Taken With You (8 page)

“Bear!” Through the corner of his eye, he saw Hailey spin around, her head coming up. “Bear!”

She started to run and, before he could make sense of what was happening, she caught her foot in the garden hose and went ass over teakettle.

* * *

H
AILEY
STARED
UP
at the sky, trying to process how she’d ended up flat on her back in the grass with her head pounding, her breath coming up short in her chest, and her knee screaming in protest of whatever had just happened.

“Hailey!”

Hearing her name shouted killed any hope he was going to do the polite thing and pretend he hadn’t seen her less than graceful fall. Sure enough, just a few seconds later, he was on his knees next to her.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just my dignity. And I’m not sure I had much to spare as it was.” He chuckled, bending forward so she had no choice but to look into his face. Such a handsome face with concerned eyes. “I’m okay. I only see one of you, thank God. One of you is enough.”

“Too bad you didn’t damage that funny bone of yours when you fell. Why did you take off running like that?”

“When a game warden is yelling ‘Bear!’ like a maniac, normal people panic.”

Matt sat back on his heels, a chagrined expression on his face. “Bear is my dog’s name.”

She turned her head and saw a big black Lab sitting at the edge of her yard, his head cocked to the side as if he was trying to figure out why a grown woman was lying in the grass. “How original.”

“I found him when he was just a baby. He was a black fur ball with huge paws, stuck in some puckerbrush, and when I got him out, he nuzzled me for a few seconds and then tried to rip my coat to shreds to get to the crackers in my pocket. Name seemed to fit.”

As if he knew they were talking about him, Bear walked over to sit next to Matt. Both of them staring at her was just weird, so Hailey pushed herself up until she was sitting, too. When she held out her hand, the dog skipped the sniffing and getting to know you stage and bumped his head under her palm for a good scratch.

“I didn’t know you had a dog,” she said.

“He’s been with my dad this past week. The long commute meant being away longer hours than usual, plus I didn’t want him to wander off in the chaos of moving.” He ruffled the dog’s fur, then wrapped his arms around him when Bear threw himself against his chest. “I missed you, too, buddy.”

Hailey couldn’t take it. The obvious love the man had for the dog he’d rescued as a puppy was too much. How was she supposed to keep her guard up when they were so damn adorable?

She managed to push herself to her feet, intending to put some distance between herself and the pair, but her knee protested her weight and she winced. Shifting her weight to her other foot, she eyeballed the distance to her door. Her backyard had never looked so big before.

“Let me help you.”

“You never miss an opportunity to be the Good Samaritan, do you?”

“It’s a gift. Although there have been a lot more opportunities than usual since I met you.”

That was a statement she couldn’t really deny with a straight face, so she shrugged. She expected him to offer her his shoulder. She even braced herself for the possibility of him putting his arm around her waist.

Matt did wrap his arm around her waist, moving in so close her arm was forced over his shoulders, but she wasn’t ready at all when his other arm slid behind her knees. As he lifted her off her feet, she made a squeaking sound and clung to him.

“You could have just let me lean on you,” she hissed.

“Faster this way. Bear, stay outside.”

Hailey tried to relax enough to enjoy the sensation of being carried by a man for the first time. It would have been even more enjoyable if he wasn’t wearing a shirt and they were heading to her bedroom, but she’d settle for being cradled by hard muscles.

Matt managed to climb the back steps of her deck without hitting either her head or her feet on the railings, and then he paused while she reached out and opened the door. After successfully navigating the door frame, he kicked it closed behind them and carried her into the living room.

Now didn’t seem like a good time to point out she preferred shoes be left on the mat by the door, so she kept her mouth shut while he lowered her onto the couch. When he stood back up, she was strangely flattered to see he didn’t grimace or rub the small of his back. What a gentleman.

“Wow, you have a lot of throw pillows,” he said. “Shove some of them under your leg while I get some ice.”

It was strange seeing a man in her house, and she tried to remember the last time a guy had crossed her threshold. When she did go on a date, she took her own car and met him at their destination. She’d dated one man a few times, so he’d eventually picked her up at home and even kissed her goodnight on her front step. But inviting him in hadn’t felt right and that had been the end of him.

