скачать книгу бесплатно
She shrugged. “Let’s just enjoy the moment, okay?”
He suspected she was hiding a few secrets in those words, burying a pile of her own regrets beneath that shrug. A different day, a different Jack would have asked, but this Jack had learned to leave well enough alone and not go poking sticks if he didn’t want one poked in the embers of his own past.
* * *
Meri stayed inside her grandfather’s house—banished there by Grandpa Ray, who’d told her that he and Jack had the gutter situation under control—washing the dishes and giving his refrigerator a thorough cleaning.
That’s what she’d told herself she was in here to do, but her attention kept straying outside, to where Jack and Grandpa Ray worked with easy camaraderie. Grandpa Ray did most of the talking; Jack did most of the working. Meri noticed how Jack would take care of Grandpa without being obvious, how he’d offer to lift something or grab an extra gutter to carry—“Because I might as well carry two if I’m carrying one”—and how he’d find ways to make Grandpa sit down. Have him crimp the ends or hacksaw the end of a gutter while sitting at a makeshift workbench.
The Jack she had known when she was a teenager had been a wild rebel, ready to take on the world, run from the responsibilities that being a Barlow brought. He’d been everything she hadn’t—brave and impulsive. She’d dated him partly because she admired him and wanted just a little of that to rub off, to give her the courage to tell her mother no, to walk away from the endless pageants and pressure.
But this Jack, the one changed by war and the military, was more reclusive, less impulsive. He had an edge to him that came with a Do Not Trespass sign. It intrigued her, but also reminded her that she wasn’t here to open old wounds.
She finished the kitchen, made up a grocery list of things that were healthier options than most of what Grandpa had in his cabinets, then grabbed her purse. She told herself she was helping Grandpa—not avoiding the camera that still sat in its padded bag, untouched for months. A job at a magazine that she had yet to return to, a career she had abandoned. Every time she thought about raising the lens to her eye, though, a flurry of panic filled her. So she did dishes and cleaned house and made lists.
She came around the side of the house to find Grandpa Ray and Jack sitting on the picnic table, under the shade. “I was going to run to the store to grab some food for you, Grandpa.”
“I have food in there.”
“Beef jerky is not food. And neither is fake cheese spread.”
“What can I say? I keep it simple.” Grandpa Ray shrugged. “I cook about as well as a squirrel scuba dives.”
She laughed. “Well, I’m here now and I’ll cook for you. Healthy stuff that’ll make you feel better and get your heart back on track and your cholesterol down. And don’t argue with me—I’m determined to sway you to the world of nonfried foods.”
“We’ll see about that. If you ask me, there isn’t one food on God’s green earth that isn’t improved by some batter and hot oil. While you’re there, if it ain’t too much trouble, throw an extra rabbit in the pot for this guy.” Grandpa Ray threw an arm around Jack’s shoulders. “He’ll starve to death living on his own. Plus, I owe him at least a meal for helping me today.”
“It was nothing, Ray, really.” Jack got to his feet. “Anyway, I have to go to the hardware store for a couple more pieces and then we can finish this up. While I’m there, I should pick up some more siding. That whole northern side is rotting away.”
“You two should go together. Save some gas.” Ray gestured between Meri and Jack and grinned. “Get the two of you out of my hair for a while, too.”
“Oh, I’m fine—”
“I’m good—”
“You’re both as stubborn as two goats in a pepper patch,” Ray said, then he reached forward and plucked Meri’s keys out of her hand and tucked them in his pocket. “There. Now you have to go with Jack.”
Jack scowled and cursed under his breath. “I gotta measure something first.” He stalked over to the makeshift workbench set on two sawhorses, grabbed a piece of gutter and a tape measure, but he moved too fast and the gutter slid through his hand. An ugly red gash erupted on his palm and blood spurted from the wound. He cursed again, pressed the hem of his T-shirt against his palm. “Got any Band-Aids, Ray?”
“Band-Aids? You need a tourniquet. They can see that gusher from Mars, boy. You gotta get someone to look at that.”
Jack shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Meri knew that stubborn set to Jack’s shoulders, the tightening of his brows. He’d probably let his hand succumb to gangrene before he asked for help. She marched over and took his hand in hers before he could protest. “Let me see.”
