Bound to be Dirty (4 page)

He walked over to the window and gazed out. The rain had eased off. When would she get home? What would he say to her?

Why did women have to be so damned complicated? No wonder he spent most of his life in the bush. Weather and geography were challenging, but the challenges were straightforward.

Thinking of challenges and that first summer, he remembered the challenge he'd set himself then. She was on one path—to become a doctor—and he was on another, as a construction worker. She and her friends took college for granted but he'd never thought of going, and with his crappy marks and troublemaker record he wouldn't get in. He might well turn out to be the same kind of loser as his dad. Drink, drugs, no impulse control. Maybe one day he and dear old dad would share a jail cell.

Lily deserved more, and Dax wanted to be that
more
. When she asked him what he'd choose if he could do anything in the world, the answer was, of course, to fly in the wilderness, but he also added going to college because he knew that'd be important to her. Both seemed like impossible dreams—until she did some research and told him about the ROTP, the subsidized Regular Officer Training Plan with the Canadian Forces. He could go to college, learn to fly, serve his country—and, down the road, become a bush pilot.

It was a lot to contemplate for a messed-up kid like him. But he figured he'd either straighten up or he'd fail, and if he failed, he didn't deserve Lily.

On the day he graduated from the Royal Military College with top marks and Lily told him how proud she was, he proposed to her. Despite her parents' disapproval, she married him.

Now he had another tough decision to make. Did he scrap his marriage or fight for it? A few hours ago, he'd almost reconciled himself to the idea that their marriage was over. And yet, they'd been together fifteen years. Their entire adult lives. That was a hell of a lot to just scrap.

Was it possible that he and Lily could recapture the passion and love they'd once shared? Did that book of hers hold the clues for doing it?

Dax paced again, slowly this time. No way was he putting a collar and leash on Lily, but what else might he learn from the book? Neville had looked past Cassandra's words and read the way she responded to him. He'd told her to put her pleasure in his hands.

Once, Dax had been pretty good at figuring out what Lily wanted and making her happy, in bed and out. But now she was so reserved, so controlled. He stood as good a chance of getting his face slapped as of seducing her.

But hell, this was a challenge. Energy surged through him, filling him with resolve. With hope. “Hurry up and get home, woman.”

Three

L
ily, normally a brisk walker, trudged slowly from the Olympic Village SkyTrain station toward the condo in False Creek. Christmas Eve, and she felt the opposite of festive.

Her body ached from head to toe after more than twelve hours at the Downtown Eastside clinic. Not that she'd had to stay after her day shift, but cold weather and the holiday had brought a lot of patients. She enjoyed helping the destitute, the down on their luck, the addicts and street people. Healing was her passion, and it was nice to concentrate on it, rather than worry about administrative issues like Dr. Mark Brown's announcement that he had to move to half-time at the Well Family Clinic.

She'd also been too busy today to worry about Dax being home. All right, maybe she'd volunteered for that extra shift in part to put off facing him.

Once upon a time, she'd have been so excited about seeing Dax when they'd been apart. She'd bathe and perfume herself, do her hair, anticipate hours and hours of lovemaking. Their lives had always been so separate that seeing each other was a wonderful treat. She'd done undergrad, med school, and residency while he'd attended military college then gone through military training and served with the army, including two tours in Afghanistan. She'd been building her practice when he got out of the army and went to work as a bush helicopter pilot.

The temperature was a few degrees above freezing. Though it wasn't raining, chill dampness brushed her face. In her boots, winter coat, and scarf, she was comfortably warm and that cool caress felt fresh and cleansing after the clinic's distinctive funk of antiseptic and unwashed bodies.

She'd grabbed a quick cheese sandwich and apple during the day and now had no appetite. All she wanted was a long, hot bath, a potent martini, and bed.

Instead, there'd be Dax. They had to talk.

She rubbed glove-clad fingers across her brow, trying to ease her headache. How did you say, “Is it time to end this marriage?” Or should she start with, “Are you sleeping with someone else?”

“Damn.” They should have had this conversation two days ago, when he was supposed to come home. Instead, his job had, as always, taken priority over her. Or perhaps that was a lie, and he'd spent those extra days with a lover.

The misty damp air condensed into drops of rain and she pulled out her umbrella. An UmbrellaWings prototype, it was made of overlapping “wings.” Done mostly in shades of brown, the design was accented by dramatic stylized eyes of blue, black, and yellow. Kim had based it on the polyphemus moth.

Tomorrow, Lily's parents expected her and Dax for the noon Christmas dinner. Maybe she should defer the conversation until after that. Avoid anything but the most superficial topics with her husband.

“Defer and avoid,” she muttered. That seemed to be her current strategy for everything in her life. She hadn't resolved workload issues at the clinic and she hadn't even started the book club novel.
What's wrong with me?
She'd always been focused and organized; she made plans and executed them. Though she'd never be as perfect as her younger brother, Anthony, she usually came close. And now she was a mess.

Tomorrow, she couldn't let her parents or Anthony see any signs of that mess. So, yes, she'd defer the conversation with Dax, but the moment they got home from Christmas dinner she'd tackle her husband and they'd determine the fate of their marriage.