The last man to stand in her living room was probably the guy who’d repaired her phone line. The phone guy had been taller than Matt and definitely more round, but it still seemed as if Matt took up more space in the room, as though he were somehow larger than life.

Naturally, he took the easy way out and grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables rather than making a real icepack, which he then plopped on her knee. “How bad is the pain?”

“It’s honestly not that bad. I think I just tweaked it a bit and, if you didn’t have a hero complex, I probably would have walked it off by now.”

“Hero complex?” He walked behind her and adjusted the big pillow behind her back so she was more comfortable. “Hardly.”

When he palmed the back of her head and gently pushed it forward, Hailey’s breath caught in her throat. And when his other hand brushed the hair away from her neck, it released in a long, shaky exhale.

“What is this?” His voice was low and she felt the cushion shift as he leaned on the back of the couch.

What was that? That was a soft and lonely stretch of skin that loved to be kissed and had gone without for far too long. “What is what?”

His fingertip traced a gentle circle at the nape of her neck and all she could do was hope the low-grade tremor she felt on the inside didn’t show on the outside. “This is a bad bite and you’ve been scratching it. A lot.”

“I didn’t realize I had a bite there until I was at work yesterday. The tag on my shirt rubbed against it all day and drove me nuts.”

“You should put something on it.”

His touch was working just fine, replacing the annoying itch with a rather pleasant tingling sensation. “I will.”

“Do you have any hydrocortisone cream? I don’t want to leave it like this.”

“I think I have some in the junk drawer next to the stove.” If her friendly neighborhood game warden wanted to give the back of her neck some tender loving care, who was she to stand in the way of him doing his duty?

When he pushed himself up off the back of the couch, a gust of Matt’s breath blew across her exposed skin and she closed her eyes.

“Who keeps hydrocortisone cream in the kitchen junk drawer?”

“People who tend to cut themselves making salads keep antibiotic cream there, so it all goes in. And it qualifies. Batteries and first aid creams and junk. In the junk drawer.”

“Or aspirin and first aid creams and medicine. In the medicine cabinet.”

Hailey could tell he was walking away from her, so she opened her eyes to watch him go. Even if she tried to put aside being under the influence of his touch on her neck, she had to admit he had a nice ass. Exceptional, even. It was probably all that walking he did in the woods, rescuing lost women.

She was in so much trouble.

* * *

I
F
M
ATT
NEEDED
a reminder that making a move on Hailey would be like turning down a pothole-riddled dead-end dirt road, the inside of her house was more than enough. Light colors, white wood and no clutter implied this was a woman who wouldn’t like her man coming home with mud—or worse—on his boots.

He found her meager first aid supplies in the junk drawer with a flashlight that—knowing her—would need batteries, a screwdriver, half a dozen bottles of nail polish and enough other debris so it took him two tries to close it. No wonder there was no clutter in her house. It was all shoved into one drawer.

When he walked back into the living room, she had the bag of frozen vegetables in her hand and was flexing her knee. It seemed to bend with no trouble, though she winced a little. When she saw him, she dropped the improvised ice pack back on her knee and smiled.

“I don’t think the damage is too bad.”

“Good. Now let’s take care of that bite. Do I need to give you the lecture on the dangers of mosquito bites and how to properly protect against them?”

“No, Warden Barnett,” she responded in a snippy voice. “I’ve learned my lesson. And I can do that myself. Honest.”

“I’ve got it.” If him touching her neck made her squirm, he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. She wasn’t the only one who could be contrary. “Tip your head forward.”

With an exasperated sigh, she lowered her head to give him access to her neck.

“This might sting a little,” he warned.

He took an antiseptic wipe out of its package and cleaned the inflamed bug bite thoroughly. Between her tag rubbing on it and her scratching it, she’d made it pretty raw and there were some dried blood flakes at the center of the bite. When he’d cleaned it to his satisfaction, the wipe leaving the area wet with antiseptic, he leaned close and blew gently on her skin.

