by Teresa Hill
“But I never believed I could resort to anything like that myself. Wyatt, this is horrible. This is completely unacceptable. One minute, I was fine, and the next, I just saw red, literally, and I was taking a swing at him.”
“Jane, I’ve nearly decked him a time or two myself, and I assure you that I too abhor violence. I’ve had abused women in my office, as well, trying to work up the courage to divorce their abusers.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, still aghast at her own behavior, standing on the walkway at the retirement park, looking around like she’d just found herself on another planet.
“It’s all right. I promise. And I’m sorry I grabbed you like that. I was just trying to keep you from hitting him.”
“And I’m so glad you did.”
“What did he do to make you so mad?”
“I went to talk to Gladdy about him, and I caught them necking in her room! And he was so awful! He called me names and said I just needed to learn to have some fun. Fun! He’s going to hurt my grandmother and Gladdy’s feelings terribly, and he thinks it’s fun!”
Jane realized she’d said it like fun was a dirty word, which she didn’t believe, and she wasn’t really a prude, was she?
“But I wasn’t really going to hit him, Wyatt, I swear! I changed my mind. Midway through that swing, I realized what I was doing and changed my mind. I just wasn’t sure if I could stop in time. My briefcase was already headed for him, and I just…I don’t…This is sooo awful!”
“Jane, it’s fine. Everyone’s fine.”
“And then you grabbed me, and I didn’t know it was you, and I—”
“I know. I didn’t mean to manhandle you. I just had to act fast, and…well, I’m sorry.”
And then she looked horrified again, raised her hand to the side of his face and said, “I hit you!”
His right eye throbbed a bit. “It’s nothing,” he insisted.
“No. It’s turning red and a little puffy.” She touched it, with her fingertips, featherlight, trying to find the extent of the blow. “Oh, my God, Wyatt! I could have put your eye out!”
“I seriously doubt that.”
“No, I’ve been trained to do that.” She seemed absolutely convinced that she could. “A man attacks you, you go for the eyes. It’s one of the most vulnerable spots on the body. Eyes, nose with the heel of your hand, groin—”
“Okay, thankfully, I came out of this unscathed.”
“No, we have to get something on that eye. Ohhh,” she fretted. “I feel awful about this. You have to let me help you.”
“Well, if you insist,” he said, turning himself over to her tender care.
Gladdy, Leo and Kathleen watched from the cover of the rhododendrons fifteen feet away.
“Ladies, I’m afraid I overplayed the scene,” Leo said.
“Nonsense. Jane overreacted,” Gram stated. “Gladdy and I should have warned you about that. Poor Jane does tend to overreact.”
“She’s got some fire in her, all right. I like that in a woman,” Leo admitted. “Couldn’t believe she actually took a swing at me. Didn’t think she had it in her.”
“It was the ‘girly’ remark,” Gladdy said. “And I may have overplayed things a bit myself with her.”
“Of course not. It worked perfectly,” Kathleen insisted. “Look at them. Jane feels terrible about what she did and Wyatt’s comforting her. It’s so sweet. They’ve known each other for less than three days and there they are. I’d say our plan to get them together is a rousing success.”
“Well, in that case, ladies,” Leo said, “would you care to join me for a celebratory drink? I have champagne chilling in the minifridge in my room. We can decide on our next move and commemorate the success of this one.”
Wyatt took Jane back to his apartment, which was a mere four blocks away—a sleek, shiny, modern, expensive loft in a high-rise on the edge of town.
Jane taking charge was something to behold. She pushed him down to sit in the middle of the big, cushy sofa the minute they had walked in the door, and told him not to move. He complied.
She got ice from the kitchen, lectured him mildly about the need to take care of himself properly once she found out he didn’t even have an ice pack, explained that one should always be prepared for life’s emergencies, then said they’d make do with a ziplock bag wrapped in a hand towel.
She came to stand behind him, took his head in her hands and eased it back against the sofa cushions. Then she placed the makeshift ice pack on his right eye.
“Keep that there while I search your bathroom. You must have some ointment and bandages somewhere.”
He sprawled on the couch, leaning back as instructed and holding the ice to his eye. He never imagined a woman giving orders to him would be so sexy. Normally, he was a take-charge kind of guy. Not that he ordered women around, either. Just that…well, he couldn’t help but wonder now exactly how Jane would be in bed.
Would all those spitfire tendencies come out? That take-charge attitude, demanding what she wanted from him?
Wyatt had a hard time imagining Jane knowing what she truly wanted in bed, much less demanding it. She was cute, but didn’t seem to have much use for men, and any woman who’d been truly satisfied in bed would have at least one use for a man, he reasoned. He suspected she was very good at pushing men away, at keeping them at arm’s length, and not that good at really letting herself go in any situation.
Not that he thought he’d see her in his bed anytime soon.
There had to be a dozen women he knew who’d be so much less trouble than Jane, although, he thought, once there, Jane would be interesting and definitely a challenge.
And Wyatt would admit to being a man who liked a challenge.
