Along the Broken Road (9 page)

His eyes grew wide with his shrug.

“I’m tired,” she purred. “I’ve had a hard week and I don’t want to have to babysit one of my artists in the hospital.”

Ian had lost interest in Curly; his eyes fitted tightly on Charlee and how she melted the room by soothing this guy. “Please. Can we let this one go? I promise to do my level best to keep King Edward on a short leash.” And then, she batted her eyes and it wouldn’t have taken much more than a feather to knock Ian right off his feet.

Dean swallowed, cleared his throat. “Okay, Charlee. For you.”

Was there a dude in town that
didn’t
have a crush on her?

“Thank you.” She stood on her toes and dropped a peck on Dean’s cheek.

All the air left Ian’s lungs. Dean and Curly walked away.

Conversation picked up at the table, but Ian didn’t care. He couldn’t seem to drag his thoughts from watching Charlee stand, pucker up, and land her lips on that jerk’s cheek. It was a moment before he heard someone say his name.

“Looks like someone’s been struck by the green monster.” Mr. Gruber had finished his iced tea and was using the straw to clink the ice around in the tall plastic cup.

“Shh,” Wilma warned.

Gruber just smiled his crooked grin.

The rest of the evening passed with the weight of the earlier interaction looming over them, though no one seemed that bothered by it except Ian.

When they left and the cool night breeze hit them just outside the door of the Neon Moon, Ian decided he was too keyed up to go home and try to go to sleep. “I’m going for a ride,” he barked as Charlee dug the Jeep keys from her jeans pocket.

“You’re not going back with us?”

“No.”

She angled to face him. “What’s your problem, Carlisle?”

He took a dangerous step toward her. “What’s my problem? How about the fact that two idiot rednecks insulted your friends and you reward one of them by kissing him.”

Charlee brushed a hand through the air. “Is that what you think?”

His hand fisted at his side as the image played over in his mind. “I watched it, Charlee.”

“Mind your own business, Ian.”

When she spun from him to storm off, he grabbed her. “You kissed him.”

She jerked from his grasp and Ian was quickly reminded this was a woman who’d grown up with four brothers and didn’t get intimidated easily. “And you’re the one who’s being a jerk right now.” She shot a hand behind her. “I’ve known Dean my whole life. Since kindergarten, okay? He’s not the outsider here, you are. So stop trying to rescue me because you’ll only make things worse.”

His hand dropped to his side. Honestly, he didn’t know how to take that. She started to walk away, got three steps and turned to light into him again. “And for your information, King Edward did flash his wife! He flashes all the ladies in town whenever he gets the chance. Most of them just know to glance the other way when Edward leans over to pick something up. Dean was trying to defend his wife.”

Ian opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “I’m sorry, Charlee.”

She held up a hand. “You know what? Save it. I knew bringing you tonight was a mistake.” And then she walked away, pausing for only a moment before climbing into the tall Jeep. He watched her shoulders rise and fall, then she cast a glance behind her to him and he must have looked like a pitiful excuse because when she blinked, there was regret in her eyes. Charlee tilted her chin and got into the Jeep. He watched as she peeled out of the gravel drive and headed in the direction of the retreat.

For several minutes, Ian sat on the curb by his bike. He wasn’t in the mood for a ride anymore and he wasn’t ready to go home.
Screwup
. The word rolled over and over in his mind. Maybe the only time he wasn’t a screwup was when he was in the military. Maybe he didn’t have what it took to make it on the outside. Maybe he just didn’t belong anywhere.

When the Neon Moon’s front door swung open and out came Curly and Dean, Ian decided it would be best to go. He didn’t want to make matters worse—as Charlee said he would—by provoking the two who’d been looking for a fight the better part of the night. He started to get on his bike when a hand landed on his shoulder. Ian pulled a deep breath because he knew how this was destined to end.

