“Granddad, she doesn’t hold that against you. Not after all this time.”
“Wouldn’t blame her if she did.” He met Jason’s gaze. “You run along. I know you have plans.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I think I’ll stay here and have a brandy. I saw some of my friends go into the card room a while back. Maybe I’ll join them. Haven’t played bridge since your grandmother died.”
Jason felt torn. He didn’t want to leave his grandfather alone when he was in this strange melancholy mood, but he didn’t dare cancel the plans with Sammy, either. The idea of asking his grandfather along crossed his mind, but he dismissed it at once. If his grandfather had tried to keep his father and a woman as sweet as Lacey Grainger apart, who knew what he would do if he met Sammy while he was at his rebellious worst. It might forever change the way he felt toward Dana and, for some reason he couldn’t entirely explain, Jason didn’t want that to happen.
He squeezed his grandfather’s shoulder. “Try not to worry. Dad will be okay.”
Brandon placed a hand over his. “At my age worrying about family just comes naturally.”
As Jason drove across town to Dana’s, he knew exactly what his grandfather meant. All through dinner Dana and Sammy had never been far from his mind. Family. His family. The thought brought him up short. Where the hell had that come from?
When he got to the apartment, he bounded up the stairs and rapped lightly on the door, wondering if he shouldn’t be taking the first flight out of town instead.
Dana looked surprised to see him. “I thought you were going to call first.”
“I said I’d be here at eight. Is Sammy ready?”
“He’s not here.”
Jason’s gaze narrowed. “What do you mean he’s not here?” he asked slowly, fighting to keep a lid on his temper.
She held up a hand. “Don’t get angry. He’s just downstairs. He’ll be back in a minute. I want to talk to you before you leave, anyway.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for the explosion of outrage over his arrogant interference. Dana watched him for a minute, then said, “I’m sorry.”
He blinked. “Sorry?”
Her smile was rueful. “Don’t sound so shocked. You know perfectly well I owed you an apology. I overreacted at the school this afternoon. You were just trying to help. I don’t know why you’d want to get mixed up in this, but I’m grateful.”
He brushed an errant hair away from her face. “Why did my wanting to help upset you so much in the first place?”
As if to escape his touch, she began to pace. “I thought you were convinced I couldn’t handle it myself. Since I was already feeling like a failure, it was like rubbing salt in a wound. I’ve done a lot of thinking since then. If you can accomplish something with Sammy that I can’t, then that has to be my first priority. I won’t interfere.”
Jason heard the stoic resolve and sensed the deep hurt behind it. “Dana,” he said, stepping in front of her and taking her hands, “you have not failed anyone, least of all your brother.”
She regarded him anxiously. “Then why does it feel that way?”
“Because parents—and for all intents and purposes that’s what you are—parents always seem to blame themselves when things go wrong for their kids. I just spent a couple of hours with my grandfather, who’s feeling guilty for mistakes he made years ago with my father. Sammy isn’t a child anymore. He’s making choices for himself, choices you can’t control.”
“But they’re such bad choices.”
“Yes,” he agreed, seeing no reason to sugarcoat the obvious. “And between us, we are going to make him see that.”
Uncertain whose need was greater, he pulled her into his arms and simply held her. At first she was stiff, but then she melted against him, her arms tightening around his waist, her cheek resting against his chest. Jason felt the distinct stirring of desire at the press of her breasts, the warm brush of her thighs. As if he was no longer in control, his hands slid down her back to cup her bottom more tightly against him. He felt an immediate rush of heat and drew in a ragged breath. This felt far too right. What would happen when he could no longer get his common sense to outweigh this attraction that was growing day by day? What worried him most was that it was deepening on all levels, not just the physical. As he became more and more entangled in Dana’s life, he saw her strengths more clearly. She was beginning to bring out traits in him that he hadn’t even known existed. Just being here tonight was a perfect example, but spending an evening with Sammy was the last thing on his mind at the moment.
Jason tilted Dana’s chin up and gazed into her eyes. “I want you,” he said bluntly, so there could be no mistaking his intentions.
Her eyes widened. “Where did that come from?”
Though his body ached for her, he tried to laugh off the desire. He loosened his hold, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to release her. “I’ll be damned if I know,” he admitted. “Sometimes I’m just as stunned by it as you are. Something tells me that sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with these feelings, though. We can’t go on denying them.”
Dana wasn’t sure whether her heart was hammering from Jason’s nearness or from his promise. It was something she wasn’t likely to discover tonight, either.
Jason stepped away just as the door opened and Sammy burst in. His glance went from Jason to Dana and back again. For an instant he looked as if he wanted to make an issue out of the embrace he’d interrupted, but apparently he read something in Jason’s expression that stopped him. Dana was grateful for that. She didn’t think she could stand another outburst on a day that had been filled with emotional peaks and valleys.
Though he kept one hand on her waist, Jason focused his attention on Sammy. “You ready, pal?”
“Where are we going?”
“To the gym. If you feel like fighting, I’m going to show you a way to do it that will keep you out of trouble.”
