Harlequin - Jennifer Greene (7 page)

Before he could finish, she said, “All right.”

“All right, you’ll take me on?”

“Yes. If we can come to terms.” She perched up on a counter and crossed her bare feet. “If you want me to work with you, Fergus, my idea would be to sit down together with a whole program. Not just deal with those headaches when they’re tearing you in two, because that timing is way too late. You need to practice some techniques to make them go away for the long term.”

“Like what techniques? What kind of program?” he asked warily, but her attention was diverted when she saw him starting to sway.

“Strip down,” she said swiftly.

“Beg your pardon?”

“You’re on my turf now, Fox. Go behind the curtain, strip down—I don’t care if you keep on your underwear or go buff—but take off most of your clothes. I need two minutes to heat the sheet and prepare. When you’re done, come back in here, get on the table, cover up.”

“I—”

“Do it,” she ordered him.

She wasn’t going to think about it—about how or why he rang her chimes. Or about that stupid euphoric feeling she got around him, either.

It had cost him to come here, particularly for a man who had a hard time leaving the house these days.

And though he may not have been in serious pain when he started out, he was obviously getting more miserable by the minute. She kicked her speed up to high gear. The pups were sent outside, the phone put on no-ring. The massage table was automatically dressed with a clean white pad, but it was baby-size. She scouted out an adult one, then threw a sheet in the dryer to heat on high for a few
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

minutes.

Minutes before, she’d worried about looking like something a cat wouldn’t drag home, but any thought of vanity disappeared now. Impatiently she pushed up her long hair, twisting and clipping it, while she considered which oils she wanted. She decided on lemon balm, sweet marjoram and calendula. She clicked on the CD, then strategically placed several small towels where they’d cushion his neck, the small of his back, under his knees.

She heard him cough—and easily guessed he was on the other side of the dressing room curtain, ready, just not sure what to do next. She didn’t look up, just said, “Climb on the table and lie down on your back. I’m going to pull the shades, darken the room so it won’t be so bright, Fox. There’s a cover you can pull on, if you’re too cool.”

She used her bossiest voice, yet she still momentarily held her breath, unsure if he’d try giving her a hard time. But he said nothing. Once he settled on the table, she turned around and immediately smoothed a cool compress on his forehead and eyes until she finished setting up. On the CD player she clicked on madrigals. She’d never liked that kind of music, but this wasn’t about her. Somehow even the most rowdiest babies seem to quiet down when she used that disc.

The details were done, then, and once she moved behind his head, she concentrated as fiercely as a brain surgeon. This was work. It wasn’t abouthim; it wasn’t about sex; it wasn’t about analyzing why such a scrawny, stubborn, contrary man put such an impossible zing in her pulse.

It was just about a man who was hurting…and about her, hoping to find a way to help him.

She worked for fifteen solid minutes, but his headache was almost as stubborn as he was. He just couldn’t seem to relax. The pain had a grip on him with wolf teeth. She leaned forward, closing her eyes, feeling his heartbeat, feeling the heat of his skin, feeling his pain…and then going for it. Temples. Eyes.

Frontal lobe. The sides of his neck, under his chin, his whole face. Then into his scalp.

Two minutes passed. Then five. Seven more minutes passed before he even started letting go…but then he was hers. Her heart suddenly quickened with a rhythm she couldn’t shake. She never got that feeling with her babies. Never got it with her elderly clients. Touch was sensual and healing and fulfilling, and she needed—liked—to help people. But it wasn’t sexual.

It was so, so sexual with him. Intuiting where to touch, how to move, wasn’t just about evaluating his pain. It was about sensing what he wanted. What he liked. What moved him.

Even though the pain finally eased, he didn’t open his eyes for a long time. Silently she pulled up the sides on the massage table so he wouldn’t accidentally fall, but still she stood there, knowing he wasn’t totally asleep yet. His body fought sleep, naturally wary that if he let go completely, the pain could steal up on him again.

