“Now behave and hold that there.” His voice rasped slightly. “I’m taking over the washing.”
She ignored him and picked up another towel. “I can hold this on and wash, too. Here—dry if you have to help.”
“Would you stop fighting me at every turn? I’ve washed a lot of dishes in my time. Be a little like your sister. You don’t see her in here helping.”
“She would if she knew you were here to charm.”
Her undertone of animosity was hard to miss—just as it had been that afternoon at the barn.
“You know, Southern men work hard at proving they’re the ultimate connoisseurs of a woman’s charms.” He glanced at her. “Take it from a Southern man. I know which Carpenter sister has the charm.”
For several long seconds she remained silent. “Thank you,” she said at last. “That was a nice thing to say.”
Chapter Six
JILL STARED AS Chase plunged his hands—the same hands that had taken charge of her care moments before—into hot, soapy dishwater. Liquid tremors, still assailing her from his touch, pooled in her stomach and rippled into her core, where they swelled into pleasure that settled in her abdomen and lower between her legs.
Which should have embarrassed her. The truth was, it was more than a reaction to his sex appeal—which he had in abundance. She simply couldn’t remember the last time someone had stepped in and fixed things for her with no strings attached. He’d been doing it all afternoon.
He talked, but she did little except listen, spellbound, to his accent. Words rolled into each other, knocking rough edges off the sounds so sentences emerged like polished stones from a lapidary’s gem tumbler. It was an indulgence to accept the guilty pleasure of his company.
“Oh, for crying out loud, Jill, you’ve hijacked our guest.”
Dee swept into the room, sucking all the pleasure from it and glowering as if Jill were a scullery maid seducing the prince consort. Chase, up to his forearms in suds, simply pointed an elbow toward another dish towel.
“There’s been no hijacking, this was my idea,” he said. “How ’bout you grab that towel and help? We’re almost done.”
Dee’s clouded eyes darkened further, but she took the towel as ordered. It didn’t take her long, however, to forgive Chase. She chatted with him like a lover, teasing and flirting. Chase allowed her to go on but said little until he pulled the stopper from the drain.
“Done,” he announced. “I say we throw in these towels.”
Jill didn’t expect the weight of his arm as he flung one around her and the other around Dee. It sent a spasm of pain through her shoulder and she groaned. Chase dropped his hold like a dead weight.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s just tender.” Jill looked away.
The pain subsided, and she reached beneath her shirt to adjust the nearly thawed bag of peas.
“That probably needs to be replaced.” Chase motioned to Dee. “Could you help by throwing some ice in a plastic bag?”
She didn’t say a word, just thinned her lips and opened the freezer. When she’d dug out an actual cold pack, she handed it Chase, not to Jill, but then stood, arms crossed, mouth drawn into a sulky bow. Dee’s competitive animosity had begun so many years before that Jill barely remembered being friends with her sister. They had been once upon a time, but except for rare, unexpected occasions, Jill had lost her big sister the same time she’d lost her father.
“Where does it hurt most?” Chase pulled her thoughts back.
Tentatively, Jill rotated her arm and touched the muscle pad below the front of her shoulder. “Here.”
Once again, Chase reached from behind and slipped the pack down the front of her shirt. His breath warmed her neck, musk tickled her nostrils, and fresh shivers ensured the cold pack had much more to douse than the heat from the injury.
“Good?” he asked, after adjusting it.
She nodded despite his bossiness.
“Are you two quite finished?” Dee demanded.
Her mother pushed through the café doors that hung between the kitchen and dining rooms in time to see Chase withdraw his hand. “Ahem, do I need to ask what’s going on?” Her impish smile proved she could tease with the best of them.
“Chase is playing doctor with your youngest,” Dee said. “Of course, not the way I’d have chosen.”
She swept around their mother and out of the kitchen. Mortified, Jill would have gladly melted into the floor. “Is there anything in the world my idiot sister won’t say?” she mumbled.
Chase stared after Dee wan-faced, as if Bad Bart had stalked out of the saloon after threatening him.
“I’m so sorry. She can be a little over the top.”
