Speechless (5 page)

Stone’s just-a-little-too-close-together eyes narrowed as he
noticed her studying him. “I make you uncomfortable,” he said, taking her empty
plate to the kitchen.

Eva shrugged her “yes and no,” trusting him to interpret it
correctly. She wasn’t sure how he made her feel—that was part of the problem.

Who are you?

“It doesn’t matter.”

It matters that you won’t tell me.

Stone didn’t answer, instead adding soap to the water in a
pot that had been heating on the propane stove so he could wash the dishes.

“I’m not excluding you from anything, Eva. I wouldn’t answer
that question for anyone. I’m not sure I
can
answer it.”

I’m sorry. It’s just… Not knowing makes me uncomfortable.

“Not knowing what?”

You.

Stone turned and regarded her, his face unreadable.

Your name suits you.
Eva turned away from him and
grabbed her crutches, then pushed herself to her feet. Too much coffee with
breakfast demanded she make a trip to the outhouse.
You chose it well.
And she turned her back and left the cabin before he could respond.

Even when she returned a few minutes later, he did not
answer her. He stood with his arms elbow-deep in soapy water and made no sign
that he’d even noticed her return though she knew he had. She took his silence
as a confirmation that Stone Peters was not his real name and a reinforcement
of his refusal to tell her anything about himself. She was tired from the
efforts of the morning—she could not believe how long it was taking her to
regain her energy—so she hobbled to the bed and stretched her aching leg out as
she sat leaning against the wall.

She’d done too much that morning, she could tell from the
way her leg hurt. Had her bathing or shampooing jostled the break, she wondered.
She should ask Stone to check it, but at the moment, spitefully, maybe even
childishly, she didn’t want to speak to him let alone ask him for any succor.
But when he dumped the dishwater and put the pot he used as a dish pan to dry,
he turned to her. She should have predicted that he would read her distress
easily.

“Let me check it. I want to look at that scrape on your hip,
too.”

The warmth of Stone’s hands on her skin relaxed her and Eva
felt a strange peace replace the spite and anger she had felt.

I’m sorry, Stone.

He looked up at her from her leg, but didn’t say anything.

You’ve explained to me why you can’t tell me more. And
it’s not like we’re trying to get a potential relationship off on the right
foot.
Stone’s probing hit an especially tender spot and Eva sucked a breath
in through clenched teeth. She had to laugh.
I don’t think that’s the right
foot.

That won her a smile, though he still didn’t reply.

It’s my nature to work at puzzles. You and this thing
between us, whatever it is, is a gigantic puzzle, so I work at it.

“Your leg is a little more swollen this morning. Keep it
elevated, I’ll give you some ibuprofen and that should help, too.” Stone moved
to her hip, pushing the cutoffs out of the way so he could reach the bandage.
“I should have thought to do this before you got dressed.”

Stone worked quickly, applying the ointment he’d used the
day before and re-bandaging the wound. “It looks better today, but you should
keep taking the antibiotic, just to be sure all the bugs are dead.” He slid the
shorts back into place and fetched water and her doses of medicine. “If you’re
in a lot of pain, I’ll get you the stronger stuff, but I’d rather you took the
ibuprofen.”

Eva raised her eyebrows and cocked her head to ask why.

“It’s an anti-inflammatory. The other is good pain relief,
but it won’t do anything for the swelling and it’s addictive. How bad is the
pain, on a scale of one to ten?”

Eva held up six fingers and Stone shook three tablets into
her hand and added the antibiotic. She swallowed the pills with a sigh of
resignation. She knew it would help, but she didn’t like the idea of taking so
much medicine, especially without a doctor’s advice. Stone seemed to be taking
care not to give her too much, though—and her own doctor had told her she could
take up to four ibuprofen for really bad PMS, so she supposed three was okay
for a broken leg. And certainly better than the extra-strong, addictive stuff.

Will you hand me the book?
she asked, needing
something to do, something to distract her from the puzzle that was Stone
Peters.

“Another one, maybe? So you don’t read ahead.”

She shrugged and nodded. He apparently still wanted to read
to her in the evening. So she passed the time with the Connecticut Yankee.

* * * * *

Stone didn’t realize how tense he was until Eva settled in
with her book and turned her attention away from him. She thought he was angry
with her, but that wasn’t why he hadn’t answered her apology or explanation. Or
her comment on his name. He hadn’t answered because he was afraid that if he
did, it would all come pouring out, the things he had done, the compromises he
had made, the horrors he had seen, the lives he had ended. And there were so
many reasons why he could not tell her these things. They said confession was
good for the soul, but even the thought of confessing his past left a bitter
taste in his mouth. To actually tell the stories would poison him—and her. And
as wonderful and beautiful as Eva was, she could not absolve him of his crimes.

