Kara Lennox - A Second Chance

She switched on the flashlight. “I can’t see anything. It’s pitch-black and I should be seeing blue sky. There’s definitely something stopping up the chimney.”

“Maybe we should go at it from outside.”

She emerged from the oven and climbed off the chair, allowing Luc to give her a hand for support.

“Maybe I should call my dad.”

“No need to bother him,” Luc said. “We can figure this out.”

“Are you willing to get up on the roof?”

“Sure.” In renovating the cottage, he’d gotten used to being up on the roof. “Where’s your ladder?”

She showed him where the ladder was stored, and he leaned it against the roof and climbed up while she watched anxiously. “I could call a chimney sweep.”

“I can handle it,” he said again with more confidence than he felt. He’d never unclogged a chimney before. But how hard could it be?

The roof pitch wasn’t too steep. Luc made his way to the chimney and peered down.

Something hissed at him.

He jumped back. “Holy-”

“What?” Loretta called.

“There’s a creature in there.”

“A creature?” She sounded alarmed. “What kind of creature?”

“Toss me up the flashlight.”

She did, and when he shone it down the chimney, he saw two beady black eyes in a masked face. “Raccoon. And it’s not very happy. I think it’s stuck.”

“Oh, the poor thing! I almost burned it up. Can you get it out?”

Only a complete fool would stick his bare hands inside a chimney with an angry raccoon. They grew big in bayou country. “Can you get me those gloves you used earlier?” They were thick, heat-resistant gloves, similar to the kind firefighters used.

She disappeared inside and returned moments later with the gloves, tossing them up to him. They were a tight fit, but he hoped they would offer some protection if the creature decided to bite.

“Now, maybe if you could push it from below, I could pull it from up here,” he said.

“You’re kidding.”

“Unless you want to take your chimney apart brick by brick-”

“No! I’ll-I’ll get a plunger and try to push with that. At least I won’t hurt it that way.”

Luc liked the way Loretta was worried about the welfare of an animal most people considered a pest. While he waited for her to find a plunger and stick it up the chimney, he looked back down at the raccoon, who was making a low growling noise. This was not a friendly animal. Maybe he should call the fire department and have them deal with this. It wasn’t a cat stuck in a tree, but close enough.

“All right,” Loretta called from below, her voice barely carrying through the obstructed chimney. “I’m ready.”

Sending up a silent prayer that he wouldn’t end up with rabies simply because he wanted to be Loretta’s white knight, Luc reached down the chimney. Sure enough, the first thing the raccoon did was bite him. But his teeth couldn’t penetrate the Kevlar-and-leather glove. Luc grabbed the thing by the scruff of its neck and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Are you pushing?” he called.

“I’m pushing!”

The raccoon came loose like a cork out of a bottle. It freed itself from Luc’s grip, climbed up his arm, over his head and down his back, clawing and hissing and basically scaring the bejeezus out of Luc before breaking free and running wildly for the nearest tree branch.

Luc’s arms windmilled as he tried to regain his balance, but it was hopeless. He fell backward and rolled off the roof, landing with a thunk on the ground.

The fall knocked the wind out of him, but he didn’t think he’d broken anything. He lay there, trying to suck air into his lungs as Loretta came crashing out the back door with the plunger still in her hands.

“Luc! What happened? What was that noise?” She looked up at the roof, expecting to see him, and when she didn’t, she glanced all around, finally spotting him lying on the grass.

Her face crumpled into an expression of horror. “Luc!” She was at his side in an instant. “Are you hurt? What am I saying? You fell off the roof. Of course you’re hurt.”

He opened his mouth to reassure her, but he still wasn’t breathing normally, and all that came out was a croak.

She cupped his face in her hands. “Don’t try to move. I’ll call Doc Landry. He’ll know what to do.” She started to get up, but he grasped her hand before she could escape.

“I’m…okay. Just had…the wind…knocked out of me. Give me…a minute.”

“Are you sure?”

He liked having her worry over him. He liked it a lot, so much that he considered milking this accident for all it was worth. But no, he couldn’t do that. That was the old Luc, the one who wasn’t above manipulating people for his own selfish interests. He’d made a solemn vow not to live like that anymore, to be honest-well, as honest as he could be-with everyone he dealt with.

So he forced himself to push up onto his elbows, then his hands. “I’m fine, Loretta. I’ll have a few bruises and I’ll probably be stiff and sore, but that’s all.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure. I’m just thankful you have a one-story house.”

Still, she helped him to his feet and brushed the leaves and grass off his shirt.

“Oh, you’re bleeding.” She indicated a place on his arm where the raccoon’s claws had dug in during its panicked escape. He probably had a few more claw marks on his head. “Did the raccoon do that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where is it?” She looked around warily.

“Halfway to Mississippi by now. That was one terrified animal.”

“Well, it’s no wonder, after I almost lit its tail on fire. Come on inside. I’ll patch you up and fix you lunch. It’s the least I can do for you after you nearly killed yourself.”

“Don’t you have bread to bake?”

“I always have bread to bake.”

Loretta made him take off his shirt so she could treat a grazed area on his back, where he must have scraped against the rain gutter on his way over the edge of the roof.

As she dabbed antibiotic cream all over his body, the minor pain ebbed and a pleasant tingling took its place. Oh, yeah, he could get used to this. It had been a long time since anyone had cared this much about his welfare, and it felt damn nice.

Nice enough to make him want to rethink the rolling-stone lifestyle he’d enjoyed for most of his adult life.

As she ministered to a nasty gouge near the small of his back, her hand lingered, and Luc tensed. He knew exactly what had snagged her attention-a small, round, slightly puckered scar that could only be one thing. If she asked about it, he would have to tell her the truth. Lying about having a girlfriend had been bad enough.

But she said nothing, and after a moment she continued her first aid.

Relaxing slightly, Luc entertained Loretta by describing his close encounter with nature, playing it up for laughs until she had tears streaming down her face. “It’s not really that funny,” she insisted. “You could have been killed. Next time anything like this comes up, I’m calling in a professional, I don’t care how much it costs.”

LORETTA HAD known Luc was handsome, that he had a good build, but she’d had no idea until she’d seen him shirtless what a gorgeous specimen he truly was. All the hard work he’d done renovating the cottage had given him a hard set of muscles and a golden tan. When he stretched forward so she could put a bandage on his scraped back, she saw a narrow strip of paler flesh peeking out from his jeans, which made her wonder if he wore underwear.

What did they call it when you went without? Going commando?

Her face heated, and she chastised herself for letting her thoughts wander in that direction. She was taking advantage of Luc’s injury to run her hands all over his smooth, muscled back, forgetting that he belonged to another woman.