Forbidden

by Tori Carrington

  Then the next day had come with no sign of J.T. Then another. Then a week. Dan had moved into a condo. They had gotten a legal separation. Then a month had passed by without word from J.T. and she’d had to accept that she probably wouldn’t be seeing him again.

  She’d continued with the divorce, of course. It had been too late to turn back then.

  Then during Christmas last year Dan had finally asked about the man she’d divorced him for and she had told him he was no longer in the picture and hadn’t been for a long time. And Dan had asked her to consider remarriage.

  She’d seen no reason to refuse him. He was the father of her child. They were friends. And she had loved him once and could probably love him again.

  Then J.T. had come back.

  The oil in the pan on the gas burner began to burn. She opened her eyes, surprised she had closed them, and removed the pan and shut off the flame.

  “Mom!” Sami’s voice peeled from the direction of the laundry room.

  Leah wiped her hands on a towel and went to go see which of her daughter’s clothes she had ruined this time. Only when she pushed open the door she found Sami standing ankle deep in water.

  She quickly directed her daughter from the room away from risk of electrocution then reached across and shut off the water from the main pipe.

  “Dad’s going to hit the roof when he finds out what this is going to cost,” Sami said.

  Screw Dad, Leah wanted to say.

  Instead she walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone, dialing the only person she wanted to come help her.

  J.T. STOOD ON LEAH’S DOORSTEP, tools in hand, wondering what the hell he was doing there. He’d spotted her Lexus in the driveway when he’d parked up the block so he guessed she’d had the car fixed. Somehow it bothered him knowing she was going on about her normal, day-to-day life without including him in those activities.

  That she was suddenly including him now…

  The door swung open to reveal Leah’s eleven-year-old impish daughter, Sami.

  Like so many things in their relationship, Leah hadn’t talked about her daughter much. He suspected because they didn’t get a chance to talk about much of anything at all. But judging by the wary expression on the girl’s face, she wasn’t inclined to like him. In fact, it appeared she might even hate the world at large.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” she asked, confirming J.T.’s suspicions.

  “Sami!” He heard Leah’s voice from inside the house. “Is that any way to greet a guest?”

  The girl looked over her shoulder. “It’s not a guest, it’s some guy selling stuff.”

  Leah appeared behind her daughter, putting her hands on her shoulders and squeezing a little hard given the way Sami winced. “Sami, say hello to Mr. West.”

  Sami said something under her breath that might have been considered a greeting. “If you’re hoping for dinner, you’re out of luck. Mom doesn’t want any dinner guests tonight.”

  Leah stared at her daughter then turned her around and pointed her toward the stairs. “Say goodbye to Mr. West then go up to your room until I call for you.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. West.”

  The girl took the stairs two at a time and moments later a door slammed. Leah jumped.

  J.T. stared after the little hellion on wheels.

  “I never quite get used to that,” Leah said with a shaky smile.

  She motioned for him to come inside and he did. He couldn’t help noticing the way she looked out to see if anyone was watching before closing the door.

  J.T. glanced around the foyer. “I imagine you did a lot of door slamming when you were her age.”

  Leah blinked at him as if surprised by his comment. Then her brows drew together. “You know, I think I probably did.”

  J.T. stood in the two-story foyer, glancing around at the crystal chandelier, the rich wood paneling and the parquet floors. He knew exactly what kind of money it took to make a house look like this. And it was money he wouldn’t be coming into anytime soon.

  He cleared his throat, at odds with the woman and the house she lived in.

  He’d always known Leah was high maintenance. When they were teenagers she’d always worn the latest, most popular brand of jeans, had spent hours getting ready for an event that wouldn’t last half as long, and her family had rented—perhaps even owned—the four-bedroom cabin they’d stayed in the month of August.

  By contrast, he’d always worn what had fit him and he and his father had stayed in the cramped trailer that had served as their home year-round.

