by Joan Kilby
Nick recited the digits. With tailor’s chalk she scrawled them on a paper bag from a sewing shop.
“I’ll get back to you.” She hung up.
She tried to get absorbed in her quilting but she was too agitated to settle. The sound of the front door opening was a welcome distraction from her thoughts.
Jamie’s excited voice rang through the house. “Mum, you should see all the stuff we got.”
“Hey, kiddo.” She caught Jamie as he ran past and gave him a fierce hug. Her little boy was always precious but even more so with Nick circling like a shark.
“Mum.” He squirmed out of her arms. “Riley and I need to start fixing stuff.” The gaps in his teeth meant he lisped on the last three words.
“What’s that on your shirt, young man?” Paula wiped a fingertip through a wet stain on the front of his green T-shirt.
“We stopped for ice cream.” Riley came in carrying bags that rattled and clinked with each step.
“At your stepmother’s shop?”
“That’s the only one in town. Why?” Riley paused on his way to the laundry room. “Is something wrong? You look pale.”
She directed a meaningful glance at Jamie. “Later, when you’ve finished.”
Riley smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Hey, don’t look so worried. It was only a small cone. It won’t spoil his dinner.”
* * *
“CAN I HAMMER?” Jamie asked.
“Sure.” Riley helped the boy clamber onto the counter and held the nail while Jamie gripped the hammer with both hands and tapped the nail laboriously into the wood. After a moment he said, “I’ll take it from here.”
Jamie scooted back to the wall, crossed his legs and leaned forward to watch Riley. “Did you know velociraptors used to live in Australia?”
“Is that so?” The kid’s lisp was too cute. Riley struggled not to grin inappropriately. If he had a son, he’d like him to be just like Jamie. Of course first Riley had to find a woman to settle down with. He had the home and once it was renovated, hopefully the rest would follow. But he wasn’t rushing into anything. When he married he wanted it to be for life.
“They lived ninety-hundred billion years ago,” Jamie went on earnestly. Riley bit the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. “Scientists found their bones in a prehistoric billabong. My mum took me to the museum, that’s how I know. We saw a model of a Stegosaurus as big as the house.”
Riley’s father had been lucky enough to find true love, twice. If cancer hadn’t claimed his mother Riley was positive they would still be married. Sandra was a nice woman and she adored his dad so that was good enough for Riley. He hoped he would be half as lucky as his father.
He liked that both his mother and Sandra had their own careers. Whoever he hooked up with would be independent, too. Not at the expense of family, mind you, but he intended to be a hands-on father, with equal responsibility for the kids. Riley shook his head. Look at him, getting all clucky and domestic. Must be doing chores around the house, with a kid in tow. It reminded him of himself and his dad.
He gave Jamie the window locks and asked him to slot screws into each of the two holes in preparation for installing them. The simple task took all of the boy’s concentration and kept him quiet for a couple of minutes.
Riley was more relieved than he would have liked to admit that he’d arrived safely home with Paula’s son. If anything happened to Jamie while under his care… It was too dreadful to contemplate.
But maybe the panic attack was a one-off. Just because he’d freaked out and lost whole minutes that day at the school didn’t mean it would happen again.
“How are you doing with those locks?” he asked.
“Just about…” Jamie slotted the last screw in a hole. “I’m done.”
“Good on you. Oh, wait, here’s a couple more. They were hiding in the bag.”
Riley handed them to Jamie and proceeded to install the first lock, starting with hammering in the screw a little way so it bit into the wood.
It sucked that a nice kid like Jamie should have a criminal for a father. Paula was a great mother but the boy was clearly dying to have a man in his life to do guy stuff with. She needed to find a decent guy and marry him. She was smart, good-looking—okay, pretty damn gorgeous—and passionate, if that hot temper was any indication. She’d probably be terrific in bed.
An image of her naked flashed before Riley’s vision as he brought down the hammer. It missed the nail and hit his thumb. Wincing, he blew on the tip.
“Do you need a bandage?” Jamie asked.
“Teaching my son what not to do?” Paula appeared in the doorway with two glasses of lemonade. She gave one to Jamie and handed the other to Riley.
“Thanks.” He stuck his throbbing thumb into the icy liquid. Having just imagined Paula naked he couldn’t look at her. Instead he pointed out the new deadbolt. “You’d have to be a professional lock-picker to get through that. Or else take an ax to the door.”
“You guys did a great job.” Paula twisted the deadbolt, testing the lock.
“Jamie’s been a big help.” Riley bent over to pick up a screw from the floor. Coming up, he twisted the wrong way. Pain lanced up the right side of his back. He grimaced. “I need to make a date with my chiropractor.”
“Are you sure it’s skeletal?” Paula prodded the muscles alongside his spine. “I can feel a knot.” She pressed harder.
Riley jerked away. “Ow!”
“I can probably help you with that.”
Right, because she was a trained massage therapist. Riley was tempted. He had occasional back problems where his muscles seized up and his mobility would be restricted for days. This seemed to be developing into one of those times. But stripping off his shirt and letting Paula move her hands all over his naked back? Massage definitely wasn’t on the list of things partners did for each other.
