“I didn’t. I just slipped on a stupid newspaper.” Her shoulders shook with repressed amusement. “You didn’t have to drop everything—including the ceiling supports—and rush over to save me.”
“It was just a beam. I think the ceiling will hold.” He was relaxing now. Almost smiling at the warm amusement and ironic resignation spilling out of her eyes. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Just bruised my... pride.” Despite her words, she winced visibly as she tried to get up.
He watched her closely as he helped her to her feet. Then he stiffened as he saw a trail of blood running down her leg. “You’re bleeding!”
She looked down at herself, clearly trying to process what had happened to her. “Am I? I don’t know— Oh.” She pulled her skirt up slightly to reveal a cut on the side of her slim thigh. “It’s from that old bed frame. Must have hit it as I went down. What’s it doing in the middle of the floor like that?”
“I have no idea. The whole place is a hazard. It needs months’ worth of work. I’m really sorry you got hurt.”
He was sorry. And worried about her. And also ridiculously gratified that she was talking to him like this. Naturally. For real.
And his body was also noticing the delicious lines of her bare legs.
What the hell was wrong with him? Getting turned on when she was obviously hurt.
“I’m okay. Just need a couple of Band-Aids, I think.” She slanted him a little look that was still so familiar, even though he hadn’t seen it in years. “And maybe an ice pack for my ass.”
He choked on a laugh and put an arm around her to guide her back to the stairs. “Let’s go fix you up.”
RIA’S BUTT WAS REALLY hurting. She’d landed hard. And now that the shock was wearing off, the cut on her thigh was starting to sting as well.
But she was also buzzing with excitement at the feel of Jacob’s arm around her.
Which was ridiculous.
She shouldn’t be feeling that way. She didn’t like the man anymore. Yes, he was hot. Of course he was hot. He was even hotter than she remembered with his broad shoulders, big arms, and scarred, tanned skin. That cleft in his chin. The way his jeans molded the thick muscles of his thighs. There was no one in the world hotter than him.
But you didn’t get excited about a man you didn’t like.
Right?
Surely that wasn’t how it was supposed to work.
She went upstairs and down the hall with him until they ended up in the kitchen. She sat in the chair he indicated and accepted the wad of damp paper towels he offered her before he left to get some bandages.
She mopped up the blood on her thigh, relieved that the cut wasn’t very deep. It wouldn’t need stitches or anything.
When Jacob returned, he knelt on the floor and, without asking, applied antibiotic cream to the cut before he covered it with three Band-Aids.
She watched him, her breath caught in her throat. He was so close she could smell him—effort and soap and the still-familiar scent of Jacob. There was a sheen of sweat on his skin. She could see it glinting in the artificial light of the room. He was breathing quickly. His shoulders rose and fell as he worked.
She was shaking and she didn’t know why.
“Does it hurt really bad?” Jacob asked after a minute, more gravel than normal in his voice.
“No. I’m okay.” She wished she didn’t sound quite so breathless.
He looked up at her face, still kneeling beside her chair. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was the mess in our basement.”
“Again, not your fault.”
His eyes looked steel gray at the moment. Strangely soft as they gazed up at her.
She could no more restrain the impulse than she could keep the sun from rising. She reached out and let her fingers trail along the line of the long scar on his jaw. “How did you get this?”
He sucked in his breath audibly at the first touch of her fingers. He held himself very still. “It was a line on a fishing boat. In a storm.”
“It looks terrible.”
“It could have killed me.”
“Really?” Her chest ached at the thought. At the idea of there being no more Jacob Worth in the world. “I’m glad it didn’t.” The pads of her fingers were still gently stroking his scar.
“Are you?” There was some sort of tension in his body. She could feel it radiating off him, toward her.
It was all she could do not to cup his face and lean down into a kiss.
She wanted to so badly. Right now, at this moment, he felt like the Jacob she’d known and loved before, despite the hardness of his body and the scars on his skin.
But he wasn’t that Jacob. Eight years had passed.
And she wasn’t a silly girl anymore. She wouldn’t let herself be dragged into more pain from nothing more than a man’s body and a certain softness of a pair of hazel eyes.
With a quick intake of breath, she dropped her hand. “Thanks. For bandaging me up, I mean.”
He obviously understood the shift in her tone. He stood up and backed off. “Of course. You need an ice pack?”
“No. I’m fine.” She stood up, smoothing down her skirt and suddenly wishing she had more clothes on. She needed some more layers of protection here.
“Why are you even here?” Jacob asked. “Did you need something?”
“Oh. No. Your grandfather called me over to talk about flowers at his funeral.”
Jacob clearly had no idea about this plan. His face was utterly shocked. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I have no idea why, but that’s what he wanted. Didn’t want anything too pretty or over-the-top.”
“Sounds like him.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I didn’t want to stop by and not say... say hi.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she could hardly tell him that his grandfather wanted
