Having been the foreman’s quarters when the retreat was still a ranch, her cabin was the largest and set off by itself, tucked back several hundred feet into the woods, where enormous pines towered like sentries. It made her feel safe, and she treasured her privacy. It was the perfect home for her and Adam. She would be forever indebted to Maureen for giving them a place to stay when she’d had no place else to go, for helping her turn her life around when she’d run out of options.
“That boy they were talking about,” Will said. “Eric, was it? He’s had it pretty rough, huh?”
At the mere mention of his name she felt a jab to her heart. “I can’t go into specifics, but yes. His life hasn’t been a picnic.”
“You’re good with them—the kids, I mean.”
“That’s my job.”
“No, you really care about them. That makes it more than a job.”
For some reason his words made her feel all warm and soft. She did care. Sometimes too much. To the degree that it was hard to let go when their stay there ended. But it was worth it if those children walked away a little less angry or a little less hurt and confused than when they’d arrived. And there were always new kids to focus on, new activities to plan. Her son to take care of.
“What do you do for a living, Will?”
“I’m an analyst for the federal government. Homeland Security.” It was about as close to the truth as Will could get without coming right out and saying he was FBI. He’d worked undercover long enough to know you stuck with the truth as often as possible. The fewer lies he had to remember, the less likely he was to make a mistake.
“Sounds exciting,” she said.
“It’s not. The truth is, it’s a lot of paperwork and red tape.”
“Where are you from?”
Small talk, he thought with a grin. He could do that. It was the first step to friendship, which was exactly what he needed from her. “I’ve lived in New York for the past fifteen years, but I was raised all over. I’m an Army brat.” He plucked a leaf from a cluster of scrubby-looking shrubs as they walked past and slowly picked it apart. “How about you? Where do you call home?”
“I was born in New Mexico, but my mom moved us around a lot, too. This is the only real home I’ve had.”
He wanted to ask about Maureen, but he knew it was too soon. If he pushed now, she might get suspicious. He had to gain her trust first and he was getting the feeling that might not be so simple. She walked alongside him, head lowered as if she were afraid to look him in the eye, and she kept a good two feet of mossy ground between them. Everything about her body language screamed Back off, so he kept his distance.
“It was hard on you?” he asked. “Moving around like that?”
“I guess. Sometimes we weren’t even in one place long enough for me to make friends. Other times she’d meet someone and we’d stay a while. She married a couple of them, but it never lasted.”
“My parents were married for thirty-five years when my father died—not that it was a good marriage.” The words father and husband had merely been titles to Will’s dad. What he’d been right up until the day he died was a glorified bully. Will had never understood why his mother had put up with it for so long. But she had, spending year after year taking orders and doing whatever she could to keep her husband happy, and he’d not been a man easily pleased.
“So many marriages aren’t,” she said, sounding inexplicably sad. She probably saw some pretty nasty stuff working at a place like this.
After two hellish divorces, you wouldn’t catch him taking that walk down the aisle again. Wife number two had been clingy before the explosion, but in the months afterward she’d been downright unbearable. She’d cried the entire first week after the bandages had come off. She’d be fine; then she’d look at him and the tears would start to pour. He couldn’t run to the store for a six-pack without her giving him the third degree, and if he wasn’t back at the exact second he said he would be, she would go into hysterics.
A week before his medical leave was scheduled to end, she’d said she couldn’t take it anymore and had given him an ultimatum—quit his job or pack his bags. Ironically in the span of a year it was the only time she’d ever asserted herself.
So he’d packed.
His marriage to wife number one—who he fondly referred to as “the whiner”—had ended similarly. She had always been complaining about something. He was too bossy or too unemotional or he just didn’t love her enough. Then she’d gotten on her baby kick and he’d thought he’d never hear the end of it. What it boiled down to was she’d wanted babies and he hadn’t been ready, and all the crying and whining and carrying on she’d done had only driven him further away. Then had come the ultimatum. Give me a baby or pack your bags.
So he’d packed.
His philosophy was that some people just weren’t meant to be married. They weren’t built that way. There was no perfect mate a person was meant to be with. It was all a crapshoot. It was luck, and he’d never been particularly lucky when it came to his personal life.
They passed a group of children coming back from the direction of the lake, and when they saw him, eyes widened and jaws hung. He was used to it. It amused him sometimes how honest children could be with their emotions. And yes, sometimes it annoyed him. Sometimes it even hurt a little.
They whispered to each other, giggled, then scurried off toward the guest cabins on the opposite end of the resort.
“I think I’m going to have a talk with those kids about manners,” Abi said, her tone so sharp and biting it surprised him. “That kind of behavior is unacceptable.”
Will brushed it off with a wave of his hand. “It happens all the time. It’s normal for kids to be afraid or curious about things or people that look different. It’s human nature.”
For the first time since they’d begun walking she looked up at him. “There’s nothing they can do? About the scars, I mean.”
“They considered doing a skin graft, but they couldn’t guarantee how good it would look. There was talk about infection and complications. I could lose sight in that eye and end up with even more nerve damage. I decided I would rather leave it this way than take my chances. I figure it gives my face character.”
