She smiled, she couldn’t help it, not when he was wearing that charming grin that had melted her knees from the very first time she saw it. He really was a good guy. A little lost, a little confused, but who wouldn’t be after what he’d gone through? That was the problem though. As lost and confused as he was, there was no room for her own doubts. Her own fears. Which meant, much as she wanted to stay with him and give this a shot, there was no way she was going to be able to do it. They weren’t going to be good for each other, and that meant there was no way he could be good for her boys.
Still, when he held his arms out to her, wearing nothing but that silly grin, she couldn’t walk away. Not yet. Not before she held him one more time. Which was why, when everything inside of her screamed at her to run—everything that was but her foolish, traitorous heart—she let him pull her against him in a light embrace. His lips skimmed over her hair and across her ear, and though she knew he meant the caress to be comforting and not arousing, she felt an answering response deep inside her. A response that yearned for more than simply a physical connection with him.
That, too, scared her, the way Jack had waltzed in here and basically claimed ownership of her body. Oh, he would never do anything to hurt her physically, or scare her—she knew she was safe with him that way. But this strange vulnerability, this openness he’d called forth from her, made her want nothing so much as to run and hide.
None of her previous relationships—no matter how solid or fleeting—had prepared her for the wealth of emotion inside her. None of it had prepared her for what it would be like to love Dr. Jack Alexander.
She wasn’t going to run though, no matter how much she wanted to curl up and lick her wounds. That simply wasn’t an option, namely because she couldn’t stand the idea of him knowing how stupid she’d been. She didn’t want him to feel obligated toward her or the boys in any way nor did she want him to feel sorry for her. She wouldn’t be able to stand that. And the number one reason she was going to walk out of here with head held high—she knew Jack didn’t feel the same way about her. Understandably. He was too busy fighting his demons, too busy trying to be the man he once was, to truly live as the man he was becoming. And that, she lamented, was the biggest shame of them all.
But that didn’t mean she was going to stick around and let him see how crazy about him she was. She knew pride was a deadly sin and that it went before a fall, but, honestly, Sophie couldn’t bring herself to care. Not now, when everything she was, everything she’d made for herself, was on the line.
She had a vision of herself waltzing out of the room, head up, eyes front, a big smile on her lips. It would be fake, but Jack didn’t have to know that. Except…she could tell from the look on his face that her abrupt departure was setting off all his warning bells just as surely as throwing herself at his feet and declaring her undying love would.
She’d been too quick, too frantic. She needed to slow down, relax a little, rein in the panic. Surely she could do it if she gritted her teeth and bore it for a little while longer.
Leaning forward, she brushed a kiss across Jack’s jaw, then forced a smile she was far from feeling.
“I need to get home,” she told him. “I hadn’t realized how late it was getting and Sabrina has plans early in the morning.”
He nodded, though his eyes were still watchful. “Okay. Let’s get dressed and I’ll walk you back.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said with a laugh so high it hurt her ears. “I can find my own way next door.”
His eyes narrowed, and she realized, not for the first time, that Jack really was a force to be reckoned with. “I’m not sure what kind of men you’re used to, Sophie, but I see my dates home.”
Admitting defeat, she threw up her hands. “Okay, okay. I was trying to be helpful.” She grabbed her underwear and pulled it on.
“Yeah, well, don’t,” he told her.
As she was slipping on her shoes, she noticed the necklace she’d been wearing to dinner crumpled on the floor. It must have fallen off when they’d been making love. Stooping down, she picked it up and tried to fasten it around her neck again, but her hands were shaking too badly to do the clasp.
“Do you need help?” Jack asked, wrapping an arm around her waist from behind and nuzzling her neck a little.
She tried to stay strong, but the feel of his lips against her nape had her melting into him before she could steel herself. She didn’t know how long they stood there, bodies pressed together, Jack’s lips skimming over the sensitive skin of her neck, behind her ear, the top of her shoulder. But when she couldn’t take it anymore, when she knew one more second would have her flinging herself on the bed and begging for a repeat performance, she pulled herself away. Handed him the necklace.
“Thanks. The boys gave it to me for my birthday last year and I’m paranoid about not losing it.”
“No problem,” he said, but as he draped it around her neck, again from behind, she realized that there was a really huge problem—she’d been too wrapped up in her own issue to notice it.
The clasp on the necklace was tiny and there was no way Jack was going to be able to work it with his injured hand. No way at all.
“Never mind,” she told him, pulling at the pendant from the front. “Now that I think about it, I’m going to take it off again when I get home. I can put it in my purse.”
Jack stiffened against her. “I can fasten a damn necklace, Sophie.”
Terrific. She closed her eyes, blew out a breath. Now she’d hurt his feelings. “I know you can, Jack.”
So she stood there and waited while he tried to open the clasp. Once, twice, then again and again. It was one of the most awful experiences of her life. Tears bloomed in her eyes, but she forced her breathing to remain even. Forced herself to breathe through her mouth when the tears clogged her throat.
