Leaping Hearts (12 page)

“I’m sure you’ve had better,” he said, trying not to drown in the blue he found so captivating.

“Well, I’ve certainly had smaller. What I usually get could fit on the head of a pin and is more art than edible.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“Regina’s cook likes to express himself in three dimensions. He’s great at color, texture and presentation. The man’s less strong on calories.”

“Regina’s the wicked stepmother?”

“More like all-pervasive,” A.J. replied between mouthfuls. “For a short woman, she has a way of taking up a lot of space.”

“Personality can add inches where high heels fail.”

“You got that right. My father really loves her, though, and he seems happy, so who am I to judge? I just sneak a sandwich or two on the way upstairs. Like he does.”

“Where’s your mother?”

There was a subtle hesitation before she responded. “She’s been gone a long time now. She died when I was young.”

The words were measured, giving away nothing but fact. She’d spoken them for as long as she could remember, as much a part of what she regularly revealed to people as her address or her phone number. Any real sense of loss she kept to herself.

“I’m sorry.”

A.J. shrugged off the concern, as she always did. “I was very young and I didn’t really know her.”

“It’s still a tremendous loss.”

“I try not to dwell on it.”

“You don’t miss her?”

“Of course I do but she isn’t in the forefront of my mind.”

“You don’t think about what it would be like if she was around?”

“I’ve never known any other way. The normal things people do with their mothers are all hypotheticals to me. It’s hard to miss something you’ve never had.”

“You’re a very strong woman.”

She looked up at him, feeling a respect coming across the table that she reveled in. He was touching her deeply with his steady regard.

“I don’t know if it is strength. I just don’t like getting lost in a period of my life I can never return to and probably don’t remember clearly anyway. A resurrected patchwork of childhood fantasies can be a warm quilt to snuggle up to but it’s no substitute for real life.”

“How can you let go so easily?” There was an edge to his words.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” she said softly. “I guess I’ve come to peace with the loss. The idea that everyone is going to live forever and nothing will ever change is just an illusion.”

His eyes bored into hers. “I’m still working on the coming-to-peace part. I’ve been finding that illusion is just as hard to bury as the dead.”

Devlin looked away, wishing for the days back when he
believed nothing could ever take him down, that he would go on winning forever. Back when all he worried about was when the next challenge was coming.

“It gets better, you know,” she told him. “It really does. I’ve had a lot longer to get used to my loss than you have. My mother’s been gone a lot longer than Mercy has.”

She watched Devlin’s face shut down and wasn’t surprised when he changed the subject. For the rest of the meal, they talked easily about Sabbath’s training but after they cleaned up the dishes, he got a serious look on his face again. He was standing at the door of the kitchen, fingers on the light switch, when she walked past him. His hand on her arm stopped her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said softly. “I like having you around.”

Surprised and thrilled by his admission, her eyes searched his face. “I imagine it must have been lonely here by yourself. I find it’s helpful to be around people when I’m hurting.”

“It’s not just people. It feels good to have
you
here.”

With a swift movement, he bent down and put his lips against hers. She gasped in surprise and he swallowed her breath, taking her into him. His mouth moved over hers and her hands found his chest, lingering on the lapels of his shirt. Instantly, she was ready to have him closer. Time slowed, then stopped.

Then, with a hiss of frustration, Devlin pulled back as he realized what he’d done. Looking into her eyes, he wanted to offer an explanation but knew he had to leave quickly before he kissed her again.

As he rounded the corner and started up the stairs, he caught a glance of the couch. Six cushions, two armrests and fifteen yards of blue fabric, but it was so much more than a place to sit now because that was where she was going to sleep.

What had he let into his house? he wondered as his heart thudded in his chest. Something dangerous had come inside with that woman, he realized, something tight on her heels, so at first he hadn’t noticed its presence. Now he felt a threat everywhere around him. From her coat hanging next
to his to her barn boots tucked beside the door, her shadow seemed to be across every object that, having once been familiar to him, was now foreign.

What had he done, he thought, going upstairs and walking into the bathroom like a zombie. Immediately, he caught the lingering smell of lavender in the air and cursed under his breath. Like crumbs of a feast, it mocked him and sharpened the hunger in his gut. He imagined her body unfurled in scented water with nothing to shield her from his eyes. At the vision, his body responded in a rush of heat as blood thundered in his veins and forced him to reassess what he thought of as unbearable.

Wrenching a hand through his hair, he went to the sink and stared at his reflection. He looked like a man who was out of air, and that was how he felt. His chest was tight and his head was spinning. The only things he knew for certain were the passion in his body and the pain in his heart.

Instead of giving in to either, he tossed some water on his face and gritted his teeth.

Get a grip.

After putting his toothbrush to vigorous use, he went to his bedroom, where he stripped naked and got into bed. Staring at the ceiling in the dim light, he saw only what he imagined her body would look like, laid out to his eyes and his mouth, its textures and contours his to learn.

Turning restlessly, he punched a pillow hard and looked at his bedside table.

That book on baseball legends wasn’t going to do the trick tonight, he thought. He was going to need something more along the lines of a ball-peen hammer to put him out. And it was a damn shame the thing was out in the barn.

A.J.
PASSED
the time while waiting to hear Devlin’s bedroom door shut by making up the couch and changing into a clean T-shirt. The stiffness in her arms made the simple tasks a study in soreness but her mind was elsewhere. She was going through the motions, moving through the room in a disconnected daze, and it was only after she knocked herself a good one walking into the coffee table that she cradled her shin and sat down.

Keeping their relationship on a business level was absolutely the right thing to do. It had been hard to concentrate on her training after she’d been in his arms and felt his tongue against hers. It was worse now that he’d kissed her good night, because she was reminded there was more than passion between them, more than the heat, pounding blood, electric feelings of lust….

