Hiding in Park City

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Can I bring your mother back?” she asked.

  He nodded, and Allie returned for Lynn. She showed his mother to the bedroom then hovered in the doorway, though she wasn’t sure why.

  In just one brief moment when Lynn walked into the room, Allie saw a myriad of emotions pass between the two of them. Lynn’s gaze brimmed over with a sort of anguished love as she looked at her son and Gage wore a look of mingled stoicism and yearning.

  Allie closed the door behind Lynn, then touched a hand to her chest, to her heart. She could almost feel it break apart as she realized what she would have to do.

  * * *

  How could one small woman leave him so totally exhausted?

  By the time his mother left two hours later—after pressing a smooth cheek that smelled of lavender and sage to his and promising she would return the next day—Gage felt as if he had just run twenty miles through blinding rain, broken legs and all.

  As much as he loved his mother, she somehow managed to leave him weary and drained, maybe because he had to navigate so carefully through the minefield of emotions between them. Two hours listening to his mother’s cheerful chatter was more grueling than spending two hours interrogating the worst of criminals.

  He was tempted to indulge in a little nap for a while but he had a feeling if he did, he would only end up spending a restless night tossing and turning in his bed. He didn’t want to risk it, not when he knew he would already have a tough time sleeping because of that kiss he and Lisa had shared earlier, the one he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  Lynn had left his door ajar and he could hear Lisa laughing quietly in the kitchen, then the higher-pitched music of her daughters joining in. He could picture them together, sharing smiles and stories and affectionate touches.

  She was a toucher, he had noticed, with her daughters and with everyone else. A comforting hand here, a gentle squeeze there. He’d never been one who liked casual physical contact—he was usually uncomfortable with it, even—but for some reason he didn’t mind it from her.

  As it had done all too often that afternoon, even when he’d been talking to his mother, the memory of their kiss earlier in the morning played through his mind again, of the incredible rightness of having her in his arms. He had never experienced anything like it, that wild jumble of tenderness and sweetness and raw desire.

  If not for her girls, he would have pulled her onto him, buried himself inside of her, lost himself in her.

  Even hours later, his body still ached for her. Not just his body, he admitted. As crazy as it seemed, his whole soul yearned and burned for Lisa Connors.

  He wanted to be near her. To talk to her and listen to the low murmur of her voice and watch her face soften and glow with her smile.

  He heard her and her daughters laugh again and suddenly wanted desperately to be in that kitchen with them, not trapped here in this damn bedroom by his physical and emotional limitations.

  Even as he told himself how foolish it was—how, if he had any kind of a brain in his head, he would keep his butt planted right where it was—Gage transferred with painstaking care from the recliner to the wheelchair.

  When he wheeled to the kitchen, he paused in the doorway. None of them noticed him at first so he settled in to watch, drawing a strange peace from the domesticity of the scene.

  Lisa stood at the kitchen counter wearing the same apron she had worn on that first day when he’d come home from the hospital. The girls stood on chairs set at either side of her, watching their mother’s actions with their cute little faces bright with glee and anticipation.

  He loved watching her, too, he had to admit. Everything about her seemed so fluid and graceful, like watching some rare, exquisite bird floating on air currents. She made even an action as mundane as mixing some kind of batter in a bowl look elegant and smooth.

  The littlest one, Anna, saw him first. She gave him a small, painfully sweet smile and a bashful little wave, then ducked her head. He lifted his fingers to wave back just as the other one caught sight of him.

  “Hi, Mr. Gage!” she exclaimed. “We’re makin’ brownies. Me and Anna love, love, love brownies.”

  “Who doesn’t?” he asked wryly.

  She frowned, giving his off-the-cuff remark far more consideration than it deserved. “Mommy doesn’t. She doesn’t eat them, anyway. She says these will be just for me and Anna and you.”

  He glanced at Lisa, who shrugged and returned his gaze with a rueful look. “Okay. You caught me. The truth is, I love, love, love brownies, too, but I can’t afford to eat them very often. They and my diabetes don’t get along very well.”

  He found it poignant and heartrending that she would make treats for her daughters she couldn’t enjoy herself. What a good mother she was, so very different from a lot of the women he came in contact with on the job. The ones who were too high or drunk to notice when their boyfriends spent an inordinate amount of time alone with their children or the bruises or the frequent trips to the emergency room.

  “There’s that superstrength willpower again.”

  She studied him for a moment then looked away, her cheeks dusted with color. “Not really. I just know the consequences of overindulging better than most.”

  “Do you want to help us make the brownies, Mr. Gage?” Gaby asked.

  “How about if I just watch?”

  “Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Once we made a cake with Grandma Irena and she let us lick the spoon but Mommy says we can’t ’cause we’ll get worms in our tummies. That’s gross, huh?”

  “Gabriella!” Lisa exclaimed. The spoon clattered against the metal of the mixing bowl with a discordant sound.

  What had the little girl said to put such raw panic in her eyes, such sternness in her voice? Gage wondered.

  Gaby looked confused, too. “Well, it is gross. Who wants worms in their tummies?”

