Knock Me for a Loop (14 page)

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said with a shrug, not quite able to meet his gaze. “I guess the answer is yes. Unless I can be absolutely, one hundred percent certain you’ve never cheated on me, I can’t live with the question mark. And I’m not sure how you could ever assure me of that without taking a polygraph test or something. And the kiss…” she added, almost as an afterthought. “That can’t happen again, either.”

He didn’t respond, merely stared at her as though the intensity of his ice-blue gaze could burrow beneath her skin, into her heart and soul, and change the way she felt.

“If you’re still willing to drive to New York, I’ll call Quentin and get things set in motion.”

Jaw set, he nodded, just one short jerk of his head.

“I’ve got a knitting meeting tonight at The Yarn Barn, too. The girls will probably go for a drink afterward at The Penalty Box, so if you’d like to get together with the guys, I’d be happy to drop you off there on my way.”

Clearing his throat before he spoke, Zack said, “I’ll have to call Dylan and Gage, see if they’re interested.”

It was her turn to nod. “Just let me know.”

Turning, she opened the freezer door and took out a bag of frozen peas. As she passed, she set them carefully on his swollen knee, waiting to let go until he took hold of them himself so they wouldn’t slide to the floor.

“Make sure your knee is up to it, though,” she told him. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a setback in your recovery.”

Row 13

“It’s good to see you, man.”

“Yeah. For a while, we thought we were going to be stuck buying rounds for ourselves.”

Zack shot his friends a crooked
ha-ha
smirk, but deep down, he appreciated their concern. If they hadn’t been so worried about him, they wouldn’t have gotten Grace involved, and he wouldn’t be sitting here now.

He’d missed this place, he realized. Missed feeling more alive than dead, being with his friends, getting around—more or less—on his own two feet.

But he’d really screwed the pooch where Grace was concerned. He’d thought they were getting closer, getting past some of the things that had come between them to begin with.

And the kiss…Holy Moses, the kiss had been amazing. Any hotter and smoke would have poured out of his ears. For all he knew, it had, and he just hadn’t noticed.

She’d been into it, too. She could deny it now all she wanted, but he knew damn well that if he hadn’t twisted his freaking knee and cried out like a pussy instead of pushing through the pain, she’d have let him peel down her pants and take her right there against the counter, pounding into her with six months’ worth of pent-up passion.

God, how he wanted that. Had wanted it, did want it…He could make love to Grace twenty-six hours a day, eight days a week, and never get tired of it, never get tired of her.

Yet she still believed there was a possibility he’d cheated on her.

She’d have a better chance of going out to Lake Erie and walking across the water without getting her feet wet.

The kiss had seemed like a good idea at the time. And, Jesus, he’d wanted it more than he’d wanted his next breath.

But he admitted now that he’d rushed it. He should have held back, waited until they were on the road and had spent time together in the
really
close quarters of his Hummer and a hotel room or two.

So he had some making up to do. Some backtracking and reassessing. He would have to tread lightly for a while, lull her back into a false sense of security. And most importantly, seduce her into being with him again.

Of course, there was still the small matter of her distrust of him, so he would have to come up with a way of convincing her he was
trustworthy
and hadn’t betrayed her with another woman.

Not such a tall order. He should be able to squeeze it in between devising a plan for world peace and inventing a cheap, alternative fossil fuel to gasoline.

A waitress, dressed in the skimpy Penalty Box “uniform” of blue hot pants and tight white tank top with red lettering, stopped at their table to take their orders. She tossed her long brown hair and batted heavily lined doe eyes at first Zack, then Gage, and finally Dylan.

Not that Dylan was the ugliest of their bunch by any means. He just happened to be the boy-next-door type while Zack was a local celebrity with a very recognizable face, and Gage was built like a professional wrestler with the face of a cover model. So while he got noticed, it just maybe wasn’t first when the other two were nearby.

This wasn’t the waitress’s lucky night, though, because Gage and Dylan were very firmly taken…so taken that even the brunette’s firm ass and double Ds, which she was doing her best to shake right under their noses, didn’t turn their heads.

And though Zack noticed—he, after all, was not taken, though not for lack of trying—they didn’t really turn his head, either. He had someone else’s tits and ass on his mind at the moment.

They ordered a pitcher of beer to split between them, and because it was Zack’s first time at the bar—hell, out of the apartment—in quite some time, the guys even let him pick the brand. Nice, since the three of them had three different preferences, and normally they’d have argued a bit, then resorted to flipping a coin or playing a quick round of rochambeau.

