A Needful Heart (3 page)

“What’s wrong?”

Once again, Matt was at her side, ready to
help her do anything. With her left hand, Gina pushed her messy
hair away from her face. Heck, she thought, how was she even going
to do her hair? Or go to the bathroom? Pushing the worries aside,
she focused on Matt. “My mother is going to want to come down when
she finds out about my wrist. And if she finds out from somebody
else about it, she’s going to think I’m hiding something from her.
I have to call her.”

Matt nodded and reached for the phone hanging
on the wall. Passing her the handset, he offered to punch in the
numbers. Gina let him, simply because she didn’t want to drop it
and break it like her cell.

Matt pressed the numbers, then disappeared
into the living room to give her some privacy. Gina listened to the
ringing at the other end of the line, and her stomach tightened
just a little more with each ring. The sixth ring was cut off
mid-way.

“Hello.”

Relief rolled over her, and tears clogged her
throat as she heard her father’s gruff voice. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, Pumpkin, how are you? Haven’t talked to
you for a while. Had that golf thing last Saturday, so I missed
your regular call.”

“I know, and that’s ok. I didn’t have
anything in particular to talk about.” Gina paused and took a deep
breath. “Uh, Dad?”

“Yeah, Pumpkin?”

“Is Mom around? I mean, is she in the
room?”

Her father was silent for several long
moments. “No,” he said finally. “Why?”

“Well, I, uh, kinda hurt myself, and I don’t
want her to go off the deep end about it. It’s just my wrist. I
fell at the office and broke it. It’s a clean break, no shards or
anything. I’ve already got the cast on and everything.”

“Which arm was it? And when did you do
it?”

“It’s my right arm, which is going to be
difficult, and I did it this morning at work. A, uh, friend of mine
took me to the hospital to get the cast. I’m fine, though. They did
blood tests just to make sure, and my bones are fine. No more
brittle than the average person’s, they said.”

Relief eased her father’s voice. “Good, good.
So, I guess you want me to run interference with your mother?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “There’s no need for
her to drive two hundred miles just to look at my cast. I’m fine.
Besides, I’ll be up there next weekend for Charli’s sweet sixteen
party.”

“Hmmm,” her father mumbled. “Okay, Pumpkin,
as long as you’re sure you’re all right.”

“I am, Dad, I promise.”

“Okay. You better be. If you’re not, your
mother will tan my hide.”

Gina smiled at the familiar complaint. “I
love you, Dad. See you next weekend.”

“Love you too, baby. See you then.”

Gina was smiling as she crossed the kitchen
to replace the handset. She loved her dad. He was always willing to
let her spread her wings. Her mother, on the other hand, worried
incessantly.

“They upset with you?”

Startled, she turned from the counter. Matt
stood just a few feet behind her. “Jeez, you scared me. For as big
as you are, you move very quietly. No, they’re not mad. Actually,
that was just my dad. He’ll let Mom know what happened. He was just
concerned.”

Matt nodded his head like he understood, but
Gina was sure he didn’t. “When I was a child,” she told him, “I had
leukemia. Took me years of radiation, drugs, and chemotherapy to
get over it. Mom was right there with me the entire time. I’ve been
in remission since I was about eleven. She still worries, though, a
lot. It was after I broke a bone that we found out I had the
cancer. Heck, she may still come down if Dad can’t convince her
otherwise.”

Matt frowned fiercely. “So, could this mean
your illness is coming back?” he demanded.

Gina raised her brows at the tone. “No, no. I
had them check my white cell count while I was in there, and it’s
fine. I’m fine. Really. Just more clumsy than the average
human.”

Matt still looked worried, and Gina thought
it was endearing. She glanced down at his heavy fists. They were
clenched, as if he wanted to punch something. That emotion she
sensed under his implacable expression was a little closer to the
top now. She hadn’t known that the thought of her being sick would
upset him so much. It was sweet, though, actually. Made her heart
warm.

Where had this man come from? Six hours ago,
he had been an obstacle in the hallway at work. Now he was very
close to being a friend.

