Gabriel started class with a sensual Latin number to warm up. I had babied my leg as much as possible throughout the day so I could make a good showing. I didn’t need the mother hens pecking around me, telling me to go back to the physical therapist and lay off running. No pain, no gain, right?
It felt so good to move and dance that I ignored what started off as a minor ache. My hips applauded my salsa moves. My butt appreciated the squats. I soaked in the endorphins and having fun with the two people that meant more to me than anyone. Abby even smiled once or twice, and I couldn’t tell you how happy that made me. I knew I was a selfish person, but for Abs and Jessie it was different. My universe wasn’t complete without them in it. And yet lately, I felt off. I thought it was the accident, but maybe it was . . . I looked up again.
Guess who smirked now? Wasn’t he supposed to be playing?
Jessie and Abby joined in the smirking. They were enjoying this too much. I moved to the front of the class and behaved like myself. I engaged Gabriel in a take on the tango. It was the perfect song with a strong rhythm for it. The class enjoyed it more than me, to my chagrin. Nothing compared to being in Aidan’s arms. And it was all fun and games until I came down wrong on my leg right when Gabriel stepped on my foot. Pain shot through my whole body. I crumpled.
“Hermosa, I’m so sorry.” Gabriel kneeled down next to me thinking this was his fault.
Abby and Jessie rushed to my side. I normally loved the spotlight, but not for this.
“I’m fine.” I tried standing back up. My leg said, not today. The situation only got worse when Aidan rushed down, Blake trailing.
The whole class seemed to gravitate in a circle around me. That wasn’t going to do. “There’s nothing to see here.” I glared at each and every person. You thought your mother had a look? It had nothing on mine. It made the class disperse, except for Jessie and Cheyenne who were kneeling next to me now, while Aidan and Blake hovered nearby. Why did Aidan have to come down? I could hear the women in the class wonder out loud what that meant. Then that dang kiss was brought up. Someone was going to die a slow and painful death.
“It’s not your foot, is it?” Jessie gave me a stern look.
“I’m fine,” I lied. My leg no longer ached; it roared in pain. It didn’t help to have Aidan patrolling around me, acting unsure but obviously worried.
“Blake, can you help her up?” Jessie asked her husband.
“I can stand on my own.”
“Cheyenne, your leg is red and swollen.” Abby’s face worried me more than the pain. After three kids, nothing fazed her, but this had her unsettled.
I could barely talk now, the pain was so bad. “I need ice.”
“You need more than that.” Abby took my hand.
I didn’t want her to be right. I didn’t want any of this. I wanted my old life back. My life before Paxton, before the accident. Before Aidan. I tried to will my leg better or at least enough for the pain to die down so I could use it. I had done it before. I had done it in almost every aspect of my life. I was better than is. I was gritting my teeth and taking deep breaths. Mind over matter, I repeated to myself. I was going to overcome the pain. I was going to stand up and walk to my car.
It wasn’t working.
“Let’s go to the emergency room,” Jessie suggested.
My closed eyes flew open. “Not the emergency room.” I was never going there again. “Call Easton.” He wasn’t a specialist, but he was better than the hospital.
Abby shook her head. “Cheyenne, you need an x-ray at the very least.”
“I can’t do the hospital,” I whispered to my friends, but I locked eyes with Aidan. In them I saw that night.
Once again, he came to my rescue. He knelt in front of me. “Where do you want to go?”
“Home.”
Not another word was said. He stood and helped me up in the process. He wrapped his arms around my waist—my bare waist. For a tiny second, the pleasure of his touch overrode the pain. It didn’t last nearly long enough. “Hold on,” he directed.
I was already humiliated, and people were talking. The Merryton grapevine was getting its money’s worth tonight. I leaned into him, letting him steady me. Did I mention how well we fit together?
“Can you walk?”
I tried to put some weight on my leg. Fiery depths of hell explained the sensation. I trembled from the pain.
“So, no?”
I shook my head, not wanting to verbalize my weakness.
“How much will it cost me if I pick you up?”
“Your life.” I barely got out.
“So be it.” He literally swept me off my feet.
A collective gasp echoed in the gym. My friends went into action, throwing my bag on my middle and waving goodbye, doing their best to show care for my current state, but doing a crappy job hiding how happy they seemed about the situation. They were all dead, especially the man that carried me so well.
“Put me down.”
“So you can collapse again?” He was walking me out of the gym.
“I can walk.” I almost cried.
He stopped outside the door. Concern etched in those eyes of his that had haunted me. “You’re shaking almost as much as you did that . . . night.” I could see in his face that that moment had affected him as much as it had affected me.
I relaxed in his defined arms. My body had missed them. “I don’t want to go the hospital.” It was as close to begging as I ever got.
“I promised I would take you home and I meant it.”