“I’m—”
“Bleeding like a stuck pig. Let me go get some first aid supplies and take care of it for you.” She pressed the shirt back down. “Hold this and don’t move.”
“Yes, ma’am.” A grin darted across his face then disappeared just as fast.
The way he said yes, ma’am caused a little hitch in her step, a catch in her breath. She forgot all those very good reasons why she wasn’t attracted to him anymore. Damn.
She hurried into Grandpa’s house, raided his medicine chest for some supplies, then went back outside. True to his word, Jack had stayed in the exact same spot. She uncoiled the hose and brought it over to him, then turned the knob and waited for a steady stream of cool water. “Here. We need to wash it out first.”
The instant the water hit his hand, Jack let out a yelp and pulled away. She smirked. “Are you going to tell me that a man who has fought in one of the most dangerous places in the world is afraid of a little water?”
“Hey, it stings like hell.”
She made a face at him. “Come on, buttercup, suck it up.”
“Okay. Just make it quick and try not to amputate my hand, Florence Nightingale.”
She dried his palm with a clean towel, then had Jack hold pressure on the wound. “I’ll have you know I got my first aid badge in Girl Scouts. On the second try.”
He chuckled. “That gives me comfort.”
“I can handle this. But if you break your leg, you’re on your own.”
“Hey, I can fashion a splint out of two twigs and a piece of ivy, so I should be good to go.”
She smiled, looked up at him, and in that moment, they were teenagers sitting by the banks of the creek, and Jack was doing his best to dry her tears and pull off a miracle with a handmade bandage. His hands that day had been careful and steady, the kind that told her anything she put in his grasp would be safe and cared for. “You remember that baby bird?”
A tiny robin that had fallen from its nest. Probably part of its momma’s attempt to get her little one to fly, to be independent, but in the process, the tiny thing had injured a wing and flapped in a panicked circle on the ground. Meri had gone to the only person she knew who could make everything right—Jack.
“I remember you finding it, and coming to me with tears streaming down your face, begging me to fix it.” He reached up his free hand and brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead. Her skin seemed to melt where he touched her, and she swayed a little in his direction. The world dropped away. All she saw was Jack’s blue eyes. All she heard was the steady rise and fall of his breath, the soft murmur of his deep voice. “You were always trying to save lost causes, Meri.”
Lost causes. Oh, how she knew about those. She was smarter now, no longer that foolish girl who believed in fairy tales.
“Not anymore,” she said, then looked away, back at his hand, blinking away the tears that sprang to her eyes. She cleared her throat, then pulled the rag from his hand to squeeze a little antibiotic cream on the wound. “Stay still, Jack.”
His large, strong hand was warm against hers, solid. She wanted to study the lines and muscles, to feel the touch of those confident palms against her skin. A long time ago, Jack’s hands had touched her, made her sigh and moan and almost want to cry with anticipation. Damn. All that from a memory of a wounded baby bird?
“Uh...let me put a couple bandages on this. With some, um...” She held up the supplies beside her. “Um...”
“Tape?”
“Yeah, tape.” She pressed a gauze pad onto his wound, then let go of his hand to tear off long strips of tape. She wrapped them around to the back of his hand, crisscrossing the gauze to hold it in place. “There you go. Almost as good as new.”
“I’ll never be good as new again. Too many scars.” He had a smile on his face, but it didn’t hold in his eyes, and for the hundredth time since she’d run into him, Meri saw that other edge to Jack, the edge that she didn’t know, or recognize.
“We should get to the store,” she said, releasing his hand and gathering the supplies before she gave in to the temptation to ask Jack what was brewing behind those blue eyes and why she cared so much. “Before anyone gets hurt again.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_4dcba0b6-d605-590d-8374-275fa5a3910c)
Kicking and screaming. That was how he went into Doc Malloy’s office. On their way into town, Jack had told Meri he was fine, damn it, just fine, but she’d seen the blood seeping through the bandage and insisted he needed stitches. He’d told her it wasn’t anything a couple butterfly bandages couldn’t fix, and she’d just given him that look of hers.
That look where her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed and one eyebrow arched. He’d wanted to laugh, to tell her that it didn’t work anymore, but then the light in her green eyes flickered, and for a second he thought maybe she was worried about him.
