Bachelor In Blue Jeans. Lauren Nichols
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wet, and a soapy fragrance wafted on the night air. He kept his voice low in deference to the hour.
“I passed the church we used to go to on my way back to the farmhouse last night. Hasn’t changed mu—”
Suddenly, his face went slack, and he set the ice bucket down. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” she replied, startled.
Reaching out, he turned her face toward the light. “Nothing? Your cheek’s swollen and there’s blood in your hair. Who did this?”
Blood? “No one. I fell.”
“Come on.” Grabbing her hand, he tugged her toward a unit several feet away. She cried out softly when the action jarred her aching shoulder.
Zach’s gaze hardened. “You fell?”
“I’m fine.”
“All right, you’re fine. Don’t tell me what happened. And don’t accept my help. But if you don’t get some ice on your cheek pretty damn soon, you’re going to look like a poster girl for domestic abuse.”
“All right!” Striding through the door, she moved past the disheveled bed with the plain blue coverlet, and entered his tiny bathroom. It seemed even smaller with shower mist and the intimate smells of soap and shampoo still hanging in the air. Butterflies battered her stomach as Zach reached past her to wipe the steam from the mirror, then stood behind her, staring at their reflections.
Kristin sighed. Blood was caked near her temple, and there was a reddish-blue bruise on her cheekbone.
Zach grabbed a washcloth, dropped some ice into it, then put the pack in her hand. “Now,” he said gravely. “What went on tonight?”
She told him. He wasn’t much happier when she finished.
“Chad didn’t insist that you get checked out at the hospital? And why in hell didn’t he deliver the keys to the Arnetts so you could go home and take care of yourself? Or didn’t he even notice that you’d been hurt?”
“Zach, please,” she said, pressing the ice pack to her face. “I’m tired, and I don’t feel like defending Chad’s actions to you tonight. He did offer, but I refused. It was more important that he investigate the break-in. As for his not noticing, I was sitting in the dark, and my right side was turned away from him.”
“You were standing in a dark courtyard and I noticed.”
She shook her head. This was a mistake. She should never have let him bully her into coming in here. When he made sounds like a man who cared, it was too easy to forget that he’d nearly destroyed her, and too easy to remember that they’d once owned each other’s souls.
“I need to go,” she said, shoving the ice pack in his hands. “Thank you.”
“Wait. I want to see something.” Dropping the pack into the sink, he moved closer and turned her face up to his. After the ice, his hand was warm against her skin, and tiny nerve endings responded. “It’s still red,” he said quietly.
“Makeup will cover it.”
“Will it?”
“Yes, I’m sure it—” She stiffened. “What are you doing? Zach—?”
Warm breath fanned the hair at her temple as his lips brushed her cheekbone. “Just kissing it to make it better.”
Kristin rammed both palms into his chest and shoved him away. “How dare you?” she demanded shakily, more furious with herself for allowing the kiss than she was with him. “You gave up the right to do that the night you slept with Gretchen Wilder.”
Chapter 4
Zach’s gray eyes churned angrily as he looked down at her. He was a big man, and even the full force of her shove wasn’t enough to do more than shift his stance.
He reached for her shoulders, then suddenly seemed to remember her injury and backed off. But he was still so close, she could feel the heat of his body, could count every black whisker in his day-old beard, every eyelash fringing his accusing gaze.
“Still throwing all the blame in my lap? Well, you know what I think? I think you were glad I slept with Gretchen. No, not glad—ecstatic. It saved you from manufacturing even more reasons why you couldn’t marry me.”
Kristin bolted through the doorway, her sneakers punishing the walk as he followed her out. “I never manufactured anything. Everything I said was true.”
“Like hell! You never told me how sick your mother was!”
She whirled to face him. “The news was too new. I couldn’t. Not until you broke off our relationship. Then I realized that no matter how deeply into denial I was—no matter how frightened I was that saying the word ‘terminal’ would make it true—I had to tell you the truth before I lost you, too. And when I finally found the courage to say that word, where were you? Lying in the weeds with Gretchen. Four hours, Zach! Four lousy hours away from me, and you were making love to someone else!”
Nearby streetlights threw his face into bold relief, anger still burning in his eyes. “I didn’t make love to her, I had sex with her. They’re two different things.”
“Oh, yes, let’s split hairs.”
“I told you how sorry I was. It meant nothing!”
“It meant everything! It meant I had no one to hold me and help me through her illness! It meant I could never trust you again.”
Kristin brought her lips together, suddenly aware that their shouts were echoing in the courtyard. They had to stop before they had an audience, if people weren’t already peeping through the cracks in their drapes. She lowered her voice, and it trembled as she struggled for control. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does matter, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.” Zach lowered his voice, too. “You knew how insecure I was about you. You knew about my life and my past, and you knew that a long string of excuses not to marry me would make me doubt your feelings.”
“What string of excuses?”
“First, you were afraid I’d always be on the road and you’d be alone in unfamiliar surroundings. When I told you I’d be working with the permanent crew in Durham, it barely made a difference. Then it was the scholarship that stood in the way, even though I told you we’d find a way to pay for your out-of-state schooling. By the time you told me that you were refusing the scholarship to stay with your mom, why wouldn’t I have had doubts? Especially when you let me think she was going to get better. When you couldn’t even look at me that day, I thought I had my answer, and it was no. No marriage, no me and you.” He expelled an impatient breath. “That’s why Gretchen happened.”
Kristin’s voice shook. “Don’t you dare try to justify what you did. Gretchen ‘happened’ because you let it happen. I’m sorry you had a lousy life. But I didn’t have time to wonder that day if what I said was what you heard.” Her voice broke. “My mother was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
The night stilled around them, every molecule frozen in time and space as her words hung heavy in the air. For several very long seconds, neither of them moved, the hum of tires on the highway punctuating the long silence.
“If I’d known that,” he said finally, “things would’ve been different.”
Instead of making her feel better, his reply hurt her all over again. If he’d really loved her and thought their relationship was over, he would have been too devastated to want anyone else. That’s how she’d felt. Instead, he’d made love to his free-spirited, easy neighbor while Kristin was reeling from their breakup and trying to come to grips with her mother’s cancer. She’d had to handle it all without him. And she’d needed him more desperately then than she’d ever needed anyone or anything since.
Turning