Hiding in Park City

by RaeAnne Thayne

  All she could focus on was the kiss they shared two nights earlier in this very spot. How his mouth had been firm and strong and tasted of cherry pie, how their breaths had mingled, how her body had ached and yearned for more than just a kiss….

  She jerked her mind from that dangerous road. “It was very sweet of you to put yourself through all this,” she said after a moment, then prayed he didn’t notice the breathiness of her voice.

  He snorted. “Yeah, well, that oldest girl of yours doesn’t give a man much choice once she sets her mind to something.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m sorry. Gaby can be…a little overwhelming sometimes.”

  “Right. That’s like saying Park City sees a little bit of snow every winter. Face it, Lisa. Your kid’s a steamroller.”

  “She’s just opinionated and not shy about sharing those opinions with anybody who will listen.”

  “Hmm. I wonder where she gets that?”

  Allie laughed at his dry-as-dust tone. “Not from me, certainly. Must have been her father’s side.”

  “Right. Well, I have to admit, the whole hair thing wasn’t really a conscious decision on my part. All I did was make the mistake of coming into the kitchen for some bottled water. I was just pulling it out of the fridge when the two of them burst in from the backyard chattering and giggling about the idea of fixing somebody’s hair. I was unlucky enough to be the one they found first. Next thing I knew, they were sticking all those little do-dads in my hair before I could get a word in.”

  She had to smile at the idea of Gage pretending helplessness against a five-year-old and a three-year-old. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to keep an eye on them. Or at least to watch the show. I was only next door taking care of some laundry and thought they would be fine in the backyard for a few moments. Next time I’ll take them with me.”

  “You don’t have to do that. They’re fine over here.” He said the words with his characteristic gruffness, but to her surprise he sounded as if he meant them.

  “I know you don’t want to be bothered with them,” she said after a moment. “I completely understand, Gage. I’ve done my best to keep them out of your way, but I’ll try harder from now on.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he repeated. “They don’t bother me. Not really.”

  Though she wasn’t completely convinced, she decided to take him at his word. “Well, I promise I won’t let them jump all over you. And no more beauty shop.”

  His oath of gratitude was heartfelt and unfeigned, and she laughed again as she plucked the last barrette from his hair. “There. All done.”

  The hair accessories had left his hair sticking out in several directions so she ran her fingers through the thick strands in a vain effort to smooth it down. “I think you’re going to need a comb to fix this all completely,” she said, then flushed at the hoarse note in her voice. Could he guess how he affected her? Oh, she hoped not.

  Still, she was aware of a sudden tension humming between them, a charged anticipation in the air.

  Her gaze met his and she was stunned by the banked desire she saw there. The breath caught in her throat and she swallowed.

  Time seemed to freeze and all her senses seemed more sharp, more intense suddenly.

  She was almost painfully aware of the softness of his hair under her fingers, of the slow rhythm of his breathing, of the clean, male scent of him drifting toward her.

  Her body swayed toward him again, but she caught herself just in time before she would have melted against him like one of the girls’ favorite candy bars left in the back window of the car.

  She swallowed and pulled her hand from his hair. “There you go. No harm done.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” His low voice vibrated in the kitchen. Before she could summon any kind of coherent thought about backing away toward safety and sanity, his hand fastened on her wrist and he tugged her toward him.

  Because of his height—and her lack of it—they were nearly the same level even when he was sitting in the wheelchair.

  She didn’t have to angle her head too much for his mouth to find hers with unerring heat, then she forgot anything as silly and inconsequential as trying to escape. Why would she want to, when this was exactly where she wanted to be?

  Her arms twined around his neck and she nestled against him, aware of his heart pounding through the cotton of his shirt, of the swell and ache of her breasts where they brushed against his hard chest.

  Even as she reveled in their embrace, some corner of her mind still whispered a warning note. This was dangerously foolish. How could she expect to keep the tattered remnants of her heart intact if she engaged in this kind of crazy, risky behavior?

  She disregarded the warning and settled against him with a sigh.

  “I can’t think about anything else but this,” he murmured against her mouth. “All day long, all I can think about is kissing you again. Touching you. I would give anything to be out of this damn chair so I could show you how much I want you.”

  His words were as arousing as the hand that had somehow pulled her T-shirt free of her shorts and was caressing the skin at her waist.

  “I’ve thought of it, too,” she confessed, then flushed at her boldness.

  She was embarrassed suddenly about the insulin pump and the catheter that fed into her skin, but Gage barely paid attention to it. He kissed her again, his tongue slipping inside as his hand explored higher under her shirt.

  She wasn’t aware she held her breath until his fingers found the underslope of her breast and she exhaled in a long, aroused sigh. Oh, this was what she wanted. His hands on her skin, on her body, his mouth warm and alive against hers, this tenderness gushing up inside her like water from a broken sprinkler head.

  No, she wanted more. She wanted to be stretched out beside him with no barriers between them, to feel the urgent press of his body cover her, the hard strength of him inside of her.

  Her cheeks flamed at the thought even as her breath caught in her throat and she closed her eyes against the mental picture conjured up by her entirely too-vivid imagination.