“The kink will work itself out,” he said. “But thanks, anyway. Jamie, let’s tackle the windows.”
Jamie’s attention lasted another hour before he got bored and wandered away to play with his cars. Riley worked faster alone but he missed the boy’s amusing chatter. When he was finished in the laundry room he moved on to the bedrooms. Paula had gone ahead of him and cleared the space in front of the windows for him to work. Another couple of hours went by. He finished up in the dining room where he added a top and bottom bolt to the sliding glass doors.
The aroma of roast lamb coming from the kitchen was making his stomach rumble. No wonder. It was nearly 7:00 p.m. He packed his tools in his box and dusted off his hands on the seat of his jeans.
He poked his head into the kitchen where Paula was putting the final touches on dinner. “All done.” He hesitated. “I guess I’ll see you at the station.”
She set a bowl of salad on the table next to one of mashed potatoes. Three places were set. Two of them had wineglasses. “You’re staying for dinner.”
His hands went up. “I—”
“Don’t even think about refusing. After all the work you’ve done it’s the least I can do. If you say no, I’ll get Jamie in here to make you stay.”
He kept his hands in the air. “I had no intention of refusing. I was merely showing you I need to wash my hands.”
Her mouth twitched. “Bathroom’s down the hall.”
Riley took off his shirt to wash up, using the cloth Paula had left out to scrub the perspiration and dust from his face, neck and torso. He put his dirty T-shirt on, hoping it was true that women liked the smell of a man’s clean sweat.
Jamie was already seated at the table. Riley dropped into a chair opposite. “I’m hungry enough to chew my arm off and eat it.”
Jamie giggled and pretended to gnaw on his own arm, accompanied by horrific sound effects.
“Thanks,” Pa
ula said dryly as she handed Riley a glass of red wine. “Is that okay? Or would you rather have a beer?”
“This is great.” He sipped the peppery shiraz.
Dinner passed in a pleasant blur despite the pain in his back. Second by second he could feel it seizing. Jamie was making the most of Riley’s presence, showing off a bit and being silly. Paula gently scolded him but Riley could see she was pleased at his high spirits and protective of him.
Finally Paula rose. “School tomorrow, mate. You’ve talked Riley’s ear off, but now it’s time for your bath and pajamas.” She turned to Riley. “Take your wine into the living room. I’ll get Jamie settled then join you.”
She and Jamie left. Riley tried to stand…and couldn’t. His back was completely rigid. He made a second attempt and pain clouded his vision. Panting, he rested a moment. He couldn’t sit here all night. Pushing his chair from the table, he did a controlled fall forward onto his hands and knees.
Inch by excruciating inch he crawled out of the kitchen, through the dining room and into the living room. When he reached the carpet he collapsed, face down. His watch was in front of his nose. The journey had taken him twenty minutes.
He was still lying there when Paula returned. “Sorry I took so long. Jamie would like to say goodnight— Oh, my God. What happened?”
“Just inspecting your carpet.” He twisted his head enough to see her bare feet. She’d recently had a pedicure. Her nail polish was pearl pink.
“I’ll tell Jamie you can’t come tonight. Be right back.” She hurried off and returned a few minutes later with a folded towel and a bottle of massage oil. “Put this under your chest and face. Can you get up on your elbows? I’ll pull your shirt off.”
Just the way he wanted an attractive woman to see him—lying helpless on the floor. Before he could protest she’d grasped the hem of his T-shirt and was tugging it over his head. He eased down. Might as well give in. He wasn’t going to get far as he was.
“Try not to lift your head. Rest your forehead on your hands. That will keep your neck in alignment.”
She left him for a moment to put on a CD, a soft slow duet of piano and bass, an unlikely combination that was deeply restful. “Are you warm enough?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice muffled by the towel.
Her warm hands, slippery with scented oil, smoothed down from his shoulders to his waist in one long firm motion. Oh, man, that felt good. So good, he momentarily forgot the pain. Her fingers were magic, working his knotted muscles, kneading his tense, tight flesh, digging deep in the painful spots to find the twisted muscle fibers and loosen them with sure strokes.
She didn’t speak. He couldn’t. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him this way. While he was in the SAS he’d had women but never a girlfriend, not wanting to commit to a relationship when his life was in constant danger. One-night stands and good-time girls weren’t known for administering tender loving care.
Paula’s fingers explored him, seeking and healing, as if reaching into places he was afraid to go. To his dismay he found himself getting emotional. He had the affection of his friends and family, but there was a hole in his life, a longing for a woman to call his own, a life partner. The longing was all mixed up with a turbulent cloud of guilt and grief. There was anger, too, at himself for being weak. Where was this coming from? A tear squeezed out and trickled through his fingers. Shit. Was he crying? He couldn’t let her see him crying.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good,” Riley grunted. He hoped she couldn’t hear the lump in his throat.
“Sometimes massage can bring out the emotions in people.” She poured more oil on his back. “Just thought I’d warn you.”
