by Noelle Adams
He held her gaze. His expression softened. “Thank you, Summer. I’ll never be able to repay you.”
She gave him a soft hug. “You won’t have to. That’s what it means to be friends.”
“Mom wants to have a brunch for the two of you. As a sort of wedding announcement and celebration combined. She’s thinking two weeks from Sunday. Is that okay? She’s got a trip planned for the south of France after that, so she needs to get the brunch in quickly.”
Summer nodded. “That’s fine. As long as you think we can get Lincoln to behave himself for a few hours.”
“I can. He will.”
Something about his expression prompted Summer’s curiosity. “Why does he owe you?”
“What?”
“Lincoln. Why does he owe you? It must be something big for him to agree to this. What did he do? Why does he owe you?”
Carter shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. I care about you, and I’m involved in this. What did he do?” She was almost holding her breath. She had no idea why the answer to this question mattered to her so much.
Lincoln must have done something truly terrible to owe such a huge debt to his brother.
“I promised him I wouldn’t tell you. I’m sorry, Summer. I can’t.”
Her shoulders slumped slightly, but she didn’t argue anymore. After all, a promise was a promise. And Carter would never go back on his word.
She wouldn’t even want him to.
“All right. I won’t pester you about it.”
“I’m going to owe you big at the end of this thing,” Carter said, raising a hand to touch her hair. “You know that, right?”
Summer flashed a smile. “Yes, I know that. But I doubt I’ll ever ask you to collect. I’m doing it because I want to. Because you’ve been family to me when I didn’t have anyone else.”
This time Carter was the one who hugged her. He held her in his arms for a long time.
SUMMER HAD A QUIET evening with Carter, eating sandwiches in front of the television and then going to bed early. She slept deeply and woke up disoriented in the middle of the night.
She knew vaguely where she was, but it was dark in the room and she needed to pee, so she rolled out of bed and stumbled in the general direction of the bathroom attached to her room.
She’d mostly finished unpacking, but she’d left a box of books and a laundry basket full of purses in the middle of the floor to put up the next day. Unfortunately, she’d left them directly on her route to the bathroom.
She tripped on the laundry basket. Since it wasn’t heavy, it moved when her foot connected, so it wasn’t enough to make her completely lose her balance. But it tripped her up enough for her to take a few awkward steps. One of those steps was right into the box of books.
Her foot got caught in the box and she lost it. Her ankle twisted. Her body collapsed. She fell hard. She grabbed for the edge of the dresser, catching herself before she hit her head but wrenching her shoulder as she did. The corner of the dresser jammed into her upper left arm, slicing down a few inches before she caught herself. And her knee slammed one of the drawer pulls.
She let go and allowed herself to slide slowly to the floor, her mind momentarily numbed by the shock and pain. After a minute, she tried to assess her situation.
She was okay. She could move. Nothing was broken. She’d cut up the soft flesh on the upper part of her left arm. Her ankle was twisted, so it hurt but not enough for even a sprain. And she’d bruised her knee.
She stood up slowly, relaxing as the adrenaline subsided. She was in some pain and she was bleeding at her knee and upper arm, but there was no crisis here. She could walk. She wouldn’t need to ask for help.
It was upsetting to fall and hurt herself like this, but since she could have knocked herself unconscious on the edge of the dresser, she wasn’t about to complain about a few minor injuries.
She limped into her bathroom and checked the medicine cabinet and under the sink. There was extra toilet paper there and a couple of spare boxes of tissues but nothing else. They’d obviously cleared everything out for her before she moved in.
She needed bandages for her cuts. And she hadn’t thought to bring first aid supplies with her. She peed and wiped away some of the blood with tissues. Then she went out to the hall, looking in both directions.
It was mostly dark—with just a faint cast of light from the stairwell at the end of the hall. She knew there were bandages in the bathrooms downstairs. She’d seen them there. But blood was dripping down her arm, and her ankle hurt, and she was still kind of shaky from the fall. She didn’t want to walk all the way down there if she didn’t have to.
She turned on the hall light and saw that Lincoln’s bedroom door was wide open. She walked over to peer inside and saw it was dark.
He wasn’t there. He was still working. She had no idea what time it was, but he always worked really late. He wasn’t home yet.
Maybe he had first aid stuff in his bathroom.
Deciding it was worth checking, she walked into his room. It was beautifully furnished like hers was, and he hadn’t yet unpacked. A suitcase was open on the floor, overflowing with clothes. There was a pile of books on his nightstand and a laptop on the small desk in the corner.
She was tempted to snoop, but she wasn’t foolish enough to do so. His shift at the bar might have ended, and he could appear at any time. Instead, she hurried to his attached bathroom and searched for bandages.
Nothing. The shelves and drawers were just as empty as hers.
With a frustrated sigh, she got out of there and limped downstairs to the big bathroom near the kitchen.
She turned on the light and bent over to check one of the drawers under the sink, where she remembered seeing first aid supplies in the past. She was reaching for a box of bandages when a familiar male voice sounded from behind her.