  She opened them when a sound reached in and yanked her back to reality, ringing through her consciousness like a fire alarm—the sound of two little girls laughing outside the kitchen window.

  She stiffened. Oh, heavens. She’d forgotten all about her daughters, playing alone out back. How could she have been so irresponsible to tangle tongues—and dream about more—with Gage while her children played just a few feet away?

  She scrambled up, yanking down her T-shirt. “I…I need to check on the girls.”

  His hair was still mussed, his breathing ragged, but he had never looked so gorgeous to her. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  She should say something more, take some kind of firm stand that they simply had to stop this lunacy, no matter what kind of chemistry bubbled and frothed between them, but she couldn’t manage to string two thoughts together. Not with him watching her out of those hooded gray eyes. So she just sent him a distressed look and hurried out the back door toward her daughters.

  * * *

  Gage watched her go, too paralyzed by what had just happened to move from the kitchen.

  He couldn’t believe he had kissed her again, after all his noble intentions to leave her alone. All his adult life, he had prided himself on his self-control, his restraint. He never drank to excess, he worked out religiously, he tried to eat healthy foods, for the most part.

  But he didn’t know himself around Lisa. He had suddenly become a stranger who gave in to his cravings, who grabbed an innocent woman in his kitchen and kissed her like she was a cool flask of water and he’d been crawling through the desert for decades.

  This had to stop. He didn’t know how, but he somehow had to find the strength and self-discipline to ignore his body’s hunger for her.

  If only he could figure out how to ease the yearning in his heart.

  CHAPTER 12

&n
bsp; His mother arrived just after lunch.

  When the girls had finished devouring their second-favorite meal of macaroni and cheese, Allie sent them off for their daily trip to the park with Jessica then returned to her house to throw the last load of Gage’s laundry into the dryer.

  She wasn’t avoiding him, she assured herself, even though she had to admit she was grateful for the opportunity to be on her own for a moment, to try to regain some desperately needed equilibrium.

  The laundry room sweltered from the dryer and from the hot sun blazing through the windows—not the most pleasant place to spend a June afternoon, but at least she had a little solitude here.

  While she folded linens amid the torpid heat and the sweet, clean scent of laundry detergent, the dazzling intensity of that kiss looped through her mind over and over. His strong hands on her skin, his mouth hard and urgent on hers. Her own eager response.

  She didn’t know she could catch fire so quickly, so completely. She had been totally lost to everything but Gage and to the sheer wonder of being in his arms.

  What a tangled mess. So much for her plans to keep a careful distance between them until she could leave Park City. That resolution had lasted all of a half hour, only until she had walked into the kitchen and seen him acting so sweetly around her daughters.

  How foolish she had been to think she could pluck out her growing feelings for him like Ruth going after weeds in her flower garden. Already he was rooted so deeply in her heart that she didn’t know how she would ever be able to break free.

  With a snap, she shook out the last of his pillowcases and folded it neatly, smoothing her fingers over the cotton to straighten the fold. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could get rid of the rest of the wrinkles in her life so easily? Just flip her wrist and make them all disappear?

  Much as she’d like to, she couldn’t hide out here in her laundry room all afternoon. She was made of sterner stuff, anyway. She kept telling herself that as she loaded the clean and folded linens into the basket and walked back to Gage’s house.

  As she reached his porch steps, the low throb of an engine purred through the quiet summer afternoon. She turned to see a small late-model Toyota SUV parked at the curb in front of Gage’s house.

  Curious, she paused on the steps and watched as a trim woman in her midfifties wearing navy capris and a cheerful yellow shirt hopped from the sporty vehicle. Bright sunlight glimmered off artfully streaked blond hair and classically applied makeup.

  This was a woman with confidence and grace, one of those timelessly beautiful women who had always left her envious.

  With her own shorts and T-shirt, choppy haircut and unattractive dye job, Allie felt as sweaty and grubby as one of the girls after a day spent at the zoo.

  For some reason she didn’t quite understand, something about the woman’s smile as she approached sent sharp foreboding prickling through her. Don’t be silly, she chided herself. She’s probably just a lost tourist looking for directions.

  “Hello,” Allie said with a polite smile. “May I help you?”

  “You must be Lisa. My son Wyatt told me about you. I’m Lynn McKinnon, Gage’s mother. Please, let me help you with your basket.”

  Gage’s mother. Oh, no! He would not be happy about having his mother show up suddenly at his doorstep, not after his revelations the day before about the tense, awkward relationship the two of them shared and the reasons for it.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got it.” For all the heat of the afternoon, she felt frozen on the steps, unsure what to do, what to say.

  “Um, come in,” she finally managed to squeak out. “I’ll just let Gage know you’re here.”

  “Wait. To be honest, I would really like to speak with you first before I see Gage.”

  She stared blankly at the other woman, baffled and nervous. “Oh?”

  “I know my son, Ms…. Connors, isn’t it?”

  Allie nodded, hating the alias. She wanted to be Alicia DeBarillas again not the stranger named Lisa Connors.

