One Summer’s Knight

Chapter 8

Riley halted opposite her in his study doorway. Undiagnosed tensions crowded his chest. “You don’t need to do that.”

She raked a hand back through her hair, which, since most of it was caught up in her haphazard ponytail, left the short parts around her face wildly-and rather endearingly-askew. She was wearing a new pair of shorts, he noticed. But with it she wore one of his cast-off shirts with the sleeves rolled above her elbows and the tails knotted around her waist and the top buttons open to show a deep slash of cream-colored throat. For some reason, she seemed to prefer his old clothes to the new ones he’d bought for her.

“Yes, I do,” she said in a low voice, while her eyes begged him to understand.

Well, he did understand. Maybe he understood pride too well. Because he had his pride, too, dammit. He wondered if she knew what it cost him to swallow it now and grudgingly say, “Well, I guess we can see what kind of shape it’s in.”

He stalked past her, down the hall and through the kitchen, through the mudroom and out the back door, mired so deeply in the mystery of his wounded thoughts that he was halfway across the yard before it occurred to him to wonder if he was going to need a key to get into the gardener’s room; it had been that long since he’d had occasion to go there himself. Riley was not in any way, shape or form a do-it-yourselfer, he was accustomed to having his castle run like a well-oiled machine, and he paid people generously to see that it did, and to insure that he personally would never have to concern himself with the details. Somewhere in the back of his mind he supposed he must have realized that eliminating the services of his housekeeper, gardener and pool man was probably going to have some effect on the workings of the machine, not to mention his own participation in its maintenance. Of course he had. He just hadn’t prepared himself for the possibility that a woman-any woman, much less a client and a guest in his house-would be mowing his lawn for him. It didn’t make him proud to discover that he felt that way, either-Lord, he was all for equal opportunity, or sure had thought he was.

To Summer’s relief, the gardener’s room wasn’t locked. She was right behind Riley as he pushed the door open, waved aside a few spiderwebs and stepped over the threshold. She spotted the mower, a green one that looked almost new, pushed over in the far corner but accessible enough. And she was encouraged to see that it was encrusted with a spattering of dried grass, as though it might have seen fairly recent use after all.

“Looks okay,” she said as she dropped to one knee beside the mower. She unscrewed a cap, stuck a finger into the opening, sniffed it and nodded. “Seems to have plenty of gas.” She straightened and took hold of the handle.

But when Riley said gruffly, “Here, I’ll do that,” she let go of the handle and moved aside as quickly as she could.

It had been another near miss. Once again they’d come close to touching…his masculine scent filled her nostrils; his body heat wafted like a breath across her skin. Heart pounding against the arms she’d folded humbly across her waist, she stood and watched him wrestle the mower through the doorway. Her own breath seemed to stick in her throat Oh, dear, she thought, but beyond that her mind simply refused to go.

How was it, she mused, that the man could look so elegant even in tan Dockers and a white polo shirt? And she realized, as she found herself staring at them, that it was the first time she’d ever seen his bare arms. How was it that a lawyer, who presumably spent all his time in offices and courtrooms, could have arms so well-muscled and deeply tanned? Did he play tennis or golf? Enjoy a daily workout at a gym? The idea of Riley Grogan sweating and grunting under a set of barbells was simply mind-boggling.

At the moment, though, he was squatting beside the mower looking like any other perplexed suburban weekend gardener-though surely about a hundred times more handsome than most And it suddenly occurred to Summer to wonder if he’d ever in his life used a lawnmower before. Did he even know how to start it? What should she do if he didn’t? She could hardly shove the man aside and take over, not when it was his lawn and his mower. Not without risking grave damage to his masculine ego-which, she was beginning to realize, to her utter bemusement, was every bit as fragile, for all his strength and confidence, as that of any other man’s.

And yet, how long could she stand here and let him suffer?

