by Becky Flade
“The rest is history, huh?” Henley sipped the soda she’d yet to touch. “You made good choices: adopting Dublin, coming here, making a new life for yourself while you healed. Nightmares still?” He nodded. “And the frame that was face down in your living room? Your partner?”
“Yeah, it’s a picture of me and Justin taken the day his son was born. I can’t look at it. I don’t see him, proud and joyful.” He stared at the lake.
“You see only the last image you have of him in that alley.”
“You shrinking me, Doc?” He turned toward her.
“Nope. That would be a natural response. But I think it’s good you brought the photo with you when you relocated, that you have it set out with the rest of your precious memories. It shows you’re on the mend. You’re never going to forget; it changed you. But when you can look at that picture and see your friend the way you wish you could, which I’m sure will be sooner than you think, you’ll have moved beyond the tragedy.”
“Yeah, you’re shrinking me. Any questions about my ability to perform sexually? All the others asked that. Want to know if I’m still harboring suicidal thoughts?” He could hear the anger in his tone. Knew she would too. Told himself he didn’t care what conclusions she drew.
“No, I’m not. If I were, I’d be asking all those intrusive questions shrinks ask. And I’d be throwing out all the clinical terms you’ve already heard about post-traumatic stress, survivor’s guilt, et cetera. Instead I’m listening the way a friend would and offering opinions and advice like a friend would. I’m also offering to listen any time you have a need.” She wrapped her slender fingers around his. It was the first time she had initiated contact between them. He tugged, hard, and she stood. He tugged again, and with a squeal, she tumbled into his lap, where she squirmed in earnest.
“Hold on. Be still. You’ll put us both in the lake.” She calmed, and he encircled her in his arms. “Relax, okay? I’ll try not to touch any skin, promise.” He felt her body melting into his until her head rested on his shoulder. They weren’t touching skin to skin, but he felt a zing of awareness anyway. Her breath was warm and soft on the side of his neck. “Thank you for listening, Henley. I feel better than I have in a long time.”
“I’m here whenever you need an ear.” Her voice was quiet, but her mouth was close to his ear. He didn’t just hear her words, he felt them. “But if you want, you could see a counselor or join a support group. It can help to have someone completely unbiased listen. Your family and friends were emotionally involved. The doctors you were sent to had an obligation to the department; their end goal wasn’t your health but you back in uniform.”
“What about you? Are you emotionally invested in my welfare?” He felt the nod he couldn’t see. “Good. I’m glad. I like holding you. No, don’t stand. I’m very comfortable talking to you.”
“I have a suggestion.” He remained quiet, and she took his silence as encouragement. “Go home.”
“Trying to get rid of me? What if I said this feels more like home to me?” He hoped she assumed that he meant the Cove, and he did, but he could admit to himself that home had begun to include her—talking to her, sparring with her, touching her. Now he could add holding her. She was reactive and had a strong flight instinct. He’d scare her. Shit, he scared himself.
“I meant for a visit. Let your family see you the way I do. It’ll alleviate their fears far better than phone calls from you and Maggie. Plus, it’ll ease the guilt you’re juggling about leaving them behind and not wanting to move back.”
“I’ll think about it. Maybe after my grandparents get back from their cruise. Now I have a suggestion for you.”
“Oh?”
“You should crash your sister’s wedding.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“They’d be embarrassed.”
“They should be embarrassed that you weren’t invited in the first place. I think it would be good for you. I think you’d regret not being there and manage to find a way to blame yourself for their mistake. Going back, with your head held high, would give them the opportunity to see you the way I see you.”
“How do you see me?”
“Smart. Confident. Brave. Capable. You shouldn’t let them get away with what they’ve done, Doc. Not scot-free. Show up, make them squirm a little; let them see they haven’t knocked you down. Feel good about yourself.”
“You shrinking me now?”
“Consider it friendly advice.” He winked. This close, he could see the gold and green flecks that marbled her whiskey-brown eyes. How could anyone not be drawn to this woman?
“Like earlier when you suggested I move into town?”
“I maintain that’s a good idea.”
“I’m leaning toward it, to tell the truth.” He inclined his head in agreement and silent support. The motion brought them closer, further aligning their mouths. He was hyperaware of the heat she generated, the subtle scent of flowers and citrus that enveloped him. He rubbed a lock of hair that had fallen from the loose bun she’d twisted the length into earlier—was it her shampoo he smelled? He heard her breathing hitch.
“What are we doing, Carter?”
“Enjoying our evening.”
“You know what I mean.” She shifted her body and lifted her hand as if to touch his face. He tensed in anticipation. She skimmed her fingertips over his jaw, his cheek, featherlight touches that left a trail of fire across his skin. “I think I’m getting used to your touch. To . . . how you feel.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“Are you going to kiss me again?”
“Would you like me to?” He saw her nod this time and recognized the banked passion in her hooded gaze. He lowered his mouth to hers but pulled back before their lips met. “How much of what you’re feeling is you and how much me? I don’t want to influence you.”
“It’s both. And it astounds me.”
