Chapter 5 Richard #2
Their gazes locked and for a split-second, he read heat in her gorgeous eyes. Then her lashes dipped, hiding it before he could see anything more and her mouth twisted into a smile. “But I don’t think you know how to relax.”
He knew a challenge when he heard one. “Then maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“Oh, I know you.” She grinned. “We’re keeping score, remember?”
Delighted by the play, he pushed away from the counter and pulled open the fridge.
He’d promised her breakfast. “I do remember. So how about a wager?” Unfortunately, his fridge only had bottles of water, a couple of sandwiches in takeout boxes, and creamer for the coffee.
He didn’t remember the last time he’d stocked food—or did he?
Miranda usually arranged for a grocery delivery, but she’d left weeks before and he’d eaten out or at the office since then.
“Depends, what are we wagering on exactly?”
“Well we’re not wagering on breakfast because I would lose.” He glanced at his bare wrist and scowled. His watch was upstairs and he hadn’t tracked down his cell phone yet. “What time is it?”
“Nine,” she answered. She set her coffee cup on the counter and padded out of the kitchen.
He followed behind her and when she bent at the waist, reaching over the back of a chair, he fixed on her bottom—the skirt shaped it perfectly.
By the time she’d turned back to him, with his jacket in hand, he’d gotten his wandering gaze back to safer territory. “You left this in the car last night.”
“Thank you and thank you for driving me home.” He fished into his pockets for his cell phone. He had a dozen urgent emails and a couple of messages from Armand, including one asking about a racquetball game. Answering it automatically, he postponed for a couple of days, then scanned his emails.
“And that’s one point to me. Too bad we didn’t actually decide on the bet.
” Her amusement curved around him like a teasing brush of her fingertips.
Kate sat perched on the arm of the sofa, one golden leg crossed over the other.
All sleek muscle, the woman had nothing spare on her.
Her grin widened. “You’re in your email.
That’s not taking the day off. So point to me. ”
He grimaced and tabbed out of his inbox. “Habit. I wanted to call and get some food delivered, or we’re going to starve. There’s a great little bakery up the road, how about we break all the rules and get high on sugar while we play?”
“That’s definitely living on the edge.” Her lips twitched.
Amused by her mocking, he pointed a finger at her. “Go find yourself something comfortable to wear in the changing room. It’s right through there.” He pointed down a hall. “I’ll get the food ordered and meet you at the pool. Our day off starts right now.”
She straightened and saluted him crisply. “You should probably change too. The slacks and the pool won’t mix.” Pivoting on her heel, she headed in the direction he indicated and he glanced down.
He’d been talking to her shirtless the entire time. Nothing said sexy like pale skin and scars.
Screw it. She’s about to see me in swimming trunks and I get to see her in a bathing suit.
It was his day off and he wanted to flex the rules a little.
He put in an order for the food delivery and paid for it with his credit card.
Glancing at the pillow that still held the barest impression of where her head had rested the night before, guilt stabbed him.
He’d have to give her a tour of the house so she’d feel comfortable with a bed the next time she stayed over.
Yes, there would be a next time. He was enough of a realist to recognize his interest.
It took him ten minutes to return to his room, change into swim trunks and return.
Retrieving their coffee cups from the kitchen and some bottles of water, he headed out to his pool.
He’d have to make it clear to her that the only reason he carried his phone as well was so he’d be alerted when breakfast was delivered.
The tiered patio and swimmer’s paradise pool were two of the reasons he’d bought his house.
Perched comfortably on a hill overlooking the ocean, he also enjoyed a spectacular view and privacy from even his closest neighbor a half-mile down the beach.
No one out front could see his little haven and no one on the beach below would see him unless he stood next to the railing.
Kate was at the opposite end of the pool, a deep green one-piece bathing suit hugging every curve.
He forgot to think when she executed a clean dive into the water.
Her long arms flexed with each slice as she swam from the deep end toward him.
The moment she touched the wall, she arced away, perfectly graceful to swim back the way she’d come.