She came back a moment later and he felt the couch cushions give with her weight, as she knelt on the seat beside him, bracing her side on the back of the couch as she leaned over him.
Removing the ice pack, she frowned down at him, her face maybe an inch from his as she inspected his eye.
“It’s all red and puffy now,” she complained, sighing heavily, her warm breath brushing across his cheek, his ear.
He shivered just a bit, wondering what she’d do if he pushed her backward to lay on the couch, stretched out on top of her and started giving a few orders of his own. Would she give him a smile and wind her arms around him? More likely, she’d try to hit him again or really put his eye out this time.
The woman thought she was a champion kickboxer, after all.
Wyatt grinned, laughing a bit, unable to help himself.
“What? There’s nothing funny about this. I feel terrible, Wyatt.”
“Well, I don’t,” he said. “It’s really nothing, Jane. I can hardly feel it anymore. I assure you, I’m fine.” As long as she didn’t figure out where his thoughts were going at the moment.
She put the ice pack aside and came up with some kind of ointment, which she then very carefully spread with her fingertips along his eyelid, his brow and the side of his face. And as she got closer and concentrated harder on getting it in exactly the right place and not his eye, her body leaned into the side of his, one breast pressed against his shoulder.
He felt like someone had installed a giant neon Trouble sign in his apartment when he wasn’t looking, and that it had just flickered on and was blinking in a fire-engine red color.
Trouble, trouble, trouble!
He had real problems to deal with. Leo and his penchant for getting kicked out of retirement complexes had Wyatt worried that there would be no place in all of Maryland that would take his uncle, once Ms. Steele put the word out about him. And the easiest way to fix that problem was for Wyatt and Jane to work together.
If he made her mad, came on to her, offended her, hurt her, he doubted they’d be working together to solve the Leo problem any longer. So Ms. Jane Carlton was definitely off-limits. It would be more trouble in the long run than any short-term fling with her would be worth.
So what
if she smelled really good? And had the sweetest, gentlest touch in a little spitfire of a body? Which he suspected no man had ever properly awakened before. Surely he was capable of exercising some kind of discipline where a woman was concerned.
He shifted his weight, thinking to ease away from her, and instead, set her off balance and her whole body fell against his. No question now. Those were her breasts pressed against him, her neck and her sweet, sassy Jane mouth right at the corner of his own.
She gasped in surprise, her eyes suddenly all big and round and so close to his, not blinking. Neither of them breathed for an instant.
He could have her flat on her back in a moment. Or take her by her thighs and pull her across his lap facing him, palm those pretty hips he’d had pressed against him earlier and pull her tight against him. He knew it, and if he knew anything about women, she was thinking the same thing.
Discipline, Wyatt. It’s not just a word.
“Jane,” he whispered, hardly able to believe he was actually doing this, taking her arms in his hands and steadying her, then easing her away from him, to sit on her knees on the cushion beside him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw you off balance like that.”
She just looked at him, sexy and baffled and maybe embarrassed, which was the last thing he wanted.
“And I’m just not sure what you want here,” he confessed. “But I know what I want, and I really don’t want to offend you.”
She seemed a little dazed, innocent. Damn.
“What I want?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I…I was just trying to fix your eye.”
“Okay.” He smiled what he hoped was an I-understand-perfectly smile and not an I-wanted-to-jump-your-bones one. “That’s what I thought you were doing. My mistake.”
“Mistake?”
She looked a little sad then, a little embarrassed. He could feel her withdrawing from him, even though she hadn’t actually moved an inch.
“I’m just…I’m a guy, okay? Some women would say, I’m not a very nice guy. That I…well, when a woman gets this close and is…touching me…I get ideas. Ideas that, I’m afraid, were not the same ideas you were having, and…well, you’re a beautiful woman, Jane.”
She scrambled to get off the couch, to get away from him, hot color blooming in her cheeks as she got all flustered. “You thought…I was coming on to you?”
He nodded, thinking honesty probably wasn’t the best policy here, that he’d offended her, when, he swore to God, he’d been trying to do the exact opposite. To keep from offending her.
Women. They could just be so hard to read, and sometimes it seemed there was no way to win. No way at all.
Come on to her and offend her? Don’t come on to her and still offend her?
What was a guy to do?
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“Jane, it’s no big deal—
She blushed even more furiously. “I would never—”
“Never?” Now that hurt. “Never?”
“I’m not…I mean to say, I don’t—”
“Don’t what?” Now he had to know. Never with anyone? No way. Not in this day and age. Or no way, no how, with him? That seemed like overstating it a bit. “What do you mean, never?”
“I don’t…throw myself at men.”
Okay, that he believed, though in his thoroughly male opinion it was a shame.
The world should be full of women who threw themselves at men. Of course, it was, he’d found, but not many of those women were like Jane.
“I’m sorry. For everything. And I just…I have to go,” she said.
“You really don’t,” he claimed.
“I do.” She turned and fled.
Wyatt swore softly and succinctly, his body humming with desire, still feeling her pressed against him, her soft hands on his face.
He was an idiot. A complete idiot where women like her were concerned.
Chapter Five
Jane Carlton did not come on to men.
