Chapter 7 #2
He returned a minute later with a glass of water and a couple of pills.
Kenny took them with a grateful smile.
“When last did you eat?” he asked, looming above her with his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans.
The question made her aware she was starving.
“Not since breakfast.” She hadn’t really had much of an appetite since he’d left her and in the last month had eaten only to fuel her body. And that only when she remembered to do so.
His eyes sparked with disapproval as he raked a critical gaze over her.
“You can’t afford to skip meals, Kenna, you’ve lost too much weight.” His eyes had snagged on her bare thighs and he folded his arms over his chest. “What the fuck are you wearing, by the way? You’re just a couple of thigh holsters away from looking like bargain basement Lara Croft.”
Well…fair.
Kenny chose to find the insight funny rather than be offended.
“Lara Croft wouldn’t have broken her toe by kicking a tire while wearing flip-flops,” she pointed out. “In fact, she probably wouldn’t be caught dead wearing flip-flops.”
He looked a little shaken and reluctantly amused by her self-effacing comment, but quickly covered it up with a scowl.
“You know it’s unsafe to drive in flip-flops, right?”
She hadn’t known that.
“Is it?”
“Jesus wept,” he mumbled from behind the hand he’d used to cover his face. It was a phrase he’d picked up from Kenny and her brothers and it always entertained her to hear him say it.
“You think you can manage a shower on your own?” he asked, lowering his hand again.
“Would you join me if I can’t?” Even Kenny was stunned by the highly inappropriate and wholly out-of-character question. It bordered on flirtatious.
He did a fairly decent impression of a goldfish as he stared at her in openmouthed disbelief.
Not flattering at all.
“Not at all, you can have a basin and a wash cloth and wipe yourself down in the bedroom if you don’t think you can manage the shower.”
Wow. Again…so unflattering.
“I’m sure I’ll manage fine,” she said, her tone more subdued.
“There may be a plastic chair you can use for support, if you need it.”
“Yes, please.”
“Or the tub?” Why was he still on about this? She’d said she could manage.
“I think the tub would be worse.” She’d need his help getting into and out of the tub.
While she was naked.
And his appalled reaction to her dumb flirty comment earlier made it more than apparent he was not interested in seeing her naked ever again.
He understood at once and his cheeks went dull red, noticeable even with the slight tan he’d acquired since she’d seen him last. He was one of those blond men who, while prone to freckling a little, browned instead of reddened in the sun.
Smith was just blessed in every way. Beautiful skin, fantastic hair that was the perfect combination of dark blond and red, ice-green eyes that were particularly striking against the light gold of his tanned skin.
And, of course, there was that body. Tall, lithe, beautifully proportioned.
He was the finest specimen of man she’d ever seen.
She’d never understood his interest in her. He laughed easily, was friendly, approachable, and everybody liked him.
And Kenny just…wasn’t any of those things.
She was quiet, reserved, didn’t interact well with others. She’d once heard herself described by one of her student doctors as “an ice-cold rigid bitch”. While the opinion of a student doctor mattered little to her, she knew that her peers perceived her the same way.
When Smith had compared her to a Barbie without anything of substance on the inside, it had wounded her deeply because it so closely echoed what she knew others thought of her.
Kenny had colleagues and acquaintances and associates, not friends.
And for a moment, when it became clear that Smith wasn’t going to leave after her miscarriage, she’d allowed herself to hope. To believe that she had possibly found her “person.”
Losing him was a blow. And she knew that this time, she truly had no one to blame but herself.
“Right,” he said with a decisive nod and she blinked out of her reverie. “Shower it is then. I’ll find that chair for you.”
“I need my bag,” she said. “It has my toiletries and a change of clothes.”
It was a little embarrassing to admit that she’d packed an overnight bag. How very optimistic—and misguided—of her. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t comment.
“I’ll retrieve it from your car.”
“My car!” She hadn’t given Harris or her car a second thought since arriving here. “What happened to Harris? How did he get home? Did he have to walk? Do he and Tina live close by?”
She’d never visited Smith’s sister and best friend in their hometown before. The oversight made her feel incredibly selfish now. They’d always spent holidays and other special occasions with her family. And whenever Smith did come here, Kenny had always been too busy with work to join him.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t leave him wandering around the mean streets of Riversend,” Smith said with a slight quirk of his lips. He definitely wasn’t going to gift her with one of his magnificent smiles anytime soon, it seemed. “Tina was waiting for him when we arrived.”
“She didn’t want to say hello?” The wistful question slipped out without her permission. It was one of those “think it, don’t speak it” moments that revealed way too much about her state of mind.
Smith looked surprised by her question, then a little troubled.
“She wanted to. I told her it was better if she didn’t. That it would be awkward since you wouldn’t be staying long.”
“I see.” She averted her eyes to the pretty pink and white daisy-shaped rug on the floor.
Seriously, why was the vet renting this adorable little dollhouse out to strangers?
The thought was a welcome distraction from the complicated, painful feelings roiling in her chest.
“Kenna,” Smith’s voice was a whisper. “It’s for the best.”