She smiled up at him—a genuine and open smile. Even in the fading light he could see that her eyes were really quite remarkable. What he’d believed was a dull brown upon closer inspection was really a spectrum of browns and greens and yellows.
“That’s a nice way to look at it. Not many people are that comfortable in their own skin.” She gestured past the other cabins, into the woods. “I live over there.”
They turned down a narrow path that led to the large cabin nestled back among the trees. The front porch spanned the entire width of the house, and a wood swing hung from its eaves. The temperature dropped as they walked deeper under the trees, and the scent of pine and moss filled the air. He found himself slowing his steps, prolonging their inevitable parting. She was a little closer now. If he were to sway slightly to the right, he might bump arms with her. For some reason the idea of touching her held an almost irresistible appeal.
“This is home,” she said.
“Cozy.” Despite growing up in urban areas, it had always been a dream of his to live somewhere like this. Somewhere serene and peaceful, away from the hectic pace of the city.
Someday, when he retired maybe.
“The first time I saw this place I fell in love with it,” she said, her face the picture of tranquility, until she glanced up at him and the shutters came down again.
“My face really does bother you, doesn’t it?”
“No, I just…” She bit her lip and lowered her eyes to the ground. “I don’t know what my problem is.”
“You know,” he said as they reached the porch, “when a child is frightened by my face, when they don’t know how to act, I have a trick to put them at ease.”
“You do?”
“Give me your hand,”
he said, and she gave him a wary look. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”
Reluctantly she held it out. Her fingers were long and graceful-looking, her nails short, clean and neat. He took her hand between both of his, and she tensed.
“I don’t bite.” Lifting her hand to his face, he flattened her palm against his cheek. First her eyes went wide, then she blinked with surprise. He circled her wrist so she wouldn’t pull away. “It’s okay,” he said. “Touch it.”
Very gently, as if she thought it might sting, she brushed her fingers over the side of his face.
“See, it’s just skin.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“I had some nerve damage, so I really don’t feel much of anything. Extreme hot and cold mostly. And pressure.” He gave her the crooked grin that had become his trademark since the accident. “The left side of my mouth doesn’t always cooperate, either. But I have less area to shave, so it does have its positive points.”
She gave him a shy grin. “The skin, it’s almost…soft.”
He let his hand slip from her wrist, expecting her to pull away, but she didn’t. Instead she lifted her hand higher, ran her thumb over the deep scar that split his eyebrow in half.
A tiny wrinkle formed between her brows. “So close to your eye.”
“Yeah, it’s a miracle I didn’t lose it.” He watched her as she gently explored his face. Her skin was tan, and the beginnings of crow’s-feet marked the corners of her eyes, meaning she was probably older than he’d originally thought. Her cheekbones were high, her mouth wide. With a little color for emphasis, her lips could even be described as lush—especially when she smiled. She was neither tall nor short. Neither heavy nor thin.
Individually her features were ordinary, but all put together, there was something about her, something almost…sexy. Which was weird because at first glance she’d seemed one of the least sexy woman he’d ever met.
Her eyes locked on his and her lips parted slightly, and something in the air shifted. He couldn’t even be sure what it was that had changed, all he knew was that he wanted to touch her. He wanted to smooth his fingers over her face, brush his thumb over the softness of her lower lip.
He wanted to kiss her.
Her eyes darkened a shade and her lids slipped down, as if they were too heavy to hold open, and her gaze strayed to his mouth. He found himself wondering what she would taste like, if it would be slow and sweet or hot and wild.
Definitely slow and sweet, he decided. She wasn’t the hot-and-wild type at all.
Unconsciously he lowered his head, and she must have read his thoughts because the spell was instantly broken. The guard she wore snapped back down over her eyes, and she pulled her hand away from his face.
“I—I have to go.” She backed up the porch steps. In the fading light he could see her eyes were like saucers, as if he’d scared the holy hell out of her.
Let her go, his conscience warned him. He’d pushed too far too fast. On the bright side, at least she was looking at him now. Looking at him as though he was the devil incarnate.
A little bit of damage control might even be in order.
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he told her.
“I’m not uncomfortable,” she said.
She was lying, but he let it go. He thought about shaking her hand, but everything in her stance said to back off.
He tucked his hands back into his pockets instead. “Thanks for keeping me company. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“See you.”
He turned and started down the path toward the main building, but he couldn’t help shooting once last glance over his shoulder.
She was already gone.
Abi closed the door and fell against it, holding a trembling hand over her wildly beating heart. Will had been about to kiss her. He’d even dipped his head a little.
She should recognize the signs; she’d seen the move a million times. Though she didn’t remember the thought of a kiss ever making her this weak in the knees before, the idea of intimacy with a man sparking this feeling of giddy anticipation. Not even her first time in the bed of Bo Reily’s pickup truck—of course, he’d had her so liquored up on Jack Daniel’s she hadn’t felt much of anything then.
She’d had enough sex in her life for five women, but she’d never touched a man the way she had Will, never felt the kind of intimacy she had with her hand on his face. Sex had been nothing but a vehicle to get what she wanted, a way to bend men to her will.