He looked out the window and saw that the fog that had begun
creeping in the night before seemed to have settled in for good. It meant that
anyone who might be out looking for Eva would likely have called off the search
temporarily. Stone didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
When she’d apologized and made that remark about their not starting a
relationship, a surprising regret had welled up in him. The entire morning had
been full of tension and emotion, with Eva struggling to find her footing with
him and her own emotions after the intimacy of the night just past. He’d seen
every moment of that struggle on her face. She’d clearly not wanted him to, so
he hadn’t said anything. It was amazing how he could read her. He would even sometimes
feel echoes in his mind, as if she were about to “say” something and then
decided not to. He wondered if Eva realized that those echoes reached him and
that they held her emotions in their purest form.

Maybe that was why he had started feeling things again.
Maybe he’d caught it from Eva. He knew that wasn’t true, though. He’d felt the
symptoms long before Eva entered his life. Coming up to the cabin had been in
part an effort to recover his usual lack of feeling. So much for that plan.
He’d lost more ground in the last two days than he’d gained in the two months
he’d been up here. He turned away from the fog-filled window to look at Eva.
Her eyes had fallen closed and the book lay on her lap, her thumb marking her
page. He could barely keep his eyes off her for more than a couple minutes.
What was it about her that attracted him? Yes, she was beautiful, but not in
the way that men normally thought of. She was curvy, with a little rise to her
belly, a little roundness to her face. And while her breasts weren’t tiny, they
only just filled his hands. She was clearly fit—she’d hiked seven miles by
midday—but her figure was still far from the svelte aerobicized body the media
idealized. Definitely not his usual type, blonde bombshells with flat stomachs
and generous breasts, women who knew all the moves that drove men wild and who
never did anything without makeup and a $500 pair of shoes, even if it was just
running out for a newspaper.

Of course, he’d never actually felt anything for those
women. That thought—and the deduction that sprang from it—brought him up short.
Did he feel something for Eva? Something more than the physical attraction that
made him want to always have his eyes and hands on her, more even than the
compassion that had led him to risk himself to help her? And if so, what was
it? Could it be affection? He shook his head, trying to deny it, to drive it
away. If he felt something for her then he’d feel something when she left and
it wouldn’t be the relief he anticipated.
Shit.
He should have left her,
dialed 9-1-1 on her cell phone and left her for the search and rescue team to
find.

Affection for another person weakened him, made him
vulnerable, gave his enemies something to use against him. And it put Eva in
more danger than ever, if anyone were to find out about it.
Shit
. He
forced his eyes away from her sleeping figure, fisted his hands at his sides in
an effort to suppress his urge to touch her and looked in vain for something to
occupy him.

The day crept by. Eva eventually woke and the tension
returned to Stone’s muscles—she was so much harder to resist awake and watching
him and sending out sporadic waves of emotion, everything from desire to worry
to frustration with his incommunicativeness.

“It’s not you, Eva.” He felt compelled to explain. “I’m not
angry with you or frustrated or displeased or any of the other things you’re
worried about.”

She blinked and recoiled as if surprised that he had pegged
her thoughts so well. Stone smiled humorlessly. “Aren’t you used to that yet?”
he asked.

She gave a single, silent laugh as humorless as his smile
had been.
How long would it take you to get used to it?

“Point taken.”

No one has ever been able to do that before, read me like
that.

“Maybe everyone else is just too considerate to react to it.
I don’t see how anyone could miss it.”

She shook her head.
Even the people who can hear me often
don’t even hear my tone of “voice”. My mother could, but mothers can always
read their children.

“Then there’s more of a connection here than either of us
thought,” Stone said, shaken but trying hard not to show it. Sure, he’d had to
learn to read people, to look for the signs of deception or fear or sincerity
or trustworthiness, but he’d never
felt
anyone before. He’d assumed it
was a normal part of hearing Eva’s voice in his head, if any part of that could
be called normal. Now? Well it very nearly frightened him. He closed his eyes
and scrubbed a hand down his face.

If he’d met Eva a few months ago he would have left the
moment he’d seen or felt any kind of connection between them. If he’d met her
sometime in the future when things had settled—if they ever settled—and he
could be relatively certain that he was clear of his past, he may very well
have welcomed her, maybe even shared his first relationship of any length with
her. But now? He was in limbo, vulnerable in so many ways with no way to escape
her or their connection, uncertain he wanted to, knowing he had to.

Stone?

He shook himself free of his thoughts and turned his focus
back to Eva.

Do you still want that haircut? I need to touch you.

That he understood. He’d felt the same often enough over the
last two days. He nodded and pushed away from the windowsill he’d been leaning
against. “Where do you want me?” he asked.

