Authors: Carol Rose
She'd left the office and driven here, drawn to home base. Unfortunately,
her peaceful pasture was not un
inhabited.
The figure that toiled on the floor frame in front of her was outlined against the hot evening sky, an exultant song of praise to male power. He worked alone, his muscular torso gleaming in the heat of the waning afternoon. Julia drew in a deep breath as heat curled through her. Caleb was too beautiful.
Irritating, controlling and altogether too disturbing. She hadn't seen or spoken with him since she'd borrowed his trench coat and slunk home feeling like a flasher. No doubt about it, she'd be keeping her eyes open for puddles today.
The hill Julia walked across was busy with sound. The air held faint birdsong and a soft breeze blew lacy weeds against her legs. Small honeybees mumbled past, intent on their prize, and distracted her from the magnificent spectacle of the man's burnished torso.
Caleb's hammer broke the quiet. He hoisted a plank into position on the frame and hammered a spike through it, his hammer strokes slamming nail after nail into place. With the board secured, he stopped and lifted his gaze, acknowledging her presence for the first time as she came toward him.
A peculiar sense of isolation gripped Julia, a sensation that no one else existed in the world except her and this man.
Despite the peaceful hush of the surrounding country, Julia's shoulders tightened. Reluctantly, she walked toward him, skirting the front of the house.
The piers were nearly two feet above the ground at the point where Caleb waited, his face shaded beneath a cap. He stood inside the lattice of the floor frame, a nail apron slung low around his hips and a pile of subflooring boards stacked within reach. Unmoving, he watched her as she crossed the dusty lot.
Julia looked around, forcing herself to focus on the progress he had made on the house. Still, as her gaze swept her home-to-be, she was drawn back to him. The sun spilled over his shoulders, sink
ing toward the western horizon.
He stood there, broad and powerful, boldly blocking the sun.
"Hi," Julia said, smiling when she came to a stop a few feet from him. "It l
ooks like you're coming along."
Caleb lifted one eyebrow. "Not too bad," he agreed, looking her over with that same intensity that always left her disturbed. Not for the first time, she wondered what he saw when he looked at her like that. There were moments when she thought she read a flash of almost predatory hunger in his face, a naked desire to possess.
She looked away, awareness shimmering over her. Caleb turned back to the plank and, lifting his hammer, smashed a nail through it.
Julia stood beside the lattice hesitantly. With sudden awkwardness, she blurted out, "I brought your things back."
"My things?"
"The shirt and trench coat I borrowed when I fell in the cement," she reminded him with a wry grimace.
He didn't look up from his work. "Oh, yeah. You can leave them in the trailer."
A flush of embarrassment warmed Julia's cheeks. Drat the man, he couldn't know how many times in the last week she'd thought of him there-
-
moving around in the small space, showering in the tiny stall, eating alone at the table.
She remembered too clearly the night two weeks ago when, after showering with his soap, she had slept with the smell of Cale
b on her pillow and had dreamed...
dangerous, disturbing things. Strong men and soft women. The warmth of sun-bronzed fingers against fair skin.
Caleb broke the silence as he turned away to restock his nail supply. "Think you'd damage your healer's hands if you handed me a board from over there?"
He gestured toward a stack behind her, a challenging glint in his eyes as if he expe
cted her to refuse his request.
"I think I can manage," Julia replied steadily.
She'd come straight from a hospital staff meeting and hadn't taken the time to change out of the silky amethyst shirtwaist she'd put on that morning. But she'd eat nails before showing concern for her clothing in front of Caleb.
They worked together on the floor frame, Julia gingerly placing the planks in position while Caleb nailed. He had the economical style of a man who had spent a significant amount of time with a hammer in his hand. A small tap and a driving slam and the nail was in.
"You're letting me help. Aren't you afraid I might mess something up?" she said, a taunting note in her voice.
''I'm right here to make sure you don't," he shot back.
Waiting for her to put the plank down, Caleb rubbed his neck for the third time. Julia opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. Intuition told her that Caleb wasn't the kind of guy that liked people commenting on his personal business, and his neck was definitely his personal business.
That wise resolution stayed with her for maybe two minutes. When he tilted his head to the side and stretched it, trying to get some relief, she laid down the plank she was holding. Even know-it-all men deserved relief when it was so easily at hand.
A hand as cool as silk touched Caleb's bare shoulder.
He went still.
"Mmmm. It's really tight right there, isn't it?" Julia's fingers pressed lightly along the rigidly corded muscle to his neck. A hundred other muscles tensed up in sympathy. She stood behind him on the other side of the floor beam, close enough to surround him with her scent. He'd spent weeks trying to ignore that seductive fragrance.
"What are you doing, Julia?" Caleb asked tightly.
"Come here." She climbed up onto the subflooring gracefully despite her skirt, and walked over to the edge of the foundation.
"What?"
"I said, come here," she repeated patiently as she dropped lightly to the ground.
Frowning, Caleb stepped up and walked over to her.
"What's the problem?"
Julia pointed to the planked floor. "Sit."
"Sit?"
She smiled confidently up at him. "Yes, sit. I'm going to fix your neck."
"You're going to fix my what?"
"Your neck." Julia took his hand and pulled him down.
He crouched warily, looking at her through narrowed eyes. The woman irritated him. The soft translucence of her skin irritated him, the inviting curve of her fanny irritated him and the confidence in her smile really irritated him. One of the most delectable of all God's creations and she had to be a doctor. Damn. What the hell was she up to?
"Turn around." She indicated the motion with her hand.
