It Was Only a Kiss (11 page)

Pummelled by relief, he stood under the awning over the door and leaned into the doorframe. The rain was cold and hard and Jess looked like a bedraggled rat.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ he shouted over the whistling wind.

‘Got lost. Fell down,’ Jess replied, her words almost taken by the wind.

She was soaked through, Luke thought. Her sweatshirt and running shorts were dripping and her hair was pushed back from her face. As she came into the light he noticed that she had a smudge on her chin and that her shin was dark...
Was that blood?

Luke, unconcerned that the rain was now belting down, walked over to her and crouched down in front of her. He winced as he noticed the rip in her shin, from which blood was rolling down her leg and soaking her socks and trainers. He cursed and knelt in front of her, lifted her leg. ‘Sweetheart, what the hell have you done to yourself?’

He could feel the fine tremors rippling through her leg and heard the quiet chatter of her teeth. He didn’t need to look at her to know that her face was white and her lips purple.

‘I tripped and fell over a rock.’

Luke cursed again as he scooped her up and headed for his house. He carried her easily and headed straight for the stairs. Thank God his floors were wood, he thought, glancing at the wound on her shin which was still pumping blood and dripping off the end of her now red trainer. Until he cleaned it up he wouldn’t know if it needed stitches or not. He hoped not. The storm sounded as if it was building up for another, even bigger session, and he’d hate to have to haul Jess to the doctor in this weather. With luck, he had a couple of butterfly bandages that might do the trick.

Walking through his bedroom, he avoided the cream rug and walked her into the bathroom, placed her on the seat of the toilet.

She lifted her hands and gestured to her body. ‘I’m so cold,’ she whispered.

Luke smoothed her hair back from her face and dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘I’ll get you something warm. Sit tight.’

Aware of the powerful storm raging outside, Luke flipped on the bathroom heater as he left the room. He pulled a thin cashmere jersey from a shelf in the cupboard and, tossing it onto the built-in dresser, reached for the first-aid box he kept at the top of the cupboard. The one in his car was better, but he wasn’t risking the storm to get it.

Returning to the bathroom, he stripped off her wet clothes and dried her off. The pale green jersey did amazing things to her eyes, he thought as he tugged the garment over her soaked head, lifting her hair from under the jersey’s rounded neck. Grabbing a gym towel from the basket, he wrapped her head in it and tossed the ends over the top of her head. Jess immediately pushed the jersey between her legs and tucked it under her thighs, shaping it over her legs until it hit mid-thigh and restored her dignity.

‘Luke, I need to say something...’

Luke saw the misery in her eyes and knew that she was beating herself up for their earlier argument. God knew, he was. He’d totally lost it and he owed her an apology—but now wasn’t the right time. He started to touch her chin and realised that the smudge of dirt on her chin was another graze. His heart lurched again.

‘Let’s park that conversation for later, sweetheart. Right now I need to patch you up.’

Jess pushed her wet hair off her forehead. ‘I can do it. You don’t need to...’

Luke brushed his thumb over her cheek. ‘We both know that you are Superwoman, but let me do this for you, okay?’

‘Okay.’

He heard her sigh of relief as the natural fabric and the heat of the bathroom eased muscles clenched from the cold. The faint hint of colour in her cheeks assured him that she was rapidly warming up, so the hot drink could wait until he’d sorted her injuries out. He had to stanch the blood, and her other leg had a graze that wasn’t as serious but he imagined painful enough. Luke took her hands and opened her clenched fingers, wincing at the deep scrapes on the balls of each hand. Once the shock wore off she was going to be one sore lady.

Sitting on the cold tiles in front of her, he flipped the first-aid box open and lifted her foot onto his thigh. He patted her tense foot. ‘Relax, Jess.’

‘I’m not used to being looked after—especially by a man,’ Jess confessed. ‘My father was usually lost in his own world and he left my mother to mop up my tears, and my brothers generally told me to suck it up and stop whining.’

‘And your exes? Didn’t you ever get sick and need looking after?’ Luke asked as he swiped away the blood with a damp washcloth.

