Barking Up the Wrong Tree

by Jenn McKinlay

  “So I gathered.”

  “She’s a ballerina in rehabilitation for her knee.”

  “So she mentioned.”

  He tipped his head in the other direction and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in back.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Now why would you think that, since I have no reason whatsoever to be mad at you?” she asked.

  Carly’s voice was tight and hard and she thought the man would have to be as thick as a brick to not register her ire.

  “You sound mad,” he said. “And I noticed when you met Bethany that your WTF wrinkle got really deep.”

  “Excuse me?” Carly asked. “What is a WTF wrinkle?”

  “You know, that line in between your eyebrows that looks like a V and gets deeper when you’re thinking what the fuck,” he said. He reached out and rubbed her forehead right between her eyes with his thumb. “There, now it’s gone.”

  Carly felt like he had just exposed something in her that she wasn’t too happy about letting him see.

  “I do not have a WTF line,” she said. “If anything it’s a AYSM wrinkle because I can’t imagine why you have me locked into a favor to be determined since Ms. Wales looked more than willing to do you . . . er . . . to give you any favor that was required.”

  Gah! Carly wanted to pull out her own tongue. She sounded demented.

  “An are you shitting me wrinkle? That’s a good one. But seriously, she’s engaged,” he said. “To Ivan Tudezcu, the director of the Boston Ballet.”

  “Boston Ballet?” Carly said. She might not know much about dancers but even she knew that the Boston Ballet was a big deal. Still, they were several hours north of Boston. What was Ms. Wales doing all the way up here getting rehab with James?

  “Wow, that’s a long way to come for rehab,” she said.

  “Ivan and I go way back,” he said. “Bethany’s issue is more than her knee. She’s having a crisis of confidence as well. Ivan thought I might be able to help with both. Besides, they have a beach house here in town.”

  Carly glanced around the gutted house. “So that’s how you can afford all this. You’re the physical therapist to the stars, kind of a big deal.”

  “Not really,” he said. “I’m just good at what I do.”

  He said it with confidence and yet didn’t sound arrogant. She liked that. Carly could feel his gaze on the side of her face. She did not turn to look at him because her mind had slid right to their one-night stand where she felt she could say with more than a little authority that, yes, he was very good at what he did.

  “Is it hot in here?” She unbuttoned her coat and slid it off, draping it over her arm.

  When she turned back around, he was still staring at her and the heat in his gaze was impossible to miss. James wanted her. The thought made Carly dizzy and now that she was here in his home alone with him, she didn’t know if she had the willpower to resist the hot friction that sizzled between them.

  “Come on,” he said, stepping away from her. “Let me show you the highlights.”

  Although she refused to admit it, she really hoped he started with the bedroom. She wondered what sort of sleep situation a guy like James required. California king with Egyptian cotton sheets? Maybe just a regular king with flannel. She glanced at him. She could totally see him being a plaid flannel sheet sort of guy.

  Wait! What? Why was she even thinking about his bedroom? Seriously, she needed to get a grip. She needed a glass of ice water dumped down her shirt or over her head. She was trying to be friends with this guy. Healthy boundaries needed to be scrupulously maintained. She put a few more feet in between them. If he noticed, he didn’t show it.

  When he led her down the hallway and pushed open the door into a huge workout room, Carly was hard-pressed to hide her disappointment.

  “Unless I am out in the field, helping a client, this is pretty much where I live,” he said.

  He held his arms wide and Carly took in the large room that was filled with all sorts of exercise equipment, from free weights to parallel bars, and several pieces of medical equipment—stuff she recognized like heart monitors and blood pressure machines, and others she couldn’t identify.

  He put his hand on her lower back to usher her farther into the room. It felt hot like a brand through her shirt. Oh, jeez, that was not good. The man could accidentally brush up against her and she would catch on fire wherever contact was made.

  “This is . . . impressive,” she said. She guessed that was what he wanted to hear. Didn’t most men?

  “You have no idea what most of this does, do you?” he asked with a smile. Busted!

  “Not a clue.”

  “Someday I’ll have to get you in here for a proper stress test,” he said.

  Carly would have said that was a bad idea because any time she was near him she was pretty sure her stress level rose higher than was healthy. But of course she said nothing.

  “Come on, let’s go to my office,” he said. “There’s someone who’ll be happy to see you.”

  He led her through the facility to a glassed-in room in the corner. Carly could see a large desk with a computer on one side and a small conference table with chairs on the other.

  James pushed the door open and said, “Hey, Hot Wheels, look who’s here.”

  Carly glanced around the room and then heard the scrabble of paws on the hardwood floor. Peering around the desk at her was a big nose and one big brown eye.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said. She dropped her coat and her purse on a small couch along the wall and crouched beside James.

  The dog seemed to recognize her, because he lurched forward and came around the side of the desk. His back end supported by his two-wheel harness, he bounded toward her with the enthusiasm only a puppy could muster.