Eva smiled speculatively, teasingly and Stone felt his own
mouth quirk. “I don’t think you’re as innocent as you pretend,” he said. “If I
had to guess I’d say you have a dirty mind.”

She shot him a glare and blushed with embarrassment, but he
could see the smile that hid beneath her façade. He felt the beginning of an
erection at her obvious thought and did nothing to help relieve it when he said
softly, “I want to be there, too, but it would hurt your leg.” He shut his mouth
with a snap, before he could go on with something impossible, like “Later, when
you have a real cast” or “After it’s healed”. There would be no later. Could be
no after.

Is there something lower than a chair you could sit on?

Eva managed to bring him back yet again by answering the
question he had intended to ask. Stone turned and looked for the low stool he
knew was stashed in a corner. He grabbed it and a pair of scissors and took
them over to her. Eva gestured for him to place it next to the bed and she sat
on the bedside behind him.

How short do you want it?

“Short enough that it will last another three months before
needing cut again.”

Eva ran her fingers through his hair and the action lulled
him, eased the tension in his shoulders. Over and over again, from front to
back, from top to bottom and back up again, Eva’s fingers threaded through his
hair and he began to think each strand had living nerve endings, could move to
follow her fingers, purposefully gathered together to resist, just so he could
feel those little sharp tugs against his scalp.

You have wonderful hair. I’ve been wanting to do this
almost since I first saw it.

“You have wonderful fingers.”

I’m tempted not to cut it.

“As long as you keep doing what you’re doing I won’t
complain.”

Stone knew she smiled even though his back was to her. She
pulled him back and he found himself leaning against the side of the bed, her
knees on either side of him and his eyes looking up into hers. Her fingers left
his hair and brushed across his face, skimming lightly over his cheeks and
forehead and lips. His eyes drifted closed and he felt his breath shake. He
should stop her. She was tearing down all his defenses—against emotion, against
connection, against seeing others as human beings, against telling her too
much. She traced the line of his cheekbones from nose to ear, drew her thumbs
down from the corners of his eyes to his chin, smoothed his eyebrows.

“Eva…“

When was the last time you let anyone tend to you?

His eyes flew open and he stared at her, tried to read her
suddenly unreadable face. He’d never felt so vulnerable as he did at this
moment and no woman had ever seen so clearly into him as Eva just had.

And I don’t mean your mother or someone you paid.

His gut clenched and he had to fight to keep the memory from
twisting his face in disgust. “I don’t hire prostitutes.”

That’s not what I meant. I meant a masseuse or spa staff
or even a doctor or nurse. Answer my question.

“Never. I’ve never let anyone tend to me—not even a masseur
or doctor or nurse.” Stone struggled to sit still, to not reach up to grasp
Eva’s ever-moving fingers, to guide and direct them himself. They had moved
beyond his face and now traveled his throat and skimmed along the collar of his
t-shirt.

It’s a control thing, isn’t it? Are you not enjoying this
at all?

“Yes.” It was all he could choke out as one of Eva’s hands
snaked under his shirt to explore his chest, finding and toying with first one
nipple than the other.

Yes what?

“Yes, it’s a control thing. And yes, I’m enjoying this. Eva,
let me—”

She cut him off with a shake of her head.
Do you only
want me because it’s easy for you to control me, because of my injuries?

Hadn’t he just been asking himself why he wanted her? He
hadn’t come up with an answer. Could she read him as well as he did her now? He
couldn’t concentrate with her hands on him like this. But he knew the answer to
her question.

“No.” He finally managed to compel an arm to move so he
could grab her wrist and stop her exploration of his chest. Maybe now he’d be
able to think. “I don’t want to control you. It’s myself I need to have control
over.”

So why do you want me?

“You make me want to give some of that control to you.”
Stone let go of her arm, let her continue touching him, but she didn’t move. He
could see her breath hitch. He reached up to touch her cheek. “For the last
fifteen years, everyone I’ve dealt with has had some ulterior motive, some
agenda I’ve always had to take into consideration at every juncture. I don’t
have to worry that something I do or say with you, some agreement we make, will
come back and bite me.”

No fears?

He smiled and lied to her. “No fears.” Then, because he
wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take, he sat up and said, “How about
that haircut?”

She started snipping, working slowly and carefully.
You
exhaust me, you know,
she said.
Every conversation we have is so full of
baggage and things left unsaid.

“What would you like to talk about?”

Turn sideways.
Stone turned on his stool. He could
see her now, if he lookedout of the corners of his eyes.
Do you have
any family?

“An older brother. He still lives with our parents, I
think.”

You don’t see them much?

He chuckled. “So much for conversation without baggage. No,
we don’t see each other much. We didn’t part on good terms.”

That’s sad.

“Yes, it is. I was young and stupid. My brother’s a high
school science teacher. He was always the responsible one.”