‘I never got sick and I was the one doing the looking after. I’m good at it,’ Jess gabbled.

He could see shock settling into her eyes. Letting her ramble on was a good way to keep her mind off the injury.

‘You’re good at it too.’

‘I am?’

‘You do stuff for me—stuff that I don’t ask you to. Even before we slept together you did things. You always made me coffee, you checked the tyre pressure on the wheels of my car. You reglued the heel on my shoe, worked out why my computer was slow.’

And it made her feel unhinged. It was interesting to realise that she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of generosity. If she was giving then she was in control...she was calling the shots.

‘If you fall and hurt yourself I will mop you up,’ he replied in a mild voice. ‘I will check the tyres on your car if I think they are flat, because I don’t want you stranded on the side of the road trying to change a tyre yourself. I reglued your shoe because the heel snapped in the kitchen and the glue was two feet away. If you have a problem, I will try to fix it. It is in my nature—hell, it’s in every man’s nature.’ Luke flashed her a grin. ‘Stop trying to control everything in the known universe, my little control freak.’

‘I’m not a... Oh, hell—of course I am. Dammit, it’s sore! Can I cry?’

‘You can.’ Luke ran his hand up her calf in a gesture that was as reassuring as it was tender. He rinsed the cloth and wiped her knees.

‘Cotton wool would work better. You might not get the blood out of that cloth,’ Jess said as she brushed tears off her face.

Luke looked at the cloth and shrugged. ‘So? I don’t have cotton wool.’

‘I do. In the bathroom at the manor house.’

‘I’m not going to go look for it in a storm when this is working,’ Luke replied, and smothered his whistle when he saw the extent of her injury. He might just have to bandage it up and haul her to the doctor, storm or not. The cut was three inches long and deep. He could see something white and wasn’t sure if it was bone or not. Blood still bubbled to the surface.

‘Can I get some painkillers? Morphine? A general anaesthetic?’

‘Soon,’ Luke replied, distracted. The cut needed to be disinfected and closed, and the sooner the better. And sewn up...

‘We have a hard choice to make, darling. This needs stitches—’

‘No, it doesn’t! Shove a Band-Aid on it and be done.’

‘Jess, it needs stitches.’ Luke drew circles on her calf with his thumbs. ‘Now, I can either try to butterfly clip it closed, or we head to the doctor.’

They both looked towards the bathroom window and watched the rain hammer the pane. The wind had picked up speed and it whirled around the house.

‘Butterfly clip it,’ Jess told him, her jaw set.

Luke looked down and assessed the cut again. He could clip it closed. Then he’d haul her off to Dan in the morning, just to make sure. Mind made up, he patted her leg and reached for a bottle of peroxide. Past experience told him that this was the most painful part, and he decided that she might topple off the toilet when he disinfected the wound. Then he’d be sorting out head wounds and replacing a shower door. Maybe.

‘Get off there and sit on the floor in front of me,’ he ordered. Jess looked as if she was going to refuse, so he placed his hands on the outside of her thighs, under the jersey, and rubbed her smooth skin. ‘C’mon, Jess.’

‘Why?’

He kept rubbing and felt her soften beneath his hands. ‘Just trust me, okay?’

‘Close your eyes,’ she said.

He grinned. ‘Bit late, since I’ve already seen you naked.’

‘It’s not the same,’ she said tartly, sinking to the floor in a move that was as graceful as it was discreet and quick. ‘Damn, these tiles are cold.’

Luke averted his eyes as she rearranged the jersey again, covering up and lifting her bottom so that she sat on the jersey and not directly on the tiles. When she’d settled down, he deliberately looked towards the window and cocked his head. Her interest caught, she followed his gaze—and he swiftly poured the peroxide into the cut and winced at her piercing, pain-saturated shriek.

He could hear curses in her screams and the occasional moan interspersing her sobs. Steeling himself, he tipped the bottle over the wound again and grabbed her hands when she attempted to wipe the peroxide away.

‘You sneaky son of a—’ she hissed when she found her breath, tears rolling freely down her face.

