Love and Other Surprises (19 page)

When she opened them, the plastic bug was perched on Matt’s forearm.

“Oh, Matt! Are you all right?”

Matt gingerly fingered the lure, buying time to compose himself before he replied. Ali had nearly nailed herself in the face with the four-way hook and his heart was still in his throat. If anything had happened to her, he’d never have been able to forgive himself. “I’d be a lot better if I didn’t have this creature stuck on my arm,” he said gruffly. “Would you see if you can get it off?”

Ali gently took his arm, making it impossible for his heart rate to return to normal. Her hands were cool on his skin, and Matt found himself staring at her soft, fair fingers, struck by the way they contrasted with the hard tan of his forearm, remembering how they had played over his back when he’d kissed her. Those hands had driven him crazy, were driving him crazy now.

She gingerly touched the bug, creating a sharp bite of pain that made Matt wince. Her eyes were large with worry. “Two of the hooks are imbedded in your skin.”

At least the pain was a distraction from his thoughts. “Well, see if you can work them out.”

Couldn’t this woman do anything without creating some sort of crisis? She’d come close to putting her eye out with the lure. Didn’t she have the foggiest idea how to take care of herself?

He opened his mouth, ready to launch into a safety lecture, then shut it abruptly.

Whoa, boy. You’re trying to do away with the control-freak image, remember?
If he really wanted to change her opinion of him, this was a perfect opportunity. A little calm understanding could go a long way.

He’d been looking away, not trusting himself to watch her, but now he glanced down. Her head was bent over his arm, her hair falling against her cheeks in a mass of curls as unruly as the woman herself.

“The hooks have barbs on the ends of them. I think we’d better get you to a doctor.” Ali released his arm and looked up at him, her eyes filled with concern and remorse. “Matt, I’m so sorry.”

The sight of her distress did something funny to Matt’s chest. “Hey, it was an accident, that’s all. It’s my fault for sticking my arm out there.”

“I would have been hit in the face if you hadn’t.”

He reached out and touched her cheek. “It’s not worth getting all upset over. I’m fine.” Her skin was soft and warm, and his finger lingered.

Matt lowered his gaze to her full, ripe lips. They were so tempting, so incredibly tempting. It would be so easy to just lean down and kiss her. Her lips were parted, and the look in her eyes was an open invitation…

Put a lid on it, Jordan. You don’t want to create another “unfortunate incident.”

The memory of her words stung worse than the hooks in his skin. Ali had made it clear that his attentions weren’t welcome. Never mind that she’d instigated the whole thing in the first place, never mind that the electricity crackling between them had enough voltage to light up the entire town for a month, never mind that her face was tilted up and her eyes were half closed and she looked for all the world like a woman dying to be kissed. She’d said they should call it off, so the next move had to be hers.

“Let’s go see about getting this thing off me,” Matt said abruptly. He picked up her fishing rod and expertly reeled in the loose line. “I’ll carry this one. I seem to have developed an attachment to it.”

She laughed at the joke and walked beside him back to the house, where they found Justin and Lauren tending a smoking grill on the deck.

“Looks like you caught a big one,” Justin said to Matt, his face creased in an enormous grin.

“Something like that,” Matt responded. “Jerked the line a little too fast.”

Ali’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. He wasn’t going to tell them the accident was her fault? The small kindness touched her heart. She’d been braced for a round of ribbing and she was immensely relieved to be spared the unwelcome attention. She felt so responsible for Matt’s predicament that she could barely look him in the eye as it was.

“Ali thinks I need to see a doctor,” he said. “Take a look and see what you think.”

Justin examined Matt’s arm. “If you were a catfish, we’d be heating up the frying pan,” he chortled.

Lauren rolled her eyes. “You won’t get a straight answer out of Justin. Better let me take a look.” She studied Matt’s arm for a moment. When she glanced up, her expression was serious. “Ali’s right. The hooks are imbedded pretty deeply. This needs medical attention.”

Matt heaved a resigned sigh and turned to Ali. “Well, I guess you’d better drive me to the emergency room.”

To his surprise, Ali’s face drained of color.

