“We’ll charge it, and I’m sure your mom made it fine. It’s only an hour away.” He dug through his backpack and pulled out an Ace bandage. “I’m just going to wrap your ankle. Then I’ll carry you out of here.”
“Wrap it? That’s going to hurt.” Her eyes widened. “And you can’t carry me. We’re probably three miles from my Jeep.”
She had no idea what it was like carrying military gear across the desert. She was about five-three to Nate’s six-two. He could handle her buck fifteen with one arm—even if he’d rather handle her with his hands, his mouth, and—
Shit. Really, Braden? Get a fucking grip.
He forced himself to focus again. “If I don’t wrap it, your ankle will move around while I carry you, and it’ll hurt worse.”
Her eyes widened again. “You can’t carry—”
He pressed his fingers to her lips and softened his tone. “Jewel, I’m carrying you.”
She blinked up at him through thick blond lashes, looking innocent in a way she rarely did. She was usually so in control of everything around her, and it reflected in her serious, competent gaze. How could he have forgotten how one look from Jewel undid him?
“Wait,” she said softly as she touched his arm. She slammed her eyes shut and tightened her grip. “Okay. Wrap it.”
He’d helped dozens of guys in the field with all types of gruesome injuries and never once had he been nervous, but the sight of Jewel’s scrunched-up face and the death grip she had on his arm made him acutely aware of her vulnerabilities—and his.
Chapter Two
EYES CLENCHED TIGHT, Jewel silently reminded herself to breathe.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
It had been a long time since she’d needed to draw upon her mantra in order to remain focused, but seeing Nate tapped a well of sadness that she’d long ago buried—and other emotions she thought she’d contained. She’d spent a month reminding herself how to breathe after Nate and Rick had joined the military. They had been constant companions, ever present in her life for as long as she could remember. They’d been best friends since kindergarten and had done everything together, and she knew Nate would be there for her if Rick couldn’t. Their lives had been a mess after their father died, but Nate had stuck by Rick’s side, and in doing so, he had been a pillar of strength, together with Rick, for Jewel and her siblings.
And then Rick had been killed.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
After losing her father, Jewel had begun to question the fairness of life, and losing Rick had confirmed that fair had nothing to do with it. Breathing became something she had to remember to do. It took effort, and she’d never had the luxury of falling apart and mourning her brother, because her mother had already taken that role. She was left trying to hold things together for her brother and sisters. Patrick, at thirteen, had locked himself in his room for two months. Krissy had been ten, and Taylor, baby Tay, had been eight. They’d called Taylor baby Tay until Rick was killed, when Taylor had told their mother that with Rick and Dad gone, she needed to be a big girl.
How many nights had Jewel slept with Taylor in her bed and Krissy on her floor? How many tears had they cried together? How many times had she said, We’ll get through this? God. How many times had she promised never to leave them?
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
What might have happened to her out here in the woods by herself at night? Probably nothing, but as she’d sat in the woods, watching shadows overtake the last of the forest floor, she’d conjured up ideas of bears and coyotes. Jewel lived in fear of an uncontrollable situation taking her away from her family, just like what had happened with her father and brother.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
And then Nate had appeared like a shirtless knight in shining armor. All glistening muscles and serious, worried eyes. His hair was the same wheat blond as hers, cropped military short, heightening the severity of his chiseled features. One look at him and her mind reeled back two years, stirring up all the pain of losing Rick again, then raced forward to the blissful beauty of the kiss she and Nate had shared last New Year’s Eve.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
“Jewel? Hey, are you still with me?”
She shook her head to try to center her thoughts. Nate was handing her a bottle of water, but her mind continued to swim.
“Take a drink. It’ll help.” His brows furrowed as he knelt beside her and lifted the bottle to her lips, helping her take a sip.