Taking a swab from the box, he doused it with peroxide and swiped it over the abrasion on her other leg. Grabbing the hand that flew out to hit him, he flipped it over and ran the swab over that graze. Her towel fell off her head and her toes curled in pain. Feeling like an absolute toad, he steeled himself against her weeping and asked her for her other hand, which she’d tucked behind her back. Jess used the top of her cleaned hand to wipe away tears and violently shook her head.

‘Last one, darling, and we’re done.’

Jess just sobbed.

‘I know it’s sore, but you need to give me your hand,’ Luke told her, sighing when she held out her hand and tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. Luke added more peroxide to the swab and cleaned the wound. ‘And your chin.’

Jess lifted up her chin and he dabbed it with another swab. ‘Done, sweetheart.’ Luke blew on her chin, dropped the swab and cupped her face in both of his hands before dropping a kiss on her nose. ‘Brave girl. You okay?’

‘No,’ Jess muttered through her snuffles.

Taking the towel that had fallen off her head, he used the corner to mop her tears up before dropping another kiss on her forehead.

Luke sat back and pulled her foot towards him. Starting in the middle, he pinched the skin together and started taping the wound together. Working swiftly, he spared a glance at Jess’s white face and told her to hold on. He wrapped a bandage over the clips and, leaving the swabs and rubbish on the bathroom floor, stood up and helped Jess to her feet. Steadying her with a hand on her shoulder, he waited until he was sure her dizziness had passed and then asked her to put her weight on the injured leg.

‘Can you feel the tapes pulling?’

Jess shook her head. ‘It feels tight, but okay.’

Luke lifted her up and manoeuvred his way through the dressing-room passage and lowered her onto his bed. Scrabbling in the bedside drawer, he pulled out a bottle of painkillers, handed her two and nodded to the glass of water on top of the table.

Jess looked at the pills in her hand. ‘I hate pills, but I’ll make an exception tonight.’ Jess tossed the pills into her mouth, taking the glass of water he held out.

Luke sat on the side of the bed next to her and brushed her hair away from her eyes. ‘So, what do you think we should do for the rest of the evening? Watch TV? Play chess? Have wild monkey sex?’

Jess managed a small grin at his joke. Then she yawned. ‘I’m feeling so tired.’

‘The adrenalin is wearing off. Take a nap,’ Luke suggested as he stood up. ‘Call me if you need anything.’

‘Thanks.’ He was nearly at the door when he heard Jess’s soft voice calling him back. He walked to the bed and looked down at her, soft and small and sad.

‘I can’t let you go without saying sorry. I was selfish and inconsiderate...I’m so sorry. It was so wrong of me.’

Luke shoved his hand into his hair. ‘And I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have. Around you, stuff seems to float to the surface.’

Jess dropped her eyes. ‘Sorry. Again. I’m just really sad that you regret meeting me again. I never meant to turn your world upside down.’

Luke placed his hands on either side of her and caged her in. ‘Yes, you did. It’s what you do—who you are. And you know that was the one thing I didn’t mean—the one statement that was totally untrue. I don’t for one minute regret anything to do with you.’

Jess looked up at him with enormous eyes. ‘So are we friends again?’

Luke placed a soft but determined kiss on her open mouth before lifting his head. ‘Probably not, but we sure are something. Get some sleep, sweetheart.’

NINE

Jess managed to shower,
get dressed
and stagger downstairs. Her family were due to arrive in a few hours and she had to sort out the manor house. She wanted to air the rooms, put flowers in them, and she needed to go to town to stock up on food and drink. And morphine, and other Class A, B and C drugs, because her hands and knees throbbed continually and every step she took radiated pain into her cut.

Jess walked into the kitchen, walked around Luke, who was stacking dishes into the dishwasher, and headed for the coffee machine. He’d been wonderful last night—tender, protective, sweet. And when he’d climbed into his bed next to her he’d been careful of her all night. She remembered him forcing more painkillers down her some time during the early hours of the morning, a warm hand patting her hip when she briefly surfaced to protest against the pain.

