Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) (33 page)

“I’m volunteering.”

“Since when? I thought you didn’t want to make any commitments only to break them.”

“It’s just for today.” And yesterday. She didn’t inform him that one of the main reasons she’d returned to the community center was to learn if he was safe. “Have a seat.” She motioned to an empty chair.

“I have a better idea.” A mischievous grin deepened the lines of fatigue bracketing his mouth.

“What?” Aubrey sensed a wild scheme about to be hatched.

“Grab what you need, and let’s ditch this place.”

“To go where?”

“I’ll show you.”

She shook her head. “You need to rest.”

“That’s exactly what I have in mind.” The gleam in his eyes far from instilled her with confidence.

“Let me take you home,” she insisted.

“I’m not going home. Not yet.” The finality of his statement left no room for argument.

Aubrey again pondered what had happened between Gage and his family, but curbed her curiosity for the moment.

“Please.” He flashed her the same woeful expression that had broken her resolve so often when they were younger. “It’s not far. I promise.”

“Okay.” She gathered up the medical supplies she’d need, ignoring the warning bell clanging inside her head. “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“You agree to see Doctor Ferguson first thing in the morning and have him check out your hand.”

“I’m fine. It’s no big deal. I’ve had rope burns worse than this.”

“Gage.”

“All right. If I’m not called back to the fire.”

“You can’t go back with your hand like th—”

He cupped her cheek in his palm, effectively silencing her—something he’d also done often when they were younger. “Quit being a nurse for one hour, okay?”

“Okay.” She didn’t correct him. Her concern for his well-being had little to do with her profession and a lot to do with her much-denied-but-there-nonetheless feelings for him. “What about food? Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

“There’s some leftover pizza in the fridge. I’ll get us a couple slices. And something to drink.”

This time, Gage took the lead. As promised, they didn’t go far. Just next door, to the volunteer fire department station. Only they didn’t enter the station as Aubrey anticipated. He took her out back, and the sight that met her caused her to screech to a grinding halt.

Parked in the shade of the building stood a motor home. The same one they’d resided in during their short marriage. Memories inundated Aubrey, one after the other, in rapid-fire succession. Some were heartwrenching and agonizing, others tender and sweet and incredibly wonderful.

She gulped, unable to move.

“Come on,” Gage urged, taking her elbow with his good hand.

Did he have any idea what he was asking of her?

“Give me a second.” She seriously considered making a beeline straight back to the community center as fast as her legs could carry her.

Going inside the motor home with Gage wouldn’t be wise. She’d be inviting trouble on the grandest of scales. When it came to Gage, she was far safer surrounding herself with as many people as possible. Something always seemed to happen—something that involved mouths and bodies coming together like high-powered magnets—every time they were alone.

But he was hurt, she reminded herself. And in pain. Tired, hungry, battered and bruised. He probably had nothing more dangerous in mind than a nice long nap. Right?

Her feet remained glued to the ground.

“I figured we could talk in private while you bandaged my hand.”

Talk in private?

She wasn’t reassured. Talking with Gage inevitably left her feeling like an emotional dishrag.

Her gaze traveled between the motor home and Gage and back to the motor home. Aubrey had a vivid recollection of Susan Raintree helping her sew curtains for the many little windows. Were the curtains still hanging? The exterior had taken a serious beating from the elements. If the inside in any way resembled the outside, the motor home should have been condemned years ago.

“Come on,” Gage urged again. Quietly. Beseechingly. Seductively.

She let his voice slide over her, and the small shiver that coursed through her as a result wasn’t unpleasant. If anything, it was tantalizing.

A momentary flash of insight penetrated Aubrey’s fog-filled brain. She was, she realized, at some sort of turning point in her relationship with Gage. She either went back to the community center and the situation remained status quo: a constant state of sexual tension flowing between them that would continue until the day she left Blue Ridge. Or, she accompanied him into the motor home, a course of action that pretty much launched them on a path from which there was no turning back.

Did she want to be with Gage badly enough to risk an agonizing separation when she returned to Tucson? And what about him? Could he handle a repeat of what happened ten years ago?

