Perfectly Able (3 page)

“He wasn’t
officially my boyfriend. We had just dated for a while.”

“Ah,” I said
. “Let me guess. He was an ass.”

“You’re ve
ry perceptive.”

“Not really
. Most all girls say that about guys they’ve dated.”

Her laughter floated through the air again, and I decided I liked the sound of it
. “Good point.”

I flung my towel over the railing to let it dry.

“So what did he do to you?” I asked. “You need me to kick his ass?”

She shook her head
. “All joking aside, I don’t really like violence.”

“I could fling marshmallows at him with my slingshot.”

The corners of her mouth tilted upward. “That could be fun.”

I grew more serious
. “So, what did he do?” I heard myself asking again, wondering why in the hell I cared.

Chapter 2

Ava

I squirmed as a balmy breeze swept across the deck
and the trees rustled around us. He looked at me with such intensity that it almost seemed if I told him the truth, he’d hunt down the last guy I dated and either beat the crap out of him or pelt him with marshmallows.

Of course, there was a third option
. He could see things the same way Jack had seen them, which was why I was terrified that if Ridge knew the truth, he’d clothe that glorious body of his, pack up his belongings, and start walking, never to be heard from again, just like Jack.

I groaned inwardly.
It angered me that I had allowed the last guy I dated to affect me so deeply. Jack wasn’t his real name, but I didn’t even want to think his name, let alone have it pass from my lips. So I decided to give him an appropriate nickname, Jack, a shortened version of jackass. And he was a jackass. In the end, I’d found out the hard way that he didn’t know the first thing about loving a woman. It’d been a painful revelation, and one that was necessary for me to realize that he didn’t deserve me. So if I knew all of that, why did I still allow him to make me feel this way?

I h
ad been meeting challenges head-on since I was sixteen, giving me five years of practical experience. But I supposed when it came to relationships, a whole new kind of insecurity seeped into my soul. Gone was the cocky, overconfident girl that I had become in all other realms.

My eyes fell
to his magnificently carved body. His biceps flexed as he repositioned his arms, and he was still watching me, waiting on me to tell him what Jack had done.

“
It doesn’t matter. He’s long gone,” I said, shielding my eyes from the sun, so that I could see him more clearly.

He had a strong ja
wline, and as he stood before me, I couldn’t deny that I wasn’t immune to his bronzed, muscular body.

His brown hair was relatively short with streaks of blond, indicative that he’d probably spent a lot of time outdoors this summer.

“So what do you do?” I asked, hoping to shift the conversation to more pleasant topics.

“Well, I just graduated from college a few months ago.”  He walked toward me, sitting on the
side of the chaise lounge, just inches from my feet. My body stiffened and a wave of self-awareness swept over me. I bent my knees slightly, giving him a little more room at the end of the lounger.

“What was your major?”
I asked.

“Electrical engineering.”

“So if I needed someone to change the light bulbs in my apartment, you could help me out?”

He laughed
. “Yeah, I think I could handle that.”

“Good to know.”

“I was an intern at an engineering firm, and I was fortunate enough to get hired on after I graduated.”  He ran his fingers through his hair, which was quickly drying, and the movement caused his muscles to ripple into action.

“Sounds like you’ve got it together.”

“Meticulous planning. That’s the key,” he said, turning to look at me.

“I agree that planning is important
. Just make sure you remember to be spontaneous every now and then. We wouldn’t want you to be boring and predictable.”

He laughed then
. “Have no fear, Ava. I may be a bit predictable because once I set a goal, I don’t stop until I’ve accomplished it, but no female has ever accused me of being boring.”

He stood, his
red swim trunks riding low on his hips. My line of vision rested on his well-defined abs. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

I didn’t respond, ju
st watched the graceful display of muscle and sinew as he moved. As I watched him, I wished things were different. I wished that Jack hadn’t deflated my confidence. Perhaps I was even angry with myself for allowing him to do it. But it didn’t matter. Knowing that I shouldn’t let a guy affect me that way wasn’t enough for me to keep it from happening. That had been part of the reason that I’d wanted to come here alone. I wanted to get over this hump, gain my confidence back, and tackle life, but being here with Ridge all week would keep my insecurities at the forefront of my mind, impeding any progress that I’d hoped to make. I lowered my head into my palms. I needed to dig deep and find a way past this.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked as he stepped back onto the deck and shut the door behind him.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” I replied, lifting my head and pasting a smile on my face. I noticed that he had his phone in his hand. “Did you get a signal?”

He glanced down at the phone
. “No. I just wanted to access my calendar.”

“Oh
. Still planning, I see,” I joked.

“Yeah
. Old habits….”

He sat back down on the side of the
chaise lounge near my feet and punched the keys on his phone. “So do you have any goals, Ava?” he asked, without looking up.

“
You mean other than stringing up my sister and her friends for putting us in this awkward situation?”

He grinned
. “Guess at this point, you’re stuck with me for an entire week.”

“Guess so,” I agreed
. “You’re stuck with me, too. Still doesn’t keep me from plotting ways to torture her.”

“I know what you mean
. Kelsey has aggravated the shit out of me over the years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasized about getting even for all of the pranks she’s pulled. Knowing her, she’d just aggravate me that much more. Having one, little sister is bad enough. I can’t imagine having two.”

