In Good Hands (12 page)

R
OGER WOKE UP
to a sneezing fit that nearly blew his head off. Then he started coughing and snuffling to the point where he was sure he was getting a cold. Until it seemed to fade away. When he was done, he looked up to see Amber smiling beatifically at him from the coffee table. She was seated on the floor, pen and paper in front of her and a massive notebook open on the floor beside her.

“Wow, sneezes of the damned. What was that?” he asked, not really intending for her to answer. It was just all he could think of to say.

“You were getting rid of some bad energies,” she said.

He nodded slowly, doing his best not to leap to his knee-jerk reaction. After all, how was he to know if he hadn't been doing exactly that: sneezing out some bad juju. Except, of course, his sneezes probably had more to do with the spring pollen than anything else. But he didn't say that. Instead, he rubbed his face and tried to clear his head. Then he jerked his chin at her writing.

“Whatcha doing?”

She set down her pen, then stretched, rolling her head
around, pulling her arms high, and generally making his brain fall straight south. God, she had the most amazing body.

“I just finished my session on Spike. It's not going to get him out of the hole he's dug, but maybe it'll help him find the strength to climb out.”

He pulled his thoughts out of the gutter long enough to look at her paper. It was filled with notes and abbreviations that he couldn't understand. “You can work on him…on paper?”

She smiled. “Energy flows regardless of material boundaries. Otherwise, how would we get radio waves and the like?”

He shrugged. To his mind, radio waves and energy healing were two different animals. But he knew next to nothing about it. “So what's your success rate?”

She sighed. “Depends on your definition of success. Most of my clients see improvement, but not cures. Though there have been a few notable exceptions,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“Really?”

She nodded. “I've seen allergies disappear overnight, swollen joints regain full use, asthma shift from debilitating to almost gone. I'm really thrilled with this work.” She pushed away a huge manual before shifting her legs into a stretch. And again, he had trouble concentrating on her words. “Out of everything I've studied, this is the one I like the most.”

“So you have patients?”

She nodded. “But not nearly as many as I need to pay off the last of my medical school debt. But I'm hopeful of a solution soon.”

He looked at her more closely, seeing the way her eyes slid away when she spoke. Obviously, she wasn't entirely comfortable with talking about whatever solution she saw in the works. He wanted to ask more, to find out exactly what she was thinking and doing. But right then, his stomach growled, long and loud.

“So I guess I'm hungry,” he said with a laugh. “Or more like starved. You want anything?”

She shook her head. “I'm fine, but you're not used to this diet. Eat a banana. Or I could make you—”

“Not another salad. I'll go with a banana.” And an apple. And any other thing in his kitchen that would qualify on this bizarro regimen. A quick rummage through his kitchen revealed that he didn't have nearly enough. “I need to go to the grocery store.”

She had returned to her manual. “I've got a lot more to do here. Do you mind going to the store without me? I've made up a list.”

She waved a page of notebook paper at him. He bit into the apple as he crossed to get the page. Looking down, he saw that it was a short list.

“Try for organic, if you can,” she said as he frowned down at the list. “There's an organic market nearby. Just go there and go wild.”

He waved the paper at her. “This does not sound like going wild to me. Going wild is—”

“Maybe we can try another yoga session after you shop,” she said, waggling her eyebrows.

He paused, having to seriously weigh his options. Organic green things and more sex versus a normal diet but no nookie. He chose the sex, but it was a near thing.

“I'll be back in an hour,” he said as he grabbed his keys.

“I'll be here. And I might even be naked.”

His step hitched halfway out the door, and he fumbled to get out a pen.

“Roger?” she asked from her place on his floor.

“I'm just adding something to this list.”

“Really? What?”

“Condoms.”

“Oh! Right. Good idea.”

He grinned at the blush that turned her cheeks so rosy. Okay, so endless salad was definitely worth it. He rushed out the door, resolved to make it back in a half hour, tops.