“I’m leaving at the end of the month,” she said in a choked whisper.

“So you’ve told me.”

“Nothing that happens today or any day between now and then will change my plans.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

She studied his face for several long seconds and saw that what he said was true. He was indeed resigned to her eventual leaving.

“All right.” Aubrey squared her shoulders and took a tentative step forward. “We can talk.”

Climbing the steps of the motor home was like walking through a time portal. She placed her hand on the doorknob and pushed. In an instant, the last decade faded away. Her skin prickled, her toes curled and her pulse drummed. Gage coming up behind her worsened her strange symptoms. Entering the small and achingly familiar domain, she had the distinct impression talking wasn’t all they’d do, especially when she glimpsed the faded curtains hanging from crooked rods.

Chapter 9

G
age strained not to move as Aubrey treated his injured hand. Every touch of her fingers, every brush of her arm, elevated his sense of awareness to a higher level. He hadn’t brought her to the motor home in an effort to seduce her, but seducing her was pretty much all he could think of at the moment.

“Gage?”

“Sorry. Did you say something?” He tried to recall her question, but his brain function had been reduced to zilch.

She sighed and delicately probed a blister. “I said, you really should be taking antibiotics. Dr. Ferguson can prescribe one for you when you see him tomorrow.”

Gage tensed, though not from pain, and reminded himself to breathe regularly. She definitely wasn’t lying to Mandy when she told the little girl the patients at Tucson General voted her the gentlest nurse. Aubrey’s careful ministrations, combined with her proximity, pushed him to the very limits of his tenuously held control.

He sat at the compact dining table, the sole available seating in the motor home. Only one of his long legs fit in the cramped space beneath the table. The other one stretched across the narrow walkway, the toe of his boot butting the front panel of a lower storage cabinet. Aubrey barely had room to maneuver, which accounted for their constant—and he assumed unintentional—physical contact, along with his fast-growing state of arousal.

Gage wriggled in the seat and tugged on a pant leg.

“Does that hurt?” Her worried glance flitted to his face and then back to his hand.

“Not at all. I’m just a little stiff.”

“I bet you are.”

She had no idea.

“Is your shoulder bothering you? I noticed you rubbing it earlier.”

“A bit.”

“I brought some liniment.” She inclined her head at the assortment of medical paraphernalia lying on the table.

A pain-relieving cream probably wasn’t going to help Gage with what ailed him. If anything, Aubrey massaging liniment into his sore muscles would only increase his discomfort. Nonetheless, he picked up the tube with his left hand and attempted to unscrew the cap—
attempted
being an apt description. Gage was anything but ambidextrous.

“Here. Let me.” Aubrey relieved him of the tube. “Take off your shirt.”

Gage rose, inadvertently crowding Aubrey.

She lowered her gaze, watching him unbuckle his belt. He watched her watching him, and deliberately slowed his movements, hoping for a reaction.

“Do you need help?” she asked.

He figured he could succeed one-handed, but where was the fun in that? “Sure, thanks.”

He raised his arms over his head, and Aubrey whisked off his shirt. Unfortunately, she did it like a nurse undressing her patient and not like a woman stripping her lover.

So much for wild, crazy fantasies coming true.

What, Gage wondered, did she think about the two of them being there together? Did she want him as much as he wanted her?

“Sit,” she ordered.

He plopped back down in the seat. Aubrey came to stand in front of him, squeezing a dollop of liniment into the center of her palm. The outside of her thigh pressed lightly against the inside of his. Her movement appeared innocent, much as Gage wished she had an ulterior motive. One sign, one teeny tiny sign from her and...what? Throw her on the floor and take her right there?

She soothed the liniment into his shoulder using strokes that were strong, competent and incredibly gentle. Gage closed his eyes, hovering midway between heaven and hell. He silently pleaded for her to stop while simultaneously hoping she’d go on touching him until dawn tomorrow.

He got his first wish.

“Is the water connected?” She turned and moved to the sink.

