Boone shook his head. “You cannot do this to me! Do you know what kind of torture it would be to live with her?”
Lucy nodded. “I do. You two have been tap dancing around each other for years. Now maybe it's time to tango.”
“What? Are we on Dancing with the damn Stars now? I don't want to tango with her, tap dance with her, or anything else. You heard her, Lucy. She's never going to see me as anything more than your kid brother, and I can't keep throwing my ego out there for her to stomp on.”
“She doesn't just see you that way. She wants to, but Boone, as much as it repulses me to admit this about my own brother, you're hot. And she's—”
“She's what?” he demanded after Lucy's abrupt halt.
“You look at her and all you see is the beautiful girl you've always been crazy about…but other people in this town aren't that nice. They see the Homecoming Queen, who now wears double-digit dress sizes.”
“That's bullshit. Caroline looks amazing.”
Lucy's smile was sad and a little bitter when she answered. “To you and to most other men, but not to the asshole she was dumb enough to marry. It's women who are the nastiest, Boone. They chew each other up. It's all smiles to your face, then claws and teeth the minute your back is turned.”
That tore him up. It wasn't just that Caroline was beautiful to him physically. In all his life, he'd never seen her be anything but kind to everyone else. It was bad enough that her husband had two-timed her, even though the ass-hat had never deserved her anyway. For her own father to kick her out and a bunch of bitchy women to tear at her—it just wasn't right.
“Okay,” he agreed. “She can stay…as a platonic roommate. I'm not getting involved in anything else with her. I mean it.”
“Of course, you do, sweetie. You mean every word of it,” Lucy said with a laugh. “I just don't know how long you'll mean it for.”
Boone placed his head in his hands. War hadn't made him cry. But his meddling sister might. “You need to leave this alone. She doesn't want me. She thinks I'm a kid.”
Lucy practically bounced up and down on the padded bar stool. “And this is the perfect opportunity to show her you're not! Kill spiders, open jars, carry her groceries up the steps for her so she can see how well all your push-ups paid off!”
“I don't need you to fix my life, Luce,” he said sharply.
She smiled again. “I'm not fixing yours, baby. I'm fixing hers. She needs this way more than you do.”
CHAPTER TWO
Two beers was more than he felt comfortable driving after. One and a half, he corrected. Lucy had stolen part of his second beer. Still, Boone had opted to leave his truck parked at the bar, a decision he'd likely regret, and had jogged back to the apartment in the early evening hours. It would have been fine had the heavens not decided to open and douse him with bitter, cold rain. Now it was full dark and he could barely see anything in front of him.
He still wanted to murder his sister. Grumbling under his breath, watching it puff in front of his face, he turned the corner and smacked hard into something soft and yielding. The squeak, as she tumbled backward, had him reaching out to grab her. With his hands wrapped around her upper arms, she was off balance, falling against his chest until they were both backed against the cold, wet brick wall.
Not that it mattered. He was practically sizzling as the rain hit him just from being so close to her. All the things he'd said to Lucy, all the dipshit stuff about being platonic roommates taunted him. Two seconds he'd held her against him and he was rock hard.
“What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Oh, Boone! You have to help me!”
He wanted to. God did he want to, but he imagined her vision of help and his would be very different. “It's freezing and you're wearing a—” He looked down and regretted it immediately. The white nightie and the robe that covered it were all but transparent from the rain. He could see everything he'd always dreamed of. “Not enough. Not nearly enough!”
“I can't reach it,” she said.
His brain was going to the same places it had when he was twelve and trying to watch her change clothes through the keyhole. “What?”
“Boone, are you even listening to me?”
He was trying. He was really, really trying. He forced his eyes to focus on a point just beyond her shoulder, where he didn't have to see big blue eyes and pink lips or, God above, glistening skin encased in transparent white lace and whatever the hell else her nonexistent nightie was made of.
“What exactly do you need help with?”
“The kitten! It's trapped in the drain pipe and I can't reach it!”
That managed to sink into his lust frozen brain. “There's a toolbox in the living room closet. Go get it…and get a damn jacket while you're in there!”
“It's not that cold!”
He shook his head. “Caroline, you're a bright woman. I'm going to say this one time. You're standing outside, in the rain, in the cold, wearing something thin and white. Put the goddamn jacket on!”
Her mouth fell open; she glanced down, glanced back up, clamped her lips into a firm line, and headed for the door.
Once she was inside, Boone moved to the corner of the building. He was close enough to hear the pitiful cries coming from inside the white aluminum. Lowering himself to the ground, ignoring the puddle he had to lie in and the rain that pelted him, he reached inside. The little thing had moved back beyond the bend, and his hands were too large to get to it. The dim street lamp illuminated the alley but did nothing to help him see into the downspout.
“Hey, baby,” he whispered. “Whatcha doin' in there?”
The kitten cried louder. From the circumference of the gutter, the thing had to be tiny. He was going to have to trap it completely, closing off the gutter above and below before he could cut through it and extricate it.
