Healing Hearts (The Challenge Series) Read online

“You know, mister…um…anyway, you need to eat. Let me get you a bagel.” She rose slowly, hoping not to startle him into bolting. “Sit, please.”

  He dropped like a stone back into the chair. His tall body seemed shrunken then, helpless, boneless, and bereft. She stood a second, until he lifted those sapphire blues, and her whole world coalesced around the pain on his face.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m Jay.”

  “I’m Abby. And I’ll be right back with your food.”

  ***

  Jay stared down at the round, perfectly toasted bagel, watched the glistening butter melt. He sucked in a breath and forced his hand to move, to pick it up and put it to his lips. It smelled fantastic. But it tasted like cardboard. He ate anyway, knowing he was on verge of a total blood sugar meltdown otherwise. He chewed, swallowed, then did it all again. Feeding the physical self he still seemed responsible for, he observed Abby working behind the coffee bar, taking orders and filling them, her bright white smile making his pulse race a little faster each time he saw it.

  He shut his eyes a split second, then opened them when instead of the face of his dying, brutalized wife he saw her—Abby—the woman he’d come to count on behind the coffee counter—smiling and handing him an outrageously expensive concoction he never drank. At that realization, he sucked a huge chunk of bread down his windpipe, making his throat reject it with a loud, public, near-choking experience. By the time Abby had saved him once more with a well-timed, strong-armed Heimlich, he was limp again.

  “Damn,” he gasped, sucking back another entire bottle of water that she put in front of him. “I’m high maintenance.” He rubbed his neck, wincing at the stinging sensation when he spoke.

  “Oh, it’s okay. Good practice for me.” She smiled at him, the deep chocolate of her eyes and the warm olive of her skin a beacon—one he’d been drawn to for weeks now without understanding why. And for the first time in over a year and a half he smiled back at a pretty woman and let himself feel it—the tingly, buzzy, pull of attraction.

  Alarmed, he leapt to his feet, knocking over another water bottle but no longer caring. The last sight of her, of Abby, her long black hair scraped back in a ponytail, her deep, expressive eyes dark with concern, made his skin get hot and his lizard brain click into gear. Mortified at the tent he’d made in his shorts, he crashed out of the place determined never to come back, never to let himself feel that about any woman ever again.

  Chapter Four

  “No, I’m not avoiding you.” Jay ran a hand down his face and leaned back against the rickety deck railing. “I’m coming into town tomorrow. I have to. Our court date is the twentieth.”

  “Listen, Jay.” His sister, the emergency room doctor’s voice filled his brain, reminding him of his failings , “I think you need to consider this as a—”

  “I know,” he interrupted, his chest tight and head pounding. “I know, Madison. Trust me, I’ve read your emails and seen the reports. She’s never going to wake up.” He glanced up at the bruised looking sky as a thunderstorm gathered strength in the general direction of Chicago. “You’re right. You’ve been right all along.”

  “Jay, I don’t want to be right. Trust me.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. I should be in by noon. Is your key in the normal place?”

  “Yeah. Drive safe, brother. Love you.”

  He put the brick of a wireless handset on a ratty deck chair. When it rang again within seconds, he jumped. Only a few people had this number. “Hello?” He hated how weak his voice sounded.

  “Uh, Hi. Jay. It’s…um…me…Abby from the coffee shop?”

  He frowned when his skin pebbled at the sound of her voice. Willing himself calm, he choked out an answer. “Hello. Can I help you with something?” He winced, realizing how stilted and asshole-ish he sounded. “I mean….”

  “No, no, it’s okay. I’m actually calling to see if you need anything. My friend Lynn and her sister Jane—they own the coffee shop—they also do small catering jobs and um, meals for people who are housebound and stuff. And we thought, maybe you could use…a sandwich or something?”

  Jay put a shaking hand to his eyes, trying to banish the memory of the woman’s exotic features from his brain. He was not that guy. Not the man who lost his wife and reached out for the first available woman for company. No way. He loved Christy with every ounce of his being and would never feel the same way about another female again.

