Out of Alignment (Hearts & Horsepower #5)

by A. K. Evans

  When I finished, her brows pulled together, and she said, “I don’t understand. If that’s what happened, why did you say you blew up on him? Did something happen after you got back from picking up the car?”

  “He folded my clothes, Kaia,” I stressed.

  Her brows shot up as she gave me a questioning look. “And this is a problem?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know him then,” I explained. “And my underwear was in that load of laundry.”

  She lifted her chin in understanding and replied, “Ah, I see.” There was a brief pause before something came over her as though she’d just figured out some crucial piece of information. Then she declared, “You said you didn’t know him then. Do you know him now?”

  I remained silent a moment, trying to figure out the best way to explain this. Eventually, I decided to just let it spill out.

  “Well, when I lashed out at him at the laundromat, he kind of gave me a piece of his mind,” I started. “Part of me felt guilty for treating him the way I did, but I also wholeheartedly believed he crossed a line he shouldn’t have crossed. Anyway, I thought that was the end of it, but I had an emergency patient show up to the office the following Monday afternoon.”

  Kaia’s eyes nearly fell out of her head. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Why would he show up at your office instead of going somewhere else?”

  “Yes, I’m serious. And he didn’t go somewhere else because he didn’t know I was who I was,” I told her. “We never managed to exchange names the day at the laundromat.”

  “So, what happened when he realized who you were?” she wondered.

  “He was going to leave, but I convinced him to let me help him,” I started. “Of course, now that he’s been to my office six times in the last two weeks, with the most recent visit being just a matter of hours ago, it’s safe to say that I’m slowly but surely losing my mind.”

  Kaia shifted on the couch to tuck her feet under her ass as she turned fully toward me. “Now this is the stuff I could make regular trips back here for,” she bubbled.

  I rolled my eyes at her. “This is serious,” I insisted.

  Nodding, she returned, “I know. You haven’t been interested in anyone for years. Years, Parker. This is the greatest news I’ve heard in a long time. I’m so excited for you.”

  “Nothing is happening,” I maintained.

  “Not yet,” she replied, her tone a little too joyful for my liking.

  Shaking my head, I maintained, “If his interaction with me is any indication of how he feels, I can promise you that it’s not ever going to happen.”

  “What do you mean?” Kaia questioned me.

  I didn’t know how to explain it. Actually, that wasn’t true. It was very obvious to me how Nash felt because I’d seen both sides of him. And there was no denying I wasn’t even close to being on his radar.

  Well, that’s what I kept telling myself.

  Because two weeks of touching him, two weeks of looking into his eyes, had left me wanting him terribly. That was something that had never happened to me. My patients were my patients. That was it. There was never an instance of a blurred line or a distant yearning for someone.

  “Even though I tried to apologize and discuss what happened at the laundromat with him, Nash made it abundantly clear that he’s not interested in discussing anything with me other than his treatment and pain management,” I answered.

  “Maybe he’s just in too much pain to think about anything else,” she suggested. “I mean, he approached you first. And you did say that he said something about thanking you for letting him know it would be a mistake. Perhaps he had been hoping to pursue you, but then you went off the deep end and turned him off to that.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “And even though I tried to show him I’m not some evil and hateful bitch, I am pretty sure that’s all he sees. Kaia, he went from being so kind, helpful, and clearly interested at the laundromat to the opposite. He’s completely indifferent to me and sticks to strictly the reason he’s coming into the office.”

  Kaia pushed her bottom lip out and made a sad face.

  I sighed. “There’s so much sexual tension,” I murmured. A renewed look of hope formed on my sister’s face, but I missed the intensity of it in my melancholy mood. Feeling disappointed, I shook my head and said, “It is what it is. We’ve got a doctor and patient relationship, and that’s all.”

  “Parker?” my sister called.

  “Yeah?”

  She was silent a beat before she asked cautiously, “Do you want more with him?”

  Did I?

  I mean, I didn’t really know him. Besides knowing that he worked on cars for a living and enjoyed working out, I didn’t really know him. Even as those thoughts filtered through my mind, I knew I was lying to myself. Because I knew more than that about him. I knew he was handsome, kind, forgiving, and evidently very good with his hands.

  The fact that I could find so many nice things to say about someone I’d just met and hadn’t really had any meaningful conversations with scared me. For that reason, I looked at Kaia and confessed, “I’ve been feeling lonely. A lot more than usual. And he’s a good-looking guy who has a great body and is really kind.”

  Narrowing her eyes at me, Kaia surmised, “So, you’re just looking to get laid?”

  I gasped. “No! How could you say that?” I shrieked.

  She shrugged. “Because you’re trying to write off what you feel as just being lonely when the reality is that it’s so much more than that for you. How many years has it been, Parker?”

  I swallowed hard. “Eight.”

  Nodding, Kaia pressed, “Exactly. Eight years of never showing a smidgen of interest in anybody. You didn’t just wake up one day and decide you felt lonely. This is something else. Something much bigger than you want to admit.”

