lips curved. “Brad’s an avid football fan. I mentioned you were here—”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Mac said brusquely.
She looked as if he’d kicked her in the stomach. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d mind. You always seemed to like spending time with the kids.”
He made a face. “It isn’t that I mind spending time with them. It’s just—” He didn’t want them to see him hobbling around with a cane. He didn’t want them feeling sorry for him. He didn’t want to be asked a lot of questions for which he had no answers.
He would know in the next few weeks whether his leg was going to stand up to the rigors of running. He wanted time by himself to deal with his disappointment—if that was what it turned out to be. He wanted to be able to rage against fate without worrying about some sick kid’s feelings.
“I’m sorry, Mac,” Jewel said, reaching out to lay her hand on his forearm.
The hairs on his arms prickled at her touch, and his body responded in a way that both surprised and disturbed him. He resisted the urge to jerk his hand away. That would only hurt her again.
This is Jewel. My friend. There’s nothing sexual intended by her touch.
Jewel might be his friend, but his body also recognized her as female. This sort of thing—unwanted arousal—had happened once or twice when they were teenagers, and she had touched him at an odd moment when he wasn’t expecting it, but he had always attributed those incidents to randy teenage hormones. That excuse wouldn’t work now.
All right, so she was an attractive woman.
That excuse wouldn’t work either. Jewel wasn’t pretty. Never had been. Her nose was straight and small, her chin was square, her mouth was a bit too big and her eyes were Mississippi-mud brown. Ordinary features all. She did have an extraordinary body. Her long legs, small waist and ample breasts were the stuff of male dreams. But Mac was offended on Jewel’s behalf to think that any man could want her because of her body and not because of who she was inside.
So, it’s her mind you find attractive?
As a teenager, he had liked her sense of humor, her enthusiasm for life and her willingness to reach out to others. He hadn’t seen much of the first two traits this time around, and he wasn’t sure whether it was a continued willingness to reach out to others that had made her return to Camp LittleHawk or, as he suspected, a desire to retreat from the world.
Mac had no explanation for his response to Jewel except that he had been celibate for too long. What had happened when Jewel touched him was merely the healthy response of a male animal to a female of the species. The problem would be solved when he found himself a woman and satisfied the simple physiological need that had been too long denied. Which meant he had better make a trip into town sometime soon and find a willing woman.
“Do you want me to call the Templetons back and tell them your plans have changed and you won’t be here, after all?” Jewel asked.
He shook his head. “I guess it won’t hurt me to be nice to one little boy.”
“If you’d rather not—”
“I said I would.” He slid his leg off his knee and reached for his cane. “It’s not that big a deal, Jewel.”
She rose and reached for his arm to help him up.
He jerked away. “I’m not an invalid. I wish you’d stop trying to help me.”
He saw the hurt look on her face, but that was better than having her know the sharp sexual response her touch had provoked. That would ruin everything. Better to have her think he was in a lousy mood than find out that he wanted to suck on her breasts or put his hand between her legs and seek the damp heat there.
“I’m going in to town today,” he said, realizing he’d better get away for a while and cool down.
“Perfect! I need some things from the hardware store. Could you give me a lift?”
Thank God she wasn’t looking at him, or she would have known something was wrong. He opened his mouth to refuse and said, “Sure. Why not? Give me a chance to change into a shirt and jeans and some boots first.”
She gave him a blazing smile that made his groin pull up tight. Hell. He’d better find himself a woman. And soon.
NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, JEWEL THOUGHT. Mac had been acting strange all day. Every errand he had run had taken him to the opposite end of town from her. Although they had made plans to meet for lunch at the Stanton Hotel Café, he hadn’t arrived until she was nearly finished eating. She was sitting on one of the 1950’s chrome seats at the lunch counter when he finally showed up, grabbed a cup of coffee, said he wasn’t hungry, remembered something else he had to do in town and took off again.
If Jewel hadn’t known better, she would have said he didn’t want to be anywhere near her. But that was silly. They were best friends.
They had agreed to meet in the parking lot near the bank at four o’clock where Mac had parked his extended cab Chevy pickup and head back to Hawk’s Pride. Jewel was sitting on the fender of the truck when Mac finally returned.
“You could have sat inside,” he said. “It wasn’t locked.”
“It was too hot with the windows rolled up, and I needed a key to get them down,” she said, lifting the hair at her nape to catch the late afternoon breeze. She heard him suck in a breath and had turned in his direction when a female voice distracted them both.
“Peter? Is that you?”
Jewel rose and turned at the same time as Mac to find a red-headed, green-eyed woman standing beside the bed of the pickup.
“Eve?” Mac replied in tones of astonishment that rivaled the woman’s.
She ran toward him, and Jewel watched in awe as Mac dropped his cane to surround the woman with his arms. Jewel hurried to pick it up, certain Mac would lose his balance and need it at any moment.
Only he didn’t.
Either he was stronger on his feet than he had been two days ago, or the petite redhead was stronger than she looked.
“Peter. Peter,” the woman said, her gaze searching his face.
“Eve. I can’t believe it’s you!” he replied, his eyes searching her face with equal delight.
He suddenly looked around for Jewel and reached out a hand to draw her closer. “Jewel, this is Evelyn Latham. Eve and I dated for a while in college. She’s the only person I ever let get away with calling me Peter.”
Eve simpered. “It’s because you have such a big—”
“Yeah,” Mac cut her off. “Eve, this is my friend, Jewel Whitelaw. I’m spending some time at her parents’ ranch.”
Jewel saw Eve take one look at her plain face and her unshapely clothes and dismiss her as no competition.
Eve then gave Mac a quick, but thorough, once-over. “You