Getting to his knees, still gingerly petting what he could reach of the wet, matted fur, he pressed the aluminum in with his other hand. It caved in about six inches above where the kitten was. Removing his hand from the gutter opening, he did the same thing below the bend. He'd just finished when Caroline came out with the tool box, wearing a black hoodie over her transparent night clothes.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I'm going to have to cut the pipe to get it out. When I saw through it, I don't want the kitten to panic and take off in case it's hurt.”
~*~*~
Caroline dropped the heavy tool box a little more gracelessly than she'd planned. Mortification apparently rendered her clumsy. “Oh,” she said. It also apparently rendered her inarticulate. She'd known that Boone would know what to do. Throughout their childhood, he'd dragged in one rescued stray after another while his and Lucy's mother had ranted and raved and restocked the first aid kit.
“Can it breathe in there?”
“Yeah…It's not closed off too tight for air. Just too tight for someone to wiggle away,” he said, sorting through the tool box until he produced a small saw and a set of wicked looking scissors. Probably not scissors, she thought. They undoubtedly had some manlier name, but she didn't know what it was. William hadn't been the handy type. She couldn't recall even seeing him wield a hammer to help hang pictures.
It didn't take him very long to remove the caved-in section of the gutter. Regardless, the inhabitant was less than pleased. Pitiful yowling and possibly a few growls could be heard from inside. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Are you sure this is a cat?”
“Yes?”
He shook his head. “Let's get it inside and see if it's friend or foe.”
She reached for the toolbox, but he'd already hoisted it up. Not that she minded. It weighed a ton. Of course, he carried it like it was nothing. And as he climbed the steps to the back door of the building, his wet jogging pants clung to his perfectly sculpted behind in a way that made her mouth water.
No. No. No. Lucy's baby brother, she reminded herself.
Of cou
rse, he wasn't a baby anymore. He was only two years younger than her.
That's your sex-starved libido talking.
What could it hurt to look? She was still a married woman, after all, even if she was quickly approaching the expiration date on that mistake. Boone was a good-looking man. One of the best looking she'd ever seen, in fact. It had surprised the hell out of her. Of course, she was also staying in his house rent free. It was a definite complication, but a part of her looked at his chiseled profile and thought it might be worth it.
He'd shown up at Lucy's wedding, best man to his army buddy who was becoming his brother-in-law. Bringing Charlie into Lucy's life, and into Nick's, had probably been one of the best things Boone had ever done. Lucy had struggled constantly until Charlie came along. He'd worn that dress uniform at his wedding with his dancing green eyes, close-cropped hair, and his desert tan. The resulting breeze from women fanning themselves had damn near capsized the wedding cake.
She'd danced with him that night and had tingled everywhere their bodies had touched. At that point, she'd been married to William just long enough to know it was a horrible mistake. But there'd been no getting out of it by then.
Still following Boone, she entered the apartment behind him. She'd nosed around enough before he got home to familiarize herself with the space. When Lucy had shown her into the apartment earlier and given her what had once been the spare key, she'd hesitated. The truth of the matter was, she didn't have a choice. She had nowhere else to go.
For a man who'd been there less than a month, he'd sure made himself at home. Comfy couch, two overstuffed leather chairs with an old trunk for a coffee table. There were walls of books: art, design, tattooing, travel books, history, and a wide variety of fiction. Posters and a few framed photos covered the walls.
Attempting to make conversation and not think about the fact she'd just flashed him everything God had given her and Krispy Kreme had added to, she said, “You've settled in pretty quickly. The apartment looks nice.”
“Yeah. I got tired of living out of footlockers,” he agreed, sitting down at the small, scarred table that had once occupied his mother's kitchen. He placed the gutter on the table, and with that same wicked looking tool, began to cut the aluminum vertically up one side. Then he did the other. “Come over here. I'm going to peel back the metal, and you grab the kitten. If it is a kitten. If it's a rat, which is possible—”
“It's not a rat!”
“Or a possum, or a raccoon, or even a skunk that's still too young to spray,” he said. “We live in Kentucky, Caroline.”
She bit her lip. “I'm pretty sure it's a kitten. It sounds like a kitten.”
“One possessed by the devil, sure.”
Caroline glared at him. “Just get that baby out of there, whatever it is!”
“If it's a rat and you don't grab it and it gets loose in my apartment,” he warned, his tone and his expression deadly serious, “you will regret it.”
Caroline swallowed nervously. She'd only seen it in dim light. What if it wasn't a cat? “Let's just do this already!”
He stared at her for a second, something even more dangerous glittering in his eyes. “I'm in a damned nightmare,” he finally muttered as he peeled back the aluminum.
Reaching her hands between his, her fingers brushed against the warmth of his skin; she felt the jolt of it all the way to her toes. Ignoring that, she grasped the newly freed, ragged bundle of fur, praying with everything in her that it would be feline.
Lifting up the poor, tiny thing, Caroline's heart melted. It was the homeliest, sickliest kitten she'd ever seen in her life. Its eyes were swollen shut. It couldn't have weighed more than half a pound, and its whole shivering body fit into the palm of her hand. “Boone, I don't know what to do for her.”
He took the kitten from her hand. “Let's get her warm first.”
