Fevered Hearts

When faced with a challenge, it’s best to pool your resources.

Liam Mattson used to play his wife’s body like a fine violin. Until a logging accident dampened his fine motor skills and rendered his legs—and the most important part of his below-the-waist playground—useless.

If only Liam would throw himself into therapy with the same vigor he used to throw her into bed, Ivy is sure he’d fully recover. But lately she’s felt adrift, while he’s stuck in self-pity and pre-occupation with a serious threat to his logging business.

When Ward Bose returns from the backwoods, Liam isn’t blind to the heated, guilty glances between his best friend and his wife. And he takes a step he never could have taken if his legs were working—ask Ward to service Ivy in bed.

The moment the three come together, Ward’s heartstrings are tied in knots, and Liam holds them in his fist. But secrets they’re each keeping could tear them all apart…unless they can find a way to share their burdens as easily as they share their love.

Warning: Men who wield big saws know how to care of business—in bed and out.

Fevered Hearts

Em Petrova

Dedication

To the thousands of men and women injured yearly in the forestry industry. I salute your hard work and thank you for taking daily risks.

Chapter One

The doorbell pealed notes of
The Addam’s Family
theme song. Ward Bose rolled his eyes at his sister, who unfolded her long limbs from the couch and started toward the entryway.

“When did you re-program the doorbell?” he asked. His unmarried sister was forever finding new ways to spice up her boring life.

“Get your ugly ass off my sofa, Ward. My knitting group is here.”

He jerked upright, laughing before he hit his feet. “Knitting group? Hell, Juls, I didn’t know you’d just celebrated your seventieth birthday. I thought you were thirty.”

She tossed a glare over her shoulder. “This ain’t your granny’s knitting group.”

He quirked a brow and followed her through the expansive rooms of the house Juls had bought for herself, having worked two jobs to get the down payment. Ward still felt guilty about that—if he hadn’t been off in California chasing his dreams, he would have loaned her the money. But while sowing those wild oats, he had failed to keep in close touch with his family—something that would haunt him the rest of his life.

The doorbell trilled again.

“Pretty damn rude not to answer the door after the first ring,” he drawled.

This time she threw a grin over her shoulder. “The ladies look forward to my new doorbell tune of the week.”

“Of the week?” He overtook her long strides and reached the door before she did. “You host a knitting group every
week
?” He pitched his voice low so whichever dull spinster stood on the other side of the wooden slab wouldn’t overhear.

Juls delivered a sound slap to his jaw and reached past him for the brass handle. Ward stepped aside for her to swing the door wide.

“Mandy!” Juls greeted, embracing a petite brunette who was anything but the frumpy housewife Ward had envisioned.

He glanced behind Mandy to see several other young hotties marching up the paver-stone sidewalk, armed with big bags filled with yarn and knitting needles.

He scuffed a hand over his face—an action not lost on his snotty little sister. Juls mouthed to him, “Told you so.”

As each woman passed over the threshold, Ward felt his internal temperature rise. This was better than going to a damn bar on Friday night. And the pickings here weren’t girls only interested in one-night-stands.

Whoa. Where did that come from?
Since moving back, he’d planned to settle but hadn’t given much thought to finding a woman to spend more than a few hours with.

Loud chatter rose once the entryway was filled.

“Great new doorbell song, Juls.”

“I smell that delicious pastry you made. And your sweater is divine.”

“My favorite night of the week.”

Ward stood against the wall feeling as out of place as a fox in a chicken coop. Though he prided himself that he wasn’t leering at a single lush curve, he was totally aware of the amount of sexy going on in this foyer. Fragrant tresses, miniskirts and glossed lips.

Hell, his underused body was on full alert.

“Oh, hello.” A trim blonde eyed Ward.

He tugged on the worn bill of his Bose Timber Company ball cap and gave her a smile. Before he could speak, however, Juls nudged her way between them like some kind of damn knitting group guard.

“Don’t mind my brother, Ward. He’s just returned from California without the manners our momma taught him.”

A chorus of “Hi, Ward,” echoed off the deep wine red walls.

“Ward was just leaving.”

He met Juls’ gaze. She lowered her straight dark brows and gave him a warning look.

Grinning crookedly, he wrapped an arm around her nape, drawing her into a big brother headlock. She squeaked in protest, but he raised his knuckles to deliver a Dutch rub when he saw
her.