“Come on,” Meri said, when she returned to the truck. “I checked with his receptionist and she said there’s no wait.”
“I’m fine, Meri.”
She gave him the look again, then grabbed the sleeve of his shirt and tugged him out of the truck and up the walkway into Doc Malloy’s office. “Let the professional decide that.”
Jack paused a moment in the doorway, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Meri had released him, and stepped two steps to the left. For some reason he refused to decipher, a little shiver of disappointment ran through him when she did that.
“Jack Barlow. Always a pleasure to see you, sugar.” Corinna Winslow’s voice came across the room like warm honey. She slipped out from behind the reception desk and sashayed across the small room. Corinna had been a cheerleader in high school, and even back then, she had pursued Jack with single-minded determination. They’d gone on a couple dates, years ago, but Jack had little interest in Corinna and had put a quick end to it. When he’d come home, she’d been one of the first to call to see if he “needed anything. Anything at all.”
Now she put a palm on his chest, just a light, quick touch, but one that seemed to stamp him. “Don’t tell me you’re hurt.”
He held up his hand. “Nothing big. I figured I could get by with some bandages, but someone—” he jerked his head in Meri’s direction but she just gave him that look again “—insisted on stitches.”
Corinna took Jack’s injured hand in hers. “Oh, my. Yes, stitches indeed. Let me take you right back, sugar, and get you all fixed up.”
Before he could protest, Corinna was leading him down the hall and into an exam room. What was with the women in his life today? Herding him around like a wayward sheep, for God’s sake.
Corinna leaned in as she took his blood pressure and temperature—two things Jack was sure he didn’t need—but Corinna insisted. She wore a snug-fitting V-necked white T-shirt under an unbuttoned scrubs top, which meant he got more than one healthy look at her cleavage. Jack was pretty sure nurses weren’t supposed to bend like that to take a blood pressure, but he didn’t argue.
On any other day, he would have enjoyed the obvious flirtation. Maybe even traded a few innuendos with Corinna, who had never made a secret of her interest in him. Instead, he found himself wondering about Meri, sitting in the uncomfortable chair in the waiting room. Not just wondering about what her cleavage looked like—hell, he wasn’t dead, after all—but what he had seen in her eyes earlier today when she’d seen the vulnerable, determined fawn.
And why he still cared.
He, of everyone in the world, should stay far, far away from Meri Prescott. Not just because he had already learned his lesson about tangling with a woman who lived in that world of debutantes and beauty pageants, of hair spray and high heels. Once upon a time, that hadn’t bothered him. Then he’d gone to war and become a different man. Not a better man, some would argue.
And then there was Eli. Just those three letters sent a sharp pain searing through his chest.
“You okay?” Corinna asked.
He jerked his attention back. “Uh, yeah. The stethoscope was a little cold.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you can’t take a little cold, a big, strong man like yourself.” She gave him a playful swat. “Or, I can warm it up against my own skin first. If you’d like.”
Before she could do that—and Jack really didn’t want to know where the stethoscope was going to get warmed—the door opened and Doc Malloy came in. Corinna stepped back, fumbling with the blood pressure cuff.
“Why, hello, Jack,” the doctor said. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.”
Jack leaned forward and shook hands with the elderly doctor. He’d known Doc Malloy all his life, and except for a few more pounds around his gut and a few more white hairs on top of his head, the doctor looked about the same as he had when he’d given Jack his first vaccination shots. He was an amiable doctor, one often given to long chats with patients he knew well. Doc had fought in Vietnam, and had traded a few war stories with Jack over the years. “Nice to see you again, sir.”
Doc Malloy nodded at Jack’s bandaged hand. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“Just a little flesh wound. Meri thought—”
“Meri Prescott? She’s back in town?”
Jack nodded. God, he hoped they didn’t get into a lengthy conversation about Meri. He didn’t want to think about her any more than was necessary, and over the last day, that had been like every five seconds. “She thought I needed stitches.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in thirty years of marriage, it’s that the woman is always right.” Doc Malloy grinned. “And even when you think she’s wrong, you agree anyway. Happy wife makes for a happy life.”
“Uh, Meri and I aren’t...she isn’t...” What was with him? Since when did he stumble and stutter? “She’s just visiting her grandpa.”
