flagged. Maybe she should talk to him another time, like during the light of day, or at a bar with a lot of other people around.
Don’t be a coward, Abby, she scolded herself. She sucked in a deep breath and pressed the doorbell before she could change her mind.
REECE STEPPED GINGERLY out of the shower, wrapping a large towel around his waist, wincing from the pain in his left leg, where pins and needles shot back and forth along his thigh, causing weakness in his stance.
Each pinprick was like an individual jab, reminding him that he couldn’t get in a race car again and do the thing that he loved most. Headaches had come back earlier that afternoon as well, and he’d spent most of the day on the sofa with an ice pack.
What if this never went away? What if they never signed off on letting him race again? At this point, doctors gave him a fifty-fifty shot, but he had to be one hundred percent, his reflexes perfect, completely reliable before he could race.
The betrayal of having his own body prevent him from doing what he loved most was utterly unacceptable. He’d gotten through the worst of it, and he’d defeat this, too. There was no alternative other than … what? Staying here?
Not an option.
Crossing the hall, he walked into the guest room and dried off. His mother had long ago, with his blessing, turned his old room into a place where she did her sewing and other crafts. He came home for holidays and a few short vacations but not often enough for his parents to have preserved his room. At the moment, he was glad they hadn’t. He’d been feeling strangely sentimental about the old place, and that wasn’t like him. He supposed it was because of the close call with his dad. Almost losing someone—as well as almost losing your own life—made you see things differently.
He loved his family, but this was just a house, he reminded himself. A building. One he couldn’t get away from fast enough when he’d been a teenager looking for something more exciting.
He started going through the stretching routine that he’d been taught by his last physical therapist to relieve the pins and needles. Focusing on his breathing, his form, he drove away unwanted thoughts. The hot shower had helped loosen him up, but it still hurt like hell at first to push through the moves and hold them, though the symptoms lessened after a few repetitions.
He felt better as he relaxed, going through the rest of his exercises for good measure. He’d talked to his neurologist earlier in the day for the umpteenth time, and he had been reassured yet again that it was all normal.
Easy for him to say.
Reece turned to grab a pair of jeans when the ring of the doorbell caught him by surprise. Who would be here now?
Surely not Charles with someone to see the house. No one had called.
Pulling on his jeans and grabbing a shirt, he rushed down the stairs and pulled open the door, unable to believe his eyes.
“Abby?”
He took in her pink cheeks and tousled hair, and stepped back, inviting her in as the frosty air nipped at his bare toes.
“C’mon in. It’s freezing out there,” he said.
“Thanks, it is,” she said, moving quickly. Her eyes flew to his chest. He hadn’t had time to completely button his shirt.
“Oh, sorry … just got out of the shower.”
Her cheeks turned even pinker and she didn’t meet his eyes. He wondered why she was here holding wine, two glasses and some other foods.
Reece prompted her again. “What’s all this?” he asked, looking down at the stuff she still held in her arms. One glass was tenuously dangling from her fingertips.
“Let me take that for you,” he offered, and reached forward to take the flute. When his fingers caught with hers around the stem, her hand jerked away and they fumbled the glass, nearly dropping the fragile crystal.
Reece frowned. “Are you okay?”
She finally smiled. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry to intrude on your evening, but I saw your lights on and felt like some company. You said you wanted to have a drink, so …” She shrugged, holding up the bottle. “Unless this is a bad time?”
He remembered saying something about having a drink when he’d seen her at the restaurant. This wasn’t exactly what he meant, but maybe it was better.
He’d had a rough day, and having a bottle of wine with a pretty woman might be exactly what he needed.
“It’s a perfect time, actually. I’m really glad you decided to stop by,” he said, smiling and taking the rest of the things she was holding so that she could shuck her jacket. “You walked all the way over, in the dark?”
“It wasn’t that dark, with the snow and the moon. Very nice, actually,” she said lightly, handing him her coat just as she met his eyes and a spark flared as his hand touched hers.
She shifted uncomfortably, looking away and turning pink again. Reece didn’t remember her being so … wait.
She’d come across the field on the side of the house where the guest room was. Where he’d been doing his stretching, with the curtains open. With no clothes on. He never closed the drapes, since no one was likely to be lurking out in the fields
Silence hung at the end of her comment, and he had to smother a smile. She had to have seen him. Reece wasn’t shy and had to resist the urge to tease her about it.
So Abby was bit of a voyeur? It didn’t bother him. He’d be happy to let her look all she liked, he thought, his grin breaking loose as he turned away to hang her coat.
Maybe this evening would go even better than he thought.
“Grab that bottle and we can go put the food together in the kitchen, then sit by the fire,” he said casually, though he wasn’t feeling casual at all. All of his worries were pushed back by a surge of unexpected lust, and it felt great. He wanted to hold on to it, ride it and see where it took him.
“Oh, that would be nice,” she said, walking with him to the kitchen. Dressed in jeans and a sweater that accentuated her curves, he leaned forward and pulled something from her hair. He could swear she sucked in a breath when he did, becoming perfectly still.
Hmm.
He presented a straw of hay to her with a smile. “Been down with your horses, I take it?”
She rolled her eyes and snatched the hay from his hand, but couldn’t hold back a laugh, which made her even prettier. He’d always thought she was pretty, even as a little girl, but now … she was incredible. She always looked so natural and fresh, and he wondered what her skin tasted like.
“Yes, I was closing them up for the night when I saw your lights on my way back from the barn.”
“Do you still have just the two? Buttercup and Beau?”
She paused, looking surprised that he remembered. He was a little surprised, too.
“Yes. Wow, you know their names,” she said bluntly, taking the plate he handed her to open the brie so they could
