The Vixen and the Vet (11 page)

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said softly, and he heard the tears she was trying to keep at bay.

Oh, hell! Was she about to cry?
Damn it, he hadn’t meant to—damn it!

He just didn’t want anyone coming along and fixing him. She had no idea what it was like to have all of those surgeries in San Antonio when he first got home. Weeks upon weeks of agony as they put him under while they sliced and sutured, trying to make him look normal. And it hadn’t worked. None of it had worked. He’d still come home looking like a freak.

She stood up, straightening her shirt, with her back to him. He heard her sniffle quietly, and his heart twisted as a new emotion spiked inside of him: panic.

He finally had someone in his life
and he was all but driving her away over a few well-intentioned comments that happened to be triggers for him.

What are you doing, Asher? What
the hell are you doing? She didn’t mean to upset you. This is
your
problem, not hers. Say you’re sorry. Make it better. For God’s sake, don’t let her leave like this.

”
Savannah,” he started in a softer voice, “Wait. Please. I—I didn’t mean … I just didn’t want you to …”

“I’m going home,” she said, rushing from the room before he could say another word.

“Savannah!”

He shot out of bed, following her through his bedroom door and running down the gallery as fast as his bum leg would allow.
While walking or jogging were good for him, he wasn’t supposed to sprint on it, and it ached and burned as he got to the top of stairs only to hear the front door slam in her wake.

“GOD DAMN IT!” he bellowed, lowering himself to sit on the landing as his leg throbbed with pain.

Miss Potts appeared out of nowhere to stand at the base of the stairs with her hands on her hips. She pursed her lips and tsked.

“Somehow I don’t think peach cobbler is going to fix this one.”

Savannah cried all the way home, and then she cried herself to sleep. When she woke up on Saturday morning, she didn’t have any tears left to cry, so she opened her laptop and went to work rewriting
her story about their night in the grove. The thing is? It hurt to remember the grove. It hurt so much because all of Asher’s sweetness was eclipsed by what he’d said last night:
If you don’t like the way I’m living my life, Savannah, you don’t have to be a part of it.

When she thought of the flinty chill in his eyes as he’d delivered that line, it made her want to cry all over again.

She’d heard him call her name as she raced down the stairs, but she was determined not to let him see her cry, hell-bent on making it out of his house before she dissolved into suds. A small part of her was curious about what he’d wanted to say—did he want to explain himself? Apologize? It didn’t matter what he’d wanted to say. What mattered is that he had no interest in changing, and the life he lived wasn’t one she could join. There was room for only one in the big brown mansion on the hillside. She wasn’t interested in consigning her life to the shadows just because he was too afraid to give the world a second chance.

If that’s how he wanted to live his life, it was better that they parted ways now.

Her assumption that she was out of tears was quickly proven wrong as her eyes burned with fresh drops. “Parting ways” sounded horrible, sounded like hell. It didn’t matter that she’d known him for only two weeks. She cared about him. She cared about him a lot. It was possible that she was even falling in love with him.

Oh hell.

Was she? Was she falling in love with him?

No, damn it. This wasn’t supposed to happen again. Not after Patrick. No.
Nuh-uh. No way.

She was not falling in love with Asher Lee. She wouldn’t allow it. She was infatuated with him and no more. Infatuated with his funny comments and teasing and mind-numbing, one-handed orgasms. A good orgasm could really mess with a girl. Infatuation, not love, sister. Get your facts straight.

Facts. Yes. Facts are comforting.

She ignored the cursor blinking at her, telling her she needed to edit the piece for
McNabb, and opened an Internet browser. She typed in the words “infatuation definition” and pressed Enter.

in•fat•u•a•tion
 
(ɪnˌ
fæ
tʃ
uˈeɪ
ʃ
ən) A foolish, unreasoning, or extravagant passion or attraction.

Foolish? To fall for a hermit? Check.

Unreasoning? Not based on or guided by common sense? Check.

Extravagant passion? She tried not to think about the way he had kissed her, but she did, and her whole body suddenly felt incredibly extravagant and passionate. Damn. Check.

And yet.

Foolish? To fall for someone bright, well-read, funny, thoughtful, and loving? Uncheck.

