Bound to You (13 page)

“You
have
to go to the hospital. That rope tore up your hands.”

“No.” She blinked at his calm, matter-of-fact reply. “I’ve had worse. Besides, you know I’ve got a first-aid kit.” She smiled shakily, recalling how he’d transformed the plastic kit into a cooking utensil.

“Everything is going to be fine. You go ahead,” he murmured. She stepped a little closer to him. It struck her she’d never see the cave again—never see the place where John had taught her to see so vividly in complete darkness.

“Thank you for going down that hole with me,” she said quietly. “Thank you for pulling me it out of it. Thanks for
everything.
”

He smiled. “I would do it again in an instant.”

The moment stretched. He gave her hand one final squeeze and turned away.

“We should let Rill and Katie get Jennifer to the hospital. If you have any more questions for me, why don’t you follow me to my cabin, Sheriff.” He reached with his hand, palm down, and Enzo raced to his side. Enzo walked next to him along the path. The dog was such an ideal guide, John didn’t even use his black cane.

Jennifer stood there, feeling like the earth had again swallowed her whole as she watched John Corcoran walk away.

Epilogue

Twelve days later

Jennifer hurried to the front door, her heart knocking against her breastbone. She’d sent her assistant, Cassie, home the moment after she’d received the phone call. She only had a little over an hour to get ready. At first, she’d been paralyzed with excitement and anxiety, wondering what she should do first. After chastising herself for being ridiculous, she’d showered and dressed in a knit dress and casual boots.

She flung open the front door of her Hollywood Hills home, her erratic breathing ceasing completely when she saw him standing there. She gazed at him like she would an unexpected treasure. It struck her as surreal to see him here in this setting. It struck her as wonderful.

“John. This is an amazing surprise.”

“I’m sorry for the short notice,” he said, entering. “We kind of came on an impulse.”

Jennifer glanced down and looked at Enzo, who was on a short leash. “I’m so glad you did. Come on in. I’ve made us a little supper.”

“I hope you didn’t go to any trouble,” John said as they took a few steps into the upper portion of her bi-level living room. Her gaze swept over her meticulously decorated bungalow—the luxurious home of a movie star. John couldn’t see it, and that pleased Jennifer. She was
glad
appearances meant absolutely nothing to him.

That didn’t mean she was immune to his appearance, though. She glanced over him appreciatively. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants that fit his lean hips exceptionally well and a blue button-down shirt. He’d shaved and trimmed back his beard into a sleek, dark goatee that highlighted his well-shaped mouth. Even though all the obvious traces of the rough, outdoorsy man she’d first met were absent, he was still the very picture of a competent, virile male supremely confident in his own skin.

“It was no trouble at all,” she said, pausing. “Besides, I owe both of you a dinner, remember?”

Her smile faded when he didn’t immediately reply. An awkward silence ensued. Had she misread his intentions in coming to Hollywood? When she’d received the phone call from him an hour and a half ago, she’d almost passed out in disbelief and excitement. After he’d pulled her out of the sinkhole almost two weeks ago, John had disappeared from her life.

She’d taken directions from Katie to his cabin after she’d returned from the hospital, where she’d received treatment for minor scrapes and bruises. She’d found his cabin sitting silent and empty amongst the tall, silent trees. Had John returned home and discovered he had sustained some serious injury? Had the sheriff taken him to the hospital?

She’d decided to return to his cabin to check on him after going to Vulture’s Canyon for a late lunch. While eating at the local café, she’d met Sherona Legion, the buxom, attractive owner of the Legion Diner that John had mentioned knowing. While Jennifer ate her delicious lunch, Sherona had revealed that her little brother Derek had picked up John an hour earlier to take him to the Carbondale airport. John’s vacation in the woods was over.

Jennifer had been stunned, hurt and bewildered by the news.

Yes, John and she had shared an electrical sexual experience down in that dark cave. She’d done things with John she’d never felt entirely comfortable doing with other men—fantasies aside—and she’d loved every minute of it.