“Yes.” It was the only word she could choke out. She kept her gaze determinedly fixed on the rug, happy when he finally sighed and turned away.
There really was nothing more to be said.
An hour later, after the most awkward yet satisfying shower of her life, Kenny finally felt human again. Or nearly human. She was still exhausted and her toe was killing her. Her foot could not bear her weight at all.
At least she looked halfway decent again.
It had taken everything in her not to scream when she saw herself in the mirror earlier.
Her long black hair had been a snarled, sticky mix of dust, sweat, twigs, and dead bugs.
It had mostly escaped the neat braid she’d put it in before leaving that morning.
Her skin was caked with claylike mud and she’d had two huge raccoon-like circles of clear skin on her face where her sunglasses had been.
And then there were the itchy red bug bites.
This day, which had started off with such promise, had devolved into a nightmare. It could have ended in literal death, but instead it had ended with the death of any hope she’d had of saving her marriage.
She stood in front of the bathroom vanity, staring at her now clean face in the mirror, with her hands braced on the countertop to support herself. Her right leg was bent at the knee while her left bore all her weight.
Her towel-dried hair framed her face like a curtain, the wet ends creating dark, damp spots on the shoulders of her gray top. She was dressed in a pair of loose-fitting boxer shorts and an old T-shirt.
She’d spent most of her shower sitting on the chair Smith had so thoughtfully provided. After wrestling her way into her clothes, she stood there working up the reluctant courage she’d need to call him to help her from the bathroom.
A sharp knock at the bathroom door startled her and she jerked in fright.
“Kenna? You okay?”
She met her blue-gray eyes in the mirror determinedly.
“Yes. Thank you. But…” Be brave, McKenna. “I need help getting out of here, I’m afraid.”
The door handle turned and he was in the bathroom seconds later. It was a surprisingly large, luxurious bathroom for such a small cottage, but it instantly shrank when Smith entered it.
He paused when he saw her, his frown raking over her from top to bottom and then back again.
“Those are my shorts,” he said, tone accusatory, and her cheeks went right red. “And my shirt.”
“They’re comfortable. It’s not like you missed them. I’ve used these as my pajamas for months.”
“I’ve never seen you in them.” He looked seriously affronted. And she wondered what disturbed him more, the fact that she’d appropriated his clothing or the fact that he hadn’t known about it.
“Well, we usually…skipped the pajamas whenever we…” Her voice trailed off. Not sure what the appropriate term would be in this instance.
“Fucked?”
She winced. Not quite the word she would have settled on.
“Yeah,” he continued. “And other than when we were getting naked and busy, I got the sanitized version of you. Perfectly dressed for work or going out. Or in the pristine sports gear you wore to the gym. Always immaculate. Not a hair out of place. Today is the most human I think I’ve ever seen you. ”
Yet another effective blow. Painful because it was so heart-wrenchingly accurate.
“I like to look neat.” It was a weak defense and they both knew it. “Well-presented. Nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s okay for your husband to see you less than perfect, Kenna. The night we lost the baby…” He paused, clearly waiting for her usual correction. But Kenny didn’t say it. Couldn’t say it. Not anymore.
When it became clear that she wasn’t going to correct him, his lips thinned, and she caught a fleeting glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes before he continued.
“That night…the worst fucking night of our lives was the only time you let me catch a glimpse of the woman beneath all that shiny perfection. Shame it took a shattering loss to reveal it.”
He shook his head.
“After that…nothing. You went back to being unreachable and untouchable.”
“I know.” Confusion shadowed his face at her regretful acknowledgment, followed by panic, before he immediately closed himself off. It was a taste of her own medicine. Shutting her out the way she’d always done him.
“Enough,” he decided. “I’m sick of beating this dead horse.” Yet, he was the one who kept bringing it up.
“Something smells good,” she said, changing the subject for both their sakes.
He nodded, eyes grave in his expressionless face.
“Tina brought over a lasagna, homemade bread, and a salad while you were in the shower.”
“That was kind of her.”
“I think she was mostly checking to see if I was—we were—okay. I think she’s worried we’re going to kill each other.” Or more likely, she was concerned that Kenny would say or do something to hurt Smith. Kenny could relate, knowing she was just as protective over her big brothers.
“Never. I’m a doctor. First do no harm and all that. And you… Well, you’d have to feel more than indifference toward someone in order to kill them, right?” she asked with a bitter twist of her lips.
Her little barb hit home, she could see it in the way his jaw clenched, but he said nothing in response, merely swinging her up into his arms without warning and carrying her into the kitchen.
The meal that followed was quiet and strained. Afterward, Smith cleaned the kitchen, while Kenny sat on the couch and applied some of the calamine lotion Tina had brought over along with their dinner to the worst of her bites.
She then buddy strapped her big toe to the one next to it. A painful process that she’d insisted she could do herself despite Smith’s protestations.
In the end he’d thrown up his hands in frustration and left her to it.
He made up the couch for her, told her to be up at six so that they could get to the hospital as early as possible, and retreated to his bedroom.
Leaving her to sit in silence, solitude, and sorrow.