As Summer pondered her dilemma, a delicious, quivery feeling came over her. It had been such a long time since she’d felt it, it took her a while to recognize it for what it was: amusement. She suddenly felt an almost overpowering urge to laugh. At Riley Grogan! The only thing keeping her from it, in fact, was the hand she’d had the foresight to clamp tightly over her mouth.

Oh, Lord-she couldn’t go on like this-she really couldn’t. In another second she was going to explode with laughter. Male ego be damned-she had just made up her mind that she was going to have to speak up before she giggled and made things worse, and had peeled her fingers away from her face and cleared her throat in preparation for doing so, when salvation arrived from an unexpected source.

David, whose presence Summer had all but forgotten, pointed and said, “You have to pull on this thing right here.”

Tossing her a look that could only be described as smug, Riley rose to his feet, so abruptly that Summer, who was already leaning forward to point out the necessary steps to achieve ignition, had to spring back to avoid a collision. Meanwhile, Riley took his place at the helm, grasped the ring David had shown him and gave it a mighty tug.

The mower gave a derisive snort and then was silent. Riley pulled the cord again. Same thing. And again. And… yet… again. Finally, with sweat pouring down his face and fire in his eyes, he turned to Summer.

Who once more peeled her fingers away from the bottom part of her face, cleared her throat and stepped forward. “Maybe,” she said carefully, “it would help if you primed it.”

She then reached down, pumped the primer bulb a few times, straightened, adjusted the choke, set the throttle, grasped the ring and pulled. The mower snorted…snarled…and died. Unperturbed, she made a minor adjustment to the choke and tried again. This time the snorts and snarls settled nicely into a roar, which, by easing up on the throttle, Summer soon tuned to a businesslike growl. Without further ado, without even daring a backward glance, she steered the mower onto the lush and overgrown lawn.

And, oh, didn’t it feel good!

She was flushed with success, the June sun was hot on her back, sweat was pouring into her eyes, and she could feel the vibrations of the powerful machine running up her arms and into her chest and belly. She could even feel them in the fillings in her teeth. The muscles in her calves and thighs, arms and back protested…and then rejoiced in the exercise. The grass smelled so sweet she could almost taste it. The air was heavy with humidity, but she felt light. She felt confident and capable. Exhilarated and strong.

And not once today had she thought of herself as poor Cinderella. Or, thank heaven, of Riley Grogan as the Prince.

Back on the path, Riley and David stood side by side in identical poses, hands on hips, watching Summer cut a widening swath through the grass. Presently Riley looked down at David, who returned his gaze with mute sympathy, then after a moment just sort of wandered off, as if he found the whole episode vaguely embarrassing.

Riley knew how he felt. But while his masculine pride had definitely taken a body blow, he was discovering that there was something intensely erotic about the sight of that particular woman pushing a powerful machine around his backyard. She’d only been at it a few minutes, but she was already drenched with sweat, her face flushed and shiny with it, loose strands of her hair lying on her neck and cheeks in wet corkscrew curls, the soft material of his old shirt sticking to her body in dark patches. Her body moved with the unstudied grace of the naturally strong and healthy, the muscles in her legs bunching and relaxing as she pushed and pulled and maneuvered the heavy machine through tight spots, the sunlight turning the fine hair on her thighs to golden down…

Riley’s stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t gotten around to eating the breakfast Summer had left for him. But it wasn’t blueberry waffles he was hungry for, not then.

Scowling, he turned and stalked back into the gardener’s shed. There was no point in trying to go back to his study, not with the cat having usurped his newspaper, and with Summer putt-putting around out here he’d never be able to stay inside and concentrate, anyway. And, if he remembered right, he’d seen-yes, there they were-a pair of hedge clippers. Old-fashioned hand clippers, nothing power-driven, thank you-his ego had taken about all the beating it could stand for one day. He took them down from their hook and gave them a few practice snips to make sure they were in working order, then carried them outside.