But it had been more than sex. It had been a unique
human
experience . . . a connection unlike anything Jennifer had ever felt before. When John had departed from the forest so quickly, Jennifer found herself questioning the validity of her experience, however. If it had been so special, John would have felt it too.

He
had
felt it though. Her intuition said that he had. But perhaps she was deluding herself, influenced by the emotional edge of fear and anxiety she’d experienced? Had the singular bond she’d felt with him ever really existed?

She cleared her throat loudly, trying to diminish the weight of her anxious thoughts. “Here, let me take your bag,” she said, referring to the black duffel bag John had flung over one shoulder.

“Thanks. I took a cab straight from the airport. Haven’t had a chance to check in at the hotel yet.”

“You’re not staying at a hotel. You’re staying here,” she said, taking his bag.

She saw his expression flatten and again felt cast out to sea without a life preserver.

“We can talk about it during supper,” she said, hoping to diminish the tension in the air.

“Fair enough,” he replied.

She set down his bag and led Enzo and him to her kitchen.

“Would you like a glass of wine while I toss the salad?” When she saw his frown, she added quickly, “I also have beer and soft drinks.”

“No, it’s not that,” he mumbled. “I didn’t come here to have dinner with you, Jennifer.”

“Oh,” she said weakly.

He winced. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—I want to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” she said warily, leaning her hip against the counter.

Despite the fact that he said he wanted to talk to her, he looked like he was having an awfully hard time finding the right words.

“I . . . I knew twenty minutes after I’d packed up and left the forest I was being a fool. It just took me this long to work up the courage to talk to you again.”

“Why?” she whispered. “I wanted to see you again so much.”

He had begun to answer her question but started at what she’d said next.

“You did?” he asked, his expression tense.

“I was up at your cabin within three hours of leaving you in the woods.”

His mouth fell open but no words came out.

“Why’d you leave, John?”

He shook his head. “I left because I wanted to see you again so much, it hurt to be there.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” she said with compassion, stepping closer to him.

“I know it,” he mumbled, his expression tight with frustration. “I have no idea what it meant to you, being down that hole with me. I know you were scared. I know having sex with me helped you to fight your fear. I convinced myself that once your use for me was over, you’d move on. You’re a rich, beautiful, accomplished woman. You’re a famous movie star,” he said gruffly. “I’m a blind, divorced chiropractor whose closest friend is his dog and who would rather chop wood or work alone in a sculpting studio than go to a high-profile movie premiere or fancy restaurant.”

“Don’t stereotype me, John,” she said in a low, vibrating voice. “I don’t stereotype you. You taught me while we were down in that cave how foolish it would be to try to fit you into some easy category. I may be an actress, but that just means I’m an artist, just like you. I have insecurities. I have feelings. I have a heart.” She halted and inhaled when her voice broke with emotion. “You want to know what being down that hole meant to me? It meant a hell of a lot. It wasn’t just the sex that made me get through that dark night. It was
you
. Your strength and your compassion. I’ve never felt as close to another human being in my whole life as I did to you on that night . . . like I’d become mixed with you . . . bound to you. I know it may have seemed like impulsive, kinky sex to some people, but it didn’t to me. I
gave
some of myself to you that night. You gave some of yourself back. I
felt
it,” she whispered. “How do you think it made me feel when you just walked away after that?”

He made a low, rough sound in his throat and stepped toward her, arms outstretched. She went into his embrace, clamping her eyelids closed when emotion flooded her. He felt so hard and solid. He smelled like musk and the clean outdoors, with just a hint of citrus soap. He smelled like the woods where she grew up . . . like home.

He smelled like
John.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, bending down so that he could press his mouth near her ear. He hugged her closer to him, as if he, like her, couldn’t quite get used to the miracle of holding each other. “I got to thinking about what you’d said in the cave that night, about me feeling responsible for my divorce because of my perceived shortcoming as a man . . . a protector. I got to wondering if maybe I’d given up too quickly on you . . . took the coward’s way out because I didn’t want to risk the possibility of coming up short for a woman again.”

“You go so many miles down I can’t even fathom you,” she muttered. “As long as you show up, John, you’ll never,
ever
come up short. Not for me, you won’t.”

