Kathleen Creighton - One Summer’s Knight

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.