That McCloud Woman (9 page)

She
sighed heavily. "No. I trust your opinion." She touched his hand by
way of thanking him for the offer, then turned away, as if looking at the table
pained her somehow.

Though
her touch was fleeting, Jack felt the warmth of it seep deep beneath his skin.
It came perilously close to touching his heart. He stared after her, fighting
the feelings of compassion she stirred within him, and the almost overwhelming
desire to pull her into his arms and just hold her.

At
the door, she gestured to a small stack of items she'd piled there. "I'll
just take these things for now." She lifted a box and started down the
stairs, her shoulders drooped despondently.

Jack
glanced back at the table, frowning, wondering what it was about the old table
that had made her look as if he'd broken her heart when he'd told her it wasn't
worth refinishing. He lifted a shoulder and turned away, heading for the
stairs.
Don't let it matter,
he told himself.
You've got
troubles enough of your own.

From
the pile of things she'd left stacked by the door, he selected a small rocker,
then followed her down the narrow stairway.

Jack
cocked his head, listening. When he didn't hear the sound again, he went back
to his sanding. He wasn't sure if he could save the table Alayna had unearthed
in the attic, but he was going to give it his best shot. He'd had the truck
driver, who had delivered the tin he'd ordered to repair the roof, help him
haul the table to the barn. Alayna, who at the time had been in town buying
groceries, was unaware that he'd raided her attic. He planned to keep her in
the dark until he determined whether or not he could save the old table.

As
he sanded and smoothed the buckled wood, he tried to convince himself that he
wasn't doing the work to please Alayna. He was a man who loved wood, no matter
what the form, and hated to see it go to waste.

He
straightened, flexing his cramped fingers. "Yeah right, Cordell," he
muttered. "You're a sucker for a sad face. Especially when it's attached
to a pretty woman. You always were."

Frowning,
he bent to his task again, putting muscle behind the steady movements of his
hand.

And
heard the sound again.

Lifting
his head, he listened. Sure enough, the sound came again. This time, though, he
set aside the round of coarse steel wool and stepped outside and into the
darkness.

"Here,
kitty-kitty-kitty."

Molly?
He squinted
against the darkness, trying to make out her small form in the moonless night.
He saw a flash of white near the front porch of the Pond House and headed that
way. He found the girl kneeling in front of the broken lattice that screened
the crawl space beneath the porch, her face pressed again the dark opening.

"Molly?"

She
jumped at the sound of his voice and rolled to her back, bracing herself with
hands planted on the soft grass behind her.

Jack
frowned at the fear he saw in her eyes. The kid hadn't said two words to him
the entire time he'd been living on the place. She just stared at him, her eyes
wide and watchful, her body poised for flight in case he made a wrong move.

And
that made Jack mad. He didn't want to scare the kid … but then he didn't want
her to like him, either. A hell of a situation, in his estimation.

He
glanced toward the house, thinking he'd just get Alayna and let her deal with
the kid. Then the cat meowed again, and Molly made a whimpering sound that had
Jack whipping his head back around. The look of fear was still in her eyes, but
so was her concern for the cat. With a sigh, Jack dropped to a knee in front of
the girl, hoping that by putting himself on her level he'd reduce her fear
somewhat.

But
she remained frozen, her eyes wide and full of fear.

"What
are you doing out here in the dark?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be in
bed?"

She
didn't say a word. Didn't even blink. She just stared at him as if he was some
kind of monster who was going to gobble her up for his supper.

He
bit back a sigh of frustration. "Does Alayna know you're out here?"

She
wagged her head and dug her heels in the ground, inching away from him.

Meow-w-w.

Molly
flopped to her stomach at the pitiful sound and pressed her face against the
dark opening in the lattice.

Jack
lowered himself to the ground and eased up beside her. He squinted against the
darkness. "Is that Captain Jinx?" he asked, turning to look at Molly.

She
bobbed her head in assent. "He hurts," she said, pointing a stubby
finger at the hole in the lattice.

Shocked
that the child had actually spoken to him, Jack peered at her more intently.
"How do you know?"

"Heard
him cryin'."

Jack
turned his face back to the hole. He stared into the darkness, but couldn't see
a thing. He rolled to his side, and worked a penlight from the pocket of his
jeans. Molly jerked away from him at the unexpected movement.

"It's
a light," he explained, and flicked it on and off, demonstrating.
"See?"

She
watched him warily. With a frown he rolled back to his stomach. He inched his
way to the hole and shined the light into the crawl space. The light glanced
off a matched pair of eyes, glinting like green marbles in the darkness. Cat
eyes. He adjusted the beam, aiming it along the animal's length. Ugly and
scraggly before, the critter looked a whole lot worse now. It's fur was matted
with blood and one ear hung by threads of skin. Probably found another stray
torn and got himself into a fight, Jack reasoned.

He
felt a movement beside him and turned quickly, blocking Molly's view of the
injured cat. "Molly," he said, firmly taking her by the shoulders.
She stiffened and tried to pull away from him, but he tightened his grip,
hating the fear he saw in her eyes. "Captain Jinx is hurt," he
explained gruffly. Her gaze shot to the darkened hole, her lips trembling. He
squeezed her shoulders and she slowly turned back to him. Tears glistened in
her brown eyes. Jack had to swallow back the emotion that rose at the sight.
"I want you to go and get Alayna. Tell her to bring me a towel. Can you do
that?"

She
bobbed her head and ducked from his grasp, scrambling to her feet and running
for the house. Her white nightgown flapped around her short legs.