Her body jerked and he watched as her fingers tightened around a throw pillow so tightly he was surprised her nails didn’t pop through the fabric. She sucked in a breath, but didn’t say anything.

“Did that sting?” he asked, knowing damn well that wasn’t the problem.

“No. Are you almost done?”

“Almost.”

He squeezed a dab of hydrocortisone cream on the tip of his finger and took his time applying it to the bite. Even though it only took one fingertip to apply the medicine, he let the others trail over her skin, enjoying her battle not to react to his touch.

Until his own body started reacting, too. Skimming his fingertips over her neck, feeling her respond to him, affected him more than he’d thought it would. If he didn’t put some distance between them, he might be tempted to do something really stupid.

“That should do it.” He put the cap on the tube and gathered the wipe and package to throw away. “Stop scratching it.”

After tossing the garbage and wrestling with her junk drawer again, Matt washed his hands. Then he went back for a final check on his patient. “Do you want anything before I go? A drink? The TV remote?”

“No, thank you.”

He tilted his head and grinned. “A neck rub?”

She growled and chucked a throw pillow at him. “Out!”

He was still laughing when he let himself out through her kitchen. Bear had been waiting for him, staring at the door, and Matt gave him a good scratch behind the ears. “Let’s go, bud. We’ve got to make my bed and get yours upstairs. And I have to find the coffee filters or we’ll have a rough morning.”

Bear ran ahead of him, then stopped at the back door, looking utterly confused. Matt laughed at him and opened the door so the dog could go in.

“Tomorrow we’ll install your door, okay? I have to dig my tools out of the garage and all that. But right now, beds and coffee are number one on the list, so we’ve got some work ahead of us.”

Bear walked into the living room and jumped onto his end of the couch. After giving the cushion a good sniff to make sure nothing about it had changed, he curled up and closed his eyes.

Matt shook his head. “It’s a good thing I didn’t try to make you into a K-9. You’d give up the farm for a belly rub and a nap.”

When his dog ignored him, Matt went out to the garage and looked at the stack of boxes. The coffee filters hadn’t been in any of the boxes marked
kitchen
. So where would he have put them?

If push came to shove, he could probably borrow a few filters from his neighbor. She had a coffee machine similar to his on her counter. But he’d gotten her all wound up and he figured there was a good chance if he asked for a coffee filter, she’d probably go so far as to brew a pot and drink the whole thing in front of him out of spite.

Matt chuckled and dug into a box stupidly marked
miscellaneous
. He was probably going to enjoy living next to Hailey. She had a great laugh and it was easy to push her buttons. It was a great combination as long he remembered not to let
her
figure out how to wind
him up.

That wouldn’t be good at all.

SIX

H
AILEY
SAT
AT
her table, sipping her Sunday morning coffee and wondering if assaulting a law enforcement officer didn’t count if the officer in question wasn’t in uniform at the time.

Walking across the yard and heaving the saw or the drill at his head would still be assault, but it might be a misdemeanor if he wasn’t on duty. Plus, if he was out of uniform, he was probably unarmed, which was something to consider. Chucking power tools at a guy with a gun wasn’t a good idea.

And he’d only lived next door for twenty-four hours.

Today was not only Sunday, but it was the weekend before Memorial Day weekend. Yard day. Today was the day she traditionally cleaned up any remaining debris from winter and made sure her lawn mower and edger were running okay. Sometimes the pavers around her perennial beds were shifted by snow and ice, and she’d check those. She had a lot of perennials and bushes because gardening wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but she liked her yard to look nice.

But Matt was out there. Sawing and drilling and hammering and, in general, being noisy. And Bear didn’t like the whiny pitch of the saw, so he’d bark like mad whenever it was running, and Matt would laugh.

And he had no shirt on again. The man seemed to have a serious problem with clothing and she wasn’t sure how that would go once it was the middle of summer. Then would come shorts, if he bothered. Worse, she wasn’t sure if she was dreading it or looking forward to it.