His muscles clenched with desire. He hadn’t intended to seduce her or himself tonight. He had only wanted her to become more comfortable with his company and his touch. They needed to build trust, and he’d wanted to lay that foundation. With a level of restraint he hadn’t thought he possessed he laid his forehead against hers.
“How about you kiss me, Doc?”
• • •
Kiss him? He said he saw her as brave, confident, and capable. But what if she wasn’t? What if her family was right? Self-doubt threatened to override attraction and arousal. Only once had she defied the rigid rules her parents had set. That disaster had culminated with Henley waking from a coma and life as she’d known it ending. She’d spent the following fifteen years mostly alone, avoiding as much physical contact as possible, helping those she could. Paying penance. It wasn’t exactly the life she’d dreamt of. But it hadn’t been a bad life. Until it had backfired horribly on her. She had lost her grip on reality, on herself. And she’d fled the quiet, analytical, lonely life she’d built for that of a modern day gypsy. Trappers’ Cove offered her the first sanctuary she’d known since her childish dreams had become a nightmare, and Carter McAlister offered her first taste of passion in all that time.
She throbbed for him as his emotions swirled through her.
He was a good man with a healing but still bruised, broken heart. He was funny, charming, the definition of attractive, and he wanted her. She could feel it. His need cast a shadow over hers. She also felt caution and compassion. He wouldn’t push. If she couldn’t do this, couldn’t take this step, he’d slow down. Already, he moved at a snail’s pace; if she balked, he may walk away altogether. She didn’t know how that would affect her, but she knew she didn’t want him to give up. With what she knew of him, it wasn’t in his nature to quit, but she worried that might have been part of himself he left behind in that alley. The tragic chain of events that had led him to build anew in Minnesota had transpired around the same time she fled Cleveland. And here they were in the right time and place—together. S
he owed it to both of them to take a chance.
One hand settled over his heart, and she was soothed by the steady beat under her palm. The other cupped his cheek, and her eyes drifted closed while she tipped her mouth to capture his. The contact made her head whirl. She supped on his fuller bottom lip for a moment; she traced the smooth flesh with the tip of her tongue. Henley sighed when he pulled back. His mouth came back to hers, and he showed none of her hesitancy. His lips edged hers, teasing them apart and he deepened the kiss, his arms tightening around her. Though the second embrace cooled, her heart continued to pound, as did his. She opened her eyes. He stared into hers.
“Was it good for you, too?” Carter asked as he waggled his eyebrows at her comically. She couldn’t hold back her laughter.
“You should laugh more, Doc. I like it.”
“It’s a bark.”
“It’s genuine. And it always looks like it caught you off guard. Not much does. Has it always been like that? Or just since you gained the extra sense?”
“How are you okay with that?”
“I did research. It’s not that uncommon for coma patients to wake up different. Personality changes, and I’m talking serious ones, like a family man who woke up from a coma addicted to sex, the patient who woke up with obsessive-compulsive disorder. There are people who experienced memory loss and those who woke with all new, false memories. I read about this young English-speaking girl regaining consciousness speaking German. Only German. I figure you being able to feel more and understand the emotions of others isn’t that freaky in comparison.”
“You’re joking.” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Henley felt her eye twitch as she stared at him, searching for a glimmer of scorn or condescension. The fact she found neither astounded her. She trembled. At first the hospital staff had figured her senses were on overload from being out for a few weeks. But at her insistence that she could tell what people who touched her were feeling, the staff and her family had assumed the worst. No one had believed her. They’d convinced her she needed counseling. And psychotropic drugs. Carter had known her only a couple of months and had come to terms utterly with the irrational.
“No. I’m not. You feel too much, you feel too deeply—it’s a concern, granted. But, Henley, it makes you more exceptional than you already are. I can’t imagine how many people would have buckled, unable to handle it.” He caressed her thigh, and the heat from his hand bled through the denim jeans she wore. “You ever touch someone who didn’t buzz you?”
“No. I—Wait.” She sat up straight, and his hand gripped her thigh.
“Sweet Jesus, Henley. You scared the shit out of me. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just that when I got lost in the woods, Tala found me and led me back to the cabin.” He nodded encouragement but not understanding. “She held my hand. I got nothing. I was torn up about my family and embarrassed that I got lost and had to be saved by a ten-year-old child. I didn’t realize it until now. In fact, when I got back to the cabin I felt a lot better about the world and my place in it. I baked cookies.”
“Those were good cookies.” He pulled her close, and she settled back.
“You’re not surprised I didn’t get a ‘buzz,’ as you put it, from Maggie’s daughter?”
“Turnip’s different than most people. She’s what my late Mom-mom would have called an old soul. Mom-mom was superstitious Old World Irish. She’d tell us fantastic stories about fairy-rafts, curses, magic, and all kinds of stuff that was easy to believe when we were little.”
“I had that same thought, that Tala was an old soul. I told her about wood nymphs.” Henley laughed and shook her head. She felt more tendrils escaping and then the weight of her hair falling when Carter tugged on the bun. “She’s different, isn’t she?”