  She hated this deceit and the reasons for it.

  “I’m afraid Gage won’t be very thrilled to see me,” Lynn said bluntly. “I’m also afraid he won’t want to tell me the truth about his injury. Before I face him and hear all his macho lies about how he’s fine and has barely a scratch, I wanted to ask you as his nurse how he’s really doing.”

  She wasn’t sure how Gage would want her to answer that. She couldn’t claim total insight into the man who employed her, but she thought she knew him well enough to guess he wouldn’t want her sharing his complete medical history with his estranged mother.

  On the other hand, this smiling woman seemed to genuinely care about her son’s welfare. Allie couldn’t bring herself to lie to the woman. “He’s in pain but he tries hard to pretend he’s not.”

  “That sounds very much like Gage.”

  “I can only tell you what the doctor said when I drove him there a few days ago. His right leg is healing quickly. Because of the angle at which he was hit, it sustained only a simple fracture. A few more weeks and the doctor thinks he’ll be able to start weight bearing.”

  “And the left leg?”

  “It still has a ways to go. He’s probably looking at another month or two in the cast, then rehab after that.”

  “I see.”

  “He still has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but he’s able to get around better every day.”

  The other woman nodded and touched her arm with cool fingers. “Thank you for being honest. You must think I’m a nosy, interfering old woman but I knew Gage wouldn’t tell me the truth. He’s my son and I love him but I’m the first one to admit he can be a little stubborn sometimes, as I’m sure you have discovered.”

  Again, Allie didn’t know how to answer. She did know she had a hard time believing this warm, friendly woman could possibly blame her son for something that had happened when he was only a child.

  “Come in and I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Allie led the way up the porch steps and into the house, then left Lynn McKinnon waiting in the living room. At Gage’s closed bedroom door, she paused, her nerves scrambling.

  He wasn’t going to be happy to see his mother. She only hoped he wouldn’t stomp all over Lynn’s maternal concern.

  No. As gruff and taciturn as he could be sometimes, Allie knew he was also capable of great gentleness. Only look at that morning, how he had tolerated her girls and their mischievousness.

  She had a feeling that despite his own discomfort around his mother, he would treat her with only respect.

  She knocked, then swung open the door after he bade her to enter. He was on the bed working through some of the physical therapy exercises that didn’t require her help. His features were strained as he extended his leg, and sweat beaded his forehead.

  “Sorry to interrupt but you have another visitor.”

  Irritation flashed through his gray eyes and he muttered an oath. “Can’t a guy get a moment’s peace around here?”

  “Sorry.” She paused, loath to tell him the rest of it. “Um, Gage, it’s your mother.”

  She expected him to show some reaction to her announcement but he only continued his stretching. All she could see was a hint of resignation in the set of his mouth.

  “You don’t look surprised.”

  “I expected her last night. The only surprise is that she could stand to wait until today to show up.”

  “Can I send her in?”

  “Give me a minute, will you?”

  She studied him, trying to figure out what was going through his mind, then she shrugged. “Sure. I’ll stall her.”

  She returned to the living room and found Lynn tracing her finger along Gage’s CD collection. Trying to find some clues into the son she didn’t know? Allie wondered.

  She cleared her throat and Lynn looked up quickly, flushing a little.

  “He’ll just be a moment,” Allie said. “Would you l
ike something to drink while you wait?”

  “No. I’m fine. Thank you.”

  They stood awkwardly for a moment. “Gage tells me you live about an hour away.”

  “Yes. I grew up in the little town of Liberty and I’ve lived there most of my life. And what about you? What brings you to Park City?”

  A nightmarish custody battle and raw terror at the idea of losing her girls. She couldn’t say that, of course, so she offered only the bare bones of her story. “My husband was killed in a car accident a few years ago and I decided my girls and I could use a fresh start. We were heading to California when we had engine trouble and ended up staying.”

  “I’m so glad you did, for Gage’s sake. Wyatt assured me you’re taking very good care of him.”

  “I don’t know about that. He would much rather do everything by himself.”

  Lynn smiled suddenly. “This was an awful thing to happen to anyone, and I wish with all my heart my son didn’t have to go through such an ordeal. But sometimes it’s not necessarily a bad thing for certain people to learn they can lean on someone else once in a while.”

  She was quite sure Gage would strongly disagree, but she smiled politely.

  “Let me ask you something else,” Lynn went on. “Do you think I would be in the way if I stayed around town for a few days? I’m in the middle of summer vacation from school and, like you, could use a change of scenery. I was thinking about renting a condominium somewhere nearby for a week or so. It would give Gage and me a wonderful chance to catch up. What do you think?”

  He had a spare bedroom going unused, but she knew it wasn’t her place to offer it to Lynn. “I think you should talk to your son about it.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  They lapsed into silence, and after a moment Allie decided to see if Gage was ready yet.

  “Excuse me for a moment and I’ll check on Gage,” she murmured to the other woman.

  When she returned to his room, she found he not only had changed into a clean shirt and a pair of nylon sweats that snapped up the sides and over his casts but he had also transferred from the bed to the recliner.