Her Miracle Man

by Karen Sandler

  “Do you see his face—”

  “No!” Bolt upright, eyes still closed, she clutched Jack’s arm. “Don’t—No!”

  “Mia! You’re safe. Open your eyes. You’re here with me. You’re safe.”

  Her eyes snapped open, clouded with whatever horror she’d seen in her mind. Then she threw her arms around him and he pulled her into his lap. She shuddered so hard, he was terrified he’d sent her over the edge, into some dark land she’d never be able to return from. He could only murmur soft comfort, stroke her back, press his mouth against her hair.

  The spell they’d woven had broken. Her breathing was erratic and where his fingers rested on her neck, her heart beat in a crazy syncopation. His face buried in her hair, he wished he could breathe calm back into her, could erase whatever had frightened her so.

  “We should talk about it,” he whispered.

  She shook her head against his chest.

  “While it’s still fresh in your mind—”

  “I don’t want to think about it.” She tipped her head back.

  “Tell me something about your life. Something happy. So I don’t have to remember.”

  He wanted to argue with her, tell her there had been damn little happiness in his life. A father who walked out, renouncing his own family in favor of a new wife and her young children. A mother, hit hard by her husband’s abandonment, who couldn’t grasp her son’s brilliant mind and left the nurturing to her older daughter. Then Jack’s own wife, the love of his life, murdered.

  But Mia implored him with her eyes, and he couldn’t refuse. He thought back, groping for a bright moment amongst the grief.

  “Elizabeth’s and my first date.” God, how long had it been since he’d thought about that? “What a disaster.”

  Mia narrowed her gaze at him. “This is a happy memory?”

  He couldn’t suppress a smile as he remembered. “Blew a tire on the way to the restaurant and had no idea how to fix it. It was Elizabeth who found the jack and tire iron and got it changed.”

  She’d hiked up her skirt to get it out of the way and he’d ogled her legs the entire time. “We were so late we lost our reservation. Had to wait an hour to be seated. Then after dinner, I realized I’d left my wallet at home.”

  “So Elizabeth had to pay,” Mia said.

  “I was twenty-three years old and she was twenty-five. I’d desperately wanted to impress her. By the time I drove her home, I was sure I’d lost any chance of ever seeing her again.”

  “So, what happened?”

  He hesitated, the details of those moments on Elizabeth’s doorstep as clear in his mind as if it had only been last week and not thirteen years ago. Her kiss had curled his toes, all but stopped his heart.

  “Let’s just say,” Jack said, tucking the memories away again deep inside, “we came to an amicable agreement.”

  Sighing, Mia smiled. “I wish I could have met her.”

  He could so easily see Elizabeth and Mia laughing together, sharing their joy in a way special to women. The injustice of Elizabeth’s death rolled over him with a wave of pain.

  Holding Mia only thrust the knife deeper into his chest. He couldn’t have Elizabeth back and he didn’t dare let Mia in. He couldn’t depend on her comfort, not when she’d be out of his life so soon.

  He eased away from her, the knot of pain tightening inside him. He groped in his mind for an excuse to leave. “There’s something I forgot I have to get done tonight. If you’re okay…”

  Her eyes glittered in the firelight as she gazed up at him. “I’m fine.”

  She didn’t sound it, but he wasn’t in any state of mind to dig deeper. He backed away, then headed for his office.

  Once he got inside and shut the door, he didn’t even turn on the light. He didn’t have a damn thing to do, at least nothing that couldn’t wait until tomorrow. But recalling that night with Elizabeth—the way she’d laughed at their every predicament, her smile, her kind eyes, the soft touch of her hand on his—had left him feeling frayed around the edges. He dreaded tomorrow and the parade of ugliness it would bring.

  Mia could help him through it. Or she might make the agony even worse. He wasn’t sure. He would have to err on the side of caution and leave her out of the equation.

  Standing before his office window, he stared out at the darkness, trees silhouetted against snow, the stark loneliness a match for what he felt inside.