  But somehow when he touched Leah, all that slipped away, leaving a man and woman and their powerful attraction to each other.

  An attraction that dimmed not at all standing in the foyer of the house she’d once shared with her husband.

  Damn, she looked good. And he wasn’t talking about the products in her hair that made it shiny and straight. Or the expensive outfit she wore. He was drawn to the warm glow of her skin, the clearness of her eyes and the tightness of her attractive body.

  He caught her curious gaze and realized she was probably thinking the same thing he was.

  No, their attraction to each other hadn’t changed. But what he allowed himself to do in connection to it…well, that had changed completely.

  “You said you had a leak you needed help with?” he said quietly, forcing his attention away from her and to the house.

  “Oh, yes! Sorry.” She led the way down the hall toward the kitchen. “The laundry room’s this way.”

  He followed, watching the way her bottom swayed under her beige slacks. Did she no longer own a pair of jeans? It wasn’t too long ago that he remembered that’s all she wore. Then again, maybe it was a lifetime and a different person ago.

  She pushed open a door. “I don’t know what could have happened. I’ve mopped up most of the water. There was a good three to five inches of it in here.”

  J.T. crouched down and checked the integrity of the flooring. “Do you have a basement?”

  “Half.”

  “I’ll have to go down afterward to take a look. Make sure there’s no damage.”

  She nodded.

  J.T. tried to ignore how much he wanted to forget about what had passed between them two days ago and just touch her. She smelled good and he knew she’d taste even better. In contrast, he’d been working outside all day and was coated in sweat and sawdust and probably smelled like yesterday’s meatloaf. He opened his bag and took out his tools then pulled the washing machine out to have a look. Realizing she was still standing in the doorway, he glanced her way.

  “I don’t suppose you need my help, do you?” she said quietly, desire burning bright in her dark eyes.

  He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

  “Okay. I, um, I’ll just be out in the kitchen finishing dinner.” She started to walk away. “Oh, and despite what Sami said, you’re more than welcome to stay.”

  J.T. stared evenly at her, trying to figure out the reason behind the invite to dinner, but Leah had already left the doorway, her steps sounding on the wood plank flooring as she walked away.

  “You may want to check with your daughter first,” he said to himself. “I think she’d have a thing or two to say about my staying.”

  He took out a monkey wrench and gave the pipe a tap. He hadn’t expected the exercise to produce anything but was surprised when the pipe shifted, revealing that it had been cut in two.

  He sat back on his ankles and considered it, then looked around the room. Odd.

  He pushed to his feet then stepped back out into the kitchen. His steps slowed when he found Leah with her back to him, adding chopped vegetables to a pan on the stove. No matter how many times he saw her, she took his breath away. But this was the first time he’d seen her at anything domestic aside from the chores she did outside like take out the garbage or work in the garden.

  He’d grown up without a mother so the only sight he’d gotten of so
meone in the kitchen was of his father, and his culinary skills had been limited to putting in and taking out frozen dinners from the conventional oven, then, later, the microwave. Every now and again he’d gotten ambitious and boiled bratwurst in beer, or made a throat-burning chili, but otherwise their meals had come from the freezer or a can.

  Watching Leah now made him feel…strange. Like he was seeing something he wasn’t entitled to be seeing. The sight of her cooking from scratch struck him as overly intimate. Ranking right up there with watching her take a bath, which was something else he’d like to see.

  Leah finished what she was doing then jumped when she turned to find him standing on the other side of the island. “J.T., you startled me.”

  He eyed the way a strand of her silky hair stuck against her elegant throat and longed to move it out of the way…with his mouth. “I need to pick up some supplies. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  Her gaze had drifted from his eyes and rested against his chest. She looked back up into his face. “Okay. The front door’s open so just walk back in.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Sure. Okay. Just knock and I’ll make sure I get it this time.”

  J.T. walked out of the room.