Unreasoning? Every cell in her body screamed that Asher was the most stand-up guy she’d ever met. A bona fide hero. A gentleman. A catch. Common sense dictated she do whatever she had to do to not lose him. Damn it. Uncheck.

Extravagant passion? Yes, he’d played her body like a million-dollar Stradivarius, but their passion was not without kindness and discretion. Hadn’t he stopped them from making love on Wednesday night? And hadn’t she done the same on Friday? They weren’t foolish and headlong. Their actions were mature, despite their knee-weakening passion. Un-flippin’-check.

Savannah didn’t need Webster’s to tell her what she already knew: What she shared with Asher was much more than infatuation.

And she just had to trust … that what she shared with Asher was far from over.

***

Self-loathing is no way to greet a bright and sunny Saturday in June
, he thought, rolling over only to release the faint smell of lemons from his sheets, and he wished he could beat himself to a bloody pulp. Of all the stupid, selfish, head-up-your-own-ass things to do. He’d driven away the only woman in the whole world who’d managed to look beyond his injuries and like him for
him
. What a jerk.
You don’t deserve her.

But I want her. I want her so much, it feels like dying to imagine she’s gone for good.

He was exhausted from tossing and turning half the night and keeping himself from getting into his car and banging on her front door.

And his leg still throbbed like the devil. So much so, he wondered if he’d actually done something to injure it, though the doctors had assured him that despite the occasional pain, he’d be able to gain full functionality over time. No, he’d just demanded too much too fast.

Much as he’d done with Savannah.

She’d had no idea she was walking into a hornet’s nest by asking about his trip to Maryland, and he himself had told her he thought the bionic arm was “interesting.” But the part that really
bothered him was when she told him his life was “sad.” He’d purposely lived his life completely off the grid to preserve the comfort of those around him. To have her walk into his sanctuary and judge him? Tell him his life made her “sad”? It made him see red. No one had the right to make him feel pathetic in his own house.

And yet.

His life
was
sad, the way he hid from the world while other men—assholes like Patrick Monroe—lived their ignoble lives in the sunshine. But how was he supposed to rejoin the human race with any efficacy? New hand? Facial reconstruction? Grafts? Therapy? It wasn’t the procedures that bothered him. Although he wasn’t necessarily a fan of hospitals, he appreciated that they were a means to an end. And it wasn’t actually the work that bothered him—learning to use the new hand or care for his recovering face—he was a fan of hard work. And it wasn’t the pain—although he didn’t look forward to it, it couldn’t possibly be any worse than what he’d already endured.

The problem was hope.

The problem was his body rejecting the grafts. The problem was the new hand failing to live up to its “bright, shiny, new!” expectations, and falling short. The problem was that even after graft operations and therapy and hand fittings and everything, all of it, maybe he’d still frighten people with his face. Maybe he’d still be short a hand.

The problem with hope was that you were required to acknowledge the possibility of not getting what you desperately hoped for.

As long as he didn’t consent to the operation or get fitted for the new hand, he could hope. He could lean back on the hope that maybe, one day, if he decided it was the right time, he could have the operation, he could fit the hand, and maybe his life would improve forever.

Yes, hope was the problem, but the most frightening thing of all wasn’t the hope. It was the acknowledgment of potential failure.

But none of this was Savannah’s fault, and she certainly hadn’t deserved his heavy-handed retort. He thought of her sniffles and shaky voice, the way she’d rushed from his room, from his house, from him.

No, goddamn it. He wasn’t losing Savannah. Not when they had only two weeks left. Not when the heat of her body and the brightness of her eyes made him feel whole, made him feel invincible and alive. He stood up gingerly, favoring his left leg and hobbling to the bathroom. He had some showering to do … then some flower buying … and then, some very apologetic, very sincere groveling.

***

Savannah heard the doorbell ring, but she didn’t pay it any mind. She’d rewritten the piece on the grove, changing Asher’s name and her name so that the piece now read like a story about two other people. At first Maddox had insisted
she use real names, but Savannah told him that while she’d consider the changes later, she wasn’t comfortable using them now, and McNabb grudgingly acquiesced.

Now she was hard at work researching Myrtle Beach, planning Scarlet’s bachelorette party while desperately trying not to think about Asher. But she kept hearing his words over and over again in her head, which is why, when she thought she heard the low rumble of his voice from downstairs, she dismissed the thought as mind games.

