From Boss to Bridegroom (9 page)

“That's probably a better idea anyway,” Rand
conceded. “If it works the way it's supposed to and numbs things, maybe it'll help me get comfortable enough to sleep.”

“Right,” she agreed as if that was what she'd been thinking all along.

“I'll go wait for Frank,” she announced then, retreating from the room without another glance at her boss and reminding herself that what she was feeling was totally inappropriate.

Closing his bedroom door behind her, Lucy took a deep breath and exhaled it with gusto in an attempt to clear her head. She was there to help and nothing more, she lectured silently, and she'd better not forget it.

With that in mind, she marched to the kitchen where she searched the cupboards until she found a pitcher for water, glasses and a tray to carry it all on.

Frank arrived with the food just as she was headed back to the bedroom so by the time she got there she had everything in tow. She knocked on the door and waited for Rand's “Come in” before she opened it.

He had shaved and was sitting propped on pillows against the enameled black headboard. He'd changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and had on a silk bathrobe over them that covered most of his upper half. His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping again, although Lucy thought it was more likely against the pain the exertion had probably caused him.

But when he heard her enter, he opened his eyes and his supple mouth stretched into a warm, welcoming smile.

“Dinner's here,” she announced. “And I brought water to keep by your bedside along with your pills so you won't have to get up to take them during the night.”

“Is there anything you don't think of?” he asked as she set the tray on his ample nightstand and began to unload it.

“Plates,” she said, only realizing at that moment that she hadn't brought any.

“Let's eat out of the cartons,” he suggested as if he didn't want her to leave again to get them.

Lucy pulled one of the chairs to his bedside and settled there to eat once they'd explored each container and decided where to start.

“How are you feeling?” she asked then.

“Not as good as I did before we left the hospital but not bad. That is if I don't try to move much.”

“Will you be okay alone here tonight?”

“I can ring for the doorman if I need help. That's why I wanted to talk to him.” Rand smiled wickedly. “Unless you're offering to spend the night…”

“I wasn't. I'll make sure you're fed and settled but then I'm going home.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Mmm,” she agreed.

“We'll have to work here until I can get around again,” he informed her then.

“From the equipment I saw in the other room it doesn't look like that will be a problem.”

“It shouldn't be. These computers link with the office so you can access anything.”

“Okay. But you're supposed to rest, you know. Maybe you should just tell me what you need done and not work yourself.”

“I'd go out of my mind.”

Lucy didn't question that. She'd seen enough of his intensity and energy level to accept it as fact.

“How did you hurt yourself originally?” she asked as they traded cartons of food.

“A mean tackle my senior year. I spent three weeks in traction, barely managed not to have surgery. I'm still trying to avoid it if I can, but every now and then I do something dumb—like climbing on that ladder that's really not big enough to hold me—and I get myself into trouble.”

Rand asked if there was any fried rice left and once he had what he wanted, he said, “So tell me about yourself. I know you're from California but I don't know where in California.”

“Sonoma Valley. I was born and raised there.”

“Are your folks still there?”

“No. My mother passed away last year and my father deserted us when I was seven. I haven't seen or heard from him since.”

“That must have been rough.”

“Rough enough.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“No. Just me, luckily. My mom had more than she could handle with only one kid.”

Rand smiled that quirky smile again. “Are you telling me you were a handful?”

“No,” she answered as if affronted by the very idea. “Well, I was a little mischievous but I didn't get into any real trouble. It was just that my mother wasn't equipped to support herself, let alone a child. And when it came to raising me, it wasn't an easy thing to do when she was dealing with her own emotional problems.”

“Emotional problems?” Rand repeated to urge her on.

“After my father left she would go into deep depressions. She'd go to bed and not get back up again for weeks at a time.”

“Would somebody else come in to look after you?”

“There wasn't anyone else. Sadie was here and she was all the family we had. And my mother didn't have any friends to speak of.”

“What would you do?”

“Everything that needed to be done. The cleaning, the cooking, the laundry. And I'd try to cheer Mom up. I'd do puppet shows from the foot of the bed. Sing and dance for her, tell her stories.”

His smile this time looked sweet and troubled. “Did it work?”

“No, not really,” Lucy admitted. “But I kept at
it and eventually when she'd get up again I'd hope maybe I had something to do with it.”

“So you learned to take care of everything—yourself included—and to be very efficient,” Rand concluded.

“Good skills to have,” she confirmed. “I also learned to value my own child and not to ever put him in a position where he felt like he had to parent me or needed to be the caregiver.”

“In other words you learned to be a better mom through your own mother's shortcomings.”

“I think so. I also think it's important to look at the positives that come out of every negative experience. I could never get my mother to do that. My father's leaving and not paying child support was bad, but it could have given my mom and me a chance to get closer, to have a better relationship, if only she would have used that opportunity. Instead… Well, instead she distanced herself from me and the rest of the world by taking to her bed.”

Lucy caught sight of the clock on Rand's night table. She hadn't realized it had gotten so late.

“And speaking of taking to bed, I should get out of here so you can rest.”

“I'm resting,” he pointed out. “In fact, I'm enjoying myself.”

“Still, I should get home.” She gathered up the remnants of their dinner to take to the kitchen and dispose of there.

As she did she started to think about returning to
the bedroom to rub that ointment into Rand's back and that was all it took to make her mouth go dry. To make her pulse pick up speed and her palms itch with anticipation.

Apparently waiting for a later hour had not allowed her any more stamina.

But what else could she do?

She could hope he'd forgotten about it and leave without reminding him. But that was irresponsible and cowardly and she would end up feeling guilty.