He shook off whatever had affected him. “Aww, she’s not a problem. She’s just quick enough to take a person aback.”
Despite his smile, the intimacy they’d momentarily shared had vaporized.
Her mother deftly redirected the subject. “I made some brownies when I got home. And I’ve got your room ready, Chase. You can move in any time.”
“Thank you more than I can say,” he replied. “What can I help you with?”
“Nothing.” Elaina pointed at the door. “You two go, sit.”
By the time Jill’s neat-as-whiskey mother and hyper-flirtatious sister managed to stretch dessert into two hours of work stories, questions, and pleasant but innocuous chatter, Chase couldn’t figure out how Jill had sprung from their gene pool. While they rambled, Jill sat quietly, more and more of an enigma. She didn’t even try to compete for time with her sister, whose life-as-a-physical-therapist stories were admittedly funny, but who owned the room from bamboo flooring to vaulted ceiling. When Elaina finally got up to take away the long-empty dessert dishes and, blessedly, took Dee with her, Chase wanted to grab Jill and run for cover.
Jill rose from her chair, too. She didn’t hide a grimace as she straightened, but once she stood in front of him, she grinned. “She has her sights set on you.”
“Lucky old me,” he said.
“I don’t think my sister is as loose as she sounds, but I could be wrong.”
“She likes digging at you.”
“And vice versa, sometimes.”
“It’s a wonder you ever learned to speak.”
Her eyes flashed in fun. “Hey, credit where it’s due. Dee can weave a good story—embellished sometimes, but entertaining.”
She rotated her shoulder and stretched her head and neck to one side and then the other.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“No,” she said too quickly, and her slight pallor disappeared under a quick flush. “Okay, yeah, it aches. Would it be rude of me to leave you to the guesthouse? It’s after eight. I need to shower, make a few lesson plans, and get up early.”
“Of course not. You sure you can’t sleep late?”
She nodded without complaint. “Gotta be at the clinic at seven-thirty, work until one, and be at the stable by two. Full day.”
He frowned in sympathy, grasped one of her hands, and squeezed. “Thank you. I never expected a day like this.”
Her fingers tightened in response, and she raised her eyes, rich and hot as expensive coffee, and full of something that jolted his senses like a triple shot of caffeine. “Hey, no. I made it through today because of you. I’m only sorry to abandon you to my family.”
“I’ve protected myself against far worse. Time to pack it in for me, too, anyhow.”
“Good idea.” She tilted her head slightly toward the doorway where Dee was returning.
Ignoring his conscience, he touched a kiss to her cheek in front of her ear.
“You’re not leaving?” Dee’s eyes, suddenly a bright, scheming hazel, flitted between him and Jill.
“I am. Wednesdays are my long days.”
Unexpectedly, Jill’s eyes lit, too, but hers were like a wood sprite who’d come upon a good prank to pull. Jill picked up a pen from a table and took Chase’s han
d. Bending until her hair and breath brushed his palm, she made short, ticklish strokes. Gooseflesh advanced up his forearm.
“My cell phone,” she whispered. “In case.”
For the first time all day, she rendered him speechless.
With a last good-night, she headed for the stairs. Chase stared at the number on his hand, feeling socked in the gut. He had no business with a beautiful woman’s phone number inked on his palm. He hadn’t come here for anything like this.
And yet, she left a gloomy cloud in the room with her departure. Already planning his escape, he faced Dee.
“I told Mother I’d get you settled,” she said. “Come on, I’ll show you the idiosyncrasies of your house and turn on the back garden lights. It’s the prettiest part of the house at night. Very romantic.”
“Garden,” “night,” and “romantic” formed a combo he wanted no part of.
“Dee. I don’t need a tour.”
“Okay. C’mon, then. We’ll get you tucked in.”
Dear God, get him safely to his door, he thought. This girl was something he simply couldn’t figure out. “Lead on,” he said, and the sultry look she adopted gave him the sense of tripping—right after Eve into the trunk of the apple tree.