Charlee took turns watching the clock and the long winding dirt road leading to Ian’s cabin. She paced, made tea, paced some more. Scolding herself for saying such harsh and hurtful things to him.
He’s not one of my brothers
. This, she’d repeated like a mantra because Ian was all man and man defended woman. It was in their genes and under normal circumstances with a normal woman was really a sweet gesture. But Charlee wasn’t a normal woman. She’d had four brothers growing up and never got to fight her own battles until one by one they left and she had to learn how to use her wits to get out of tight jams. They had, in fact, done harm to her by not letting her fight her own wars, and she’d grown up with that survivor part of her still in its infancy. But as an adult, she’d learned; oh, she’d learned. She’d fought and clawed her own way to the top of Respect Mountain. And hated when her brothers showed up and knocked her off her throne.
You’re not one of my brothers
. Oh boy, was that easy to remember when he’d touched his lips to her ear. She lifted a hand to the spot and could almost still feel the sting. Ears were so sensitive. She’d never noticed before, but his soft mouth against them caused ice in her stomach and sweat on her brow. When she spotted the single headlight coming down the road and into his drive, Charlee grabbed her flashlight and ran out, not bothering to slip on her shoes.

There was a wide path through the trees that led from her front door to his. She walked it most mornings and could do so with her eyes shut—which was good because now she ran barefoot over the path. “Hey!” she yelled, but he didn’t turn around at the wave of her flashlight. She didn’t blame him. She’d said some hurtful things but she was here to make amends. “Ian, wait.”

No answer as he parked, stepped off his bike and headed for his porch. She ran the rest of the way to him and noticed he was moving slowly up the steps. Charlee reached forward to grab his arm and spin him around. When he yelped, she dropped the flashlight. It crashed to the ground and rolled, the light flashing across his face. A face red and swollen and—
oh my gosh
—bloody. She grabbed his shoulders and tried to make him out in the dim moonlight. Her eyes searched him frantically. “Ian, what happened?” He must have wrecked his bike.

He slumped toward her, and Charlee gathered him in her arms. He draped over her like a bearskin and smelled like sweat. She could feel fear creating tears in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

Ian clung to her as she helped him into the cabin. She flipped on a light as she passed through the door and hustled him over to the couch. Ian collapsed there, and with his head lying back on a throw pillow, she got a good look at his face.

Her hands came up in horror. One eye swollen and bruised with dirt and blood caked at his temple. More blood on his mouth, and coming from his nose. There was a footprint on his T-shirt and anger shot into her gut that someone would stomp on him while he was down. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No.” He grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Please, Charlee. Just stay with me.”

At that, her knees gave way and she floated down until she was sitting on the edge of the couch. When he didn’t let go of her hand, she used the free one to brush the dark hair from his forehead. “What if your lung is collapsed?”

He opened one eye. “It’s not.”

“What if you broke ribs and they punctured your spleen?”

At this, he frowned, then smiled. “My ribs are bruised, maybe cracked, but my spleen is fine. Believe me, I’ve had worse.”

“Ian. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

His eyes opened and focused on her. It seemed to take great effort but she could tell he didn’t mind. “You’re beautiful,” he said, words coming from cracked lips.

Her heart stuttered to a stop. One brow winged up. His fine dark hair was a mess of tangles clumped with dirt and small splatters of blood. He sported a rakish five o’clock shadow. “So are you,” she whispered. For a moment she took his hand and held it against her beating heart. “Although it’s hard to see you under all that dirt.”

“I’ll go clean up. Just . . . just promise me you won’t leave.” He started to lean forward, winced, and she used her hands to push him back down on the couch.

“Stay here. I’ll take care of you.” And in this moment, there was nothing she wanted more than to take care of beautiful, damaged Ian Carlisle with the handsome face and haunted eyes.

She rose and found a first aid kit in the bathroom and a bucket and washcloths under the sink. She filled the bucket and returned to her patient. Water ran in rivulets from her hand as she squeezed the excess from the rag. It made tiny little tinkling sounds filling the quiet. When he tried to scoot over to give her more access, he winced and she dropped the rag back into the bucket. “Shirt first.”