Way off down in the back beyond the wooded slope, he seemed to recall having seen some bushes that had looked as if they could use a trim. Hell, he thought, might as well have a go at them, since the morning was otherwise shot. Lord knew he could use the exercise-not to mention a way to work off some of this unanticipated sexual tension-and there was the additional perk that, since there were so many trees down in that part of the property, he’d be working in the shade.

The bushes-he had no idea what kind they were, but they did have some rather nice flowers in the spring-were as rampant as he remembered. Obviously the gardeners hadn’t been in this part of the grounds in a while, which made him feel the more valiant and enterprising, precisely what his bruised male ego needed. Riley surveyed the clump and mapped out his plan of attack. He’d start at the sunny end, he decided, then work his way toward the trees and into the shade. Whistling tunelessly, he set to work.

He’d been at it maybe fifteen minutes or so, long enough to work up a good sweat, and was maneuvering underneath a good-size magnolia, whacking away and feeling good about the progress he was making, when all of a sudden the bush he was chopping on emitted an earsplitting shriek. That startled him so he let go of the clippers, which landed, points down, on his instep at the precise moment a voice a few inches from his ear yelled, “Hey, you’re cutting down my fort!”

Pain stabbed through his foot. He straightened violently, unfortunately right underneath a sizable branch of the magnolia tree. Riley’s head met the branch with a considerable amount of force, and then for a short while his world became mostly bright lights and dark blotches.

When his senses returned to normal function, he found that he was lying on his back in some prickly leaves, gazing up at the face of a small, blond angel, who kept poking his cheek with her finger and saying solemnly, “Are you dead? Huh? Are you dead?”

Before Riley could put together an intelligent response to that, the face abruptly vanished. He heard the crunch of footsteps and the crashing of underbrush, and a voice of diminishing volume yelling, “Mom! Mom! Mr. Riley’s bleeding!”

Was he? Riley sat up slowly, swearing as he fought off a wave of nausea. Yes, dammit, he was; he could feel the trickles working their way through his hair in several directions-toward his forehead, his ears, even down the back of his neck. Damn. In another minute he was going to look like an ambulance case. There were already spots of blood on his shirt. He groaned, as much in mortification as in pain, as he pulled the shirt off, wadded it up and pressed it against his head.

As if that weren’t enough, his foot hurt like bloody hell. He was wearing an old pair of canvas boat shoes with no socks, which was what he always put on for his Saturday of reading and relaxation. He knew he should have changed into heavier work shoes before tackling those bushes. But he hadn’t And as a result, it appeared he’d stabbed himself in the foot with the damned hedge clippers. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at the result.

Summer was plowing methodically up and down the lawn when she caught the flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She cut off power to the mower, wiped sweat from her eyes with her shirtsleeve and said sternly, “Hey-what’s the rule about lawn mowers, kiddo? We wait-” Then she lowered her arm and got her first good look at her daughter’s flushed and sweaty face. Alarm narrowed her focus instantly. Bending closer, she said, “Honey, what is it? What’s the matter?”

Helen was shaking her head and gasping like a netted fish. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to, Mommy. You have to come quick, Mr. Riley’s hurt because I yelled and he got scared and poked himself with the scissors and then he hit his head and now he’s just lying there on the ground bleeding and I don’t know if he’s dead, but ’cept his eyes are open-”

“Wait,” said Summer. “Slow down. Take a breath. What are you talking about? You said Riley’s bleeding? Where?”

Helen turned and pointed. “Down there.”

“No, I mean-oh, gosh, never mind-”

David arrived on the scene just in time to inquire in a superior tone, “Oh, boy, what’d she do now?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Helen wailed, scarlet-faced. “He was gonna cut down my fort! So I just screamed, and then he said a bad word and dropped the scissors on his foot and then he jumped, and bumped his head on the tree real hard! But I didn’t mean to hurt him, Mommy, I didn’t, I didn’t!” With that she turned and ran for the house as fast as she could go.

