It didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t chosen, she was merely available. It also didn’t change the fact that she wanted him.
She never thought that watching a man fall down would make her fall for him. But TJ made it happen. The way he got back up, every time, even when he seemed defeated, spoke of the strength that was in him, even when he wasn’t strong. She’d never seen him cry, but she’d seen him let go, and seen him get it back together afterwards. He’d recently gained a maturity she hadn’t seen in a single interview or TV clip in all the years since they were kids.
And he wanted her.
Norah didn’t have any doubt that he would say yes if she offered. Then again, he wasn’t legendary for refusing women.
His voice cut through her thoughts, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
She fudged. “Just wondering what your therapist thinks about you toppling around like that?”
He grinned again. “That I should just use the walker.”
“Yeah, that’s gonna happen.” She knew he hated it.
“That’s my girl.”
She didn’t know if she was his girl, but she knew how he thought. “You know next you get a cane—and not a nice one. One of those silver ones with the four legs at the bottom.”
His hands grabbed for his heart and he mimicked being wounded.
Norah laughed at him. “You’ll be ready to go?”
He nodded, already focused on the piano keys in front of him, and Norah went off to change. She returned twenty minutes later, in her leotard and tights, her hair up in a looped-through ponytail, sneakers on her feet. She didn’t say anything, she just walked up and stood beside him, wanting to see how long it took him to see that she was there. He played on, and she waited.
TJ didn’t seem to notice her at all. Until she realized that he was messing with her. He’d focused on his left hand, playing scales, and she hadn’t seen the right hand creep across the piano bench. Then she felt his fingers against the back of her thigh. She just stood there, wondering what he’d do if she didn’t seem to notice. But she wasn’t really given that option.
The hand crept up until he stroked her ass, and he couldn’t keep the grin off his face.
She called off the dogs. “Give it up, TJ. You know I’m here. I know you know. It’s time to go.”
“Damn. I was enjoying that.”
She turned and realized that his chair was nowhere near him. He swiveled himself away from the piano and she could see him calculating his path. He spotted the corner of the table. Then the arm of the couch. An upright chair.
Her mouth moved without her permission. “How are you going to do it?”
He grinned that crocodile smile she’d seen more of lately. He must be recovering. “I am going to beg. Sweet Norah, you’ll help me, right?”
Her tone was dry. “I’ll get your walker.”
“Ugh!”
Good, he sounded like TJ again.
“I’ll get your chair?”
He heaved a sigh.
She fetched it and was wheeling it back to him, only to discover him waiting at the edge of the couch. On his feet.
Stopping where she was, she offered up the wheelchair, “Well, come and get it then.”
The look he shot her was pure steel. Going across the room could wear him out, but she’d never given him quarter before and didn’t see why she should now.
TJ came at her, practically falling into the chair with a grunt. She held it steady until he was in it, then she slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out the front door.
He called out behind her as he caught up on the front porch. “Are you going dancing?”
“No, I thought I’d play golf.” It was her only defense against him when he was like this. The turned-on charm turned her off, but this she could never refuse. So she was sarcastic and wry.
“Norah, your feet can’t be healed yet.”
“They’re healed just fine.”
“They’re still covered in gauze. They need more time.”
Turning, she leveled a gaze at him. “Listen, Pot, I’ve had just about enough of you telling me to ‘respect my limits.’ If I were to go by your standards I would have danced on them yesterday.”
“Norah.”
She didn’t answer. The trouble was her name sounded wonderful from his mouth, it looked good on his lips. So she steeled herself and waited for him to get in the car.
He did, and sat quietly while she folded the chair and tucked it behind her seat. She cast a glance at the handi-van, parked off to the side of the driveway. They hadn’t needed it in while, and with luck he wouldn’t again.
The drive was short, but seemed longer for the silence in the car. They did everything in reverse when they arrived at the rehabilitation facility, Norah getting the chair out for him then waiting while he got out of the car. “I’ll be back for you in three hours.”
She started to walk away, but felt her arm catch. TJ had her by the wrist. She turned, exasperated, “What?”
“Kiss me?”
Chapter 24
“Kiss me and make the guys jealous?” He grinned at her, that sweet, I-love-you, eyes-shining grin that worked on every female heart but hers.
Casting a glance over at the window, she saw that the front desk had a clear view of the two of them, and that several of the male therapists were hanging out there.
She smiled, and leaned down closer to him, her face right near his. When she was almost there, she reached up and patted him on the head before turning to walk away.
He caught her wrist again.
This time, when she turned back she was mad.
He was caught off guard by it. “What? What did I do?”
“Don’t give me that crap, TJ. Don’t try to charm me, it doesn’t work. I was there when your legs cramped so bad in the middle of the night that you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. I was there when you smashed plates in your kitchen. So don’t give me those worn out grins, they’re insulting.”
Oh, Dear Lord. She might as well have just said, Don’t treat me like everyone else, because I want to be the one. She’d just handed him a loaded gun and told him where to aim.