Ian had wide, powerful arm muscles and when he tried to wrestle the shirt from his own torso, it proved a futile task. He lay back, breathing heavily. Charlee took scissors from the kit and began at his waist. “It’s ruined anyway,” she said, blinking several times and brushing the hair from her eyes as bit by bit she exposed the taut, long muscles of his abdomen. A swatch of springy dark hair rose and fell with his breathing and disappeared into the waistline of his pants. She continued to cut, forcing her eyes to follow the line upward. Soon, his chest was exposed and Charlee pressed her lips together hard. There was a jagged cut beneath one of his pecs. A smooth spread of flesh that should never be interrupted by such a crude slice. She’d bandage it first because when she looked at his face she wanted both to cry and to drop beside him just to nestle against his body.

He trembled as she ran the cloth over his chest, removing traces of dirt and the sweat he’d accumulated. The single light of the cabin was enough to illuminate the cuts and scratches. It was soft light, the kind couples danced to before slipping off into an adjoining room to make love. At that thought, Charlee’s eyes darted up to Ian’s face, expecting to find him watching her. But he wasn’t. Mouth slightly open, body lax, eyes closed, and she could only imagine what he must be thinking. When a long, surrendering sigh escaped his lips, she knew. He’d been deployed a long time. And been home only a short time. Had female hands been on his body like hers were now? Charlee used her forearm to brush the hair off her brow. Gently, she pressed her fingertips, then her palm, to his flesh. The cloth was in her other hand, gliding over his skin. Another sigh from him and the sound, so soft, so intimate, wound around the lowest part of her stomach.

Her fingers wrapped in cloth continued to trail and now the other hand joined. When she’d find a bit of gravel or dirt, she’d remove it, then continue as her hands cruised over his flesh. “Okay,” she whispered, her heart hammering. “Now the face.”

She thought she’d find his eyes still closed, but was surprised to find them open wide, dreamy and locked on her. Charlee tried to smile. “I’ll get you cleaned up, then we can put some bandages on.” She didn’t need to tell him—the steps of wound care were pretty universal—but she needed to fill the air with more than just the thick tension of her hands so intimate on him.

Ian blinked. One side of his mouth tipped up ever so slightly. It didn’t matter to him, the pain; he had a smile for her. “Thank you,” he said and the words hung in the air between them like magnets drawing two helpless pieces of metal together.

“Be quiet,” she whispered and attempted a frown. “You’re ruining my focus.”

Ian lay back, let out a long sigh and said, “Really? Because you’re perfecting mine.”

Trembling fingers hovered over his neck. The cloth dangled from her hand and dripped onto the hollow of his throat and there, Charlee McKinley was stalled because she’d never been anyone’s focus before and if she had been, it was surely that she’d gotten in the way of that person’s true purpose and destiny.

And something about Ian Carlisle made her feel powerful. Strength born of determination. Power born of a desire not only to care for someone but also to nurture him. Nurtured. That’s what she’d felt like while Ian held her when she cried, and she wanted, needed, to return the favor. Nurtured was different than protected. Oh, she’d always felt protected. By her dad first, then her brothers. But she’d never felt important. Never felt as though she mattered. She was a footnote, a detail. A possession one protected because it was one’s duty.

But Ian made her feel different. Like she was the focus. And that was scary.

She continued cleaning his wounds and exchanging the dirt and blood for fresh, clear water. Soon, his face was a wash of clean skin interrupted by the cut at the edge of his mouth, one small one above his eye that
zi
g
zagged
into his brow, and a strawberry-like scrape on one cheek. After she’d applied Neosporin to the wounds, refusing to notice how the slick slip of it glided between her fingertips and his flesh, she placed bandages on all the sores except the one at the edge of his mouth. When she leaned in closer to it—in an attempt to make sure he didn’t need stitches there—she was surprised to find hands landing gently on her back. Strong, warm hands. Touching ever so lightly. When he spoke, her eyes flickered up to his.