  He stopped in front of them and pushed his head into James’s hip, clearly looking for love. James obliged, rubbing his ears and talking so sweetly to him that Carly couldn’t help but think that if he talked to her in that voice she would crawl up into his lap and refuse to budge.

  She shook her head and focused on the dog. She held out her hand so Hot Wheels could get her scent. After several sniffs and one small lick, Hot Wheels pressed his head into her side as well, then he sniffed her all over and woofed.

  “He’s the sweetest,” she said. “I think he’s wondering where Ike and Saul are. Sorry, Wheels, those boys went night-night.”

  James grinned at her. “I like the way you talk to him and the others as if you expect them to answer.”

  “Well, Ike usually does,” she said. “And if I understood dog speak, I bet I’d have some great convos with Hot Wheels, too. What’s wrong with his leg?”

  “Gavin thinks he suffered some nerve damage when he was born,” James said. “Because we don’t know the circumstances, it’s all speculation, but we both think we’ll be able to get him walking again. We do exercises a couple of times a day, and the wheels keep him mobile.”

  While he talked, James unfastened Hot Wheels’s harness and helped him out of the rig. The dog shook himself from head to tail as if relieved to be free. Then he limped over to a fluffy dog bed in the corner and flopped onto it, belly in the air.

  “Looks like he’s done for today.”

  “He’s had a full day,” James agreed. He turned to study her. “So, are you ready to make a recording for Ike?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  James pulled an extra chair over to his desk so the two of them could sit in front of his computer. He motioned for Carly to sit next to him, then he positioned a small mic on a stand so it was right in front of her face. An acute bout of shyness hit Carly and she thought about bolting for the door.

  “Relax,” he said. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

  “So says the man behind the curtain,” she said. “I don’t th
ink I’m really comfortable like this. I sort of thought I was just going to speak into your smartphone and you could work off a recording from that.”

  “If you want to give Ike the greatest chance at learning words then the clearest recording possible is your best bet,” he said. He opened up a recording program on his computer and then turned to face her.

  He was so close Carly was having a hard time concentrating on his words. Did he always smell this good? Yeah, she was pretty sure he did. Damn it.

  “Why don’t you do the recording?” she asked. She leaned back from him, finding it hard to breathe with him in her personal space. “You’ll know better what to say and how to say it.”

  “No, Ike’s clearly bonded to you,” he said. “I think he’ll pick up your voice more easily.”

  “He’s not bonded to me,” she protested. “I’m just the person he sees every day, who feeds him and stuff.”

  James gently pushed the mic toward her and paused to look at her. His gaze was kind and a little amused but she got the feeling that he saw her, really saw her, more than anyone had in a very long time.

  “And stuff,” he said.

  His voice was low so Carly leaned forward to hear better and he met her halfway. To Carly it felt as if they had no choice in the matter because the pull between them was as much a part of their natural order as the gravitational hold on the planets circling the sun. She bonked her nose on the microphone.

  “Oh!” She jumped back.

  James shook his head as if trying to get his wits together and then gave her side eye as if he couldn’t look at her full-on or he’d risk being sucked back into her orbit. Carly was trying to remember why that was bad, desperately trying.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she bluffed. “Clumsy but fine.”

  “Good,” he said. “So, what sort of things do you want our man Ike to say?”

  “I’m not as clear on what I want him to say as what I don’t want him to say,” she said. “‘Hello, how are you?’ would be a solid change up from ‘Shut your stupid cake hole.’”

  James laughed. “You have to admit the other does have a certain charm.”

  “Not when you’re trying to find him a new home.”

  “True enough,” James said. “How about we start with the basics then? You know, ‘Hello, how are you?’ or ‘Polly, want a cracker?’”

  “I am not teaching him that,” she said. On this, she was firm.

  “Oh, come on,” he said. He turned back to the computer and began setting up the recording.

  “No,” she said.

  “But it’s a classic. It’s what everyone will expect him to say.” His voice was a low gruff growl while he concentrated on the task at hand.

  She glanced at him and saw the right side of his smile tip up and the wicked glint in his eye, both letting her know that he was teasing her. It struck her that she liked him, really liked him, as a person, which would be absolutely fine if she felt about him like she did Zach or Sam or Brad or Gavin, male friends who were like brothers. But she didn’t feel that way, not in the slightest.

  “Okay, sunshine, let’s do a couple of practice runs, so I can check the sound and quality on my end.”

  “All right,” she said.

  She really needed to curb his habit of calling her sunshine. Should she make a big deal out of it or let it go? And why, oh why, was her heart thundering in her chest like this? It was just a word. It didn’t mean anything. Right?

  Obviously unaware of her inner turmoil, James turned back to her with a smile and said, “Okay, in three, two, one.”

  Then he pointed at her to go. When Carly thought about it, later, she had no idea what had possessed her, but just looking at him with his roguish grin, baggy sweatshirt, and disheveled hair, well, it made the naughty fly right into her and without overthinking it, she leaned close to the mic and in her throatiest, sexiest purr she cried out, “James, oh, James!”

  One moment he was sitting next to her with his hands on the controls in front of him; in the next he was reaching for her with a single-minded purpose on his face that made her breath catch and her heart stop.

