All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel)

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Coming!” Brennan unwound his death grip from the edge of the tan Formica, sliding his fingers over his lower back to locate the pressure point the way Kat had taught him. Pain shot jagged lines across his field of vision, but he forced his legs to move across the kitchen floor, one and then the other. Spasms like this were few and far between for him now, and though they were meaner than most hardened criminals, their sentence was usually pretty short.

  Brennan finally managed to get a decent breath in on step four, and by the time he’d hauled his carcass to the front door of his apartment, he was 98 percent sure he’d live through the pain.

  Until he caught sight of a wide-eyed Ava on his doorstep, wearing a cute little fleece hoodie with her dark hair tied into two low-slung pigtails, and then he was pretty sure he was already a goner and she was his last wish.

  “Oh!” She took a half step backward, her running shoe scraping the brick in a gruff whisper of surprise. “You’re here.”

  “I invited you over,” Brennan reminded her, his focus slipping from the pain to her face. Two tiny, crescent-shaped indents marked the curve of her lower lip, and she smoothed an index finger over the worried crease between her brows.

  “I know. I just thought you might have . . . Are you okay?”

  The crease returned in all its glory, and hell, he should’ve known better than to think Ava wouldn’t notice he was in pain. She was a reporter, for God’s sake. She was trained to notice the tiniest details.

  Not to mention that her bullshit detector was very likely concrete reinforced and triple-wrapped in high-grade Kevlar.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Brennan said, although it was a lie. Christ, how had he thought he’d be able to lie low at a five-hundred-person wedding? Ellie’s fiancé practiced civil law, but still. He worked for the biggest damn firm in the city, and the courthouse was seven blocks from Station Eight. Firefighters, cops, attorneys . . . Pine Mountain wasn’t the only place with a hell of a grapevine.

  All the unspoken firefighter codes on the planet weren’t going to keep Alex and Cole’s hatred from being broadcast loud and freaking clear if the three of them clapped eyes on each other.

  The pain in Brennan’s back sliced through to both hips, and he crammed down the thought of his former squad mates. Right now he needed to control his pain, or it was going to control him. He focused on Ava, lasering in on the thin silver necklace barely visible at the divot of her throat, and yeah, that would work. “Come on in.”

  The step he took to gesture her inside sent his muscles right back into lockdown, though, and Ava turned toward him with a frown.

  “You look pale.” She lifted a hand in an automatic motion, skimming it halfway over his forearm before she seemed to realize the contact. “Oh my God, you’re shaking. Brennan, what’s going on?”

  Her touch unraveled the words from his mouth like a landslide, and he stood there helpless while they spilled out. “I hurt my back. Not recently, but sometimes it acts up. The pain’s not usually so bad.”

  “Except for now,” Ava said, not a question in sight. “So do you have any medicine? Painkillers or something I can—”

  “No.” Shit, that came out louder than he’d intended. He cleared his throat. “I mean, the alternative stuff actually works better for me. I just need a little pressure on it and a stretch or two. It’ll be fine.”

  “You’re so full of crap.”

  Surprise replaced the bone-deep ache slamming through Brennan’s veins. “What?”

  Only a handful of people knew about his injury, but whenever his pain reared its ugly head, every last one of them responded with varying degrees of poor-you concern. Even Kat, who talked a tough game, got a softhearted sympathy flicker in her eyes whenever his therapy got rough.

  But Ava just leveled him with a bright green stare that said she meant business. “You say fine, and all I hear is the other F word. I’m assuming it would help to get you off your feet, yes?” Without waiting for him to answer, she slipped a shoulder beneath his arm to guide him to the couch.

  “Thanks.” Brennan sank to the brown leather cushions with a graceless plunk, but man, his vertebrae did a touchdown dance at the decrease in gravity. “I’m really sorry. We were supposed to spend your lunch hour relaxing.”

  “I made it out of the office. That’s really half the battle.” Ava sat down next to him, flipping her palms in a what’s next gesture. “You said something about pressure?”

  The question was so straight up and devoid of pretense that his answer was automatic. “Yeah. It helps.” He rotated his body in an effort to get some leverage from his palm to his lower back, but she interrupted the movement midreach.

