“I just lie here stuck with needles and holding these things now?” Josh asked as any other client might have, not sounding as if he were infected with the same sense of intimacy and fledgling desire that Megan was suffering.
“That’s about it. Don’t let go of the vials. Each one has to be touching skin the whole time. But other than that, you can close your eyes and relax.”
“And you won’t stay even if I want you to?”
Did he want her to or was he teasing her? She couldn’t be sure but she knew it was better to believe he was only teasing.
“You’ll rest more if you’re alone and that helps your body get in tune with what it needs to do.”
And maybe if she got out of that small room she could regroup.
She pushed a button on the CD player to play a recording of soft ocean sounds and dimmed the lights.
“Just rest. I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” she assured him, going out the door and closing it care fully behind her.
For a moment she stayed in the hallway with her hand still on the knob, deflating against the panel itself.
Why was she so vulnerable to this man? she asked herself. Why couldn’t she even do her job without succumbing to some kind of primal attraction to him?
But she didn’t have any answers. She just knew that she had to get control over it. Over her wandering thoughts. Over the things he made her feel. And she decided to use that twenty minutes to work on it.
So she pushed herself away from the door, set the timer she kept on a plant stand at the end of the hall, and went out the back door into the alley and the cold night air.
Clear the thoughts. Clear the feelings. Clear it all….
Too bad she couldn’t perform Josh elimination acupuncture on herself, she decided.
But as much as she believed in the allergy elimination acupuncture, she didn’t believe the simple application of a few needles could take away her attraction to the sheriff. For some reason he seemed to have gotten so deeply into every fiber of her being that she didn’t know how to get him out of it.
But she had to keep trying, she told herself. She just had to keep trying….
Which was still what she was doing when the timer went off twenty minutes later.
Megan took a long, deep breath and held it until her lungs screamed to let it go. Then she went inside again and straight to the treatment room, ignoring the eagerness she felt to get back to him in spite of everything.
Josh’s eyes were closed and didn’t open until Megan turned off the CD player.
When they had, she said, “Well, did you live through it?”
“Better than that, I got a catnap.”
“Good. You must have needed it,” she said as she removed the needles from his feet and shins. Then she moved to the right side of the table and cupped her hands together as a sign for him to place the vials in them. He did and she set the vials on the counter before re turning to the table to pull the needles from his hands and forearms, too.
“Can I get up now?” he asked.
“No reason not to. You’re all done. Except for steering clear of hay for twenty-five hours. Don’t forget that.”
He did an effortless sit-up and got off the table, going immediately to the chair to put on his socks and boots.
Megan couldn’t replace her tights as simply or as modestly as she’d been able to remove them, so she opted for not doing it at all. Instead she watched his quick, adept movements, once again feeling flushed and warm inside as she did.
“How about giving me a tour of your work place?” Josh suggested as he stood again, still sounding nowhere near as affected by her as she was by him.
“There isn’t much to see.” But if she did give him the tour it meant he wouldn’t be leaving immediately….
“I could show you what there is, though,” she finished more brightly than she’d intended.
“I’d like to see it. This used to be my accountant’s office but it looks like you did a lot of remodeling.”
“Some,” she confirmed as she led him out of the treatment room.
But she hadn’t been kidding when she’d said there wasn’t much to see. There were two more rooms exactly like the one he’d been in, the children’s treatment room, a bathroom and another small alcove in the back that she and Nissa called the break room.
“This is sort of our chill-out spot,” Megan explained when they ended up there. “We have the sink for water. There’s that tiny refrigerator and microwave oven in the corner—mainly for lunches and snacks—and the love seat folds out in case we get stuck here for the night in a snow storm or some thing.”
Josh pointed to the shelves that lined one wall, full of Mason jars. “These are nothing like my accountant used to have. What’s in the jars? The fixings for magic potions?” he asked as if it wouldn’t surprise him if it were true.
“They’re herbs, mush rooms, roots, things like that. Nissa uses them in her herbal the rapies.”
He took a step closer to the shelves, studying the contents of the jars. “Some of them look pretty nasty.”
“That particular nasty-looking thing you’re staring at is just ginger root. Appearances can be deceiving. But then I keep trying to tell you that.”
Josh spun around on his heels to face her again. “Let’s put a moratorium on that stuff for tonight, can we?”
“On what stuff?”
“On the investigation and the case of the body buried in your backyard and on you thinking you need to defend your parents and change the way I look at things. You got me in here to do the acupuncture and your needles, or lying in that room listening to water sounds, or something, made me more relaxed than I’ve been in a while. I’d just like to hang on to that if I could. At least for one night.”
“Okay, fair enough. A moratorium,” she agreed, knowing it was all the more dangerous to be with him when she didn’t have the buffer of that particular conflict. But still she was only too glad to put it on the back burner herself. If even for just the moment.
“Would you like some tea?” she offered then.