“So tell us what’s been going on with you,” Dylan pressed once the waitress had sauntered off to fill their order. “Last time we saw you, you looked like something the cat had hawked up. Now you look great. And you’re getting around a lot better on that leg.”

“Yeah.” He ran a hand absently over his knee. It was still a little sore from the incident in the kitchen, but they were right about it being a lot better than before. Not a hundred percent better, but hovering around eighty or ninety, that was for sure, at least when compared to where he’d been only two short weeks ago, or where he might be now if it hadn’t been for Grace’s interference and cattle-prod mentality.

“Sending Grace was a good idea, then, I take it?”

The question was tentative, as though Dylan expected Zack to lay into the both of them for first getting on his case, then abandoning him, and finally sending his ex in to whip him into shape. And if they’d showed up a day or two into Grace’s visit, that’s probably exactly what he would have done.

But how could he be upset or hold anything against them when A.) they’d had his best interests at heart and B.) it really had been what he’d needed?

So he could be stubborn and didn’t always know what was best for himself. Or maybe he did, but didn’t always want to admit it.

“Yeah,” he told them, not too proud—not anymore, at any rate—to come clean. “It was a good idea.”

Without a word, Gage reached into his front pocket, pulled out a folded twenty-dollar bill, and tossed it across the table to Dylan.

Zack regarded them curiously. “What was that for?” he asked, though he had a pretty clear idea.

“We had a wager going over whether you’d be okay with Grace moving in or be ready to take our heads off.”

“You bet on decapitation, I take it,” Zack replied dryly to Gage.

The waitress returned with their pitcher of Sam Adams draft and three empty glasses, pouring the first round for them.

After she wiggled away, Gage said, “I was kind of expecting you to take a swing at us with your crutches when you first arrived.”

“To be honest, so did I,” Dylan said. “Except that Ronnie’s been hovering by the phone ever since she and Jenna badgered Grace into going to see you, and since Grace never called either crying or screaming, I figured you must have worked out some sort of truce.”

“Why would I need to beat you with my crutches when I’ve already flattened all your tires and filled your cars with dead fish?” he asked, raising his glass to his lips for a first, long sip.

“You know,” Dylan said, “I’d almost believe you if Ronnie hadn’t dropped me off on her way to The Yarn Barn.”

“Same here.”

Zack chuckled. “God, we’re a bunch of pussy-whipped losers,” he muttered. “At least I’ve got a decent excuse for having a woman drive me to my favorite watering hole.” He slapped the side of his bum leg in emphasis.

“Speak for yourself,” Gage told him. “Having Jenna drop me off is the smart move. It gets her here after her knitting meeting, and gets a few drinks into her so she’s feeling all mellow and receptive by the time we get home.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “That’s even worth riding around town in her damn tiny tuna can of a car.”

Gage lifted his beer at the same time Zack lowered his.

“You need to knock her up already so you have an excuse to upgrade to a minivan or something, man,” Zack offered.

At that, his friend’s mouth stretched into a fullblown smile…or as much of a smile as Gage ever shared, anyway. “I’m working on it. And enjoying every minute of it, believe me.”

“Tough job,” Dylan put in.

And then all three of them together: “But somebody’s gotta do it.”

That got them all laughing and bumping knuckles for a few minutes, and Zack thought he might have just managed to slip under the radar of his eagle-eyed friends and their earlier topic of conversation.

He should have known better.

“Back to the important stuff, though,” Dylan put in, making him once again feel like a bug under a microscope. “You’ve gotta tell us how things are going over at Casa del Hoolihan. We’ve been watching the news and reading the papers, but we haven’t seen any domestic disturbance reports. No Hummers being violated. No clothes flying from windows or hockey trophies being mounted headfirst through walls.”

His friend’s lips twitched with amusement, and Zack burrowed his face back into the foamy head of his beer to hide his scowl.

That was the problem with having two such close buddies, he thought. They knew too much about his personal life and weren’t afraid to bring up things that might be private or uncomfortable, or pester him when they wanted further details.

There was no getting out of it, either. They’d hound him until he was tempted to snatch the hair right out of his head, and he wasn’t exactly up to running away.

With a sigh, he lowered his beer to the table with a clink and sat back in his chair, adopting a negligent hunch that allowed him to stretch his injured leg a bit more.

