Kick him, she decided, because she was quivering and not just from the pain.

With a surprised yelp, he fell to his butt on the tile. Watching her with a wary eye, he came back up on his knees and put his hands on his hips. “You feel better now?”

“Um, yes,” she admitted. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” He gently pushed back the flowing sleeve of the robe and gave her left arm the same treatment as he’d given her leg. “There.”

Around them, with hot water running into the tub, the bathroom became steamy. Closed in.

Standing, Ben let out a tight smile. “So. How are we going to do this? The easy way or the hard way?”

She clutched the robe to her chest. “I can manage from here.”

“The hard way, then,” he muttered. “Great.” He tossed her the pretty pink loofah hanging from the shower head and turned his back to her-his broad shoulders, wavy, wild hair and attitude all mocking her. “Manage away.”

She glanced at the full bubbling bath and the loofah in her hand. She could just dip it in and wash her body, and it sounded like heaven. But… “Not with you standing right there.”

With a long-suffering sigh, he dropped his head between his shoulders, defining an irritated male. “My eyes are closed.”

“Yes, but-”

“But nothing, Rachel. You want to wash or not?”

She looked at the glorious steam rising from the tub. Did she want to get clean? Only more than her next breath. “Yes.”

“Then do it. You’re shaking like a damn leaf on the first day of autumn.” He craned his neck and looked at her. “And no, I’m not leaving. I want to make sure you don’t fall.”

Concern filled his eyes. She wondered if he even knew it. “Just keep your eyes closed.” She managed to pull herself up to a stand and dropped her robe, watched it pool at her feet. Black dots danced in her vision, but she blinked them away, imagining her hair soft and silky from a real washing, her skin smooth and clean from the tip of her head to her toes. Naked, anticipating, only a few breaths away from collapsing, she went to sit on the edge of the tub.

But it was terribly awkward, and put too much pressure on her healing ribs and pelvis.

“What’s the matter?” His back was to her, eyes still closed.

She knew this because she kept peeking at his reflection in the mirror to make sure he wasn’t cheating. “Nothing.” She tried again, and wanted to cry. Damn it, only a month ago she was in the finest shape of her life! “Ben…”

He whipped around so fast she got even dizzier, and as if he already knew, Ben grabbed her. Embarrassment chased anger, chased a bombardment of sensations…like did the man’s hands feel good on her body, which brought her back to anger because they were Ben’s hands, and it wasn’t sexual, it was survival. He had her naked body plastered to his fully clothed one, and was completely supporting her weight. She felt her face heat, felt her throat heat, felt everything heat.

He had one arm across her back, one lower, across her bare butt, his hand gripping a cheek. “Ben.” She lifted her face, and found her mouth an inch from his. But it wasn’t their proximity that backed her breath up in her throat. It was the look in his eyes. Dark, intensely speculative and so hot she couldn’t have drawn air into her lungs to save her life. “You…can let me go now,” she said in a funny feathery voice she hardly recognized.

“Yeah.” But she would have sworn his arms actually tightened, including the hand on her butt, before he slowly released her, sitting her back on the commode. “You okay?”

No. No, she wasn’t. “Fine,” she said through clenched teeth because her body had reacted without permission. Her nipples were two hard tight points and her legs had gone mushy, not to mention what was happening between them. A shiver trailed over her skin as his breath tickled down the side of her neck, and she let out a sound that shocked her with its neediness.

Further shocking her, Ben nibbled in the exact spot he’d breathed on, nuzzling the side of her throat and the curve of her shoulder until her bones liquefied. “Should I close my eyes again, Rachel?”

Her heart jerked, then again as he dragged his mouth over her flesh. “Yes!”

He didn’t. In fact he kept them wide-open and all over her. He slid one hand up her hip to her waist, then a little higher, gliding his thumb up and down over her skin, on the heavy underside of a breast. “I’ve seen it all before.”

“A long time ago.” She felt like a marshmallow, a melting marshmallow over a slow, perfect flame. “Close ’em.”

“You’re even more amazing now than you were then, and I remember you as pretty damn amazing.”

She crossed her casted arm over her breasts and tried to not think about the parts he could still see quite clearly. “Is…that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Well…” He let out a low, nipple-hardening laugh. “Looking at you is making me feel better.”

“Close your eyes,” she said through her teeth. “Or find out how hard a cast is over your head.”

He tilted his head and studied her while his hands took another slow pass at the flesh plumped out beneath the cast. “So you’re going to ignore the fact that every time we’re within two feet of each other we nearly spontaneously combust?”

With great effort, she lifted her bag-covered left arm warningly.

His eyes stayed right on hers instead of the breasts she’d exposed. “You’re a glutton for punishment, babe.” But he sighed and closed his eyes. “Okay.”

Babe. He hadn’t called her “babe” in…well, thirteen years.

More steam escaped from the tub, swirling around them, creating an ambiance of intimacy. Ben stood right there, a breath away, hair falling over his forehead, eyes closed, a sexy little smile curving his lips. Inviting. Beguiling.

All it would take was one word from her, even a touch, and he’d jump in without looking, jump right into a relationship with her again, or at least a sexual one.

But she never jumped without looking, and certainly not with a man with a foot already half out the door.

All she had to do was get better and he’d be gone, she reminded herself as she soaped her body. So that’s what she’d do, she’d get better, fast as she possibly could.