You use what assets God gave you, her mother used to tell her, and Tara Sullivan would know. She’d spent her life hopping from one man’s bed to another, and Abi had learned the apple never fell far from the tree.
She hadn’t known she could feel this way. This hot, excited, restless feeling that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her bones.
She’d felt something else, too. She’d felt vulnerable, and that scared her half to death.
She’d gone four years without a man in her bed, four years spent reprogramming her brain to reject the idea of sex in any form. And in the span of five minutes Will had undone it all. The woman she used to be, the one she’d thought was long dead and buried, was still sneaking around inside her somewhere.
God help her if she ever found a way out.
But she didn’t need a man to take care of her anymore. She’d proven to herself through determination and hard work that she was a survivor, and no one could take that away from her.
Brittney, Adam’s babysitter, appeared in his bedroom doorway and came down the hall toward her. “I thought I heard you come in. He had his bath and he’s playing in his room if you want to—” She stopped short. “Holy cow, Abi, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A ghost. Huh. She couldn’t have put it better herself. “You know, Brit, I think I just did.”
Chapter 3
Abi breathed in the clean afternoon air, feeling the burn in her calves as she hiked with a group of a dozen kids—the ten-years-and-older group—along the nature trail at the foothills of the mountain and into the woods. All around her the forest was alive with sights and sounds and scents. Four years ago she never would have appreciated the simple beauty of it. She would have seen it as dirty and smelly and uncivilized.
Now it was her solace.
It still amazed her at times, the changes she’d made in her life. It hadn’t been easy, and she never wanted to go back to being that lost, confused young woman she had once been. At the time she’d thought she owned the world, but it had all been an illusion.
“Go talk to him,” she heard Leanne whisper.
“I told you, he’s a snob.” Cindy gave her younger sister a shove. “If you like him so much, you go talk to him.”
Abi watched the exchange from the back of the group where she walked with the younger kids. It was easy to see that the older sister was the dominant, outgoing sibling, and like Abi at sixteen, she probably considered herself an authority on the workings of the teenage male mind. As pretty as she was, Abi didn’t doubt Cindy had her fair share of attention from the opposite sex. What need would she have to go looking for it?
Despite her confidence and nonchalant demeanor, she was probably the one hurt the most deeply by their parents’ divorce. She was just better at hiding it. At least, that was usually the case. Leanne, on the other hand, wore her emotions right out in the open for everyone to see.
Though it was Cindy who Abi could identify with, it was Leanne who intrigued her. And she hoped the younger girl would work up the courage to talk to Eric. Since arriving he still hadn’t talked to anyone. Abi was biding her time, waiting for just the right moment to approach him.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was still there, lagging behind, eyes firmly fixed on the ground. She worried about him staying in a cabin all by himself. Not that she thought he couldn’t take care of himself. He wasn’t known to be a troublemaker and at seventeen he was old enough to stay there alone.
&
nbsp; That was exactly what worried her. The isolation. She had the feeling he led a very lonely existence to begin with. Would this only make things worse?
She felt a tug on her shirt and turned to find the youngest boy in the group, a ten-year-old named Noah, walking beside her.
“Miss Abi, I’m tired and my feet hurt. I want to go back.”
Though he was a sweet kid, he was quickly gaining a reputation as a whiner.
She rumpled the back of his blond head and gave him an encouraging smile. “We’ll be taking a break real soon. Can you hold out another couple of minutes?”
“Okay,” Noah sighed, then, shoulders slumped, he ambled off. From what Abi had heard, Noah’s father had replaced his wife and son with his much younger, pregnant mistress, and Noah’s mother was so beside herself with grief and resentment she could barely function. Noah had lost not only his father but the attention of his mother, as well. Financially they were set, but as Abi had learned, money didn’t buy happiness. It didn’t heal wounded hearts or erase past mistakes. In fact, it had a way of causing more trouble than it was worth.
Hopefully with therapy and time to heal Noah’s mother would come to realize how much her son needed her, and they would leave the retreat a little less heartbroken. It was the best Abi could hope for.
“Have you got room for one more?”
Startled by the familiar voice, Abi looked back to find Will Bishop walking briskly up the trail behind them. He wore green cargo shorts and a dark tank that showed off the lean muscles in his shoulders and arms. Her heart gave a funny little flutter at the sight of him.
What was he doing here? Granted, the trail was a frequently traveled one, but she couldn’t help wondering if he’d followed them.
The idea both excited and concerned her.
She was still embarrassed by her behavior when he’d walked her to her cabin last night and had decided it would be best to keep her distance for the remainder of his stay. She’d had a speech rehearsed at lunch to let him down gently, but he had barely spoken to her. Just a friendly hello as he’d walked past her to a different table. Later, every time she’d looked at him—which she found herself doing more often than she was comfortable with—he had been engaged in conversation with another guest or staff member and hadn’t seemed to know she existed. Maybe she’d imagined the whole thing and he really hadn’t been thinking about kissing her. She used to be able to spot that kind of thing a mile away, but perhaps her feminine radar was rustier than she’d thought.
Out of Sight Page 3