Hearing her approach Luke turned away from the fridge and sent her a smile. ‘I was just going to bring you some coffee.’

Jess pushed her hair off her face. ‘Thank you for cleaning me up last night.’

‘No problem.’ Luke handed her a cup of coffee. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Like I had a close encounter with a road.’

‘That good, huh?’ Luke jerked out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. He poured cereal into a bowl and added milk. He gestured to the box with his spoon. ‘Help yourself. You’re probably starving.’

Jess took the seat opposite him. She dashed muesli into her bowl. ‘Not so much. But I need to eat so that I can take some more painkillers.’

‘No more drugs until we get you to the doctor. You have an appointment in forty-five minutes.’

Jess waited for the familiar spurt of anger she always experienced when men told her what to do. It didn’t come and she cocked her head. Strange. Maybe she was accepting his bossiness because he’d been so utterly wonderful last night.

Jess rubbed her forehead. ‘Do you really think it’s necessary?’

‘Yes. If you don’t get stitches it’ll take that much longer to heal and it will scar horribly. Your legs are gorgeous, Blondie, let’s try to keep them that way.’

Jess wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s just that my family are arriving later and I have so much to do.’

‘Like what?’

‘Shopping for food and wine—’

‘Friends of mine own the deli on Main Street. You can phone an order in, they’ll get it ready, and we’ll pick it up after you see the doc. As for wine... Funny, I thought we had a cellar on the premises.’

‘I can’t expect you to fund my family’s wine habit!’ Jess protested.

‘Knock the cost of the wine off my bill,’ Luke suggested, and leaned back in his chair. ‘Next?’

‘I wanted to air the rooms in the manor, check that all the beds have linen on them, put flowers on the nightstands.’

Luke lifted his hips, pulled his mobile from his pocket, pushed buttons and held the mobile to his ear. After a quick conversation he disconnected and dropped the mobile onto the table.

‘Who was that?’ Jess asked.

‘Greta. She used to be housekeeper at the manor. Her granddaughter Angel cleans for me to earn some spending money...she’s at uni. Anyway, Greta’s retired, but she’ll grab Angel and get her to do what needs to be done next door. Next?’

Jess pushed her bowl away and reached for an apple. ‘Want to come and work for me? I could use someone with your problem-solving abilities...’

Luke draped his arm over the back of his chair and sent her a long, slow, sexy smile. ‘Why don’t you come and work for
me
? I could use someone with your marketing skills on a permanent basis. Although we’d have to work on your independent, I-can-do-it, perfectionistic don’t-help-me attitude.’

Jess rested her chin on her fist. ‘Am I that bad?’

‘Not bad. Just challenging.’

‘Well, that was kind. My ex—exes—were a lot less complimentary.’ Frustration crossed Jess’s face. ‘I was often told that I was too controlling and overbearing.’

‘They sound like a bunch of—’

Jess saw Luke swallow down his rude epithet and look for a better word.

‘Morons.’

‘Initially they loved the fact that I was independent, then they hated it. They told me that they were into successful women, but moaned at the amount of time I needed to spend on my business. They loved me paying for stuff, but then told me that I flaunted my money in their faces.’

‘And that made you start questioning yourself. Why?’

‘When the romance wore off they didn’t like the reality of living with me.’

‘And, being a woman, you automatically think it’s something you did wrong. They obviously weren’t strong enough for you. And then there’s male pride. None of them were as successful as you and they felt threatened by you. C’mon, Jess, that’s basic psych. You know this.’

‘But it doesn’t matter who brings in more money. It’s not important,’ Jess protested.

‘To you, maybe not, but to a man...? Yes, it’s important! You’re quite a package, Sherwood, and you need a man who is strong enough, secure enough, to allow you to fly.’

Jess wanted to ask him whether
he
was that man, whether he would hand her a pair of wings and watch her soar. Jess made herself meet his eyes and saw the regret in them.

‘I’m not that man, Jess,’ Luke stated quietly. ‘Not because I don’t think I could handle you, but because I don’t want the complication of handling any woman.’

