LITMIR.BIZ

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laughter deepening and sounding a little frenzied. “That was just so…so Three Stooges!”

      “You break my arm, smash a few ribs, crush my shoulder, pulverize my toes and you think it’s hilarious?” His voice was tight with anger. Maybe tomorrow he’d look back and think the situation was funny, but right now he was too concerned about a punctured lung to join in the hilarity.

      “I really am sorry,” she murmured.

      “Yeah, I can tell.”

      Her laughter fading to the occasional little snort, she explained. “I laugh when I’m stressed. It’s awful, I know.”

      “Awfully strange, anyway,” he snapped.

      “It’s just been such a long day. I was in the middle of a surreal moment even before I got the call about my grandfather. I have been so afraid for him.” She swept a shaking hand through her hair, which looked like it had been swept through a lot recently. “The flight up here was a jam-packed nightmare. The kid beside me spent an hour flinging Cheerios and boogers at my head.”

      Eww.

      “The cab ride to the house was an exercise in nausea. I needed a drink, but Grandpa appears to have hidden his stash the way he did when I was a kid. And to top it all off, you skulked into the kitchen, looking all big and bad and scared the shit out of me.”

      Okay. At some point in that litany of woes, between the boogers, the liquor and the big-n-bad, he got the picture.

      She was hysterical.

      He understood the reaction. He’d worked with witnesses whose terror had revealed itself via uncontrollable laughter and knew that deep inside, she was churning with anxiety. The laughter had held a tinge of frenzy, her fear and reaction to his presence had been a bit extreme, and now she looked like she was going to…“Oh, hell, please don’t,” he muttered.

      But she did. She segued from snickers to sobs in the drawing of a breath. Before he could even take a second to remind himself how utterly useless he felt around crying women, he saw big fat tears roll from her eyes and drip down those soft cheeks.

      “Is my grandfather okay?” Sniff. “And are you?” Sniff sniff. “Do I need to take you to the hospital? I can’t believe I attacked you. Believe me, it was my first assault and battery.”

      She literally wrung her hands in front of her, clenching and gripping them, as if needing something to hold on to. He had to imagine she was running on empty emotionally and was imagining the worst.

      He knew of only two ways to calm her down, to make her stop trying to maim him with kitchen utensils, snort herself to death laughing or sob until she had no tears left.

      He started with option one. Reason.

      “Buddy is going to be fine, I promise. His doctor said he’ll need surgery and then rehab, but when I left the hospital he was high as a kite on pain meds and pinching the nurses.”

      Her lips twitched, and she managed to lift them a tiny bit at the corners.

      “And I’ll be fine, too.” He eyed the kitchen sink and tried for humor, hoping to coax another laugh, or even a tiny snort out of her. “Just don’t ever flash a pot at me or I’ll go into post-traumatic shock and instinctively dive for the floor.”

      The lips curled a wee bit more. But he didn’t get his hopes up yet.

      “How did it happen? My mother didn’t give me any details, just that he’d broken his hip.”

      He hesitated, before admitting, “He fell down the front steps off the porch.”

      Another sniff. “Such a short fall and so much damage.”

      “It happens,” he said, knowing brittle bones could easily be broken. “But he’s going to get a brand-new hip and come home better than ever. Before you know it, he’ll be running marathons.”

      “Oh, great, then it’ll be his other hip or his knees.”

      He wished he’d quit while he was ahead. She was obviously now picturing her grandfather’s much-loved arms and skull being shattered. Sure enough, to prove it, the bottom lip began to stick out the tiniest bit and she welled up again. Those churning emotions just weren’t going to let her go without a fight.

      “C’mere,” he said with a sigh, knowing he had to move on to option two.

      Not giving her a warning or a chance to get away, he gently took hold of her shoulders and pulled her closer. She resisted for the briefest moment, as if unsure of his motives.

      He reassured her, sighing deeply as he wondered what on earth he’d done to deserve this. Having to act like a wailing wall for a gorgeous woman who was totally offlimits, considering she was his employer’s beloved granddaughter, simply wasn’t fair.

      “Just let it out, darlin’. You’ve already maimed and injured me, so you might as well use my one good shoulder to cry on.”

      That elicited a sob that verged on a giggle and she gave in to the invitation. The tall, soft woman melted against him. Burying her face in his neck, she wrapped her arms around his waist, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that she should snuggle up against a half-naked stranger in her moment of need.

      He stroked the small of her back, felt the wetness of her tears against his neck and murmured consoling words in her ear. She calmed—her slow shudders growing further apart as she took what he was offering. They swayed a little, as if dancing, and he mentally acknowledged that needing a shoulder to cry on wasn’t just an expression. Sometimes that was just exactly the right solution to a problem. Not for nothing was he known as the best brother in the world to his two sisters.

      Only this woman was not one of his sisters. Oh, no. She was a beautiful, vulnerable stranger, who, he soon realized, felt incredibly good in his arms. Soft and pliant, warm, all curves and skin and heat and sex appeal. He could feel her gentle exhalations against his bare skin, feel the faint brush of her lips on his nape and was slowly going crazy at the scrape of her nipples through her silky blouse against his chest. He had never been more aware of being shirtless in his life.

      He stiffened. Some parts more than others.

      He should never have let his mind wander from her mood. Because, while the embrace had started as a comforting offer to a stranger, now he was much too aware that he hadn’t had sex in months and a woman shaped like a centerfold had curled up against him like a vine around a trellis.

      Shifting back a little, he hoped like hell she wouldn’t realize he was getting hard while she wept. But she didn’t let him make a gentlemanly getaway. Instead she edged close again, pressing even harder against him. He could feel the warmth at the apex of her thighs, which, with her deliciously long legs, was lined up just perfectly with his groin.

      She noticed. She had to notice. Because suddenly, she lifted her head and stared at him. Her soft face was tearstained, but her eyes were wide with shock, confusion and awareness.

      Her lips trembled. She licked them, and he held his breath, wondering what on earth she was going to say. Was she about to snap at him and slap his face or issue an invitation? What?

      In the end, his wild guesses didn’t even come close. Instead, with a soft, regretful sigh, she drew away and whispered, “Why, oh, God, why did I not meet you in Paris?”

      A SHORT TIME later, after Candace had asked the sexy stranger a dozen questions about her grandfather’s condition, she finally allowed herself to think about something else. She now knew for sure that Buddy would be all right. She’d see him tomorrow, but for tonight, she could do nothing else.

      Slowly, her fear and worry began to ease away and she let her thoughts drift in another direction. Enough so that, as she sat at the kitchen table and slowly sipped sweet, hot tea with the sexiest man she’d ever seen, she found time to wish two things: that she’d left the pots in the sink, and that she’d never even thought about him in connection with her canceled trip to

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