“There’s a new all-night clinic across from the shopping center,” Lauren suggested quickly.

“Let’s try there,” Ali said.

Matt nodded, puzzled. For some reason that Lauren seemed to understand, Ali wanted to avoid the hospital. “Anyplace where someone can get this thing off my arm is fine with me.” He turned to Lauren. “Do you have some scissors? I don’t want to take any more of Justin’s gear with me than I have to.”

“Gee, Matt, I’d hate to cut a perfectly good line,” Justin teased.

Justin kept up a steady stream of wisecracks as Lauren snipped the line, and Matt was relieved when he and Ali finally headed outdoors to her tiny red sports car.

“I think you’d better drive,” he said as Ali circled to the right side of the vehicle.

“I’m planning to.” She climbed in, reached across the seat and unlocked the left door, pushing it open from the inside. Matt blinked hard as he looked through the door.

“What the heck…” he sputtered.

“You’re probably wondering why the steering wheel is on the right side.”

“The question crossed my mind.”

“Well, it’s a foreign car.”

Matt reluctantly lowered himself into the car, folding his long frame onto the cramped seat. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Ali, but there are lots of foreign cars on the road, and the vast majority of them manage to have their steering wheels located on the right side.”

“You mean the left,” Ali said, buckling her seatbelt.

“Right.” Matt gave his head a shake and slammed the door shut. “I mean, correct.” How did she manage to confuse him so easily? He’d always prided himself on his clear-headed thinking. “So how did you happen to buy a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side?”

Ali started the engine. “A client inherited it from a relative in England and he sold it to me for just the shipping costs.”

Matt’s body tensed from the soles of his shoes to the ends of his hair as she pulled out of the driveway. He gazed warily out the window. “Is this legal?”

“Sure.” Ali gave him a sidelong smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it after a while. And it has its advantages. Parallel parking is a whole lot easier.”

Parallel parking didn’t top his current list of concerns.

Ali accelerated as she pulled out onto the highway. “Are you okay?”

“Sure.” He refused to say anything that would reinforce her opinion that he was controlling. “It just takes some getting used to, that’s all.”

A car going the opposite direction whizzed by his window, causing Matt to wince and tighten his grip on the seat. He felt like a sitting duck, riding powerless in what should be the driver’s seat.

Which just about summed up his feelings about their whole relationship.

He decided to turn his attention away from the window and focus completely on her. “I got the distinct impression you didn’t want to go to the hospital.”

The silence stretched out so long Matt began to think she wasn’t going to reply. “I’ve got kind of a phobia about it,” she finally confessed.

“Is there a reason?”

“Yes.” She expelled a deep sigh. “My mother died there. She was in and out for the last six months of her life, enduring all sorts of cancer treatments. All of them made her weak and ill, and none of them helped.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said quietly. “That must have been terrible.”

The depth of concern in Matt’s voice made her cast a glance at him. He was watching her intently, his eyes warm and somber in the light of the passing street lamps. She never talked about her mother’s death—hadn’t spoken of it in at least three years, in fact—but she suddenly found herself wanting to.

“Mom hated going to the hospital. Her last wish was to die at home.” Ali turned into a parking lot where a large sign proclaimed Family Medical Center. Steering into a parking slot, she shut off the engine and turned to Matt. “One night when Robert was out of town, she had a really bad spell. I took her to the hospital, thinking it would be like all the other times—that she’d get stabilized and released.”

Ali could barely speak around the lump in her throat. “But she died,” she said in a voice scarcely more than a whisper. Ali stared at her fingers in her lap. “I felt like I let her down. After she died, I started getting panic attacks every time I’d drive by the place. I left town soon afterward. It’s one of the reasons I stayed away from Hillsboro.”

“Oh, Ali—I had no idea,” Matt said softly. He reached out and touched her cheek. The caress was so warm and reassuring, his voice so caring, that Ali squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the flood of tears that threatened to erupt at the tender gesture. She had been holding back her emotions for so long—emotions about her mother, emotions about Robert… emotions about Matt.

