Paradise County (17 page)

“I never said you did.”

“You implied it.”

“I didn’t mean to.” His voice was soothing as his gaze met hers. “Look, we’ll get to the bottom of it, okay? First things first. I know your head hurts, but I think we need to rinse that cut off before we do anything else. Like I said, there’s mud in your hair. Think you can stand it?”

The memory of the stinging pain that had accompanied the injury’s last encounter with running water was almost enough to make her say no. But she knew he was right, and so she grimaced, giving a barely perceptible nod.

“Good girl.” His hands were in her hair, gently separating the long strands, exposing her lacerated scalp. Alex buried her face in his chest, closing her eyes and tightening her arms around his neck in wincing anticipation of what would come next.

“Here we go,” he said, and turned with her so that her head was once again exposed to the full force of the shower spray. The pain was sharp and immediate, but not as explosive as before because she was expecting
it. Alex bit her lip to keep from crying out as hot water poured over the tender wound.

“All done.” He shifted position again so that her head was once again out of the reach of the spray. His arms wrapped tightly around her, supporting her as her knees threatened to buckle.

A loud banging on the bathroom door startled them both.

“Hey, Dad, I’m putting a lantern and a bunch of towels on your bed,” a boy’s voice called through the door.

“Thanks, Eli,” Joe called back. When he looked down at Alex there was a wry twist to his mouth.

“I think that’s our cue,” he said, and scooped her up, stepping out of the shower with her. Even the warm moist air of the bathroom was cooler than the steamy atmosphere of the shower, and Alex immediately regretted the loss of so much welcome heat. She shivered, not convulsively like before but just a little, a natural response to the change in temperature. Water poured from them in streams, mixing with the muddy water that was already on the floor until the entire area was awash.

“Think you can sit on the toilet for a minute without keeling over?”

“Yes.” The pain in her head was no longer quite so acute, but it was definitely there and, in addition, she felt weak and nauseated. Still, as long as her knees didn’t have to support her weight she was pretty sure she wouldn’t just collapse.

Welch deposited her on the toilet’s closed lid, hanging on to her shoulders for the moment or so it took to satisfy himself that she wasn’t going to topple over sideways. She bent forward when he let her go, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Closing her eyes, she took deep, steadying breaths, determined not to let the head injury get the best of her. He hesitated, and she felt his gaze on her.

“I’m okay,” she said without looking up.

He made a dubious sound, but she heard him moving away from her, heard the bathroom door open, and felt a draft of cool air. She shivered again, all too conscious of the fact that she was soaking wet and almost naked and vulnerable to every small drop in temperature, or, for that
matter, passing glance. Fortunately, for the moment her posture preserved her modesty, and anyway, as far as Welch was concerned, she wasn’t sure that she had much modesty left to preserve. To his credit, he didn’t seem inclined to take advantage of her vulnerability, which she supposed she should count as a point in his favor.

Seconds later he was back, draping a towel over her bent head and tucking the dripping strands of her hair up in it before wrapping another towel, longer and thicker than the first, around her shoulders. Light, which she presumed came from the lantern his son had left in the bedroom, glimmered through the open bathroom door, brightening the surroundings a little.

The deep breaths had helped to steady her. So, too, did sheer determination. He began blotting the moisture from the ends of her hair, then pressed a handful of towel firmly against the cut, presumably to stop the bleeding. Alex winced and grabbed his hands to stop him, but managed not to cry out.

“I can do it,” she said, opening her eyes and sitting up so that her back rested against the cool china tank, thereby moving her head out of his reach. To prove her point, she pressed the towel down over the injury and held it, although with far less enthusiasm than he had used.

After watching for a moment, Welch shrugged and stepped away from her. Alex pressed the towel to her head for a moment longer and then took stock. She didn’t think she was bleeding all that badly, and, anyway, applying direct pressure hurt. But a quick examination of the white terry-cloth showed that it was already stained with blood, and her fingers gingerly probing the wound came away sticky and dark. Folding the towel into a pad, she positioned it over the cut. Then, bending forward, she carefully wrapped the second towel turban-fashion around her head to hold the makeshift bandage in place. Straightening, she glanced his way again just in time to see him take hold of the dripping edges of his shirt with both hands. Without bothering to unbutton the saturated flannel, he dragged the shirt up over his head. As quickly as that she found herself staring at a naked masculine chest that was sexy enough to make her almost forget the pain in her head.

“What are you doing?” she asked with careful politeness as he dropped the soaked shirt to the floor with a soft plop. Her gaze moved over him without her being able to help it. Clearly he was no stranger to either physical work or regular workouts, or both. His shoulders were massive; his upper arms bulged. His pectorals were sharply defined and his abdomen was flat and ridged with muscle. His waist and hips were narrow compared with the corded width of his shoulders, and the center of his chest was covered with a thick mat of curling black hair.

How had Neely described him? Sex on a stick? Her little sister didn’t know the half of it.

“Stripping off,” he said as if doing so in front of her was the most natural thing in the world. “I’m kind of wet, in case you haven’t noticed. Here.”

He tossed her another towel, one of several he had carried back into the bathroom with him and tucked into the chrome bar that was the towel rack. It was big enough to cover her like a small cape. Wrapping it around her shoulders and clutching it closed with both hands, Alex said nothing more. But she could not help but watch as, balancing on first one foot and then the other, he pulled off his now rinsed clean boots and dropped them to the floor too. Her eyes widened in semi-shocked anticipation as she waited for his only remaining garment, his jeans, to follow. Instead he stopped with his thumbs hooked in his waistband, and looked at her.