A little late for a warning. He grunted again, noncommittal, battling the feelings overwhelming him. The bass vibrated, adding fear to the swirling mix, and the blackest emotion of all…self-loathing.
“Unless SAS soldiers don’t have emotions.”
He didn’t answer. Of course he had emotions. He had too many emotions. He was working damn hard to keep them all under wraps.
He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing this was only a simple massage, even a prelude to something romantic. But his subconscious or whatever, was ruining the moment. As she stroked away his physical pain, she was stroking his emotional pain to the surface.
“You really got chewed up over there, didn’t you?” She traced a ridge of scar tissue across his back, completely unaware of the effect her touch was having on him, or what he was going through right under her nose. “Are these from the explosion? That must have been horrible. Was anyone killed?”
Nabili. He’d seen her die, watched her blown apart. The realization came to him out of nowhere.
A groan was wrenched from the depths of him, way down in the solar plexus, so deep and so raw that it was agony to even make the sound.
“Sorry. Did I hurt you?” Soft hands pushed back his hair. Paula laid her head on the carpet trying to see his face.
He couldn’t do this any longer. Riley pushed himself up, fighting his strained back to get himself to a seated position. Bare chested, his pants partly unzipped, he sat back on his heels.
“My mate from the SAS, who was with me in Kabul, told me the explosion was a suicide bomb attack on a primary school.”
“Oh.” Understanding dawned in Paula’s eyes.
“But I didn’t remember. Until just now. Some of it, at least. While you were working on me I—” He couldn’t articulate all the feelings roiling around inside him. “That massage is powerful juju. You should be careful how you use that stuff.”
“Massage heals. What do you remember?”
“The teacher was a young woman named Nabili.” He swallowed hard and his voice dropped to a whisper. “She and her whole class, twenty young girls, were…killed. Blown into pieces.”
Paula’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, no.”
“I was first on the scene. I had the suicide bomber in my sights. I—” He shook his head. Everything was blank after that. He couldn’t remember firing his gun. “That’s weird. I can’t recall anything else after that.”
“Don’t try too hard. It’ll come to you.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted it to. “Maybe. Anyway, I remembered the most important part.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet and the photo inside. Even though he hadn’t known its significance till now, he’d felt compelled to keep it nearby. “This is Nabili.”
“She’s beautiful.” Paula studied the oval face draped in flowing blue cloth. The Afghani woman had even features, light skin and large green eyes framed in thick black lashes. Paula turned the photo over and saw the name written on the back. “And she was the teacher?”
“I believe so.”
“Was she your girlfriend?”
He shook his head. “Does she look like she’d be allowed to go out with an Australian guy?”
“Secret romance? Maybe she got caught. Could she be the victim of an honor killing?”
“No, it was a suicide bomber, aimed at destroying a school for girls.” No wonder he’d been so messed up. He’d seen the young woman die a gruesome death, along with all her young charges.
Paula studied the photo. “She looks like Katie.”
Riley shifted next to Paula to look over her shoulder. He could smell her hair, her skin. He wanted to touch her. Instead he made himself stick to what they were talking about. This was important. “I thought so, too. It might be partly why I felt so bad seeing her killed.”
Paula twisted her head. Her blue eyes searched his. “You think that explosion is the cause of your PTSD?”
“What else can it be? It’s the worst thing that happened to me in Afghanistan.”
“I guess it makes sense.” With the tip of her baby f
inger, she wiped away the remains of a tear from below his eye. “Sorry about making you upset.”
“It was worth it. I found out something important.” He took the photo from her and tucked it into his wallet. Looked at Paula.
Conversation had ended. She wasn’t moving away. Her deep blue eyes, her full pink lips, were so close. Kiss her. It wasn’t so much a thought as an urgent desire. Kissing definitely wasn’t something partners did. But it was what a man did when his attraction to a woman was so strong it overrode his personal code of conduct.
Leaning forward, he kissed her, softly at first, then with greater pressure. She moaned softly and his pulse quickened. Her lips were plump and delicious, her breath warm and sweet.
He took her shoulders and gently turned her to face him, seeking a better angle to kiss. Paula rose on her knees and planted her oiled hands on either side of his face, her mouth opening to his.
A few minutes ago Riley had been overwhelmed by negative emotions. Now a sweet hot rush of desire swept them away. He’d wanted to kiss Paula since the first day he’d met her. He’d held back for a whole lot of good reasons.
The reasons hadn’t gone away.
Reason itself had disappeared.
He began to undo her buttons. She pushed his hands away. He was moving too fast. Hell, it shouldn’t be happening at all. They were partners.
“You’re right. This is inappropriate. I’m so—”
“Don’t you dare apologize.” She whipped her shirt off over her head. “We’re going to have sex. It’s going to be great. Then we’re never going to speak about it again. Got that?”
“Uh…I guess.” He shouldn’t agree to anything while under the influence of his hormones. On the other hand, while under the influence of his hormones he would agree to anything—
There went her bra. The most luscious pair of breasts he’d ever seen bounced free. Riley blinked and reached out to cup them in his palms. Best not to overthink.