by C. C. Coburn
When Carly nodded, Sarah went on. “Now, we’ll take Charlie and the two little girls. Daisy will want to stay here with her father. Sasha may or may not want to come with us.”
“Come where?” Sasha asked as she breezed into the room.
“Shopping in Denver,” her grandmother replied.
The magic word effectively stopped the teen in her tracks. “I’ll be ready in five,” she said, and ran back upstairs to her room.
“I’ll let the guys know they’re fending for themselves until we get back,” Megan said as she pulled on a warm jacket and hurried out the back door.
“And I’ll help make sandwiches,” Carly said, her earlier enthusiasm returning.
CARLY DIDN’T THINK IT was possible to go from feeling so completely desolate and alone to being on such a high in less than twenty-four hours.
In the past day, she’d gone from having nothing to having a new start in life, two new and already very dear friends and a measure of happiness that had been missing even before the dreadful fire that had claimed her husband’s life.
Adam’s money had purchased a better and sturdier massage table than she’d had before. There was even a little left over so she’d treated Megan and Sarah to coffee at a bookstore and the children to thick shakes.
They’d returned to Two Elk Ranch in high spirits, loaded down with maternity clothes for Megan, items for the nursery and new clothes for the girls and for Carly’s two boys.
Sasha dashed upstairs to change into one of her new outfits, accompanied by Maddy and Celeste. Sarah disappeared into her wing of the house to find Mac, and Megan went in search of Luke to have him unpack the car, leaving Carly alone in the living room.
Only she wasn’t alone for long, because Adam stalked through the room muttering something about screaming girls.
He stopped short when he realized he wasn’t alone.
“Was your trip a success?” he asked shortly, as if he didn’t care one way or the other.
Carly decided not to let it bother her. “Yes, it was. Thanks to you. And how did your…meeting go today?”
Carly didn’t miss the grimace before he got his emotions under control. “Not so good. I have to appear before a disciplinary board on Monday.”
“I’m sorry. You deserve better treatment than that,” Carly said, meaning it.
He shrugged. “Goes with the territory. I was about to get myself a beer to drown my sorrows. Can I get anything for you…or the kid?” he asked, indicating Charlie, nestled on her hip.
“His name is Charlie,” she said, determined not to ignore Adam’s “pretending he didn’t care about anything” act.
“Charlie, then,” he said, and without waiting for her answer, went into the kitchen.
Carly followed him and found him with his head buried in the fridge. “Want a beer?” he asked from the depths of it.
“A soda would be absolutely marvelous. Thank you,” she said flippantly, then chided herself for her sarcasm. The man might be a Neanderthal, but he’d saved her son’s life. She needed to overlook his personality defects and be kind and understanding.
“Kind and understanding, Carly,” she muttered under her breath.
“You say something?” he asked, holding up several varieties of soda.
She selected one and opened it. “Nothing important,” she said, noticing how he winced as he took a seat at the table. “Why don’t we set up my new table and get started on those therapeutic massages I owe you?” she suggested.
He glanced up at her, eyes narrowed. “Are you really a qualified massage therapist?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped, at the end of her patience.
He shrugged again, annoying her even more. The guy did a lot of shrugging and she suspected it was his way of pretending nothing mattered.
Carly took a seat across from him and slammed her soda down on the table. She experienced a small sense of satisfaction when he jumped. “I asked you a question,” she said. “I don’t accept shrugging as an answer and I’m sure your mother never did, either.”
His dark eyes bored into hers but she refused to back down. He didn’t like being challenged? Well, neither did she!
“When Will said you were a massage therapist, I envisioned you working in one of those massage parlors.”
Carly could feel her blood beginning to boil. She’d suspected that was what he’d been hinting at, but something perverse made her want to hear him admit it.
“Do I look as though I work in a massage parlor?” she demanded.
“Wouldn’t know. Never been in one.”
Carly released a breath. “That makes two of us. For your information, I went to the American Institute of Massage Therapy and am qualified to give both therapeutic and sports massages. And I’ll accept your abject apology for being such a jerk…on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“That you help me unpack my new massage table from the car and specify where you’d like me to give you your first treatment.”
A FEW INTERESTING IMAGES of places Adam would like Carly to give him a massage came to mind. Most of them were X-rated, so he quashed that thought, resisting the urge to shrug—Carly was right; he did it too often. He got up and said, “Lead the way.”
He watched as she stood and hoisted the kid onto her hip. “Why do you always carry him around?” he asked. “Can’t he walk?” He regretted the belligerence of his tone the moment the words were out of his mouth. As he half expected, Carly managed to floor him with her answer.
“As a matter of fact, he can. However, since I nearly lost him in the fire yesterday, I’m reluctant to let him out of my grasp. If you don’t mind me massaging you one-handed, that would be great, because I don’t want to put him down. For anything.”