“Well, it was a good plan. I’ll give you that. It’s just your bad luck that the wrong brother happened to find you all rumpled and sexy in the middle of the night. I’m a little disappointed that you’re not wearing that hot little black number, but your ass does look very fine in those pajamas.”
Summer was so surprised by the voice that she gasped and jerked up to a standing position. Given the way her life was going lately, it was no surprise that her abrupt motion caused her head to slam against the granite edge of the sink surround.
“Damn it!” She held on to her head as she managed to stand up, her vision momentarily blurred by the pain.
She was wearing pink cotton pajama shorts and a little white tank top. She wasn’t dressed for an encounter with Lincoln Wilson. Especially with blood running down her arm and leg.
When she turned around, she saw he was giving her a smug little smile, his eyes running up and down her body. But then he must have gotten a better look at her condition. His expression changed. “Shit. What the hell happened?”
“I fell.” Her voice cracked. Her head and her ankle and her arm and her knee all hurt. “I was looking for Band-Aids.”
“Did you fall down the fucking stairs?” Lincoln was dressed in black trousers and an untucked charcoal gray button-up. He looked sleek and modern and wide-awake and sexy as hell, and he was the last thing she wanted to see right now. “You’re a mess. Sit down. I’ll fix you up.”
“I don’t need you to fix me up.” She swiped a stray tear away, hoping he didn’t see it.
He saw it. Of course he did. He shook his head and gave her a faintly annoyed eye roll. “Sit your ass down. You’re about to get bloodstains on a thousand-dollar rug.”
Summer gasped and looked down at the bathmat under her feet. It was thick and pure white. Blood was slowly trickling down her shin. She sat on the closed toilet and used her hand to wipe the stream of blood from her skin before it dripped to the floor. “Does that rug really cost a thousand dollars?”
“I haven’t a clue. Knowing my mom, it’s possible. But I mostly just wanted to
get you to stop arguing.” He was smirking again as he pulled supplies out of the first aid drawer. He set them on the floor near her feet and then grabbed a soft white washcloth from beside the sink, getting it wet.
Because she was still kind of blurry, it took her a minute to realize what he was doing. “Wait! Don’t use that to—” She broke off because it was too late.
Lincoln had leaned over and was mopping the blood off her left arm with the expensive white washcloth. He knelt down on the floor as he worked, bringing him far too close to her.
She was silent as he wiped the blood off her upper arm and then cleaned up her knee. His eyes were focused on his task. His body was big and firm and fit and solid. He smelled like liquor and night air and maybe the slightest hint of spicy aftershave. She held herself very still.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” he murmured, inspecting the cut on her arm. “You don’t need stitches or anything. It’s bruised though.”
“It’s fine.” She was relieved that her voice was low and even since she was feeling shakier than ever.
She really wanted to touch his face. His thick, dark hair. The fabric of his shirt.
He spread antibiotic salve on her cut before he pulled a couple of bandages out of the box. “Let me guess. You were out on your midnight vigil, hoping to run into Carter for an accidental seduction, and you were so wrapped up in daydreams about him that you missed a stair.” He unwrapped the bandages and then leaned closer to apply them to her arm.
She narrowed her eyes with a familiar surge of anger. The stupidest thing was that she still wanted to touch him.
When she didn’t reply, he looked up at her face. They were only inches away from each other. “I guessed it right, didn’t I?”
“No,” she gritted out. “You did not.”
He was silent for a moment. He lowered himself on his knees when he finished with her arm and turned his attention to her leg. He wiped up a little more blood and then gently rubbed on the salve.
She gazed down at him as he worked. She couldn’t help it. It was so strange for him to tend to her in this way. His fingers were touching her bare skin. It felt intimate.
Far too intimate.
He flashed her a quick, searching look. “So what did happen?”
She chewed on her upper lip for a few seconds before she relented. “I was going to the bathroom, and I tripped on a stupid box of books. I fell against the dresser.”
His arched his eyebrows. “Are you in a habit of taking such disastrous tumbles?”
“No. It was dark, and I’m not used to the room yet.”
Lincoln nodded and used two bandages to cover the cut on her knee. “Did you hurt anything else?”
“I twisted my ankle a little, but it’s not bad.” She wriggled her foot slightly to confirm that her words were true.
He reached for her foot, gently turning it in different directions, watching her face as he did.
“I told you it’s not bad. It’s not sprained.”
Both his warm hands were holding her bare foot. He was on his knees on the floor in front of her. Their eyes met and held. She couldn’t look away. She twisted her trembling hands in her lap and resisted the urge to touch him.
He swallowed. She saw it in his throat. Then he let go of her foot with a strange, slow caution.
He rose to his feet and offered her a hand. She took it, letting him help her to her feet.
They stared at each other some more, standing together in the middle of the silent bathroom. She could hear herself breathing. Too quickly. Almost raggedly.
What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t even like this man.
She jerked her gaze away, staring instead at the floor.
“Well, I’ve done my good deed for the night,” Lincoln said lightly, taking a step back from her. “I can now sleep the sleep of the righteous.”
She snorted, his wry tone dragging her out of the shaky intensity of the moment before. “You’ve never slept the sleep of the righteous in your life.”