“
Yeah, sometimes it can be a pain, but we actually get along pretty well, considering.”

London
was definitely going to get an earful from me. Having expected to be totally alone, I hadn’t even brought my makeup. Part of me thought that I shouldn’t care, but what girl wanted to be stranded with a gorgeous guy and no makeup?  It certainly didn’t help my confidence level any.

Even though he had no Internet access, h
e scrolled through his phone, and it crossed my mind that Ridge was the type of guy who could easily become a workaholic.

The soft chirping of crickets
lulled me, replacing my carefully constructed wall of vigilance with the tempting notion of relaxation. I watched Ridge, who exuded confidence and ease around me, even though he’d never laid eyes on me before today. Envy slithered into my belly as I wished I could be so comfortable around someone of the opposite sex.

He moved then, his thigh brushing against the tip of my shoe
. My body went rigid, my breath frozen in my lungs. I knew I was overreacting, but that didn’t prevent the spasms of panic that shot through my veins. Instinctively, I scooted my feet closer to me, needing more than a mere modicum of distance between us before I could even begin to regain control of my emotions. I breathed in deeply, hoping that I was being inconspicuous. The last thing I needed was for him to stare at me like I was going to have a seizure or something.

Inwardly, I cursed myself. It was beyond ridiculous that I had allowed
Jack to bring me to this point. But no matter how much one side of my brain told me that it was absurd, the other side was telling me that I wasn’t good enough for someone like Ridge, that he would never find me desirable. So yet another internal battle began.

I took another deep breath, exhaling slowly
. Refusing to fall prey to my traitorous brain, I forced myself to rekindle the conversation. “So you’re training for a triathlon?”

He looked away from his phone, his hazel eyes focusing on my face
. I could tell I’d gotten his full attention with a subject that interested him. He shifted on the end of the lounger, facing me. I concentrated on slow, even breathing.

“
Yes,” he said in a smooth, deep voice.

I
watched his pronounced Adam’s apple as he spoke. My gaze traveled lower to his well-defined pectoral muscles, lower still to his washboard abs. He was definitely male, and that made me giddy and nervous all at once.

“Will this be your first one?” I tamped down the uneasy feelin
gs that prickled along my spine, refusing to succumb to them.

“Yes
. I watched a video online about a competition. It was a triathlon that consisted of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, and a 26.2-mile run that has to be completed in seventeen hours. Can you imagine doing all of that back to back?” His eyes met mine, but I didn’t answer. “So, anyway, in the video, the triathletes are pushing themselves to get across the finish line before time’s up, and as they near it, crowds of people are lined up along the side of the street cheering and holding out their hands. But it was the look on the triathletes’ faces that caught my attention. To know that they’d pushed themselves both mentally and physically to the brink of their boundaries and were still triumphant. If I could feel that kind of energy and emotion from a video, imagine what it must be like to be there. Imagine what it must be like to cross the finish line, to hear the crowd cheering you on. As soon as I watched it, I knew that was going on my list. I want to feel what they felt.”

He grinned
. “It sounds kind of cheesy when I say it like that, doesn’t it?”

I smiled and a little bit of my anxie
ty melted away with his words. “No,” I whispered, not expecting my voice to sound so strained. I cleared my throat. “I understand exactly what you mean.”

He looked at me a little surprised
. “You do?”

“
I do.”

“I’m glad somebody does
. Most of my friends can’t understand why I’d want to go through such torture.”

“It is torture.”

He straightened his back and looked at me hard. “You say that like you’ve done it.”

Did I?  I repeated the last bit of conversation in my head
. Crap. I hadn’t intended to say anything. Since when did I let my guard down around a guy for even a moment?  I tried to decide how I’d play it off because I knew that beginning a conversation like this would lead to places that I didn’t want to go.

I couldn’t lie about it now
. I’d just have to go with it. “We have something in common, Ridge. I know exactly what you’re talking about because I competed in a triathlon about a year ago.”  That was the truth.

“You’
ve already completed a triathlon?” he asked, leaning forward like I’d just gotten a whole lot more interesting.

“Yes, I completed it.”

He exhaled loudly. “You just let the air out of my big bag of macho.”

A smile pranced on my lips as I watched his face deflate and his
shoulders slump. Even though I knew he was joking, there was something humorous about such a manly man being shamed by the thoughts of a female completing such a physical contest before him.

“If it makes you feel any better, I missed the deadlin
e by eleven seconds, although I did complete the course.”

He lifted his head
. “No shittin’? Eleven seconds?”

I pursed my lips and nodded
. “Eleven lousy seconds. Do you know how many times I’ve replayed that over and over in my head, trying to decide what I could’ve done differently to cross the finish line on time.”

“That seriously sucks.”

“Tell me about it.” It had sucked, and I’d never forget the overwhelming feeling of defeat.

“My goal is to comple
te it in less than twelve hours. I think I can do it faster than that, but since it’s my first one, I’m not sure what to expect.”

I closed my book, completely engaged in my conversation with Ridge
. “I have no doubt that you’ll make it,” I said, meaning it. I hadn’t even known him a full day, but it was quite obvious that once Ridge Sutherland decided to do something, he didn’t release it from his sights until he had accomplished it.

“You should try it again,” he suggested
. “I’m sure a lot of people who don’t make it the first time come back and conquer it on the second try.”