Across the room, Corinna’s face broke into a smile. She fiddled with the chart, but kept a pair of coquettish eyes on Jack’s face.
Doc Malloy bent to study Jack’s injury. In the end, he decided a few stitches were called for, after all. Corinna stayed by the doc’s side, handing him supplies, but keeping her attention on Jack. She’d flash him a smile from time to time, when she wasn’t contorting herself to give him a direct view of her best assets. Once Jack’s hand was bandaged, Corrina ducked out, with a little sashay, to refill the supplies.
“There you go, good as new,” Doc Malloy said.
It was almost the same thing Meri had said earlier. Did people really think a bandage or two would change anything about Jack?
“I’ve been so battered and bruised in the last year, Doc, I’ll never be good as new.” It wasn’t just what had happened to Jack on the outside—those scars had healed, faded to almost nothing—it was the burdens he carried inside his heart, the guilt that weighed down his every step, like an elephant hanging off his heel.
Jack was the one who could sit out on his back porch and look across beautiful Stone Gap Lake, soaking up the warmth of the sun, breathing in the fresh, clean air. Eli never would again. Would never know those joys or moments of peace. Because of Jack’s decisions, Jack’s choices, Jack’s mistakes.
Doc Malloy laid a hand on Jack’s arm and met his gaze. “You know how they temper steel? They take it to its limit over and over again, then let it cool, until it becomes so hardened and strong there’s almost nothing that can break it or change it. That’s how people get tempered, too. They get broken, they go through tragedies, triumphs, pain, loss, new lives being born and others lost to death.” The kindly doctor’s eyes met Jack’s with a knowledge that came from years of continuity. Doc had given Jack his kindergarten polio vaccine and his last checkup before he shipped off to boot camp. Doc’s blue eyes were eyes that knew Jack, knew him as much more than another file in the cabinet. “The hells people go through make them stronger in the end, stronger than steel.”
Jack lifted his newly bandaged hand and cradled it in the opposite palm. There was no bandage to fix what was wrong with Jack inside his soul. “Sometimes the tests go too far, the heat too great, and they break.”
“The people? Or the steel?”
“Doesn’t matter, Doc. Does it?” Jack slipped off the table and headed for the door. “Thanks again for fixing me up.”
“I only fix the outside problems, Jack. A man’s gotta fix the inside ones on his own.”
Jack just nodded to that and headed out to the waiting room.
Meri was reading a magazine when Jack entered the room, her blond head bent over the glossy pages. The sun streamed in through the window behind her. Like a halo, he’d say, if he was a sentimental guy.
She looked up and a smile curved across her face, and something caught in his chest, something that fluttered like hope, that made him feel like the kid he used to be a long time ago. Then the smile was gone and she was all business, putting the magazine to the side and fishing her keys out of her purse. “All set?”
“Yup.” He paid the bill, then the two of them walked back into the bright sunshine. Meri unlocked the truck and climbed in the driver’s seat, waiting for him to get in on the other side. Without a word, she put the truck in gear and traveled the mile to the hardware store. Jack glanced over at her, but she kept her gaze on the road. He told himself he was glad.
The air between them chilled, and the silence thickened the air in the truck. When he unconsciously reached for the door handle with his right hand, he winced when the newly bandaged injury let out a protest.
“You okay?” Meri asked. “Sugar?”
“Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?”
“I’m not jealous of anyone. And especially not of that plastic enhanced former cheerleader.”
He arched a brow. “Are you sure about that? Because it sounds like you might want to go back in there and stick her stethoscope in a painful place.”
Meri waved toward the hardware store. “Why don’t you go get what you need, and I’ll hit the grocery store. Kill two birds with one stone.”
On any other day, Jack would have welcomed the opportunity to be alone, puttering around among tools and nuts and bolts. But instead, he found himself raising the bandaged hand and giving Meri a pity-me smile. “I’m, uh, not so sure I should be lifting tools and plywood with this. I could open the stitches up. That could lead to an infection. Gangrene. Amputation.”
She shook her head and laughed. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a drama queen?”
“I’m just trying to head off further injuries.” He worked up the pity-me smile again. “If you suffer through the hardware store with me, I promise not to complain when we’re picking out cereal at the Sav-a-Lot.”