At one point he murmured, “I just want you to know…I’m not marrying anyone. But if I were…it’d be you.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what all the guys say,” she quipped easily, but her voice was still a careful whisper.

He fell silent again, but not for long enough. “I almost forgot. You warned me before about all those men you have in your life.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

She hadn’t warned him. She’d just said what he was undoubtedly already thinking because of her being a masseuse, but she let it go. Seconds ticked by. Then minutes. Finally his breathing turned deep and even. She watched his chest rise and fall, watched the thick furrow between his brows smooth out, watched those tightly muscled shoulders finally ease completely.

The idle thought sneaked into her mind that this had to be the craziest thing that had ever happened to her. The guy hadn’t touched her. In any way. She was the only one who’d done the touching. Yet she was somehow more drawn to him than any other man she could remember.

It was downright scary having to worry that she was losing her mind this young.

And it was scarier yet to realize that this fierce, wonderful pull she had for Fox was so dead wrong. He was a man whose wealth and background was bound to make him look down on her and her profession, a man who had shown no interest in her. A man as inappropriate for her as Alan had been. A man who had the potential to hurt her, she feared, even deeper than Alan had.

Four

The dream stirred Fox into waking. In the dream a sizzling-hot sun fried his back—just like every other day. For months he’d wondered if that incessant sun had ever driven anyone mad. Yet he wanted to be here. Wanted to do this.

The last few days, they’d been clearing debris, starting the work of rebuilding a school. It was more than good work. It was exactly the reason he’d felt driven to enlist. Back home the honor thing had bugged him. He couldn’t teach kids history every day and discuss what it took to be a hero and an American without realizing that it was damn well time for him to actively show instead of tell. The other reason was the kids. Having the chance to rebuild hospitals and schools made him believe that his kids, his students, just might have a better world to grow up in.

And that was exactly why he didn’t hesitate to crouch down when the little brown-faced squirt shyly approached him. He offered the tyke some candy, a yo-yo. He knew the language, which was partly why he’d ended up there. And the child with the big brown eyes and hollow cheeks looked hungry and desperate, as if somehow, some way, somebody had to do something to make his life better.

That the child had a bomb wrapped around his belly never crossed his mind. Never. Not for a second.

Not even when it went off…and he was blown back a dozen yards, scissors and shards of God knows what spearing every surface on his body that wasn’t covered by gear. And the kid, that damn kid, that damn damn damn baby of a kid…

And that’s when Fox woke up. When he always woke up. But this time he was as disoriented as a priest in a brothel.

Something was really, really screwy.

This wasn’t the leather couch where he always fell asleep. Instead he seemed to be lying on some kind of cushioned surface, wrapped in a soft warm sheet. Everything around him was saint white, except for a bunch of bosomy plants hanging in windows, spilling leaves and flowers in crowded tangles. For some goofy reason there was a bathtub in the middle of the room, and yet the far corner was heaped with stones and construction and plumbing parts. Goofier yet, his nostrils picked up the most wonderful smells—the sharp tang of lemon and a minty herb fragrance, and then another scent, something he couldn’t quite identify, something vague and fresh and brisk and just a bit flowery.…

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Her.

The minute he turned his head, he saw Phoebe. As always when he woke after a crash-deep, crash-dark sleep, the headache was completely gone and his senses ultrasharp. He could feel every ache, every fading stitch and bruise.

He also promptly realized that he was naked as a jaybird under the sheet—and hard as a jackhammer.

One look at her seemed to do it.

She was curled up in a white rocker. All the blinds in the room were drawn, except where she’d opened them several inches in the south window above her. Sunshine beamed down—as if just for her. Her bare legs were swung over the chair arm, and the shape of her naked calves was enough to inspire another jolt of testosterone. Her bare feet were dirty, and she was wearing what he called Saturday clothes, sweats, shorts and a big old voluminous shirt that completely concealed her body.

