Unbreak my Heart (4 page)

“Can we M
ama?” Willow pleaded. “I’ve never been fishin’ before.”

Clare smiled at Crank. “That sounds like fun, but you’re gonna have to each us how to cast our lines
first, I’m afraid, ‘cause neither of us have ever been fishin’ before.”

With his thick
, dark hair, grey-blue eyes and chiselled features, Crank was still extremely handsome for a man of thirty five, and in excellent physical shape from working out in the prison gym every other day to break the boredom of prison life. Needless to say his charm, good looks and sheer masculinity, certainly had not gone unnoticed by Clare. For the first time since her husband’s death she felt something stir deep down inside her as well, and it scared her. The last thing she had been expecting or wanting to find at the lake was romance, as she felt it was still way too soon since her husband, Clay’s, death to start a new relationship, no matter how lonely she had been feeling lately.

As Crank knelt down to help Willow with the zipper on one of her bags
Clare discreetly checked out his extremely handsome silhouette. Although tall and lean, Crank had broad shoulders, above average biceps and well defined pecs, which she could plainly see, tapered down to hard, ripped abs under his tight fitting t-shirt.

If it weren’t for Willow she wasn’t even sure she would try to decline any advances that he may have attempted.
She certainly wasn’t after a permanent relationship, but a one night stand with a gorgeous Texan hunk with no strings attached might be just the thing she needed right now to distract her from her money problems and the fact that her and Willow no longer had a permanent fixed address.

“Is everything okay?” Crank asked wryly, turning to find Clare staring at him
intently with her mouth slightly open.

Clare inwardly chastised herself for her lack of self-discipline
and nodded her head. “Yeah, everything’s fine, I’m just a little worn out I guess.” She tried to recall how long Crank had said he was staying at the lake, but realised that he hadn’t given an exact time; he had just said he was only staying at the lake short term?

“Well,” she said,
feeling slightly embarrassed that he had caught her ogling him. “I guess now that we have gotten all of our stuff out of your car we should let you get on over to your own cabin to unpack. Willow honey, come say goodbye to Crank.”

Willow placed her hands on her hips and
looked at her mother indignantly. “Mama, he can’t go just yet!” she huffed, having just returned to the dining room after taking the bag Crank had just opened for her into her bedroom. “The rain is still far too heavy.” She raced over and tugged on Clare’s arm. “Can’t we invite Cranky to stay for dinner, p-l-e-a-s-e?”

Crank
noticed that Clare’s cheeks had reddened slightly.

“O-of c-
course,” she stammered, trying to hide the fact that she was finding him way too attractive and distracting to focus on the task of unpacking their supplies. “Where are my manners? You’ve done so much for us this afternoon. Please stay and have dinner with us. It’s the least we can do to repay you for all of your generosity.”

Crank
couldn’t help noticing how Clare’s breasts heaved under her tight t-shirt with each nervous breath and how her pert little ass had wiggled slightly as she strutted back to the kitchen.

S
uddenly he felt like a nervous teenager falling for the pretty new girl in school. He had only known Clare Bennett for a little over an hour and already she was stirring up primal urges that he had been hoping to keep suppressed for quite a while longer. And then there was her pretty little daughter, Willow. He looked over at the little girl who was now sitting at the rustic dining table busily ransacking through another of her carry-bags, obviously looking for something important. She looked so innocent and trusting, just like his beloved Ellie had been.

As h
is eyes darted from one to the other, he nervously raked a hand through his damp hair. Perhaps coming all this way to Caddo Lake had been a bad idea after all. Clare and Willow had said they were here for only a few short weeks and then they would be heading back to the hustle and bustle of Houston; back to the real world, just as he would have to at some point. While they were here he would have to be careful not to get too involved in their lives or he would only get hurt all over again.

“Here
ya go Crank,” Willow said, breaking his reverie. She held out both of her small hands and presented him with a colourful, hand-painted coffee mug. “This was my Daddy’s,” she announced proudly. “I painted it for him myself, but you can borrow it later to drink coffee with Mama.”

Crank felt
completely humbled and his heart felt like it was swelling up like a balloon about to burst. He gently took the cup from her with shaky hands. “Thank-you very much Willow, I would be honoured to use it, and I promise to take real good care of it.”

Willow
seemed pleased and flashed him another gappy smile. “You’re welcome.”

“I hope you don’t mind cold roast meat with a tossed salad?
” Clare asked cheerfully over her shoulder. “It’s about all I have to offer, I’m afraid, until I’ve had a chance to clean the refrigerator and restock it properly.”

Crank flashed
her an appreciative smile. “That sounds fine.” Just then his stomach growled loudly. He hadn’t stopped for a rest and food since Waco, more than three and a half hours ago and he was now starving.

After their meal
, Clare put the kettle on to make them a coffee and while it was heating up Willow insisted that Crank come to her room to see how good she was at making her own bed.

“This is such a neat job,” he said, impressed at the wrinkle free finish.
He looked up at the pillow and saw the same well-worn yellow bunny rabbit that she had been cradling in her arms earlier in his 4WD, now cosily tucked in under the covers. “Who’s that all tucked in for the night?” he asked.