He pressed his mouth to her temple. “The thing of it is, honey, I want you so much, if I can’t match up to what you need, it’s going to hurt all that much more.”

She shook her head, inadvertently drying her tears on his shirt, unable to speak, her throat was so full of emotion.

“But the other thing I learned in the past week and a half,” he continued near her ear, his hoarse voice causing shivers to course through her flesh, “is that I gave up too soon. I want you so much, I’m willing to risk anything, including facing my own self-doubts, to give this a try. I came here to fight for you, Jennifer.”

She sobbed quietly into his chest, her tears those of pure happiness. “You’re not going to find much of a fight for that.”

He pressed his face against her neck and kissed her, inhaling her scent. She clamped her eyes shut, seeing him vividly in the darkness, just as he’d taught her to do. “God, you smell like a miracle,” he said, his mouth finding her ear and then tracing her jaw with firm lips.

She sent her fingers through his hair and pushed his head closer to her own. “God, you
are
one,” she whispered before their mouths brushed, met and clung.

• • •

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EXPOSED TO YOU

Available November 2012 from Heat Books

If someone had told her when her alarm clock went off that morning that in a few hours she’d be calmly given the odds of her continued survival, Joy would have rolled her eyes and laughed her fears into the corners of her consciousness.

If someone had warned her that later that afternoon she’d be going down on a gorgeous stranger, she’d have told that person they were certifiably insane.

Wilkie shouted her name as she raced through the din of the makeup room. A photo shoot for movie posters and other promotional materials was scheduled for today. The special effects makeup department was roaring in high gear. Wilkie James looked too busy to chat, so Joy merely slowed her rapid pace. Her friend held an airbrush and was staring intently at a female’s right breast as he turned it pale green, his shaggy, dark brown hair just inches away from a nipple.

“He’s in his lab, angsting for your talent. ‘I need Joy,’ he keeps moaning,” Wilkie imitated, adding a tremble to Seth Hightower’s gruff baritone for comic effect. “He’s been trying to reach you for hours. Where’ve you been, beautiful?”

“Don’t I have a life, or was that all my imagination?” Joy asked, grinning.

“You may have had a life before we began production on
Maritime
, but that’s all just a dream now, honey,” Wilkie drawled as he moved to the left breast, and his model yawned widely.

That’s all just a dream now.

Wilkie’s careless words struck her with frightening precision. She shrugged off the shadow of dread that hovered at the edges of her mind and walked on, willing the energy from her surroundings to distract her . . .

. . . numb her.

The drama and excitement of a Hollywood film set wasn’t Joy’s typical work world. As an art teacher for gifted high-school students and a painter, she preferred the atmosphere of the classroom or her quiet, sunlit studio at home. Even the clamor and bustle of a Hollywood makeup department couldn’t fully penetrate her dread, however.

Not today.

She felt as if she were moving through a dream . . . something like the brilliant, surreal underwater film director Joshua Cabot was creating for United Studio’s latest blockbuster,
Maritime
.

She willfully ignored the uncomfortable pounding in her chest and flung open the door to Seth Hightower’s office-studio. She needed to see the familiar, loved, bold-featured face of her uncle; he was the only true family member she still possessed. Seth glanced around at the sound of her tool kit rolling over the threshold behind her.

“There you are!”

“I didn’t get the messages until a half an hour ago. I was at the doctor’s. I came as quickly as I could.”

Seth looked contrite. “I know. Ignore me. I’m in a bear of a mood.”

Joy smiled. Her uncle was a bear of a man in stature, perhaps, but hardly in temperament. At least not with Joy, he wasn’t. He tossed a few tubes of paint and glue into his kit before he straightened, swept down on her from his great height and gave her a quick, affectionate kiss, his shoulder-length dark hair flicking against her cheek. “You’re not even officially part of my staff and I snap at you like an intern. Your mother would have my hide.” Seth focused on her face, his brows drawing together in a V shape, giving him an expression that anyone besides Joy would have found intimidating. “I know you had to take off school a few days last week. Is that why you were at the doctor? How’s the cough?”