Kiss Your Prince Charming

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But once he got home from the hospital, he just wanted to feel sure their next-door friendship went back to the way it was. He was the frog. She was the princess. Everything had always gone well between them as long as Greg never tried coloring outside those lines.

Slowly he turned around, then went through all the stiff contortions it took to get himself ready for bed and covered up again. Once the lights were off, he stared at the black ceiling, remembering Randall Conrad, the class bully in fourth grade. Greg had taken one beating from the bully and never told. Then another beating. It seemed that was around the time he started wolfing down extra snacks, playing the bumbling brain, making good-natured jokes no matter what anyone said to him. Randall had quit hounding him. Nobody had really picked on him after that.

In fact, girls had always liked him. Greg couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t have close female friends. He didn’t threaten women. Didn’t inspire them either— but Greg knew himself incapable of doing that. By age thirty-two, naturally he’d had some serious relationships. If none had ended in marriage, none had ended badly or cruelly, either. They just seemed to fizzle out like champagne left uncorked. Personally, he never thought sex was worth all the hoopla. He seemed to bore the lovers he’d chosen, almost as badly as they’d bored him. He’d like to marry sometime. He’d like kids, like a family. But just to have another body in the house was no justification to pursue something where Greg had already proven to be mediocre.

Unlike the old song claimed, one wasn’t the loneliest number. Two was. Being with someone you really didn’t want to be with was not only exhausting, but the most painful brand of loneliness.

Greg was pretty sure Rachel felt nothing but sympathy for him. He was also pretty sure she had no clue he was in love with her. Her sympathy should die a natural death once he got home and back to normal life again, but he treasured their friendship and worried doing anything to screw it up.

The second he met Rachel, he’d known she wasn’t for him. He had money. He had brains. But he’d never had the kind of zesty style and people skills and innate guts for life that she had. She’d shoot him for using the word class but there it was. It’d be like trying to pair a Chevy with a Jag. A guy could admire a Jag. Could lust after it. Could look. But a grown man with character knew better than to touch something that couldn’t belong to him.

Greg sighed heavily and closed his eyes. Most of his life he’d been invisible, the kind of guy who faded into the woodwork and no one noticed. Other men liked attention. Not him. And right now all he wanted was to be home again—back to his work, back to his life, back to being comfortably invisible. Especially with Rachel.

A week later, Rachel rapped on Greg’s back door, and when no one answered, she twisted the knob and poked her head inside. “Stoner! It’s me, Rach! Are you here?”

“Yeah, I’m back here in the den.”

Shaking her head with impatience, she stomped inside and closed the door. Technically Greg was still on a medical leave of absence, but there was no telling him that. When the hospital finally sprang him four days ago, he’d had a co-worker bring him work from the office ever since. He was always in the den working on the computer. Reminding him that he still had a doctor’s mandate to take it seriously easy fell on deaf ears.

Quickly she peeled off her pea coat and tossed it on a kitchen chair, automatically glancing around the room. No crumbs cluttered the red-tile counter; no dishes were stacked in the white porcelain sink. Old-fashioned glass cabinets revealed neatly stacked plates, and the long oak table held a nauseatingly tidy pile of mail and magazines. Personally Rachel didn’t trust anyone who didn’t leave a shameful mess somewhere—it just wasn’t human—but Greg was a friend. One had to forgive a friend a few revolting habits.

Momentarily, though, she only glanced around the kitchen to ascertain how he was doing today.

The dimwit wouldn’t ask for help if his life depended on it, so Rachel had to rely on clues. He’d been working too hard ever since coming home from the hospital, but Stoner was too much of a hard-core perfectionist to ever leave a mess unless he were exhausted or in pain. Today, his spotless kitchen reassured her that he was feeling good.

Pushing off her shoes, she padded in stocking feet down the wainscotted hall and through the living room. His decor always struck her sense of humor. Greg had told her that Stoners had built the family home in the 1890s, and some furnishings were obviously heirlooms from that elegant Victorian period—like the mahogany breakfront and a burgundy crushed-velvet rocker and the rich Oriental rugs. And then there were Greg’s choices. Futuristic minimalist. A spear of a lamp, a lapis lazuli slab for a coffee table, a giant wall-size TV and entertainment center, futons for seating. The furnishings were backdropped by old fashioned stuccoed walls and fancy copper-carved ceilings.