At least, she didn’t think she did.
She didn’t mean to.
Her face burned when she remembered being on the couch with Wyatt the day before. He’d thought she was making a pass at him? And he’d been trying to say…he’d welcome that?
Surely not.
“You’re frowning again,” Lainie said, standing in the doorway with a batch of message slips with Jane’s calls on them. “What in the world happened to you yesterday?”
Jane, if puzzling over anyone’s behavior except Wyatt’s, would have normally turned to Gram and Gladdy for advice on men. Between the two of them, she doubted there was any situation Jane might find herself in that they hadn’t already been in themselves. But she couldn’t talk to them about Wyatt. Not when she was trying to keep his uncle away from both of them.
She figured Lainie was her best shot for help here.
“Can I ask you something about men?” Jane blurted out before she lost her nerve.
Lainie giggled.
“Why is that so funny?” Jane asked, finding Lainie’s reaction slightly offensive, maybe more than slightly.
“It’s not funny. I’m just so happy, Jane!” she said, like Jane had announced she was eloping or something.
“It’s just a question.”
“Okay. Go ahead. Please.” Lainie sounded so eager. “Anything I can do to help.”
“You think I need help with men?”
“Oh, definitely.”
No hesitation there. Jane pictured herself as a virtual wrecking yard of relationships, like there might be a sign that said, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
“It’s about…coming on to men,” she said, wishing she’d never started this whole thing.
“Oh!” Lainie clapped her hands together like a kid who’d just received a terrific present. “This is sooooo good! Jane, I’m so proud of you. You actually want to make the first move with a man!”
“No, I didn’t say that. I’m just…trying to find out if I already did.”
“Well, that’s even better! Tell me! Tell me everything,” she begged.
Jane thought about how she might explain, then decided it would probably be better to just show Lainie. There was a love seat in Jane’s office, after all.
“Shut the door,” she instructed, then got up and walked over to the love seat. “I just…sit down and let me show you.”
“Okay.” Lainie sat.
Jane knelt on the love seat, conscious now of how hard it was to keep her balance. “Lean your head back.”
Lainie did, and Jane eased closer.
“Now, you’ve hurt your eye, and I’m…I’m trying to fix it. That’s it. Just trying to fix it. Like this, except you’re a lot taller than me, so I had to reach up higher. If I did that, would you think I was coming on to you?”
She reached up to a point past Lainie’s eye and then looked down and realized her breasts were practically in Lainie’s face when she made that move.
“Oh, no!” Jane cried.
Lainie lifted her head before Jane could move away, and then…sure enough, breasts in her face.
While Lainie giggled, Jane went to brace herself against Lainie’s body to get out of the way, but before she could do that, she heard a voice.
A man’s voice, Wyatt’s, clearing his throat and then saying, “Ladies, I’m so sorry. There was no one at the desk out front, and I…seem to have caught you at a bad time.”
Jane froze, her mouth dropping open.
This could not be happening.
Lainie looked over Jane’s shoulder. She could see Lainie taking the whole thing in. Mulling it over. Wyatt, how gorgeous he was. His eye, no doubt at least a bit bruised. Jane’s worry about coming on to a man. Jane shoving her breasts practically in his face while she tried to fix his eye and needing to reenact the whole scene to figure that out.
She was a complete idiot.
She looked to Lainie, mouthing, Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone
with him. Please!
“Sorry.” Lainie laughed and got up from the couch. “I’m sure I have…something to do at my desk.”
Jane hung her head down and stayed there, sat back on her heels on the love seat, thinking if she never had to turn around and look at him, she might live through this day with just a shred of her dignity intact.
She heard Lainie introduce herself and Wyatt’s gloriously deep, beautiful voice saying, “Wyatt Gray. So nice to meet you.”
And then Lainie disappeared, closing the door behind her.
Jane stayed where she was and said, “If I paid you…like a million dollars, would you turn around and go away? So that we never had to talk about this?”
He laughed. Beautifully. The sound like a current zinging through her body.
And then he walked over and sat down beside her. She still perched there on her knees, not wanting to shove any part of herself into his face, either accidentally or on purpose.
He looked like a man who couldn’t be more pleased with himself or his life at this moment. Wearing a gorgeously expensive suit that wrapped faithfully around his altogether impressive body, he sat there, slightly blackened eye and all, looking completely at ease and holding a huge bouquet of exotic-looking flowers in his hand.
“Jane, I’m seldom wrong about these things, but with you…Well, I suppose it’s a possibility. I just haven’t had a lot of dealings with women like you. You don’t…like women, do you?”
“What? Of course, I like women. Women are great, women are—”
“Sexually,” he clarified.
“Oh. You mean…me and Lainie? Me and…women? That way?”
He nodded.
“No! I…No! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, I like men.” She got all flustered then, and kept talking, which she tended to do when flustered. Fill the silence and try to move on. “Granted, not a lot of men. But I do…like…men. I mean, I have to admit I like them more in theory than reality, but…Well…Oh, my God!”
She buried her head in her hands and gave up.
Too much information, Jane.