  Leah collapsed against the counter, her heart going a million miles a minute as she listened to the front door close behind J.T.

  She didn’t know why she’d reacted the way she had. Turning around and seeing him standing there in his jeans and a T-shirt had seemed…so right. His jeans had born evidence of his work that day, but she guessed he must have cleaned up and changed his T-shirt before coming out, his dark hair still damp at the ends.

  “Is he gone?”

  Leah blinked her daughter’s face into focus. She frowned and continued on to the sink where she cleaned up the cutting board. “He went to get some supplies.”

  Sami rolled his eyes. “You would have thought he’d have them with him seeing as he does it for a living.”

  “He doesn’t do it for a living. He’s a friend doing a favor for me.”

  She ignored her daughter’s accusatory stare as she put the cutting board away then checked the roast in the oven. Judging it just about done she grabbed an oven mitt and took it out to cool.

  “Why didn’t you call Dad?”

  Leah pretended she wasn’t affected one way or the other by her daughter’s questioning. “Because your dad will be the first to admit he doesn’t know a thing about plumbing.”

  “You never know. Maybe he’s taking a class or something. Like you.”

  Leah highly doubted her daughter even knew what classes she was taking. Probably wasn’t the slightest bit interested in knowing that she was studying to finish her business degree. A degree she hadn’t gotten twelve years ago because she’d gotten pregnant with Sami.

  “Maybe I should call him,” Sami said.

  Leah stared at where her daughter had picked up the phone. “Put it down, Sami.”

  “Why? I’m sure—”

  She took the phone from the eleven-year-old’s hand and hung it back up. “J.T.’s already looking into it. Don’t you think it would be rude if he came back with the parts to find someone else fixing it?”

  “I think you’re rude,” Sami said.

  “I thought I told you to go up to your room until I called you?”

  “I heard him leave.”

  She said “him” as though she was talking about a snake. “Well, he’s coming back so you’d better hurry upstairs. You know, so you don’t catch cooties or something equally horrifying.”

  Sami rolled her eyes but to Leah’s surprise she did crack a bit of a smile. “Cooties is so kindergarten, Mom.”

  She smiled back. “Then whatever it is they call what you don’t want to catch nowadays.”

  “Herpes?”

  “What do you know about herpes? Sami?”

  But her daughter had already left the room. This time, thankfully, she hadn’t slammed her door.

  AN HOUR LATER J.T. CAME OUT of the laundry room. Leah and her daughter were sitting at the dinner table though neither of them had anything on their plates.

  “All done,” he said, gesturing toward the sink. “Do you mind?”

  “No, no. Go right ahead.”

  He flicked on the faucet and began cleaning up. Leah had gotten up from the table and stood behind one of the chairs. When he was done, he dried his hands with a couple of paper towels then turned toward them.

  “Sami and I were hoping you would join us for dinner,” she said.

  J.T. squinted at the girl sitting at the table pretending not to be paying attention though he was pretty sure he saw her ears twitching from listening so hard.

  How many times had he envisioned a situation like this? He, Leah and her daughter sharing a meal at a dinner table?

  The only problem was that nothing had been resolved between them. They pretty much stood where they had two days ago, which was nowhere, no matter how much he’d like to believe otherwise.

  “Sorry,” he said, picking up his bag. “But I’ve already got other plans.”

  Both Leah’s and Sami’s gazes flew to his face. In Leah’s eyes he read shock and disappointment. In Sami’s he spotted relief.

  “Um, okay,” Leah said, appearing not to know what to do with her hands as she released the back of the chair. “I’ll see you out then.”

  “Make sure you give him a good tip,” Sami called after them.

  He caught Leah’s wince.

  “Fortunately she doesn’t have a clue what kind of tip I’d ask for,” J.T. said as they made their way down the hall toward the door.

  They stopped in the foyer and Leah faced him, apparently not knowing how to respond to his leaving. Finally she said, “Thanks, you know, for coming over so quickly. For fixing the washer.”

