She ducked into an office off to the side, saying in passing, “Let me just stash my stuff and I’ll have a look at your ankle.”
Half her words came after she’d left the room, projected to carry through the open door, and she hadn’t so much as glanced at him on the way through. That never happened these days. Since he’d become someone to be seen, everyone wanted to see him.
Everyone but Grace.
The problem with having an elephant in the room...he couldn’t decide if it was generally a bad idea to mention it, or if he just didn’t know how to mention it right. All he knew for sure was that neither of them really wanted to mention it—the idea of even trying summoned another wave of nausea. If she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him without the subject coming up, it really wasn’t the time to talk it out.
“I appreciate you taking the time,” he offered lamely. What would he say to any other medical professional in this situation? Just talk about the job. Pretend. He was an actor, for goodness’ sake. Just talk. “I’ve got a movie opening, three premieres to attend, and all the promotion that goes along with that. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
She stepped back out of the office, finally letting him actually look at her in something other than her bathing suit. The clothes she wore didn’t flatter, but she still wore them well. Her black scrub bottoms sat low on those hips, occasionally giving him another glimpse of golden skin when she moved.
“What exactly happened?” She dragged a stool to the reclining foot end of his chair and sat down. Only then did she look at him.
Ignore the elephant. Focus on the ankle.
“I twisted it while running.” He answered her question and then fished for the bag he’d stashed beside him. “There are X-rays in here.”
She didn’t take the bag, but she did take the hint. “Did the doctors say it wasn’t broken?”
Her hands gently lifted his leg and she worked his shoe off, then began unstrapping the splint—the only thing that had been keeping him upright today. He tried not to wince but any jostle pinged like someone poking at a bruise. Annoying, but more capable of creating tension in his shoulders with the promise of bigger pain around the corner.
“They said it didn’t appear broken.”
“Okay, it could still be a minor fracture, but until it starts to heal it might not show up on film.”
He’d heard the same thing yesterday. And though she was gentle, his hands locked into the arms of the recliner, braced and ready to pull his leg free, even if he had no intention of doing so. Being ready helped somehow, self-comforting actions he’d been reading on her since she’d focused on him in the pool room. She’d wrapped her arms around her waist like she could hug herself right out of the whole thing.
Liam had studied body language enough to read almost anyone if he spent enough time with them, but someone he had such history with...well, he’d been able to read Grace from the instant she’d recognized him.
The shock may have dulled now, but she was still a little afraid...of him or the situation. Either way, it couldn’t be more wrong.
All the movement finally brought enough pain to rob him of anything else to say.
As she peeled away the layers of light brown elastic wrap, the extent of the swelling and bruising finally became apparent. She gave a low whistle and lowered his leg once more to the foot of the recliner so she could slide up the hem of his slacks. Her hands moved quickly and surely, but somehow she managed not to touch his skin the whole time she labored to fully unveil his foot and leg.
“You did a number on it. I’m not going to make you move your foot right now, but you really shouldn’t be walking on this. It should be elevated with ice to help with the swelling.” She reached for his calf, the first brush of her hand on his skin causing his gut to join in on the stiff tension knotting his arms and the rest of his torso.
Gently, she lifted his leg, craning her neck to look at the underside of his calf. There was soreness there, but there was something else in the feel of her cool, soft hands on his skin. It was nice, if you discounted the pain.
She felt it too. Her complexion had been leaning toward pale since the pool, but the first brush of her hands on his flesh brought color zinging back to her cheeks. She either felt it or suddenly just remembered her embarrassment—which was too probable for him to count on any silly theory about connections and strange touches.
His leg just hurt, and he was more aware of anything to do with it now. Even the fan in his bedroom ruffling his leg hair this morning had made him do a double take. The hair had felt like it had been six inches long.
“Does it hurt up here?” She lightly squeezed the top of his calf, up beneath his knee, looking him in the eye finally.
Liam shook his head, holding her gaze.
The pink blooming on her cheeks set off the rest of her coloring, and everything about her was golden—from the light tan testifying to her active outdoor life, to the flecks of gold in her warm brown eyes. Her hair was darker than he remembered—she’d always spent so much time outside that her light brown hair had always looked sun-kissed, but now, wet and pulled back into a ponytail, it was hard to tell whether she remained the quintessential California girl or not.
“Slightly sore, but not actual pain,” he murmured. The undercurrents and tension made things weird, just not weird enough for him to change his plans. Grace had to be the one.
“I can see you had it elevated right after the fall and blood pooled up the back of your calf. You’re sore up there because you’re black-and-blue to the back of your knee.” She laid his leg down again, and then went on talking about the injury. Something about tearing or stretching tendons, and all he could think about was the contrast between black lace and golden skin...
She paused long enough that Liam looked back to her eyes. Was he supposed to say something?