Sinking onto a chair, he set the mugs, phone and water bottles on the table and just watched her swim.
Back and forth, she performed the laps like a professional—he could see where she’d gotten her trim physique.
By the time she completed ten laps and came up for air, he had most of his hormones under a tight leash.
“All right.” She drifted over to rest against the side of the pool and grin at him. “This is definitely a perk.”
“The pool?” It delighted him that she liked it.
“The pool. The day. It’s beautiful.” The sun glinted off the water droplets sliding down the curve of her cheek.
Yes, she was. “It’s why I bought the place.” He braced his feet against the warm concrete and let the heat soak in against his back. The coffee and the company had done wonders for his hangover.
“You like swimming?” She leaned back into the water and slicked her hair away from her face.
“I do, but it was for days like this. Days when I could just be out here and be alone, not worry about someone staring at me or watching for me to do something or make a mistake.” It sounded very Dickensian. “That came out wrong.”
“You like your privacy.” She flexed her arms, then pulled herself out of the water to sit on the side, feet dangling. “I get it.”
A long thin, pink line bisected her left shoulder blade and disappeared behind the razorback of the suit.
Rising, he walked over and crouched next to her.
Tracing the scar, he frowned. “What happened here?” Her muscles went rigid under his touch and he hesitated, curling his fingers toward his palm. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“Just surprised me, is all.” She shook her head and her shoulders relaxed a fraction. “And that?” She twisted to glance at her shoulder and laughed. “Oh, I’d almost forgotten I had that.”
Shifting to sit next to her, he dropped his feet into the water and braced his palms on the pool edge—that should help him keep his hands to himself. “I sense a story there.”
“Not a very exciting one. Actually, it’s a pretty stupid story, now that I think about it.” The combination of her self-deprecating tone and rueful expression elicited an altogether tender response that he didn’t want to examine too closely.
“Now you have to tell me.” He nudged her shoulder with his.
“You got my deep, dark secret out of me last night.” He never talked about his father, the subject guaranteed to put him in a black mood, but in this moment, sitting in the sunshine next to Kate, the shadow passed by with nothing more than a twist to his heart.
“To be fair, you need to understand that I grew up on an army base with three older brothers and their four best friends. These hooligans got into everything.” She made a face and he grinned.
He really didn’t know much about the woman behind the efficient assistant beyond her sharp intelligence and occasionally saucy bites of wit.
“As the youngest and a girl—” she grimaced, “—I was often excluded from some of their more exciting adventures.”
“And that didn’t sit well with you.” An educated guess, but he knew he was right.
“Hell no, it didn’t sit well with me. I could do anything they could do.” All feminine outrage, then she grinned. “But they were older and had a lot more freedom. They used to do this thing called creek dogging.”
“Never heard of it.” He slid off the side and into the water, the cooler temperature bracing against his sun-heated skin. During his convalescence, he hadn’t gotten to spend much of time in the water—or in the sun, for that matter. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed both.
“Basically, you run wild in a creek area—climbing trees, going over the sides of bridges, whacking snakes and pretending it’s the wilderness.
Risking your damn fool neck.” Damn that sounded fun.
When was the last time he did something just for the fun of it?
His expression must have revealed something, because she raised her eyebrows at him and laughed.
“You’d probably have liked it. It was always about dares.
One would dare another to do something crazy and they’d escalate.
Anyway, there’s this one bridge, about twenty feet up from the water?
The water is also deeper there because it was where two creeks met and created a little rapid effect.
The guys hooked a rope up on one side and used it to swing back and forth and then decided they’d see who could leap the farthest from the bridge and into the water. ”
He nodded, watching the way the memories played across her face. When she talked about the boys, she relaxed, and her tone softened with affection. She adored her brothers, but he also saw a trace of wistful sadness when she looked out over the pool as though the memories were bittersweet.
Kate cleared her throat and refocused on him.
“I’d followed them, tagging along and generally being a pain in the ass.
Kevin—he was seventeen at the time—was also my eldest brother.