“What do you want to know?” he asked, resigned.

Dylan and Gage exchanged a surprised glance.

It was something, at least, catching them off guard. He was sure they’d expected him to be tight-lipped and make them fight to drag the information from him.

But what was the point when he’d end up telling them everything eventually, anyway? Either they’d wear him down and he’d spill because he couldn’t take the endless interrogation any longer, or he’d end up needing their advice and would have to fill them in to get it.

“Would I sound like too much of a girl if I said ‘everything’?” Dylan asked.

“Yes,” Zack and Gage both responded at the same time.

“All right, then you ask him something,” he said, gesturing to Gage with his glass before taking a drink.

The bigger man thought for a minute, tapping the side of his thumb on the tabletop. When he finally spoke, it was in a low voice and with a completely straight face. “How’s your dog?”

Both Zack and Dylan stared at him as though he’d just asked if Zack was wearing women’s underwear. Then a round of chuckles went around the table, punctuated by a couple of good-natured curses from Zack. His friends really could be jerk-offs sometimes.

“Bruiser’s great,” he told them, and realized how happy it made him to say that, to have the Saint Bernard back in his life again. He’d missed the big, furry drool factory.

“And it
is
Bruiser, by the way,” he added, knowing that his friends would appreciate that piece of information, since they’d been the ones to inform him when Grace changed the dog’s name to Muffin to begin with.

Muffin—
God.
It still sent ice chips through his blood to think of it. What
had
she been thinking?

“Wow.” Dylan’s eyes went wide. “How’d you get her to agree to that?”

“We hammered out an agreement,” he said, and then filled them in on everything that had been happening.

“You’ve got a hell of a lot going on for a guy who only a month ago couldn’t be bothered to move off the couch unless he needed another bag of cheese balls,” Gage said after they’d taken a moment to absorb his little tale.

“Cheetos,” Zack corrected.

“So do you think there’s a chance you two can work things out?”

This from Dylan, who’d been there when Grace had flipped out and gone running from the hotel, thinking he’d been banging other women while he was on the road and away from her.

Unlike Grace, however, Dylan
didn’t
believe he’d been messing around. Aside from being one of his best friends, and therefore most likely aware if he was stepping out on his fiancée, he’d also done the math and realized that Zack wouldn’t have had the time to do anything inappropriate since they’d parted company and headed for their separate rooms on different floors. At least not anything interesting or that could qualify as truly unfaithful.

And though Zack had pretty much written off ever being in the same zip code with Grace, let alone
being
with her again, Dylan hadn’t given up on them. He’d constantly offered encouragement and suggestions for convincing her that Zack hadn’t cheated.

None of those suggestions had worked—possibly because Zack had never followed through on any of them—but it had been nice to have at least one person in his corner, unwilling to believe he was the horned beast from hell everyone else made him out to be.

Okay, two people. Gage had been on his side, too. He hadn’t been there the day Zack’s world came crashing down around him, so he hadn’t known the details or had his own eyes and ears to go by.

But he’d listened to both Zack’s and Dylan’s version of events, then asked Zack flat-out—
Did you cheat on her? Did you know that woman was in your hotel room? Have you
ever
fucked another woman while you were involved with Grace?

Zack may have been drunk at the time, his mind sluggish and vision blurry with lack of sleep. But he’d looked his friend straight in the eyes and answered with one hundred percent, cross-his-heart, God-strike-him-dead honesty. No. No. And absolutely not.

That had been good enough for Gage, whose background as a police detective and undercover cop gave him better skills than most in spotting deception.

And though they’d never come right out and told him so, Zack suspected both men had slowly, subtly begun sharing their opinions of him with their significant others—Grace’s best friends. Maybe not singing his praises to the heavens, but stating a few facts about his behavior both that day in the hotel and in the past. Letting them know how broken up he was at losing Grace and having his entire life turned upside down.

He should probably be upset about that. Pissed that they’d been talking behind his back, sharing things that he considered private and very, very personal. But not only had they been doing what they thought was best
for him
, to help him, it had also paved the way—eventually—for Grace’s reappearance in his life.

Without Dylan and Gage defending him to Ronnie and Jenna, he had no doubt the two women would have gone to their graves before ever speaking a kind word about him again.

Instead, they’d apparently (either directly or indirectly) rehumanized him to Grace. No way in hell would she have ever shown up on his doorstep otherwise. Not without her friends’ soothing, encouraging, prompting.