“Fair enough,” Adam said, knowing she was baiting him. “Maybe we’d better postpone that massage until he’s asleep. In a bed. Or does he sleep on your hip, too?”
He could see her muttering something under her breath, but couldn’t quite hear it.
“Funny,” she finally said, and threw him an exaggerated grin, which made Adam feel like a complete heel for prodding her.
Carly opened the fridge and got out some cheese slices and bread. She prepared a sandwich with one hand, then balanced the kid on the countertop as she cut the sandwich in two. She gave one half to the child, and chose a banana from the fruit bowl. Lifting Charlie onto her hip again, she said, “Let’s go.”
Adam found himself obediently following her through the living room and out the front door toward the car. Dusk had descended while they were inside bickering—no, that wasn’t the right word. Was there such a word as repartee-ing? He didn’t know, but it sounded…friendlier.
She opened the rear door of his mom’s SUV and was about to reach inside.
“Let me get that,” he said, moving around Carly.
He enjoyed brushing against her, and saw her swallow before she stepped aside to allow him access to the truck. He took out a box that looked much too small to be a massage table. “This is it?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said in a reasonable voice. “It’s a portable massage table, remember?” She turned toward the stables. “I also bought some lattes and shakes for the shopping party with the change. I hope you don’t mind.”
Adam could hear the mild sarcasm in her tone and ignored it. “Where are we going?” he asked.
She stopped in her tracks and he nearly barreled into her. “To the stables. I would’ve thought that was obvious.”
“Why not the house?”
“Because Charlie is about ready for bed. His own bed. And the house will be much too noisy for you to be able to relax properly.” She spoke slowly and clearly as if he were a little slow. “
And one of the requirements of a good massage is to offer a zone of peace for the client.”
“You sound like you’re reciting that from a book.”
“I am,” she said, and turned back toward the stables.
AS IT TURNED OUT, CHARLIE needed a bath before bed. He’d finished the other half of his sandwich on the walk to the stables, then made a mess of eating the banana, and since there wasn’t a bathtub in the apartment over the stables—his apartment over the stables, Adam noted, still feeling proprietary about it—Carly filled the deep kitchen sink with water and plopped Charlie into it.
Adam watched as she bathed her son. The pair seemed wrapped within a cocoon, safe together, mother humming and talking soothingly to her child.
He’d once felt safe like that, too. But years ago, something bad had happened, something he’d caused and never owned up to. Being back home was causing that memory, and the self-loathing that went with it, to resurface. He worked on pushing the thoughts away, taking deep breaths, then exhaling.
“Are you all right?” she asked, snapping him out of it. “I hope you’re not suffering any aftereffects of the smoke inhalation.”
Adam almost hated the concern he could hear in her voice. She sounded as if she cared. He didn’t want people to care about him. Because that meant he’d have to care about them. He’d survived the past fifteen years by trying not to care.
She lifted Charlie from the sink and placed him on a towel on the counter and dried him off. “Nearly done, my little man,” she cooed to the kid, then carried him to the sofa bed. “Just as well you’re not too fussy yet. Otherwise, you wouldn’t want to be wearing these Barbie pajamas. They used to be Celeste’s,” she told him as she diapered and dressed her son.
Carly tucked Charlie beneath the covers and kissed his cheek. He grabbed a rag doll, stuck it under his arm, put his thumb in his mouth and rolled over, away from the bright light in the kitchen.
When Carly flicked on a lamp in the living area and turned off the kitchen light, the tiny apartment suddenly felt too intimate.
“He’s out for the night,” she whispered.
“I, ah, didn’t realize it was so easy to get children to sleep,” he said, for something to say, anything to break the intimacy of the room. “Celeste used to scream the house down when she was little.”
“So did Maddy. But my boys have always been good about bedtime.” Carly smiled as she said it and he liked the effect it had on her features. She looked younger. More carefree.
“How old are you?” he asked, needing to know.
“Thirty-two,” she said, and he released his breath. “How old are you?” She opened the packaging on the massage table.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Well, duh! You asked me!”
He crouched down to help her. “I had a good reason for asking you.”
“Which was?”
“Never mind,” he said, straightening as they withdrew the table together. “I’m turning thirty next month.”
Moments later, she had the table fitted together. “I’ll get some towels and prepare the oil and then you might want to undress in the bathroom,” she said.
“Undress?”
“That’s how people usually have massages. Oil and clothes don’t mix well.”
“Um, I didn’t know when I agreed to this that I’d be naked.”
She put her head to one side as if considering him. “Haven’t you ever had a massage before?”
Now he felt plain foolish. “No,” he said honestly.
“In that case, you’re in for a treat.”
Adam swallowed.
“You’re really uncomfortable about this, aren’t you?”
“Gee, how can you tell?”