  “We don’t need to talk about this right now,” Lisa said sternly. “I think we’re done mixing now and ready to pour the mix into the pan. Hold it steady for me, okay?”

  He couldn’t help thinking she was changing the subject and he racked his mind trying to figure out what in such an innocuous statement had set her off.

  Finally he gave up trying to puzzle out her strange reaction and just enjoyed the sight of them working together. Both girls held tight to the pan on either side, as if it were a wriggly puppy trying to escape. Their tongues were thrust tight between their teeth in concentration while Lisa poured the batter and scraped the remainder out.

  “I want to set the buzzer,” Gaby begged when she finished.

  “Okay.” Lisa handed her the small kitchen timer. “Thirty minutes. Do you remember how to do that?”

  Gaby nodded and twisted the dial, that solemn look on her little face again, then held it out for her mother’s inspection. “Three zero. Thirty minutes.”

  “Good job. Now you two need to wash your hands, then go out in the backyard and start gathering up your toys to put into the basket. As soon as the brownies are done, we need to go back to our house for the night.”

  The girls jumped down from their chairs obediently and dragged them to the sink.

  “Bye, Mr. Gage,” Gaby said when they finished washing up and were on their way out the door. “Don’t eat all the brownies without us.”

  “I won’t, I swear.”

  Her sister gifted him with another shy wave and smile before following at her loquacious sibling’s heels, leaving him alone with Lisa.

  He shifted in the wheelchair, uncomfortably aware this was the first time he had been alone with her since their kiss that morning. Tension seethed through the kitchen, taut and cumbrous, and suddenly Lisa seemed to have an inordinate preoccupation with wiping down the counter.

  “So how was your visit with your mother?” she finally asked.

  He shrugged. “We both survived.”

  Somehow the look she sent him was both reprimanding and sympathetic. “I thought she was very nice. And it’s ob
vious she’s concerned about you.”

  “Right. So concerned she’s decided to rent a condo in town for a few weeks so she can keep an eye on me.”

  “She told me she was thinking about it. I hope you told her how silly that was. Did you tell her you have a spare bedroom and she could stay here with you?”

  “No.”

  She frowned. “Why not?”

  Guilt pinched at him but he staunchly ignored it. “Because I don’t want her here.”

  She set down the cloth she’d been using on the counter and faced him, a militant light in her eyes that made him more than a little edgy. “Gage, she’s your mother.”

  “I believe I’m aware of that fact, thanks.”

  “So you should welcome this chance to spend some time with her! I know things are awkward between you, but they don’t have to be that way. You could use this time together to heal the rift between you.”

  He ground his back teeth. “There is no rift between us. We just prefer to go our separate ways.”

  “You might prefer things that way, but your mother doesn’t sound as if she agrees. Otherwise, she wouldn’t feel compelled to stick around for the next few weeks, would she?”

  He couldn’t answer because he’d wondered the same thing, just what his mother was after by deciding to take up temporary residence in Park City. Surely she didn’t want to try to build a relationship with him after all these years. It didn’t make any kind of sense. But what other explanation could there be?

  All these years he thought she preferred things the way they were, that she needed that distance between them as much as he did, but now he was beginning to wonder if he had been wrong.

  Even if he had been, he couldn’t imagine having her stay here. Hell, just a few hours with her left him wrung out. Limp as a worn-out fiddle string, as his grandpa would have said. Having her here on even a semipermanent basis would be more than he could survive.

  If she was here, Wyatt would probably turn up, too. Before he knew it, he would have more family than he knew what to do with.

  “Just leave it alone,” he growled to Lisa. “I don’t remember asking your opinion about how to run my life.”

  As soon as the words skulked out, he regretted them. Her eyes darkened to a wounded midnight blue, and that soft mouth that had tasted so delicious earlier in the day thinned and straightened.

  “You’re right,” she said after a moment. Her voice sounded small, flat. He had hurt her, he realized, and hated himself for it. He wanted to apologize but he couldn’t find the words.

  “I’m only the hired help,” she went on. “It’s none of my business if you want to throw away a chance to make your peace with a mother who loves you.”

  “Lisa…”

  She shook her head. “Excuse me, but I need to put fresh sheets on your bed before I go home for the day.”

  She walked out, leaving him alone in the kitchen with his guilt.

  CHAPTER 13

  “What do you mean, you’re quitting? You can’t quit!”

  Allie faced an irate and baffled Gage, trying not to flinch beneath the weight of his shocked anger.

  “Sure I can.” Her calm tone belied both the pounding of her heart and the sleepless night she’d spent, agonizing about what to do. “I believe I just did.”

  “Why? Just tell me that.”

  She didn’t know how to answer him since none of her reasons for quitting were things she could share with him.

  Because I’m in love with you and will already walk away with my heart bruised and bleeding.

  That might be the biggest contributing factor to her decision to quit, but of course she couldn’t tell him that. Nor could she tell him she had decided it would be less painful when she left town in a few weeks—after her car repair bill to Ruth’s son was paid—if she did all she could to put as much distance as possible between them now.

