Knock Me for a Loop (9 page)

None of it sounded like the Grace he used to know, and he found himself replaying the words over and over in his mind, trying to decide where his side of the argument should start.

Zack faced forward again to keep from getting a kink in his neck, and Bruiser laid his head on his thigh, giving a soft snuffle that caused the big flaps of his upper lips to flutter.

“First of all, his name is Bruiser, not Muffin,” he called over his shoulder while he rubbed the dog’s head, deciding to address her points from most to least important.

“Second, his feet and every other part of him were just fine when I had him and was taking him out for walks.” He stressed the word
walks
just slightly to let her know no respectable parent of a Saint Bernard called them “walkies.”

“And third, what the hell happened? You used to hate my dog.”

Coming away from the kitchen, Grace rounded the couch from the side farthest from him and sat down on the other end of Bruiser’s long, stretched-out pile of fur. Her hands automatically went to the dog’s nearest foot and removed one of the pink booties.

“First,” she said, moving to the next, “his name
used to be
Bruiser. Now it’s Muffin. Second, just because he never required medical attention after you took him for winter walkies doesn’t mean you were taking proper care of his paws. Do you have any idea how many moisturizing treatments it took to get rid of his sandpaper skin?”

All four booties were off now and piled on the coffee table, so she reached forward to unbutton the straps that ran under Bruiser’s belly to loosen and remove the pussy-pink sweater entirely.

That was something he hadn’t tried yet with his knitting—buttonholes. Maybe he should find a pattern and make a dog sweater of his own for
Bruiser
in a color that wouldn’t turn his dog gay. Green or black or gray. Or maybe Rockets blue and red. Now
that
would be a manly dog sweater!

After folding the girlie pink sweater and laying it beside the even more girlie booties, Grace leaned back and ran the long, manicured fingers of her left hand through Bruiser’s thick brown fur. She didn’t even seem to mind that hair was getting on her clothes, something that would have annoyed her to no end a year or so ago.

“And third,” she continued, “I never
hated
Muffin, I just didn’t understand him. Now I realize what a sweet boy he is, so don’t get any ideas about keeping him at the end of this …” She waved a hand dismissively in the air. “Whatever this is. I’m here to help you get around and recover from your injury, but after that, I’m going home and I’m taking my dog with me.”

“He’s
my
dog,” Zack retaliated, “and you damn well know it. I had him before we even met. I have the adoption papers to prove it. You
stole
him from me when you got your panties in a twist, and are lucky I didn’t decide to call the cops and have your butt tossed in jail.”

Over a now snoring Saint Bernard, her eyes narrowed and he noticed the almost imperceptible fisting of her hand in the dog’s thick coat.

“Do you really want to go there, Zack?” she asked quietly.

He knew from experience that the low tone of her voice was deceptive. It was like the calm before the storm, and if he answered incorrectly…if he decided that he did, indeed, want to “go there”…then he could very well be in for the fight of his life.

And in fact, he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to dredge up the tired old infidelity argument. He didn’t want to hear any more of her accusations or waste his breath denying them. Whatever she believed, he wasn’t going to change her mind at this late date. Better to let the subject drop, at least for now.

He had time. It wasn’t like he could jump up and run off with his dog, even if he wanted to. Not with his knee in this kind of shape.

But if Grace was going to be around for a while, and Bruiser was going to be with her, then there was a chance he could come up with some sort of wicked, devious dog-napping plan of his own. Maybe he could even rope Dylan and Gage into becoming accomplices.

“No, I guess I don’t,” he told her, even as his mind was filtering through possible scenarios that would get his dog back to him for good.

For a second, Grace merely stared at him. He wondered if she’d been expecting a fight, gearing up for it, and it amused him a bit to have taken the wind out of her sails.

Taking a deep breath, she nodded. “Good. Then how about telling me what you want for dinner.”

“Pizza,” he said without bothering to think about it.

Her nose wrinkled. “I have a feeling you’ve been living on pizza and assorted other garbage long enough. Time to get healthy. Muffin and I stopped for groceries on the way over and picked up some foods that are actually good for you.”

Releasing her grip on
Bruiser
—God, he hated hearing her call him “Muffin”—she pushed up from the sofa and got to her feet. “We’ll start out slow, though. I wouldn’t want your body to go into shock or anything.”

She smiled at her own joke. He smirked.
Ha ha, very funny.

“How does salmon and asparagus sound?”

Actually, not half bad. He loved seafood, but was too lazy to fix it for himself. And lately, he couldn’t stand long enough to fix himself a bowl of cereal, let alone a decent meal.