And you were the black sheep? The one lured from your
happy home by the glamorous life of international consulting?

Stone almost laughed out loud, Eva’s dry humor waking yet
another of his atrophied reactions. “Something like that.”

She smacked his shoulder.
Hold still. I’m out of practice
and I don’t want to cut off your ear by mistake.

Stone obeyed, willingly ceding to her. “Tell me about your
father,” he said. “You’re close to him.”

He’s a pilot, flying charters from a small airport in New
Hampshire—Nantucket, Maine and Boston, mostly, sometimes into Canada. He got me
through my teen years with amazing patience. I desperately missed my mother and
didn’t have much of a social life, as you can imagine. I’m convinced I only
made it through because of him.

“I doubt that. You’re a strong person.”

Now, maybe. Not then. If you were stranded on a desert
island, what three DVDs would you want with you?

“Assuming the desert island has electricity, a DVD player
and a TV?” Eva whacked him again and he smiled. “
The Shawshank Redemption
,
Sliding Doors
and
Captain Blood
. What about you?”

Is
Sliding Doors
the one with Gwyneth Paltrow and
the two parallel paths her life could have taken?

Stone nodded. He liked it because it reminded him of the
roles of both luck and fate—kept him from getting too cocky, thinking that
every success was entirely his own work. “Come on, tell me yours.”

All right. How about
The Philadelphia Story, Pretty
Woman
and anything with Keifer Sutherland in it.

“Why Keifer Sutherland?”

She blushed and he smiled. “Not Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt?”

Not anymore.
Her eyes widened and Stone guessed that
if she had actually spoken the words, she would have clapped a hand over her
mouth.

“Now you have to elaborate.”

She shook her head vigorously, her blush deepening until her
cheeks flamed scarlet.

“Eva, tell me.” He put as much authority into his voice as
he could, struggling to keep the amusement out of it. She resisted him, miming
locking her lips and throwing away the key. “That doesn’t work if you don’t use
your mouth. The more you resist, the harder I’ll push.”

The harder you push, the more I’ll resist. You’re not
getting this out of me. Turn and face the other way.

“I’ll just come up with my own theories. Like, you have a
fetish for men who have played vampires. Or you saw one of his movies when you
were fourteen—maybe
Flatliners
was on TV one night—and it made a
permanent impression on you.”

She just shook her head. He would get it out of her
eventually he knew. He was good at extracting information from unwilling
informants and could usually do it without the distasteful tactics some of his
colleagues resorted to. A fall of hair clippings landed on his hand where it
rested on his thigh and he studied it for a moment. His hair had darkened from
a much lighter blond when he was a boy to a streaky blond brown now—he was sure
someone had a precise name for the color but he didn’t know it. It was the same
color as Keifer Sutherland’s. He fought to keep the smile off his face, so Eva
wouldn’t know that he knew.

“Some people have told me I look like him,” he said softly
and was gratified to see her blush intensify. Her hand with the scissors started
to shake and he leaned away from it. “Maybe we should change the subject,” he
suggested, “before I lose that ear after all.”

Good idea.

“Favorite book?” he asked, looking for something to put her
at ease.

She smiled and resumed his haircut.
That’s hard. I think
Gone
with the Wind
, but I like lots of other books, too.

Their question and answer session quickly devolved into a
general discussion of books and movies and a discovery of a shared love of old
movies and modern fantasy novels, the type that had weird things happening to
real-world people. Eva confessed to enjoying the occasional steamy romance
novel and Stone found himself suggesting that she try reading erotica. They
stared at each other for a moment and then slow smiles spread across their faces
in unison. Eva broke loose first, ruffling Stone’s hair with a hand.

Your haircut is finished. I hope you didn’t want anything
special—I’m only good at trims, really.

“Just in time,” Stone said, rising to his feet, trying to
shift so his jeans were more comfortable around the erection that had begun
growing at their last conversation topic.

Just in time for what?

“To compare notes on our reading.”

* * * * *

Stone’s eyes narrowed as he spoke and Eva glanced quickly
down to see the bulge in his jeans. She slid farther back on the bed and he
took a step closer.

“Was there anything in those sexy novels you’ve always
wanted to try?” he asked, his already deep voice softer, deeper than usual.

Eva’s mind fogged.
Umm…
She’d just been imagining the
two of them trying some of those things, but for the life of her, she couldn’t
remember any of them now. An image filled her mind’s eye and she felt her
vagina clench at the thought.

Stone smiled, a predator with his prey cornered. “Out with
it.”

I’ve always wanted a man to want me so much that he takes
me against a wall.

“With your legs wrapped around his waist and his hands under
your ass, his cock impaling you?”

Eva’s cheeks flamed and if she’d been wearing panties,
they’d be soaked. She managed a nod.