conceived means. Good God, you’re the biggest perv on the planet.”

He laughed, not at al ashamed. Of course not. He was Sam. “Not the biggest.”

“You’re right up there.”

“Which is why I probably shouldn’t answer such delicate questions.”

Conner returned, munching on a red gummy worm. The little wheels in his head were stil turning. Just because he’d taken a worm break didn’t mean he was ready to let the subject go.

“Okay.” Autumn jumped to her feet before Conner could get his questions out. “We better get going now.”

“We just got here.”

“We talked about this, Conner. You knew we weren’t going to stay long. Your dad needs to rest.”

“What I need is a shower.”

She started toward the kitchen. “Let’s get your hoodie.”

“I need your help.”

That stopped her, and she slowly turned to face Sam. He was looking at her. “Me? You need me to help you take a shower?”

He chuckled and used his good hand to push himself up. “No. Not unless you insist.” He tossed the peas on the coffee table and pointed to his sling.

“Somebody hooked this thing up in the back, and I can’t get it off.” He moved past her, just natural y assuming she’d help him out. “I’m not so sure I need it anyway.”

“Can I have your cupcake, Dad?”

“Knock yourself out, but just make sure you eat at the bar. I can’t break out the DustBuster after you leave today.” He looked back at Autumn over his shoulder. “Come on.” When she didn’t move, he stopped and turned to look at her. “I’m not trying to push you around. I just need a little help.”

That wasn’t the reason her feet were glued to his carpet. Helping him out of his sling felt a little too intimate. A little too close. As if he read her mind, he asked, “Do you think I’m going to try something on you?”

He made it sound so ridiculous that there was only one thing left for her to do. She shook her head and shrugged out of her fleece jacket. She tossed it on top of her purse and fol owed Sam. “Of course I don’t think that.” They moved down a curved hal and passed a room that could only be Conner’s.

“That’s good, because I’m in no condition to start something that I can’t finish,” he said over his shoulder. “No matter how pretty you beg.”

If he hadn’t already been hurt and moving kind of slow, she might have been tempted to hit him. Instead, she kept her attention focused on the dark blue figure-eight splint across the back of his white T-shirt and the beige strap of his sling. He was right. The figure-of-eight and sling were Velcroed in back.

She fol owed him into the large master bedroom with a spectacular view of El iott Bay. The bed itself was stil unmade and rumpled from the night before, and a pair of hockey shorts, socks, and big pads had been kicked to one side. The walk-in closet was as big as her bathroom at home and the bathroom as big as her kitchen. Only fancier. A lot fancier.

He flipped on a switch with his good hand and a brushed-nickel chandelier and rows of canned lights shone down onto white-and-black marble. The shower stal could comfortably seat a family of six and was enclosed in glass and black granite with tiny silver flecks. He stopped in the center of a zebra-skin rug. She was fairly sure it was a cowhide dyed to look like a zebra, but it was stil mildly disconcerting. He turned to face her. “What?”

She ran her gaze up his legs, past his waist, over the arm pinned to his chest, to his face. “That rug is a whole cowhide.”

“Yeah?”

She shook her head. “Aren’t you disturbed by it?”

“No more disturbed by it than by your leather sneakers.”

To her, it wasn’t real y the same. Her shoes served a worthy purpose, and she thought animal skins used for nothing more than decorations were creepy. Like skul s and heads and antlers. Yuck. Her feelings didn’t have to make sense to anyone but her. She moved around behind him and reached for the buckle just above his right shoulder blade. “Has Conner seen it?”

“Yeah.”

Her knuckles brushed the warm cotton of his T-shirt. “Did he cry?”

“No, but he doesn’t like to walk on it.”

That was her boy. “He has a kind heart. He doesn’t like to hurt people or animals.” Which brought her to a subject she’d wanted to talk to him about.

“Last night, he total y lost it when he saw you.” She rose onto the bal s of her feet and tried to touch him as little as possible. She lightly put one palm in the center of his back for support as she pushed a strap over his shoulder. “It real y upset him.”

“I know, but getting hurt is a risk that I take every time I step on the ice.” She moved around him as he slowly lowered his arm. “Last night was a freak accident.”

She careful y pul ed the beige sling from his arm, sliding it past his elbow. She wanted Conner to take a break from hockey games, but she supposed the subject was moot for a while. At least until Sam returned to the ice. “From where I sat, it looked on purpose to me.” She glanced up into the grimace bracketing the corners of his mouth. She was so close, she could pick out every whisker on his stubbly chin.

“Oh, the hit was on purpose.” He sucked in a breath and looked down into her eyes. “The injury was a freak accident. I slammed into the wal at a bad angle.”

She set the sling on the black granite vanity top, then moved behind him once more. She ripped the Velcro on the figure-eight bandage and lightly slid her fingers beneath it.

“Shit.”

“You okay?”

“I’ve been worse.”

She slipped the bandage from his shoulders and set it next to the sling.

“Conner wil learn that getting hit is just a part of hockey. He’l be okay.”

She doubted it and once again moved to stand in front of him. “He’s a pacifist.”

“He’s a LeClaire.”

He was also a Haven. Nonviolent. Wel , except for Vince. “Conner’s a lover, not a fighter.”

Sam gathered the hem of his T-shirt with his good hand and pul ed it free. “You say that like he has to be one or the other. He’s a LeClaire.” He glanced up, and a slow smile curved his lips. “We’re gifted in both areas.”

She shook her head. “Even after al these years, I’m stil amazed by your gigantic conceit.”

“It’s not conceit.” He motioned for her to help him out with the T-shirt. “Not if it’s true. I just don’t suffer from false modesty.”

Or any sort of modesty at al . She took a step closer and grabbed the edge of the soft cotton. She undressed Conner al the time. This was no different. It was mechanical. No big deal. She lifted his shirt past his waist and up his chest. See. No big deal. No biggie. No— Holy mother of God! She’d forgotten what corrugated muscles and six-packs and happy trails looked like up close. Her mouth went dry, and she swal owed hard. “Can you pul your arm out?” She didn’t like him. She didn’t hate him. Emotional y, she felt nothing. No pitter- patter of her heart, but physical y… Physical y, she felt like she’d been hit in the stomach with a flaming bal of lust. Reminding her for the first time in a very long time that she was more than just Conner’s mother. She was a thirty- year-old woman who hadn’t had sex in over five years.

He grabbed her hand and pressed her palm against his chest. His warm, hard, bare chest. Once upon a time, she’d licked that chest. Run her mouth up and down that flat bel y like he was an al -you- can-eat buffet. “Did I hurt you?” When he didn’t answer, she looked up. Up past his hand over hers. Past his thick throat, and parted lips, and into his blue eyes.

“The first time I saw you,” he said, “I thought you had the prettiest hair I’d ever seen.”

What? While she’d been thinking about his hard bel y, he’d been thinking about her hair. “Are you high?”

He grinned. “Very.”

He was goofy from pain medication and helpless from his injury. She didn’t have an excuse for her mental wanderings.

“I stil think your hair is pretty.”

That was obviously the drugs talking. “Now, don’t say anything you’l be embarrassed about tomorrow.”

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