  “I didn’t fix the washer—I fixed the pipe. Which, I have to tell you, looks like it may have been cut.”

  “I don’t understand. Cut? As in purposely?”

  He nodded then pushed his hair back from his face. He was overdue for a haircut and it kept falling over his brow. “My guess is a hacksaw.”

  “Sami?”

  He shook his head. “No. She doesn’t have enough strength to cut through solid pipe.” He hoisted his tool belt to his shoulder. “Anyway, I just thought you should know.”

  He opened the door and walked out onto the steps.

  “Josh?”

  He turned back toward her, his stomach tightening every time she used his real name.

  “I’m…sorry about what I said the other day.”

  He looked down at his feet and nodded. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  J.T. turned and walked away, unsure of what else to say. Unsure if there was anything else to say.

  11

  AS MUCH AS LEAH LONGED TO GO to J.T.’s later that night, she denied herself the opportunity. Given the words that had passed between them, and the words that hadn’t, everything was still too fresh, too raw, to be poked at again so soon. What he’d said the other day had been on target. She owed him more than she could offer him just then. Her body might be his, but where was her heart? She loved him beyond reason, but was coming to fear that wasn’t enough. Not when so many other balls hovered in the air above her head, dependent upon her dubious juggling abilities to keep them aloft.

  But whatever else was going on, she knew that if she went to his place, they would end up on his sleeping bag, giving themselves over to the passion that burned through their veins. And aside from bone-deep physical satisfaction, that would accomplish nothing but the deepening of the confusion between them.

  She dropped Sami off for her usual study group at seven then drove to her sister’s instead. Although she questioned the wisdom of her actions when she found Rachel knee-deep in bridal bouquet models and sampling several different types of wine.

  Rachel closed the door after Leah and gave a loud hiccup.

  “Just the person I need to see,” Rachel said, swa
ying slightly as she led the way into the living room, the bit of wine in her glass sloshing and threatening to spill out onto the new area rug.

  Leah looked around the recently renovated house her sister had bought a few months ago in the Harmony area. Every time she visited Rachel had added something else, and this time was no exception. Sprigs and arrangements of dried flowers were artfully placed here and there, giving the place a homey, feminine feel.

  “Here, try this.” Rachel had poured a healthy finger of red wine into another crystal wineglass and handed it to Leah. “I think this is the one I want for the reception.”

  Leah sniffed the bouquet of the wine, then swirled it, checking for sediment before giving it an experimental taste.

  She nearly spit the poor excuse for wine right back out. “It tastes like vinegar.”

  Rachel threw back her head and laughed. “That’s what Gabe said.” She shrugged and added more of the same wine to her glass. “That’s why I think it’s the one I should go with,” she said, her expression disgruntled.

  Leah caught her sister when she might have tripped over a bouquet of pink roses and white baby’s breath. “I think you’ve fried your taste buds, little sister.”

  Rachel allowed her to steer her toward one of the two couches that sat face-to-face beside the fire-place. “Hazards of the job, I guess.” She waved her hand, seeming to take extra interest in the action as she stared at her fingers moving in front of her face. “You know, it’s a lot of work being a bride.”

  “Tell me about it.” Leah sat next to her sister and covertly poured the contents of Rachel’s glass into her own, then filled Rachel’s with water from a bottle sitting nearby. “Just remembering my wedding makes me want to swear that I’ll never get married again.”

  She caught her words, just then realizing that she was not only planning on marrying again, she was going to do it to the same man.

  Rachel picked up her glass, making a face when she realized it was water. She reached for the wine bottle and Leah took it from her. “Hey, that’s my little helper.”

  “Yes, well, it’s time the little helper called it a night.” She put the bottle on the other side of the couch on the floor where Rachel would inevitably forget about it in a few moments. “Now, tell me what’s going on. Is it the house? Are you and Gabe still debating where you’re going to live?”