She’d learned to deal with her grief by slipping into autopilot, and she felt herself going to that place now, as much to protect herself from memories of Rick as to keep from acting on her desire to relive that kiss. She’d wondered if the kiss had been an accident. If he’d expected to find some other woman standing beside him at the stroke of midnight. Lord knew there were a lot of women after Nate Braden and his brothers. They were some of the most eligible guys around Peaceful Harbor. The kiss had been so hot and intimate that it hadn’t felt like he was caught off guard. But what did she know? Maybe he kissed all his women with the same intensity and brought them all to their knees.
She debated staying in autopilot mode to escape thoughts of her brother and to avoid acknowledging the heat she felt radiating off of Nate. If she gave in to one of her conflicting emotions, she’d either bawl like a baby or scale his incredible body and consume his luscious mouth. Neither seemed like a rational option at the moment.
Nate put the top on the water bottle, put it in his backpack, and slung the backpack over his shoulder. When he turned back, his lips curved up in a warm smile. Oh, how she loved his smile.
Breathe, breathe.
“Do you mind if I wear the headlamp on the way out? It’ll make navigating the trail easier in the dark.”
She handed him the light. Before he’d shown up, she’d been petrified, out there alone in the dark. She took in his powerful shoulders and defined biceps, the air of self-confidence that seemed to follow him everywhere, and the muscular legs straining against his fatigues. Who could be scared with Nate around?
“Put your arms around my neck.”
Nate leaned in close, and she twined her arms around his neck as directed. Her forearm scraped against the scruff on his chin. The skin on the back of his neck was hot and slick with a sheen of sweat. He lifted her easily into his arms and rose to his feet.
“Did you have anything else? A bag?” Nate squinted, surveying the area.
She shook her head, trying not to concentrate on the way it felt to be in his arms and not to focus on his intoxicating scent, which she’d always loved. He’d smelled the same earthy, masculine way for as long as she could remember. If strength and confidence had a smell, they’d bottle it and call it Nate.
He carried her in silence for a few minutes, and Jewel distracted herself with thoughts of what it felt like to be carried by anyone instead of what it felt like to be in Nate’s arms. The last time someone had carried her, she’d been eight or nine, when her father had lifted her in his arms at the Winter Wonderland celebration to see the Christmas lights. She could no longer retrieve her father’s face or voice from memory, and Rick’s was fading fast. The realization sent a pang of longing through her.
“With your mom and the kids out of town for the weekend, is there a friend who can come stay with you tonight?” Nate asked.
She was thankful when his voice broke through her thoughts.
“No, but I’ll be fine.” She mentally ticked off what she had to do. Grocery store, cook, bring dinners to Mom’s.
“You can’t walk, Jewel. You’ll need help. At least your mom’s house has a pullout in the den, so you won’t have to do the stairs. But I don’t like the idea of you being alone.” He wasn’t even breathing hard from carrying her, and he must have carried her two miles already.
“I don’t live with Mom anymore. I moved out in January. I have an apartment in town. On the third fl—” Uh-oh. How would she get groceries up the stairs? How would s
he drive her stick shift to the grocery store?
“Nate, do you think you could drive me home?”
“Already planning on it, but not if you’re going home alone.”
“Well, I have to go home alone, and I hate to ask you this, but can you drive me to the grocery store? I need to make dinners for my mom and the kids for the week.”
His lips quirked up in a smile. “You’re still doing that?”
“Of course. I have nothing better to do.”
“Somehow I doubt that. Guys must be lining up to go out with you.” He said it so seriously that she had to laugh. He lifted a brow. “What?”
She was not about to divulge her loser status to him. “Nothing.”
He carried her in silence for a few minutes. “You’re coming home with me. I’ll help you get around and help you cook. It’ll be like old times.”
Before her father died, Thursday nights were her parents’ date night. Rick and Nate used to stay with Jewel and the other kids, and because her brother and Nate loved cooking, they always made crazy dinners, like homemade pizza with cheese-stuffed crust and pickles. That was always Krissy’s favorite.
