really hoped this man was Jack, shirtless owner of the house, because she wasn’t convinced she could tackle him to the ground and put a knee in his back if he was an unwanted intruder. He was tall and strong, and with that bare chest, knotted arm muscles and a crumpled garment dangling from a tight fist, he looked wound up and ready to snap.
“I’m Carmen O’Brien, Cormack’s sister,” she continued quickly. “The other C in C & C Renovations. Cormack is sick and can’t work today.”
Although she was the one making explanations, Jack Davey looked like the one who thought he didn’t belong. “Right,” he said. “Right.”
“And you’re Jack.” She managed to avoid making it a question.
“Yes, that’s right.” He lowered the T-shirt or rag or whatever it was. He was only half-dressed. His feet were bare, and the snap on his ancient jeans was undone. His dark hair was rumpled and he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He had cool gray eyes with little crinkles at the corners that she wanted to trust. The crinkles had to say something good about his smile. But he looked so far from smiling right at this moment, he scared her.
Ah. Okay.
With the T-shirt out of the way, she saw the red slash of a barely healed wound slicing across his tanned rib cage, which maybe explained the scary vibes. She wondered what on earth he’d done to himself. Heart surgery? Was that why he looked so serious and struggling and grim?
“I’m sorry about this,” he said through a tight jaw. She saw his throat work and his body spasmed. “Side’s hurting a bit.”
“Oh, of course, it looks nasty.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“No, no, it’s fine. I’m not who you were expecting. I mean, I guess we startled each other.” She hadn’t been expecting a half-naked, freshly scarred, well-built, thirtysomething man who looked like a bomb about to go off, here to greet her this morning.
“You need to get to work. I’ll, uh…”
“No rush. Although it would help me to warm up a bit.” She tried a grin as she rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. “I’m dressed for working hard in the middle of the day, not standing around doing nothing early in the morning.”
He nodded vaguely, and looked past her, toward the sink. What was wrong with him?
“Um, are you okay?” she tried.
“Fine. I’m fine.”
It was such a lie, he could barely get the words out, poor guy. His face was so tight, and his gray eyes were like slits, he’d narrowed them so much. She gentled her voice and told him, “No, you’re not.”
And then it happened. His stomach began to heave. He pressed the shirt to his face. His shoulders shook. Sounds broke from his mouth.
He was crying.
Crying, with great, deep, scratchy, painful and achingly poignant sounds, and fifteen years of family grief and struggle had taught Carmen an instinctive response that came without her even thinking about it. She stepped close to him, took a hold of his big, warm body and let him sob his heart out in her arms.
Chapter Two
Carmen didn’t know how long they stood this way.
She had to stretch onto her toes to reach Jack Davey properly, even though he was already bent and crooked. The awkward posture must come from protecting that wound on his side. She was careful not to hold him too close because she could tell he was in pain. He laid his head on her shoulder and she cradled it the way she used to do when the sobbing body in her arms belonged to her dad, her sister Melanie or her brother Joe.
Just last night she’d held her other sister like this—eighteen-year-old Kate, after Kate had stumbled in at midnight, and Carmen had yelled at her because she was drunk, and Kate had yelled back, then burst into maudlin tears.
Carmen had run her hands across Kate’s wildly streaked hair and soothed her with little sounds and finally told her, “You have to get a grip, honey, you can’t let yourself get this messed up. What’s wrong?”
Kate had had no answers, and the tears had given way to petulant teen anger. “You have no clue, Carmen! You treat me like a child! How come you can’t just leave me alone?” Then she’d half stormed, half lurched off to the bathroom to hang over the sink and lose whatever cocktail of fast food and alcohol was sloshing around in her stomach.
Was there anything else in the cocktail besides alcohol?
Anything stronger?
Carmen was incredibly worried about her and had no idea what to do.
And now she had a stranger crying on her shoulder, and didn’t know what to do about that, either. Especially when she discovered that thinking about Kate had made her run her hands across Jack Davey’s hair in just the same soothing, helpless way, while she whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay, just let it all out.”
Oh, Lord, had he noticed what she was doing?
She stilled the movement cautiously, not wanting just to rip her hand away. Resting on his dark head, her fingers found clean springiness and released the damp scent of his musky, nutty shampoo into the air. His body’s shaking began to ebb. She lifted her hand and patted his back in a rhythm of rough, awkward beats, finding pads of solid, well-worked muscle. He had the hardest, strongest body she’d ever felt. How could such a body possibly feel so vulnerable in her arms? What was wrong?
“I’m sorry.” His voice was like gravel. Or metal, rusted by his tears. “I am so…” he took a shuddery breath “…sorry about this.”
“It’s fine.” She pulled away. “I—I didn’t know if—”
“It’s okay.” He balled the shirt in front of his chest, a defensive maneuver that successfully put some space between them.
Carmen felt a little dizzy for a moment, and the air around her body was too cool again now that his body heat had gone. So strange. Every cell in her body seemed aware of how strong he’d been, and yet she was the one giving comfort. As she’d known for a long time, there was more than one kind of strength in a human being.
While she watched, still helpless as to what she should say or do next, he brought the garment to his face and wiped, as if it was a towel. He pulled it over his head, pushed his arms through the sleeves, looked down at the wet patch on the fabric made by his tears, and pulled it off again. “I’ll have to change,” he muttered.
“Do you want to…talk, or something?” she offered. “You shouldn’t just—”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not.”
“Well, I’m embarrassed. But I know what this is about.”
“Maybe you should tell me. Please don’t be embarrassed.”
“Yeah, right!” he drawled. “This isn’t remotely embarrassing, sobbing on my kitchen contractor’s shoulder.”
“Well…
