commitments. Without him.
Jack woke the next morning with the strangest feeling that someone was looking at him. And it sure did feel like someone was sitting on him.
His eyes popped open to find Ashley perched on his bed, her knees pinning down the blankets by his side and thus pinning him to the bed. At least she wasn’t sitting on top of him. Instead she was leaning over him and staring at him about four inches from his chin.
Startled, the only reason Jack didn’t jump out of his skin and his bed was the fact that he didn’t want to scare Ashley. Not knowing quite what to say, Jack decided to let the kid talk first. She took her own sweet time about it.
“I was making sure you wasn’t dead,” she told him. Pointing to his bare chest, she added, “You got hair like Hugs does.”
Disconcerted, Jack tugged the white sheet up to his throat, nearly dislodging Ashley from her princesslike perch in the process.
“Hugs is hungry. He wants choclotts. Now.”
“I don’t have any chocolate.”
“Uh-oh,” Ashley said.
“Uh-oh, what?” Jack asked suspiciously, his panicked thoughts skittering from one kid-induced disaster to another. Surely Ashley was toilet trained by now, right? She wasn’t going to wet on his bed or anything was she? Just because he didn’t have chocolate?
“Uh-oh my mommy is coming,” Ashley said. Leaning closer to Jack, she confided, “She’s gonna be mad.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“She said don’t wake you. But I didn’t. Hugs did. Hi, Mommy!” she said with a brilliant smile aimed at Kayla.
“Hi, yourself, sprite. I thought I told you not to bother Jack.”
“I wasn’t. His eyes opened. He doesn’t have choclotts, Mommy.”
“I thought we’d have pancakes for breakfast.” Coming to his bed, Kayla leaned to talk to Ashley. Kayla’s movement let Jack see the curve of her breast displayed by the V-necked Wildcats T-shirt he’d lent her to sleep in last night.
The hem went down to her knees and was actually longer than her skirts were. But there was something about seeing her in his clothing that made him want to see her in nothing at all. And then there was the fact that she was in his bedroom. And she was surreptitiously looking around with more than casual interest.
“Looking for mirrors and a round vibrating bed, are you?” he mocked her.
“No. I was just thinking how neat you’ve got things in here.”
“I told you I’m not a total slob.”
Unwilling to risk the danger of feasting her eyes on him, she let her gaze wander to the window. “I looked out the li
ving room window and there seems to be almost a foot of snow outside.”
Afraid she was getting ready to leave, Jack said, “You better give the snow plows more time to work on the streets. I’ve got a buddy in Streets and Sanitation who usually makes sure my street gets cleared by noon.”
“Are we gonna eat now?” Ashley demanded.
“You’ve got a one-track mind.” Kayla said, even as she grabbed the little girl around the middle and nuzzled her neck until she giggled. “No more roughhousing on Jack’s bed, he’s got a broken leg. Come on, you, I’ll see if I can’t rustle up some pancakes for us to eat.”
After the two had left, Jack stayed in bed, mesmerized by the image of Kayla on his bed. She’d looked good there, her hair falling into her eyes, the oversize T-shirt slipping off one shoulder. So good that he had to take a cold shower before making an idiot of himself.
His mood hadn’t improved by the time he was done. He’d been in such an all-fire hurry that he’d left his clothes in his bedroom. When he yanked open the bathroom door, which had an irritating habit of sticking with humidity, he was muttering under his breath and praying the towel he’d fastened around his waist would stay put while he used the crutches to propel himself as fast as humanly possible into his bedroom.
To his relief, Ashley was in the living room, watching Saturday morning cartoons. Kayla was a heck of a lot closer, as in only a few feet away.
Jack’s glare was enough to melt steel, but Kayla paid it no heed. History was repeating itself. She’d kept that memory of him coming out of the shower in her head even though it had happened days before. But her fantasies didn’t hold a candle to reality. Reality was so much better!
She’d felt his chest pressed against her breasts last night; she knew how solid it was. She’d forgotten how darn good it looked. And his shoulders. And everything else in between... and below....
“Don’t look at me like that unless you mean it,” Jack warned her in a gravelly voice.
Refusing to back down, she took pleasure in the fact that he sounded as rattled as she’d felt when she’d first seen him step out of the bathroom. But it wouldn’t do to let him know that. So she calmly said, “Listen, I’m a mother. You don’t intimidate me. I’ve seen it all.”
“Not yet you haven’t. But if you keep standing there in my bedroom doorway any longer, you will.” As if to reinforce his statement, the towel around his waist slipped another inch.
“I’m moving, I’m moving!” she hurriedly declared, her earlier calm completely deserting her.
As he swept past her on his crutches, she could feel the heat radiating from him. Then the bedroom door slammed in her face.
By Monday the city, while still digging out, had mostly returned to normal. But Kayla hadn’t returned to normal. Her friend Diane knew something was up when Kayla dropped by the office.
“That was some snowstorm, huh?” Diane said as the Beatles’ Abbey Road compact disk quietly played from the corner of the office.
“Yeah.”
“You never did tell me where you and Ashley crashed that first night,” Diane noted while watering her collection of Boston ferns. Diane had called, over the weekend, to make sure Kayla was okay, but hadn’t heard any details.
“We had to stay over at Jack’s.”
“Jack Elliott? Now this sounds interesting. Not that you’ve told me much. Yet.”
“There’s nothing to tell. We slept on the pullout in the living room. Ashley and I, I mean.”