“Hey-” David yelped. “What’d you do to Mr. Riley? You better not’ve hurt him-darn you-hey!” And he took off after his sister.

For a second or two as her eyes followed her offspring, Summer hesitated. Her mother’s radar definitely sensed trouble. But obviously, “lying on the ground bleeding” had precedence over a possible sibling tiff. “Down there,” Helen had said. Summer sighed and started across the grass. After the first few steps, she broke into a run.

Riley was sitting up when she found him, to her extreme relief; okay, Helen did have a tendency to exaggerate, but still… He had his back propped against the trunk of a magnolia tree, one leg drawn up, the other straight, and Lord help her, he’d taken off his shirt. He’d wadded it up and was holding it pressed to the top of his head. And yes, she could definitely see bloodstains on it.

Summer slowed her steps, asking her heartbeat to take its cue from them and do the same. But for some reason it only seemed to accelerate as she drew closer to the injured man. For God’s sake, what was the matter with her? Had it been so long since she’d seen a grown man’s naked torso up close and personal like this? Or was it just that it was this man’s body? This, after all, was Riley Grogan, her lawyer; the oh, so elegant man-about-town Riley Grogan, whose unclothed body she would never in a million years have expected to see.

Oh, God, especially not like this. Alone with him in hot, damp, shady woods that smelled like the dawn of time…his smooth, tawny skin-not suntanned so much as naturally olive-toned-shiny with sweat and speckled with blood, flecks of decayed leaves and bits of grass clinging to the dark hair that patterned his chest and torso, the muscles of his shoulders and belly taut and quivering…

“Well,” Summer said in a voice she had to struggle to keep steady, “you’re alive.” Riley opened one eye and regarded her morosely as she ducked under a limb of the magnolia. “Helen’s sure she killed you.”

He gave a short gust of laughter. “It’s a wonder she didn’t-damn near gave me a heart attack. Scared the…you-know-what outta me when she screamed like that. Thought for sure I’d got her with the damned clippers.”

“How bad is it?”

He hissed and said “Ouch!” when she lifted up an edge of the bloody shirt, then continued in an airless mutter as she bent over him and began to explore his scalp, combing through the soft, dark thicket of his hair. “Well, it rang my bell, that’s for sure. Must’ve opened a cut, because it’s bleeding quite a bit, but I think it probably looks worse than it is-sure did put the fear a’God into your daughter, anyway… Hey-” he drew back, laughing silently “-how come your hands are shaking? What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“An animal doctor,” she reminded him. “Hold still, please. I’m not used to working on humans.” His body was so hot she felt on fire…his scent burned like brandy in her throat.

“So, why don’t you just pretend I’m an animal?”

“Good idea-hold still, Rex…” And when he turned, his breath caressed her sweat-damp breasts like a cooling breeze…

“Rex? Ouch!”

“I told you to hold still. There now,” she said in a thickened purr as she restored the folded shirt to its original position and gave it a pat, “that’s a good boy…” She sat back on her heels, trembling inside. “That’s going to need stitches.”

Riley swore. “The hell it is-” He tried to rise, then sank back with a hiss of pain and swore some more. “Don’t know about my foot, though,” he said in a constricted, self-pitying voice. “Hurts like bloody hell.”

“Let me see.” Summer crawled along his side on her hands and knees, then scooted around to face him and lifted his injured foot into her lap. Carefully, she drew off the shoe and set it aside. Funny, she thought dazedly, how vulnerable feet are. Bare feet especially. Men’s feet…

She looked up at Riley, who had leaned forward to stare at the bluish-white, pigeon-egg-size lump on his instep. His eyes lifted to hers and held on. She couldn’t seem to look away from them, even while her fingers delicately manipulated the bones in his foot. His eyes were so close to hers she could see her tiny reflection in the black depths of the pupils.

“Well?” he asked in a cracking voice.