She held a mug of something steaming in one hand, a book in the other. He vaguely remembered her hair all pinned up and out of the way, but she’d let it loose at some point, because now those long red strands shimmied down her back like a gush of water, catching claret and cinnamon and tea and amber colors in the sunlight. The freckles on her nose were naked.

He wished she were.

He’d never met a more sensual woman. In looks, in touch, in everything. He felt both defensive and suspicious about that weird magic thing when she touched him. He just didn’t get it…how she could possibly induce so much feeling in a guy whodidn’t feel, didn’t talk, had cut himself off from life for months now—and wanted it that way.

But none of that aggravation seemed to dent his fascination for her. Fox conceded that the issue might be a lot simpler than he was making it. Probably any man’d have to be dead not to respond to a two hundred percent handful of a woman like her.

She startled, as if suddenly realizing something was different in the room. When she turned her head and saw he was awake, she immediately plunked down her mug.

“What time is it?” he asked her.

“Almost three.”

Couldn’t be. “You’renot telling me I’ve been here all day.”

“You were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t want to wake you. And there was no need. I was just puttering around here. No clients on a Saturday.”

“I’ll pay you for the time I was here.”

“Yeah, you will,” she agreed. “But if you feel up to it, I’d like to ask you some questions.” She pushed out of the rocking chair, came closer.

“What kind of questions?” he asked suspiciously.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“A massage shouldn’t be able to dent the kind of serious headaches you’re getting, Fergus. Migraines and cluster headaches and stuff that bad…they’re medical. Physiological.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told.” She was close enough to see the tent in the sheet, but she seemed to be looking straight in his eyes. He willed the mountain to wilt, but damned if it didn’t seem to be getting harder instead of softer.

“It just doesn’t make sense. That I’ve been able to help you with headaches as bad as you get them. Do you have any idea at all about what brings them on?”

He closed his eyes, opened them again. “The docs said, after ruling out a bunch of medical reasons, that the headaches had to be some kind of stress response.”

“Stress I can work with you on.”

“Work with me,” he echoed.

“I mentioned it earlier. I’ll work up a program, then send it over to you and your family, so you can look at it on your own time, see if you’re willing to give it a shot. The thing is, what we’re doing now is shutting the barn door after the horse is already loose. Trying to beat pain when it’s already sucked you under is like trying to reason with an enemy who’s already won. What you want, ideally, is to get power over the pain ahead of time. Before it’s gotten bad.”

“Okay. Makes sense.” He was unsure why she sounded so tentative and wary. He hadn’t been very nice to her, no. But there was something in her voice, her face, as if she were braced for him to dismiss anything she said.

Again she said carefully, “That’s all I can really do. Teach you some techniques to work with stress and pain. I can also give you some strength- and stamina-building exercises, both to help give you some ammunition against the pain and to help you sleep better.”

“That’s a joke. I don’t sleep.” He also wasn’t usually this chatty, but damn it, the more she looked at him with those big, soft, blue eyes, the more his hormones felt giddy with wonder. Goofy, but there it was.

To slap some reality into his head, he tried to move. She didn’t leap to help him, just watched him struggle to push himself into a sitting position. It took forever, which royally ticked him off. He’d had it with the recovery business in every way. Eventually, keeping the sheet bunched around his waist, he managed to angle his long hairy legs over the side and sit up straight.

“Fox,” she said quietly, “could you give me a bigger picture here? Your life isn’t my business, I realize, but it’d still help if I understood more about what you normally do, what you want to do. Your brothers filled me in a little. They said that you left a full-time job to join the military. That you got a military discharge from the service—so that’s off the table now. That you’re only temporarily living in the bachelor house, close to family, until you’re fully recovered.”

“So far you’re dealing aces.”

“Okay, but what’s the rest of the story? Are you planning on living in Gold River long-term? Planning on going back to work soon, and if so, what kind of work? What kind of physical activities or hobbies do you normally do or want to do?”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html