Willow giggled softly. “That’s Mister Truffles. He keeps me warm and stops me from getting scared at night. My daddy bought him for me when I was f
our.”

Crank got down on his knees and whispered. “
Then perhaps we better sneak back out quietly and let him get some sleep.”

When Crank finally left for his own cabin around nine p.m. Clare couldn’t help thinking about him as she busied herself with the dishes. Reflecting on how he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in her and Willow’s time of need, like a knight in shining armour, totally saving their day. And it certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed that he was tall, dark, incredibly handsome and as sexy as hell; the perfect combination for a fairy-tale hero in her books. The only thing missing was the white horse.

“What are you
smilin’ about Mama?” Willow asked, suddenly interrupting her mother’s thoughts.

Clare placed the bowl she had been washing onto the drying rack and crouched down beside her daughter. “What did you think of Crank Sweetheart? Did you like him?”

Willow blinked her tired eyes and nodded her head. “Aha! I sure did.” She stifled a yawn. “I thought he was nice and kind. What about you?” she asked sleepily. “Did you like him Mama?”

Clare couldn’t wipe the smitten smile off of her face. “Yeah, I do,” she said happily. “As a matter of fact young lady I think I like him a lot.”

Willow stifled another yawn. “Mama, do I have to shower tonight? I’m feeling too tired.”

“Yes Sweetheart,
how ‘bout we go right now and get it over and done with and then I can tuck you up into bed with Mr Truffles?”

When Willow was safely tucked in bed and the dishes were all finished and put away, Clare took a quick shower and headed off to bed
a little earlier than she normally would so she could get an early start cleaning and putting the rest of their things away before Crank arrived in the morning to take them into Karnack. But no matter how many times she tried to will herself to sleep, her thoughts were invaded by visions of Crank, her knight in shining armour
. Hot Crank - Sexy Crank - Gorgeous Crank – I wonder what he would look like naked Crank?
And each time he was just so darn hot and distracting that she was left wide awake and completely frustrated.

After what seemed like an eternity of tossing and turning,
she peered one-eyed at her bedside clock and saw that she had been unsuccessfully trying to sleep for over an hour. “Ugh,” in a fit of frustration she threw her pillow at the wall and climbed back out of bed.
‘If you’re going to spend all night thinking about Crank,’
she mentally chastised herself,
‘then you may as well get up and keep cleaning.’
Changing back out of her pyjamas into a pair of old jeans and an old t-shirt, she headed back to the kitchen.
‘At least if she kept herself busy cleaning she would have a good excuse for feeling tired tomorrow when Crank arrived to pick them up.’

For the next hour
or so she distracted herself from thinking about Crank by cleaning the mould and food stains out of her granddaddy’s fridge and cleaning all of the shelves with warm, soapy water before filling it with the contents of her ice box.

“There,” she said at last, admiring her handy-work. “Maybe not being able to sleep was a good thing after all?”

This time, after relaxing on the sofa with a hot, creamy coffee for twenty minutes as a reward for getting the fridge cleaned and stacked, sleep came quickly and mercifully. Her last conscious thought was of Crank cradling her into his powerful arms and gently holding her as she drifted off to sleep.

That night, after finally finishing unpacking his 4WD, Crank flopped down onto one of the overstuffed two-seater sofas in his cabin and phoned Kurt; telling him excitedly all about how he had found Clare and Willow broken down on the side of the road, and asked him if he could arrange for a new radiator and hoses for Clare’s car to be shipped overnight to the local mechanic shop in Karnack. After hanging up he then grabbed a quick shower before dropping exhausted into the solid-timber double bed in his new bedroom. But despite his tiredness his mind refused to shut down as visions of Georgia and Ellie began spinning and merging with visions of Clare in her tight t-shirt and jeans and Willow with her gorgeous blond locks and big blue eyes that she had so obviously inherited from her mother.

At a little after midnight
, after tossing and turning for several hours, he finally gave up on the idea of sleep, grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and headed outside to the porch. Fortunately, the previous owner had sold him the cabin fully furnished, which included a pair of weathered, but solid, Adirondack chairs and a sturdy, wooden coffee table on the porch.

Slipping down into the nearest
chair, he twisted off the lid of his beer and took a few refreshing gulps. By now the rain had stopped and he could just make out Clare’s cabin in the half moonlight, but it was now in complete darkness.

Almost
instantly Clare crept back into his thoughts.

Shit!

He raked a hand through his dark locks; trying desperately not to think about her sexy figure and the way her perky breasts filled out her tight t-shirt. But despite his best efforts to clear his mind, he was soon imagining wrapping his hands around her slender waist and drawing her close before kissing her long and hard on her soft, rose-petal-coloured lips. He was getting hard just thinking about her and cursed himself inwardly for being so weak. He had come to Caddo Lake to spend time alone and get his life back into perspective, not to find romance. That was something he was hoping to avoid at all costs. His heart had already been shattered and left in a million pieces once before, six and a half years ago when his wife Georgia and precious daughter, Ellie, were killed, and he had vowed every day since that he would never allow himself to love that much again.