She licked her lips, then murmured, “The skin’s not broken-that’s good. Can you wiggle your toes?” He did so. She moved her hands over his arch-God, how hard it was not to make it a caress-and pressed. “Does this hurt?” He shook his head, and she could feel the faint stirring of air on her hot cheeks. She eased his foot carefully away from her lap and cleared her throat, not once but twice. “Okay, I don’t think anything’s broken. But you should probably have it X-rayed to make sure.”

“The hell with that,” Riley growled. “Help me up. A little ice…some Advil…I’ll be fine.”

She got quickly to her feet. “Can you stand on it?” He gave her a look, and a moment later, with her help, he did. “Do you want your shoe?” He nodded, and then held his breath against the pain while she knelt down and eased it onto his foot. And when she rose up again, making it seem like such a natural thing Riley couldn’t think of a way to avoid it, she’d somehow eased herself in under his arm and had taken some of his weight on her own shoulders.

She’s comfortable like this, he thought unhappily as they made slow progress up the wooded slope, through the shrubbery and across the lawn. This was her natural place-helping… doing for… taking care of… others. Always others

He found himself thinking about the other night in the FBI garage, how he’d enjoyed watching her work on his injured finger, and the way she’d seemed to forget herself and her womes for that brief time. And how intensely attracted to her he’d been. Now here he was, under very similar circumstances, and while he was finding her no less attractive-if anything, more so-he couldn’t seem to derive the same enjoyment from the situation.

To distract himself from the pain he was in, he let his analytical mind have a go at solving the puzzle, but couldn’t come up with any answers. Except to conclude that, while he had no problem with Summer Robey in the role of ministering angel, sometime between last Monday night and this Saturday morning he’d decided he did not like being the one she was ministering to. And what in the hell was that all about? God help him, he didn’t know. But something had changed.

It was obvious to Summer, when David intercepted them on the flagstone patio just outside Riley’s study, that he’d been looking for them. He looked upset, and uncharacteristically angry. And she thought, Uh-oh, now what?

Whatever he’d been angry about, he forgot it instantly when he saw Riley. His mouth dropped open in dismay and his brows drew inward, and he didn’t even seem to hear when Summer asked him about Helen. His eyes were huge and violet with anxiety as they clung to Riley, and his voice was hoarse as he asked, “Is he hurt bad, Mom? Is he gonna be okay?”

“I’m fine,” Riley growled, drawing himself staunchly erect. Shunning Summer’s help, he hobbled to the French doors. “Just a bruised foot and a little cut on my head-don’t know what your mother’s making such a fuss about.”

The worry didn’t leave David’s eyes, but he eagerly nodded. “Yeah, I know, sometimes she does that.” He lurched in front of Riley, clumsy as a puppy in his efforts to get to the French door first. “But…are you sure you’re okay?” he asked as he held it open for them. “Honestly? You look terrible. You got blood all over-”

“Looks worse than it is,” Riley cut in. “Trust me-I’ll live.”

Men, Summer thought. “Hey-” she said in a low voice as she clamped a hand on her son’s shoulder just in time to prevent him from dogging Riley’s heels right on into his study, “I want to know where your sister is-right now.”

“I don’t know!” David wiggled his shoulder impatiently out of her grasp. He threw an anxious look after Riley’s retreating back, then turned on Summer, the anger once again hot in his eyes as he hissed, “Mom, what if she really did hurt him, bad-huh? What if he gets mad at us? Then what?”

“David-”

“What if he tells us we can’t stay here anymore, Mom?” His voice was quivering, tears unbearably close. “It’s all Helen’s fault-it is. She just goes and does stuff, you know? What if-”

“That’s not going to happen.” Summer kept her tone brisk because she understood her son’s worry too well, and knew how dangerous gentleness would be just then-for both of them. She put her arm around her son’s thin shoulders and pulled him in for a quick encouraging hug as they walked together into the house. “Okay? Now-you know what you can do for Mr. Riley? Go and get a tray of ice out of the freezer-use the oven mitt so it doesn’t stick to your finger!” The last was a shout, as David was already halfway to the kitchen.