“Your turn,” he said.

“What?” His meaning did not register, probably because his words were not the foremost thing on her mind. She could not seem to keep herself from looking at him. Indeed, in the tight confines of the bathroom there was really no place else to look. He stood scarcely more than an arm’s length away, close enough so that she could see the dark indentation of his navel peeking over his waistband, close enough where she could see individual drops of water glistening on his shoulders and snaking down through the wedge of hair on his chest. Of their own volition, her gaze slid down the front of his jeans.

The wet denim and uncertain light made it impossible to be sure of
anything, but she thought that he was as aware of her as she was of him. Embarrassed to think he might realize where she was looking, Alex glanced up hurriedly to find that his gaze was on her face.

“See this towel?” He pulled a bright orange beach towel from the bar and held it up for her inspection. When Alex nodded, he continued: “I’m going to give it to you, and I want you to take off your nightgown and wrap it around yourself. Think you can do that without doing yourself an injury?”

Attracted to him or not, that was going too far, Alex thought. She was not going to just take off her nightgown and sit there stark naked in front of him. Her mind refused, no matter how her body might quicken at the prospect.

“Not with you standing there,” she said positively.

He grinned, a crooked and charming grin that made her blink. It was the first time she had ever seen him smile, and the sheer masculine appeal of it was startling.

He was really a mouthwateringly attractive man.

“I was going to turn off the flashlight first. What’d you think?”

“Oh. Good idea.” Of course. He’d been anything but lecherous so far. In fact, he’d been more gentlemanly than most men would have been under the circumstances. For a few minutes there in the shower, he could have done just about anything to her that he wanted. With her enthusiastic cooperation, honesty forced her to add.

And he had known it, and refrained. It was kind of embarrassing, now that she thought about it. And kind of exciting, too.

He moved toward her, handed her the towel, then reached behind her for the flashlight.

“For God’s sake, tell me if you need help,” he said, and turned off the light.

The sudden darkness was as absolute as if she’d been plunged into an unlit subway tunnel. Fumbling because she couldn’t see, she kicked off her shoes, then pushed the ruined nightgown down her body, careful to balance herself by holding on to the tank as she lifted her bottom up just enough to get the garment all the way off. Her skin was wet and slippery,
and for a moment she feared she might really slip off the toilet seat as she sat back down again. She was shivering, and her head throbbed as she dried herself with the towel that had been draped around her shoulders, but the pain was less than it had been. The worst thing was the weakness in her limbs, and the transient dizziness she experienced whenever she moved.

“Doing okay?” he asked, his voice echoing through the small bathroom as if it were a cave.

“Yes,” she replied hastily, in case he should get the idea that she needed help and turn the flashlight back on.

Without her sight, her other senses became more acute. He was close, as he’d promised. She could hear him, hear the rustle and slurp of wet jeans that told her he must be removing his clothes too. She could smell him, the sharp scent of soap overlaying a warm musky smell that spoke silently of man. She could feel him, feel the invisible weight of his presence nearby.

After drying off, she wrapped herself sarong style in the beach towel, tucked the ends between her breasts, and tried not to imagine him, naked, doing the same thing less than three feet away.

Fourteen

D
ecent?” Welch asked.

“Yes.”

The flashlight clicked on. He was standing in the middle of the bathroom with a forest green towel hitched around his hips and another towel, this one solid white, slung around his neck. He had obviously towel-dried his hair, which was tousled and black as a crow’s wing in the uncertain light. The white towel contrasted nicely with the wedge of hair on his chest and the swarthiness of his skin. The green towel covered him from belly button to knees. Below it his calves were hard with muscle and fuzzed with dark hair. His feet were bare.

His gaze flicked over her, too. Alex knew what she must look like: pale and too slender, with narrow shoulders, long, elegant limbs and a fine-boned, delicate-featured face. Clad only in the orange beach towel with another towel, a blue-striped one, wrapped around her head, without makeup, hair, or clothes to hide behind, she felt vulnerable and just a little ill at ease. She had never before questioned whether or not a man, looking at her, would find her attractive; now, suddenly, in the wake of Paul’s defection, she found herself doing just that.

Which begged the question: Did she want Welch to find her attractive? The answer came almost instantaneously: Yes, she did.

At least as attractive as she found him. For her pride’s sake, if nothing else.

“Come on,” he said, and moved toward her, his feet making splashing sounds as he dodged the discarded garments that formed small islands in the mini-lake they had created on the floor. He bent over her, picking her up as casually as if it was something he did every day. She was getting almost used to being scooped up without warning, but this time when he lifted her into his arms she found herself pressed against a hard chest that was softened only slightly by a crisp cushion of black hair, her arms curled over broad bronzed shoulders that were heavy with muscle, her hands locked behind a strong brown neck.

His body was warm. His skin was smooth and just faintly damp and smelled of their recent shower. His chest hair tickled her everywhere it touched.

Her senses reeled.

Alex sucked in her breath slowly, trying not to be obvious about her instant, instinctive response to being held against so much bare masculine flesh. Whatever else this trip to Whistledown had or had not done, she thought with a glimmering of amusement, it had certainly restored her libido to working order. With a vengeance.

If only she weren’t having all these lustful thoughts too late, and for the wrong man. If she’d spiced things up with Paul—but she was not going to think of Paul, ever again.

“You’re going to have to wear some of my clothes, unless you want to go to the hospital in that towel.”