Rachel was unsure whether Greg didn’t realize that nothing went together or, worse, that he thought it did. A wolf had to have a better sense of style that he did. The French doors at the far end of the living room opened onto his study.

She paused in the study doorway. The closed wooden blinds sealed out the midday sun and made the room murky-dim. All she could really see was Greg’s back, hunched over a glowing computer monitor, his fingers clicking on the keyboard. He was wearing his favorite Green Bay sweatshirt—which was so decrepitly frayed that it should have seen a trash bin up-close-and-personal years ago—and he was obviously concentrating hard. One look, and a lump filled her throat.

She’d loved him as a friend for ages now, but feelings had hugely and drastically changed since his car accident. Maybe it was watching him cope with so much pain. Maybe it was all those nights in the hospital, the way he teased her, the way he cheated at cards so she’d win, the way they so easily laughed together.

Somehow she had just never looked at Greg as a man before. She’d seen him as a brainy, overweight nerd, because that was how he’d always made such a point of billing himself. And more privately she’d thought of him as a gentle giant, because that’s how he’d been with her—a neighbor, a friend, a fixer of fuses and a stealer of cookies and an unbeatable listener. She’d seen Greg in lots of roles. All of them wonderful.

But until the accident, she’d just never thought of him as a sexual being. A sexual single male human being.

Rachel wasn’t positive she wanted to see him that way. To risk screwing up the best friendship she’d ever had troubled her. But in the silence of her heart, she couldn’t deny that just being in the same room with him aroused emotions that had never been there before.

“Hey, slugger. You’ve got a doctor’s appointment today. Did you forget?”

Greg didn’t turn his head, didn’t lift his fingers from the keyboard. “I didn’t forget. The appointment’s at one.”

She came up behind him, her hands instinctively molding around his shoulders and neck. As she might have expected, his muscles were all knotted up. No question he’d been sitting here a long time. She started kneading, careful not to touch the bandages wrapped around his head. “And do you know what time it is right now, Stoner?”

“I dunno. Nine? Ten? God, that feels good, don’t stop.”

“It’s noon.” Her fingers dug and probed, trying to relax the knots in his neck. She’d have volunteered such a back rub for any ailing friend—male or female—only Rachel knew it wasn’t the same. Not with him, not anymore.

As if her female hormones had suddenly come awake after a two-year hibernation, she felt conscious of the warmth and scent of his skin, of her sensitized response to everything male about him. And that was wonderful, but also unnerving. She might have missed sex, but she really hadn’t wanted to touch a man in all this time. And because Mark was the only man she’d known—no matter how much he’d hurt her—she’d just never anticipated touching any man intimately but him, either. Now, suddenly, she could imagine all kinds of disastrously wild and inappropriately naked things. With Greg. And once her mind started dripping those ideas, it seemed the leak just kept getting bigger.

“It can’t be noon,” Greg corrected her.

“Yeah, it is—12:02, actually. I don’t know how you could possibly forget a red-letter doctor’s appointment like this one—finally you’re getting those bandages off your face after all this time—”

“I didn’t forget. It’s just I started working after breakfast—”

“And lost track of the time, I know.” The knots had eased, which obliterated the judicious excuse she had for touching him. She dropped her hands. “If you want some company,” she said casually, “I could drive you to the doc’s. Friday’s my home day at work, but I’m all caught up, so taking off a couple hours this afternoon is no problem.”

“Nah. Thanks for offering, Rach, but really, that’d be crazy for you to waste your time sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. There’s no pain or anything like that involved where I’d have trouble driving alone.”

“I know you have some trouble with visibility because of the bandages—”

“Yeah, I do. But it’s just a fifteen minute drive there, and then these confounded bandages are off for good. I’ll be fine, really.” He still hadn’t turned around and faced her, because he was still saving and messing with disks and then exiting the computer.

And she hesitated. If Greg didn’t want her help, then he didn’t. But she was still concerned about his going to this doctor’s visit alone. Even for a man as unvain and totally oblivious to appearances as Greg, this afternoon was a huge traumatic thing.

