All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) (14 page)

“Hi.” She winced, as if she’d been hoping he wouldn’t catch sight of her. “I’m sorry I’m catching you late. I, uh, just came to tell you I can’t meet
you today.”

Despite the absurdity of her words and the unease growing behind his sternum at her thoroughly rattled expression, Brennan gave a soft laugh. “But you’re here.”

“I know.” She let out a breath, visibly upset even from twenty feet away, and his internal radar started screeching full bore. “I just . . . I need to write a story, and . . . I really have to work.”

Nope. He’d seen enough.
“What’s the matter, Ava?” Brennan slid his keys back into his pocket, covering the remaining space between them with only a few strides.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ve got this covered. Everything is totally fine.”

Brennan recycled her words from the other day without thinking twice. “You say
fine
, and all I hear is the other F word. You want to try again?”

“No. I’ve got this. I
do
.” Ava
closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, they were bright with tears that sent another wave of something-isn’t-right through his chest. In the entire three months he’d spent side by side with her that summer, he’d never even seen a hint that she
could
cry, let alone would. Ava wasn’t just tough—she was halfway to bulletproof. Whatever was rattling her had to be big.

But rather than giving
in to whatever it was, she blinked angrily and aimed her gaze skyward. “Great,” she muttered. “I’m such a mess, I can’t even bow out gracefully to write a damned story.”

“You’re not a mess. And I’m not letting you bow out anyway. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and turned toward the Trailblazer, and to his surprise, she didn’t resist.

“Where are we going?”

Brennan skated a quick glance over
Ava’s snug jeans and fleece-lined winter boots. Not ideal, but they’d do. “Someplace you can relax.”

She chewed her bottom lip, the doubt on her face clear as a summer sunrise as he unlocked the passenger door on the Trailblazer. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not really in the right frame of mind for another yoga session.”

Brennan pulled the door open, but instead of stepping back
to usher Ava politely inside, he recklessly cut the space between them to less than a breath.

“Yoga’s nice, but sometimes you’ve got to take your relaxing to the next level. I think I can help you out with that, but you’re going to have to trust me. Now what do you say—are you getting in or not?”

Chapter Fourteen

Brennan got three-quarters of the way to his destination before Ava finally broke the silence between them.

“You really don’t need to do . . . whatever it is that we’re doing. To be honest, I meant it when I said I couldn’t meet you.”

Christ, she wore her stubbornness more comfortably than most people wore their skin. Too bad he’d gotten a glimpse of what lay beneath it,
and he wasn’t half bad when it came to being relentless, either. “Actually, you look like you could use a break, so I think I do need to help you out. And I know we already covered this part, but you
did
meet me, remember?”

“Well, yes,” Ava said, although the agreement sounded far from a concession. “But I didn’t have your number, and it wouldn’t have been right to just stand you up. I went
to the marina to tell you I couldn’t stay.”

A ribbon of guilt uncurled beneath Brennan’s rib cage. “You met me so you wouldn’t stand me up?”

“Yeah.” She lifted one slim shoulder into a shrug beneath her coat. “Why, what did you . . . oh.” Ava nodded. “You thought I wasn’t coming.”

He opened his mouth to protest—she was clearly having a rough day—but there was no sense in bullshitting her
when she’d just call him on it anyway. “I thought you might’ve changed your mind and decided not to show, yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, in a way that made him believe her. “I guess I earned that with you.”

“Maybe seven years ago,” Brennan countered, realization popping him in the gut. “But I shouldn’t have assumed you’d just ditch out.” He turned off Rural Route Four, angling the Trailblazer
into a tidily kept parking area he’d come to know like his own reflection.

“It’s no big deal, really.” Ava’s coal-colored brows tugged downward, her seat belt whispering over the wool of her coat as she leaned forward to peer through the windshield. “Are we at your apartment building?”

“Yes. And it is a big deal.” Putting the SUV in
PARK
, he tugged the keys from the ignition and got out to
open her door. “You explained why you left so suddenly back then, and we promised to move on. I didn’t keep my end of the deal back there, thinking you’d skipped out with no good reason. I apologize.”

“Oh.” She stared at him for a full ten seconds before sliding out of the passenger seat. “Okay.”

“Good. Now that we got that out of the way . . .” Brennan tipped his head toward the perpendicular
brick buildings in front of them, working up a smile. “Do you want to go give this a shot?”

“Give what a shot, exactly?”