But for her benefit, he shrugged a shoulder and blandly replied, “Fine.”

She inclined her head ever so slightly, tugged the hem of her top down to meet the low waist of her faded jeans, and turned to saunter back to the kitchen.

This time, Zack risked a crick in his neck to watch her go. He couldn’t help it; he was a man, after all. And Grace always had looked as good going as she had coming.

Once she’d disappeared from view and he started to hear the telltale signs of dinner prep, he twisted back around. The TV was still on, but sometime during his showdown with Grace,
One Life to Live
had ended and
General Hospital
had begun.

Shit. He wondered if Grace had noticed what he’d been watching when she arrived. He hoped not. But then, he could always claim he’d been flipping channels when she’d barged in and interrupted him, right?

Grabbing the remote, he flipped automatically to ESPN. There was auto racing on, which he didn’t particularly care for, but at least it sounded more macho than the ongoing melodrama of Port Charles.

On his lap, Bruiser shifted slightly and let out a snuffle. Zack glanced down, continuing to knead the dog’s ruff.

“What do you think, buddy?” he asked, leaning down to whisper in the Saint’s ear. “Should we let her stick around a while?”

Bruiser’s chest expanded as he inhaled a deep breath, which set his nose to twitching. Zack took a whiff of his own, already smelling a hint of grilled fish and other delectable scents. His stomach growled, and he suddenly realized how starved he’d been for real food.

It didn’t hurt, either, that a beautiful woman was in his kitchen cooking it up for him. Insane ex or not, he could just imagine Grace gliding from sink to counter to stove, her slim fingers peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables, her lips pursed as she hummed a little tune to keep herself company.

“Yeah,” he said, as though the dog had answered his earlier question and they were in agreement on the subject. “But just until after dinner, then we’ll have to reevaluate.”

Row 8

On Monday, they had grilled salmon and asparagus spears in a garlic butter sauce.

Tuesday and Wednesday it was pot roast, complete with carrots, onions, and those little baby potatoes he loved.

Thursday, she put together a lasagna that lasted through the weekend and would have made all of Italy weep in envy.

After weighing everything else Grace put him through that week against the same number of incredible, out-of-this-world meals, Zack decided it was totally worth it.

Being awakened at the butt crack of dawn every morning to get dressed and take Bruiser/Muffin for a walk…Well, she and the dog walked while pushing him in his wheelchair, injured leg sticking out in front of them like a divining rod. But she insisted that the fresh air would do him good, and if
she
had to wake up early for “walkies”…a word that still made his molars grind together…after exhausting herself taking care of him the rest of the day, then he could get up and go along to keep them company.

Not exactly something he would have expected from the woman who’d trashed his life and threatened to have him castrated only a year before if he ever came near her again.

Being dragged to some sort of medical appointment or another every single day… She made him go to physical therapy three times a week, and to checkups with the doctors in between.

Last but not least, being pummeled twice a day…Normally, he’d be all kinds of agreeable to having a beautiful woman touching him. But Grace made it clear that just because she had to touch him during his exercises to get him walking again, she didn’t have to enjoy it.

And she was none too gentle with him, either. After inviting him to step out of his pants and lie down on the bed—an invitation most men would be happy to accept—she would climb up beside him…and proceed to crank his leg up, down, left, right, forward, back.

Oh, she claimed to be helping him. Assured him that everything she did was prescribed by his doctors and outlined in the stack of photocopies they’d given her. But since he had yet to get a good look at those diagrams, he wasn’t sure he believed her.

The problem was, he
was
feeling better.

With the amount of food she was shoveling into him, he didn’t think it was possible to lose weight, but according to his doctors, he’d already started to shed a few pounds. Must be the difference between broccoli calories and Doritos calories. Though he still preferred the Doritos, truth be known.

And though he’d been so sore after his first visit to physical therapy and his first round of at-home exercises with Nurse Grace Ratched he’d had to double up on painkillers just to get through the night, he hadn’t needed a pill in …going on three or four days now. His knee wasn’t nearly as stiff as it had been, he had more range of motion, and he was beginning to need the wheelchair less and less. The doctors were even talking about switching him to crutches soon.

So now he was faced with the realization that though he’d brushed off his friends’ concerns and protested that he was fine and needed no one—not them, not the doctors, not his fellow Rockets—he had maybe been a little off the mark. A week with Grace back in his life and he was feeling better than he had in a long, long time.