A.J. shook her head.

It was worse now because that kiss had also been about their emotions. About him telling her how much he liked her in his house and her feeling as if he was opening up to her, little by little.

She had to remember she was with him to train for the Qualifier, she told herself sternly. Not to fall in love.

A.J. shuddered at the implications of the L-word.

Her heart pounded in fear and she worried she might be reading too much into their conversation over dinner. Even though he’d said something to the contrary, maybe he’d just
reached out to her because he was in the mood for confidences.

The question became, did he know himself?

And thinking of the kisses they’d shared only made her more dismayed. Devlin McCloud was a man with powerful urges. Clearly. She thought again that maybe the fire between them wasn’t unusual for him, even if it was a revelation to her.

In A.J.’s experience, she wasn’t really the kind of woman men would break down a door to get to. Well, maybe if a house was on fire and they were a Good Samaritan with an ax and an air mask. But she’d never found that they’d do it out of romance.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have male colleagues. Back at Sutherland’s, she was always included in think-tank sessions on show strategy, vet consults and team dynamics. But she wasn’t someone who got asked to go out to the local watering hole to shoot pool and drink lukewarm beer with the others.

And as for dates? If A.J. thought it’d been a long time since she’d sat in a tub, the last time she’d been out with a man was back in the Stone Age. Sharing the warmth of someone else’s body, exchanging furtive kisses, experiencing a mutual longing that would shut out the world, none of that had happened in a long time.

Try, more like never.

It was like she had some missing parts and men knew it. The problem was, until she met Devlin, she’d never felt broken. The horses and the competing had been enough. Her days had always been full, and the nights…The nights had been for rest, not romance, but that had been okay with her.

So what was it about Devlin McCloud that made her think clean living was so underrated? With only two kisses, he’d managed to make her think the life of a harlot had some real potential.

Unnerved, A.J.’s mind leapt away from further thoughts about their attraction, only to latch onto feelings she’d had while she talked with him about her past. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken of her mother. It was a topic she kept to herself and she was unnerved by how far
she’d let Devlin into the deepest part of herself. Sitting at that table with him, in the midst of sharing their pain, her admissions had seemed only natural, but now, as she sat alone, she was torn. Between the kiss and the revelations, she’d allowed herself to become vulnerable physically and emotionally during a time when she needed her strength the most. She wasn’t going to make it through the Qualifier unless she could keep control of herself.

Looking up at the ceiling, she wondered how she was to get through to the event in one piece. And waited in silence for an answer that didn’t come.

When she heard Devlin’s door close, A.J. quietly mounted the stairs and did a quick pass through the bathroom, getting done with her normal routine in half the time. Passing his closed door as she left, she paused as she realized it was far from over between them, business-only vows to the contrary. It was a premonition that tickled down her spine and she had to tell herself that the spooky sensation was because she was exhausted and unsettled, not because she could predict the future.

If she were psychic, she’d have known it by now, she thought as she went downstairs. And she’d have bought a lot more lottery tickets over the years.

It was hours later when A.J. awoke in confusion. Turning over, she looked out of the windows. Cloud cover had taken over the night sky, smothering the light of the stars and the moon. She looked around the room, unsure what had woken her up. Blinking in the dark, she held her breath, trying to pinpoint the disturbance.

Was it a dream or something real?

Listening, she waited to see if the noise came again, while trying to convince herself it was only her subconscious. In the quiet of the night, she heard the autumn wind brushing against the house and the shutters creak on their old-fashioned hinges, but those noises were unremarkable.

After holding herself tense for some time, she was ready to go back to sleep when she heard a muffled groan, the sound of someone in pain. Throwing back the covers, she leapt off the couch. When the low sound came once more,
she realized it was drifting down from the second floor. She ran up the stairs.

With visions of CPR running through her head, A.J. wrenched open the door to Devlin’s bedroom. On the antique bed, he was moaning in anguish, thrashing like a man in the throes of torture. The covers were wrapped around his naked body like a snake, trapping his limbs and adding to the traction of his nightmare. She rushed to his side.

Lost to his torment, Devlin was mumbling incoherently and she reached for him, calling out his name. As soon as her hands touched his arm, his eyes snapped open as if he’d been struck. Disoriented, he struggled to get up but the bedclothes clung to the sweat covering his skin. She leaned forward to help free him, trying to ignore the way his bare body was revealed to her.

With a flash of movement, he gripped her arms, looking at her urgently while seeing something else.

“I knew there was something wrong with her leg,” he said urgently.

His voice held the anguish of regret, and the feeling sounded fresh despite being tied to events nearly a year old.

“It was my fault. I should never have taken her over those fences.”

Tentatively, A.J. reached up and stroked his hair but she didn’t know what good it was going to do to calm him. He was lost to his memories, stuck in the prison of his mind.

His hazel eyes, usually so sharp, were like dull stones as he shook his head back and forth. “If only I hadn’t pushed so hard…”

“Shhh,” she said in a gentle voice. “Take a couple of deep breaths.”

With the abrupt clarity of light slicing through darkness, he focused on her. Under his sudden regard, A.J. felt like she’d been caught eavesdropping on his pain and began to pull away, aware that he was naked in the knotted sheets.

Devlin didn’t let her go.

He moved with decisive speed, pulling her to him and claiming her mouth with a vengeance. A.J. was rocked by the sensation of his body against hers and reacted instinctively, opening her mouth to him. But, as his tongue plunged
inside, the voice of reason in her head sounded off alarms. He was still disoriented and very naked and she knew coming together in the darkness, in his bed, was like tossing a match into a gas tank. Enticed as she was, she began to move away, trying to do the right thing.

She didn’t get far. When his arms tightened against her back in protest, she tried one more time and then gave up her halfhearted battle, getting swept away by their passion.