  He also probably wouldn’t appreciate knowing she was willing to sacrifice her last few weeks with him in the hopes that he could reestablish a relationship with his mother.

  She couldn’t give him any of those reasons, so she settled on the one palatable excuse she had come up with during her sleepless night. It was true, though not anywhere close to the whole truth.

  “I told you. I think we’d both be more comfortable with me working somewhere else, in light of the…tension…between us.”

  “What tension?”

  Despite her off-the-charts stress level, she couldn’t help the disbelieving laugh that gurgled out. Could he really be that oblivious?

  What tension? Right.

  Only the constant simmering strain of trying to pretend they didn’t notice the attraction sparking and humming between them like a glowing-red live wire downed in a storm. Or maybe she was the only one with that problem, the one who couldn’t seem to be in the same room without going weak in the knees.

  No. He felt it, too. She remembered the heat of his kiss and the words he had whispered against her mouth, words she hadn’t been able to forget, no matter how hard she tried.

  All day long, all I can think about is kissing you again. Touching you.

  He was every bit as attracted to her. He was probably just better at controlling it.

  “I think I would be more comfortable working somewhere else,” she repeated.

  “So just like that, you’re going to walk out?”

  “It’s not as if I’m completely abandoning you to fend for yourself. Your mother will be around.”

  His gray eyes narrowed and he frowned. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You think if you quit, I’ll have no choice but to spend more time with my mother.”

  “Do you really think I would be that devious?” she asked, trying desperately to sound innocent. “Besides, you were right about what you said yesterday. Your relationship with your family—or any lack thereof—is certainly not my concern. If you don’t want your mother to help, talk to Ruth about hiring someone else. Like you said, it’s not any of my business what you do.”

  “I was a jerk yesterday. I’m sorry. Okay? Is that any reason to quit a situation that has worked out pretty well for everybody?”

  “I’m not quitting because of anything you said yesterday, Gage. I’ve thought long and hard about this and I think it’s the best thing for me to do right now.”

  In truth, his vehement opposition to her resignation surprised her a little. She hadn’t expected him to object to her quitting so strenuously, not after he hadn’t exactly acted thrilled about the whole setup from the beginning.

  If anything, she would have thought he would be relieved to be rid of her, with her nosiness and interfering ways and her two rambunctious young daughters always underfoot, her girls who were so very adept at destroying his peace.

  But he was acting as if her announcement was a personal betrayal. “I don’t think it’s the right thing at all,” he snapped.

  It would be so tempting to weaken, to tell him she had changed her mind and would continue working for him—to the devil with all the rationalizations she had come up with during her sleepless night. That would be utter disaster, though, she reminded herself sternly. She had to be tough, resolute.

  She straightened her spine. “I’m sorry. I’ve already taken my old job back with Ruth and arranged for Jessica Farmer to help me with the girls. She’s the girl who has been taking them in the afternoons and they adore her. I start cleaning houses again tomorrow.”

  “You would rather scrub toilets and make beds than work here?”

  “Gage, face it. You really don’t need as much help as you did a few weeks ago, after you first came home from the hospital. You’re getting around much better now, and in a few weeks you can start putting your weight on at least your right leg and getting around on crutches. Really, I’m more in the way these days than anything else. I feel like I spend half the day hovering around looking for something to do.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is. Anyway, your mother
will be here this afternoon and she’s ready to take over.”

  Suspicion flitted across his features. “You’ve talked to my mother already? Before talking to me?”

  She hadn’t exactly meant to let that slip. She flushed. “Yes. I got her number from information and called this morning. I wanted to make sure of her plans before I talked to Ruth about resuming my old job.”

  “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

  Except how she would survive not being with him every day. She hadn’t figured that one out yet. Or how she would go on without seeing his gentleness with the girls or his strong determination to overcome his injuries or even their battles of will.

  “Yes,” she lied. “I think so.”

  He should be relieved, Gage told himself. No more chirpy little girls sticking do-dads in his hair, no more listening to Lisa nag about his medication, no more physical therapy sessions that left him hard and hungry to kiss that lush mouth of hers.

  Yeah, his life would be much simpler without Lisa Connors and her daughters around. But the thought of her leaving left him dispirited. Bereft, even.

  It shouldn’t bother him. The logical side of his brain knew that. But somehow in the past few weeks Lisa and her girls had slipped beneath his skin. He liked being with her. Simple as that. She was sunshine on a summer afternoon and just-picked raspberries melting on his tongue and brownies, warm from the oven.

  He frowned, suddenly depressed at the idea of returning to the life of solitude he had cultivated so carefully as an adult.

  He never thought he would admit it but he was tired of being the lone wolf. A part of him had relished being part of a family, a pack, during these few weeks, even a makeshift one like Lisa Connors and her two cute, giggly little girls.

  With her gentle hands and her nurturing spirit, Lisa had made the ordeal of his recovery far more bearable than he might have expected.

  He thought about the tension she was talking about between them, the attraction that prowled between them like a living creature. Yeah, it made things uncomfortable. But it also lent an edge of anticipation, excitement, to days that could have quickly become dreary and mundane.