I believed him. I would have said Abby or Jessie would, but I knew those sneaky brats would take me to the emergency room. Or poor Abby might even call her cheating doctor husband, the attending physician for Merryton General, to assess the situation. All I needed was ice and Advil.
“I can drive. Just take me to my car.” I was already pulling out my keys.
“How will you get from your car to your house?”
That was a good question. But if there was a will, there was a way. And I had more will than anyone I knew. “I’ll crawl if I have to.” My eyes bore into his.
“Not on that leg you won’t.” He walked toward the exit to the gaping stares of everyone at the rec center. When I felt better they were all getting dirty looks and maybe a finger.
“I’ll hop on one foot.”
He grinned. “I’d like to see that, but you’re in no shape to hop.”
“Fine, dammit.”
“You still have some fight in you. That’s good.”
“You have no idea.”
Chapter Fifteen
Aidan settled me into his Land Cruiser with a deftness that was impressive, like he was used to carrying women and placing them in his vehicle. Wait. That could be a bad thing. But he had good written all over him. The guy had scaled a mountainside and jumped into a raging river to save my life.
“Do you need me to buckle your seatbelt?” He teased.
“Try and see how that works out for you.”
He shut my door through his smile.
My breathing was labored as I tried to work through the stabbing pain in my leg that radiated through my body that I was furious at. How dare it fail me, and in public.
Aidan was quick to jump in on the driver’s side. “Where do you live?”
“Near Palmer Park in the townhomes.”
“Those are nice.”
I nodded. They were. Expensive too. “You bought Rachel’s old place, right?” I needed the small talk to take my mind off the pain searing through me.
“Yeah, it worked out well for everyone involved.” He glanced my way after backing out of his parking space. “Are you sure you don’t want to get that leg checked out?”
“Positive.”
“I guess this way I get to see your zebra-striped couch.”
A grin broke through my pain. “Maybe you’ll want to get one.”
He chuckled.
I liked the sound of his laugh, which was irritating.
Change of subject was needed. I looked around at his pricey vehicle. “What do you do for a living? You seem to have a lot of free time on your hands.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I did catch you loitering around my salon all day.”
“I was waiting to get my hair cut.”
“Right.”
“By the way, who do I complain to about the wait time, or the fact that I had to come back?”
“You didn’t seem to mind the reward at the end for your patience.”
“I think we’ve established the fact I like kissing you. Even when you tell me you hate me right after.”
“Just keeping it real.”
He stopped at a red light and turned my way. “Do you really hate me?”
My whole body tensed from the pain and the question. The real me, the old me was saying yes. There was a part of me, though, that wasn’t sure. “You said you didn’t want to like me and that you were better than me. What do you think?”
His eyes narrowed. “That sometimes God has a funny way of teaching us a lesson and answering prayers.”
I faced forward. “I don’t believe in God. And I only mostly hate you.”
“I can work with that.”
What did he mean by that? If he thought he was going to change my mind on either account, he was in for the ride of his life. “You never told me what you did for a living.” I was still curious. Abby and Jessie were too. He had kept his personal life close to the vest since he moved to town.
“You are determined, aren’t you?” He focused on the road.
“Is it top secret or something?” That would be a turn-on, but not helpful.
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Not exactly.”
Intriguing.
“All I can say is I work in cyber security for an undisclosed company.”
“Undisclosed means top dollar.”
His smile said I was right.
“So why Merryton?”
“I can work wherever I want. And after my divorce, my brother convinced me that I needed a change of scenery. I think he was worried about my poor choices.”
“You make poor choices? I thought you at least thought you were perfect.”
“That’s the impression I’ve given you?”
“Pretty much everyone.”
His grimace was back. “I thought it was best if I kept to myself after my divorce. Take some time for some self-reflection.”
“You sound embarrassed. You know that half the population is divorced?”
“Not you.”
“I’m too smart for that.”
“Maybe you’re on to something.”
“I think so.”
“Or maybe you’re missing out?”
“Divorce? Lying, cheating spouse? I don’t think so.”
“It’s not that way for everyone.”
“That seems to be the exception and not the rule. And even the exceptions seem to have exceptions.”
“There’s no such thing as a perfect marriage. People make mistakes. Marriage is where we learn how to love more and hopefully love better.”
“Really? Did you love your wife more when she cheated on you?”
We had almost reached Palmer Park, so I gave him more precise directions to my place.
He didn’t answer me until he had parked in front of my townhome. His hands gripped the steering wheel as he thought about what to say. “I wasn’t a good husband to her.”
“So are you saying that Abby wasn’t a good wife? It’s her fault Shane cheated on her?”
“No. No. Will you please not twist everything I say to you in the worst possible way? I know I came off as a jerk to you, but—”
“More than a jerk.”
“Fine. More than a jerk.” He faced me. “I’m sorry. Can we please hit the reset button?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you. Let’s get you inside.”