He and Georgia had been high school sweethearts and had dated for four years before finally getting married at
the young age of 21. The first three years of their marriage had been like a fairy-tale come true; he and his business partner, Kurt, had been slowly building up their investment business, Jackson Waylon Investments, and Georgia had finished her business management degree at The University of Texas at Austin and had opened her own small business downtown selling high end antique furniture.

Then
, when they were just 24, Georgia had fallen pregnant and they had made their move from a modest house in Cedar Park to a much larger, two-story, 1940’s-built manor in the more affluent suburb of Rosedale.

However, by the time Ellie was three, cracks had started forming in their marriage. Building up Jackson Waylon into a billion dollar business had meant many frequent trips
during those early years of their marriage, both interstate and abroad, to meet with existing and prospective clients and, at first, Georgia had loved using their frequent business trips to see the world as much as Crank had loved taking her along. But after giving birth to Ellie she had found it easier and more practical to stay at home and, over time, had begun to resent his frequent trips away.

At first Crank had not realised how deep the resentment went and he had compensated for his frequent trips away from home by lavishing Georgia and his daughter with gifts on his return, but the gifts
only made Georgia even more resentful and she began to believe, quite inaccurately, that he was covering up infidelities.

Eventually, when Georgia was in her late twenties and Ellie
almost six, she had moved out of their Rosedale home while he was out of town on business one weekend and took Ellie with her.

At first their separation and subsequent divorce
, although painful, had been quite amicable and Crank’s broken heart had finally started to mend. He began delegating the jobs outside of Austin to his employees and going away less frequently, preferring to spend quality family time in Austin with his daughter, Ellie. They had even begun including Georgia in some of their weekend outings to local parks, with Crank secretly hoping that the two of them might be able to reconcile at some point in the future, even though Georgia had no such ideas.

N
ot long after Ellie’s sixth birthday, their relationship was strained even further when Georgia announced, out of the blue, that she had begun dating a local businessman, Wade Jennings. Crank had had no inkling whatsoever that Georgia had even been ready to move on so soon after their divorce and felt heartbroken all over again, but remained on friendly terms with Georgia for Ellie’s sake, even when she sold her apartment and moved her and Ellie in with Wade only three months into their relationship.

For a while things seemed to settle down again
and he and Ellie resumed their trips to the local parks, without Georgia, on the weekends that she came to stay. But then things turned sour again when Crank had smelt alcohol on Wade’s breath when he had turned up alone one Sunday afternoon to pick up Ellie.

Naturally
, after smelling the alcohol on Wade’s breath, he had refused to let Ellie drive home with him and when Georgia turned up an hour later to collect her they had had a huge argument over his refusal to let Wade take Ellie home. But he had stood his ground and made new arrangements to personally drop Ellie home at their house after each of her weekend visits rather than have them pick her up, and again things settled down.

But then his worst nightmare
had come true. Just three short months after moving in with Wade, both Georgia and Ellie were tragically killed in an automobile accident with Wade behind the wheel. A blood test at the hospital, where he was treated for minor cuts and bruises, revealed that Wade had a blood alcohol content almost twice the legal limit.

The day
the police turned up on his doorstep to inform him of the tragic news, his whole world had imploded. Nothing made any sense – the house, the business, all of the fineries of his lavish lifestyle – they had all meant such a lot, but in that grief-filled moment it was as if they were taunting him for spending so much time making money instead of being there for his family. Everything that he had gotten enjoyment from now left him empty and for a long time the only source he found relief was from a bottle, especially in the first few weeks after their funerals.

Yet despite being consumed
with anger and grief, he had not planned to seek revenge on Wade for killing his family, believing that justice would be carried out through the courts, but almost six months to the day after their deaths, at Wade’s court appearance, after listening in disbelief as the judge handed down a pathetically lenient three year suspended jail sentence for vehicular homicide and a two year loss of license, he had finally lost it outside the courthouse and threw a solid left hook at Wade, sending him crashing to the pavement. Unfortunately, in an almost surreal set of circumstances, as Wade fell backwards his neck hit the raised concrete edge of a garden bed at an odd angle, snapping it and killing him instantly.

Crank
shook his head to force himself out of his reverie and downed a few more gulps of his beer. He hadn’t meant to kill Wade that day, just give the son-of-a-bitch a sore jaw for a few weeks, but none-the-less he had not lost any sleep whatsoever over the fact that Wade had died. And during his entire six years in jail he had not felt a single drop of remorse. After all, Wade had died suddenly, but he had been forced to endure the feeling that he was slowly dying every single day for the last six and a half years, ever since the moment he found out Georgia and his precious daughter, Ellie, were gone forever; ripped from his life in an instant by the selfish act of drink-driving.

After finishing off his beer, he
angrily slammed the empty bottle down hard on the table before heading back to a sleepless night.