She smiled again and he wondered if he should ask to see her driver’s license to make sure Carly was telling the truth about her age. “Okay, I’ll put you out of your misery by telling you that you can leave your boxers on.”
Adam was tempted to ask if he could keep his jeans on, as well—just this first time. But she was giving him that look again.
“Not to rush you or anything,” she said, and glanced at her watch. “But I’d like to get to bed before midnight.”
Visions of being in bed with Carly suddenly filled Adam’s head. He fled to the bathroom.
Strange man, CARLY THOUGHT as she wiped down the massage table and set some towels on it. Then she realized there wasn’t another room for her to slip into while Adam got under the towel on the table. Some men didn’t mind her seeing them in their boxers, but she had a feeling Adam wasn’t one of them.
Tiptoeing to the door, Carly knocked gently. When she heard his gruff acknowledgment, she said, “There’s an extra towel behind the door. You might want to wrap that around yourself before you come out.”
Moments later, he emerged, wrapped in the suggested towel. Not that it did anything to cover his magnificent body, Carly decided. She’d never had such a reaction to seeing a nearly naked client before. Never. Ever.
Silently, she indicated he should lie on the table. “Facedown first,” she managed to say, cursing her hoarse-sounding voice.
When he was settled, she draped an extra towel over his butt for modesty.
“I, ah, usually play calming music,” Carly explained as she squirted oil onto her hands, warming it, then spread them over his back. “But obviously my CDs are history.”
Observing his breathing, Carly breathed in sync with Adam, to create a better energy channel between therapist and client as she worked on warming Adam’s skin and the muscles beneath, starting slowly, then concentrating on specific areas.
“Whoa!” she couldn’t help saying at the same time as Adam jumped. “That is one tight trapezius. No wonder you winced when you picked up Celeste.”
He grunted and Carly went to work on him, smoothing the tension in his muscles with long, soothing strokes, preparing him for some deeper work on those vicious knots she could feel beneath her fingertips.
He sighed and she smiled. Clients usually sighed inadvertently with the rhythmic motion of the effleurage strokes. As she felt him begin to relax she moved back to his trapezius, kneading the knots and the tension in his muscles, feeling them gradually ease.
Every now and then, he’d react when Carly hit a particularly sore spot.
“Why does it feel like that?” he asked.
“The knots are caused by built-up lactic acid and toxins in your tissues and muscles. Massage helps disperse them,” she told him.
He grunted and she went back to working on his knots. She was just getting into a rhythm when he suddenly asked, “So do guys ever come on to you when you give them a massage?”
“That was so out of left field,” she said.
“Do they?”
“Some do.”
“And?”
“And I tell them the session is over. Forever.”
“And if I came on to you?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“You sound very confident of that.”
“I’m good at reading people. I had you read within two minutes of meeting you.”
“Should I ask what you read?”
“You could, but I don’t think you’d like the answer.”
He grunted again and she moved to his legs.
Carly could tell from his posture—the unguarded moments when he hunched his shoulders—that he was protecting himself from something. She soon found some knots in his calves. “You need to stretch more,” she said. “This is also caused by lactic acid. You should probably do more reps and less weights when you work out.”
“So you’re an exercise therapist, as well?”
“No, but I get to see the results
of incorrect exercise. And then I have to fix it. You need quite a lot of fixing.”
“Thank you. I’ll remember that the next time I’m leg-pressing several hundred pounds.”
“Oh, I know you’ll thank me for it,” she said, and kneaded a little deeper to press her point home.
ADAM HAD NO IDEA WHY anyone thought being massaged was relaxing, especially when Carly got him to roll over onto his back.
He was thankful he had two towels covering him, but he was too conscious of responding to her touch. And whatever she was doing to his toes was way too erotic!
And now she’d moved to the soles of his feet.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she pressed and stroked parts of his foot.
“A little reflexology. I can tell a few things about the state of your organs from the zones on your feet.”
“Sounds like voodoo to me.” Adam wanted to challenge what she’d said, but in truth, it felt strangely good.
“Not at all. It’s been around a long time. The ancient Egyptians are believed to have used acupressure on the feet. For instance, when I press here…”
She pressed on part of his instep. “This area is related to your stomach. Perhaps you have an ulcer? And pressing here, on the sides of your toes, relates to your brain. Maybe you overthink things and that’s led to a stomach ulcer?”
“Oh, please… You’re not going to claim you can tell that from my feet.” Although Adam had suffered from stomach ulcers and he did tend to overthink. Except when it involved rescuing kids and dogs from burning buildings. And if he was honest with himself, he had to admit he enjoyed having his feet massaged.
“Hmm,” he murmured. “I didn’t realize this is what happens during a massage. I thought it was all about long, soothing strokes.”
“Depends on what sort of massage you want. Or the type of massage your therapist feels you need. Since you have no experience, I’m trying a few different things.”