  Maybe she was right. No. She was definitely right. And the truth was that I was spiraling because I couldn’t control this. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t make it right. Nash came in and had turned me inside out for the last two weeks. Worst of all, I was certain he didn’t even know what he was doing to me.

  Why?

  Why did I crave being held by a man I barely knew?

  That wasn’t me.

  That wasn’t Parker Banks.

  Needing to regain some of my power back, I steeled my spine and insisted, “Look, it’s not that. What we have now and what we’ll remain is simply professional. Doctor and patient. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Kaia gave me a look that told me she saw right through my vain attempt to regain some semblance of control in the situation. But being that she was my sister and she loved me, she knew it was what I needed right then and there. So, she let me get away with it. Then she demanded, “We’re going out tomorrow night.”

  “What?”

  “Tomorrow night, you’re taking me out,” she semi-repeated. “We both need it.”

  We did.

  And since she was only here for the weekend, I was going to do whatever she wanted. “Okay,” I agreed. “We’ll go out tomorrow.”

  “And in the meantime, I’m going to try to convince my sister to give herself something she needs,” she warned me. “If it’s not with this Nash guy, then it’s going to be with someone else.”

  “I need a glass of wine,” I sighed as I got up off the couch.

  “Bring me one, too!” she yelled after me.

  I let out a laugh and walked out of the room to get the wine. Then I spent the rest of the night catching up with my best friend in the whole world. It was precisely what I needed.

  A loud whistle rang through the air.

  It was Saturday evening, and I’d just walked into the guest bedroom to check on my sister’s progress.

  Kaia and I had decided to get ourselves dressed to the nines to go out for dinner, drinks, and dancing. Since there was one place in Rising Sun that offered all of that, we were going to Big Lou’s Restaurant and Saloon tonight.

  �
�Damn, Parker,” Kaia said. “My sister is the hottest woman in this town.”

  I laughed. There was no point in arguing with her because she wouldn’t hear it anyway. Instead, I teased, “Yeah, but then my sister showed up for the weekend and stole the title. You look fantastic.”

  “Thanks,” she replied.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “I just need to grab my purse,” she declared. Once she had it, she walked past me and out of the room as she said, “Now I’m ready. Let’s go see if we can find you a man.”

  “I’m not looking for a man,” I insisted to her departing backside.

  “Tell that to your lonely vagina!” she shouted.

  Terrified that the windows might have been open and my neighbors were going to hear my sister yelling about my lonely vagina, I snapped my lips together and kept quiet. There was no use in getting her all riled up anyway. The minute she got a few drinks in her, I’d have enough to contend with.

  Twenty-five minutes later, we were seated at a two-person booth on Big Lou’s first floor where the restaurant was located. After we ate, we’d head upstairs to the saloon for a bit of fun.

  Kaia was scanning the space when I called her name.

  “What?” she asked.

  “What are you doing?”

  She shrugged. “Just looking to see if there are any hot guys here for you to have some fun with, that’s all,” she answered.

  “I’m here to have fun with you,” I reminded her.

  “I’m planning to have fun,” she assured me.

  Cocking an eyebrow, I asked, “So, you’re considering moving back if you find the right guy then?”

  Kaia shook her head.

  I’d give anything to have her move back home. She left Rising Sun nearly a year ago, and I’d hated every minute she’d been away. While I understood her desire to get out and start her life fresh somewhere, it still hurt to not have her close all the time.

  The look in her eyes told me there was more behind her negative response to my question, so I remained silent and waited for her to explain.

  Sure enough, a moment later, she shared, “I’m kind of hoping I’ll meet someone out in California. I love it out there. And if it weren’t for the fact that I love and miss you so much, I’d never come back here. I’m hoping I’ll find my guy while I’m out on the beach this summer.”

  Not wanting to have things go south, I decided to be supportive. Smiling at her, I responded, “That would be nice. And as much as I miss you, too, I’m delighted to hear that you are loving it where you are right now. You deserve to have that.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured. “I’ve had a lot of time to think lately, and I have to be honest about it. I’ve found myself longing for something more permanent lately. I really want to find my guy.”

  Reaching across the table, I placed my hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. “You will,” I promised. “You’ll have everything you want. Just be patient.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not waiting eight years like you,” she mumbled.

  “Kaia!” I gasped.

  Struggling to resist the urge to laugh, she replied, “I’m sorry, Parker. I just… that’s so long. I don’t understand how you’ve managed to go that long without sex.”

  “You make me sound like a freak,” I accused her.

  Kaia shot me an incredulous look and noted, “I’m going to say that not having sex for eight years is the complete opposite of being a freak.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  Grinning, she returned, “I do. And I don’t think you’re a freak. But I really think you should try to remedy that problem.”

  “It’s all I think about anymore,” I told her.

  “Yeah, because you’ve got this guy you’re putting your hands on three days a week,” she reminded me.

  “I have lots of patients that I do the same thing for,” I argued.

  “Maybe. But none of them folded your clothes and touched your panties,” she reasoned.

