All Fired Up (Kate Meader) (30 page)

Shane knew all about how hard it was to say no to Cara. It was why they were in this mess, the mess he was beginning to enjoy more each day instead of less.

“She’s always been a romantic, just like Jack.” Her lips shaded a smile. “Am I scaring you yet?”

He felt an answering lurch in his chest and he forced humor into his tone.

“God, no. Guys love hearing about wedding-obsessed females.” Cara might have been a romantic once, but not anymore. Not for herself. Something had broken inside her.

Lili drew her eyebrows together in a frown. “I’m not sure what changed. Whenever I ask her about dating, she brushes me off. I feel like something bad happened with a guy that’s put her off the whole shebang.”

Trusting her instincts more was a great start, but until Cara confided in Lili and her family, her healing would be incomplete. Like a bad break where the bones refused to knit together properly, her heart would stay fractured as long as she held onto the soul-crushing secret of her anorexia. And yes, he was fully aware of the irony.

Lili went on. “She’s got it into her head that she’ll never experience the fairy tale, so if it makes her better, if it makes them both better to have this one day, then who am I to stop them?” She cocked her head. “I guess what I’m saying is that you have your work cut out for you, Shane.”

If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing…
With a woman like Cara, there was some assembly required to make a relationship work, but he had the best hands in the business.

“I’ve spent close to six weeks in Jack Kilroy’s kitchen and survived.” He grinned. “Think I’m up for the challenge of Cara.”

*  *  *

Letting herself in quietly, Cara stole across the hardwood floor and then stopped short at an achingly familiar sound. Not quite muffled by the pitter-patter of his shower, Shane was happily butchering a Carrie Underwood tune.

Shane in the shower. Oh boy.

A scratchy cry snagged her attention and she looked down at its source. The greedy third in their cozy little triumvirate gave her the big green saucer eyes and mewled again. Like all cats, he felt the world owed him a living.

“Hold on, Vegas, I’m going to feed you.”

She opened the tin of gourmet cat food—soufflé with wild salmon, garden veggies, and eggs—and emptied it into his bowl. Vegas dived in and left his faux affection for Cara in the dust.

After washing her hands, Cara got busy with her real mission. Ten minutes later, the coffee was burbling, the skillet was hot, and Shane’s amazing brioche was soaking up the cinnamon-nutmeg eggy mixture he had introduced her to a few days back.

Since Shane’s injury three weeks ago, they had been circling each other like wary lions on the African savannah. He showed her how to cook more than eggs—she had since added rice salad and sautéed eggplant to her repertoire—and she repaid the favor by keeping her hands to herself. He no longer needed help getting his shirt on or off but they both kept up the pretense. Every time she saw his battered body, she wanted to graze and mold him with her fingertips but something unwritten had occurred between them. She knew if she touched him properly, or improperly, all hell would break loose.

“Hey, neighbor.” His graveled rumble sent her good parts into a quiver.

“Hey,” she answered, not turning around. Not yet. She wanted to soak up the scent of him first, that clean, male spice that made her world smell and taste a million times better.

He clucked. “Woman, I told you the cat should eat only dry food. You’re spoiling him.”

“Kitty needs a treat every now and then.”

She turned to get hers. As sure as she knew she was crazy as a cat lady, she knew he’d be his shirtless, jeans-wearing, hotter-than-hell self.

Bingo. Sinful as the devil and twice as dangerous. As he approached the business end of the healing process, the patchwork of hurt skinning his taut torso was now a light ochre. The contusion over his brow had deflated, leaving a smudgy bruise in its place. Languidly, he stood in those low-riding battered jeans, accessorized with nothing more than testosterone and a smile.

Yum.

He closed the gap between them and leaned over her with a sniff, his hand lying casually on her hip.
Lower, honey, lower.
She was a little damp from her morning run and heading for wetter climes any minute.

“Ah,
pain perdu
,” he murmured. “Smells good.”

“French toast, mister. You’re in the U S of A now.”

He switched to lean against the counter and she got the full Shane experience. The shower-softened hair, the towel tossed casually over one broad shoulder, the mysterious scar trailing down the other. Had a man ever looked this good in the morning?

“Nervous about tonight?” he asked.

She nodded, almost wishing he hadn’t mentioned it. After postponing twice, Mason Napier was finally stopping by to eat in Sarriette’s kitchen and make her beg for his mother’s business.

“I just need it to make something happen,” she said quietly. “Getting a shot at this would kick-start the next phase. I know I’d be good at it.”

Shane smiled, a little wry, a lot sexy. “The woman who, up until a few weeks ago, only had a recipe for ice cubes to her name? Well, look at her now. She can do anything.”

Embarrassed at his praise, she turned back to the slathered brioche slice, now browning up nicely in the pan. Shane was right, though. She had this. She looked around the kitchen. She
so
had this.

“Sit down, Shane. Breakfast’s up.”

“Love it when you get your ’tude on and make me eat, LT.”

With not a small amount of shock, she realized that she loved it, too. Looking after a big, strong man, even though he didn’t need it and she had really just inserted herself into his life, felt strangely like what she was meant to do. Holding her breath, she watched him take a bite of the golden bread, now covered with a dollop of crème anglaise and the orange-maple syrup Shane had made yesterday.

“Amazing, Cara. We’ll make a cook out of you yet.” It was overdone on one side but he hadn’t said a word.

She slid in beside him and took a few bites of her own. Part of her recovery involved regular affirmations that eating was morally neutral and that there should be no guilt associated with it. Learning to cook and knowing what went into her meals, whether it was calorie-laden or not was so empowering. If she ate something a little bit wicked, it was her choice. She controlled the fork.