She glanced at the clock, surprised to see it
had crept toward evening. Man, being drugged out of your mind
really made the time fly. “Matt, I’m so sorry. Am I keeping you
from something? I just kind of wrecked everybody’s day, didn’t
I?”

Matt shook his head and tugged on the bill of
his cap to shade his eyes. “Nah, you’re not keeping me from
anything. And you didn’t wreck my day.”

He smiled slightly, and Gina was taken aback
at the hint of charm in his smile. The man was so reserved; she
couldn’t remember him ever smiling at her. Or anybody else for that
matter.

“Are you sure nobody will be waiting for you?
Your girlfriend or wife or anything?”

Blazing heat spread across her cheeks. Why
had she asked that?

Not that he saw. Matt’s head tipped even
further down, until all she could see was the button on top of the
faded blue hat. “No, ma’am. Actually,” he said, standing from the
chair and towering over her, “I need to go. Let you get some
rest.”

Gina looked up at him and found it hard to
believe she had never noticed him before. He seemed like a very
nice man, in spite of the ink on his arm and his prickly nature.
Quiet. Was the dragon that decorated his forearm a turn-off? Not
really, she decided. It was actually kind of pretty.

She was surprised to realize she didn’t want
him to go, but she didn’t know how to make him to stay.

“Well, okay.” She followed him out of the
kitchen and down the hallway, wrist cradled to her chest. Gina was
struck with how he dwarfed everything. He was almost too broad to
fit through the doorways. Automatically, he tipped his head as he
walked under the doorjambs. Gina didn’t think he was actually tall
enough to hit them, but he had probably done it enough times to
learn to be cautious.

Her eyes drifted from his broad shoulders,
down to his narrow hips and settled on his tight ass. Damn! How had
she never noticed
that
before? She was a butt-woman all the
way, and Matt Calvin had the finest tush she’d seen in years. A
tingle of heat spread through her belly. Followed quickly by guilt.
He was here to take care of her and she was checking out his
butt.

Matt swung the front door open and ducked
through. He didn’t say anything, and Gina wondered if he would
leave without telling her goodbye. Or without even looking at
her.

“Goodbye, Matt. And thank you for everything
you did. I really appreciate it.”

The big man paused for just a moment at the
front of the black truck. “You’re welcome.” Tipping his hat, he
continued on around the hood and climbed in. The big vehicle roared
to life, backed out of her driveway and took off.

Gina stared down the street for a long time
after he disappeared. Inside the house, her phone rang. Sighing,
she turned and let herself into the house. “Coming, Mom,” she
muttered.

***

Matt took his first deep breath of the night
when he was out of sight of Gina’s house and accelerating away.
Claustrophobia had eaten at him. The entire time he’d been inside,
he’d been worried about breaking something, or, God forbid, bumping
into her while she was in pain. He gritted his teeth at the thought
of what she was going through. Because of him. She could explain it
away all she wanted to, but he knew the guilt rested solely on his
shoulders. If he hadn’t tried to talk to her and been in that
doorway, she never would have fallen in the first place.

The tears in her ice-blue eyes had been the
worst. For somebody like her, with a regular life, that pain was an
anomaly, something they didn’t feel every day. In a heartbeat, he
would take it away and just merge it in with his own. Hell, a
broken wrist would be a drop in the bucket compared to what he was
used to. He looked at his fists. The thumbnail on his left hand was
black from a distracted hammer strike and would probably fall off
soon. His knuckles were scraped from moving concrete blocks
yesterday. There was a cut on the meat of his right hand that just
would not seal, and the fresh coat of superglue had broken
open.

Those tears had made her eyes sparkle,
though. Prettier than anything he had ever seen before. Even with
her kinky hair a mess around her face, she appealed to him like no
other person ever had. It was difficult to look at her very long
because he lost his train of thought and found himself
floundering.

Hell, not like that was anything new.

What the heck was he doing though, seriously?
After talking to her, and seeing her pretty, feminine house with
the family pictures plastered over the walls, the differences
between them could not be more clear. A white trash grunt like him
had no business even being near her. For four years he had watched
her, leery of making any kind of move because he didn’t know
whether he had anything she needed. Now that he had spoken to her
and gotten a glimpse into her shining life, he knew for a fact he
had no business being there.