THE RESTLESSNESS was going to kill her. Early dawn light filtered in Rachel’s room as she struggled to get herself out of bed the next morning. She reached for her wheelchair, then hesitated.

Her various aches and pains seemed to be lessening every day, albeit slightly, and she decided today was the day she tried to go without the dreaded, hated chair. She wanted to walk, damn it, and determined to do just that, she grabbed the cane she’d gotten from the physical therapist yesterday, the one who planned to torture her today as well.

Carefully, holding her breath, she stood. Wobbled, but held her own. So far so good. She felt unsteady and weak, ready to collapse at the slightest breeze.

But upright was upright and she’d take it. The early morning was silent as she made her slow, painful progress to the bedroom door. Opening it, she saw the hall was still in shadow. The only light came from a glow from a night-light in the hall bathroom. Shuffling her way down the hall she peeked in. On the counter sat a dark blue toothbrush. Not Emily’s.

Ben’s.

Funny how just one piece of plastic could cause such conflicting emotions. Late last night when she hadn’t been able to sleep, he’d come into her room with a deck of cards and had taught her naughty card games he’d picked up in Nigeria. Or somewhere.

The man was something. He’d had her laughing. Laughing.

She made it to her studio for the first time since the accident. Just walking in here used to set her creative juices flowing. She’d yank open her shades on the wall of windows, grin with pure joy at the sight of South Village in full swing far below and go to work.

She waited for some of that joy to hit her. Even just a little.

Nothing. Nothing but a tightening in her chest that suggested panic. And exhaustion from the exertion of getting here.

Her easel was set up, with a blank sheet of paper on it. Just as she’d left it on the day of the accident. There was a note on the pad, with her own words teachers versus administration written on it. She stared down at it blankly, knowing she’d written that before being slammed by a car, before hitting the pavement at thirty miles per hour, knowing the words should signify what she intended Gracie’s next strip to be about… But for the life of her she couldn’t remember writing the words, much less what she’d intended.

It didn’t matter anyway…it was just a cartoon.

Helplessness and uselessness had become old friends since that day, and they hit her again now. Suddenly she wanted to do something new, something…important. She thought of Ben’s work, and how many people he’d helped, and closed her eyes. Frustration choked her. She wondered how long someone could live with so much frustration before just blowing up.

She weaved, her muscles violently trembling with the strain of being upright, forcing her to sit in the love seat. She gripped the cushions at her sides and refused to give in to defeat. How she was going to get back up and to her room without asking for help was beyond her-especially since that help would probably come in the form of a tall, sleepy, sexy man-but she wouldn’t ask.

She’d stay right where she was, thank you very much.

Staring around the room that used to be her favorite haven, she fought tears and wondered how her life had come to feel like a prison. Nothing was the same. Not her job, not Emily, who didn’t seem to need her anymore, not her house, not anything she’d counted on to be constant and calming and hers.

Certainly not with Ben’s undeniably demanding presence. A presence she should be grateful for, as she knew what it cost him to be caged here. But because of him, even her relationship with Emily had changed. She’d watched her daughter turn to someone else for comfort and love. The loss of their closeness, which was all Rachel seemed to have at the moment, left her on shaky ground, and she covered her face with her hands.

“Rachel.”

Jerking her head up, she faced the one man who’d always shattered any control she’d had. Too bad she had none left to shatter. “Damn it, you went away once. Why won’t you go away now?”

“You going to start with that again?” He pushed away from the doorway and came toward her. From the look of his messed-up hair, bare chest and low-slung sweats, at least one of them had been sleeping last night. Irrationally, she resented him for that, too.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“Walked.”

“You did?” He looked shocked. “You should have called for me to help you. You working?”

“Yeah.” With a bitter laugh, she gestured to her empty easel. “Working away.”

“Rachel-” He broke off when the phone rang, and since it was right by his elbow, he grabbed it without so much as asking if she minded.

“Hello?” His face went tense. “I thought you were going to call me back on my cell- Yes…you’ve got a lead on him?” Ben glanced at Rachel, eyes grim, jaw bunching, and went quiet as he listened. Given how his eyes narrowed, the news wasn’t good.

“Who is it?” she asked, only to be completely ignored. “Ben.”

He actually put up a hand silencing her. She glared at him, furious, but somehow her gaze ended up on his chest, then his flat, ridged belly, and the way his sweats sagged nearly down far enough to see-

“I’ll be right down,” he said, disconnecting with deceptive calm while danger rolled off him in waves. “I’ve got to run,” he said, one hundred and eighty pounds of carefully controlled temper.

“Who was that?”

“Tell Em I’ll be back for breakfast.”

“Ben-”

He was already at the door, but with an oath, he came back. Cupping her head with incredibly gentle hands, he tipped her face up. “It’ll be okay,” he said making a heartbreaking promise she didn’t understand but wanted to.

“Ben-”

“Shh.” He let his lips meet hers in a sweet, clinging kiss. “I’ll be back.”

Yes, but how to tell him that’s what she was afraid of?

She brought her fingers up to her lips and watched him go, wondering why she’d let him kiss her.

Because she’d lost her mind, that’s why. He’d been trying to distract her, and damn it, it had worked.

Struck by an overwhelming curiosity, she picked up the receiver of her phone and checked caller ID.

Unavailable.

Rachel lifted her head and stared at the door where Ben had just vanished.

From downstairs she heard the front door shut.

He was gone. Gone to meet someone…unavailable.