the bar alone.
It was kind of fascinating, actually. He ate dinner at the beachside bar every night, as if he were looking for someone, but he never hooked up. He nursed a couple of beers for hours, and spent the rest of the night throwing darts with the oldest, loneliest regular in the place.
They all wondered what his story was. Kitty said he acted like a guy with a broken heart. Jill disagreed. Any woman lucky enough to get her hands on that heart, she said, putting a wry stress on the word heart, would be careful not to let it slip away.
Kitty wondered why he’d followed her out here.
“I’m fine,” she said now, and pulled herself to her feet. Grimacing, she brushed the bloody sand from her leg, then wished she’d dealt with her face first. She lifted her chin, daring him to mention the tears. “It’s just my shin. I think I fell on something.”
He bent down and took her calf between his hands. He didn’t seem alarmed, but his grip was firm. “Let’s get into the light. My cottage is right behind us. Can you walk?”
“Of course,” she said, but the first weight she put on the leg made it sting. “It’s no big deal. I should just go back to—”
“No. My place is right here. So is my car. If you need stitches, I can drive you to the E.R.”
She glanced back toward the hotel, registering how far away the service dorms really were. “Fine. I mean…yeah, okay. Thanks.”
She saw him smile as he lifted her arm and put it over his shoulder. She knew she sounded edgy and ungrateful, but, damn it, she felt like such a fool. There she’d been, ranting about how tough and independent she was…
Sugarwater’s luxury cottages were impressive, but luckily she’d seen the interiors before, so she didn’t embarrass herself by gasping or gawking. He flicked on the living room light switch—she noticed it was set to the recessed mood lighting, which didn’t compete with the view of the ocean through the big picture window.
He deposited her on the wide leather sofa, then fiddled a few minutes in the wet bar behind her. When he returned, he had a plain brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, some gauze and a bandage.
She stared. “You keep a first aid kit in the bar?”
He laughed, but he was already down on one knee in front of her, gently cleaning off the cut. “Yeah, well, I put a gash in my own leg the first week I was here. Apparently I still can’t surf worth a darn.” He smiled up at her. “Ten stitches. Just came out a week or so ago.”
She smiled in spite of herself. He didn’t seem clumsy. His hands felt sure. And kind.
He went through several pieces of gauze, all of which came away bloody and crumpled. He used the peroxide liberally, and thin, pink blood inched down her calf in dotted lines. He wiped it clean, with light strokes that made her feel strangely warm and tingly.
God. Just how weak was she tonight? Was she actually letting this Boy Scout routine turn her on?
It took a while, as he was clearly conscientious. But it wasn’t all vaguely erotic TLC. Some of it was pure, sensible first aid business. She flinched as he scrubbed away a few last grains of sand.
“Sorry,” he said. He bent closer and probed with careful fingers. Then he dabbed one last time and started peeling the plastic backing from a large square bandage.
“It’s not as bad as it looked. No need for stitches, probably. But you’re going to want to get a tetanus shot.”
“I had one a few months ago,” she said. Her voice sounded husky, and she cleared her throat. “When you work around here, you don’t take risks.”
He nodded. “Good.” He wadded up the used gauze and got up to put it in the trash can behind the bar. Then he ran water to wash his hands.
“How about you?”
She swiveled.
He was pointing to the military lineup of booze along the glass wall. The standard new-guest stock that came with the cottage. It didn’t seem to have been touched, though David had been here several weeks. “Want something to take the edge off?”
For a minute, she didn’t answer. Surrounded by sparkling crystal, he looked like the suave, unattainable hero of every movie she’d ever seen. So easy, so comfortable in his own skin, dressed casually in khakis and blue polo shirt, which probably hadn’t been chosen to set off his taut chest and sexy hips, but did anyhow.
Something inside her stirred. It shifted restlessly. Something that had been asleep for a long, long time.
She tried to ignore it. He was too good-looking. She didn’t trust such handsome men. His blond hair seemed to gleam, and his perfect profile was both manly and beautiful. And, yet, in some indescribable way, he didn’t seem like…like the rest of them.
But that was ridiculous. Green-haired bartenders with edgy pasts were undoubtedly not his type, and Boy Scout gods weren’t hers. And yet…that restless spot inside her felt odd, as if it were being tugged toward him. She wondered if he felt it, too. Something in his eyes made her think he might.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I don’t drink.”
“Water, then.” He brought over two glasses straight from the subzero fridge and sat beside her on the sofa. “Here’s to a little peace and quiet for the rest of tonight. You’ve certainly earned it.”
They both unscrewed their caps and drank a toast. She found herself watching the column of his throat as he swallowed. His neck was bronze and manly, but without that thick, muscled look she hated. The Jim Oliphant look. In fact, he had the kind of body she was usually attracted to. Lean, simple, graceful. As if he would be good at tennis.
Or sex.
He was watching her, too. She felt a blush creep over her cheeks, and she was suddenly aware that their bodies were only inches apart, and that this sofa had obviously been designed for nights of impulsive passion. She wondered whether he’d brought her here with casual sex in mind.
If only he knew how long it had been since sex had been casual for her. She could tell him—almost to the day. Eight years. Of all the things Jim Oliphant had stolen from her, the easy acceptance of her sexuality was the thing she missed the most.
Since the day Jim had pulled his disgusting stunt, she’d had one lover. Just one, a quiet law student she’d met at her first waitressing job. In Atlanta, where she’d settled after she’d come to the end of nearly two years of running. She’d stayed there a whole year, letting Allen erase the memory of Jim’s grabbing hands.
Then Allen graduated, she had moved on…and she’d passed into a long, lonely five years, avoiding intimacy of any kind.
She turned away awkwardly and focused on the picture window. It framed a magical view. Just yards away, the ocean waves angled in, rolling toward the shore. Just before they broke, moonlight created a flashing vein of silver along the glassy curls.
She felt something silver winking deep inside her, as if a shaft of moonlight had penetrated her own murky layers of numbness and fear. It was almost as if somewhere, way down deep, below the scars, below the memory of Jim Oliphant, the real Kitty Hemmings still