That streak of vulnerability Brennan had seen on her face at the marina made a flickering comeback, dancing briefly in Ava’s emerald green eyes before she crossed her arms over her chest. But as expertly as she tried to hide it, Brennan couldn’t help but see the part of
Ava that needed tending to, even if he didn’t know the particulars.

And Brennan wanted to help her, the way she’d helped him. No questions asked.

“Look, if you really can’t stay, I’ll take you back to your car. But something’s clearly bothering you. I know a way you might be able to let go of some of it, talking optional. But if you don’t want to—”

“No! I do.”

Ava brushed her fingers over
her mouth as if she was shocked the words had popped out, and hell if that didn’t make the both of them a matched set. But she hadn’t flinched at his back spasm or the revelation of his injury. Brennan wasn’t about to treat her as if she was made of spun sugar, no matter how clearly stressed she was.

“Perfect.” He led the way to his apartment, praying like hell he’d remembered to make proper
use of his laundry hamper after yesterday’s double shift. But a quick visual as he unlocked the door and crossed the threshold told him he was okay, just as long as they steered clear of the bed he damn well knew he’d left unmade this morning.

Right. Because just what he needed were thoughts of Ava in his unmade bed. Relieving stress in a different way than he had planned. Hard and fast and
more than once.

“Okay!” Brennan barked, his face heating as if she had X-ray vision on his X-rated thoughts. “So, ah, I guess we can get started.”

He turned toward the short hallway opposite the kitchen and living room, hanging Ava’s coat in his tiny hall closet before motioning for her to follow. While he’d have to be devoid of a pulse not to notice the long, muscular stretch of her legs,
in this particular moment, the observation made him a top-shelf jackass. He’d offered to help calm her down, not rev her up. Any thoughts of sliding Ava’s body-hugging jeans from her body so she could wrap those lean, strong legs around his waist would have to take a freaking hike.

Christ, he wanted her legs around his waist.

“So, what is it we’re getting started on, exactly?” Ava’s straight-to-it
question jostled Brennan from his illicit thoughts, and he mentally maneuvered himself back to the task at hand.

“Well, I think you’re going to have to lose your boots, but otherwise, this might be more up your alley than yoga.” He pushed open the door at the end of the narrow hall, clicking on the light with the flat of his hand. He’d come into this room too many times to count, especially
right after he’d landed in Pine Mountain, wound up and pissed off and needing release. There wasn’t much to look at in the scant, mostly unfinished space, but then again, sometimes the stuff you needed the most was right there in front of you. Hard work. Good meals. Soft bed.

Hundred-pound heavy bag that took all the anger and frustration and pain you could muster and never hit back.

Ava’s
lips parted as she caught sight of the black leather heavy bag, specially anchored into the exposed joists of the utility room’s ceiling, and she stepped toward it with a look of wide-eyed surprise. “Are you serious? You want me to wail on this thing in order to relax?”

All Brennan did was nod. She might be vulnerable beneath that tough exterior, but she was still tough.

“Yup.”

Ava flashed
him with a smile both grateful and wicked as she kicked her boots from her feet. “Then you’d better hope your ceiling beams are solid, because I have had one hell of a week.”

Of all the places Ava could imagine spending a stress-busting Sunday afternoon, her ex-boyfriend’s glorified closet was certainly not on the list. But the deep layer of
dread that had taken root this morning at the Sweet Life had anchored into Ava’s chest with frightening fierceness, to the point that she’d planned to do nothing but scour every inch of the Blue Ridge until she turned up a killer story that would save her job. Though she hadn’t wanted to ditch out on the lakeside winter hike she’d planned for their afternoon, driving to the marina to offer Brennan
a quick gotta-work excuse had been no more than a technicality in Ava’s brain. Or, at least it had been right up until she’d arrived, and the feelings she’d jammed down all morning—hell, all week—finally spilled over and cemented her to the parking lot.

The career she cherished was on the line, she was perilously close to having to leave the only family she’d ever known, and damn it, as desperate
as she was for a story, she was even more desperate for comfort. Not just any comfort.

The minute Ava had seen Brennan, striding up the snowy hill from the edge of the marina wearing that look of dark, powerful intensity, she’d craved comfort from
him
.

Brennan’s mouth tipped up at one corner, bringing Ava back to the here and now. “I hear you, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.
Have you ever hit a bag like this before?”

“Oh. Um . . .” A ripple of panic spread out in Ava’s belly. As soon as she’d seen the heavy bag hanging from the open-beamed ceiling, she’d been dying to jump right in and pummel away her frustrations. But maybe if she admitted the truth about her lack of experience, he’d think she was too much of a rookie after all and make her take some unfulfilling
swings at the air like her kickboxing instructor at the gym had.