Dana saw the reluctant spark of interest in Sammy’s eyes and heard the eagerness in his tone when he asked, “You and me are gonna fight?”
“That’s right,” Jason said.
Somehow the prospect of her brother and Jason going at it tooth and nail did not strike Dana as a wildly terrific idea. Jason would expect to play by the rules. Sammy would not. “I’m coming, too,” she announced, grabbing her jacket.
Both men stared at her. “Why?” Sammy asked. “You don’t like it when I fight.”
“That’s right. Besides, I will not have either of you knowing moves that I can’t counter,” she said, giving Jason a meaningful look.
“Dana,” he protested.
“Don’t even try to stop me. I’ve made up my mind. I’ll get my things.”
As she left the room, Jason and Sammy exchanged a what-do-you-expect-from-a-woman sort of look.
“Okay,” Jason said with obvious reluctance. “Let’s go.”
At the sight of the seedy gym, Dana began to have second thoughts. For some reason she’d been hoping for some fancy health club, maybe a sterile martial arts studio with mirrors and mats. She had not been expecting a place with punching bags that looked as if they’d been through a half century of practice, a decrepit barn of a building where the smell of sweat and the sound of painful grunts were clearly commonplace. What startled her even more than the grime and low-class atmosphere was the fact that Jason seemed perfectly at home.
Half a dozen men in boxing shorts, their bare chests gleaming with perspiration, greeted him and stared at her with open curiosity. She halted just inside the door. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” she said, though she had to admit to a certain fascination.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Jason said with a grin. “You’re not backing out on us now. Just try to keep your eyes off all the other men.” He turned toward the grizzled old man who was working with a gigantic black man. “Hey, Johnny, since we’re short on ladies’ dressing rooms around he
re, do you mind if my friend uses your office to change?”
“It’s okay with me, as long as she doesn’t try to tidy up.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dana declared, though she had cause to reconsider when she saw the mess the office was in.
Apparently paperwork was not Johnny’s forte. Stacks of it, most with yellowed corners and faded type, were piled on what was most likely a dining room table. Nothing that looked remotely like a file cabinet existed, though there were a dozen or so boxes scattered on the floor. It seemed as though someone had once made a haphazard attempt to turn those boxes into a filing system. They were lettered A-F, G-I and so on. Most contained boxing gloves and what looked to be bottles of liniment. Dana itched to make order out of chaos, but settled for changing into shorts and a T-shirt.
It took a certain amount of courage to step back out into a room filled with sweaty, macho men in what suddenly seemed to be fairly revealing attire. She quickly realized, though, that Jason seemed to be the only one paying much attention to her legs. The look in his eyes made her pulse race. At this rate she wouldn’t have to bother with aerobics to get her heart rate up—the sight of Jason’s bare chest, with its whorl of golden blond hairs, was enough to do that. She’d never expected to discover such well-developed muscles under those sedate clothes he seemed born to wear.
He provided her and Sammy with boxing gloves, then led them to a punching bag. He demonstrated in slow motion, then gestured for them to try it. Dana drew back and slammed her fist into the bag. She felt the shock all the way up her arm. Determinedly she punched again.
“Get a rhythm going,” Jason suggested to Sammy, who seemed intent on knocking the bag from its mooring in the ceiling. “This is all about finesse, not just brute strength.”
Sammy’s attention kept straying toward the ring in the center of the room. “When do you and me get to fight?” he asked Jason with what Dana thought was an entirely too bloodthirsty tone.
“When you know what you’re doing,” Jason said. “You haven’t even worked up a good sweat yet.”
Dana, however, was dripping from the effort. She’d had no idea how out of shape she was. With her schedule there was no time for running, much less the money for an expensive health club and the forms of exercise available there.
Breathless, she grabbed a towel and sank down onto a chair just outside of Johnny’s office. Jason followed her.
“You okay?”
“I’m okay now. Something tells me tomorrow will be a different story.”
“A nice hot shower will do you good.”
Something in his tone brought her head up. “Here?”
“You’ll catch cold if you go back outside without changing into dry clothes.”
“But you said there wasn’t a women’s dressing room.”
“I could come in and keep the place clear for a few minutes.”
“Why don’t I think that’s an entirely benevolent offer?”
He grinned. “Because you understand me too well. However, I’m unlikely to try to ravish you or even join you in the shower with so many witnesses, including your brother. You’ll be safe enough.”
Dana had to admit that a steaming shower sounded like heaven. “Are you sure the guys won’t mind?”
“They’ll wait.”
“I’ll get my clothes,” she said.
At the door to the locker room, she experienced another moment of doubt. Going into a male domain struck her as being on the cutting edge of a danger she wasn’t sure she wanted to experience. Then again, Jason was going to be there to see that no one bothered her. For all of his teasing and innuendoes, she knew from his support at the school today and from what he was now doing for Sammy, that she could trust him with her life. She’d never before known a man who could inspire that kind of trust.
“Five minutes,” she promised.
“Take your time.” He stationed himself protectively in the doorway.
“You did check inside, right? No one’s in there?”