Knock, knock, knock.
She heard her mother’s voice just outside her door. “Savannah, darlin’?”

“Yes, Mama. Come in.”

Her mother opened the door a crack, then slipped into the room, carrying the largest, most extravagant bouquet of wildflowers Savannah had ever seen. Wildflowers that smelled of lilac and honeysuckle and the outdoors. She breathed deeply and sighed, looking at her mother in question.

“Asher Lee,” she said, “is downstairs.”

Savannah felt her mouth tilt up into an involuntary smile and her eyes flood with tears. Her mother set the bouquet on her vanity and put her arm around Savannah.

“Whatever he did, he’s awful sorry, button.”

“He yelled at me and made me cry.”

“Guessing he didn’t mean whatever it is he said.”

“He thinks I want him to change.”

“Well, of course you do,” said her mother matter-of-factly, swiping at Savannah’s tears with the corner of her sunflower apron. “We all want to change the men we love. Leave our mark on them.”

“Oh, I don’t lov—”

“Of course you don’t. I was just
makin’ conversation.” Judy pulled her daughter against her side. “Your father? He used to do this dreadful toothpick thing when we first started going out. After dinner, he’d cover his mouth with one hand and pick at his teeth with the other. Well, one time, he picked so hard the toothpick broke between his two front teeth, and he not only got a splinter, but his gum got so fat he couldn’t eat meat for three days. Five days later, there comes the toothpick again. So I said, ‘Francis Andrew Carmichael, you stick that wood between your teeth again, I walk.’”

“What happened?” asked Savannah, fully aware of the fact that she was making Asher sweat it out downstairs.

“He told me I had no right to tell him what to do and went right on using the goldarned toothpicks. We didn’t speak for a week. When he called to take me out to dinner again, I said yes. And after dinner, he folded his hands in front of him at the table and smiled at me. Not a toothpick in sight, and we haven’t bought any in thirty happy years.”

“This wasn’t about toothpicks. It was about bionic hands.”

“You kids and your electronics.”

“Mama.”

Judy put her hands up in surrender. “Doesn’t matter, button. Whatever it is, patch it up. Only person who looks more miserable than him is you.”

Her mother kissed her on top of the head, then slipped out of the room.

Savannah looked at the flowers again, wiping away her remnant tears and smiling. He’d nailed the flowers, that’s for sure.

She took a deep breath, looking in the mirror. She’d hung out in her room all morning and still had her pajamas on. She needed to change.

Or did she?

She looked at herself through his eyes, taking in her red silky boy shorts with a matching camisole edged in lace. She cocked her head to the side, then turned and headed downstairs.

It served him right.

***

Oh my God
.

He’d never seen anything as sexy as Savannah Carmichael standing in the doorway of her parents’ living room, hands on hips barely concealed by a handkerchief-size piece of red, lacy fabric that hung flimsy and slippery across her curves. It was the image he’d be grasping for when he breathed his last breath.

“Thank you for the flowers,” she said coolly.

“Thank you for the view,” he said less coolly.

“You made me cry,” she volleyed back, “and I am generally not a crier.”

“Well, clearly that makes me an asshole. Ergo, the flowers.”

“Not to mention the trip into town.”

Was she impressed that he’d come into town again? Please God, let her be impressed.
She wasn’t giving much away. He, on the other hand, had been reduced to mush the second she walked into the room in her skimpy outfit and mussed hair.

“I owe you an apology. It couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Sunday supper. If I’m still invited.”

She sighed. “Of course you’re still invited.”

He opened his arms to her, and she walked to him purposefully, wrapping her arms around his waist, letting him pull her against his chest.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, kissing her head and speaking low against her hair. “I didn’t mean it.” She adjusted her neck so that her cheek rested on his shoulder, and he ran his hand lingeringly over the sleek material on her back, thinking how right and how good and how amazing it felt to have her back in his arms. “I’m just resistant to change.”

“Change can be good,” she said softly, which made him hold her tighter.

“I know. I’m working on it. I promise.”

She leaned back to look into his eyes, and the moment felt incredibly intimate, as though they were connected on a visceral level, like they were the two unlikely pieces of one whole—two damaged people who’d both run home to hide from the world and somehow found each other.