Jess forced herself to smile. ‘That’s okay, because didn’t we decide that it was better to keep this—us—simple?’

‘Yeah. But I still want to sleep with you.’

‘And that is what makes it complicated.’

Luke’s chair scraped across the wooden floor as he pushed it back. He walked around and put his hands on the table and her chair, to cage her in. He bent his head and his lips brushed against hers.

Jess lifted her hand to the side of his face. ‘Thanks for looking after me last night.’

Luke kissed her again. ‘You scared me stupid, coming back late and injured.’ He pulled her up and into his arms, resting his chin on top of her head. ‘Don’t do it again, okay? I don’t know if my heart can take it.’

* * *

Her family, in typical fashion, arrived earlier than expected, and Jess found herself opening the first of what promised to be many, many bottles of red wine at shortly after four that afternoon. Her extensive family was crowded into the main lounge of the manor house and was already settling in. Nick had made a fire, Chris was opening a packet of crisps and her two other brothers were sprawled out over the two leather couches. Anne and Heather, two of her sisters-in-law, had taken the kids for a walk, and her mother, grandmother, Clem and Kate were standing by the huge bay window, looking at the wonderful view of the mountains. Her father, bless him, was exploring the house and probably cataloguing the paintings.

‘Good grief, how long before I get a glass of wine?’ Grandma demanded, and Jess rolled her eyes.

‘Well, if your lazy grandsons would get off their butts and help me it would be a lot quicker,’ Jess grumbled.

John sat up. ‘Hand over the bottle and the corkscrew, Shrimp.’

Jess wrinkled her nose at their old nickname for her and walked over to Nick, her favourite brother, who was standing next to the fire.

His grey eyes were sombre when he caught her eye. ‘So, how bad was it?’

‘How bad was what?’

‘Your fall. You brushed it off with the folks, but you’re limping and your eyes are slightly glassy.’

‘I’m fine. Luke patched me up.’

‘Who is Luke?’ John asked as he handed her a glass of wine.

‘The guy I’m doing the campaign for. He owns St Sylve.’ Jess couldn’t meet their eyes—especially Nick’s. He was too damn perceptive and he knew her really well.

‘Something cooking between you two?’ he asked.

‘What’s cooking between whom?’ Grandma demanded, and Jess groaned and glared at Nick.

‘She’s got ears like a bat,’ John commented.

‘I was just asking Jess what’s going on between—’ her elbow in his ribs didn’t stop Nick for one second ‘—her and Savage.’

‘Nothing is going on!’ Jess protested. Her brother and his big mouth.

‘Is he why you wouldn’t go on that date I set up for you?’ asked her mum.

‘No! I was just too busy!’ Jess replied, and held up her hands. ‘I want you guys to really listen to me. This is important.’

All the eyes in the room were suddenly focused on her and Jess knew that she had to choose her words carefully. ‘If you get to meet Luke—and I’m not saying you will, because really we’re just friends—I want you to go easy on him. He’s not used to big families so I don’t want you guys giving him a hard time...’

Her brothers looked at her, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. Talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull... Now Luke was firmly in their sights. She should have just played it cool. When was she going to learn?

‘I wouldn’t mind a friend like that.’ Clem’s comment floated over the masculine laughter.

Her female relatives had their noses pressed up against the glass of the window and they were not looking at the mountains. Jess prayed that the long-limbed figure walking past the window was Owen, but she knew she wouldn’t be that lucky.

‘Oh, my—smoking hot,’ Kate said, her hand on her heart. She turned to Jess. ‘Is that Luke?’

Jess nodded glumly.

‘Nice ass,’ Clem commented and Nick frowned.

‘He’s got swag...he’s a real fly guy.’

Jess rolled her eyes. Her grandma had been watching MTV again.

But her mother was the absolute limit. Liza rapped on the glass and over her head Jess could see Luke turning, his eyebrows raised. Liza fumbled to open the window, and when she did introduced herself and practically browbeat Luke into coming for supper. Could she be more embarrassing?