  “Jay!” Her phantom scream tore through him, making him push up off the railing and pace the small deck. “Jay….” He saw her then. His Christy—the woman he’d met and fallen for in grad school, pursued, been rejected by then finally convinced to marry him. Her face was a mess of blood, and her whole body jerked and thumped against the hardwood kitchen floor while he lay paralyzed from the waist down from a blow to the spine.

  “Listen,” he said, his voice tight. “I’m fine. I mean, I thank you for the save at the coffee shop, but you guys don’t have to ….” He gave up and sank into a chair, letting the memories fill every recessed corner of his tired brain like poisonous gas. Christy, screaming his name while she was raped, three times, then had her throat cut. Jason, lying in a bloody heap near the door, his little boy’s effort to save his mother ended with a single blow to the temple. “I gotta go,” he whispered.

  “Jay.” He heard another female voice say his name, coming from the phone handset. He stopped. “Jay, you need food. Real food. I don’t know what your deal is but…you gotta eat.” Her firm voice soothed him. He leaned over on his knees and willed himself not to puke.

  “Sure, fine. But I’m leaving day after tomorrow and won’t be back for a few days.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He took a breath and leaned back, relishing for a half second something resembling a normal conversation between him and a woman not his sister or one of his therapists. While part of him wanted to resist it, a bigger one allowed him a small measure of comfort at the sound of her voice. “Back to Ann Arbor. For a…um, business thing.”

  “Oh, okay. Why don’t I drop off a few dishes then. You can put them all in your freezer. Then you can pop them in the microwave when you get back.”

  “Uh, sure.” He looked into the tiny kitchen, unsure if there even was a microwave in there. A sudden wave of ravenous hunger roiled through him. He gulped and acknowledged the first true physical sensation other than pain or sorrow he’d experienced in months. Including getting an ill-timed hard-on yesterday like some middle school kid called to the chalkboard after the prettiest girl in the room smiled at him. He groaned.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I’m… anyway, I’m home. My place is at—”

  “I know already. My cousin cleans your cabin once a week.”

  “Oh.” He looked down at the deck’s rotting boards, his mind awash with unbidden images. Abby’s gorgeous dark skin, tumultuous curly hair. He stood, cursing himself.

  “Yeah, I know, small town and all. Sorry. Anyway, will you be there or should I leave the cooler by the door?”

  “I’ll be here.” His voice was barely a whisper. He could not square what his body was telling him versus what his poor, aching brain kept spewing into his vision—his beloved wife, his son, and the horrific screams of his daughter upstairs. “Gotta go,” he croaked before tossing the phone down and heading to meet the toilet once again, their ritual, daily dance not through until he’d lost everything he’d eaten. Even after a year, he could not erase it—the sounds, sights, and smells of his family being attacked while he watched and, in the case of his daughter, Mia, heard loud and clear, helpless and useless and unable to protect any of them.

  ***

  Abigail straightened her skirt, fussed with her hair, glanced at herself in the rear view mirror to make sure the lip-gloss she’d applied remained. She narrowed her eyes and glared at the image of her Latina skin and barely tamed thick black hair. You are here to bring this man food. Not to flirt, seduce, or in any way interact w
ith him as a woman. Get a fucking grip. Cursing herself, she climbed from behind the wheel of her beater Ford Escort and pulled out the cooler Lynn and Jane had prepared.

  It took some doing to roll it to Jay’s door, since the front lawn consisted of dirt and pine needles underneath a stand of huge trees. By the time she had tugged the damn thing up the single short step to his precarious front porch, she had broken a sweat and a nail and one of her shoes was mud covered.

  “Damn it.” She wiped her forehead and tried not to fall through the rotting boards. Before she could touch the door with her knuckles, it opened. Startled, she took a step back and landed square on her ass on the sorry excuse for a front lawn.

  Jay pulled her off the ground before she had time to think. The touch of his hand to hers sent a chill creeping up her spine. “Sorry,” he mumbled, letting her go and grabbing the cooler from her before it toppled over and joined them on the dirt. “I didn’t expect you tonight.”

  She flushed red at how much she’d prepared for this moment, how desperate she must appear. “No, no, I have…a date. So thought I’d bring it over before I…um…anyway.” She tucked a lock of her unruly hair back up into the elastic band and looked away from him.