She could feel his frustration mounting, knew he was getting toward the breaking point, but she also knew she couldn’t be the one to say enough. He’d never forgive her for it, never forgive himself.
Finally, after a few minutes had passed, he gave up, handed the necklace to her. She wanted to say something, to assure him that it wasn’t a big deal, but she knew that to him, it was. She could see it in his squared-off shoulders and the rigid lines of his back. Could see it in the eyes that would no longer meet hers.
He dressed quickly after that, as did she, and before she knew it they were standing on her front porch. Sabrina had left the light on, so Sophie could see the angry set of Jack’s jaw. Angry at her, angry at himself, she didn’t know. Probably a little bit of both, considering the emotional roller coaster their date had become.
Leaning forward, she brushed her lips softly against his, because she simply couldn’t resist. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, to hold him to her even though she knew that doing so would only end up hurting the both of them.
But she couldn’t leave him like this, either. She couldn’t walk away when he was so angry with himself over something so stupid. “Jack,” she whispered as she placed her hand on his chest. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Don’t you do it, Sophie. You were the one running out of my bedroom like your hair was on fire tonight, so don’t suddenly feel sorry for me because of that damn necklace. I don’t need your charity.” His voice was low, venomous, filled with more rage than Sophie had ever heard from him.
“It wasn’t like that,” she told him, pain slicing through her with each second that passed. She’d known this was inside him, known that he was angry and hurt and horrified, but when she’d decided weeks ago to try to help him, she’d planned on doing just that. She hadn’t known that she was going to be the catalyst to break him completely, the one who would finally crack his self-control and have all that vitriol spilling over the sides.
“It was exactly like that. I don’t know what h
appened tonight, don’t know what I did to make you so upset when we were making love. I thought we were together in it.”
“We were, Jack. I swear. I loved every second of being with you.”
He looked at her, his beautiful whiskey-colored eyes a dull brown now that the charm and wit were gone from them. “I could tell.”
“Damn it, Jack, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t let my neuroses make you feel bad about yourself. I’m sorry I freaked out like that, sorry I tried to make a run for the door. And I’m sorry, so sorry, about that stupid necklace. If I could do it all over again, I would never have asked you.”
He froze at the last, his expression wiped clean of everything that had been there before. The anger. The confusion. The joy from earlier. It was all gone and in its place was a cold mask she didn’t know how to penetrate. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he asked her. “No one thinks they can ask me anything. No one can count on me for anything anymore.”
“That isn’t true!”
He tapped her fist, where the necklace was still clenched. “Sure it is, Sophie. You’re too nice to tell me so to my face.”
Desperate, devastated, horrified at the prospect that in one night she had carelessly ruined everything Jack had been working toward, Sophie flung herself against him. For the first time since they’d met, his hands didn’t come up to steady her, his arms didn’t wrap around her. He stood there like a statue, like he had actually turned to stone.
She wouldn’t let it bother her. Standing on her tiptoes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
He still didn’t respond, until she opened her mouth and licked her tongue over the seam of his lips from corner to corner.
With a groan, he brought his hands up to cup her bottom and lift her so that she was pressed tightly against him.
Then he kissed her, really kissed her, until it once again felt like the rest of the world was far away. Like it was just the two of them in this one, perfect moment. She knew it was going to end, knew it couldn’t last, but she clung to him, fingers tangled into his shirt for as long as he would let her.
They kissed and kissed and kissed, until she was breathless and shaky and aroused—so aroused—all over again. Then she moaned, and it broke the spell. His hands dropped and he stepped away from her, his face blank once again. She took a perverse satisfaction in the fact that he was as out of breath as she was.
Reaching a hand up to his face, she caressed his cheek. “Good night, Jack.”
He inclined his head, his eyes as unreadable as that blank face he wore. “Goodbye, Sophie.”
She slipped inside and locked the door. The house was dark. Sabrina—who was spending the night in the guest room—was already asleep. Which was a good thing, Sophie told herself, because her friend had a nose like a bloodhound when it came to emotional upsets. There was no way Sophie would ever be able to hide how messed up she was from Sabrina.
And she wanted desperately to hide it from her friend, for her sake and for Jack’s. After what she’d done to him, there was no way she would ever talk about what had happened to anyone. He didn’t deserve that. Feeling a sob well up inside of her—which was stupid, as she was the one who had freaked out and started them down this path—she took a deep breath, forced it back down.
She started up to bed, where she planned to pull the covers over her head and pretend the past half an hour had never happened, when she glanced out the window and saw Jack still standing on his own front porch, staring at her house. He looked so completely alone that the sob burst out of her chest, despite her best efforts to stifle it. It was followed by another and another, until she was crying in earnest.
She headed back down the stairs to the front door, not sure what she was going to say, knowing only that she couldn’t leave him like that. But before she could call to him, he turned around and headed inside, turning off the porch light before he even got his front door closed.
As he did, she was the one left alone in the dark.