Which meant she was just going to have to meet the challenge. The challenge of actually touching Rand Colton and not giving in to what it would do to her. Not giving in to what it would arouse in her.

Steeling herself, she returned to Rand's room.

He'd moved to the edge of the bed, his feet flat on the floor, and it occurred to her that he didn't like her seeing him move without his usual agility or being witness to his flinching in pain so he did it when she wasn't around to watch. She liked that he didn't seem to want to wallow in the sympathy or the kind of attention that would garner.

“The ointment is on the bureau,” he said then, moving only his chin in the direction of the dresser nearest the door, obviously not having forgotten about it.

Lucy retrieved it and crossed to him. “Stay where you are. I'll kneel on the bed behind you so you don't have to get up.”

“You're the boss,” he said with a note of levity in his tone.

Lucy gingerly maneuvered herself onto the mattress, getting into position with infinite care so as not to jostle him any more than necessary.

“If you untie your robe, I'll do the rest,” she said, hoping it didn't sound as suggestive to him as it had to her.

But it must have because she heard a barely audible chuckle rumble from his throat before he complied.

When he had, Lucy eased the robe off the way she had his shirt earlier.

Just mind your business,
she told herself sternly, opening the ointment tube and squeezing a little onto her hand.

“This might be cold,” she warned, hating that her voice sounded so breathy, so intimate.

“The bad disk is slightly below my shoulder blades,” he informed her.

Oh and what shoulder blades they were!

Lucy tried not to notice as she rubbed her hands together to disperse the ointment and then pressed them to his back.

Satin over steel. She'd been right about that. Warm, smooth satin over honed steel.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” she said, fighting to keep her perspective, to focus on the medicinal aspects and nothing more.

“Don't worry about it. You have a soft touch,” he assured her, sitting there straight and strong.

He gave no evidence of pain. In fact it was Lucy who felt mushy-kneed and light-headed and at a disadvantage because the warmth of his flesh seemed to seep through her palms and infuse her with exactly the feelings she'd been worried this would cause.

She was much too aware of every inch of that broad back, of every rise of muscle and sinew, of every ridge of tendon and bone. So aware that it was almost difficult for her to breathe. So aware that her heart was beating as hard as a jungle drum. So aware that her blood was a rushing river in her ears. So aware that her nipples were standing at attention and making themselves all too known.

She went on rubbing Rand's back even after any signs of the ointment had disappeared into his skin, drinking in the wide expanse with her hands until she realized she was long since finished doing anything therapeutic and had begun to merely indulge herself.

“Okay,” she said after swallowing her own rapidly rising instincts to go on, to explore biceps that bulged massively in his arms, to allow her hands to glide over his shoulders to his pectorals, to even test the waistband of those sweatpants he wore…

“That should do it,” she added somewhat belatedly, willfully yanking herself out of her wandering thoughts and desires.

“Thanks,” Rand said.

Was she mistaken or did his voice sound deeper? Maybe it was from the pain of sitting up.

Lucy eased herself off the bed and went around to his night table, taking stock of his supplies when what she was really doing was working to regain some control. “You have all your pills and water to take them with. The phone is within reach if you need help. Can I get you anything else before I go?”

He didn't answer her right away. But she could feel his eyes on her as surely as if they would make a mark.

“No, I'll be fine,” he said finally, in a voice that was unmistakably raspier.

Then all at once his hand was on her arm, as if to stop her from leaving.

“Thanks for all this, Lucy. For everything,” he said.

“You're welcome,” she answered, unable to keep from looking at his face any longer.

And when she did she got lost in eyes that reflected his intelligence, his strength, his power and something more. Something that maybe she'd inspired…

Then that hand at her arm rose to the back of her neck and he pulled her gently but purposefully toward him, in command despite his debilitation, bringing her mouth to his.

It seemed odd that he could be the one kissing her under the circumstances but that was how it was. And tonight's kiss was no mere peck, nor was there a question that it might have been nothing but an expression of appreciation or gratitude. Tonight's kiss was much, much more. It was a real kiss. A kiss
between a man and a woman. A kiss he deepened with lips that parted and urged hers to part, too. A kiss so adept, so tender, so just plain sexy, that it nearly curled her toes. A kiss that went on long enough for her to savor it, to come close to losing herself in it before it ended.

And when it did Rand looked deeply into her eyes and said, “I think you're a remarkable woman.”

“I'd better go,” she told him in the midst of a struggle to regroup, to remember why she shouldn't be doing this when every ounce of her cried out to just do it again. And again. And again. To do even more…

Rand nodded but went right on holding her eyes with his, fingering the tendrils of hair that had come loose at her nape.

Then he slid his hand to her shoulder and down her arm in a slow caress that left her stomach aflutter, squeezing her hand when he reached it and only then letting her go.

“Frank is in the lobby,” he said with a note in his voice that made her think he was reluctant to lose her but resigned to it.

“What time do you want me tomorrow?”

Unfortunate choice of words. She only realized it after she'd spoken them and when Rand smiled that wicked smile of his again.

“Don't make me an offer I can't refuse,” he said. Then he let her off the hook. “How about nine? I don't know what kind of shape I'll be in or how
long it will take me in the morning to get my act together. Go ahead and take my keys so you can let yourself in when you get here in case I can't get to the door.”

“Nine,” Lucy repeated. “I'll be here.”

“Tell Max hey for me and that I'm sorry to have kept his mom away tonight.”

“I will. I hope you can sleep.”

“Me, too.”

Lucy stayed a moment longer, even though they really had dragged out their goodbye as much as they could, all the while telling herself to get out of there while she was still able to, before she leaned over and kissed him and restarted something she shouldn't.