Caroline followed him through the apartment to the small bathroom. He filled the sink with warm water and then put a little soap on his hand before dunking the kitten in the water. Her docile display of a few minutes ago vanished. In its place was something that defied description. That tiny cat—all eight ounces of her—kicked, clawed, yowled, bit, and generally advised the world of her displeasure.
“Oh, she's going to be fine,” Boone said with a laugh. It ended on a hiss as one of her needle-like claws sunk into his hand. “She's a fighter, alright.”
“Her eyes look so bad! Do you think she's blind?”
He shrugged as he continued washing the tiny little body and avoiding more of its kitten kung fu. He gently cleaned her eyes, patiently wiping them with a damp cloth until they opened. “I'll take her to the vet in the morning. Let Dr. Banks take a look at her and see what he thinks.”
A disturbing thought entered her mind. “What will you do with her if she is blind?”
“I'll learn to love the furniture just where it is,” he said.
Relief washed over her. Not even thinking about what she was doing, Caroline leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
He stiffened instantly. His whole body went tight, and when she glanced up, he was staring at her in the mirror with a look on his face that made her want to run. Maybe to him, maybe from him, but it defied her to simply just stand still.
~*~*~
Boone couldn't take his eyes off her. She was leaning into him, her breasts crushed against his back, her arms around him, and her hand lying on his chest, directly over the tattoo of her. Her hair was wet, and she didn’t have a stitch of makeup on her face, but she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known. He wanted her so badly at that moment that his whole body ached with it.
“I can't do this,” he said, pulling the kitten from its warm bath and wrapping it in a towel. “I'm not your buddy or your pal, or your best friend's baby brother!”
Caroline backed away from him, her face crestfallen and hurt. “But you're all of those things.”
It felt ridiculous to say it, especially as he was towel drying a bedraggled kitten while uttering the words, but they had to be said. “I'm a man, Caroline. Full grown and with all my working parts. You've been running around here half naked, and you're practically climbing me in my bathroom! What the hell kind of message do you think that sends?”
She backed away from him then. “It's not like that, Boone!”
He handed the kitten to her. “Maybe it isn't for you. You seeing me as a kid doesn't make me one. Take the kitten and keep her with you. Get her dry and hold her to keep her warm.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I'm going to get her some food and the other things she'll need…and I'm leaving this room before I do something I ought to regret.”
Without another word, Boone left the bathroom, leaving her staring after him as he headed back out into the night.
CHAPTER THREE
Caroline sat huddled on the ancient couch that also served as her bed. There was a second bedroom in the apartment, but it had no bed in it yet. She'd exchanged her damp nightgown for a pair of yoga pants and a UK sweatshirt. Boone's hoodie was draped over her curled up legs, covering her bare toes. The kitten was tucked against her chest, huddling beneath her chin and purring so loud it was a wonder the windows didn't rattle.
“How can you possibly produce that much noise?” she asked.
The kitten responded by stretching out her front legs and arching her back, her claws scraping against Caroline's neck before she once again tucked herself into a tight, purring ball. The small kitten was content, at least. Which was more than could be said of her.
The scene with Boone replayed in her mind. She'd known about his crush when they were younger. He'd been fourteen to her sixteen and that had seemed like such a vast difference then, and honestly it had been.
It's not such a big difference in your thirties. The little voice was at it again, chipping away at her arguments and making her question the safe distance
she'd tried to maintain over the years.
“Lucy is my best friend,” she argued with herself “Right now, she's my only friend…and I'm living here on his charity, and I've already screwed up.” Just saying it aloud made her gut clench. After twelve miserable years of being married to William, she didn't have much pride left, but all that she still possessed was protesting. A job, she decided, would be the first order of business. As soon as Boone got back, she'd tell him she would only be here for a few days and she'd find some other solution.
“Where the heck is he?” Caroline asked. “He's been gone for hours.” Looking at the clock, she noted it was nearing midnight. The options for where he might be in Charlottesville were limited.
The kitten did not provide a pithy answer or any particular guidance. It just snuggled against her, warm and content, the unusually loud and gravelly purr reverberating against her chest. “You're no help at all,” Caroline said to it.
The door swung inward and Boone frowned at her. “That's really stupid. We have locks for a reason.”
“It's Charlottesville,” she pointed out.
“Really? You're going to tell me there's no crime here? Where is your soon-to-be ex-husband right now?”
“Out on bail,” she admitted reluctantly.
“You should have locked the door,” he said, placing the bags on the counter of the small kitchenette.
“I didn't know if you had your key with you,” she replied. Staring at the haul he'd brought in, she asked, “How much do you think she's going to eat.”
“A lot…every two hours. I'm not even sure how old she is. I bought formula and kitten food…I know she's got teeth,” he remarked. “She's a biter.”
She's not the only one. The mental image of sinking her teeth into the thick, heavy muscle that curved between his neck and shoulder had her salivating. It had been more than a year since she'd had sex. Even though it had only been four months since she and William had separated and filed for divorce, he hadn't touched her in ages, and even then it had been sporadic. He'd blamed it on her weight gain when all along he'd been screwing around with his secretary.
The Seraphina Donavan Collection: Contemporary Page 12