Jess felt her face turning bright red and felt Nick’s not-so-gentle elbow in her ribs.

‘So, just a friend, huh? You sure about that?’

Jess heaved in some air and thought that it was going to be a very long weekend indeed.

* * *

He’d planned to keep his distance from Jess while her family were visiting, but that first evening he’d somehow found himself seated at the head of the two hundred-year-old dining table that had been brought out by one of the early Savage wives at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Sherwood clan occupied the rest of the table...and, Lord, what a clan they were.

Loud, noisy, charming...loud, noisy. Well, all except for Nick, the oldest brother, who observed more than he partook in the conversation, a wry smile on his face. Of all of Jess’s brothers this was the one he liked most...possibly because he didn’t seem as if he was operating at warp speed.

He had to admit that Jess’s brothers had spectacular taste in women...from Nick’s fiancée, Clem—a stunning redhead and once-famous model, the ex-girlfriend of rocker Cai Clouston—to the other wives. Two brunettes and a blonde, they were all lookers. All educated and independent. One was an ex-teacher turned columnist, one a doctor and one a physiotherapist. The Sherwood brothers liked brains with their looks.

Just like he did.

Luke looked at Jess, deep in conversation with her father. Their brown eyes were identical. He’d have to be blind not to notice the speculative looks they’d sent his way, the not-so-subtle questions about their relationship. He’d ducked them all. He figured it was up to Jess to explain their relationship, and that she would be returning with him to his house tonight.

He just wished he could say, even if it was only to himself, that she would be sleeping in his bed with him again.

She was...beautiful, Luke thought, looking at her. Her hair was messy, her lipstick was long gone, and she had shadows under her eyes from pain—ten stitches, and she’d thought she didn’t need to see a doctor!—but she glowed.

She loved her family, loved being around them, he realised. He’d watched their arrival from his lounge window and had heard her squeal when she’d seen the convoy of cars turning into St Sylve. The cars had barely stopped before she’d wrenched doors open and children and toddlers had clamoured for kisses and hugs from her. He’d gritted his teeth when one brother had swung her around—
stitches, dammit!
—before passing her like a pretty parcel to the next brother, who’d repeated the process.

Luke shook his head. Jess had never, not for one moment, doubted that she was loved...

This was the type of family he’d have sold his soul for as a child and teenager. If he could have ordered it this was what it would have looked like. Siblings, laughter, teasing, loud conversation.

‘Quiet down, everyone...’

Luke turned his attention to Jess’s dad as the conversation died down. David Sherwood lifted his wine glass. ‘I’d like to thank Luke for opening up his house to our craziness, and fervently hope he doesn’t regret it.’ David narrowed his eyes and they bounced from one child to another. Jess, Luke noticed, wasn’t left out. ‘And that means no rough-housing amongst the furniture, no sliding down banisters, no flour bombs from the upstairs windows.’

Luke leaned towards Nick, who was sitting to his right. ‘He’s talking to the kids, right?’

Nick’s grey eyes laughed. ‘Unfortunately, no. My brothers and my sister can be quite wild on occasion.’

Luke grinned. ‘And you’re not?’

‘I just don’t get caught,’ Nick replied with a chuckle.

‘Anyway, thank you, Luke, for allowing us to be together this weekend.’ David lifted his glass and when the cheers died down continued to speak. ‘By the way, I knew your mother.’

Luke saw Jess’s hand jerk her father’s arm and he caught her eye. Sending her a reassuring glance and the slightest shake of his head, he silently told her that he wanted to hear about his mother. God, he knew nothing about her—of course he wanted to hear about her.

‘Really? How did you know her?’ Luke was quite impressed that his voice sounded vaguely normal.

‘We went to art school together in Cape Town. I think I was half in love with Katelyn.’

‘You were half in love with everyone at uni,’ his wife said crisply. ‘Katelyn...Katelyn Kirby? I remember her. Long hair, green, green eyes.
Your
eyes.’ Liza leaned across Nick to touch his hand quickly with the tips of her fingers. ‘I’m sorry you lost her so young, Luke.’