He wasn’t sure what that said about his emotional foothold. Although things had been rocky for quite a while after she’d walked into that hotel room and found another woman in his bed, he really had thought he’d gotten over her, gotten on with his life. He’d come to terms with the fact that the woman he loved didn’t trust him and didn’t even love him enough to listen to his side of the story.

Then again, it might not be Grace at all. It could just as easily be Bruiser’s presence that was raising his spirits and helping his body to heal.

He glanced down at the brown bag of fur currently drooling on his jean-clad thigh—sans the ridiculous rhinestone “Muffin” collar Grace put on him whenever they went out. He damn well loved this dog, and still planned to find some way of shanghaiing him back before Grace could run off with him again.

“You hungry?” she called from the kitchen, as though his impure thoughts about keeping his dog in his possession had psychically caught her attention.

“I could eat,” he called back, envisioning a culinary concoction worthy of a five-star restaurant.

Two minutes later, Grace appeared at his elbow. She was wearing a pair of black leggings today that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Her sunflower-yellow blouse fell off one shoulder and showed more than a hint of eye-catching cleavage. If he didn’t know better, he would swear she was flaunting her amazing body to tempt him.

She flounced around the arm of the sofa and plopped down on one of the thick, overstuffed cushions before handing him a platter of raw celery sticks. He stared at the dull green vegetable strips like they were a pile of squirming worms.

Celery? She cooked like an Iron Chef, and her idea of a decent midday snack was
celery sticks?

“Do we have any chips?” he asked, still holding the plate a good six inches away from him.

“Baked beet and turnip chips that I picked up at the nature store,” she supplied, snatching a strip of celery for herself.

He made a face. Suddenly the stringy green strips didn’t look so bad.

“Where’s the remote?” she wanted to know. “There has to be something better on.”

Yeah,
Guiding Light
, but he hadn’t been able to catch up on his stories since Grace’s arrival. He’d had to settle for half-hour sitcoms and repeats of old game shows like
Family Feud
and
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Searching the area, she finally found the remote tucked between Bruiser’s rump and his thigh. He’d known it was there, but had kept his mouth shut out of fear for what she might decide to watch instead of 1967 episodes of
Let’s Make a Deal.

Her fingers brushed his leg as she retrieved the clicker, and a zap of electricity shot through the rest of his body. It settled low in his abdomen and groin, sending heat and a long-absent arousal rippling out into his torso and limbs.

Breathing carefully through flared nostrils and making a concerted effort
not
to glance in Grace’s direction, he did his best to ignore the sensation. It was an involuntary response, that’s all. Nothing to do with Grace and everything to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in half a year. Which, frankly, was beginning to feel more like half a decade.

She was flipping channels, completely oblivious to the semi throbbing away behind his fly.

“Oh, I love this movie,” she said, grabbing another handful of celery and wiggling around until she found a comfortable position in the corner of the couch.

Her bare feet were tucked close to her side, the remote resting on the arm of the sofa, well away from him, her free hand absently petting Bruiser’s head. She chomped happily on the raw veggies, eyes glued to the television screen.

It took him a minute to figure out what they were watching, but when he did, he groaned.

“Come on,” he complained. “You aren’t going to make me watch this, are you?”

She shrugged a shoulder—the one without a stitch of fabric covering her smooth, porcelain skin. “Why not?”

The slope of that shoulder and the rise of full, perky breast it led to might make his mouth water, but it didn’t distract him from the subject at hand. “Because it’s a sappy chick flick.”

“It’s a sweet romantic comedy,” she corrected. “It’s Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. What could be better than that?”

“Chuck Norris kicking ass. Tom Cruise on some impossible mission. Even Harrison Ford being heroic and adventurous in some far-off country.”

She chuckled, but shook her head all the same. “I’ll stick with
Notting Hill
, thank you very much.”

He rolled his eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Why do you get to decide what we watch?”

“Because,” she said…as though that were answer enough. Then she turned her head, tilted it to one side and batted her lashes. In a soft, superficial near-drawl, she added, “I’m just a girl, sitting next to a boy, telling him his opinion doesn’t matter worth a hill of beans.”

For a second, he simply stared at her, not knowing whether he should laugh at her droll wit, cry at her poor Julia Roberts impression, or be pissed off at her lack of interest in his entertainment wishes.

He settled on amusement, because she really was a candy-coated pill. “You do know you’re not only slaughtering that line, but mixing your movie quotes, right?” he asked with a chuckle.

She shrugged again, sending the silky yellow material of her top sliding a few centimeters lower down her arm…and therefore lower on her chest. His gaze followed the slippage, but only for a split second. Before she noticed his distraction, he forced his attention back to her face.