He nodded, his expression serious and honest.
She just nodded back at him and walked off, only to find her wrist shackled in his fingers for a third time. “Norah.”
“What! What do you want, TJ?”
“Will you kiss me?”
“TJ—”
“Because I want you to.” This time there was no grin, no cocky attitude. Plain as day, written all over his face was his uncertainty whether or not she would.
That bastard. He had her.
She sighed. “Move your feet.”
He looked at her, not sure of what she was doing. Good. But he took his feet off the rests. She kicked them up, and moved in between his legs. She slipped one finger through her key ring before taking his head in her hands and tilting his face to meet hers.
She didn’t know how she did it, just that she was bent over and her lips were against his. Her eyes fell closed as his mouth moved against hers, his lips searching, his head tilting.
Norah felt his arms encircling her shoulders and she jerked back. “Be good.”
She gave him a quick glance up and down, trying not to notice the glaze in his eyes, or that he didn’t move other than to nod at her. Then she got in the car and bolted.
Pulling into the parking space at the studio, she wondered how she had arrived. Her brain was still back on the sidewalk in front of the rehab building with TJ. She wondered if she’d spot it sitting there when she went to get him.
She opened the studio and danced in the big room. That kiss siphoned her brain cells and made choreography impossible. So Norah gave up and ran old routines.
The problem was that her body knew the patterns and, once started, would run the entire dance. She watched in the mirror and checked her form, but her brain wandered back to TJ no matter how much she tried t
o rein it in.
She stopped periodically to help sign up students who came in through the doors. A bell would ding when Mrs. Kenner at the front desk needed backup, but Norah wasn’t certain how much she actually helped. Mrs. Kenner pointed out Norah had signed a three-year-old into the high school class, and a boy into pointe.
She gave up early and parked the car at rehab. On the way in, she merely waved to the folks at the front desk and headed into the sadistic jungle gym, as TJ referred to it. Instantly, she spotted him, off to one side with his trainer, doing leg presses. He pushed far more weight than she’d seen the last time she was here. But probably still not what she herself could do.
She wanted to hang back and watch. But rules were rules. You couldn’t watch unannounced. Whoever you were visiting had the right to know you were there. So she made her way over and waited for a break before tapping him on the shoulder, “Hi.”
His head popped up and he smiled at her. A real smile. All TJ, all glad to see her. Norah felt her heart simultaneously melt and break. She shouldn’t let him get any closer. She was moving back in with her Dad in five days. And TJ would be moving back into his own world not long after that.
He looked over his shoulder at her. “I’m not done yet. Are you hanging out?”
She merely nodded.
He gave her a small frown like he knew something was up, but he chose not to pursue it. For that, she was grateful.
She stayed, she coached, she laughed when the therapist told him to try to be up and out of his chair as much as possible. At least Tim, who was barking the orders today, knew enough to laugh at that one himself. Then he told TJ, “Congratulations. You graduate.”
“What?” Norah wasn’t sure if it was his voice or hers.
“Twice a week. Put your time in at the studio and give me a signed copy of the next album for my wife.” He grinned.
TJ laughed at that, then hopped into his chair and led Norah out the door.
They made it home with reasonable conversation, rambled in through the front door and showered at separate ends of the house. Norah simply kept her door closed when she got out of the shower. Telling herself she would only sleep for fifteen minutes or so, she lay down, only to startle awake several hours later.
She dressed in jeans and a pullover shirt, taking care not to do anything too sexy, realizing that she needed to start distancing herself now, while she still could. She found him at the piano, in jeans and a t-shirt that showed everyone just how much he’d improved his arms in the past several months. Those same arms were playing the piano with a gentleness that tugged at her. The same song he’d composed in the studio the other day. He stopped and scribbled something on pages he’d spread out across the front. Without looking at her, he invited her out for pasta, his favorite choice after working himself to near exhaustion.
“Okay.” She told herself it was because she craved garlic sauce and not his attention.
At dinner, TJ waited until they were seated in a back booth, before he asked her what had been bothering her earlier. Norah evaded, and for some reason he let her.
But he tried another route. “JD and Kelsey have been asking when they’ll see us for dinner again. Anything you want me to tell them? Or should I make something up?”
“Tell them whatever you told your mother. That seemed to work pretty well. She was more concerned that some dancer,” she whispered the word, “was living in your house, than that you’d had a crippling accident.”
“That won’t work on JD and Kelsey. It only worked on my mother because she hated me from the moment I was born.”
While it was delivered with a disarming grin, the statement was too searing to ignore. “TJ.”
“It’s true. I have proof.”
Norah doubted he could have that proof; the woman had doted on those boys.
“You know what JD’s full name is, right?”
“John Darcy.”
“Uh-huh. He’s named after Jane Austen’s leading males.”
Norah set down her fork. “I’m not sure that that proves anything other than JD likely got teased in tenth grade.”