Especially about Matt.
Her mother and Robert were gone; Matt was here—alive, compelling, touchable.

And she was falling for him.
Ali drew in a ragged breath and stared out the windshield. She’d tried to deny it, tried not to think about it, tried to convince herself that if she didn’t acknowledge it, it wouldn’t be real—that she could just walk away from him unscathed when the project was finished.

But she was already in over her head. And she knew, as she looked at him in the glow of the red neon sign, that no amount of denial would change the fact. Just as she knew that no amount of wishing would ever make a relationship between a control freak like Matt and an independent spirit like herself work for any amount of time.

“Sounds like you did what you thought was best for your mom at the time. How could that be letting her down?” Matt asked softly.

Ali shrugged. “I should have known how close she was to the end. I’m sure there were some signs I missed.” Ali glanced at him then looked away, her gaze settling on her fingers twisted together in her lap. “Let’s face it, Matt, I’m always screwing things up—especially for people I care about. Just look at your arm.”

Matt’s heart began to trip wildly. Had she just admitted she cared for him? Maybe not; maybe the comment had meant nothing. On the other hand, maybe it meant everything.

What the heck did he hope it meant? Better stick with a safe topic until he could figure things out.

Matt gestured to his arm. “This could have happened to anyone. You were just trying to follow my instructions.”

“What about the Heimlich manuever? Or when I hit you with the truck door? Or the time I backed into you when you were bringing me firewood?” Ali sighed deeply and gazed out at the deserted parking lot. “It’s no wonder you don’t have any confidence in my abilities as an interior designer.”

“Whoa, there.” Matt slid his hand under her hair, fervently wishing he had the use of both arms so he could gather her to him. He settled for rubbing her neck. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions? All of those incidents were all at least fifty percent my fault. And as for your abilities as an interior designer—I was really impressed with the designs you showed me.”

Her eyes were clouded with doubt. “You sure didn’t act like it.”

Matt squirmed on the seat. “I don’t show my feelings very easily,” he mumbled.

How could he tell her the real reason—that he’d been hurt over her rejection, angry that she’d so casually dismissed an attraction as strong as the pull of gravity? His reaction had had nothing to do with her designs. He still wasn’t sure they’d sell, but they’d looked great.

Tell her…
his heart urged.

“I though your designs were great, Ali,” he said. “You should go ahead and run with them. I’ll be out of town for the next two weeks—I’m consulting with developers in Houston and Omaha, then I’m attending a convention in San Diego— but Hattie can give you the names of the subcontractors we usually use.” He slid his hand up her neck into her hair, sifting the silken strands through his fingers. “I’ll tell Big Jim that you’re in charge and that all questions should go to you.”

Her smile reminded him of a kid at Christmas. Something stirred inside him, something he’d forgotten he could feel.

“Thanks, Matt,” Ali said, leaning over and impulsively giving him a hug.

Matt’s hand tightened in her hair as he inhaled her soft, womanly scent. She turned her face toward him and the next thing he knew, all resolve was forgotten. He didn’t know who had made the first move and he didn’t care. All that mattered were her lips, soft and giving and sweet, as urgently needy as his own.

She moaned and moved toward him, raising up and over the gearshift. He reached to pull her to him and was jabbed by a stabbing pain.

“Ow!”

“Oh, no!” Ali’s hand flew to her mouth in horror. “Matt, I’m so sorry!”

Matt gritted his teeth. “It’s nothing.” She’d hit the lure, jamming the hooks deeper into his skin, but he was far more concerned with her feelings than his own physical discomfort.

He opened the door with his good arm. “Let’s go get this thing taken off.”

He’d better watch out, his cautious nature warned. Ali was getting hooks into him that ran a lot deeper than the ones on his arm.

Chapter Twelve

Hattie looked up from her computer as Matt strode into the office two weeks later. “Welcome back! How was the convention?”

Matt shrugged. “Interesting. Lots of new building materials are coming on the market. How are things here?” Matt picked up the mail that had accumulated during his absence and sifted through it as he headed to his private office.

Hattie rose and marched along behind him. “Never better! Ali’s doing a terrific job.”