“You get the gist, though, right?” she asked, taking a bite of celery and chewing methodically. “We’re watching
Notting Hill
now. Later, when I go to start dinner, you can watch whatever you want.”

Another snap of her pearly white teeth at the tip of her veggie stick, followed by the widest shit-eating grin he’d ever seen. “Even your soaps.”

His hand on Bruiser’s back froze while the heart in his chest stopped pumping.

“What?” he nearly croaked.

She laughed, tossing her head back and sending her Goldilocks curls bouncing. “So when did you get hooked on the stories, Hot Legs? They don’t seem like the sort of thing a big, brawny hockey player like yourself would care about.”

Pulse still pounding a mile a minute at his temples, Zack weighed his options. He could play dumb and deny what she was saying, or he could come clean. She sounded pretty confident, though, which meant denial would only make him look more guilty—and give her more to rub in later.

“How did you find out?” he asked in a low voice.

Still chuckling, she said, “Your DVR is littered with them, they’re circled every day in your
TV Guide
, and when I turned the TV on yesterday, it was already on the SoapNet channel. Way to cover your tracks, Columbo.”

“Shit,” Zack muttered, which only sent Grace into another spate of giggles.

“I can’t believe it,” she muttered on a gasping breath. “Big, bad Zack Hoolihan hooked on daytime television. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were turning into a girl.” She turned teasing blue eyes on him and wheedled, “You aren’t turning into a girl, are you, Zackary?”

“Screw you.” He knew it was mean and childish, but the words slipped out before he could stop them.

Rather than be offended or annoyed, she simply grinned and tossed back, “Not anymore.”

That only made his frown deepen. Slouching down on the sofa, he crossed his arms over his chest and bit his tongue to keep from saying something even ruder.

“Oh, don’t pout,” she told him, uncurling her legs and leaning to reach across Bruiser’s stretched-out length and punch him in the arm. “I won’t tell anybody. Not unless …you know, you do something stupid to piss me off.”

He rolled his eyes in her direction. “Oh, good. Because you’re so hard to rile, and we both know there’s
no chance
I’ll ever do anything you consider stupid or annoying.”

For the space of one whole heartbeat, they both managed to keep straight faces. Then their gazes met. Zack wasn’t sure what kind of expression he was wearing, but Grace’s eyes danced and her lips pursed as she fought her amusement. Suddenly he shook his head and they both broke out laughing.

They were apparently being too rowdy for poor, delicate Bruiser, because he lifted his head, gave them each a dark look, and lumbered off the couch to find another place to sleep.

Probably the middle of his bed, Zack thought wryly. Even though he had his own giant Rockets throw in the corner, the dog seemed to take great delight in climbing up on the center of the mattress just before Zack got there so that Zack had to contort himself into a pretzel just to find a half-decent position for the night.

He wondered if Grace had the same problem with the much smaller guest room bed she’d been staying in the past week, or if Bruiser cut her some slack now that he had bigger, softer options to choose from.

Turning to make use of the extra space now that it was no longer occupied by a hundred and fifty pounds of Saint Bernard, Grace stretched out, her bare feet with their seashell-pink tips coming to rest mere inches from his left thigh.

“So how did you get hooked on soaps?” she wanted to know.

Not feeling quite as defensive now that they’d both had a good laugh over his secret pastime, he rolled his shoulders and said, “It just sort of happened. I was home all day, stuck on the couch because of this bum leg, and there was nothing else on. Then I started to get kind of caught up in the storylines.”

“Which is your favorite?”

He hesitated, not sure he should admit quite
that
much to an ex-fiancée who still had wrath and revenge on her mind…or at least the potential for wrath and revenge.

But as they said, in for a penny, in for a pound. And chances were, she either already knew or could figure it out, just by scrolling through his DVR recordings again.

“I like
All My Children
and
One Life to Live
, but I think
Guiding Light
is probably my favorite.”

“Me, too!” she cried, slapping the top of her leg with the open palm of one hand.

“Wait a minute.” He pulled back, startled, eyes narrowing as he studied her. “You watch
Guiding Light?”

She watched soaps at all? How could he have been engaged to her for so long and not known that, not had a clue?

“Well…” She tipped her head, her mouth pulling into a self-deprecating moue. “Not so much anymore. I’m too busy with the show. But I do have a small television set in my dressing room, and I will admit to turning it to a certain channel at a certain time each day if I’m in there.”

He readjusted his seating on the sofa, using his hands to lift his leg from the coffee table and set his foot carefully on the floor. His knee still didn’t bend all the way, so the angle was awkward, but it was sure as heck better than a week ago.