Jack
quickly ripped off his shirt, knowing he had to get the cat out before Molly
saw it. Wedging his fingers between the lattice and the wooden steps it was
attached to, he pulled, gritting his teeth and straining until the weathered
panel of lattice snapped free with a splintering of wood.

Breathing
heavily, he tossed the panel aside and crawled inside the darkened hole,
flattening his stomach against the dank-smelling earth in order to fit into the
narrow space. "Okay, cat," he muttered, belly-crawling toward it,
"try to remember that I'm here to help you, okay?"

In
answer, Captain Jinx bared his teeth and hissed, swiping at Jack with his sharp
claws.

"Yeah,
well, I'm not too crazy about you, either," he muttered darkly, then
tossed his shirt over the cat. He scooped the netted cat under his arm, trying
his best to be gentle and not injure the cat any more than it already was, then
slowly started backing his way from the hole. The cat scratched and clawed,
trying to get free.

Jack
felt a hand on his foot and froze.

"Jack?"

"Yeah,"
he said on a sigh of relief, recognizing the sound of Alayna's voice.
"I've got the cat. Where's Molly?"

"In
the house. I made her stay with Billy."

"Good
idea." His shoulders cleared the opening, then his head, and he rolled to
his back, holding the squirming cat against his chest, as he gulped in a breath
of fresh air. Someone turned on the porch light, probably Billy he reasoned,
and he squinted against the sudden glare.

Alayna
bent over him, her blond hair falling to curtain her face, her blue eyes filled
with concern. Her eyes suddenly widened and she dropped to her knees beside
him.

"Oh,
Jack," she cried, laying a sympathetic hand against his abdomen.
"You're bleeding."

He
shifted the now calm cat to one arm and craned his neck to see, then dropped
his head back to the ground. "It's just a scratch."

He
thought she'd remove her hand once he'd assured her he wasn't hurt, but she
kept it there. Her palm smoothed across his bare flesh, brushing away the dirt
and awakening nerves beneath the skin. Though her touch was light, tender,
filled with compassion, for some crazy reason Jack found its movements highly
erotic.

She
hadn't touched him since that night on the pier—other than that brief contact
in the attic—and Jack hadn't made a move to touch her, either. Didn't dare.
They just danced around each other like boxers avoiding the next punch.

But
she was touching him now.

He
lay still as death, cussing himself for a fool in one breath for not brushing
her hand away, and praying with the next that she'd never stop her hand's
seductive play. She continued to stroke him, her palm shaping the hardened
lines of muscle, smoothing across the taut, flat plane of his stomach, slipping
over his side, then starting the journey all over again.

When
her fingertips dipped into the shallow well of his navel, Jack couldn't stop
the groan of pleasure that swelled from deep inside him, any more than he could
prevent his abdominal muscles from tightening in response to her finger's
erotic play.

Her
gaze snapped to his at the movement. Jack felt the heat that burned between
them, saw the need that turned her blue eyes to smoke.

Though
he knew it was a mistake, he reached and covered her hand with his free one.
"Alayna."

I'm not any good
at sex.
He could see the words in her eyes as clearly as if they were written there. He
remembered the morning she'd told him that. Obviously she remembered that
morning, too, because she dropped her gaze from his, her cheeks flushed in
embarrassment.

"I'm
sorry," she whispered and withdrew her hand from beneath his to curl it
into a fist on her thigh.

She
drew in a ragged breath. "How bad is Captain Jinx?"

Jack
wanted to tell her that it was okay to touch him, to beg her to touch him
again. But refrained. Neither of them needed the complication. Instead he took
the distraction she offered. If it was the coward's way out, so be it. Jack
wasn't there to win any medals. "I'm no vet, but I'd say he's pretty bad
off. Not unfixable. Just bad."

She
pushed herself to her feet, still avoiding his gaze. "I'll call Sam. My
cousin. She's a vet."

Jack
winced and turned his back to the makeshift table where the vet worked a suture
through the cat's tattered flesh, reattaching its ear. The cat was anesthetized.
Probably didn't feel a thing. But Jack felt every prick of the needle as if it
was piercing his own skin.

"You're
Mandy's sister, right?" he asked, needing to take his mind off of what was
going on behind his back.

"Yep.
And Merideth's. I don't think you've met her yet."

Jack
stole a glance over his shoulder, winced again as the needle pierced the cat's
flesh, and turned his face away.

"You
gonna faint on me?"

Jack
chuckled at the question and wagged his head. "No. Just don't ask me to
help."

"I'm
used to working alone."

Jack
nodded, but didn't dare turn back around. "The cat's going to be okay,
isn't it? I mean, it would break Alayna's heart if he didn't make it. The
kid's, too."

"He'll
make it. Not without a few new scars, but he'll make it."

Jack
felt as if a hundred pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He may
not care for cats, but that didn't mean he wanted the animal to suffer … or the
humans who cared for it, for that matter. He frowned as his thoughts shifted to
Alayna.

He
remembered the hand on his abdomen, the needs it had drawn, the look of
embarrassment on her face when she realized that she had kept her hand on his
flesh a moment too long. He remembered, too, the yearning he'd seen in her eyes
before she'd turned her face away. He didn't want her to suffer, but something
told him that she already had. Probably at the hand of her ex-husband.

He
glanced over his shoulder again at Sam's bent head and decided she might just
be the one to answer a few of the questions he had about Alayna's past.

"Alayna
told me that she's divorced."

"Yep."

"Did
you know her husband?"

"Yep."

Jack
rolled his eyes. Getting information out of the woman was like pulling teeth.

He
tried again. "She seems to have a few hang-ups about—well, what I mean to
say is that her self-confidence seems to be lacking in certain areas."