“Stone!” Cindy dropped to her knees on the concrete beside him. “Oh, my God, what happened?”
He tried to smile. Tried to whisper her name, but nothing came out except a horrible gasping breath.
Well, at least he wasn’t about to suffocate, he thought, as his vision faded to black.
“Stone!” Jenna cried.
There was no response. He only slumped further, and Jenna’s heart nearly jerked right out of her chest.
She leaped to her feet, searching desperately for a phone so she could call for help. The saw screeched, driving her crazy, but she didn’t have a clue how to turn the thing off.
“Cindy…”
She found the phone base, but the portable was missing from it. Dammit. Whipping around, she searched the cluttered countertop, ready to run out into the street screaming for help if the phone didn’t materialize.
“Cindy…”
It took her a minute, for she still wasn’t used to that horrible name, and on top of that, the saw still roared.
“Cindy…”
The weak voice finally penetrated her panic. It was Stone.
Racing back, she hunkered down, wrapping an arm around him for support. “Don’t move,” she ordered, wishing she knew more first aid.
Stone slowly pulled himself up to his hands and knees-one hand clutching his stomach.
“Stone?” Propping him up with her shoulder, she bore most of his weight. With her free hand she cupped his face and tilted it up, waiting until his eyes fluttered open. They were glassy-oh God, didn’t that mean something bad? A concussion? “I’m calling an ambulance,” she told him. “Soon as I find your phone.”
The glistening in his eyes got stronger. His face, looking drawn and tight with pain, flushed. “No.”
He wheezed when he breathed. Under her hand, his bunched back muscles flexed. She could feel him tremble. “Oh, this is ridiculous!” she cried. “Where is your phone!”
His jaw set determinedly, which in a calmer moment she would have recognized as pure stubbornness, but panic had taken over. “Stone!”
He glared at her. “Over there…on left side of the saw…”
Leaping up, Jenna looked and looked, but on the left side of the saw she saw nothing but a black switch.
“Hit…it. Turn off…the damn saw.”
Exasperated, she hit the switch as he’d requested, and the shop fell blessedly silent.
Stone sank back to the floor, silent and still, and Jenna’s heart stopped.
Terrified, she skidded back around the counter and again dropped to her knees beside him. “No,” she whispered, draping herself over his broad back and hugging him tight. Just touching him like this, holding his big warm body, had memories slamming into her: Stone laughing, Stone making her laugh.
Stone caring for her, when no one else did. What if she had lost him now, before she told him the truth? “No,” she whispered again, squeezing him hard, fear overriding all else.
He groaned. “Don’t,” he gasped in a strangled voice when she inadvertently squeezed again. He pushed himself away from her and back up on his knees.
He didn’t want her to touch him, and forgetting for a minute that he had no idea who she really was, Jenna felt a deep self-loathing; she couldn’t blame him for not wanting her to be near him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Grimacing, he wrapped his arms around his middle. “You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. You don’t want me to touch you.”
He laughed shortly, then winced, trying to hold both his head and his belly at the same time. “God, that hurt. That damn two-by-four kicked back at me with enough power to stop a locomotive.” He wobbled a minute, then pushed himself to a standing position and groaned again. “Never even saw it coming.” Carefully, as if testing, he drew a breath. Apparently satisfied, he pierced her with his gaze. “Now come here.”
Not waiting for her to move, he snaked a hand out and grabbed her wrist, tugging her close. He ran his hands up her arms, then slowly back down. Grasping her hips, he pulled her closer, then closer still, until they were only a fraction of an inch from an embrace.
Gruffly he said, “I didn’t mean I didn’t want you to touch me. I want that, Cindy. I want it badly.” He rubbed his ribs. “But I hurt like hell, and much as I regret asking you not to hug me, you were squeezing too hard.”
She closed her eyes in embarrassment, but she was just so relieved he was okay. “Oh.”
His eyes gleamed with something far more than pain. There was warmth and affection, just waiting for her to take it. As she watched, it deepened into something more like…hunger. For her. She would have taken a step back from what she saw there, but she had to be able to breathe to move, and at the moment, she couldn’t draw any air at all.
“I’m feeling…a bit better.”
“I’m glad,” she managed. His hands on her hips were making her knees weak again, and she couldn’t hold back the memories of other times, other places, when he’d had those big knowing hands on her, how he’d made her feel like the most important woman on earth.
He was doing it again, with little to no effort, and this time, for the first time, her head was in the right place. She could only imagine how wonderful it would be now to make love with him.
He ducked his head a bit to stare into her lowered gaze. “That thought you just had, the one that’s making you blush.” He arched his brows. “Mind sharing?”
Her face felt hotter. “I don’t think so. No.”
“Chicken.”
“All right, if you must know, I was thinking about how scared I was, watching you crumble like that.”
“I just had the air knocked out of me, that’s all. And that’s not what you were thinking.”
“Okay, I was thinking of getting you to a hospital.”
His sharp gaze told her he didn’t believe a word of that excuse, either. “I don’t need a doctor, but thanks.”
“Yes, you do, your head…”
“It’s fine,” he assured her, rubbing his chest “But this hurts. What do you have for this?”
“I thought it was your stomach.”
His gaze deepened, his body, his big, warm body, leaned closer. “It was. But my heart hurts like hell. What are you doing to me?”
Oh, she couldn’t face this. The tenderness, the caring… it was going to tear her apart. She didn’t deserve it, and he deserved so much more.
“Your ribs,” she said desperately. “You might have cracked something. You need-”
“You,” he said. “I need you.” And he kissed her, a deep searching kiss.
Chapter 5
Jenna’s response to Stone’s kiss was primal and instinctive, because she needed him, too. Needed him with everything she had. Her eyes drifted closed, and though her fear for him didn’t fade, she loosened her grip on him enough to lightly touch his chest. He was okay. She drowned in the knowledge, and a swirling heat that worked its way from deep inside her, spreading to her limbs until she thought she would spontaneously combust. “You’re really okay.”
“Yes.”
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken her desperate worry out loud until he reassured her.
Stone’s hands fueled the fire as they slid up her body, over her ribs, grazing the sides of her breasts, then cupped her face. Tilting her head for better access, he nibbled her mouth, making her whimper for more.
His body went rigid for the briefest moment, and Jenna panicked. He knew! He’d kissed her, and somehow he’d discovered the truth.
Frightened, she opened her eyes to find him studying her with a keen probing gaze, as if he was trying to see deep into her soul.