Rather than tell an all-out fib, Ava settled for jacking her balled-up fists to chin level and prayed she looked passably competent. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She took a quick shot at the bag to prove her words, letting out an involuntary yelp as the impact reverberated all the way up her arm.

Brennan was next to her in less
than a breath. “Are you okay?”

Although she fought it with every fiber of her being, Ava’s eyes stung from the unexpected bolt of pain. “Oh my God, do you have bricks in this thing?” she asked, turning to glower at the barely swaying heavy bag.

“A hundred pounds of sand, actually.” He grabbed her hand, laying her palm over his knuckles for a closer inspection. “Looks like you’ll live, but
why don’t we wrap you up before you get all yippee ki-yay again?”

“Okay,” Ava admitted, albeit without dropping her chin. “I could probably use a pointer or two.”

To her surprise, Brennan simply shrugged. “Sure. But something tells me once your hands are protected, you’ll be a natural.”

He took a few steps back, reaching toward a small wooden shelf nailed up to the vertical frame boards
lining the rear wall. Grabbing a pair of what looked like long strips of light blue fabric, Brennan returned to her side, close enough that she could smell his crisp-breeze scent mixed in with one of laundry detergent.

He shook one of the strips out while draping the other over the shoulder of his black thermal shirt. “These are mine, so it’ll take some extra wrapping, but it’s better than going
bare knuckled.” Brennan paused to drop a smirk over the hand he’d just recaptured, pushing up the sleeve of her gray V-neck to fully expose her fingers and wrist. “Obviously.”

Ava’s laugh filled the tight space around them, deflating the stress banded around her rib cage on its way out. “I get it. I was impulsive. So what do I need to do first?”

“You need to hit with more than just your hands.”

She wrinkled her nose and looked up from her halfway mummified right hand. “I’m sorry?”

Brennan spiraled the thick cotton all the way over her wrist, tapping it into place with the Velcro at the end before swapping Ava’s right hand for her left. “Your knuckles are just the point of contact between you and the bag. If you really want to get cathartic about it, the punch needs to come from your
whole body. Like this.”

He pulled a beat-up pair of padded, fingerless gloves from the shelf, slipping them into place over his hands as he stood at arm’s length from the heavy bag. There was barely enough room for them to stand side by side in the confined space, but no way was she shying away from this now. Ava glued her eyes to Brennan’s frame with a determined nod, a twinge of heat pulsing
through her veins as he faced off with the menacing black leather. With scissor-sharp focus, he measured the heavy bag with an unyielding stare, shifting his stance over the concrete floor just slightly as all the muscles from his shoulders to his waist coiled tightly beneath his shirt.

The resulting
pop-pop-pop
on the bag turned the heat in Ava’s veins into a blast of uncut want.

“Oh,”
came
her breathy whisper. Brennan’s body was a study of lean lines and hidden power, quickly reharnessed as he stepped back from the heavy bag to look at her over one shoulder.

“See? You’ve got to grab that strength and energy from the ground up and let your whole body do the work. Put your back into it, so to speak.”

He rolled his eyes, likely at the jab he’d taken at his injury, and the reference
propelled Ava’s thoughts right past her already questionable brain-to-mouth filter.

“So letting loose on this thing doesn’t aggravate your back?” The rapid-fire string of punches he’d just thrown hadn’t seemed to bother him, but clearly, he had hiding his injury down to a finely honed skill.

“Not usually. Not if I control it,” he added with a shrug. “You want to give it a try?”

Ava stepped
up to the heavy bag, enticingly close to both it and Brennan. “Sure.” She folded her elbows upright over her chest, mirroring his setup, and threw a semi-awkward punch that rattled up her forearm. “I thought the point of hitting the bag was to lose control.” Ava cranked her brow down low and threw another punch, this time using her shoulder to direct the move.
Nice
.

“Mmm. Shooting first and
asking questions later will only get you into trouble. Or hurt.” Brennan edged past her, angling his body behind the bag to hold it steady. He watched her throw another punch, then one more before nodding his encouragement. “Hitting the bag requires a ton of focus, even when you do it for release. See the difference between that first punch you threw and these?”

Ava paused to accommodate her
rapidly increasing need for breath before leveling the bag with another satisfying
thwack
. “Well, yeah,” she hedged. “But the whole point is to let go, right? To take all those emotions and get rid of them by punching the bag?”