Indomitable Spirit (3 page)

“Did you get hurt? Did it hit you? God, I’m so sorry. I could have killed…”

Her gentle finger rose to his lips and pressed against them. “Being prepared does not always mean someone will attack you. You must always be prepared for the unexpected,” she said in calm, even tone.

For the first time since he’d crashed into her at the store, he watched her smile. If he’d thought the eyes had already done him in, the smile sealed the deal.

Kym handed him back the wrench and before he could slide the tool into his belt, she pulled open his clenched fist.

“You hurt yourself when you slid down the ladder.”

He looked down. Until that moment he hadn’t realized how scraped up his hands were. Once he did, the ache and throbbing started.

He shrugged. “Not the first time. I’ll survive.”

“You’ll come upstairs and I will fix your hand.”

“I said I’m fine.” He clenched the fist again and tried not to wince from the pain.

“You are one stubborn man, Mr. Larson.”

He let out a grunt. “You’re not the first to say so.”

“If you won’t let me help you, then you will suffer. Sometimes being strong isn’t about suffering alone. Sometimes it takes a strong person to ask for help.”

She turned and opened the door to the school.

“Hey,” John called out after her. She turned back to him and he took a step in her direction. “I’m sorry I nearly killed you.”

Kym only shook her head and went back inside.

John huffed out a breath, climbed back up the ladder, and cursed his aching hands.

“Finish the job, man. Then you can say goodbye to Miss Icy Stare Karate Teacher forever,” he muttered to himself.

As he continued to work on the sign, he thought about her staring at him with those green eyes. When they were warm and friendly how would it feel when she looked at him? Damn, the last thing he needed in his life was a woman to make it more complicated than it already was.

Chapter Two

Kym could still hear John outside hanging the sign. With his hand injured the job was undoubtedly taking longer than he would have liked—or so she assumed by the language he was using.

Her grandfather had laughed as she had looked out the window for the tenth time in an hour.

“Go. Help.”

“He doesn’t deserve my help.”

“All people deserve help,” he said in his calm, knowing tone.

She’d never picked a fight with her grandfather, though she thought about it. There was no use. The old man would use that calm tone on her and it always went his way.

Kym took a breath to give her opinion again. Her grandfather closed his eyes and smiled. This was his way of shutting her out and making his words the last ones said.

She gritted her teeth and slowly let out a breath. The last thing she wanted to do was go outside and help the man who had been so obstinate—so rude.

As she looked at her grandfather again, his peaceful face had softened, but his eyes were still closed. Something was working in that head of his and she was going to learn some lesson from it—that much she knew.

Kym huffed to the front door and pulled her coat down off the hook. She’d changed her clothes. Perhaps it would put John Larson at ease. Maybe it was seeing a woman in uniform that had him acting so put off.

She slipped her arms though the sleeves of the coat and zipped it up. No, he’d been put off by her since he’d first seen her in the grocery store. There was a story behind the man’s dark eyes and less than sunny disposition. Maybe he just needed a friend.

She opened the door and headed down the stairs to the school.

A friend—she thought about it again. He seemed to have those. The whole town knew him. Even Malory wasn’t irritated by his snipping at her for help and that name he called her. Then again he’d said all her friends called her Wil.

Kym felt the familiar twist form in her stomach. She was the one who needed a friend. That’s how it had always been. Her brothers made friends. They trained hard and played hard. She trained hard and then walked to a quiet corner and snuck away in a book. But friends weren’t something she collected often.

As she reached the door she heard John let out one more curse.

“How’s it going?” she asked trying to smile through her feelings of inadequacy.

“Am I making too much noise? Am I in the way?” he snapped as he cranked the wrench to tighten the bolt.

“No. I just thought I could give you a hand.”

“Oh, since I hurt mine and can’t seem to keep a wrench in my hand?”

“I didn’t…” she blew out a breath. She needed to take a lesson from her grandfather right now. Calm your mind and your breath, she reminded herself. “No. I just wanted to offer some help.”