“Last I checked.” Gage had run a garden hose and extension cord from the station so that the motor home would have, if not all the comforts, at least the minimum necessities of home.

She flipped on the faucet. Water sputtered and spit before flowing in a steady, albeit thin, stream. After washing and drying her hands, Aubrey picked up a box of sterilized gauze pads.

“I’m not sure the best way to bandage your hand.” She narrowed her eyes contemplatively. “You don’t by chance have an old glove hanging around we could use?”

“I’d like to shower first. Get out of these filthy clothes.”

“Oh.” She caught his stare and something flickered in her eyes, giving his innocent comment an entirely different meaning.

Gage responded with a rush of heat that made the fire he’d been fighting the past three days seem like a marshmallow roast.

They’d showered together often in this motor home. He recalled in minute detail the sight of her bare skin glistening beneath the spray of hot water and the enjoyment they’d both derived from him toweling every inch of her dry. Seeing her cheeks flush, he thought he might have finally broken through the barrier of her professional demeanor.

“I should go,” she said in a controlled voice. “Give you some privacy.”

Before she could execute the backward step she obviously wanted to take, Gage reached out with his good hand and grabbed hers. “Stay.”

“I can’t. I...shouldn’t.”

His thumb toyed with the band of her wristwatch, burrowing under it and worrying the sensitive spot on the inside of her wrist. She was leaving soon, very soon, returning to the career she loved and the life she’d made for herself in Tucson. He had no business whatsoever starting something with her, especially when he had nothing better to offer. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to let her walk out of the motor home.

“I won’t pressure you into anything you don’t want or aren’t ready for, Aubrey. I swear.”

“I know. And that’s just it.” She squeezed her eyes shut and gave a small, nervous laugh. “You wouldn’t have to pressure me.”

There was no thinking involved. No moment of indecision. Gage came out of his seat like a rocket. In the next second, he had Aubrey pinned against the counter.

Green eyes met his, an array of emotions flaring in their smoky depths. Surprise. Curiosity. Arousal. Nothing to indicate displeasure or unwillingness. It was all the invitation he needed.

“I’m filthy.” He bent to nuzzle her cheek and ear. “And I stink.”

“So I noticed.” Sighing, she linked her arms around his neck. Her breasts fit snugly against his chest, and Gage could discern her taut nipples through the fabric of her shirt. He longed to tease them with the tips of his fingers or, better yet, the tip of his tongue.

“Take a shower with me.”

She wrapped an ankle around his calf and adjusted her hips to align with his.

“Will we still fit?”

“Hell, yes.” He’d find a way or die trying.

Mouths meshed and tongues tangled in an explosive, heat-generating kiss that left them both shaking and short of breath. He fumbled with the top button of her shirt, desperate to be skin to skin with her. Body to body. Soul to soul.

With a smile both coy and shy, Aubrey brushed his hand aside and unfastened the buttons herself. She didn’t stop there.

Giving her room to maneuver, Gage eased backward until his behind hit the table. He would have liked to participate in her undressing, but his injured hand pretty much prevented that. No matter. Standing idly by and watching Aubrey shuck out of her clothes wasn’t exactly torture.

Then again, maybe it was.

She paused, one finger hooked beneath the strap of her skimpy pink bra. A rumble of desperation emanated from his chest. Had she changed her mind? He hoped not. Almost as much as he hoped his radio wouldn’t go off for at least an hour or so.

“Do you have any protection?” she asked.

She hadn’t changed her mind.
Thank you, God.

“Uh, yeah. I think so.” He dove through the door to the bathroom and snapped on the dim overhead light.

An unopened box of condoms sat on the medicine cabinet shelf, and he could have cried with joy. His foot caught on the doorjamb in his haste to exit.

“Sorry.” He offered a half smile in way of apology for his clumsiness.

Her eyebrows lifted. Not so the corners of her mouth. “You keep condoms in the medicine cabinet?”

Gage realized how sleazy he must look to her. “These are Kenny Junior’s,” he hurriedly explained. “They’ve been here for I don’t know how long. When I first moved the motor home to the station, he planned to use it for a bachelor pad.”