 

F
OUR DAYS LATER
, he was still grinning, even if they were back in her loft and not his apartment. Sure, he would kill for something meaty to sink his teeth into. Yes, he had spent way more time than he'd like listening to her neighbor complain about sciatica pains. And yes, Spike was still disturbingly missing. But all in all, the daily sexual adventures were more than making up for the other inconveniences.

And, miracle of miracles, his blood pressure was dropping. He was sure Amber thought it had to do with her energy sessions. Apparently, she worked on him daily, writing stuff down on paper and staring into space. Privately, he thought it had more to do with a freaking wonderful amount of sex. Either way, he wasn't complaining. Unless, of course, it was meal time. Damn, he was sick of smoothies and lukewarm food.

Then came the inexplicable moment of raw fury. A fullblown rage that rolled through him for no rational reason at all. The cause? The color of his tomato, of all things. He lost it. He completely lost his mind. His tomato was supposed to be orangy-red, but this particular cherry tomato was orangy-white and bruised. And it was one of a lot of cherry tomatoes that were subpar, in his opinion, for which he had paid an exorbitant amount. “Organic, my ass,” he growled. “That just
means they can charge five times as much for the crap normal grocery stores won't accept!”

Amber looked up from her salad. Being at her home tonight suddenly annoyed him even more. After all, his home had all his toys. Her home had a futon, for God's sake, and freaky neighbors.

Holy crap, he was nuts. He even knew he was being nuts as he started stomping about her loft while ranting about the poor quality of produce in the local health-food store. It was like he was standing outside of himself shaking his head at the freaky insano that was now inhabiting his body.

And Amber just sat there, her fork poised halfway to her mouth as she watched him. On her fork, of course, was one of the few perfect cherry tomatoes. Of course, she got the good ones. It was bad enough that he had to be on this stupid diet, but did she have to get all the
good
tomatoes?

“Oh. My. God!” he bellowed. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

She set down her fork. “I was waiting for this to happen.”

“Waiting? Waiting! You've been waiting for me to lose it completely? You should have let me know. I would have gone insane a couple days ago!”

Her lips quirked, but she didn't laugh. Good thing because he didn't know what he would do if she started guffawing at him. He ran his hands through his hair, trying not to grab hold and haul it out. He had to do something—anything—or he was going to explode. Meanwhile, Amber kept talking in her damned, calm, Doctor voice. It was enough to make him want to strangle her.

“Our tissues hold old energies—thoughts, feelings and whatnot. You've been detoxing for a little bit now. Apparently, you've just hit a pocket of anger.”

“Anger?” he gasped. “Anger! It's more like a freaking murderous rage!”'

She arched her brows. “Really? Well, do tell. What are you feeling?”

Had she not heard him?
“Rage!”

She nodded, her body and her expression sliding to that bland place she went to when one of her neighbors came in ranting about one thing or another. He'd seen it enough times now to recognize her actions. She went quiet and just let the rant run its course. It always did, and before long, the neighbor would thank her and leave.

He'd marveled at it before. He'd been impressed with the way she simply waited whomever out. He'd just never thought she'd have to do it with him. And the fact that she was staring calmly at him ratcheted up his fury yet another degree.

“Amber, do not do that silent thing with me!” he bellowed.

She arched her brow. “What silent thing?”

He didn't have the words to explain, so he just went back to pacing a circle around the couch. “Talk to me!”

“I'd much rather you talk to me, Roger. Tell me why you're feeling such rage.”

“I don't know!” He threw up his hands. “The lettuce was poisoned. I'm having an aneurysm. Too much sex really does turn the brain to mush.
I don't know!
”

Her lips twitched and he rounded on her.

“Do not laugh at me! It's rude to laugh at the insane.”

“You're not insane, Roger. Just try to empty your mind.”

“I'm too pissed off.”

“Fine. Then just feel the rage—”

“I am!”

“And let it wash through you. What is beneath the rage?”

“More rage.”

“Fair enough. What's beneath that?”