  “Oh, okay then, let’s get you cleaned up before you go.” He pointed to her brown, smelly left foot. “I guess I should have warned you, every time it rains I get sinkholes.”

  They went inside and she beheld what could be any random rental cabin on any lake in her memory. As a child whose father owned ten different rental properties around the tourist town of Torch Lake, she knew the sight well. She’d heard Jay had been out here for almost a year and the place felt barely lived in, as if he floated above the furniture and never used the kitchen—a ghost, or something with even less physical presence. She glanced back at him. His face flushed as he shifted his gaze from her legs. Abby tried not to smile. But still the whole thing had a surreal edge. He did what came naturally to a man—noticed her bare, tan, and fit legs. But acted like he didn’t really want to.

  Oh crap. He’s gay.

  The realization made her heart pound with even more embarrassment as she maneuvered the clunky cooler over to the ancient fridge. She opened it, nervous about finding a stack of moldy, disgusting leftovers, shocked at the general lack of contents. “Do you ever….”

  “Eat here?” He stood, shifting from foot to foot, as if unnerved by her presence. “Not often, no.” He turned away and stared out the window at the amazing view of Silver Lake.

  A giant, brown, slobbering creature crashed through the screen door at the back of the cabin and made right for her. Abby held out a hand for the animal to sniff then crouched down to meet his eyes. “Wow. Cool. I didn’t think you were allowed to keep horses in here.”

  “Yeah, he’s um, pretty big. C’mere, Dex. Leave her alone.”

  “No, it’s okay. I love dogs.” She ran her fingers around his ears as he calmed but for his tail pounding the floor. “Oh, hey what happened here, big guy?” The animal’s left ear was a mere flap of skin. “Wow, that must have hurt. I hope you left the other guy in worse condition.” He whined once, then got up and walked to his master.

  Jay reached down to touch him as a person with a service animal might do, for reassurance. “It’s fine, Dexter. Sorry, he’s a little funny about his ear. It’s like he knows when you’re talking about it.”

  “What happened to him?” Abby resumed her appraisal of the half-gallon of expired milk, bunch of wilted grapes, and six-pack of beer that comprised the fridge’s inventory.

  “He, ah, got the wrong end of a knife. Can I get you…anything?” he asked, changing the subject.

  She peeked around the open refrigerator door at him. He stood there, hand on Dexter’s giant head, a pained expression on his face. She sighed. Nicely played, Abby. Falling for a gay guy who now is afraid you’ll get your vagina germs on him.

  “No. I’ll put these away for you and be out of your hair. There’s enough lasagna to feed an army, a meat loaf with mashed potatoes, and what I think is chicken tikka masala and…oh fuck. You aren’t a vegetarian, are you? We didn’t even ask.” She tucked all the dishes into the freezer and repressed the urge to offer to bring him some fresh milk and juice. Cut the crap. He doesn’t want your help.

  “No, I’m not.” His voice was soft, as if he’d moved into the larger living room. She took a step back, brushing more of her hair off her forehead, and bumped right into him. He grabbed her arm to keep her from stumbling. “Sorry,” he said, still holding onto her as if she were the last lifeboat on the Titanic. She turned her head and realized he’d leaned down to her face, his startling blue eyes narrowed, seeming to study her. Abby’s brain shut down for a split second. But he released her and backed away, and the moment passed.

  “You’re very kind,” he muttered, his face flushed.

  She cleared her throat and put a trembling hand on the tiny counter that held a two-burner cooktop and a bowl of rotting apples. “Uh, listen, Jay, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. I’m just, you know, being a good Samaritan, feeding the guy who almost passed out in my coffee shop.”

  She forced herself to relax. He was gay. They could be buddies, and she could practice her caretaking on him. He’d spill his guts about the lover who’d dumped him or died of AIDS or whatever was making him so fragile. All would be fine. She bit her lip, when her body tingled, as she watched him shrug and lean back against the counter, near enough for her to reach out and run a finger down his bearded jaw. Gay, Abigail. As in “does not do girls.”

  “So.” She reached down to remove the muddy shoe. “Do you have paper towels or anything? I need to get cleaned up and out of here.”