REMOVING HERSELF FROM Chase’s immediate presence came nowhere near to removing him from her mind. Every time Jill closed her eyes, his face was there. His kiss beside her ear had been meant in friendship, but it had branded her, clinging to her skin as if it had physical properties.
Her life was in jumbled and knotted disarray. She had no time for herself, much less a man, but for the first time in a very long while, despite a list of what should have been utter disasters, today no longer felt all that disastrous. And it was his doing.
But who was he? She had nothing but a small handful of facts. Born in Kentucky, two brothers, a motorcycle, a lost job in Memphis. That stopped her. A job as what—a volunteer? How vague was that?
Heck, he very well could be on the most-wanted list.
But she knew he wasn’t.
She rubbed her throbbing shoulder absently and looked around her room, decorated in her favorite blues, purples, and teals. All her life it had been a haven filled with books, a parade of small animals and fish, rocks, music and, after he left, postcards from her father, although when he’d never fulfilled his promises to return, she eventually thrown those away. In fact, the only thing of her father’s that mattered anymore was the pillow-filled window seat overlooking the yard, one of the many things he’d built before leaving—a window seat for her, an old-fashioned, built-in dressing table and wardrobe for Dee, a fairy tale backyard for his wife—all created to prove that, despite his deceptions, deep down he cared for his family. That had been the biggest lie of all. Julian Carpenter had been a talented doer. He’d just been a lousy stayer.
There were no hamsters or guinea pigs or parakeets in her room anymore. And no dogs. She missed dogs more than she missed Julian—he’d taken “his” with him when he’d left. The inside of Elaina’s pristine house had never been friendly to slobbery canines. Besides, a vet student with two jobs had no time for pets.
She dug her teaching calendar out of the striped bag and toted it to the pillows of the window seat. Her private nest welcomed her, and she found a position that cradled her sore shoulder and let her mind drift. Her eyes strayed to her father’s elaborate gazebo. What would he think about his daughter’s infatuation with a passing motorcycle man?
He was Julian Carpenter. He’d tell her to follow her bliss.
It had clearly worked for him. He’d been following it for almost eleven years now.
When the backyard lights flicked on, illuminating the flagstone path that led to the gazebo, pond, and two giant weeping willows, Jill pushed aside her father’s memory and searched for movement. To the left stood the small, blue-and-white guesthouse Julian had bought from a friend, over Elaina’s vehement protests, but the neat little three-room cottage he’d created had been well-used over the years.
Chase’s appearance didn’t surprise Jill, but Dee’s did. They stopped at the door and stood for a long time, Chase against the frame with his legs casually crossed at the ankles, Dee animated and gesturing. Jill’s heart went out to him. Dee could talk the paint off a wall, and he was likely stuck. After ten minutes, however, she actually considered he might need rescuing.
Before she could gather herself to leave, however, she caught Dee tugging on Chase’s arm and leading him toward the garden. Jill frowned. When they reached the largest willow, Dee parted the cascading branches, and, to Jill’s dismay, Chase ducked through the makeshift doorway. He stood still while Dee climbed into the white-painted tire swing she and Jill had loved since childhood. His arms remained crossed.
Jill begged herself to turn away, but growing dread held her sickly fascinated. After moments, Dee stopped swinging, extracted herself from the tire, and stepped purposefully to Chase. Slowly, she slid her hands up his chest and clasped them behind his neck.
Her nose flattened to the glass, nausea roiled, and she waited for the train wreck. It came like clockwork in the form of a deliberate kiss. When Chase lifted his arms, Jill spun away at last. She pulled her calendar hard to her chest to hold in the pain and, for a few seconds, closed her eyes and gulped air as she had when Dragon had slammed into her shoulder. Then, as suddenly as it had formed, the constriction in her chest burst, and fiery anger engulfed the pain.
“You are an idiot!” she chastised herself, and slammed a fist so hard into the pillows she hit the wood beneath them. “ ‘Take it from a Southern man,’ he says.”
She stood and paced the room, her mind working furiously at damage control. She had no claim to Chase Preston. He’d kissed her cheek. He’d kissed her sister, too. Why not? Dee had as much right to flirt with him as Jill did.