Summer went into the hallway and found it empty.

“Up here,” said Riley quietly.

She lifted her gaze to the stair landing. He looked back at her, his hands braced on the railing. After a long, silent moment, she took a deep breath and exhaled it in a sigh. “I suppose you heard that.”

He nodded and said gruffly, “That boy worries too much,” then he turned to continue his slow progress up the stairs.

Summer caught up with him near the top. “He’s trying to grow up too fast,” she said, slightly out of breath. But the ache in her chest had nothing to do with exertion. “Since his father left…”

Riley didn’t say anything, but she sensed a flinching withdrawal in him, as if he were an animal she’d touched in a sensitive spot, and too well-trained to bite.

Knowing that in those circumstances it was best to move as quickly as possible past the sore place, she said cheerfully, “David’s getting some ice. Cold compresses should help that foot. But I still think you ought to have that cut looked at. How long has it been since you had a tetanus shot?”

He threw her an irritable look. “I don’t need a damn tetanus shot Look-” as if regretting his retort, he held up a hand and took a calming breath “-if you think I’m going to spend my Saturday afternoon sitting in a hospital emergency room, you’re crazy.” And then, almost as a double-take, he added, “You’re a vet-why can’t you sew me up?”

Summer’s response was a close imitation of his, without the irritation. “I could, if I had the proper supplies. Look, if you think I’m going to put stitches in your head with a sewing needle and thread-and you a lawyer?-you’re crazy.”

He gave a short bark of laughter, then his face darkened again. “Well, I’m not going to the hospital.”

Summer almost smiled; he sounded so much like a balky little boy. Like David in a snit. Instead, she gave a put-upon sigh. “Lord above, you’re a stubborn man. All right, I guess I’ll have to see what I can do. Please tell me you at least have a first aid kit?”

He did, in the mudroom. David came clumping up the stairs just then, out of breath, eyes sparkling with his eagerness to help, so Summer took the ice tray and oven mitt from him and sent him back down for the first aid kit. Then she turned to Riley. “Okay, where do you want me to do this?”

“I don’t know-I guess the bathroom’s the best place.” He turned and marched down the hallway and through a doorway.

Hurrying after him, Summer found herself a moment later in another of those circumstances she would never in a million years have ever expected to be-in Riley Grogan’s bedroom. She had time only for brief impressions: the warmth of honey toned wood; soft green walls and furnishings in deep, mysterious blues, colors that were repeated in the Persian rugs and in the framed art-mostly watercolors-that hung on the walls. Somehow she knew they weren’t prints, not even the signed, limited-edition kind. It’s so like him, she thought. This room, like everything about him, was handsome and graceful, classy and elegant, well-ordered and…not impersonal, exactly, but… intensely private. Like everything about him. Except us. The children, the animals and me. We don’t belong here. We don’t fit.

Riley hobbled across the room without stopping. Summer followed him through a pair of open double doors at the far end, through a dressing room larger than most bedrooms, with walls lined with built-in shelves, drawers and closets in the same golden wood-no wonder he always looks so nice, she thought, trying not to stare-and into what was simply the biggest and most luxurious bathroom she had ever seen.

“My word,” she breathed, staring in frank awe at an enormous tile-enclosed whirlpool tub in a sky-lighted alcove filled with blooming orchids, “does it come with dancing handmaidens, too?”

“Of course,” said Riley, without missing a beat. “But I thought it best to give them all a vacation of unspecified duration-”

“-with pay, of course,” Summer chimed in with a nod and a wry smile. She looked around, hands on her hips. She thought, it’s like being inside his skin… His scent, the unique and indefinable man-smell along with touches of soap and aftershave, mingled with the residual dampness of his morning shower, seemed to hang in the air like fog. It was inescapable; it permeated her being with every breath she took.