“I figured that much. And nothing happened between you and Jack? Aha, you’re blushing.”
Kayla sighed. “You should see the man, Diane. I wouldn’t be human if I weren’t...”
“Yes?”
“Affected by him.”
“He kissed you again, didn’t he?” Diane guessed. “And you liked it even more this time. The look on your face says it all.”
“I’m not getting involved with him. I’m not,” Kayla stated emphatically. “I told him so.”
“What did he say?”
“He as much as admitted he’s not a forever kind of guy. I made a mistake with Bruce, I’m not about to do that again.”
“Speaking of the no-good swine, have you heard from your ex-husband lately?”
“No, but he’s supposed to come by next weekend to pick up Ashley. I know it’s good for her to have time with her father, even if he was a jerk as a husband, but I miss her so much when she’s gone. And lately I’ve got this almost overwhelming fear that Bruce won’t bring her back.”
“He wouldn’t risk his position in the medical community by having the police show up at his door. Bruce is stupid, but not that stupid.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” She deliberately shoved aside her dark thoughts. “Well, enough of this girl talk, we’ve got work to do.”
“Look on the bright side,” Diane pointed out. “At least you don’t have to take the Newlins’ toy poodle Puffkins for her grooming appointment like I do.”
“If you had a name like Puffkins, you’d have an attitude problem, too,” Kayla said as she printed up her daily schedule of the errands she had to run for clients today. The laser printer needed a new cartridge soon. Something else to add to the list. “Besides, I’ve got enough on my plate with the Bronkowski account.”
“And Jack. Don’t forget Jack.”
“I don’t visit Jack on Mondays.”
“That doesn’t mean you can forget about him, does it?”
“Believe me, I’ve tried,” Kayla muttered. “Unfortunately it doesn’t work. He’s unforgettable.”
“The offer to take over his account still stands,” Diane told her with a grin. “Compared to Puffkins, the guy would be a piece of cake.”
“You’re making that up,” Kayla told Jack, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes and hoping her mascara was as waterproof as it had promised. She’d made her scheduled stop at his place on Tuesday, prepared for a confrontation. Instead he’d regaled her with stories and tall tales, or in this case tall tails.
“I’m telling you the dog did it. Clever mutt pulled the emergency fire alarm twice in that building. Just stood on its haunches and tugged the handle in its mouth. And then had the nerve to sit there until we arrived. The animal was as deaf as a stone, so the racket never bothered it.”
“And you responded by...?”
“Taking the dog back to the firehouse. It was a stray, anyway, and I figured that it just liked us, so I’d make it easier on him by bringing the dog to the firehouse instead of bringing the firehouse to the dog again.”
“And that’s your story of how the firehouse went to the dogs.”
“That’s right. You wouldn’t believe some of the things we’re called out on. Another one of my favorites happened during that sub-zero snap we had in December. We’re called out to a car fire, the vehicle is completely engulfed when we get there. It turns out that the owner had put a sleeping bag on her car’s engine to keep it warm. She kept it under the hood as she drove to work at a restaurant. She parked the car and left it, thinking everything is hunkydory. It’s not, because the sleeping bag ends up igniting. Next time she looks out the window of the restaurant she sees us there. She comes running out and so does the cook, who says ‘So who ordered the Chevy well-done?’ Now the moral of this story is that you put your girlfriend in your sleeping bag, not your car.”
The image of her and Jack cuddling together created a warmth that might well have set something ablaze.
As if reading her thoughts, Jack said, “Are you ready to talk about that kiss?”
He caught her by surprise, but she hurriedly gathered her defenses in order to calmly say, “What’s left to talk about?”
“Plenty. There’s something going on between us. I don’t know what it is yet, but I want to find out.”
“I don’t.”
“Why not? What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid of snakes and matches if they aren’t the wooden safety variety.”
&nb
sp; Her mocking reply got his attention. “I’ve never heard of anyone being afraid of matches of any kind.”
“Well, afraid might be a strong way to describe it. I just can’t strike any other kind of match to get them lit because I’m so afraid of getting burned that I drop it before it lights. But I work around it by using wooden matches. The wood doesn’t bend like that cardboard paper stuff does.”
Kayla didn’t seem like the kind who would bend, either, Jack noted. She had her values and her rules and she stuck to them like glue. “I’ve never seen anyone make as many lists as you do,” he noted as she crossed off something in her notebook.
“I like being organized.”
“I like kissing you.”
“Are we back to that?”
“Not yet, but I’d like to be.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So you’ve told me.”
What was it about the man that got to her so much? There had to be more to it than just his good looks and incredibly mind-bending kisses. He made her laugh as often as he made her furious.
“You’re looking at me funny,” he told her. “Are you trying to decide how to break my other leg?”
“You never told me the real story about how you broke the one you did break.”
“Are you hungry? Want some lunch? I can order us a pizza.”
Realizing he’d finagled his way out of talking about his injury yet again, she shook her head at both his maneuvering and his nutritional choices. “Do you live on pizza?”
“Not all the time, but it’s handy having a pizzeria around the corner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You look hungry,” he told her with a slow smile. “It’s something about your eyes and the way you keep licking your lips as if you were dying to taste something...or someone.”
“Taste or snap at someone,” she retorted.
“Go right ahead,” he invited her. “Give it your best shot, or best snap. I’ve felt those dainty teeth on me before, and I’d be happy to repeat the experience.”
She blushed, remembering how passionately they’d kissed against the refrigerator door. “I already told you that experience will never be repeated.”