“Do you know my full name?”
She shook her head.
TJ didn’t speak. He just quit eating for a moment and reached under the table to fetch his wallet. His Tennessee State Driver’s License skidded across the table to her.
Thomas Jefferson Hewlitt showed in capital letters.
“Proof.” He resumed eating.
“How is this proof? Thomas Jefferson was a fine president.”
“He owned slaves and has hundreds of descendants he disowned.” TJ shook his head.
“He had that neat house.”
“You aren’t going to convince me.”
Norah handed the driver’s license back to him. “Did you ever stop to be grateful that she didn’t name you George Washington or Abraham Lincoln?”
“Where were you when I was in third grade? I could have used a little humor about it then.”
“I think I was still in diapers.” She was stuffed and finally forced herself to set the fork down. It didn’t help that TJ managed to consumed his entire meal, making her look like she just wasn’t trying. “TJ suits you.”
“Sure, but I think I spent the first three months of every school year being called ‘JD’ by my teachers.”
That she understood. “By second grade, I learned that if I made a big production at the beginning of the year and demanded to be called ‘Lilah,’ they always took it upon themselves to correct me and they never got it wrong.”
“Very smart.” He paid the bill and had her pasta wrapped up for her. On the way home he started a different conversation. “Are you going to still drive me around after you move back in with your Dad, or do I need to find someone else?”
“I can do it.” Even as she spoke the words, she wasn’t sure why she committed to it. It was just prolonging the agony. “Your schedule will be about the same right? Except you’ll be going to the studio more?”
He nodded. “Thank you. You’ve been a godsend.”
“I’d really rather I was just a friend.” She thought about the lump of cash sitting in her savings account. It didn’t feel right to take money for lusting after him. It didn’t feel right to get paid when she was getting kissed. Kissed by one of the hottest bachelors on the chart. Hadn’t he made the People sexiest men list a few years ago? She’d been kissed by TJ Hewlitt. Thomas Jefferson Hewlitt she reminded herself, as though that might clear some of her wayward thoughts.
She let him lock the front door behind them while she put her food in the fridge. When she straightened up and closed the door on the cold, putting out the fridge light, he was silhouetted in the kitchen doorway. He’d gotten out of his chair and stood up.
“Norah?”
“Good night, TJ.” She ducked and fled, out the other door from the kitchen, around the back of the house and into her room.
She successfully avoided him the next day, until she had to drive him to the studio. Norah congratulated herself on keeping the conversation to a minimum. Luckily, he didn’t ask for a kiss this time.
She sorted paperwork at the studio, not even trying to dance today. When she left five hours later, she was relatively certain that she’d placed each student in the right class. Then she headed back to get TJ, ready to avoid getting caught in any conversations again.
He was helpful, making only unimportant small talk until they were in the car with doors closed. He’d no sooner clicked his seatbelt shut, than he turned to face her. “Norah, why are you avoiding me?”
She lied through her teeth. “I’m not.”
“Uh-huh.”
So what if he didn’t buy it? It’s what she was selling.
When they got home she shut herself in her room for most of the remainder of the evening. Then she congratulated herself on a job well done. Four days left to go.
Chapter 25
Norah was emerging from the bathroom the next morning, th
e taste of mint toothpaste still in her mouth, when a crash came at her door. Jerking into action, she raced the five steps around the bed and threw open the door, only to have TJ come falling through at her.
Startling again, she grabbed for his arms and realized she wasn’t capable of supporting his full weight. With as much thought as she was able to muster, she supported what she could and guided him to the edge of the bed.
He laughed. “All the way around the house, and still upright.”
“Not so much. You came crashing through my door.”
“But not because my legs gave out. I just lost my balance.”
Like that made it okay. But Norah just smiled at him. He seemed so pleased, and, in truth, so was she. He’d be driving again soon and on his own. Turning away, she set the washcloth still in her hand on the nightstand, only to feel his arms slip around her waist.
Her stomach sucked in. He tugged her down onto the bed. The top and boxer briefs she’d been sleeping in didn’t quite meet and his hands had slipped between, touching bare skin. Without a word, he settled her beside him, and she scooted back.
“Norah.”
She didn’t nod, couldn’t answer.
“You do realize I’m a man, right?”
She laughed, relaxing just a little bit. “It’s hard to miss.”
“Good.” He looked at her a little sideways. “You know that I’m fully functional, and have been for a while?”
There went that relaxation. She nodded.
“So when you run around dressed like this, you totally turn me on.” He gestured to the briefs and top she wore.
The t-shirt was the same one she’d worn the day she’d showed him that his fingers worked. Only after she’d fled the scene did she see in her own mirror just how low the slit in the front went.
TJ’s cerulean blue eyes found hers, and she wanted to look away, but found she wasn’t capable. His voice still held a conversational tone, only his face didn’t look casual. “Are you trying to turn me on?”
Love Notes Page 12