The most feminine woman he’d ever set eyes on. Five-and-a-half feet of pure female. Nonstop curves in skinny jeans and bronzed shoulders peeking from a white off-the-shoulder top. Her warm brown locks hung in loose movie-star waves that had Ward drowning in images of his fists in that hair.

He released Juls abruptly before she noticed he was sporting instant wood.

With a quick intake of air, he met the little vixen’s gaze full-on. Her dark espresso eyes held his a heartbeat too long then flicked away. She twisted her whole body as if to tear herself from the brief connection. Or was he the only one to feel it? It had been so long since he’d had a woman in his life, he was totally off his game—out of his element.

Juls socked him in the gut and he harrumphed, every ridge of his stomach hardening. He fought the insane urge to shove aside the other women in this small space, clamp a hand on the bare shoulder that beckoned to him and spin her to face him again.

Just so he could look into her eyes.

You’re losing it, Bose.

“Why don’t we all move into the living room?” Juls was saying. She waved to shoo the hens out of the entryway. Then she gave Ward another glare. “Get out of here.”

He hunched his shoulders. “Where am I supposed to go? I’m living here.” He hadn’t yet found accommodations after returning from the timber fields of Northern California, and Juls had been eager to have him stay with her and share the expenses.

“Go to the bar. Watch a game,” she hissed. “Don’t come back until after ten.”

“Ten?” He gawped. “You gonna knit for four straight hours?”

“Of course not, you ass. We do other stuff.”

His eyes bulged and his cock twitched hard as he pictured a glorified pajama party. “What kinds of other stuff?”

“Not
that
,
perv. Just go to the bar and have a beer.” Dismissing him, she headed toward the living room, where the other women were gathered, talking and laughing.

Rather than listen to Juls, Ward followed her. His gaze zeroed right in on the woman who would now star in his every fantasy. He jerked to a stop because she was staring at him. As if she’d been waiting for him to walk through the door.

She dropped her gaze and twisted a hank of hair around her slender fingers. Then she brought her gaze back to him again.

He stopped breathing and his heart dropped to the soles of his feet, like a fifty-foot oak tree hitting the earth.

For a long heartbeat, they stared at each other.

A body moved between them, severing their connection. At the same moment, Juls moved within Ward’s reach. He lashed his fingers around her upper arm and hauled her to the side of the living area, away from the group.

“You’re still here?”

He shoved his mouth close to her ear. “Who is that woman?”

She laughed. “There are several women here. Can you be more specific?”

“The one with the white top.” There could be no one else. She positively glowed, and he had to know who she was. Now.

Juls cast a look around the room. Then she slugged Ward again, this time in the arm. “That’s Ivy Mattson.”

His stomach tumbled at the familiar last name. Memories of dark, cramped places and thick muscles gliding against him filtered into his mind. He shook himself.

Juls’ eyes were piercing. Did she know what was going on in his head? No, she couldn’t know anything about that time in his life.

“It’s Liam’s wife, you idiot.”

Ward swung his head around to find Ivy’s stare fixed on him. Through a buzzing in his ears, he said, “Liam Mattson, my best friend?”

“One and the same. Only he’s had a life changer recently when a branch came down on him.”

“Jesus,” he breathed.

“Yeah, he has a bad brain injury. He’s in a wheelchair.”

Ward’s chest seemed to cave in at the thought of his rugged and virile friend in that state. Once he’d been so full of life, he’d blinded Ward to everything. His pulse throbbed heavily.

“And Ivy comes here to get a bit of a break once a week. She sells the things she knits in an online shop for extra cash, since Liam’s out of work.” Juls’ gaze bored into his. “So Ivy is off-limits to you, bro.”

“Yeah, of course. I didn’t know…”

Juls gave him a light shove toward the entryway. “I think you need that beer now, Ward.”

He needed something harder if he was meant to digest this information. Before he left the living room, he sought out Ivy once again. She sat on the edge of the sofa, hair flowing around her shoulders and hands twisted in her lap. As if she felt his gaze on her, she looked up.

Now that he knew who she was and the circumstances that brought her here to his sister’s knitting group, Ward saw the burning pain and longing inside her.

With supreme effort, he forced himself to turn away from it.

Ward Bose.
Ivy would know that face anywhere, especially since she saw him smiling every day from a photograph sitting next to her and Liam’s wedding photo. The image of her husband and Ward with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, tanned and muscular after a hard day’s logging, was emblazoned in her memory.

And the man himself was ten times…well,
more
,
than she’d thought him. In person, he was larger than life—strong and exuding male prowess. Something, she was devastated to say, that Liam no longer had.