The plastic surgeon had said over and over that the reconstruction surgeries had been successful...but Greg still really didn’t know what he was going to look like. The doctor had given him computerized pictures approximating his new face, but that was it. Because he never talked about it, Rachel suspected Greg was just being Greg—a man who never thought much about looks. And maybe it was going to be that easy, but she wasn’t convinced anyone could go through a traumatic change of appearance and not feel unsettled. She just wanted to go with him, to be there, to show him positively that she didn’t give a royal damn what he looked like and he’d always be Greg to her.

But now he finished exiting his computer and spun around. “Well, if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes....”

She grinned. Okay, so the jeans were a little baggy and her yellow sweatshirt had seen better days. “I was raking leaves this morning. I think every tree on the block dumped its leaves last night—and mostly in my yard and yours. Actually, I was thinking about raking your leaves after mine—”

“I can do my own.”

“Quit with the pride nonsense, Stoner. Just because you’ve got the cast off your arm doesn’t mean you have any strength yet—either in your arm or your ribs. You’re not up for heavy physical work and you know it. But for the record, I was going to put on a decent sweater if you’d let me drive you to the doc’s office so you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me—”

“I couldn’t be ashamed to be seen with you in this life, Rach.”

Maybe, but she couldn’t talk him into letting her drive him, so she skedaddled home to give him time to get ready and go. She noted him leaving around 12:40 while she was putting together a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As of one o’clock, she couldn’t sit—she was too worried about the outcome of this doc’s visit and what Greg might be thinking when the bandages came off—so she yanked on her old barn jacket and headed outside again with a rake.

Her yard was finished by one-thirty, and she unlatched the white rail fence gate into his. Between a century-old walnut and several maple trees in the back, his yard was a sea of apricot and russet leaves—way more than he could possibly handle alone. The leaves crunched and crackled under the pull of her rake. She made little piles. And then bigger piles. And still Greg didn’t come home, not by two o’clock, not by two-thirty.

Her muscles were screaming by then, but how could she leave? If she stopped by later, Greg could think she only wanted a look at his face. As long as she kept raking, she had a legitimate excuse for being here. And finally, just before three, his black Volvo pulled into the driveway. She had already straightened, had already locked a welcome-hello smile on her face, when he climbed out of the car and faced her.

Her intention was absolute. No matter what Greg looked like, she wanted to say the right thing, the supportive thing—whatever it took to make him believe she was natural with his new appearance.

But “Oh my God” slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it. She was prepared for scars. She was prepared for him to look really different. She was prepared for Greg to need some help coping if the physical changes were disturbing.

But the look of his face was still a total and complete shock.

Three

Greg expected Rachel to notice his “new” face. It’s not like anyone who knew him could possibly fail to notice. But she looked so stunned that he felt an edgy, uneasy lump well in his throat. “Rach, I’m not going to look like this forever. It’s just going to take a while before the last of the swelling and bruises go down—”

“It’s not the bruises or the swelling.” Rachel plunked down on his front porch step as if she were too weak to stay upright. Knuckles cocked up her chin. Those velvetblue eyes of hers seemed glued on his face. A siren screamed in the distance. She didn’t look away. Kids ran down the sidewalk, yelling to each other. She didn’t look away. The paper boy biked up, hurled the newspaper right past her head to his porch, and that didn’t make her blink, either. “I just wouldn’t know you. If I hadn’t recognized your black Volvo pulling in the drive, I’d have thought you were a stranger.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s just me.”

“Stoner. I just can’t get over it. You’re gorgeous.” Her hand shot to her heart. She obviously worried that she had unintentionally hurt his feelings, because she backpedaled immediately. “Not that you weren’t an incredibly goodlooking sexy hunk before, but—”

“Rach, it’s okay. Don’t worry about saying something awkward. Believe me, I feel awkward myself.” And that was an understatement, Greg thought irritably. He’d felt sledge-hammered the instant he saw his new face in the doctor’s office mirror. Whether the damn face was ugly or handsome was irrelevant. The problem was that it wasn’t him. It wasn’t the face he’d grown up with. It wasn’t anyone he recognized. And it was the eeriest sensation to be walking around with a stranger’s face.

“A little unnerving to look so different?” Rachel said gently. “But you do look wonderful, Greg. I don’t even see any scars except for the one on your forehead....”