He told them all to knock it off, and he didn’t really want me there, which meant it was twice as fun for me to be.
The other guys didn’t listen to him and over the edge they went.
” Her tongue skated across her lower lip and she shook her head.
“Kevin is standing there telling me no way in hell was I to follow and I ran at that rail and jumped—just like they did—only my legs weren’t quite long enough and my foot hit that top rail.
Instead of going over legs first, I went head first.”
Richard winced. “Oh shit.”
“Oh shit, yeah.” Her humor grew with the recollection if that was possible.
“I heard the guys yell and then I hit the water. You know creeks aren’t known for being really deep, or really clean, or even really empty—between the force of the fall and my angle, I went all the way down and slammed my shoulder into something.
It hurt bad and by the time I sputtered back up, I had two brothers trying to drag me out of the water.
Then we saw the blood. I’d lacerated the shoulder on a broken bottle or something, but that part didn’t hurt. ”
He found that hard to believe. “No?”
“Nope.” She grinned. “It was the dislocation that hurt.”
“Ouch.” He’d dislocated his shoulder during a touch football game on the quad after colliding with one of Armand’s bodyguards. Damn thing had hurt for months, even after quick medical care. “But if the water was that dirty, you could have had an infection.”
“I could have had necrotizing fasciitis and I wouldn’t have cared.
I was so damn proud of myself for having done it, for making the jump.
The bleeding and the pain couldn’t diminish that.
’Course my dad’s and mom’s reactions were less enthusiastic.
” Her eyes brightened and she shrugged. “I was grounded for a month and so were the boys, but do you know the best thing that happened that day?”
“What?” The light in her eyes, the window of insight into the reckless freedom of her youth, held him hostage.
“My brothers didn’t make me stay behind again because I wasn’t a baby and I didn’t cry. So after I was all healed up, when they went creek dogging, so did I.” Pride shimmered in her tone. “I got damn good at it, too, and I never missed another leap.”
“I think I like your brothers. What are they doing now?” Wrong question. The light in her eyes dulled and her smile faded. Touching a hand to her knee, he frowned. “Hey, I didn’t mean to bring up a bad memory.”
“It’s fine, just it’s easier to forget some days than it is others. Kevin died about ten years ago. Parker went down a couple of years later, a training accident.” She cleared her throat. “But Beany Baby is in Germany.”
“Hell, Kate. I’m sorry.” He tightened his grip on her knee. Losing not one, but two brothers—that went beyond suck. It would carve out a piece of his soul if Armand died. Barb was his baby sister, and he loved her, but Armand was his family too.
“It’s okay.” She covered his hand with hers and gave him a tremulous smile that almost reached her eyes. “Really. They died doing what they loved and they wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. They were tough guys and I haven’t thought about creek dogging in years. Thank you for that.”
The conversation quieted for a moment and he longed for a way to bring back the sparkle and chase away the shadow of sadness. “Beany Baby?”
She stroked her thumb in a slow circle against the back of his hand and her laughter caught him off guard.
“Benjamin. I couldn’t say Ben when was I was little and used to call him Bean.
He was one of those kids that shot straight up—all arms and legs and no body—and Kevin and Parker called him String Bean.
Well, one day when he was razzing me, I called him Beany Baby and, to his horror, that name stuck. ”
Loving the humor dancing in the words, he grinned. “Duly noted.” Before he could add anything else, his cell phone rang and she pulled her hand away. “That,” he sighed with a hint of regret. “Is probably the food.” Levering himself out of the water, he went to claim the phone.
He could have wished for a few more minutes before the interruption, but they had all day. The brief glimpse into her past wasn’t enough.
The more he learned about Kate, the more drawn to her he was.
But she didn’t offer him another chance.
By the time they’d eaten breakfast, stored away the food and returned to the pool deck, her professional reserve returned.
Oh, she laughed and she teased him, but she didn’t talk about her family or her life beyond a few cryptic comments that told him he’d barely scratched the surface of this complicated woman.
And he wanted…more.