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Maybe one last punch to the bag then he promised to stop. Thump! The stitches tugged more and smarted. He hated feeling uncomfortable in his own house and blamed it on the size. He’d thought about selling it after Angela had agreed to leave, but the truth was he liked the neighborhood, it was close enough to work, and most of his family lived within a ten-mile radius. And why should he have to change his life completely because his wife had been unfaithful? Okay, one last one-two punch. Whump, thump. Ouch, my side. He grabbed his towel again and rubbed it over his wringing-wet hair.
One odd thought occurred to him as he dried himself off. When was the last time a woman had seen him shirtless? His ex-wife Angela had left a year ago, and was a new mother now. Good luck with that. He hadn’t brought anyone home since she’d left, choosing to throw himself into his expanding business and demanding job rather than get involved with any poor unsuspecting women. He was angry at the world for being sterile, and angrier at the two people he’d trusted most, his wife and his best friend. Where was a guy supposed to go from there? Ah, what the hell. He punched the bag again. Wham thud wham.
“Would you like a sandwich?”
Not used to hearing a female voice in his house, it startled him from his down spiraling thoughts. A woman, a complete stranger no less, was going to be staying here for an indeterminate amount of time. Had he been crazy to offer? Two strangers in an eleven-hundred-square-foot house. That was too damn close, with hardly a way to avoid each other. Hell, their bedrooms were only separated by a narrow hallway and the bathrooms. What had he been thinking? His stomach growled. On the upside, she’d just offered to make him a sandwich.
Besides everything he was feeling—the awkwardness, the getting used to a stranger—he could only imagine she felt the same. Except for the unwanted attraction on his part, he was quite sure that wasn’t an issue for her—considering her situation, she must feel a hell of a lot more vulnerable. He needed to be on his best behavior for Carey. She deserved no less.
“Yes, thanks, a sandwich sounds great.” Since the bleeding had stopped, he tossed on his T-shirt after wiping his chest and underarms, then joined her in the kitchen.
“Do you like lettuce and tomato?”
“Whatever you’re having is fine. I’m easy.” His hands hung on to both sides of the towel around his neck.
“I never got morning sickness, like most women do. I’ve been ravenous from the beginning, so you’re getting the works.”
She was tallish and slender, without any sign of being pregnant, and somehow he found it hard to believe she ate too much. “Sounds good. Hey, I thought I’d barbecue some chicken tonight. You up for that?”
She turned and shared a shy smile. “Like I said, I’m always hungry, so it sounds good to me.”
He got stuck on the smile that delivered a mini sucker punch and didn’t answer right away. “Okay. It looks like it’ll be nice out, so I thought we could eat outdoors on the deck.” He needed to put some space between them, and it wouldn’t feel as close or intimate out there. Just keep telling yourself she’s wearing your sister’s clothes. Your sister’s clothes.
He’d done a lot with his backyard, putting in a garden and lots of shrubbery for privacy’s sake from his neighbors, plus he’d built his own cedar-plank deck and was proud of how it’d turned out. It had been one of the therapeutic projects he’d worked on during the divorce.
The houses had been built close together in this neighborhood back in the nineteen-forties. He liked to refer to it as his start-up house, had once planned to start his family in it, too. Too bad it had been someone else’s family that had gotten started here.
Fortunately, Carey interrupted his negative thoughts again jabbing a plate with a sandwich into his side. He took the supremely well-stacked sandwich and grabbed some cold water from the refrigerator, raised the bottle to see if she’d like one. Without a word she nodded, and put her equally well-stacked sandwich on a second plate. As he walked to the dining table with the bottles in one hand and his sandwich in the other, he called out, “Chips are on the counter.”
“Already found them,” she said, appearing at the table, hands full with food and potato-chips bag, knocking him over the head with her smile—how much could a lonely man take? Obviously she was ready to eat.
It occurred to him they had some natural communication skills going on, and the thought made him uneasy. Beyond uneasy to downright uncomfortable. He clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to communicate with a woman ever again. At least not yet, anyway, but since he’d just had a good workout and he was hungry, starved, in fact, he’d let his concerns slide. For now. Carey proved to be a woman of her word, too, matching him bite for bite. Yeah, she could put it away.
After they’d eaten, Carey asked to use his phone to make some calls.
“What’d I say earlier? Mi casa es su casa. It’s a California rule. Make yourself at home, okay?” Though he said it, he wasn’t anywhere near ready to meaning it.
“But it’s long distance.”
“I know you’ve got a lot of things to work out. All your important documents were stolen.” This, helping her get her life back in order, he could do. The part of living with a woman again? Damn, it was hard. Sometimes, just catching the scent of her shampoo when she walked past seemed more than he could take.
“The clinic social worker has been helping me, and my credit cards have been cancelled now. But I couldn’t even order new ones because I didn’t have an address to send them to.”
“You’ve got one now.” He looked her in the eyes, didn’t let her glance away. He’d made a promise to himself on her behalf that he’d watch over her, take care of her. It had to do with finding her completely helpless in that alley and the fierce sense of protectiveness he’d felt. “You can stay here as long as you need to. I’m serious.”
She sent him a disbelieving look. In it Joe glimpsed how deeply some creep back in Illinois had messed her up and it made him want to deck the faceless dude. But he also sensed something else behind her disbelief. “Thank you.”
“Sure. You’re welcome.” Though she only whispered the reply, he knew without a doubt she was really grateful to be here, and that made the nearly constant awkward feelings about living with a complete stranger, a woman more appealing than he cared to admit, worth it.
* * *
Later, over dinner on the deck in the backyard, Joe sipped a beer and Carey lemonade. Her hair was down now, and she’d put on the sweater she’d worn that first night over his sister’s top. In early June, the evenings were still cool, and many mornings were overcast with what they called “June gloom” in Southern California. She’d spent the entire dinner asking about his backyard and job, which were safe topics, so it was fine with him. Since she’d been asking so many questions, he got up the nerve to ask her one of the several questions he had for her. Also within the safe realm of topics—work.
“I heard at the clinic that you’re a nurse?”
She looked surprised. “Yes. That was the call I made earlier, to the hospital where I worked. I guess you could say I’m now officially on a leave of absence.”
“So you’ll probably go back there when you feel better?” Why did this question, and her possible answer, make him feel both relief and dread? He clenched his jaw, something he’d started doing again since Carey had moved in.
She grimaced. “I can’t. I’ll have to quit at some point, but for now I’m using the sick leave and vacation time I’ve saved up and, I hope you don’t mind, I gave them your address so they could mail my next check to me here.”
“Remember. Mi casa es tuya.” He took another drag on his longneck, meaning every word in the entire extent of his Spanish speaking, but covering for the load of mixed-up feelings that kept dropping into his lap. What was