There was no reason to be upset. No reason, for God’s sake, to be jealous.
But she was. She placed her fingers against the spot near her ear he’d kissed and fought a mortifying burn behind her eyes. She never cried. What on Earth was worth crying about here?
Banishing tears, Jill nonetheless let the day’s disasters crash in on her. She could still feel Chase’s gentle ministrations in the kitchen, but the memory made her stomach hurt.
After a shower failed to soothe either the deep ache in her muscle or the hollow one in her belly, she forced herself to check the now-empty yard and crawl into bed. But there was no sleep to be found. She lay awake in a sore, stiff lump. Angry. Hurt. As rigid as the tree under which Chase and Dee had kissed.
DEE ALREADY SAT at the kitchen table the next morning when Jill arrived, aching and sleep-deprived. Her sister looked a model of elegance, even in the plain navy slacks and white polo shirt of her clinic uniform. With coffee mug in hand, she lifted perfectly plucked brows casually, like the cool girl preparing her abuse of the school geek. Jill ignored her, but standing at the toaster in stocking feet, worn Levi’s, and an old chambray shirt hanging open over a yellow tank top, she felt like rumpled laundry.
“Good morning.” Dee’s fake cheerfulness drifted like a toxic cloud across the room. “How’s that shoulder after playing doctor with your motorcycle man yesterday?”
Jill caught the fast, ugly retort on her tongue before it escaped. The poorly concealed smugness in Dee’s eyes proved she would love to see Jill blow. “Heck,” she said instead. “You should know that was nothing. Being nice is what he’s good at, Dee. Right? He was pretty nice to you in the yard last night.”
Dee’s smile vanished. “Excuse me?”
Jill went back to her toast. “It’s a private window and a public backyard. You should think about being a little more discreet.”
The room instantly went cold and silent.
“Good morning, ladies.”
Both of them jumped. Chase leaned against the kitchen jamb wearing jeans that hugged his hips and a Kentucky Wildcats T-shirt that fit a little too well. Erratic beats hammered inside Jill’s chest ov
er his freshly shaven skin and water-slicked hair. She dragged her gaze from him, annoyed at her mutinous hormones for still finding his shoulders so broad in the bright blue T-shirt, and his thighs so hard beneath the denim.
“I thought you’d be sleeping late.” Dee’s voice held a surprising dusting of frost.
“I figure I’d best be on my way. I have an interview at nine and I didn’t want to miss saying good-bye.”
Jill reached into the cupboard for a juice glass. Without warning he stood behind her.
“How’s the shoulder?”
Her stomach flip-flopped at the subtle dash of spice emanating from his skin.
“Just peachy.” She stepped away from him and reached for the refrigerator door. “OJ?”
“Sure.” He took the container she proffered, puzzlement clouding his eyes.
She got him a glass and picked up her uneaten piece of toast.
“I hate to say it, but I’m running late. I’ll eat this on the way.” She forced herself to smile. She really wasn’t angry. Really. But if she didn’t have time for a man in general, she definitely didn’t have time for a player. “Thanks again for everything. Good luck.”
She stopped in the hall to pull on her paddock boots. Chase followed and touched her arm as she straightened and reached for the garage door. His eyes held familiar concern.
“Hey. Are you really okay?”
“Chase.” She met his eyes, hers resolute. “I’m fine. So from this moment on you’re off the clock. You can stop worrying.”
CHASE STARED AT the back door for long seconds after it closed behind Jill’s swinging ponytail. Her coolness thoroughly bewildered him in the wake of their warm friendship. Dee smiled a little too knowingly.
“What am I missing?” he asked.
“I think she’s a little miffed at us.” She gave her coffee mug a satisfied smirk. “She has a window that looks out onto the backyard.”
A spasm of chagrin twisted Chase’s gut. “What? Oh, that’s great. And I suppose now she thinks we …” He glanced toward the door.
Dee stepped in front of him and placed a hand on his chest. “Don’t feel sorry for her. She‘ll milk this for sympathy and then be over it. Are you sure you haven’t changed your mind?”
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