“Sure now you do.”

That snapped the calm. “I simply meant…”

John came down the ladder and looked up. “What do you think?”

It wasn’t until that moment that she realized he had the sign hung and was done. No wonder he didn’t take her offer of help seriously.

“It looks wonderful.”

She’d never tired of seeing her family’s name on signs. A lot of pride went into their schools. This one would be no different.

“Well, that’s that.” He turned and walked back to his truck where the old sign sat. “Do you want this one?”

She thought quickly. “No. Is there something you can do with it?”

It was just an old wooden sign which was so old all the paint and varnish had long worn off. “I’m sure I can chop it down. I can do something with it.”

Kym nodded.

John began to load up his truck with the tools he’d taken out. Kym watched helplessly.

He moved back to gather his ladder and as he lowered it she watched him pull his hand back as if it hurt, but he didn’t say anything.

John lifted the ladder onto the metal racks built up on the bed of the pickup truck.

“I guess that’s all.” He lifted the tailgate up.

“Thank you,” Kym watched him clench his hand at his side.

“Doing my job.”

On instinct she reached for his hand and held it up to examine it again. It looked horrible. The blood had dried, but it still needed to be bandaged.

“Please come in and let me fix this.”

He took a breath to protest, but Kym did just as her grandfather would. She took a deep breath of her own and closed her eyes. When John didn’t speak she turned, his wrist still in her hand, and walked into the school.

The moment she walked into the school she toed off her shoes. “You have to take off your boots.”

“No.”

She narrowed her eyes. How did her grandfather keep so calm?

“Mr. Larson, we do not wear shoes indoors. You leave the dirt of the world outside.”

“Then I’ll go back outside.”

She clenched her jaw. “Please.”

He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and then bent at the waist to untie the work boots kicking them off next to hers.

“Happy?”

She forced a smile. “Yes.”

Kym walked to the matted floor, bowed, and started across.

“Do you expect me to bow?”

“I just expect you to let me look at that hand.”

She was sure she heard him growl behind her, but she kept walking to the back of the school.

John had never felt so out of place in the town he’d grown up in. But following the little Korean spitfire he knew he was out of place.

At least she’d changed her clothes. The uniform she’d worn earlier had made him uncomfortable and weak. But in the pair of sweatpants with San Diego printed down the leg gave her a different look. A relaxed look. Her hair was piled high on her head in a messy bun and the T-shirt with the school’s name on it hid under the large coat she wore.

If he hadn’t been raised a gentleman, and if he didn’t have four hungry kids at home waiting for him to make something horrible for dinner, he’d make a pass at her. But that wasn’t John Larson.

No, John Larson was known for being an asshole. He wanted to laugh as the small woman pulled him through the back room of the school by the hand.

He growled more than he smiled. He snapped out answers more often than calmly explaining his situations. And he didn’t laugh very often.

The more he thought about it he didn’t like himself very much at all.

Hadn’t his own sister told him that morning that he acted like a crabby eighty-year-old woman?

Okay, so this woman—nice-looking woman—wanted to take care of him. Was there anything wrong in that? After all he did hurt himself hanging
her
sign. And that was after
she
had him all riled up because he’d called Wil Wil. And what about that run in at the grocery store? That wasn’t all his fault.

“Are you okay?” Kym asked.

“Fine.”

“Then can you open your hand a little?”

He hadn’t even realized that he’d tightened his hand so tight that the fist he made had his knuckles turning white and the cut on his hand bleeding again.

“Sorry.”

Kym turned on the faucet at the sink, took a clean rag from a drawer, and wet it. She ringed it out, turned off the water, and turned back to him.

She took his hand, but this time when she grabbed his wrist he could have sworn she did something to him. His hand relaxed open and she pressed the rag to his raw skin. The first reaction was to jump, but he fought it. There was no way he’d show weakness to her.

“Don’t take this off. I’m going to grab the first aid kit.”

She walked to another cabinet and took down an enormous box.

