LITMIR.BIZ

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but he knew it was too soon. If he pushed now, she might get suspicious. He had to gain her trust first and he was getting the feeling that might not be so simple. She walked alongside him, head lowered as if she were afraid to look him in the eye, and she kept a good two feet of mossy ground between them. Everything about her body language screamed Back off, so he kept his distance.

      “It was hard on you?” he asked. “Moving around like that?”

      “I guess. Sometimes we weren’t even in one place long enough for me to make friends. Other times she’d meet someone and we’d stay a while. She married a couple of them, but it never lasted.”

      “My parents were married for thirty-five years when my father died—not that it was a good marriage.” The words father and husband had merely been titles to Will’s dad. What he’d been right up until the day he died was a glorified bully. Will had never understood why his mother had put up with it for so long. But she had, spending year after year taking orders and doing whatever she could to keep her husband happy, and he’d not been a man easily pleased.

      “So many marriages aren’t,” she said, sounding inexplicably sad. She probably saw some pretty nasty stuff working at a place like this.

      After two hellish divorces, you wouldn’t catch him taking that walk down the aisle again. Wife number two had been clingy before the explosion, but in the months afterward she’d been downright unbearable. She’d cried the entire first week after the bandages had come off. She’d be fine; then she’d look at him and the tears would start to pour. He couldn’t run to the store for a six-pack without her giving him the third degree, and if he wasn’t back at the exact second he said he would be, she would go into hysterics.

      A week before his medical leave was scheduled to end, she’d said she couldn’t take it anymore and had given him an ultimatum—quit his job or pack his bags. Ironically in the span of a year it was the only time she’d ever asserted herself.

      So he’d packed.

      His marriage to wife number one—who he fondly referred to as “the whiner”—had ended similarly. She had always been complaining about something. He was too bossy or too unemotional or he just didn’t love her enough. Then she’d gotten on her baby kick and he’d thought he’d never hear the end of it. What it boiled down to was she’d wanted babies and he hadn’t been ready, and all the crying and whining and carrying on she’d done had only driven him further away. Then had come the ultimatum. Give me a baby or pack your bags.

      So he’d packed.

      His philosophy was that some people just weren’t meant to be married. They weren’t built that way. There was no perfect mate a person was meant to be with. It was all a crapshoot. It was luck, and he’d never been particularly lucky when it came to his personal life.

      They passed a group of children coming back from the direction of the lake, and when they saw him, eyes widened and jaws hung. He was used to it. It amused him sometimes how honest children could be with their emotions. And yes, sometimes it annoyed him. Sometimes it even hurt a little.

      They whispered to each other, giggled, then scurried off toward the guest cabins on the opposite end of the resort.

      “I think I’m going to have a talk with those kids about manners,” Abi said, her tone so sharp and biting it surprised him. “That kind of behavior is unacceptable.”

      Will brushed it off with a wave of his hand. “It happens all the time. It’s normal for kids to be afraid or curious about things or people that look different. It’s human nature.”

      For the first time since they’d begun walking she looked up at him. “There’s nothing they can do? About the scars, I mean.”

      “They considered doing a skin graft, but they couldn’t guarantee how good it would look. There was talk about infection and complications. I could lose sight in that eye and end up with even more nerve damage. I decided I would rather leave it this way than take my chances. I figure it gives my face character.”

      She smiled up at him—a genuine and open smile. Even in the fading light he could see that her eyes were really quite remarkable. What he’d believed was a dull brown upon closer inspection was really a spectrum of browns and greens and yellows.

      “That’s a nice way to look at it. Not many people are that comfortable in their own skin.” She gestured past the other cabins, into the woods. “I live over there.”

      They turned down a narrow path that led to the large cabin nestled back among the trees. The front porch spanned the entire width of the house, and a wood swing hung from its eaves. The temperature dropped as they walked deeper under the trees, and the scent of pine and moss filled the air. He found himself slowing his steps, prolonging their inevitable parting. She was a little closer now. If he were to sway slightly to the right, he might bump arms with her. For some reason the idea of touching her held an almost irresistible appeal.

      “This is home,” she said.

      “Cozy.” Despite growing up in urban areas, it had always been a dream of his to live somewhere like this. Somewhere serene and peaceful, away from the hectic pace of the city.

      Someday, when he retired maybe.

      “The first time I saw this place I fell in love with it,” she said, her face the picture of tranquility, until she glanced up at him and the shutters came down again.

      “My face really does bother you, doesn’t it?”

      “No, I just…” She bit her lip and lowered her eyes to the ground. “I don’t know what my problem is.”

      “You know,” he said as they reached the porch, “when a child is frightened by my face, when they don’t know how to act, I have a trick to put them at ease.”

      “You do?”

      “Give me your hand,” he said, and she gave him a wary look. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”

      Reluctantly she held it out. Her fingers were long and graceful-looking, her nails short, clean and neat. He took her hand between both of his, and she tensed.

      “I don’t bite.” Lifting her hand to his face, he flattened her palm against his cheek. First her eyes went wide, then she blinked with surprise. He circled her wrist so she wouldn’t pull away. “It’s okay,” he said. “Touch it.”

      Very gently, as if she thought it might sting, she brushed her fingers over the side of his face.

      “See, it’s just skin.”

      “It doesn’t hurt?”

      “I had some nerve damage, so I really don’t feel much of anything. Extreme hot and cold mostly. And pressure.” He gave her the crooked grin that had become his trademark since the accident. “The left side of my mouth doesn’t always cooperate, either. But I have less area to shave, so it does have its positive points.”

      She gave him a shy grin. “The skin, it’s almost…soft.”

      He let his hand slip from her wrist, expecting her to pull away, but she didn’t. Instead she lifted her hand higher, ran her thumb over the deep scar that split his eyebrow in half.

      A tiny wrinkle formed between her brows. “So close to your eye.”

      “Yeah, it’s a miracle I didn’t lose it.” He watched her as she gently explored his face. Her skin was tan, and the beginnings of crow’s-feet marked the corners of her eyes, meaning she was probably older than he’d originally thought. Her cheekbones were high, her mouth wide. With a little color for emphasis, her lips could even be described as lush—especially when she smiled. She was neither tall nor short. Neither heavy nor thin.

      Individually her features were ordinary, but all put together, there was something about her, something almost…sexy. Which was weird because at first glance she’d seemed one of the least sexy woman he’d ever met.

      Her eyes locked on his and

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