* * *
ANOTHER AFTERNOON passed without Sophie sending the boys over. Which he totally should have expected, but somehow he hadn’t. And even after he thought he’d been inoculated against the pain of losing Sophie—and the boys—in one fell swoop, it turned out that he wasn’t.
He didn’t know why she hadn’t sent them over, any more than he knew why she had hired one of those expensive babysitter services she couldn’t afford. He probably should have called that first evening, four nights ago, when she’d gotten home from work. Told her that he was still willing to watch Noah and Kyle.
But he hadn’t, because a part of him had wondered if she’d hired another babysitter because she didn’t trust him to be able to take care of the boys. And why should she, when he couldn’t do some of the most simple tasks around?
Still, it hadn’t kept him from standing in the shadows and watching as the boys played outside in the yard. The new babysitter kept them in the backyard, but if he watched from an upstairs window he could still see them. And if he hung out in the living room around six o’clock every night—for no particular reason—he could glance up and see Sophie coming home, looking sexy as hell in her suits with their short, tight skirts.
That meant she’d been in court all week, he remembered, because pantsuits meant office time. It was strange how he remembered these little details, all these little things about her when he’d never bothered to remember them about anyone else.
Or maybe it wasn’t so strange as he’d never felt this way about someone else. He thought about Sophie all the time, dreamed about making love to her, waited for her to get home with the eagerness of a puppy. And sometimes, when she got home and turned to look at his house, it took every ounce of self-control he had not to go to her.
The only thing holding him back was the fact that he had no idea what kind of reception he would get. She was the one who had freaked out on him, after all, the one who had tried to leave his house so fast he’d feared her hair had caught fire.
At the time he’d been worried that he’d hurt her with his lovemaking, that he’d been too rough with her and that was why she was having nothing to do with him.
He’d tried to be gentle that last time, despite the need for her that had shredded his control, had been doing a pretty good job of it—he thought—until she’d pushed him over the edge. He knew he’d gotten rough then, and he was sick with the idea that he had somehow frightened or hurt her.
He wanted to talk to her, to apologize if he had indeed done something to scare her. And if he hadn’t, then it meant something else had upset her. Something big. And the only thing he could think of—besides the Amanda thing, which he was sure they had dealt with before making love—is that his hand had bothered her. Disgusted her.
Usually he was so careful not to use that hand, and if he did, he tried not to touch her with anything but the fingers so she wouldn’t have to feel the scar tissue. But that night he hadn’t been careful. He’d held her the way he’d wanted, touched her the way he’d always wanted to. And then she had freaked out.
Plus, on Saturday, when he’d been making love to Sophie, he’d been leaning on his hands and his right hand had given out. He didn’t know why, except that it must not have been ready to support all his weight. He’d stumbled, would have fallen against Sophie if she hadn’t caught him. Add to that the debacle over the necklace and was it any wonder he hadn’t marched over to her house and demanded that she talk to him? He wasn’t a coward but he wasn’t a glutton for punishment, either. If she couldn’t deal with his hand, then fine. It was better to find that out now than to find it out later. Not that he actually expected her to be able to—God knew he had had a damn hard time accepting it and he didn’t have a choice.
Still as he watched her pull her car in the drive, watched her turn to look at his house, he once again con
templated going over there. What could it hurt? he wondered. Besides his pride? Maybe he’d see if the kids wanted to get an ice cream or something.
But then he glanced at his watch and knew he would never do it. His shift started in forty-five minutes and with Atlanta traffic, it would take him a good half an hour to get from his house to the clinic. Not that he couldn’t be late, if he really needed to be, but—
No. He shook his head, annoyed beyond belief with himself and the small part of him that kept hoping. Kept dreaming. Sophie had shown him how she’d felt in no uncertain terms. It was time for him to live with that.
Annoyed beyond belief—with himself and his foolish hopes and fears—he dressed for work quickly before slamming out of the house. After negotiating the traffic from hell, he finally blew into the clinic five minutes late and in a truly lousy mood. By the time he made it to the first exam room, he’d snapped at Amanda, pissed off Lucas and made one of the nurses cry. Definitely not his most impressive moment, if he did say so himself.
He took care of the patient—a little kid with strep throat—without getting anyone else mad at him, though it was touch and go for a while there. Moved on to a second patient and then a third before Amanda finally managed to corner him next to the coffeepot. That’s what he got for not sleeping and needing a crutch. A lecture from the woman he least wanted to get a lecture from.
“So, Jack, how’s it going?” she asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee he knew she wasn’t going to drink.
“Fine,” he said, taking a big sip of his own coffee while feigning nonchalance. All he got was a burned tongue for his trouble.
“Glad to hear that,” she said with a smile. “How’s physical therapy?”
“Fine.”
“Any doctor’s appointments lately?”
“No.”
“And how about Sophie. How is she?”
“She’s fine.”
“Hmm. How about the pain levels? Are your pain meds taking care of—”