  He cupped the back of her head and hauled her up against him and then he kissed her, devastatingly and thoroughly. It wasn’t a kind or gentle kiss, rather it was a barely restrained plunder of her mouth under his. His lips owned hers, drawing her deeper into the fire that flared up between them every time they touched, leaving her scorched.

  Carly didn’t remember putting her arms around his neck but when he finally broke the kiss and pulled back to look at her, or perhaps to breathe, she was hanging onto him for dear life since any knowledge of how to sit up on her own had fled the part of her head that retained muscle memory.

  Gently, James unhooked her arms from his shoulders and pushed her back into her seat. He cleared his throat and then gave her a sheepish look. He blew out a breath and shoved a hand through his hair, making it stick up on one side.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I can do the platonic thing, I can even hold hands and hug you without losing my mind, mostly, but your voice saying my name like that is my weakness. So if you turn that voice on me and call my name in that insanely sexy way, I am going to kiss you like that every time. Am I clear?”

  “Crystal,” Carly said, repeating the same word he had spoken to her earlier that day, except her voice came out low and husky. When his eyebrow quirked up at the sound, she cleared her throat and, in a much higher and squeakier voice, said, “Crystal.”

  “Just so we understand each other, buddy,” he said.

  He turned back to the computer, but not before she saw him grin as if quite pleased with himself over the response he had drawn out of her. She did not tell him he wasn’t the only one, since her survival skills had kicked into high gear and her decided response was to deny, deny, deny.

  The next half hour was a blur for Carly. She said words and phrases over and over while James smiled at her and nodded. He seemed very much in control of the recording, while all Carly could think about was his mouth on hers and how much she wanted it there among other places again.

  She closed her eyes and repeated the last phrase he asked her to say. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t staring at him the whole time.

  “Excellent,” he said. He reached over to switch off the mic and was so close his voice sounded in her ear and Carly felt as if he were actually in her head, which would be bad because the dirty thoughts she was having about him were definitely not something he needed to know. “That’s a wrap.”

  “Cool,” she said. She was feeling anything but.

  “I’ll clean it up and record it in a loop and it’ll be ready to go,” he said.

  “Great,” Carly said.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” she said. Her smile was tight. She could feel it. Thankfully, he didn’t press her.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he said.

  “No, I don’t want to be a bother,” she said. She gave Hot Wheels’s belly a quick scratch and then grabbed her purse and her jacket and strode to the door. She needed to put some space between them ASAP. “I know the way.”

  “Yeah, I’m still not letting you walk alone to your car in the dark,” he said. “My mama raised me better than that.”

  Carly didn’t want him to walk her anywhere, but he was right on her heels as she left the rehabilitation room and hurried down the hallway, struggling to yank on her jacket as she went.

  “Carly, wait,” he said. “Carly!”

  She didn’t slow down and when she felt her jacket get snagged, she impatiently spun around looking for the object that had caught her. It was James. He was holding onto one of her sleeves and he didn’t look like he was about to let go anytime soon.

  “We need to talk,” he said
.

  Chapter 19

  “No, we don’t,” she argued.

  “Clearly, we do,” he said. He let go of her sleeve and grabbed her coat by the collar, holding it open for her. She slipped into it, then he spun her around and pushed aside her clumsy fingers so that he could fasten it for her. “It was the kiss, wasn’t it? It freaked you out.”

  “I don’t get freaked out,” she lied.

  He gave her a look that clearly said bullshit, although he was polite enough not to say it.

  “All right, maybe I’m a tiny bit concerned about being ‘friends’ with a man who kisses me like that when I say his name,” she said. There. It felt better to put it back on him. This was his fault, after all. No man had ever gotten her so worked up.

  “Oh, you can say my name,” he said. “Go ahead, I promise I won’t jump you.”

  Carly stared at him for a moment. Then she cautiously said, “James?”

  He didn’t flicker so much as an eyelash.

  “See?” he asked. “I’m fine. But if you say my name like you’re about to debauch and defile me or want me to do the same to you, then you’re going to get kissed . . . thoroughly.”

  There was a buzzing in Carly’s ears and she was pretty sure she had forgotten how to breathe. She blinked.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because you have always affected me that way,” he said. His gaze was steady on hers.

  “Always?” she asked. She tried to make light of the intensity of the moment. “You make it sound as if I’ve known you longer than mere days.”

  “You have,” he said. He lowered his eyes and gazed at her from beneath his thick black eyelashes. “You just don’t remember me.”

  “What?” She felt alarm bells clanging in her head. Had she slept with James before and not remembered? She glanced at him. No, that wasn’t possible. There was no way she’d forget a man like James.

  “It’s true,” he said. “You and I met when I was visiting my cousin at college, oh, about eleven years ago.”

  Carly did a quick mental scan. Eleven years ago she’d been getting her undergrad in business at Columbia in New York City. It was also when she’d had her first and only boyfriend, or as she liked to think of it, her life lesson in why she’d never date again.