“Did they say anything like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like surgery to repair it?”
“Surgery?” The word snapped his attention back to what she was doing rather than how she looked. “No. I really don’t have time for surgery. I have a premiere tonight in town. Two more tomorrow—a big one in New York and a small, local one where the movie was filmed in Virginia. And then another day of interviews when I get back here...”
She sat back and looked at him over the tortured ankle, one brow lifted screaming idiot at him, even if she held off actually giving the word voice—he recognized that Watson family expression.
Get it together. This is business. He still saw one of the Watsons on a regular basis, which made this mental trip down memory lane ridiculous. He’d lost her six years ago, not six minutes ago.
“I know you can wrap it with tape to give it support enough to power through this,” he said, lifting his foot away from her hands and putting the recliner arm back down. Getting upright would help. “That’s why I came to you, Grace. You’ve worked with athletes injured mid-game, kept them playing and all that. Certainly you can work with me long enough to simply keep me walking for a couple of days. And then I will do whatever it is you tell me to do in order to recover. But right now...I need to play through this.”
“Those athletes who get taped are only mildly sprained. They can bear weight, just need some extra support to keep up with their range of motion. This is not that kind of sprain. You need crutches.”
God. Another person with the crutches. “No. No crutches. Athletes—”
“Don’t use them on the court,” she cut in, sounding irritated with him now. “I know, but I told you—this is different. And even if it weren’t different, there’s a big difference between taping an ankle before it starts to swell and after. And you’re already terribly swollen. Tape won’t do anything for you, it can’t give you any support when there’s an inch of gelatinous squis
h between the tape and the joint.”
“There are medications that reduce swelling.”
“Yes...” She sat back again and looked at him. The more they engaged about the injury, the more comfortable she looked. The blush had already faded to a hint of pink. Maybe the weirdness would abate if they just stayed focused on the work. “Diuretics are used for chronic conditions that cause water retention, and as preparation before a surgery that will cause massive swelling—mostly orthopedic surgeries. But not really for injuries like this.”
“Can’t we use them that way anyway? And ice? And elevation? Get the swelling down enough to tape it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, standing again, one hand rubbing her forehead. Another self-comforting technique—her embarrassment may have faded but she still felt the stress of the situation. “I don’t prescribe medication. Let me talk to Dr. Rothsberg and see who I can find in New York to—”
She started to turn and Liam lunged to grab her hand. Instantly that feeling returned. Connection. Warmth. “Grace.” He said her name. Maybe if he held her back with words he could let go of her hand. “Talk to Rothsberg about the medicine, please, but I came to you because I need you.”
Her hand turned slightly in his, not so much pulling away, just giving the smallest slide of flesh on flesh. Every nerve in his hand fired and tingling heat spread up his arm.
Her hands were small but he felt the strength in them. So soft in his, and warmth he could spend a year studying... He found himself stroking her skin in return, his thumb making lazy exploration of the back of her hand.
Something else, he’d been saying something...but whatever it was left him.
They’d always had chemistry, but he’d never let himself explore it. He’d always kept touching to a minimum or carefully relegated to non-sexy situations for so many reasons, not the least of which had been loyalty. The senior Watsons and Nick meant a lot to Liam, but no matter how kind they were to him even Liam knew that would all end if he gave in to that lust that colored his vision every time he looked at her. Grace was off-limits, all he could have of her was his imaginings.
And this added a new element to the fantasy of the untouchable Grace Watson.
What would her hands feel like on the rest of his body?
CHAPTER TWO
GRACE STEPPED CLOSER to Liam’s chair, her arm outstretched, hand captured.
How many times had this happened in her youth? How many times had hands clasped to do something mundane and helpful? How many times had her teenage self been sprawled on the grass near where Liam and Nick had hung out—doing whatever it was that teenage boys did—with her beside Liam just so she could beg for a hand up when it was time to go in for dinner? She’d used any excuse to make him hold her hand, even for just a couple seconds.
But it had always been at her instigation.
She’d been the one dying to feel her hand in his.
The only kind of flirting a dumb kid could come up with to try and make Liam see her as something other than Nick’s kid sister.
And the least ridiculous, as it had turned out. When she’d hit eighteen and the time apart while he’d been at school had turned her desperate, her tactics had become the stuff that couldn’t be lived down.
“I know you don’t want to come with me,” Liam said, his hand still in hers, even though he’d stopped stroking her skin now. It didn’t really help clear her thinking, though.
She needed to make him let go. Get some space. Maybe her thinking would unfuzzy.
She took a slow deep breath and gestured back to the stool as she pulled her hand from his, indicating that she wasn’t fleeing so he’d let go.
Please, don’t mention it.
She might be able to force herself through this without having to face the embarrassment head-on, but if he wanted to talk about it...