Shane was digging in with gusto and she had to focus on her plate when all she wanted to do was stare at him. The idea that they could just leave things the way they were lapped at her brain like the tide. She hadn’t pushed the signing of the annulment papers and it had seemed awkward to bring it up. More awkward than being married but that was neither here nor there. Each day with Shane, each new wave of surf, sucked her in deeper.

She no longer wanted to guard her heart. She wanted to fall.

A comfort level she never thought she would experience with another person had set in during the last few weeks. When he wasn’t showing her how to cook, they watched TV and movies, and he told stories about the places he had traveled. France. Morocco. Australia. Exotic and not so exotic locations. But the more he trotted out tales about hostel horrors in Brisbane or bungee jumps off bridges in South Africa, the less she felt she knew him. All his stories were charming yet weightless as if he had a never-ending supply of anecdotes to shield his deeper pain. She knew his father had abused him emotionally, probably physically, and she wanted him to feel as safe talking to her as she did to him.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said around his chewing. He stood, reached behind the ragged sofa, and pulled out…oh my God…a helmet. A shiny, black motorcycle helmet with a pink curlicue design. Her heart thrashed so hard it threatened to leap out of her chest.

He placed it on the table. “Mine’s too heavy and you need your own.”

In her hands, it felt as light as air, and she wondered how it could protect her skull.
Your head is precious to me.
She knew Shane wouldn’t get her something cheap and that her safety would be his primary concern. Looking up, she found him staring at her with a look of such intensity that it dismantled her brain. The most powerful surge of emotion crashed through her that she couldn’t catch her breath.

Heart, meet pike.

“It’s fantastic,” she said faintly.

Only when his shoulders relaxed did she realize how tense he had been. “This bloke in Tokyo paints them by hand. I didn’t want to get something anyone else could have, so I sent him the design and he worked it up. It’s personal to you. See?” He pointed at a florid swoop that, on closer inspection, revealed
Cara
in curled lettering. Twisting it, he showed the letters
L
and
T
, almost hidden in the loopy swirls.

Tears threatened and she blinked to force her calm. “It’s beautiful, Shane. Thanks so much.”

“Lili asked me to lunch again at your parents’ this Sunday.” He folded his arms across that vista of human scenery she fantasized about twenty-four seven. “What do you think about catching a ride with me?”

Showing up on the back of Shane’s Harley wearing a helmet he’d had custom designed for her would definitely set tongues wagging. Cara and a man old enough to be her…younger brother. Two plus two makes two point four children. Was she ready for the DeLuca cannons?

“Someone might think something’s going on.”

“Someone might think right.” He leaned in close, his breath warm and syrup sweet against her cheek. “People already have a good idea. The earth has continued to rotate on its axis and no one has died.”

“True,” she said noncommittally.

He looked thoughtful. “Lili thinks you had your heart broken and that’s why you’re so down on relationships.”

“You talked about me with Lili?” She didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“Just generally,” he said. “Wedding stuff, mostly. Maybe you should talk with Lili more.”

“We talk all the time.”

After a couple of heartbeats, he raised an eyebrow.
You know what I mean.
Another pause, longer this time, weighted the air between them.

He frowned. “I hate to see you lose this opportunity to get closer to your family. Being honest with them about what you’ve been through would be a good start. Forgiving yourself would be an even better one.”

He made it sound so easy, but then that was his gift. Did he think she could snap her fingers and everything would be hunky-dory? It was bad enough she couldn’t be around when her family needed her, but the truth would not fly. Vanity and weakness had turned her guilt into a tangible, choking thing. Forgiveness required greater strength than she was capable of.

Rather than answer him outright, she sidled up to her good old pal deflection. “So what would
you
say is going on here?” Okay, more like out of the frying pan.

His smile was knowing. “Well, let’s see, shall we? There’s nursing and cooking and interminable
Mad Men
marathons.” He waved at Vegas, curled up and sated beside his bowl. “There’s a cat.”

They considered the cat for a few seconds.

“It’s not my fault you can’t appreciate the fractured gender and social politics of the sixties,” she chided. “And I’ve watched all your Paul Newman films. Quid pro quo.”

“Still can’t believe you’d never seen
The Sting,
” he said as if it was the saddest thing in the world.

There was a pause as they reflected on the momentousness of that.

Standing, she placed her plate in the sink. Her heart made an all-points jump around her chest as she geared up to make her decision.
Here goes nothing.

“Guess I’ll have to get my skirt into straddle mode.”

She barely had time to register the scrape of the chair before two beefy forearms curved around her waist and two hot lips lay down tracks on her neck. There was joy in his kiss. She had made him happy. She wanted to spend forever making him happy.

In a few startling seconds, he had hoisted her onto the kitchen counter and settled between her legs.

“Shane, your shoulder—”

His mouth cut off her protest; his tongue jump-started a revolt throughout her body. His obvious arousal indicated he was ready, to hell with his shoulder.

“Cara, my beautiful Cara,” he murmured softly against her neck. “You’ve no idea how hard it’s been not to touch you these last weeks.”

Tell me about it.
“You were injured, Shane,” she said firmly. She splayed a palm on his chest and pushed him back a few inches. “The things I have in mind for you require you to be at a hundred percent fitness. You’re not the only one with a fantasy list.”

Eyes smoky with lust, he cupped her butt and dragged her flush against his hardness. He never dropped his stare, just peeled up her running jacket without bothering with the zip. She raised her arms to help. With the backs of his hands, he rubbed his knuckles across her nipples, still covered by her T-shirt. The friction brought the tight buds to tender points.

She wandered her hands over terrain she had memorized close to a month ago and where she’d been planning return trips in her dreams ever since. Her fingertips rose and fell along ridges and scars. Icy dread scrambled her insides as her brain made the final leap. Those circular contusions the size of pencil erasers…
Were those cigarette burns?