Christie Ridgway - Can't Fight This Feeling

The next thing she knew, he had hold of one of her forearms. “What?” she said, instinct causing her to try tugging free.

His clasp was gentle but firm. “Checking for damage. You went down hard. Not uncommon to sprain a finger that way. Break your wrist.”

He was running a warm, callous hand over her, from fingertips to wrist in a calming gesture. Inside she was quivering. On the outside, she kept still as he moved each finger individually, then rotated her wrist. “Hurt anywhere?”

She shook her head. He let that arm go, only to take up the other one. His thumb stroked the tender inside of her wrist, where the veins seemed to be scrambling like every clear thought in her head. She was pure sensation: hot skin, thrumming pulse, a heartbeat loud in her ears.

The edge of his thumb traced the outside of hers, then probed the triangle of flesh between it and her forefinger. “Tender?”

She shook her head. That was him, his ministrations so gentle they made her ache.

“Sensitive?”

This time she nodded, because his touch made her so aware of the difference between the two of them. He was hard male; she was soft female. He could be the port she needed in the current storm that was her life. One move would put her against him, and she could cling to all that muscled strength. Lean on him to hold her up.

But men had only disappointed her before, and remembering that, she snapped back to reality and stepped away.

Brett’s eyes narrowed, which reminded her again that he didn’t even like her. “You could have a snuffbox injury—scaphoid fracture—if you’re in pain there.”

“I’m fine,” she said again. “Really.”

He studied her face. “What’s going on?”

My father has been arrested for fraud. Our family properties have been confiscated and all his accounts have been frozen. Before being taken into custody, my dad siphoned off all my personal monies saved from my time modeling and from my trust, and he put them who knows where or used them for who knows what. I have no place to live, no money to live on, and I broke into my former home so I could collect some things beyond the clothes on my back.

“My father’s putting this place up for sale,” she said, lying again.

Brett’s gaze ran around the gourmet kitchen, where copper pans hung from a rack and spices were lined up on a shelf. He looked at the couches and chairs in the adjacent family room. “With all this stuff inside?”

“Uh-huh. Will add to the value as a very famous interior designer picked out everything from the paint colors to the window coverings to the custom furnishings.”

His mouth curled. “I just bet.”

It wasn’t as if she’d expected him to be impressed. “Anyway, there was a mix-up and I didn’t get a chance to pack my suitcases or retrieve my passport from the safe in the den.”

“That is a headache,” he said, though she wasn’t sure he accepted that as a logical explanation for why she was skulking around.

She smiled anyway. “So...I’m just going to make a quick trip upstairs and dump a few things in a bag. The rest I’ll get another day.” Without taking her eyes off him, she moved backward, heading in the direction of the stairs. “See you around.”

He prowled toward her. “I’ll go with you.”

“No!” She swallowed, modulating her voice. “No, no. You don’t need to do that.” While months ago she might have swooned at the idea of having him in her bedroom, now wasn’t the time to have him in there, distracting her.

“I’ve seen women’s underwear before,” he said.

Of course he had. “Not my underwear.” Curses! That had come out a little...throaty. Flirtatious even.

One of his brows winged up. “I’ll close my eyes when you go through that particular drawer.”

She’d reached the bottom of the staircase and put one hand on the newel. “This is completely unnecessary—”

“It’s completely necessary. There have been burglaries in the area. I don’t feel right leaving you here alone.”

“You didn’t worry about me being alone all summer,” she retorted, then felt her cheeks go hot. That sounded like a complaint from a silly woman with an even sillier crush. “Never mind,” she muttered, and turned to stomp up the stairs. Arguing would only prolong this whole embarrassing encounter.

Still trying to do her business without attracting the attention of anyone who knew she shouldn’t be in the house, she only allowed herself to turn on the closet light. If Brett wondered about that and why she pulled the curtains across her windows first, he didn’t say a word. Instead, he just stood in the middle of her rug, hands in his pockets, while she hurriedly packed two suitcases and gathered up her toiletries from the bathroom and put them in a smaller bag.

The only noise he made was when she tried to stack all three pieces of luggage in preparation for wheeling them out the door. “You can’t take them down the stairs that way,” he said. One went under his arm, the other he gripped in his right hand, the third he took up in his left. “This all?”

“Yes.” She gritted her teeth and tried sounding gracious. “Thanks.” For months she’d wanted a bit of his attention and now it was coming at the lowest point of her life when she couldn’t even enjoy it.

Maybe because he didn’t seem to be enjoying it.

Great.

They made it outside and she locked up after setting the alarm. The key went into her pocket instead of its hiding place behind the mailbox. She’d return it later.

Brett didn’t comment as he followed her to her car, which she’d parked down the road. If he asked why she’d avoided the driveway...

She hadn’t a clue. Trying to think up some excuse only gave her the beginnings of that headache she’d laid claim to earlier.

He must have seen it. Because after placing her things in the trunk of her car, he studied her face with a new intensity. “Cool compress on your forehead. Pain relievers,” he said. “Rest.”

“Yeah.”

“You have someone to take care of you?”

No. I realize now I never have. “Sure.”

“Okay.” Still, he hesitated. “You’re certain everything’s okay? There’s nothing I should know about?”

He’d never wanted to know anything about her. “Yes.”

“Good.” He touched one fingertip to her cheek. “Because if I find out differently, there’ll be hell to pay.”

CHAPTER TWO

AT BLUE ARROW LAKE’S Hallett Hardware, Angelica stood at the rear, stocking lightbulbs, her tension unwinding with every minute she arranged the cardboard boxes on the shelves. Working at her part-time job was one of the few things that made her feel at peace these days. She’d taken the job before the financial disaster as a lark to help out her friend Glory Hallett when the other woman had lost an employee.

There was something soothing about unpacking cartons. The task was defined. It had purpose. A customer would come in, needing a 40-watt candelabra bulb, and she’d know exactly where to direct them. Better, she could convince them that the more expensive energy-efficient halogen bulb would be the best choice. Yes, more expensive in the short-term, but in the long run a smarter selection for both economic and environmental reasons.

She supposed some people would laugh themselves sick at the idea of Angelica Rodriguez—she of fancy boarding schools and an expensive women’s college—enjoying work at a hardware store, but it was the first time she’d ever actually earned a paycheck.

Well, there was the modeling she’d done as a youngster, which had paid ridiculously well, but those gigs had been arranged by her mother, and she’d been so self-conscious as she grew older that when she turned twelve the photographer’s assistant had started giving her mojitos before a shoot. The hangovers had been hell, so she’d started packing on the pounds until she’d lost her shot at a modeling career.