“I guarantee it. Believe me, if I’m stuck out here, no one else is going to share that shower with you.”
Dana couldn’t resist patting his cheek. “You are so noble.”
“No,” he said softly, “I’m not. Remember that.”
The low warning with its hint of intimacy doubled the temperature in the shower. Dana wasn’t sure whether the steam arose from the water or her thoughts. Whichever it was, she decided she didn’t dare linger. The sooner she got outside, where the cold air could snap her back to reality, the better off she’d be.
She toweled herself dry, tugged on her clothes and exited the locker room to discover that Johnny was posted as guard.
“Where’s Jason?” she asked the old man, who grinned at her.
“Over there.” He pointed toward the ring.
Jason was in the center squared off with a man who had a good twenty pounds and six inches in height on him. Sammy was standing ringside, his gaze fastened on Jason with something akin to awe on his face as Jason’s blows landed with speed and obvious cunning. Dana winced as his opponent directed a punch straight at Jason’s jaw, then followed with one to his midsection. Jason countered with a hit that rocked the other man back on his heels. He staggered and sank to the mat.
Grinning, Jason held out his hand and gave the other man a boost up.
“That was awesome,” Sammy said, when Jason left the ring. “How’d you learn to fight like that?”
“My father and his father before him. We were all on the boxing teams at our colleges.”
“How long before I can be that good?”
Jason shrugged. “Depends on how hard you’re willing to practice.”
“Could I come back here, maybe after school sometimes?”
Though Dana wasn’t really certain how she felt about boxing as a sport for Sammy, she was more than ready to give anything a try that would keep him off the streets and away from his old friends. “It’s okay with me,” she said. “Jason, is it possible?”
Jason nodded. “Let’s go talk to Johnny. Maybe he’ll work with you when I can’t be here.”
Dana watched as they crossed the gym. The two men who meant the most to her, she thought as her breath seemed to catch in her throat. Her brother, who’d been everything to her from the day he was born. And the man who, unwillingly or not, seemed destined to become an integral part of her life.
Sammy was standing just a little taller than usual, and for the first time in weeks the note of hostility in his voice had vanished. He actually seemed excited about something. She owed Jason for that. She wasn’t entirely sure why he had done it, but the reason mattered far less than the outcome. The motivation worried her, but she couldn’t deny that the gift was precious.
What would he expect in return, though? There was every indication that he was beginning to want her in his bed. A man as virile and attractive as Jason would have a healthy love life. Undoubtedly he wasn’t used to a woman saying no. Despite all of her qualms about deepening the bond between them, Dana couldn’t deny that they appeared destined to make love sooner or later unless they stopped seeing each other altogether. The attraction grew hotter with each meeting. She was beginning to experience this odd, aching emptiness each time his kisses ended, an emptiness she suspected only Jason could fill. And the look in his eyes told her he wanted her every bit as badly. It was a turn of events she definitely hadn’t counted on.
She couldn’t allow herself to confuse wanting with love, though. Unexpected attractions sprang up between all sorts of mismatched people. That didn’t mean they had to break their hearts by falling in love. If she kept her eyes wide open, if she experienced the wild sensations promised by Jason’s touches just once, she could walk away with her heart unscathed.
Rot! She was deluding herself and she knew it. But because of Sammy, she couldn’t walk away now, while the damage would be minimal. Jason was proving to be a good influence, and she wouldn’t rob her brother of a chance to get
his life in order. She would just have to be strong enough to withstand Jason’s best efforts to woo her.
That was easier said than done, she decided an hour later as they sat in a tiny Italian restaurant that smelled of garlic and tomato sauce. A huge pizza loaded with everything sat in the center of the table. Sammy was greedily eating his fourth or fifth slice. Her first slice sat half-eaten on the plate in front of her. Jason’s eyes were on her, as if he found her far more tempting than anything the restaurant had to offer.
Fortunately Sammy kept up a non-stop stream of questions that diverted Jason’s attention for five- and ten-minute spurts, just long enough for her to catch her breath. He answered distractedly, but his gaze never wavered from her. That avid attention was enough to give a woman wild ideas about her attractiveness, yet Dana knew she couldn’t look all that great after a workout and a shower that had soaked her hair.
As if he’d read her mind, Jason leaned close and murmured, “You look gorgeous with your cheeks all flushed like that. Throwing a few punches obviously agrees with you.”
She thought of the punch she’d thrown the day they’d met and grinned. “I can think of some occasions when that’s been true.”
Obviously following her thoughts, he grinned back. “Maybe teaching you the rudiments of boxing is not such a hot idea, after all. As I recall, you packed a pretty good punch without it.”
Sammy looked intrigued. “You hit him?”
“She did,” Jason answered for her. “I was just standing there minding my own business and your sister came up and slugged me. Apparently starting brawls is a family trait.”
Sammy’s gaze narrowed. “Why’d she hit you? Were you coming on to her?”
“Actually she was defending your honor. She thought I was the creep who sold you that stolen VCR.”
Her brother squirmed uncomfortably. “You know about that?”
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