He hadn’t so far, but she could see it on his face every time she looked at him. Who could forget something like that?
“We haven’t seen one another in a long time, I know,” he said, nodding to his ankle. “Could you rewrap it? It feels better when it’s got something around it.”
“Yes. Of course.” She grabbed the bandage, thankful for something to do, and began rolling it up to make the rewrapping easier. Focusing on a task was better than focusing on emotions that would make everything so much worse. Liam settled back again, his hands in his lap. She could still feel the weight of his eyes on her.
“I have no one else to turn to, Gracie. It seems that when everyone wants something from you, it gets harder to trust.” The edge she’d heard in his voice drained away and he chuckled, sounding something like the old, charming Liam. The old Liam, the only one she’d ever let call her Gracie. “You probably hear some variation of that from entitled celebrities every day, whining about their success and how much it costs them.”
He lifted his leg as she began wrapping, allowing her to pass the elastic wrap under and around his leg, snug enough to stop further swelling but not so tight that it would hamper circulation. Something she knew how to do, unlike the rest of this. And as painful as it looked, the physical pain was so much easier to deal with. And he really had hurt himself, but there were things that could be done to speed recovery. Things she could help him do after a few days of healing rest, but this insane plan to keep walking on it...
“I’m sure I could find someone skilled enough to help me through these next few weeks, but I’d have to keep my guard up, and that’s really hard to do twenty-four hours a day. I know you’re not going to secretly record me or take pictures to sell to the tabloids. I know you’re not going to pay more attention to the limelight than to my recovery. And if I ever had any doubt, after seeing how badly you don’t want to get involved...I’m certain of it now.”
Her stomach bottomed out, hearing those words, almost as sure a hit as if he had mentioned the other. “It’s not that I don’t want to help you. I can see you need help and I’m sure you hate having to come ask for it.” The words tasted of lies. She didn’t want to help him, but none of that was his fault. It was her fault. He wasn’t holding grudges and she wasn’t either, but... “Maybe I could get you started and then after your premieres you could come back. That way I wouldn’t have to let down my other patients either.”
“James said you have a light enough schedule that the other therapists can cover it.”
Of course he had. Because even if he’d known about their past, James would’ve still wanted to do what was best for the clinic, and that meant taking excellent care of the patients, not turning them away for wholly emotional reasons. Way more professional than her reaction had been.
She should just say yes, let him stop convincing her...
She opened her mouth to agree, but he was already saying something else.
“The Watson family has always been my safe place. There’s no one I trust more than Nick and you. Even when the whole world felt barbed-wired and booby-trapped, I always knew I could come to your house and—”
“Okay, I’ll come.” She blurted the words out before he tried other guilt tactics. Guilt worked every time, especially since all of this awkwardness was her fault. He was the victim here. Heck, if the situation had been reversed and he’d come to her house in a trench coat and scanty underwear, it would’ve probably been considered a sex crime. And it definitely would’ve made all his other relationships with her family tense and awkward, maybe even worse than this.
It had been all on her and her childish fantasies that Liam Carter could’ve ever thought of her the way she thought of him. No. The way she had thought of him. The only thing she felt now was horrified at her own behavior. And desperate to never have to acknowledge or explain, to never experience that level of vulnerability again.
Holding the loose end of the bandage with her wrist, she fished fabric tape from
her pocket and pulled off a strip to tack the bandage down before taping it more thoroughly.
“But, for the record, I was going to say yes before you added that little bit about trust and our childhood.”
There’d been no way for him to win that situation, just like there was no way for her to win this one. No polite, professional, or kind way at least, and he deserved her kindness. She’d spent years trying to figure out what he could have said that would’ve made the rejection better at all.
Should he have just slept with her so she hadn’t felt stupid about the hours of vigorous waxing and grooming to make herself irresistible? Wasted hours and needlessly tender post-waxing flesh...
“You mean I’m wasting my best lines?”
His question jerked her back from pondering the futility of her tender bits after that tragic home wax/shaving experiment. The smile she found when she looked at him softened the memories of bad razor burn and gut-churning humiliation.
“Was that a line in one of your movies?”
“Don’t you watch my movies?” The words rang with obviously faked horror and he laid a hand over his heart as if the mere thought would do him in.
Silly.
Cute.
He was trying to make her feel better.
Before she could stop it, she smiled back. He certainly hadn’t lost that natural charm.
But that kind of dangerous thinking had to stay as far from her scrambled gray matter as possible. The only way to get through this was to just focus on the injury, not the man. Not the way her insides expanded when he smiled at her, which they shouldn’t even do anyway. Playful banter might as well be a sledgehammer, he could knock all sense out of her with one strategic swing.
She took a breath and eased the smile off her face.
Playful banter fit nowhere, it had to go for the next couple weeks.
Taming Hollywood’s Ultimate Playboy Page 2