  “Oh, right. Your date.” He pulled some off a roll and ran them under the faucet then handed them to her. “Hope he’s a nice guy, this boyfriend.”

  “He’s not a boyfriend,” Abby breezed, trying to sound like she went out all the time. “Just, a date.”

  “Oh, then….” He tossed the dirty paper towels she handed him into the trash and stood there, looking at her. “You look nice. I hope he appreciates it. Especially the extra clean up effort.” The corners of his full lips turned up a bit and transformed his already handsome face into something resembling movie star level hotness. She gulped and turned from him, stumbling over the dog.

  “Wow. I’m not always such a klutz, I swear it.” She patted Dexter’s head, avoiding his stump of an ear. She shut her eyes a split second, and collected her rattled nerves, determined to get the hell out of there, fast. “Hey, you said you were going out of town tomorrow. Will you take Dexter with you?”

  “No, I have a dog sitter. Some kid who walks him, feeds him, and makes sure he didn’t take a dump in the house overnight.” He shot her a ghostly smile.

  “How about I take him? You know, to my place?” She shocked herself with this bold proposal. But something told her Dexter would not do well left alone. And why not? She’d paid a pet deposit on her place, intending to get something to keep her company, but never had. The dog’s tail thumped harder.

  “Uh, sure. I mean, I’ll pay you for it.”

  “No, it’s okay. Let’s pack up some food and his leash. My uncle is a vet so if there’s an emergency, I’ll have it covered.”

  Stop babbling Abby. Go home.

  Jay’s eyes narrowed at her, his mouth in its familiar position of unhappy pensiveness once more. “Who are you, anyway? I mean, you don’t know me, but you’ve filled my fridge with food I didn’t ask for and want to keep my smelly giant dog for three days while I leave and, for all you know, never come back.”

  A small flicker of anger licked at her brain. She cleared her throat and fiddled with a straggling end of hair that had escaped her attempt at a tie back. “I’m Abigail Powers. I’m a twenty-seven year old divorcee who works at the coffee shop where you hang out and stare at the window for hours. And where you nearly passed out from low blood sugar yesterday. I’ve lived in Traverse City my whole
life and plan to move to Ann Arbor once I get accepted to the U of M nursing school. I know pretty much every soul in this town, even the tourist regulars. I’m afraid of only one thing—spiders. And I have decided that you’re right, maybe you don’t need my help after all. So I’ll be going.” She turned and grasped the doorknob. He was an asshole, and that she understood, having been married to one for three years. She had no time for assholes, no matter how good looking.

  Abby did not believe in love anymore. She had third-degree burns from the last and only time she’d felt such a strong attraction to a man and had been avoiding them ever since. Instead, her focus was on herself, her goal, and getting her mom straight. The near constant pull of need from the woman who’d raised her but who’d fallen down a black hole of alcohol abuse took everything she had most days. And the dilemma of leaving her mother behind in the fall when she moved to Ann Arbor and went to school had yet to be addressed. She sighed and turned when she felt Jay’s hand on her shoulder, prepared to listen to his apology then make her escape.

  “I’m…sorry,” he choked out between gritted teeth, his face a mask of confused agony. “Abigail Powers, you are amazing and I…want to kiss you.”

  She blinked, thinking she’d imagined what he’d said. But let him pull her close, molding herself into his long, lean frame, all thoughts of asshole, gay friends, and escape evaporating from her psyche. “I’m good with that,” she whispered, running a hand down his jaw, loving the soft curl of his beard under her palm. When his lips touched hers, she wrapped herself around him, having to go way up on her tiptoes to reach.

  So, not gay. And a championship kisser to boot. Something in her gave way at that moment, something she’d tug back into place later, shielding herself from emotional attachment, but right now, all she wanted was Jay.

  Chapter Five

  Jay’s brain clanged with warning. Alarms sounded all through what remained of his logical self. This was patently insane. He’d become a borderline stalker, and he knew it. But he had developed a strange attachment to the sexy, exotic female whose face, smile, and positive attitude he found soothing. And he had been a total jerk to her. He shook his head, wondering where that had come from. He’d been one of the most positive guys going, his whole life. It had been one thing Christy loved about him—his constant positive attitude.