“That is sadly true. My brother inherited any shred of righteousness that exists in our genes. He’s the saint. I’m the sinner.”
She gave him an impatient look.
“What’s that look for?” He was once more brimming with his dry, almost playful arrogance. “Do you deny that I’m the sinner of the family?”
“Of course I don’t deny it. Just like it’s impossible to deny how good a man Carter is.”
“Exactly. He’s a good man. And I’m a bad one. We’re in full agreement on this issue. Why do you insist on arguing with everything I say?”
“Because everything you say is either wrong or obnoxious or completely inappropriate. If you’d change what you say, I wouldn’t argue with you all the time.”
He laughed, low and soft and irresistible. His vivid eyes were oddly soft.
She was so deeply drawn to him in that moment that Summer decided it was well past time for her to make an escape. “Okay. Thanks for your help. I’m going to bed now.”
“Next time, you should do your midnight wanderings in the west wing. You’ll have better luck encountering Carter there.”
“I wasn’t trying to run into Carter.” She pushed past him to leave the bathroom.
“Sure you weren’t.” His smug voice followed her down the hall, but she didn’t turn around.
Three
TWO WEEKS LATER, SUMMER came downstairs at just before seven on a Friday morning and was surprised to see Lincoln lounging in a chair at the head of the table in the breakfast room.
The breakfast room was small and cozy with casual maple furniture and big windows that let in the morning sun. For as long as Summer could remember, the Wilson family had eaten breakfast there and never set foot in the room otherwise.
Lincoln was reading something on his phone, and he didn’t glance up as she came in. He wore trousers and a dress shirt. He didn’t smell like whiskey, and he’d obviously just shaved.
Summer’s stomach clenched, and she told herself it was because a clean and awake Lincoln wasn’t what she wanted to encounter first thing the morning.
It wasn’t because she was glad to see him.
She was dressed for work in heels, man-style trousers, and a cute pink top. She didn’t let her eyes linger on Lincoln as she made her way to the pot of coffee on the sideboard.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” Lincoln drawled, still focused on his phone.
She curled up her lip and shot him an annoyed glare.
Lincoln finally raised his eyes from his phone, just in time to see her expression. “No good-morning kiss for your husband this morning?”
“My husband gets what he deserves, which in this case is to have his obnoxiousness ignored.” She set her mug of coffee down at her normal place, which happened to be right beside Lincoln. “Didn’t you work last night?”
“I did.”
“So what are you doing up bright and early this morning? Don’t you normally sleep until noon?”
“If I had my choice, that’s what I’d be doing today too, but duty calls.”
“What duty?” She put a toasted English muffin and a boiled egg on her plate and sat down.
“Brotherly duties.” He twitched his eyebrows. “Sadly, I haven’t been called on for any husbandly duties yet, but I’ll be happy to provide any services you require.”
Her cheeks warmed at the obvious innuendo in his words and look, but she’d gotten better at dealing with Lincoln over the past weeks, so she was able to keep her expression cool and composed. “Your only husbandly duty is not to drive your wife crazy with your attitude, and you certainly haven’t managed to accomplish that.”
He leaned closer with an exaggerated seductiveness that was almost playful. “Just how crazy do I drive you?”
She tried—she really tried—not to smile. It was never a good idea to encourage him to act this way. But he was so brazen. So ridiculously over-the-top. So clever.
It was impossible not to find him j
ust a little funny.
He relaxed back into his chair. “Gotcha,” he murmured with a pleased smile over the rim of his coffee cup.
“You do not have me. I wasn’t laughing.”
“You were trying not to, but I caught a hint of a smile. I knew you’d come around to my irresistible appeal eventually.”
“Any irresistibility you possess is only in your own mind. The only thing I have trouble resisting when I’m around you is giving you a smack across the face.”
“One time you didn’t even resist that.” He rubbed his cheek where she’d slapped him on the day of his father’s funeral.
She closed her eyes and let out a breath. “I know that. I said I was sorry. I never should have hit you.”
He gave a little shrug. “I deserved it. And probably a lot more.”
Summer searched his face and couldn’t see anything there that doubted his sincerity. So she nodded in acknowledgment and changed the subject. “What brotherly duty do you have this morning?”
“I’ve got to go through a bunch of stuff with Carter about the hotel deal.”
“I thought that was already worked out. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. But you know Carter. He’s all stressed out about it, so he wants to make sure all his ducks are in a row. Thus I have to make do with just four hours of sleep so I can get to the office bright and early.”
“Bright and early? Carter has probably been there for an hour already.”
“Well, there are limits to how bright and how early I can do. I didn’t get home until two.”
“You have to work again tonight?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you become a bartender?”
He was finishing his coffee, but he slanted her a questioning look as he lowered the mug. Like he was trying to determine if her question was serious or not. It was, and he must have seen that because he replied lightly, “Just kind of fell into it. I never finished college. I’m not trained for anything. I wasn’t going to live off my dad anymore, and I needed a job. A friend got me a job behind the bar at Milhouse. I was good at it. People liked me. So I stuck with it.”