Reluctantly, he obeyed and felt himself stiffen when her hands moved over his bare shoulders, gently examining the tense muscles. His skin heated beneath her hands. He balanced there on the balls of his feet, unmoving while she touched him, his conscious mind willing the sensations away. His instincts were shrieking the pleasures of meaningless sex, but his brain screamed something altogether different. Julia was big trouble.
"How long has your neck been hurting?" Her fingers brushed ag
ainst the hair beneath his cap.
"A couple of days. I strained it." Hell, the damned kink in his neck was the least of his problems lately.
Julia patted his back. "Lie down."
Caleb glanced back over his shoulder suspiciously.
"Julia, just what do you think you're doing?"
''I'm a doctor, remember?" She smiled.
"It's not something I'm likely to forget," he said tightly. "I'd still like to know what you're doing."
"Of course," she responded soothingly. "You've pulled a muscle at the cervical level and we can ease the spasm if we do a little treatment. It's one of the things that makes us Doctors of Osteopathy so popular with our patients. Feels wonderful, scout's honor," Julia pledged, holding up one hand in salute.
"You're a D.O.? Not a 'real' doctor?" Caleb taunted, unable to control the urge.
Annoyance flared in her eyes and for a brief moment he thought he had her. But this was obviously her sore point.
She smiled at him again, her voice staying level. "Believe it or not, D.O.s are the only other medical professionals that have full rights and privileges to practice right alongside of M.D.s. Actually, I think our training has the added advantage of what we learn to do with our hands. Which I'll show you if you're not too pigheaded."
Indignation stiffened her shoulders and it occurred to Caleb that she'd offered her help freely. He stared at her a moment, his intuition warning him not to accept. Still, he found himself asking, "What are you going to do to me?"
Rewarding his bravery with a smile, Julia said, "Let me show you. I need you to lie down here."
Caleb complied slowly. This was a lousy idea. Any contact between himself and this particular woman had potential consequences for which he was unprepared. Just looking at her started
a fire in him...
and set his teeth on edge. He'd put a lot of effort into simplifying his life, and she was the embodiment of complications.
Julia stood in front of him, waiting serenely, an expression of tolerant confidence on her face. She looked absurdly out of place in her soft lavender dress, and completely unaware of the fact. Caleb was struck with the thought that she'd suddenly found solid ground. If Julia was sure of anything, it was her skill as a physician.
The afternoon sun blazed behind her, making a halo of her pale hair. Understanding clicked in Caleb's head. She loved what she did with a passion fueled by innocence. In her, he saw himself ten years before, eager to save the wounded.
Tension coiled in his body. Julia Adams was an idealistic physician, and an osteopath, at that. Absolutely the last female he should let touch him.
Caleb abruptly lowered himself to the planked floor.
Ignoring prudence, he stretched out on the subflooring in front of her. His body felt like a furnace. Yes, she was a doctor, and yes, he needed complications like a hole in the head. Yet, just the thought of her touch sent a wave of pleasurable anticipation surging through him. Maybe it would be worth the risk.
She stood over him, her shoulder-length hair fluffed wildly in the humid, airless afternoon. From his position on the subflooring, he could see the tender underside of her chin and the creamy skin of her throat. Caleb forced his gaze to the passionless blue sky above him and prayed.
With the resurgence of the nightmares had come dreams of having Julia beneath him, hot, naked and willing. Mindless, ruthless dreams of losing himself in her warm, soft body. In his dreams, neither of them had lives beyond the bedroom door. No conflicts, no complications.
They made him crazy, these dreams. Naturally, they had a rousing effect on his hormones, but there was more to it. Something that left him feeling strange the morning after-isolated and walled-off from the world.
Julia placed the heels of her palms on his hips just below the waist of his jeans. "The first thing we do before we attempt any manipulation is check your pelvis to see if it's level."
She was going to...
manipulate him? Oh, God. Caleb determinedly ignored the sensation of her hands, warm against the worn denim of his jeans.
"Well, looks pretty good here. Let's do some stretching and see what we get." She straightened. "Roll over on your side."
He rolled over, bracing himself.
With accustomed ease, she positioned his upper leg, knee bent over the lower. Easing his lower shoulder toward her, Julia arranged his body in a lengthwise pretzel twist.
Bracing one hand on Caleb's bare shoulder, Julia grasped hold of his belt loop with her other hand and pulled down firmly. Her body leaned into him as his bent knee dropped over the edge of the subfloor.
Caleb's body twisted with surprising ease, resulting in three small popping sounds, one after another.
"What the heck!" He tensed, startled.
"Feels funny the first time, doesn't it?" Julia smiled, rolling him back on the flooring before she stepped back.
"Unnatural is more like it." He stretched experimentally.
"It's pretty much the same phenomenon as knuckles popping. It sounds like something solid cracking but it's really just the fluid in the muscles as the muscle is stretched," Julia informed him with the same care she might have used with a child. "Now turn around so I can do the other side."
Resigned, Caleb turned so that his head and feet were reversed on the foundation platform. Julia arranged him again and repeated the maneuver, the warmth of her body brushing against his as she held his shoulder and pulled down.
This time there was only one pop. Caleb laughed in spite of himself. "That is really weird."
"You should see some of the other procedures," Julia grinned as she straightened. "It's amazing some of the positions you can get people into."
''I'll bet you love every minute," Caleb replied, watching self-consciousness descend on her again, a surge of pink blooming over her cheekbones. Good, he thought. He'd had enough of the aloof doctor routine.
Hastily, Julia suggested, "Lie flat on your back. We'll see if we can get a few up higher."