“There are plenty of scars, but the doc did a good job putting most of them under my chin or around the hairline. Especially since I haven’t had a haircut since the accident, most of those scars don’t show. In fact, that’s what the doc suggested—just wear my hair longer, like it is now.” Greg could hear the restless, impatient tone creep into his voice again, but he couldn’t help it. The doc’s advice was fine, but all that unruly, thick hair hanging around his collar and forehead was another weirdness. He’d always worn his hair ultrashort. Maybe the style had been a little dorklike, but it took no care or maintenance beyond remembering to have a barber chop it off every few weeks. Hell, he hadn’t even known he had all this hair.

Since this was Rach, though, he tried to erase the impatient frustration in his voice and make a joke out of the situation. “I stopped for gas on the way home. Same station I’ve gone to for years, and Maurie didn’t even recognize me. I feel like I walked into the doctor’s office being me, and came out starring in an X-Files episode. Maybe the truth is out there, but this alien just isn’t me.”

Instead of chuckling, like he intended her to, Rachel slowly stood up with a thoughtful expression. “I was afraid this’d be harder than you expected. To a point, it’s different for women. We go for makeovers and new hairstyles all the time. We love that stuff. Change is a way to give us an emotional lift. But hair grows back, and we can use our old eye shadow if we don’t like the new colors. But it’s a whole different thing when you’re not choosing to change and never had a vote in it. Let’s see that forehead scar....”

She stepped closer, raising her hand to push aside his hair near the right temple. Greg knew what she saw. On the underside of his jaw were the newest and rawestlooking scars. His eyes still had a raccoon look with the bruising, and a jagged, skinny scar bisected his right eyebrow. His jaw really throbbed and the nerve endings felt hypersensitive, finally exposed to light and air, but nothing was really that horrible to look at. It was just different. His chin was square now. He had a Frenchman’s aquiline nose. The cheekbones were still his, but they looked completely different in a face that used to be shaped full and pudgy, and now looked sculpted with a decisive, strong brush.

The plastic surgeon had been ecstatic with his finished product.

Greg had no time to decide what he thought of the new face yet—but he knew precisely what he felt about Rachel being this close. His pulse responsively bucked for the sparest, barest touch of her fingertips.

He told himself that a guy couldn’t help reacting to a woman who was so sensitive to his feelings—but that was a total lie. Yeah, she was perceptive, and yeah, her kindness was a wonderful quality. But his hormones had always gone into a delicious dither anywhere around her.

He tried to analyze the problem. The way Rachel touched his forehead was obviously intended as a friendly, caring, but specifically nonsexual gesture. He understood that. It just didn’t matter to his hormones.

His whole damn world still suffered a complete metamorphosis solely because of her nearness. Hours earlier he’d noticed the gunmetal-gray clouds festering in the west, likely swollen with snow this late in the fall. Yet now he saw the sun spearing down in a gold-kissed haze on the brilliant tangerine and magenta leaves. Before, the wind seemed mean-cold and now felt spanking fresh and invigorating. Suddenly he could smell leaves and pumpkins, cider and cinnamon, the leather and wool of coats—maybe all those autumn scents had been there before, but he hadn’t noticed. And his hormones—the ones that had always been content to snooze through most male-female events—suddenly woke up and wanted to party.

Rachel dropped her hand and rocked back down on her heels, but her gaze still focused on his face in a studying way. “I’m not sure you’re even going to have any scars when it’s all healed, but right now you’ve still got places that look really painful,” she said gently. “The stitch marks, for one. But also, even though the swelling and bruising is way down, you have to still be feeling tender.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Maybe it’s small-potatoes-pain compared to what you’ve been through these last weeks. But it’s still not nothing. And I think it’s a good thing you’re not due back at work for another week yet.”

“Rach—?”

“What?”

He had a question he wanted to ask her, but somehow it completely flew out of his mind. The thing was, she was still standing close. Nothing fancy about her play clothes; she was just wearing an old barn jacket and jeans and boots, but everything about her was beautiful to him. The wind had put rouge in her cheeks, and her eyes always did look softer than velvet, and the breeze was teasing her hair, making those honey-blond strands flutter and curl around her face. She just looked...kissable.

And suddenly he remembered all those kisses she’d tortured him with in the hospital. Every time he’d had bandages and casts and tubes trapping him. He could never touch her back. He could never kiss her back.