“Okay, well… here, I guess-” she indicated the commode, lowered the seat and lid “-it may be tried and true, but it’s still the best place.” She looked Riley in the eye, gave the lid a pat and said firmly, “Rex-sit.”

He gave her a look and a snort of surprised laughter, but obeyed. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he remarked as he surrendered his shirt to her outstretched hand.

“Oh, yeah,” she said dryly. Okay then-this seemed to be the way to handle the situation-keep it light. Silliness and banter. Jokes. She could do this. With a shallow breath of relief, she dropped the shirt onto the floor and bent over him. “Okay, let’s have a look…”

Oh, how wrong she’d been. Light banter and silly jokes were no match for the wave of sensation that washed over her the moment she touched him. She’d doctored angry pythons and terrified pit bulls with steady hands and nerves of steel, dealt with traumatized horses and fighting, clawing cats without a qualm. So why, as she felt the damp silkiness of this man’s hair on her fingertips, was her heart in her throat and her belly filled with knots?

She had to ask him to bend down, but found that she could only whisper it. Why, when every inch of her seemed soaked in sweat, did her mouth feel dry as dust?

And instead of doing as she’d asked, Riley simply looked at her. Time stopped. Suddenly, for Summer, the world consisted of the busiest, noisiest silence she’d ever heard, empty of words but filled with booming pulses and humming nerves, crowded with unspoken messages, discoveries, declarations… denials. This can’t be happening!

But the thought was there in her mind, plain as day and delicious as sin, the same one she could see in the eyes that held hers in thrall with their hot, smoky look, intoxicating as whiskey. He wanted to kiss her. And she wanted him to kiss her. Oh, yes, she could see it in his eyes, in the pulse that throbbed at the base of his throat, in the sudden, reflexive tightening of his hands on his thighs; hear it in his quickened breathing; feel it in the heat that rose from him in almost palpable waves to envelop her like a wet towel. She could taste it-taste him-smooth skin over firm muscle, sweat-slick on her lips, salt on her tongue…the sweet, salty taste of a man’s sweat… Oh, God, it had been so long.

Her stomach knotted and coiled. Almost on a level with his ears! Would he hear it? She was trembling inside. If she touched him now, he would have to know!

“Mom! Mom, where are you guys?” Summer closed her eyes as sneakers squeaked on tile. “Oh, there you are. Is this it? I looked where you told me to and it wasn’t there, so I just looked around and…I found it.”

She turned to take the large metal box from her son’s proudly outstretched hands. “Yes, honey, thanks-that looks like just what we need.” Behind her she could hear Riley take a quick, deep breath and let it out, long and slow. Her own heart was racing like a panic-stricken rabbit’s, but her voice was calm, and her hands, she was pleased to note as she placed the first aid kit on the countertop and popped the latch, did not shake.

“Can I watch?”

“No, you may not. What you are going to do, young man, is go and look for your sister. Now. You got that? And don’t come back until you’ve found her.”

David addressed an unhappy “Yes, ma’am” to his shoes.

Riley watched as Summer took the boy’s face in her hands and tilted it up for a quick kiss, then turned him around and gave him a firm but gentle push toward the door. And he felt a familiar ache forming like sickness in his chest

He heard her take a quick breath as she turned back to the counter and the box of first aid supplies. “Well, now, let’s see what we’ve got.”

