07 It Had to Be You Read online

  “You’re not paying to stay here at all,” she pointed out. “I mean it, Jake, that was the stupidest thing—” She broke off when he sank back to the bench, lifting his left hand to rub his shoulder. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Yes, he hurt like hell, and was damn tired of it, too. “I’m fine. Thanks for the lecture. You can get back to work.”

  “Let me see.”

  “What? No.”

  “Take off your shirt.”

  A laugh choked out of him. “Didn’t we do this in reverse a week ago?”

  “Here—” Impatient, she unbuttoned his shirt herself, her tongue caught between her teeth with concentration.

  Jake stared at that tongue while her fingers brushed his bare skin, sweeping the material off his chest and shoulders. “I decided sleeping with you again would be extremely detrimental to my mental health. So I’m begging you, put that tongue away.”

  Ignoring him, she touched his scar, from armpit to the tip of his shoulder. “You didn’t split anything.”

  “No.” Apparently his lower body didn’t get the memo about not sleeping with her, because it was reacting to her touch. “The incision’s closed.”

  “But it hurts?”

  “Only when I breathe.”

  Her fingers kneaded lightly, in a motion that was both torture and pleasure. “You’re not massaging it enough. The scar tissue is stiff.” She dug in with her fingers, stopping when he sucked in a pained breath. “Too hard?”

  “Nah.” Sweat broke out on his brow.

  Shaking her head, she let out an irked mutter and continued to massage his shoulder and scar, manipulating it much the same way his physical therapist had. “You hanging in?” she asked a few minutes later.

  He decided not to answer that because he wasn’t sure. Eventually she stopped and pushed him back to the bench when he would have risen. “Stay,” she said, and whirled away, only to come back a moment later and set an ice pack on him, making him yelp at the cold. “Ten minutes, you big baby.”

  “Damn, such a bedside manner. Are you this kind to all the men in your life?”

  “You could ask my ex. I once held his own shotgun on him.”

  He shuddered. “And here I thought you were so sweet. Why did you get married so young?”

  “Besides being stupid?” She lifted a shoulder. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She touched his ice pack. “It’s a little pathetic, actually.”

  “Well, I’m feeling a little pathetic myself. Tell me.”

  “It’s just the same old poor neglected kid story. You know, where no one looks at the girl twice, so when a guy finally does…” She shrugged again, looking embarrassed. “I fell for Matt hard. Hook, line, and sinker.”

  “You got your heart broken.”

  “I lived.” She smiled grimly. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  “Yeah, you are,” he said. “And softer, too.”

  She looked at the weights that had nearly strangled him. “I still can’t believe what an asinine move that was.”

  “Gee, don’t hold back.”

  “I never will.” She looked at his shoulder. “Your father fell off the barn roof once. He’d been up there fixing a leak, insisting he knew what he was doing—he didn’t, by the way, but he was so stubborn. I guess I know where you get that.”

  “I’m not like him.”

  “How would you know?” she asked softly. “I mean, in all the years I was here before he died. I never saw you here. How come?”

  “Did he talk to you about that?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, there’s your answer.”

  “You mean he never asked you to come?”

  Pride dictated he change the subject, but he decided to tell her the truth instead. “Not since I was twelve and told him I wanted to be a big city firefighter.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “His loss then, for believing a twelve-year-old could possibly already know what he wanted in life.”

  “I did know what I wanted. I wanted him to work a little harder at wanting me.” The minute the words slipped out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. They were too open, too raw, and far too revealing.

  “His loss,” she repeated gently, and adjusted his ice pack again. “I remember being twelve. I’d see other kids getting rides to school. They’d have a sack lunch, or money. A hug if they wanted. It all seemed so normal.” Her wistful tone and soft breath brushed over his skin. “I used to wish for that.”

  Him, too. Knowing he’d missed out, he’d tried to give a sense of normality to Tucker, though he’d failed miserably.

  “When I landed here, I felt as if I’d come home for the first time in my life.” Her fingers danced over his skin lightly. He wasn’t even sure she realized she was doing it; he just didn’t want her to stop. “Richard was everything to me,” she said. “He taught me so much, accepted so much.”

  Was she waiting for him to say he’d made a mistake in not coming here sooner? Because he wasn’t going to. That street had gone two ways, and as she’d said, he’d only been a kid. Richard could have reached out, too, and the age-old resentment balled up in his gut. “Yeah, he was a real saint.”

  “Oh, Jake.” Her smile was so sad. “He was so much more than I’d ever had before, yes, but I wasn’t blind. He loved this place over and beyond all else.”

  “Including his own flesh and blood.”

  “Including his own flesh and blood,” she agreed. “It was just who he was. Stubborn as a bull, hard-headed to boot, and God forbid anyone not agree with him. He knew what he wanted at all times and didn’t understand why everyone else didn’t want the same thing. He could be”—her smile was wry—“curmudgeonly. Difficult.”

  “An ass.”

  “Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” she said loyally. “But the truth is, most of his employees worked hard for him because he paid well and fair, but he wasn’t loved by any stretch of the imagination.”

  Off-kilter and off balance, he looked at her. “At his funeral service, you were furious with me for not grieving. Why tell me all this now? What’s changed in me?”

  “Maybe it’s not you who changed.”

  “And maybe it’s both of us,” he said quietly. “Maybe I’m rethinking things, too.”

  “Your life has changed.”

  “Drastically.”

  “And it makes you sad.”

  “Extremely.”

  “I’d say I’m sorry but I don’t want you to think I’m pitying you.” She smiled softly. “But have you thought that maybe changing your life’s path could turn out to be a good thing? That you can find something just as rewarding as firefighting?”

  “I’m not that evolved.”

  Her radio chirped and she rose. “Lie still and cool your shoulder down.”

  After she’d gone, he tried to stay still, which he managed for five minutes. Restless, he tossed aside the ice pack and stood, carefully rolling his shoulder, telling himself he didn’t hurt any worse than usual. A lie. Fire burned all the way from his throat to his fingertips. Buttoning his shirt, he walked down the hall of the house, which was quiet. Too quiet.

  Now that he’d nearly killed himself in the weight room, he’d exhausted all options of self-entertainment. He wished for something to occupy him, to take his mind off everything. At home that want would be sex. Sex on the lunch table. Sex for dessert. Sex, sex, sex.

  Now he’d be happy to have someone to sit with and talk to.

  Christ, he was getting old. He needed to sell and get out of there. Go back to his life.

  But his stomach dropped a little because deep, deep down he was afraid of the truth—that the life he wanted to get back to no longer existed.

  He stepped out of the house into the warm spring day.

  Goose rushed to the edge of the grass, neck out, prepared to attack. Jake actually imagined the obnoxious thing as the spirit of his father, cursing hi