  Chapter Nine

  Friday morning Jack struggled to wake, his eyelids weighted by the two or three hours of sleep he’d managed to get during the night. He’d stayed in his office until after ten, when Mia finally went to bed. After an hour pacing the great room, the sweetness of the good times with Elizabeth weaving in a twisted tapestry with the black times, he had finally forced himself to seek his own bed. Not that it had done him much good, considering how little sleep he’d gotten.

  A quick glance at the clock told him it was a quarter to eight. December 19. Thirteen hours from now would be the next tick on the time line marking the last days of Elizabeth’s life.

  He’d called Elizabeth at nine o’clock on Friday night, their prearranged time. They’d both been irritable, on edge. He’d overbooked himself at the Seattle engineering conference, his schedule of presentations grueling. Spending the week before Christmas without him had been harder than she’d expected, and she was in tears after decorating the apartment alone.

  He couldn’t remember the words he’d flung at her, her biting response. It wasn’t like them to argue, and it caught them both off guard. Their mutual apology before they’d said goodbye had been three parts exhaustion and one part remorse.

  Jack had vowed to make it up to her when he returned home Christmas Eve. He’d left Dawson in the lurch the next morning, arriving an hour late for Saturday’s conference presentation, spending the time shopping for the perfect necklace for Elizabeth.

  A necklace he never gave her. He was carrying it in his pocket the day they arrested him for her murder. When he was released on bail and had his property returned to him, he had Dawson stop at a local thrift store so he could donate the pricy piece of jewelry. Weighted with regrets, it was far to heavy to carry around anymore.

  He dragged his sorry self out of bed and into the bathroom. A hot shower left him clean without washing away the sense of dread that haunted him. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Mia, the what-ifs she represented just as painful as the might-have-beens of his short marriage.

  As he strode through the great room toward the kitchen, he spotted her in the living-room window seat, a paperback in her lap, her gaze directed out at the snowy day. She wore one of Elizabeth’s flannel shirts, red and blue plaid over a blue turtleneck, her feet in thick red socks. As he passed her, she glanced at him, nodding a silent hello before returning her attention to the icy winter panorama outside.

  Resisting the temptation to sit beside her, he kept himself moving toward the kitchen. A still-warm loaf of some kind of fragrant spice bread with a few slices gone sat on the counter on a wooden cutting board. A mixing bowl and baking pan air-dried in the dish drainer.

  He cut himself two thick pieces of bread, then poured a mug of coffee, consuming both while standing at the breakfast bar. As he ate, his gaze locked on Mia and he felt a hunger he knew wouldn’t be satisfied by the sweet spice bread.

  Serving himself a second cup of coffee, he padded out to the great room and sat on the hope chest. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Sure.” But when she turned toward him, he could see the circles under her eyes. “I’ve torn through so many of Elizabeth’s books, I can’t stand the thought of reading another page. I even cleaned the bathroom and kitchen this morning just for a little variety.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  She shrugged. “Is there anything else I could do for you?”

  The leading question dangled there between them for several seconds. There was a whole list of things she could do for him he had no intention of
identifying.

  His mind lit on what seemed like a safe enough option. “You could file some of the papers in my office. Most of it would be pretty easy to categorize. They need to go into file boxes for storage in the garage.”

  She slid from the window seat. “Lead me to it.”

  In his office he gestured at the piles he’d moved yesterday to give her a workspace. “There’s correspondence mixed in with old contracts, brochures and plain old junk mail. Some miscellaneous odds and ends.” Pulling out samples of each type of item he needed sorted, he laid them out on the floor. “Just put them in piles, then order them by date if they’ve got one. I’ll find you the file boxes.”

  While she got started, Jack scouted out the plastic boxes he had stacked in the garage. Of the three he found, only one was empty; the others were packed full. Back in his office, he scrounged up some hanging folders and handed them and the file box to Mia.

  Focusing on his computer, he did what he could to block her out. But with the approaching holiday, all of his clients had shut down their operations early. The meetings that usually filled his Fridays had been canceled. Even Dawson planned to leave by three and had tied up all his loose ends with Jack yesterday.