A sparkle of red caught his eye, and he
glanced down at the truck seat. Her phone was there, sadly
scattered in three pieces. A crack split the touch-screen almost
perfectly in half. Picking up one piece, he held it to his nose
experimentally. Peaches and cream tickled his senses. She had been
so heartbroken that it had shattered.

With a heavy sigh, he snatched up his own
phone and punched in a number by memory.

“’lo.” The word was muffled, as if the
speaker’s mouth were full.

“Are you eating, Monroe?”

There were noises at the other end of the
line. “Mmmm hmmm. Wassup?”

Matt shook his head in the dark truck.
Anderson Monroe had been known to close down buffet lines at night
because they were out of food. The man was a walking trash
compactor, and his best friend in the world. Actually, he was one
of the few people Matt considered an actual friend and the only
person who knew about his infatuation with Gina Carruthers. “I
tried to talk to her today.”

There was silence on the other end of the
line for several long seconds. “And how did that go?”

“Oh, wonderfully. Ended up knocking her on
the ground and breaking her wrist.”

Monroe choked on the other end of the line.
“No fucking way! You’re not serious.”

Matt sighed and pinched the bridge of his
nose. “I wish I wasn’t. We crashed into each other in the damn
doctor’s office. She fell to the ground and snapped her wrist like
a toothpick.”

“What’d she do? Is she pissed? Oh, you’re in
jail and I need to come get you, huh?”

“No, she’s not pissed. I drove her home and
she seemed to appreciate the help. I feel guilty as hell, though.
Totally didn’t happen the way I wanted it to.”

“Well, yeah, I guess not.” Monroe laughed and
took a swig of something. “So, are you done crushin’ on this girl
now or what?”

Matt sighed and rested his head against the
seat rest. “I guess.” He cleared his tight throat and sought a
different topic. “So, where are you right now?”

“Boulder. Chasing a wildfire. Been on for way
too long. This is my first chance to get some food and rest.”

For the first time Matt noticed how raspy his
buddy’s voice was, and guilt swamped him.

“Hell, Monroe. I’ll let you go, then. Call me
when you aren’t chasing fires and sucking smoke. Maybe we can catch
a game or something sometime.”

“Sure thing, Matt. Maybe it’s good this
happened, though. This girl wasn’t the one for you. I’ll holler at
you when I get back in the state.”

“Okay. Later.”

Monroe had already hung up. Matt tossed his
phone to the seat and stared out the dark windshield. Monroe was
right. She wasn’t the one for him.

***

Gina hung up the phone in relief. Her mother
was staying home, reassured after talking to her daughter. It had
been a close thing, but Gina had promised to see her next week for
her sister Charli’s sixteenth birthday. Then reminded her mother
pointedly that she had a lot of plans to pull together before the
party itself. Mom had agreed she still had a lot to do, and if Gina
was sure, she would just see her in a few days.

Gina was sure.

Not that she didn’t appreciate her mother’s
concern, because she did. But sometimes it was a bit…too much. And
it all stemmed from her illness years ago. When the leukemia had
been discovered, her mother had cleaned the house obsessively, and
Gina had been quarantined in her room, basically, for months at the
height of her treatments. She hadn’t been able to see her friends
at all. Family only sporadically. The summer of her ninth year had
been the loneliest time of her life. Upstairs in the back bedroom
of her parent’s house, she had journal after journal sitting on the
shelves, full of a sick young girl’s fanciful dreams. It had been
the only escape she’d had.

Her mother had meant well, but it had still
been difficult.

With a sigh, she looked around the kitchen.
Dishes were going to have to wait. The throbbing arm thing was
really starting to get to her, and she was going to have to take a
pain pill.

Her purse was in the living room, probably
exactly where Matt had dropped it when he’d brought it in. She
found the prescription bottle on the bottom and read the directions
as she headed back to the kitchen. Running a glass of water from
the fridge dispenser, she fumbled the lid off the bottle, downed a
pill, and hoped it would work quickly. She looked at the dirty
dishes again and cringed. Tomorrow. Maybe.