“You know what people are going to think about us. What they are already saying about the two of us.”
“You mean the rumor of how you can’t keep your hands off me?” He thought he was hilarious.
“I still have one good leg, so I would watch it.”
He came around and opened my door. His eyes lingered on my barely clothed body, like he just realized I was only in a sports bra and running shorts.
“Do you like what you see?” Seduction lingered in my question.
He directed his gaze to my face. “You’re beautiful.”
His words had an unusual effect on me. I felt them. I’d been told I was beautiful thousands of times, but it always seemed to come with an expectation. And let’s be honest, sometimes I was happy to oblige. I didn’t know what to do with Aidan. I could tell he expected nothing. He just wanted me to know. “Let’s get this over with.”
Where he took command at the gym, this time he acted like he wasn’t sure where or what to touch. He reached out only to assess the situation again.
“I’m going to walk.”
“I got it. I may need to read the Bible all night, but I got it.”
“That sounds awful. Why would you do that?”
He carefully picked me up. I placed my arms around his neck. I felt like I had been caught by a safety net.
He held me close. His touch felt good against my bare skin. “You don’t understand why I would need to?” He stared at my lips, which were easily accessible from this distance.
I leaned into the danger zone. I’d never wanted anyone more. He even made me forget about the pain for a moment. “I know something that would be a lot more fun.” No. No. I was done with men, especially one that read the Bible.
He stopped dead in his tracks. His lips lingered near teasing mine. “You don’t know how much I want to.”
“I do.”
“I can’t.”
I upped the stakes and ran my fingers through his hair. He was using the product I had given him last night for free. I figured since he saved my life, I could give him a free haircut and styling paste. “Of course you can.”
“Will you have dinner with me?”
“Like a date?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He pulled away. “I don’t work like that.”
“You’re a guy.”
“Last time I checked.”
“Then what’s the problem? This is a no-strings-attached deal.”
“Believe it or not, I like the strings. I like you. And I respect you enough not to use you for my own physical gratification.”
What? He wasn’t using me if I was a willing and initiatory participant. I didn’t let men use me. It was like he was speaking an alien language. Maybe he was an alien. “I’m giving you permission.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I don’t get you.”
“I want you to. I want us to get to know each other, but in the right way.”
“There’s a wrong way?”
“Yes, and it never ends well.”
Chapter Sixteen
What did he mean by that? I wondered while he went to pick us up something to eat. He insisted on it when he grabbed me a bottle of water from my fridge and saw the bareness of it, and when I informed him I couldn’t and didn’t cook.
Jessie called me in the interim. “Are you okay?”
I looked at my swollen leg under two ice packs. The Advil was hardly touching the pain. “I’ll be as good as new tomorrow.”
“You’ve got to get that checked out.”
“I know,” I admitted in defeat.
“So, how’s your knight in shining armor?”
“Stop.”
“Everyone’s jealous of you. Even me. I told Blake I wanted him to pick me up and carry me off.”
“Did he?”
“Are you kidding me? Where would he take me to? Tristan ends up in our bed almost every night snuggled between us. And when he’s not invading our bed, Maddie thinks she needs our advice all hou
rs of the night. A few times we’ve had both kids in our bed. But he did promise me a kid-free getaway once his busy season is over. I guess that’s something.” She sounded happy. She loved being a wife and mom, just like Abby.
“Maddie can hang out with me that weekend. Just let me know.” I knew Jessie’s parents would take Tristan. He wasn’t old enough for me to handle for more than a couple of hours. I didn’t wipe butts or noses unless I absolutely had to.
“I’m sure she would love that. She’s been spending a lot of time with Connor the last couple of days. He’s taking it harder than anyone, I think. His hero has fallen and he feels like he needs to protect his mom. Apparently he refused to have dinner with Shane and the girls tonight.”
“Good for him.”
“Abby wants Shane to be in the kid’s lives. She doesn’t want them taking sides.”
She was a better person than me. And I was in too much pain and too tired to argue. They all knew my opinion on the subject. Shane should go. Besides, I didn’t want to be on the phone when Aidan came back. “I better go.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need me to pick you up so you can get your car? I can rework my schedule tomorrow.”
“No. I’ve got it covered.”
“Oh, really? And how is that?”
“Goodnight.” I hung up to her laughter.
Aidan already offered to pick me up tomorrow morning so I could get my car. Don’t ask me why I accepted. The guy was messing with my head. Or maybe the pain had weakened my resolve. I didn’t let men mess with me. But I’d never encountered one like this. I wasn’t fond of his churchiness or his morals, yet he intrigued me. He got to me in this unusual way. I couldn’t believe he turned down my advances even though I could see in his eyes that he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
Cheyenne (The Women of Merryton Book 4) Page 11