  “Wait.” In one deft maneuver, she’d repositioned herself on his other side, turning her knees toward his back so they were both sitting sideways on the couch.

  “What are you doing?” Brennan twisted to look at her over his shoulder. Having anyone behind him, even someone he knew, sent his hackles into high alert.

  But Ava put her hands on his shoulders to gently turn him back around. “Just winging it here, but I can’t imagine twisting yourself up like a human corkscrew feels too relaxing.”

  He bit down on the urge to face her again anyway. “It’s not a big deal.”

  She sighed, but without seeing her face, Brennan couldn’t discern whether she was giving in or buckling down. “Are you going to tell me how to do this or not? I really don’t want to hurt you by accident.”

  Right. He should’ve known better than to think she’d cave. “The pain’s in my lower back,” he conceded, the couch cushions rustling as he angled away from her fully, abandoning control of his most dominant sense. “On either side of my spine.”

  “Here?” Ava paused for a second, the word arriving before the whisper-soft connection of her fingers on his back, below his kidneys.

  “A little closer in, right around the vertebrae, but yeah.”

  Despite her light touch, Brennan tensed at the brush of Ava’s hands moving over his T-shirt. Not being able to see her, to read her face or even her body language, was bad enough. But her fingers were less than a breath from the scar tissue that spiderwebbed out from his spine, crisscrossing the expanse of his lower back in a gruesome relief map of rods and pins that he’d carry around for the rest of his life.

  Except when her hands landed over his scars, the damage obvious to the touch even through the barrier of his shirt, Ava didn’t even flinch.

  “Okay, got it. So just add some pressure?” She pushed slowly with both index and middle fingers, and despite his uptight idiot brain, his muscles rippled in relief.

  “Uh-huh,” Brennan said, although it came out as more of a grunt. He pulled in a breath, balancing the racing twitches of pain against the steady strength of Ava’s fingers. She shifted her weight, presumably to settle in, and the warm, brown-sugar scent of her skin filled his senses.

  “Your muscles are locked up pretty tight.” Her velvety voice unfolded over his shoulder, tinged with determination as she readjusted the pads of her fingers to the neediest part of his back. “Does this happen often?”

  “Sometimes.” Brennan surprised himself with the admission. But the world didn’t come crashing down because he’d copped to having back spasms, so he added, “If I do a bunch of back-to-back shifts at the bar or there’s stress in my muscles from something else, it can trigger an episode.”

  Ava tipped her hands upward for better leverage with the side of each palm, and God, it was killing him not to see her. “So you really do need to relax.”

  “Maybe.” He let out a breath between his teeth as the pain slid into a dull throb.

  “Try definitely.” Her breath tickled his ear, making the skin on the back of his neck prickle. “How’s this?”

  “Better.” Truth. “And definitely is a little extreme,” he tacked on. Not the truth, but any second now, Ava was going to ask a trillion questions about how he’d ended up like Humpty Dumpty. The best way to fortify his def
ense was with a good offense.

  But Ava simply said, “You know what works for me, when I need to chill out?”

  Her hands never faltered, moving steadily over his back, and the tension unspooled with each press and sweep.

  “What?”

  “Promise you won’t laugh.”

  “You realize that’s like saying don’t move or don’t sneeze, right?” Of course a smile was already poking at the corners of his mouth. Ridiculous involuntary response.

  “Promise,” Ava insisted, although the smile in her own voice was audible and sweet as hell.

  “Okay, okay. No laughing. I promise.”

  She slid close enough for Brennan to feel the heat of her body, pressing her palms right where he ached. “This is only for extreme circumstances, mind you, and it’s kind of unusual. But I swear it works. You take four graham cracker squares—”

  “Like little kids eat?” he asked, totally baffled, but Ava cut him off with a shush.

  “Stop interrupting, or I won’t tell you the rest. You smash up the graham crackers, which is kind of cathartic in itself depending on what’s stressing you out. Then you put the crumbs in a coffee mug.”

  Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t . . . “A coffee mug,” he repeated, barely stifling his chuckle.