“That’s a first aid kit?”

She smiled and he’d never quite noticed that her cheeks rose high. Then again he realized she’d never smiled in his presence. Yep, he was an asshole.

Kym set the box down on the counter and began to look through it. “I’m prepared for everything. Sprained ankle, broken toe, sliver…”

“Sliver? You get slivers doing karate?”

There was a giggle. He’d made her giggle. “Sometimes you get slivers when you break boards.”

Oh yeah. He was considering flirting with a woman who could break walls. That was a dumb idea.

Kym turned her hand over and showed him the scar on the side of her hand. “See that one? Now that was a sliver.”

“You have a scar that big on your hand from breaking a board?”

“Six.”

He forced down the lump in his throat. “Six boards?”

She laughed again as she took the cloth off his hand and set it on the counter. “To be honest I broke the boards first. I got the hunk of wood stuck in my hand when I was picking them back up.”

His shoulders were tense as she took a gauze pad she’d covered in ointment and placed it on his hand. “You’ve been doing this a long time then?”

“Fixing hands?”

That made him relax. “Karate.”

“I don’t remember not doing it.”

“O’Bryne? So your dad is Irish?”

“Yes. My parents have actually moved back to Dublin to retire. My mother is from Korea.”

“That explains the dynamic eyes.”

At that moment those very eyes shifted up to look at him through long dark lashes. “Dynamic eyes?”

Now he’d crossed the line. There was being nice and there was flirting. Then, his stomach growled and he no longer could think of the beautiful Korean and Irish woman before him. He needed to think about food and feeding others.

As soon as she finished wrapping his hand in gauze he pulled away from her.

“That looks good.”

“Make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

“It won’t.” He was already tiptoeing over the red and blue mat as though it would turn into water or something. Once he made it to his boots he quickly slid his feet in. He’d never be able to tie them with his hand all bandaged up.

Quickly he opened the door and the cold smacked him. He’d grown too warm in the school with her touching him. Just as he stepped out onto the gravel he realized he was still an asshole—a big one running away.

It pained him, but he turned around and caught her eye from across the room. Those eyes were as magnificent from twenty feet as they were up close.

John swallowed hard. “Thank you,” he said holding up the bandaged hand.

Kym didn’t say a word she simply bowed her head gracefully.

He needed to get home. He needed the chaos of his family. He needed a beer. And when everyone was tucked in tight he needed a cold shower.

Chapter Three

Usually John would have stopped back by the store and made sure his sister had locked it up tight. But tonight he needed the chaos of his children to refocus his head.

His mother quickly shushed him as he opened the front door as she rocked with Cody in the rocking chair. He was nearly two, but he’d always be the baby.

“The middle two are playing in the bedroom, but it’s gotten awfully quiet,” she whispered.

John gave her a nod and headed down the hallway. It only took one whiff of the thick air to realize why they were so quiet. When he opened the door there was a four and six year old covered from head to toe in baby powder.

“What are you doing?” he asked too tired to yell or be really angry. He knew he had to pick his fights and he’d picked enough of them today with Kym O’Bryne. He shook his head. He’d come home so he could forget that. She wasn’t supposed to be occupying his head any further.

“Look, Daddy. Mason is an old man,” Abby said laughing.

John shook his head as he looked at his four year old son grinning up at him through white coated eyelashes.

“Mason, why did you let her do that?”

His son only giggled and that started Abby to giggle too.

“You two are trouble.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with his bandaged hand.

“Dear, Lord, what happened to you?” His mother’s voice came from behind him. “Oh, dear, what did you two do?”

“Mom, it just needs a vacuum. I can handle this.”

She gave them a tsk tsk with her tongue and then reached for John’s hand.

“And this?”

He pulled his hand back. “This is nothing. I hit my finger with the hammer when I was at Wil’s and then I slid down the ladder when I dropped a wrench.”
And it nearly landed on the most beautiful…
He bit down on the inside of his cheek to inflict just enough pain to occupy his mind.