Cara Colter - Passionate Calanettis - Soldier, Hero...Husband?

Even with all that effort, it was hard to ignore the fact he was sharing a house with a woman. No, it seemed his avoidance strategy had made more awareness, not less, tingle along his spine. Her little touches were everywhere in that house: an exquisite painting, a fresh vase of flowers, the smell of toast and coffee in the morning. Her scent was in the air.

And by now it had become apparent to him that all the while he was congratulating himself on his avoidance strategy, the truth was it was so successful because she was avoiding him!

By the fifth day of living under her roof, after succeeding with zero encounters of the Isabella-in-person kind, Connor was not at all sure what his success meant, because he was fairly certain he had never been more aware of another person.

Connor came into the house. It was much earlier than he usually arrived in the afternoon, but he felt a need to change clothes before he went and found a place to eat tonight. It had been another scorching day in Monte Calanetti and he thought he might head to the river for the second time that day.

He paused and listened. Had he managed to get in before she got home from school?

Today, for the first time, he realized he had not been successful in avoiding sharing the house with his appealing roommate. He could hear the one and only shower running upstairs.

Well, that was okay. He would nip into his room and get his swim things and a change of clothes. Isabella wouldn’t even know he’d been in the space. The thought of bumping into her in the hallway, fresh out of the shower, made him hurriedly gather his swim things from his room.

His escape was nearly complete when the sound of an explosion, followed by a woman’s shriek of terror, came from the bathroom. There was a loud thunk .

And then there was the worst thing of all.

Complete and utter silence.

CHAPTER FOUR

WITHOUT EVEN THINKING, doing what came as naturally to him as breathing, Connor threw down his things and ran into the hallway, straight toward the now silent bathroom.

“Isabella? Are you okay?”

There was no answer. He pounded on the door. There was still no answer. He tried the door. It was locked.

“Isabella?”

When there was still no answer, he put his shoulder to the door. The old wood cracked with ease and the door fell open.

He was hit in the face by water. He threw his hands up over his face and peered out between two fingers. Water was spewing out of the pipe where the showerhead had been, going in every direction, drenching the walls in water. The showerhead was on the floor under the sink.

Isabella was on the floor, soaked. The shower curtain had been ripped from its rod, and it was draped across her naked body. Turning his back to the spraying water to protect her from the worst of it, he crouched down beside her. Her head was bleeding and a lump was already rising.

“Isabella,” he said, touching her wet arm.

She opened her eyes, dazed. Her brows knit as she looked at him in confusion.

“I—I—I don’t know what happened.”

“I think the showerhead blew off and hit you.” He rose quickly, turned off the water at the handle, and then crouched back beside her.

“Please don’t tell me, ‘I told you so.’” Her eyes were wide on his face, all those greens and golds mixed together like the shades of an exotic flower.

“I won’t.”

“I should have let you fix it when the plumber wouldn’t come. Didn’t want to be dependent.” Her voice was slightly slurred. It sounded like a bit of a confession. Her eyes suddenly widened even more. “Are you in my bathroom?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

She went very still. If it was possible, she grew whiter. “Am I naked?” she whispered.

“Ah, I’m afraid so.”

“I have never been so mortified.” She clenched her eyes shut as if she was hoping when she opened them this would all go away.

“Now we’re even,” he said, trying valiantly to put her at ease. “Though I think I’ve mentioned before that we should stop meeting like this.”

She groaned weakly—at his attempt at humor or because of pain and humiliation, he wasn’t so certain.

“We’re not even,” she decided. “We’d be even if you had ever been embarrassed about being unclothed, which I suspect you never have been.”

He didn’t say anything.

“In your whole life.”

He still didn’t say anything.

“Have you?” she demanded.

“Uh, well, you’re not exactly unclothed. You must have pulled down the shower curtain when you came out of the shower enclosure. You’re decent.”

“My shower curtain is transparent,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I’m not looking.”

Of course her eyes flew open just as he looked. “Just for injuries!”

She clenched her eyes tightly shut again.

“I’m going to help you get up.”

“No, you aren’t!” She tried to tuck the transparent shower curtain tighter around her. It had the unfortunate result of becoming even more transparent.

“Ah, yes, I am,” he said, keeping his eyes on her face. Chaos had struck. And all that discipline was paying off, after all. He could look just at her face. Couldn’t he?

“I can get up myself.” She wiggled ineffectually this way and that, trying to figure out how to get up on the slippery floor and keep the small protection of the shower curtain around her at the same time. She gave up with a sigh.

He reached out to help her.

“Don’t touch me.” She slapped at his hand, but it was halfhearted.

“You can trust me.” His hand closed around hers, and this time she surrendered. “I have pretty extensive first-aid training.”

“Yes, I know.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her.

“I read about it. On the internet. The SEALs.”

“Oh.” She had read about what he’d done for a living. He contemplated that.

“Not that I was spying.”

“No, of course not.”

“Just intrigued.”

“Ah.”

“It seems like you have done very dangerous things.”

“Yes.”

Her voice suddenly went very soft. “Things that make a man very lonely.”

Her eyes felt as if they were looking deep within him, as if she could see his soul, as if she could see the vast emptiness that was there. Her hand tightened marginally on his.

“Maybe,” he said, telling himself he was only agreeing because he didn’t want her to get riled up.

“I feel lonely, too, sometimes.” And then, just like that, she was crying.

“Hey.” He patted her shoulder clumsily, realized how very naked she was and pulled his hand away. He stared at it as if it was burning.

She seemed to realize how awkward this situation really was. “You need to leave me alone,” she sobbed. “I’m not even dressed.”

What wasn’t happening? He wasn’t leaving her alone. What was happening? He was going to try and make her okay with this.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, pulling his attention away from his hand and ordering himself to buck up. “You’ve had a bit of a shock. People say and do things they wouldn’t normally say or do. I’m a trained professional. I deal with stuff like this all the time.”

Even as she scrubbed furiously at her tearstained face, she looked dubious. She slid a look down at her thin covering of a shower curtain. “Like a doctor?”

“Sort of,” he agreed.

“And you deal with unclothed, crying, lonely women who have been assaulted by exploding showers? All the time?”

“I just meant I deal with the unexpected.” He tried for a soothing note in the face of her voice rising a bit shrilly. “It’s what I’m trained to do. Let’s get you up off the floor.”