She kept her eyes averted, he noticed, carefully avoiding looking at him, or at her own image in the mirrors that stretched the whole length of the counter. There were mirrors behind her, too, and Riley watched her without her knowledge as she sorted through the kit, taking out what she needed and setting it carefully aside on the tile. He studied her angular, almost patrician profile, noticing the way her hair grew in a cowlick on one side of her forehead and gave her face a quirky, slightly asymmetrical look; noticing that when she wore it pulled up in a ponytail like that, it showed darker, almost doe-brown underneath, with streaks of sun-yellow above; noticing the soft tendrils of drying hair that wafted around her temples and along her neck. Oh, she did have a lovely neck…

Once she raised her head, tilted it slightly but without looking directly at him and murmured, “Cotton swabs?” Distracted, he indicated the drawer he thought the most likely, and she nodded and went to look, giving a nod and a satisfied “Ah” when she found them.

She turned to the sink then, and Riley went back to studying her while she turned on the water and let it run hot, pumped liquid soap and worked it into a lather, which she slathered all the way up above her elbows. She had long, firmly toned arms…strong, broad shoulders…supple back…slender waist.

Thank God, he thought, she wasn’t ever going to know how close he’d been to putting his hands on that waist, spanning that firm and supple back and, if she was willing, pulling her down astride him right there where he sat. And if he was lucky, she was never going to know how much he still wanted to do that very thing, or guess that even now he could feel the weight of her smooth-muscled thighs pressing on his, feel the moist heat of her body soaking through his old shirt…imagine himself opening it, and the slick-slippery meeting of her breasts with his chest…the slap of her belly against his…the taste of her mouth, the feel of those supple, mobile lips moving under his…the ripe-peaches smell of her hair…and her hands, those strong, no-nonsense hands making imprints in the muscles of his back…

“Ready?” Was it his imagination, or did she sound as breathless as he felt, standing there looking at him with her eyes alight, drying her hands on a towel. She handed him the towel almost absentmindedly; he took it and gave his face and neck, shoulders and torso a cursory wipe with it before laying it across his lap-a seemingly casual act, but oh, how grateful he was for that towel just then.

“I could sure use a shower,” he muttered. A cold one.

“You can shower when I’m finished…I’ll lend you one of my shower caps, if you like.” She was frowning at his scalp. “Am I to assume you’d rather I didn’t shave off too much of your hair? Just kidding.”

Riley snorted. “You’re a regular not, Doc.”

“Gee…my other patients don’t seem to mind. Okay, hold the towel up to your face while I pour some of this hydrogen peroxide into the cut…little bit more…okay, that’s good. Now some antiseptic…”

“Ouch!”

“Don’t be a baby…the sting just means-”

“It’s doing its job, I know. Hurry it up, will you?”

“Almost done. Now-I’d like to put a couple of these little butterfly bandages across the cut to close it, but I’ll have to snip off just a lit-tle teeny bit of hair. Is that going to be okay? You won’t even see it, I promise.”

Lord, how vain did she think he was? “Do it,” he muttered. “Get it over with.” He closed his eyes and held his breath; it wasn’t pain he was trying his best to shut out, but her scent, her nearness. His stomach growled; he was helpless to stop it.

“Hmm,” she said softly, her voice just a breath away from his ear, “that’s right, I guess you never did get to eat your waffles, did you? They’re still there, you know, in the kitchen. When we’re done here, I can warm them up for you, if you like. They’ll crisp up nicely in the toaster.”

There it was again-that mystifying little irritation. She sounded like somebody’s mother. Which definitely wasn’t what he wanted from her, not then. Not ever. “Gee, Doc,” he said sarcastically, “do you normally offer your patients blueberry waffles after surgery?”

“No…I usually give them doggy treats…okay-that’s it. Done.” She stood back, her eyes innocent. “Beatle probably wouldn’t mind sharing some of hers, if you’d prefer.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or growl; what he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. He might have done it that time, and the hell with the consequences, if at that moment David had not come bursting through the doorway at that pace all children seem to prefer, somewhere just below a dead run. Right behind him was the beetle-dog, her toenails clickety-clicking on the tile.

“Mom-” naturally he was out of breath “-I looked and looked, and I can’t find her anywhere. I called, and even Beatle helped search. Helen’s gone, Mom, I swear. She just vanished.”