Sadness rolled over her again.
Nate’s cell phone rang, and without missing a step, he pulled it from his pocket and held Jewel with one arm as he answered.
“Yo?” His voice sounded craggy and incredibly sexy, pulling her from her darker thoughts. “No, I’m good. I’ve got her.”
Got her? Was someone looking for her?
He smiled and laughed as he stepped over a rock. His laugh vibrated through his chest. How had it not registered that she was pressed against his bare chest? She became aware of his abs flexing against her thigh with every step. She locked her fingers around his neck to keep her greedy hands from touching his pecs, which she suddenly, desperately, wanted to explore. She was beginning to understand all of the emotions Chelsea had rattled on about for the past two years. Chelsea’s descriptions of the way her body hummed with excitement when she was near certain men finally made sense.
What was wrong with her? This was Nate Braden, the guy who had known her since she was in diapers. Nate was like a brother to her.
But he was temptingly male in a way that brothers were not. The heat she’d felt back there in the woods when he’d held her must have been on her mind, because he wasn’t flirting with her now.
She tried to push away the thoughts, distracting herself by trying to remember the last time she’d thought of a guy that way.
Every night since Nate kissed me.
Great. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss, and he was carrying her down the last of the trail as he talked on the phone, completely oblivious to the way her body had suddenly come alive. Even with the smile on his lips as he listened to the person on the phone, his eyes were intense, scanning the forest before them. That New Year’s Eve, there had been something edgy and intimate about the way he’d looked at her in the seconds before their mouths came together. She’d memorized that look, relived it dozens of times. No wonder she hadn’t looked for anyone else to date. She wasn’t a loser. Her heart had been tied up in Nate all this time.
Her body heated up with the memory, and she shifted her eyes away, hoping he couldn’t feel how fast her heart was beating.
“Sammy, seriously. We’re cool,” Nate said into the phone, then paused and listened. “Mm-hm. Yeah. Great. I’ll see you then.” He ended the call and shoved the phone in his pocket just as it rang again.
He let out a breath and mumbled, “Braden grapevine,” then answered the call. “Hi, Tempe.” He raised his brows at Jewel, and she knew he was talking with his sister, the only Tempe she knew.
“Yeah, I’ve got her and she’s fine.” He paused to listen. “I’m sure she did. Do me a favor and call Shannon. Tell her that Jewel twisted her ankle, but she’s with me and she’s fine. And for God’s sake, put out a Braden alert and tell everyone she’s fine.” The smile on his lips told Jewel that he wasn’t as irritated as he acted. “Thanks, Tempe. Love you, too.”
He shoved his phone in his pocket again. “I think my family cares more about you than they do about me.”
“No, they just care about people in general. But how did they even know I was out here?” She’d always been envious of the Bradens’ close-knit relationships. Her family was close, but she felt like they’d spent the last eight years running to keep up with everyday life. That didn’t leave much time for enjoying one another, which was something the Bradens did every chance they got.
“I was on the phone with Shannon when I saw your Jeep.”
“Ah, Shannon. So she was the start of the phone tree.” She chuckled at his grimace. She knew that as much as Nate ridiculed his family grapevine, he also cherished them too much for it to really bother him.
They reached the end of the trail, and Nate dug his keys from his pocket.
“You can put me down.”
He flashed his crooked smile again, and between the light of the headlamp and the moonlight, she got her first clear view of the dimple in his chin. She had an urge to press her lips to it, and the impulse surprised her. She was getting way outside of her intimacy comfort zone. Do I even have an intimacy comfort zone? Why was she thinking about intimacy at all? He was rescuing her from a fall. It’s not like he’d sought her out for a hot follow-up date to their New Year’s Eve kiss.
“On your bum ankle? Not a chance.” He unlocked the passenger door to his truck and carefully placed her on the seat. “What do you need out of your Jeep?”
“Nothing, but you really don’t have to take me to your place. I can hop around, if you can help me get groceries.”