  Jack had nothing but a handful of miscellaneous housekeeping tasks he’d put off for when he had the time. Backing up files and data, digging through the dozens of nonwork-related e-mails he had tucked away in a temporary folder, answering those that required a response. Archiving folders no longer in current use. Dull drudgery that wasn’t nearly enough distraction from Mia, who sat on the floor within arm’s reach.

  Of course, she couldn’t do the filing work with no interaction or his guidance. She’d ask for clarification on this or that piece of paper, sometimes holding it up for him to see, sometimes bringing it over, hovering beside his chair while he examined it. She’d rolled up the cuffs of the shirt and pushed up the sleeves of the turtleneck, and as she stood there, he could see her pulse fluttering in her wrist.

  At one o’clock she rose, throwing her arms over her head in a mesmerizing stretch that pulled the hem of the turtleneck from the waist of her jeans. The motion exposed a pale swath of her slender waist, her navel winking briefly into view. When she asked if he was ready for lunch, he could barely muster a coherent response.

  He stayed in his office until she called him, then wolfed down the grilled ham and cheese she’d made, washing it down with milk. After lunch he was grateful the trash was full, because it gave him the excuse to go outside to dump the plastic bag into the thirty-gallon garbage can. He stood out there as long as he could stand the cold, the house eaves scant shelter from the drifting snow.

  She took a break after lunch, going back to her sketch pad, returning to the filing in late afternoon. He’d gotten little accomplished during his time alone, fantasies of Mia dragging him all too willingly away from his work.

  She finally had the piles sorted shortly before six. He gave up the impossible task of ignoring her, allowing himself to watch as she inserted an identifying tab into each hanging folder, then filed the stacks of paper into their appropriate slots.

  She ran out of room in the plastic box with two piles yet to file. Sitting back on her heels, she asked, “Is there another file box?”

  “No. Just leave those.”

  “There’s a box in the guest-room closet.” She levered herself up. “I moved it to make room for a laundry pile. It felt close to empty.”

  She walked out before he could stop her, her scent drifting toward him as she passed. Pressing his thumb between his brows, he tried to remember a file box in the closet. When it came back to him what he had tossed in there four months ago, he was on his feet running toward the guest room.

  But she’d already opened the box when he got there. From the color in her cheeks he knew she’d moved aside the empty manila folders and unearthed what they’d hidden. A forgotten box of condoms.

  She dropped the folders and let the plastic lid fall shut. “Sorry.” The color flagging her cheeks deepened.

  Walk away, he told himself. Don’t think about what’s under those folders.

  Except that was all he could think about, that and the way Mia’s lush lips would feel against his, how her mouth would taste. The moans she would make as he touched her, the way she would feel when she fell apart in his arms.

  If he’d had a scrap of nobility in him, he would have turned and left the room. But then her head tipped up, her gaze meeting his as her lush lips parted. And chivalry was the last damn thing on his mind.

  She unfolded herself from the floor, reaching for him. “I know we shouldn’t. I don’t even know who I am. But wanting you…It’s the only thing about me that’s real.”

  That was all the invitation he needed. He lowered his mouth to hers, groaned with the first hot contact. The heat burned away his misgivings, silenced the warnings his mind screamed. All that mattered was the feel of Mia in his arms.

  Kissing her, sensations rocketing through him, he backed her toward the bed. He drew her down with him, the slight weight of her body on his an exquisite pleasure. Her hands on his face, her hips pressed into his, the sound of her breathing threatened to push him over the edge far too soon.

  He dragged in a harsh breath, struggling for control. Twisting, he eased her around and under him. Up on his elbows, an inch of space between them, he inhaled, exhaled, tempering the heat of his body.

  She waited, watching him. Smiled up at him. Then when he lowered himself against her, she sighed, eyes fluttering shut.

