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Who was that?
A woman. Standing all the way in the rear of the big room, near Em’s piano.
He’d never seen her before.
If he had, he surely would have remembered her.
Tall. Slender. Dark hair pulled away from her face. An oval face that held a faint look of amusement.
In a sea of blue denim and pastel cotton, she wore black silk. Sexy black silk …
The crowd swelled, shifted, and he lost sight of her.
“You ready for this?”
“Ready for…?”
“The next bunch,” Travis said, jerking his chin toward the larger crowd ahead.
“The cheers of your million fans,” Caleb added, working hard for a light tone.
Jake forced a laugh, as he knew he was meant to do.
“Sure.”
Two lies in two minutes. Had to be a record, even for him.
“Then, let’s do it,” Caleb said. “’Cause the sooner we make it to the end zone, the sooner we can get those beers.”
A second laugh was more than he could manage. He smiled instead, took a deep breath and let his brothers lead him forward.
The crowd swallowed him up.
He shook more hands, returned more smiles, did his best to ignore the glitter of tears in the eyes of some of the women, said, Yeah, it was good to be back and Absolutely, it had been a long time and finally, mercifully, he, Travis and Caleb reached the long trestle table that held platters of barbecued ribs and chicken wings alongside tiny sandwiches and bowls of tiny grilled vegetables.
“Real food and girl food,” Caleb said, and this time, Jake’s laughter was genuine.
“And the holy grail,” Travis said, pulling three long-necked bottles from an ice-filled copper tub.
Jake took one, nodded his thanks and raised the bottle to his lips.
“Wait!” Caleb touched his bottle first to Travis’s, then to Jake’s. “Here’s to having you home, brother,” he said softly.
Was it time to point out that the toast was a little premature? No, Jake thought, and they clinked bottles, then drank.
The beer was cold and bitter, maybe what he needed to head off the still-throbbing ache behind his eye. Tension, the docs had said, and told him, earnestly, he had to learn to avoid stress.
Right, Jake thought, and took another long swallow.
“We’ve missed you.”
He looked at Travis. “Yeah. Me, too.”
“Hell,” Caleb said, his voice gruff, “it just wasn’t the same with you gone. This is where you belong, Jacob.”
Okay. Jake could see where this was going.
“About that,” he began, but Travis shook his head.
“We know. You’re not staying. But you’re here tonight. Let’s just celebrate that, okay?”
The suggestion was harmless; it changed nothing. And the truth was, right now, it felt good to be with his family.
“Okay,” he said, and then he smiled and touched his bottle to theirs again. “A toast to The Wilde Ones.”
The old nickname made the brothers grin. And when Bill Sullivan from the feed store came up, clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Jake, great to see you,” Jake shook hands, said whatever he was supposed to say….
Until, in a sudden break in the crowd, he saw the woman again.
He had a clearer look at her now, and more time to savor it.
Her hair was the color of rich coffee, thick and shiny; she’d pulled it back with something he couldn’t quite make out, pins or maybe combs.
The style, if you could call it that, was simple …
So was the image that came into his head.
He could see her brushing those lush locks into submission. Her arms were raised, her breasts were thrust up so the nipples were elevated—
Elevated and ready for the whisper of a man’s tongue, for the heat of his mouth …
“Jake?”
His groin tightened.
And that face.
Sculpted bones beneath creamy skin. Gray eyes. No. They were more silver than gray. A straight, no-nonsense nose above a mouth made for things best dreamed of in the deepest dark of the night….
“Jake?”
A hot rush of lust drove through his belly, so quick and fierce that it stunned him. He hadn’t felt anything like it for a long time.
A very long time.
“Hey, man, where’d you go?”
He blinked himself back to reality, swung toward Travis, saw the plate of food he was holding out. Food was the last thing he wanted right now, but he took the plate and forced a smile to his lips.
“Just what I needed,” he said briskly. “Thanks.”
Travis and Caleb began eating. He did, too, though nothing he put in his mouth had any taste.
He wanted to turn around and look at the woman with the silver eyes.
Ridiculous, really.
What would be the point? Forget that moment of lust or hunger or whatever in hell it had been.
At most, it had been an aberration.
The unbelievable truth was that he wasn’t into sex anymore, wasn’t into wanting it or even thinking about it. His sex drive had gone south.
Like the eye, it simply wasn’t there anymore.
Besides, he knew what he looked like. A guy with a Halloween mask for a face …
“… and damned if Lissa didn’t say, ‘Barbecue? Barbecue?’ In that way she has, you know, of making you feel as if it’s you who’s crazy, not her?”
Travis laughed, so Jake laughed, too, but his thoughts returned to the woman.
And to the sudden certainty that she was watching him.
Slowly, with what he hoped was an elaborate show of disinterest, he glanced over his shoulder.
His pulse jumped.
She was. Watching him. Not with curiosity. Not with disgust.
With interest.
And she was alone.
Not in the sense that she was here by herself, though he was sure she was. What man would bring a woman who looked like this to a party and walk away from her?
What he meant was that she was alone in the full sense of the word, separate and apart from everyone and everything….
Except him.
He felt the sudden leap of his blood. And, once again, that urgent pull of desire.
Which was crazy.
Now? he thought. In a room full of people? His long-dormant libido was going to kick in and—holy hell—kick in and add a boner to the fright mask that already made him a standout in the crowd?
God knew, he’d tried to get a rise out of himself—no pun intended—once his wounds had healed.
And fright mask or not, there’d been women who’d made it clear they’d have enjoyed his attention. Nurses. Therapists. A couple of pretty MDs. He had no idea whether it was out of pity or curiosity, or if, as one woman had whispered, that eye patch made him look hot….
The thing was, women had shown interest.
His reaction?
Nothing.
He might as well have been a monk. No erections, no steamy thoughts, not even an X-rated dream.
A few weeks ago, one of his doctors—the Shrink of the Month, was how Jake thought of it—had apparently figured out that he wasn’t fully back in the land of the living.
“So, how’s sex?” the shrink had suddenly asked.
Jake had given the kind of answer he’d hoped would end the discussion.
“Hey, Doc,” he’d said with what he’d hoped was a careless grin, “you’re over twenty-one. Find out for yourself.”
His pathetic attempt at humor hadn’t worked.
“Takes time for everything to function again,” the doc had said. “Not just physically. Emotionally. Trauma takes a toll, Captain, but you’re young. You’re healthy. Give yourself time and, you’ll see, your sex drive will return.”
“Sure,” Jake had said.
But it hadn’t.
Maybe he’d had too many other things to think about. What to do about his future. What to do about his past. How to get through the long days and longer nights.
Whatever the reason, sex—for a man who’d always had his pick of beautiful women—had suddenly become unimportant.
Desire, lust, call it what you liked, had not returned. He hadn’t been with a woman since he’d been wounded, hadn’t wanted to be with one….
Until now.
He took a deep breath. Told himself to look away from the brunette with the silver eyes, but he couldn’t.
Not while she was looking at him.
He searched hard for that oh-you-poor-thing expression half the women in the room had showed him tonight.
It wasn’t there.
She was simply watching him, assessing him with a steadiness that was unsettling.
His jaw tightened.
Now she was smiling, her lips curving in a way that reached deep into his gut.
She mouthed a word.
Hi.