He leaned his forearms on the top of the truck and stretched his body forward with a groan. His lats flared, accentuating the perfect vee to his low-slung fatigues. Jewel’s mouth went dry.
“No purse?” he asked, obviously ignoring her idea of hopping around.
“I…I have my license in my pocket. You’d kill me if I left my purse in the Jeep.” He and Rick had driven home dozens of safety lessons since she was a kid, from car safety to dating rules like never let a guy kiss you on your first date. At sixteen she’d fought them on that one, but Nate’s reasoning had made her believe it was a good rule. He’d told her that a guy who really liked her would wait for a kiss, while a guy who was only out for more wouldn’t ever ask her out again.
Great. Now she was thinking about kissing Nate again.
He laughed as he pulled the seat belt across her lap and snapped it into place. His blue eyes went dark as night. “Damn right I would.”
NATE INSISTED ON carrying Jewel into his log cabin as if there weren’t a full-on battle raging inside him. He loved the weight of her in his arms, the feel of her hands on his skin, the way she smelled—sweet and floral, like a meadow. But as he became aware of each of those amazing feelings, guilt tightened like a noose around his neck.
“Why did you buy a place out here instead of living in town?” she asked as he carried her through the front door.
He set Jewel on the couch and propped up her ankle with a pillow, watching her assess his cabin. Nate had fallen in love with the cabin the same way he’d fallen in love with Jewel. He’d been drawn to the feel of it the first time he’d seen it, and he’d kept coming back to it. There wasn’t anything flashy about the cabin. It had two bedrooms and a loft and was built near the river’s edge. There was just enough grassy lawn to have friends over and toss a football, and with ten wooded acres, he had plenty of privacy. But just like with Jewel, no matter what else was offered, it was the only place where everything felt right.
Of course, he didn’t tell Jewel that. Best to keep his answers short and the conversation light, so he didn’t say something he’d regret.
“I like privacy.” He went into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of frozen peas and ibuprofen, and a glass of orange juice. He brought them to Jewel.
“Take these to keep the swelling down.”
> She took the pills and eyed the bag of peas. “Frozen peas? That’s the big war hero’s idea to heal my twisted ankle?” She laughed, and it lit up her whole face.
He didn’t feel like much of a hero these days.
“Don’t knock it. It works.” He sat beside her and unwrapped the Ace bandage, telling himself he brought her to the cabin only so she didn’t further injure her ankle.
Liar, liar pants on fire.
Jewel Fisher’s hot body had just been pressed against his flesh for a good long time, and now? Now he had her alone in his cabin.
He needed to turn off his body, but every thought revved his engines. This was a mistake. He shouldn’t have brought her home. Even the bag of frozen peas was melting in his hands.
Frozen peas. Shit. Focus.
“We’re going to ice your ankle for twenty minutes every hour to keep the swelling down, although it doesn’t look too bad.” He set the peas on her ankle, and she sucked in air between her teeth.
“Cold!” She fisted her hands in the couch cushions.
He laughed. Wanting to feel even more connected to her, he couldn’t resist wrapping his hand around her other foot.
“Hence the word frozen.” He smiled and softened his tone. “I promise you’ll live. Are you hungry?”
“Starved.” She watched him walk into the kitchen. “I don’t remember you being such a bully.”
“Bully?”
“Yeah, you just told me I’d live, like it didn’t matter if it was cold, like I should just suck it up and deal with it.”
He’d been sucking it up and dealing with it for years. He was trying so hard to keep his heart from spilling out of his mouth that he hadn’t realized he’d been gruff. “I’m sorry, Jewel. I’m still getting used to being back in the civilian world.”
“Nate?” Her voice softened. “I was kidding. Thank you for doing this.”
He pulled open the fridge with a groan. “I forgot how pesty you are. What do you eat these days?”
Healed by Love (Love in Bloom: The Bradens) Page 3