had been two years since she had seen him. At her husband, Kevin’s, funeral. And that day she had not really noticed what he looked like, only felt his arms fold around her, felt his warmth and his strength, and thought, for the first time, and only time: everything will be all right.
But that reaction had been followed swiftly by anger. Where had he been all those years when Kevin could have used a friend?
And she could have, too.
Why had David withheld what Kevin so desperately needed? David’s chilly remoteness after a terrible accident, days after they had all graduated from high school, had surely contributed to a downward spiral in Kevin that nothing could stop.
Not even her love.
The trajectory of all their lives had changed forever, and David Blaze had proven to her he was no kind of friend at all.
David had let them down. He’d become aloof and cool—a furious judgment in his eyes—when Kevin had most needed understanding. Forgiveness. Sympathy.
Not, Kayla reminded herself bitterly, that any of those things had saved my husband, either, because everyone else—me, his parents—had given those things in abundance.
And had everything been all right since the funeral? Because of Kevin’s insurance she was financially secure, but was everything else all right?
Not really. Kayla had a sense of not knowing who she really was anymore. Wasn’t that part of why she had come back here, to Blossom Valley? To find her lost self? To remember Kevin as the fun-loving guy she had grown up with? And not...
She was weakened by the sting. And by David’s sudden presence. She was not going to think disloyal thoughts about her husband! And especially not with David Blaze in the vicinity!
“Where’s your kit?” David asked with an authoritative snap in his voice that pulled her out of the painful reverie of their shared history.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you do.”
She wanted to argue that, but the sense of languid clarity left her and was replaced rapidly by panic. Was her throat closing? Was her breathing becoming rapid? Was she swelling? And turning red? And where was her new dog, Bastigal?
She dragged her eyes from the reassuring strength in David’s—that was an illusion, after all—and scanned the nearby shrubs.
“I don’t need your help,” she bit out again, stubbornly, pushing down her desire to panic and deliberately looking away from the irritation in his lifted eyebrow.
“Bastigal,” she called, “come here! My dog. He fell out of the basket. I have to find my dog.”
She felt a finger on her chin, strong, insistent, trying to make her look at him. When she resisted, masculine hands bracketed her cheeks, forcing her unwilling gaze to his.
“Kayla.” His voice was strong and sure, and very stern as he enunciated every word slowly. “I need to know where your bee-sting kit is. I need to know now.”
DAVID BLAZE WAS OBVIOUSLY a man who had become way too accustomed to being listened to.
And Kayla was disgusted with herself for how easily she capitulated to his powerful presence, but the truth was she felt suddenly dizzy, her blood pressure spiraling downward in reaction to the sting. At least she hoped it was the sting!
She divested herself from the vise grip of David’s hands on her cheeks, not wanting him to think it was the touch of his strong hands that had made her so light-headed.
He was not there for Kevin, she reminded herself, trying to shore up her strength...and her animosity.
She lowered herself to the curb. “Purse. In the bike basket.” It felt like a cowardly surrender.
She watched David, and reluctant admiration pierced her desire for animosity. Even though he was far removed from his lifesaving days, David still moved with the calm and efficiency of a trained first responder.
His take-charge attitude might have been annoying under different circumstances, but right now it inspired unenthusiastic confidence. Feeling like every kind of a traitor, Kayla allowed David’s confidence to wash her with calm as she attempted to slow her ragged breathing.
How was it he could feel so familiar to her—the dark glossiness of his hair, the perfect line of his jaw, the suede of his eyes—and feel like a complete stranger at the same time?
David strode over to where she had thrown down her bike, picked through the strewn sunflowers and green-leaf lettuce until he found the purse where it had fallen on the ground. He crouched, unceremoniously dumping all the contents of her bag out on the road. If he heard her protested “Hey!” he ignored it.
In seconds he had the “pen,” an emergency dose of epinephrine. He lowered himself beside her on the curb.
“Are you doing this, or am I?” he asked.
He took one look at her face and had his answer. His fingers tickled along the length of her leg as he eased her skirt up, exposing her thigh. She closed her eyes against the shiver of pure awareness that was not caused by reaction to the sting or the feel of the warm summer sunshine on her skin.
She wanted to protest he could have put the pre-loaded needle, concealed within the pen, through the fabric of the skirt, but she didn’t say a word.
She excused her lack of protest by telling herself that her throat was no doubt swelling shut. It felt as if her eyes were!
She felt the heat of his hand, warmer than the sun, as he laid it midway up the outside of her naked thigh and pressed her skin taut between his thumb and pointer finger.
“I think I’m going to faint,” she whispered, any pretense of courage that she had managed now completely abandoning her.
“You’re not going to faint.”
It wasn’t an observation so much as an order.
She attempted to glower at his arrogance. She knew if she was going to faint! He didn’t! But instead of resentment, Kayla was aware, again, of feeling a traitorous clarity she attributed to near death: his shoulder touching hers, the light in the glossy chocolate of his hair as he bent over her, his scent masculine, sharply clean and tantalizing.
Still, some primal fear made her put her hand over the site on her leg where he had pulled the skin taut with his bracketed fingers as the perfect place to inject the epinephrine.
He took her hand and put it firmly out of his way. When she went to put it right back, he held it at bay, his strength making her own seem puny and impotent.
“I’m not ready!” she protested.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She did. She looked into the strength and calm of those deep brown eyes and all of it felt like an intoxicating chemical cocktail so