  She leaned in, her mouth right beside his ear. “You’re interrupting.”

  “Sorry.” For a split second, Brennan was tempted to do it again just to feel the heat of her so close. “So, uh, coffee mug.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Next, you take a little milk and heat it in a saucepan, just until it’s warm. Then pour it over the graham crackers, add a dash of cinnamon on top, stir the whole thing up, and bam. You have the ultimate comfort food.”

  His laugh was completely inevitable, and it felt shockingly good rumbling up from his chest. “Seriously? I’m not even sure that’s a thing.”

  “Of course it’s a thing.” Ava scoffed. “It’s the best thing, even though it sounds weird at first. And you promised not to laugh.”

  Brennan hiked his hands up in apology, although she sounded far from mad. “I know, but you’ve got to admit, it’s totally off the wall. How’d you stumble across the idea of doing that to poor, unsuspecting graham crackers, anyway?”

  “I didn’t, actually.” Ava paused, her voice going softer as she readjusted her hands. “My brother and I had to fend for ourselves for most meals when we were kids, and a lot of times, improvising was the name of the game. Food has always been Pete’s thing, so one night when I was about ten, he got creative and came up with the graham cracker thing. For some reason, no matter how loud our parents yelled or how falling-down drunk they got, that concoction made things a little better. Warm, somehow. The way our home should’ve been.”

  Brennan sat, perfectly still and mesmerized by Ava’s voice, but even in his silence, she didn’t pull back.

  “Anyway, it is pretty weird, and I guess a lot of people would say it’s even gross. But to me, graham crackers and milk taste like total comfort.”

  For a second, then another, they sat in silence, her hands on his back and his heart in his throat, and everything in his mind begged him to turn around and kiss her until the sadness infusing her words turned to dust.

  But then Ava lifted her fingers, breaking the contact between them as she moved to give him space. “Your muscles feel a lot looser. How’s the pain?”

  Brennan turned to look at her, realizing belatedly that his agony had dwindled to a barely there twinge. “Better. Looks like I owe you a little relaxing, if you’re still up for it.”

  “Are you?” she asked, eyeing him with care. “I mean, you said we were going to sweat.”

  “No, I said you were going to sweat,” Brennan reminded her, letting a grin unwind over his face. “And I could still use a good stretch.”

  He walked to the hall closet by the door, his muscles realigning into normalcy with each careful step. Bending down to grab the necessary items from their usual resting spot took a little more creativity than usual, but he managed to pull it off before Ava tried to swoop in and help.

  “Yoga mats?” A giggle pushed past her lips as he handed one over, and she clapped a hand over her mouth even though the damage was done.

  Oh hell. He’d had enough serious for one day, plus, it felt really good to flirt with her a little. “Laugh now, Spitfire. In twenty minutes, you’ll be begging for mercy.”

  She frowned, placing a hand on the hip of her snug, black, knee-length pants. “From yoga? Deep breaths, pretzel poses, find-your-inner-light yoga.”

  “Yes, but the pretzels are optional. Have you ever done yoga before?”

  “Sure,” she said, her serene smile out of place with the mischievous glint in her eyes. “I’m standing on my head in a triple knot as we speak.”

  Despite the shot of heat percolating through his blood at the mental image of Ava’s limbs curled into sinuous knots, Brennan didn’t budge. The point was for her to relax, not feel put on the spot, and she wore her sarcasm like a suit of smart-assed armor.

  “It’s okay if this is your first time. I know enough to get you through the poses.” He nudged his tiny coffee table aside, unfurling his timeworn yoga mat over the floorboards in front of the TV. “I normally practice alone, obviously, but I think we’ll have just enough room for both of us.”

  “Not a lot of guys do yoga,” Ava said after a beat, toeing off her bright red cross-trainers to extend her mat alongside his. She stood stiffly on its surface, knees locked and arms rigid, and whoa. Their need to unwind was definitely mutual.

  “Not a lot of guys have their lumbar vertebrae fused together with enough hardware to set off a courthouse metal detector either.” He heard the words only after they were out, silently cursing himself for dropping his guard even to make a passing joke. Ava was too smart for that.

