long has it been?” she asked.
“Six weeks and three days,” he admitted.
“Not that you’re impatient,” she noted dryly.
He smiled again. “I don’t believe in sitting around.”
And because she refused to admit that his smile did strange things to her, she took a jab at him instead. “But that’s your job, isn’t it? To sit on the back of a bull for eight seconds.”
His smile didn’t waver. If anything, it grew wider, and the twinkle in his eye suggested that he knew exactly what was going through her mind. “Most people wouldn’t consider it sitting,” he told her.
She shifted her attention back to the papers in her hand and began to scan the report.
“You look...different,” he noted, when she flipped the page.
“I’m not sixteen anymore,” she told him.
His gaze skimmed over her again, slowly, considering. “I can see that.”
She returned her attention to the notes in her hands.
“You’re not wearing a ring,” he remarked.
“Rings get in the way when I’m working.”
“Which suggests that you have a ring to wear.”
She glanced up. “What do you really want to know, Spencer?”
“Are you married? Engaged?”
He had no right to ask those questions. Her personal life was none of his business. And yet, something stirred inside her in response to his inquiries, as if pleased that he was asking. As if the questions suggested that he cared about her status.
Or maybe he was just making conversation.
“Not anymore,” she finally responded.
“Not married anymore? Or not engaged anymore?” he asked.
“Never married,” she clarified. “Briefly engaged.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Dale Shillington.”
He made a face. “How briefly? Like you were really drunk one night and said yes, then sobered up and threw the ring back at him?”
“Not quite that briefly,” she admitted.
“You can do a lot better than Shillington,” he told her.
“Dale has a lot of good qualities,” she said, wanting to defend not just the man but her acceptance of his proposal.
Yes, in hindsight she could acknowledge that it had been a mistake, but at the time, she’d thought he was a man who could give her everything she wanted. To belong with someone. To be loved. To have a family.
But no matter how hard she’d tried, she couldn’t make herself love him—and she knew that a marriage without love wouldn’t last. And she didn’t want to end up like her own mother, abandoned by her husband and raising a child alone.
“If there aren’t better options in this town, maybe you should leave Haven,” Spencer suggested.
She shook her head. “That’s not the answer for everyone.”
“And apparently not for me, either,” he said.
Before she could ask what he meant by that cryptic remark, he posed another question.
“Are you dating anyone now?”
“You’ve got an awful lot of questions for a guy who suddenly reappeared in town after seven years.”
“It’s not so sudden,” he denied. “And it’s hardly my first trip home.”
She knew that, of course. He’d been home every year for Christmas, frequently for Mother’s Day and on various other occasions, but never for his birthday, because there was always a major rodeo event somewhere on the Fourth of July.
“Why did you come back?” she wondered.
“Obviously I’m not in any condition to compete right now, and Haven seemed as good a place as any to rehab my injury,” he said.
A reasonable explanation, but she sensed that it wasn’t the whole reason. It was, however, the only reason that mattered right now because it was why he was sitting on her table.
“You’re going to have to take your shirt off,” she said, reaching into the cupboard for a sheet.
When she turned back again, the shirt was already gone, revealing his chest—wide and strong—and lots of bronzed skin stretched over rock-hard muscles.
She spent a lot of time focused on naked body parts in her job. She was familiar with soft bodies and toned bodies. She’d worked with varsity stars and armchair athletes.
She’d never reacted to seeing anyone else’s body the way she reacted to seeing Spencer’s naked chest.
Her heart pounded faster.
Her mouth went dry.
Her knees felt weak.
Because this wasn’t any patient, this was Spencer.
Her first crush.
Her first kiss.
Her first heartbreak.
But that was a lot of years ago, and she was no longer a teenage girl infatuated with her best friend’s brother. She was twenty-three years old now—a grown woman and a professional massage therapist. She’d had more than a few boyfriends since he’d left town. Even a few lovers. But her body still reacted to his nearness as if she was sixteen again and she would just die if he didn’t love her, too.
She shoved all that old baggage aside and drew her professional demeanor around her like a cloak. “I guess you don’t want a sheet,” she said lightly.
“Do I need one?”
“No.” She returned the folded flannel to the cupboard. “Some people prefer to be covered. The room can feel cold at times.”
“It’s warm enough in here,” Spencer said.
Warm? Definitely.
Maybe even hot.
Certainly her body temperature seemed to have spiked.
She gave a passing thought to checking if Darren was back from lunch yet and asking Spencer if he’d be more comfortable having the other therapist work with him on his rehab.
Except that the question implied that she was uncomfortable with the situation. Which she was, but she wasn’t