  Slowing the pace, he brushed his mouth against hers, drawing the tip of his tongue across her lower lip. Her lips parted, inviting him in, but he resisted temptation. Instead he trailed kisses across her cheek, along her jaw to the point of her chin, back to her mouth. He painted her lower lip with his tongue again, then grazed kisses along her throat, to the shell of her ear.

  She squirmed under him, and the wildland fire within him nearly jumped its containment. He took another long breath, reveling in her heady scent, regaining control.

  Lifting her, he stripped the flannel shirt and tossed it aside. The turtleneck underneath was rucked up, exposing her narrow waist. The peaks of her nipples strained through the thin knit, and he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. His excitement ratcheted up another notch.

  Hooking his thumbs in the hem of the turtleneck, he stroked her along her rib cage as he slowly slipped it from her. The hem caught on her nipples, and as the knit brushed against them, she gasped and threw her head back. Keeping the turtleneck where it was, he bent his head and laved her nipple, wetting the knit. Her hips lifted from the bed, pressing into his.

  Easing off her turtleneck, he arched back to look at her lying half-naked beneath him. Her eyes were half-lidded with passion, her cheeks stained pink. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, her small breasts trembling with the motion.

  He lowered himself again, his hand drifting along her rib cage, thumb grazing the curve of her breast. Her breath hitched as he lingered there, as he brushed kisses along the tender skin of her throat to her collarbone. His hand continued down her body to the waistband of her jeans, around the front to the button.

  He’d just unfastened it when a shred of reason intruded. His hand stilled and he whispered in her ear. “Protection.”

  He rose from the bed, lifting the lid on the plastic file box and pulling out the condoms inside. It crossed his mind that this moment of separation could give her a chance for second thoughts. Even as his body declared its outrage at that possibility, the one speck of his brain still clear enough to think realized it would be better for both of them if she changed her mind.

  But she said nothing as he returned to the bed and set the box of condoms on the nightstand. When he leaned over her again, she twined her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss her. His hands splayed across her belly, he soaked in her scent, her feel, the small moans his touch brought from her throat.

  She shivered, remindi
ng him how cool the room was. Pushing aside the covers on the bed, he urged her into it. While she lay back on the pillows, he undressed, throwing aside sweater and shoes, shucking his jeans. As he shoved off his shorts, her avid gaze on him nearly stopped his heart. He was glad she still wore her jeans, that there was something to slow him down.

  He knelt on the bed beside her. His hands shook so badly, he fumbled the zipper on her jeans. With gritted teeth, he slid it down, then tugged off jeans and panties. He looked his fill, from head to toe, then back up to the dark nest of curls between her legs.

  He turned off the light, wanting the intimacy of the darkness. He could barely manage the condom, his fingers clumsy as he ripped open the packet then sheathed himself. “It’s been a damn long time,” he told her roughly. “I don’t know if I can…”

  Her hand on his arm, she pulled him down to her. He settled between her thighs, lost in heaven. Just lying so close to her, skin to skin, was paradise.

  He reached between their bodies and slipped a finger inside her. Her wet, hot readiness set off a roaring in his ears. Holding on to a last scrap of self-control, he spread his palm against her. Her sighs intensified to moans, the sound growing more guttural as he thrust a second finger inside her. Her wetness soaked his palm, her pleasure pounding inside him.

  She exploded against his hand, tightening rhythmically around his fingers. While her body still vibrated with her climax, he pushed inside her, sucking in a breath as fire lit his loins.

  Wanting desperately to take his time, he knew his body had waited long enough. He thrust deep, her legs wrapping around his hips, ankles locking at the small of his back.

  She reached down, her fingernails digging into his hips as she urged him closer. He bucked into her, the exquisite sensation nearly agonizing. He held back as long as he could, then climaxed with a cry of triumph, feeling her pulse around him as pleasure overwhelmed her again.

  Bit by bit, he came back to himself, became aware of the sound of her breathing as it slowed, the relaxation of her body that told him she was asleep. He levered his weight off her carefully, then went into the bathroom across the hall to clean up.