Her husband was wasting away in a wheelchair, refusing to get up and go to the therapy his doctor ordered for him. Refusing to do anything to regain the use of his legs, the fine motor skills in his hands, or even his cock. He wouldn’t even try, though the doctors said it was possible.

Lately, Ivy was resigned to the idea that Liam wasn’t going to fight for their marriage either. Every day he turned his face away just a little bit more. One day he spoke, the next she banged around in a quiet house.

Guilt was a silent burden. Who could she ever tell that while lying in bed in the darkest hours of the night, she thought about how it would feel to move on without Liam in the picture?

“Damn.” She’d dropped a stitch in the Fair Isle sweater she was making for her online store. Christmas was months away, but she had to work hard now to get the stock up before the rush. They’d grown to rely on the income brought in by her knitting needles. And thank God she had her court clerk position. It meant they had health insurance as well as a steady paycheck, even if it wasn’t huge. The family business paid Liam a small amount monthly, but it wasn’t the money he’d been making before the accident.

Juls eyed her from the seat across the coffee table. The woman was working on a baby blanket for a coworker in shades of green. And judging by the look on Juls’ face, she knew the energy that had passed between Ivy and Ward’s gazes wasn’t the usual friendliness. In fact, Ivy still felt his presence right down to the hollow pit of her belly. The lingering looks he’d given her had curled her toes and dampened her panties.

Fool. I’m married. It’s so wrong to think of anyone but Liam that way.

But once she’d heard a friend say she didn’t care where her husband got his appetite as long as he came home for dinner. It was a fantasy, after all. Was it so wrong to look at Ward as a man she’d love to take to bed, to feel moving atop her…especially when her husband hadn’t laid a finger on her in a year?

“How’s work, Ivy? I heard there was an important trial recently,” Juls asked when the chatter around her paused for a moment.

“Oh that. Yes. A child abuse case. The defendant got just what he should have, according to the district attorney.” Ivy got her needles up to speed and flew through several stitches.

“Such an interesting job,” Anna, just casting off on a new project, said.

Ivy smiled, but she didn’t feel it touch her eyes. Her job was something that kept a roof over their heads and food on the table—mundane. What she really wanted to talk about was all the pain of her severed connection to her husband and how with one smoldering look, Ward had made her feel more of a woman than Liam had since the accident.

“Ivy, can you help me mix the margaritas?” Juls asked.

Ivy lowered her yarn and needles, heart somersaulting. Was her friend reading the situation, astute as always? “Of course.”

Carefully, she set her project inside her spacious bag and followed her hostess to the kitchen. The cheery yellow space had always made her feel at home, but now she could picture Ward here, lounging against the counter with ankles crossed. Or his big elbows on the table as he grinned around a bite of food.

Damn, she had it bad. Daydreaming about sex gods eating? He wasn’t even shirtless in her short fantasy.

Juls got to work setting up the blender. She tossed Ivy a glance. “Do you mind getting the mix from the fridge?”

“Sure.” She hauled out several flavorings then located the tequila. The quiet whir of the refrigerator and female voices mingled to create a homey hum. Ivy felt a bit of her tension flow away. This was why she loved coming to the weekly knitting group meetings.

When she turned, she found Juls’ gaze on her. “Everything okay?” her friend asked.

As okay as it can be when my husband refuses to live—even for me.

“Yeah, fine.”

Juls set the bottle she was holding on the counter and leaned forward. “Ivy, I know things are difficult for you at home. I want you to know I’m here if you ever need to talk. Just stop in anytime. It doesn’t need to be Friday knitting group only.”

Juls’ eyes were so similar to her brother’s blazing blue ones, Ivy sucked in a breath.

“Thank you for that.” Her voice faltered, and she spent some time examining her nails, always kept trim and simple for her job, as it was difficult to type or hold a pen with long fake claws.

Juls placed a hand on her forearm. “Do you want to talk about anything now?”

Ivy shot a glance at the door to the living room. She could take Juls’ opening and spew all her pain and heartache, but she’d spent countless hours thinking about her situation. She needed a change. “No, like I said, I’m fine. So when did Ward get home?”

“A couple days ago. Said he’d had enough of California, was finished running, and was ready to settle down here. He’s taking over the family business. Our father is ill, as you know, and wants Ward to expand.”

One word stuck out to Ivy. “Running? From what?”

Juls lifted a slim shoulder in a shrug. “Don’t know. Talking to him is like pulling out your own teeth. Painful and stubborn at the same time.”