She felt his shrug and his hand in her hair. “Every child’s special in their own way.”
“She’s lucky. Many kids aren’t.”
“You heard a lot in your practice and doing pro-bono work. As a cop, I saw mostly the worst of people. I’m guessing it was like that for you too?”
“More so when I donated time to the shelters than in my practice, but yeah.”
“Ever use that extra sense on the job?”
“Not if I could prevent it. I always considered it a gross violation of privacy. But there are situations that don’t afford a polite way to avoid touch or they take me by surprise, and how was I supposed to ignore what I felt when all I wanted to do was help?”
“Like I said before, you’re an extraordinary woman.” Henley ducked her head, embarrassingly pleased by his words. His hands were still gentle, the one on her thigh, the one in her hair, but his tone displayed the strength of his conviction. She shivered and pressed a tender kiss to the vein that throbbed beneath his ear.
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” she asked.
“That’s an odd question.”
“I don’t think it is. I can’t see you being anything other than a police officer, firefighter, military, something like that.”
“I’m not a hero, Doc. Don’t paint me as one.”
“You’re wrong about that. And I’m as entitled to my opinion of you as you are to yours of me.” She stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed.
“A cop. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I watched Jake and the Fatman, Hill Street Blues, Columbo, Hawaii Five-O, you name it. Wore a plastic badge for a whole year when I was like eight.” He chuckled at the memory. “Drove my mom nuts. How about you?”
“I love books. I’ve an abundance of admiration for the people who can turn their fantasies into words that inspire the imagination. When I was young, I dreamed of writing my own stories. Problem was I dreamed of writing the stories but not of the stories.” She laughed deprecatingly, remembering the disappointment when she couldn’t put pencil to paper and build a world like Frances Hodgson Burnett had. “My parents were relieved when I recognized my outstanding lack of talent. Being a writer has no clout, and few are successful enough to support themselves. But I couldn’t give up my passion. I majored in literature originally. Toyed with the idea of a career in editing and publishing, maybe as a literary agent. Librarian or bookstore owner also appealed, but neither held much prestige, and my parents’ opinions mattered then.” She shrugged. “I switched to premed after I got well.”
“I got a glimpse of your books. You’re well on your way to building your own library.”
“That’s a fraction of my collection. I didn’t take books with me when I hit the road; those are only the ones I’ve bought in the last two years. The rest are in storage.”
“Wow. That’s . . . impressive.”
Henley laughed. “I’ve never seen you speechless.”
“Have you read them all?”
She nodded. “A couple more than once. When you left the cabin the morning after the break-in, I did an inventory to make sure they were all there.” She caught the lift of his eyebrow. She’d seen Maggie strike the same facial pose. They were more family than not. “I know, I know. No one broke into the cabin to steal a paperback book. But I still checked.”
“It bothers me that I still don’t know who did or why. And I don’t want to upset you, but the vandalism to your car must be related. That’s the reason I suggested you move into town.”
She shifted and turned her back against the arm of the chair. His hand fell out of her hair and settled on the small of her back. It occurred to her she was still in his lap. She struggled to keep her voice casual. Her instinct was to get away; it wasn’t the right instinct. She knew that. Even if she weren’t a doctor, she would know that. “Maybe it’s a woman. She’s had her eyes on the hunky, single sheriff and sees me as a threat.”
His smile made her roll her eyes. “Oh, that’s a fantastic theory. I’m hunky. You’re a threat. The Betty Barneses of Trappers’ Cove are out to get you for sure.”
“Go ahead and mock. It’s possible. But not Betty,” she equivocated as his gr
in grew. “She’s happily married from what I can see. But there are single women our age in the vicinity. And what else could I have possibly done to upset a local that badly? I hadn’t been here enough time to inspire ire when this began.”
His smile faded.
“See? You’re considering it now,” she said. “And you’re bound to like the jealous femme fatale better than my other theory.”
“Which is?” She tried to stand, but he held on. “Come on, tell me. What other nefarious schemes has your unimaginative mind imagined?”
“Carter, there’s a limit to how much ridicule I’ll take without getting annoyed.”
“Could’ve fooled me; I thought your parents trained you to accept ridicule as your due.”
“Not fair!” She shoved up out of his lap. She’d blown right past annoyed and surged into anger. Her hair billowed around her shoulders, and she swore as she fought to pull it into a tail. The repetitive action calmed her, so when she turned to where he remained lounging in his chair, she was composed. She felt stiff, but composed. “Professionally, I can tell you that throwing confidences in someone’s face is an ineffective method of encouraging honesty and building trust. Personally, I can tell you that you’re a jackass, and I’m leaving.”
“That’s one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. You went from seductress to aggressor to schoolmarm in a space of moments. Moments, Doc. Jesus, you make me hot.” She held herself rigid as he stood. The small space meant they were toe to toe. I should be afraid. His height should’ve been intimidating, but it wasn’t. He wasn’t. “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. Stop giving it to them. Stand up for yourself like you did just now. Got it?”