He glanced over his shoulder at the jars again. “No, thanks,” he said as if he were afraid she might be going to make him some thing from one of them.
“I have tea bags I bought from the general store,” she said to reassure him.
He had the good grace to grin. “The answer’s still no, thanks.”
He sat on the love seat, though, and made himself at home with both arms stretched along the top of the seat back and his legs straight out and crossed at the ankles to form his body into a human—and very sexy—T.
“So what else goes on in this back room?” he asked. “Tarot card and tea leaf readings? Astrological predictions? Spells and incantations?”
“What would make you think we’d do any of that? Back here or anywhere else?”
“It’s all tied in together, isn’t it? The acupuncture and that Feng shui stuff you use to decorate your house. Meta physical mumbo-jumbo.”
Megan might have been insulted if that comment had come from someone with a less charming, less teasing edge to their voice. As it was, she merely propped one hip on the edge of the hip-high miniature refrigerator across from him and said, “Neither acupuncture nor Feng shui are meta physical mumbo-jumbo. They’re ancient practices. Why would they be tied to those other things?”
“They’re all weird and out there—you have to admit.”
“That depends completely on your point of view. Acupuncture and Feng shui are hardly out there in other cultures.”
“And tarot cards and astrology and all that stuff? I—unfortunately—know at least one person who would argue that they’re perfectly reasonable practices, too.”
There was a new note to his voice. A tight ness. And Megan couldn’t help feeling that somehow they’d gotten to the root of some thing. She just didn’t know what it was.
“Okay, so there are people who believe in predictions and what-have-you, but that does
n’t make it all related just because it isn’t what you believe in. It isn’t what I believe in.”
“No?” he said, studying her as if he wanted to believe that but wasn’t quite sure he could.
“Who do you know who’s into all that other stuff? And why is it unfortunate?”
He didn’t answer her right away and she could see that touching that root she thought they’d gotten to was painful for him.
But just when she thought he might not open up to her at all, he said, “My former fiancée believed in a lot of it. More than I realized until it was too late.”
“I didn’t know you were engaged. Or anything else about your romantic past, for that matter.” But she was curious, that was for sure.
“Engaged but not married because I was left waiting at the altar.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. In front of a church full of people and flowers, decked out in tuxedos, music playing, minister at the ready, the whole bit.”
“What happened? And who was she? Anyone from around here?”
“Her name was Farrah Myles. She moved to town about six years ago to work in the beauty shop and I fell for her.” He said that as if it had been a supreme act of stupidity. “I guess I had a clue about her right from the start—I asked her out and before she would give me an answer she wanted to know what my astrological sign was.”
“And apparently it was compatible to hers.”
“Right.”
“And you—of all people—weren’t bothered by dating-by-the-stars?” Megan joked cautiously.
“Nah. I didn’t think it was any big deal. I just thought Farrah was flam boy ant, fanciful, interesting—that her uniqueness went with her name. Not being run-of-the-mill was part of her appeal.”
“Really?” Megan said, unable to hide her disbelief because what he was saying seemed so out of character for the man she knew him to be now.
“Really,” he confirmed. “To me, until I had reason to regret it, she was endearingly quirky. Most people check their horoscopes in the newspaper or magazines when they come across them. I thought, so what if Farrah did it more religiously than that? And so what if, every now and then, she wanted her astrological chart done or read a book about bio-rhythms? It certainly never occurred to me that what I considered her hobby would rear up and bite me.”
“But it did.”
Josh’s expression showed embarrassment. “It’s bad enough to get left at the altar but when folks hear why…” He shook his head. “Geez. It was just so hard to fathom.”
He’d finished that under his breath and Megan could see that he still bore the scars of a humiliation that had to have been difficult for him to accept.
“Why did she leave you at the altar?” she asked, hoping he wouldn’t think she was prying. At least not too much.
Again Josh didn’t answer instantly. And when he did it was with a mirth less snort of a chuckle preceding it. “She called her psychic the day of the wedding and he told her not to go through with it. That she was destined for someone else.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Her psychic told her she was meant to marry someone of East Indian descent who was to be found in Los Angeles. And that if she went through with marrying me it would be a disaster bad enough to keep her from ever finding true love and hap pi ness.”
“And she believed that so completely that she actually called off your wedding at the last minute?” Megan asked, unable to keep her own incredulity out of her tone. “Called is the right word. Farrah called the church and said she was sorry but the wedding wasn’t going to happen. Just like that, as if it were nothing.”
“No wonder you’re so suspicious of anything out of the norm.”
Josh inclined his head and laughed a little, this time genuinely, even if it was tinged with wryness. “There’s a lot to be said for conservatism. I swore to myself that if I lived through the jokes and ridicule that came out of being left at the altar because someone’s psychic pal told them not to marry me, I’d stick to the tried and true.”
“But if no one ever ventured outside of the tried and true a lot of important, helpful things might be overlooked rather than used where they could be the most beneficial.”