  I let out a groan of frustration just as the waitress walked up with our meals. Once she walked away, Kaia and I spent the next few minutes eating in silence.

  After some time passed, Kaia asked, “We are going to get it, right?”

  Confused by her question, I countered, “Get what?”

  “A happy ending,” she rasped. “I’ve got to know it exists for us.”

  I honestly didn’t know what the future held for me. Obviously, I wanted nothing more than to believe in the fairy tale and happily ever after endings, but life had taught me differently. Getting my hopes up for something I had yet to see or experience in real life wasn’t a smart idea. But no matter how skeptical I was about it, I couldn’t crush my sister’s dream.

  “Of course,” I told her. “Why wouldn’t it happen?”

  Kaia returned a small smile. I instantly felt guilty because part of me wondered if I’d just knowingly told my sister a lie. I shouldn’t have insisted that it would happen because I honestly wasn’t so sure about it myself. Not even for my sister, the girl who loved so freely and easily. Maybe it was my way of protecting her from the harsh reality of the world, or perhaps it was simply because I truly hoped she’d get what she wanted. Either way, I realized it didn’t matter. Because in the silence that followed my words, it hit me that Kaia didn’t reply. Then again, she didn’t need to respond to that question because we both already knew the answer.

  Not liking the tension surrounding us and needing to lift the mood, I declared, “Okay, I was going to wait until we went upstairs, but I think we need to start now. Let’s get our waitress over here so we can have a drink. Then you’re going to fill me in on all that’s been happening for you out in California.”

  “Now that sounds like a plan,” she said.

  Five minutes later, with drinks in hand and food in our bellies, Kaia and I had successfully turned our conversation around to much happier subjects. In fact, we ended up having a few too many drinks and were bubbling with laughter before we even left the restaurant to head up to the saloon.

  On the one hand, it was precisely what we both needed. On the other hand, I wished I’d been more like my typical self.

  Cautious.

  Because if I had been, I wouldn’t have had too much to drink.

  And if that were the case, I wouldn’t have done something so foolish.

  Kaia and I hadn’t been in the saloon for more than five minutes when it happened. I was standing close to the bar where we had gotten ourselves our first round of drinks since leaving the restaurant downstairs.

  We had just been there enjoying the buzz and feeling good when I looked across the space and saw him.

  Nash Stevens.

  He didn’t see me, but at the sight of him, I couldn’t move. I didn’t know if it was because I saw him outside my office for the first time since the laundromat, but something about seeing him now was undoing me.

  “Parker?” my sister called.

  Begrudgingly, I tore my eyes away from the beautiful man and looked at Kaia. “Yeah?” I replied.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, quickly turning to look behind her before bringing her attention back to me.

  I didn’t respond.

  What was I going to do? What if he saw me?

  God, he looked so handsome.

  For the first time since she’d made mention of it earlier today, I started to realize just how true my sister’s words were. I was beginning to really feel that loneliness… and I felt it in places that hadn’t had stirrings in a really long time.

  What was the deal with this guy?

  “Parker?” Kaia repeated, the frustration in her voice no longer undeniable.

  “It’s him,” I blurted.

  Her head swung around again, looking behind her in the direction I’d been staring off in just moments ago. When she returned her gaze to mine, she asked, “What? Who?”

  “Nash,” I answered.

  Surprise washed over her
as she shifted her body closer to mine so she could come and stand next to me. Then leaning her shoulder into mine, she asked, “Which one is he?”

  “See the group of guys over there?” I asked. “There’s five of them.”

  “The ones that are all drop-dead gorgeous?” she asked.

  Taking stock of the rest of the men surrounding Nash, there was no denying Kaia’s declaration. They were all gorgeous. But only one sent tingles through my body.

  “Yes, those are the ones,” I confirmed.

  “Which one is he?” she asked.

  “The one in the white shirt,” I revealed, unable to take my eyes off him.

  “Mmm.”

  That was Kaia’s response. She actually stood next to me, making a sound as though she could easily gobble up the man that I’d been telling her about for the last twenty-four hours or so.

  “Hey!” I scolded her.

  “Relax, Parker,” she urged. “I already told you that while I’m hoping to find myself a guy of my own, I’m not interested in finding one while I’m out here. Long-distance relationships would not be my thing. You know, it’s all to keep my vagina from getting too lonely.”

  “You are so not funny,” I told her.

  “You should go talk to him,” she suggested.

  My head snapped in her direction. “You heard what I said, correct? You do realize you’re not funny, right?”

  Cocking an eyebrow, Kaia insisted, “I wasn’t joking. This is the perfect opportunity to approach him. There’s no pesky office setting, and there’s alcohol. Everybody is a little looser for it.”

  “That’s precisely the reason I can’t walk up to him,” I argued. “I could totally humiliate myself, especially considering I don’t typically drink. I’m only doing this now to make me feel better about the last two weeks. Anyway, it wouldn’t matter. He’s here with friends. It would be rude to intrude.”

  “He’s not going to care,” she declared.