He glared at her, fighting for the smallest iota of rationality. “I don't know what that means,” he snapped.

“Get quiet, Roger. Just try. What's the first thing that comes to mind?”

That this was nuts and he needed to go boxing. He paused. Had he just thought of boxing? Jesus. He hadn't gone boxing since he was a kid. What the hell? But he looked down at his hands and they were clenched into fists. Yeah. He really wanted to punch something right then. “Roger?”

He blinked and focused on her, scrambling to put words to the feelings crashing through him. “I want to hit things. Like in a boxing ring.” And outside of a boxing ring. And just because he felt like hitting things.

“Do you box?”

“Never. Well, except for a few times when I was twelve. My friend's dad took us. I never understood the need before now. Jumping into a ring to beat the crap out of each other. I mean, it was fun as long as it was on a video game. But up close and personal, it was just stinky. And painful.”

“Did you get beaten up?”

He shook his head. “No. We were just kids. But there was this one guy—all wiry and bouncy. Thinking back, he was probably jonesing or something. He had that nervous, unable to sit still, never shuts up kind of energy. To him, we were just fresh meat, someone to beat up.”

“In the ring?”

Roger shook his head. “No. Like I said, we were just kids and my friend's dad was there trying to teach us stuff. But this other kid, he was like twenty, and he could have had us eating out of his hand. You know how it is with preteens. If there's an older guy who's halfway cool, you just hang out with him, hoping their cool rubs off.”

“So you hung out with him?”

Roger rubbed a hand over his face, the memory hazy but the feelings so strong. “He was an ass. I can't even remember
what he did. Probably called us names or something. Laughed at how we punched the bag.”

“And that made you angry?”

Roger realized he was grinding his fist into his palm and he stared at his hands like they were alien things. He wasn't a guy who punched things.

“No. Well, I suppose. He was just a jerk. And he made us both feel stupid, I guess.” He looked at her, his eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You can't possibly think my blood pressure is tied to some jerk who hassled us when I was twelve.”

She shrugged. “It's your memory. Tell me what it means to you.”

He threw up his hands. “It means that twelve is a sucky age. Old enough to know that the world's screwed up, but too puny and too dumb to do anything about it. Thank God, I'm not there anymore.”

She arched her brow at him. “I kinda enjoyed twelve. Got to put on my older sister's makeup, but nobody laughed if I disappeared with my Barbies. At twelve, you can still be a little kid if you want, but you can play grown-up without the responsibilities.”

He arched a brow at her. “Well, maybe it's that way for girls, but us guys are too busy trying to prove we're macho by that point. Twelve, thirteen, that's a lose-lose age for boys.”

“And that's what you're remembering right now? All those feelings from being twelve in a boxing ring.”

He shook his head. “No. Don't you get it? We weren't old enough to get into the ring. We were barely tall enough to punch the little bag. And there was nothing we could do about it but wait to grow up. And damn, that sucked!”

She put her chin on her fist, watching him with steady eyes. It took an act of will for him to stop pacing in front of her. And another surge of determination to keep himself from shaking
that calm look off her face. He was twisting inside, all antsy and anxious. Like that ass of a kid he remembered.

Jesus! he thought as he abruptly dropped down onto her couch. He'd turned into that jerk of a kid, too wired to do anything but be an ass.

“What, Roger? What are you thinking?”

He threw back his head until it dropped on the back of her couch. “I'm not thinking anything, Amber. I just feel awful, okay?”

She didn't say anything, but he didn't have to look to know that she'd left her kitchen to settle down on the couch beside him. Her scent enveloped him. Her presence calmed him. Almost as much as it wound him up.

“Better be careful,” he mock warned. “I'm pretty jacked up here. I'm liable to jump you.” He said the words as a joke, but it wasn't far off from the truth. He was feeling ansty, nervous and angry. One of the best ways to let some of this out was to do her in the crudest, roughest way. And that really wasn't his style at all. But damn, he could throw her down, spread her legs and just pound into her.