  She cast a sideways glance at him, dark hair sliding over one shoulder. “That sounds pretty major.”

  It was a lead-in, Brennan knew, but he stuffed it aside along with his thoughts of returning to Fairview for Ellie’s wedding. He’d handle that soon enough. Right now, he needed to focus on what was in front of him. Or more specifically, who.

  “Maybe when it happened,” he said, turning toward Ava. “But the yoga’s a necessity, and anyway, it really is relaxing.”

  “If you say so.” She tightened her fists, giving the mat beneath her feet a let’s go expression. “So what’s first?”

  Brennan laughed. “You might want to try breathing, for starters.”

  She crinkled her nose with a full dose of are you kidding me? “I’m pretty sure I know how to breathe, what with my twenty-nine years of experience in that department.”

  He was next to her before he recognized the movement, the deep, sweet smell of her skin pressing hot in his lungs.

  “I’m pretty sure you don’t, sweetheart. Now close your eyes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Ava had to hand it to him. When Brennan had promised to make her sweat, he’d meant freaking business.

  “You want me to close my eyes?” She shifted her weight, trying to get nice and comfortable, but her heart still pounded like a jackhammer gone horribly awry. When he’d first asked her to come over, she’d thought they’d dip into something gruelingly cathartic, like a short run or maybe a little kickboxing—both things she’d done before without incident or injury. But yoga required focus, and focus required slowing down. Enough to take a good, close look at everything beneath the surface.

  Hence the reason Ava had never set so much as a baby toe on a mat in her entire life.

  “You don’t have to, but sometimes closing your eyes can help you get started.” Brennan shrugged, the strong line of his shoulders lifting easily beneath his black T-shirt, and Ava paused, midbalk. Brennan had said he needed a few stretches to get himself back to normal, and after the back spasm he’d just endured, copping out seemed kind of unfair. She’d already spilled more details about herself today than she’d mea
nt to say out loud in front of anyone, ever, but she’d done it to distract him from his obvious pain. Surely she was tough enough to finish up their lunch with a little breathe and stretch, especially if it would help Brennan out.

  God, that injury had to have been devastating. Maybe even as bad as her past.

  “Okay.” Ava discarded her hoodie and commanded her eyes to shut with a determined nod. She could do this. “Now what?”

  “Breathe, remember? All the way in,” Brennan added, before she could point out that she’d been breathing since before they’d even started.

  “How many times?” She resisted the urge to crack one eye open to at least see where he was. The whole in-the-dark thing was unnerving as hell.

  “There’s no rule book, Spitfire. Just breathe.”

  “Hey!” Ava coughed out a laugh, unexpected and deep. “That’s twice now. You promised not to call me that.”

  His return chuckle vibrated through her, knocking the tension in her shoulders into a free fall. “I know, but I had to get some decent air in you somehow.”

  She placed a hand on her belly, the other on her chest, and damn if he hadn’t been spot on. “Sneak.”

  “It worked, didn’t it? Now do it again.”

  “I didn’t realize yoga was so bossy,” Ava said, unable to rein in her sarcasm.

  Of course, Brennan met it toe-to-toe. “Yoga’s not bossy; I am. Now, are you going to inhale? Because I’d hate to have to tickle you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Ava laughed by default this time, her eyes springing open. Brennan stood less than a foot away, armed with a cocky expression and a stare that glittered like warm, black coffee in the sunlit living room.

  “You can either breathe in or try me. How do you like your odds?”

  Oh. Lord. Above.

  “Um.” Her throat worked over a hard swallow. “Okay, right. Breathing.”

  After a few rounds of deep-bodied inhale-exhale, Ava’s heartbeat notched back to a semidecent level. She had to admit, the guided breathing wasn’t really so bad, not even when she let her lids drift back down on the fourth round. Brennan’s voice melted over her left shoulder, talking her through some simple stretches as he did the same ones right next to her, and the movements sent an unexpected thread of calm around her tap-tapping pulse. The muscles in her shoulders listed gently away from her neck, her breath sliding in and out of her lungs with growing ease, and each pose unraveled the tension in Ava’s chest further.