There was still skepticism on his face and it was to that that she said, “Acupuncture really is not the same as astrological charts and tarot card readings and bio-rhythms and psychic predictions, you know.”
Megan wasn’t sure why it meant so much to her to have him make the distinction. She knew it shouldn’t have mattered to her one way or another.
But it did.
Josh smiled then and seemed to be sloughing off the darker mood that had settled over him while he’d talked about his past. “We’ll see if there’s more to the acupuncture than that other stuff, won’t we?” he said, back to play fully goading her.
Then he glanced at his watch and stood. “I’d better get going. If I can’t be anywhere near hay, I can’t sleep at the ranch tonight. That means I’ll have to drop in on my brother Jace and see if he and his new wife will put me up in town. I don’t want to get there and spring it on them too late.”
Or maybe thinking about that flighty woman who had left him at the altar had reminded him of all the reasons he didn’t want to be around a woman he seemed to put in the same category.
But there was nothing Megan could do about that and, as disappointed as it left her, she didn’t argue.
She pushed off the edge of the table. “I’ll walk you out so I can lock the door after you.”
“You’re not headed for home, too?”
“Shortly. I have a couple of things I want to do first.” Namely put her shoes and tights back on.
“We need to get an early start in the morning,” Josh said on the way to the waiting room. “Hope fully we won’t run into any hay in the coin shops of Cheyenne.”
Megan had nearly for got ten that that was what they were scheduled to do the next day. But the reminder that she was already scheduled to see him again helped ease the disappointment of having him leave now. Slightly, anyway.
“Just tell me when and I’ll be ready,” she said as if their plans had never slipped her mind.
“How about seven? Then even with the drive time we should have the whole day.”
“Fine.”
Josh opened the office door and stepped outside. But he didn’t go farther than the doorway before turning and leaning a shoulder against the jamb.
“Are there side effects I should be looking for from your torture of me?” he asked with a teasing smile that was charming enough to make his words in offensive.
“Nope. That’s part of the advantage of acupuncture.”
“I have to admit you must be good at it because I really didn’t feel much of anything.”
“And no burns on your palms from the kryptonite in the vials?” she joked in return.
He held his hands out, palms upward, and presented them to her for examination. “I don’t know, what do you think?”
The urge to touch him again was suddenly overwhelming and Megan had to give in to it. She ran her index finger along one of his palms as if testing for injuries.
Maybe it tickled him because in response his hand closed almost reflexively around her finger. But once it had he held on tight.
“I don’t feel any kryptonite burns,” she said, her voice soft and far more sensual than she’d intended.
Josh let go of her finger only enough to entwine all of his through all of hers. Then he pulled her towards him a little and Megan looked from their clasped hands to his face.
His expression was serious again, although not the way it had been when he’d talked about his former fiancée. Now he merely seemed intent as his eyes delved into hers.
He didn’t say anything. But then neither did she. He just pulled her the rest of the way to him and leaned in to kiss her much the way he had the night before.
But if the kiss the night before had been good—so good she
’d been left momentarily stunned by it—it was still nothing compared to this one.
His lips were parted over hers, urging hers to part, too, as his arms came around her and held her so close he brought her up onto her toes.
She’d wanted his arms around her. She’d yearned for it. And yet even that yearning and the fantasies of what it might be like didn’t compare to the reality.
His arms were strong and powerful, unyielding but gentle, surrounding her in the warm cocoon of his muscular body and making her feel removed from everything but the pleasure of being enveloped by him. Kissed by him.
And while a tiny voice some where in the back of her mind said she should push him away, she slid her arms around him, too, filling her hands with the steely wall of his back.
His tongue began to tease her then. Just the tip. Running along the oh-so-sensitive bare inside of her lips and tickling her the way she’d wondered if her finger had tickled his palm. It almost made her laugh but instead she let her tongue meet his for some teasing of its own.
One of his hands floated up to the back of her head, cradling it as he pressed forward, as he parted his lips even farther and urged hers to part farther, too.
She obliged, thinking only about him now, about that kiss and how much she liked it. About how incredible it felt to be in his strong arms, to have her breasts against his chest, her nipples kerneling into the solid wall of his pectorals. Now this is un professional, she thought as it crossed her mind that they were in her office doorway, right on Center Street and in plain view of anyone and everyone within blocks.
But she didn’t really care. She was too lost in that kiss, in those arms and that towering masculine body she craved to know even more intimately as desire ignited from the tiny sparks he’d lit the moment he’d closed his fist around her finger. Tiny sparks that had grown hotter with each increment of mouths opening wider and wider, with each thrust of his tongue, with each answering parry of hers, with each massage of his hand at her back when it was really her front that cried out for his touch…
Come back inside, she willed him because she didn’t want to say it. Saying it would mean she would have to end that kiss. She would have to lose the pure luxury of his mouth over hers, maybe even of his arms from around her. Just come back inside….
On Pins and Needles Page 12