Tonight, she'd tell Dax she had a headache and needed to be alone. And it would be the truth. The heel-click of her boots speeded up as she neared the condo building.

Inside, she stepped into the elevator. Once, absence had made the heart grow fonder. Each time she saw Dax again, she'd feel a “this is right” click of emotional intimacy and physical desire. Now absence only reinforced all the ways they didn't need each other, didn't connect. And yet, now her heart did a hop, skip, and a jump that wasn't just anxiety; it was a thrill of anticipation.

When she unlocked the apartment door and called, “Dax?” her voice was breathy.

“In here.” His voice came from the living room. Dax had a deep voice with a slightly rough edge, a voice that suited him perfectly.

Trying to calm her racing heart, she put her umbrella in the stand, took off her coat and hung it up, then bent to pull up a pant leg and unzip her boot.

His bare feet, strong and well-shaped beneath frayed jean hems, moved into her field of vision. He walked so quietly, she hadn't heard him approach. Why did he have to catch her like this—limp hair hanging over her forehead, chilled fingers fumbling with her boot zipper?

“Stop.” One word, said with a tone of command she might never have heard from him before.

It did make her stop, and straighten up to stare at him.

Oh God. Dax.
The heat of sexual awareness rippled through her, and she surrendered hope of steadying her heartbeat. How unfair that, as she turned drab and middle-aged, he got even better looking. His six-foot-three frame, strong and rangy, was displayed to perfection in well-washed jeans and a faded black T-shirt. Hair blacker than the tee, glossy as a raven's wings, fell past his ears, long and a little unkempt, but oh so sexy. His features were craggy and utterly masculine, and a short, dark beard accented his stubborn jaw. His striking eyes, the storm-cloud irises ringed with slate gray, studied her with a strange expression. Almost as if he'd never seen her before and wondered who she was.

“You made it home,” she said inanely.

A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. “So did you.”

She braced herself, waiting for a frown and the comment that she looked tired and stressed, the same greeting he'd given her the last time he came home. Maybe he was concerned, but it came across more as a reminder that a guy like him could come home to someone younger, prettier, sexier. He had that
thing
that drew women. He'd had it at seventeen; he had it at thirty-three; the damned man would have it in his eighties.

But Dax didn't speak again. He squatted with the powerful grace she'd always found so attractive. He lifted the bottom of one of her pant legs and unzipped her boot.

Her mouth opened in wonder. He'd never done anything like this.

A warm hand curved around the lower part of her calf, holding her gently but firmly, and as her stocking-clad skin tingled with awareness, he eased off her boot. Then he repeated the process with her other boot, and straightened.

Was this foreplay? Much as her body might tremble with the craving for his touch, she really didn't want to have sex. Not with the clinic odors clinging to her skin, her head pounding with tiredness and stress, her mind and heart so tormented. Besides, the last times they'd had sex, her body might have spasmed in release, but she felt detached. Empty. Alone. She didn't need her husband for a meaningless orgasm; her vibrator and an erotic novel worked fine. “Dax, it's been a long day and I have a headache.”

Now that big, masculine hand reached toward her face.

Quivering with nerves, she held still, wondering what he intended.

He scooped her wispy bangs back from her forehead then ran his fingers firmly across her brow, finding the tension knots. “Run a bath. I'll make you a martini.”

She cocked her head. This too was different. Oh, he'd said similar things before, but more like, “Bet you could use a bath. Want me to make you a martini?” Now those same thoughts came out as . . . well, almost as orders, spoken in a deep, rough-edged voice that didn't brook argument.

Lily Nyland did not take orders. Only from her parents, though she preferred to think of that as daughterly respect. Still, there was something compelling about Dax right now that was strangely appealing. “A bath sounds good. So does a martini. Thank you.”

Without another word, he turned and walked toward the kitchen.

Puzzled, she stared at his retreating back: the sleek black hair, powerful shoulders, narrow hips, taut butt, long legs. What was he doing? Being nice to her, yet ordering her around. Was he leading up to something? To sex, or to saying he was ending their marriage? It could be either, or anything in between.

She was exhausted and achy and she did want that bath, so she headed for the bathroom. After turning on the taps, she went to the adjoining walk-in closet to strip and dump her clothes in the hamper. Dax's voice came from the bathroom—“Martini's on the counter”—making her grab her terrycloth robe and bundle herself into it. He didn't come into the closet, though, and she heard the bathroom door close.

When she stepped cautiously into the steamy room, she was alone. A martini glass sat on the vanity, its surface damp with condensation. She took a sip. It was perfect, right down to the twist of lemon. No surprise. When Dax chose to do something, he did it extremely well.

She swallowed a heavy-duty headache pill, took out her contact lenses and gold stud earrings, and tossed lavender-scented Epsom salts into the bath. Breathing in the fragrant air, it was impossible not to relax a little. Whatever Dax wanted, she'd find a way to defer it.

Martini glass in hand, she stepped into the bath and settled back, her head on a bath pillow. Sipping, she tried to clear her mind. Occasionally, she took a course on the latest relaxation technique, but she was always a dismal failure. She'd aced self-defense, but failed meditation. The only time she felt truly relaxed was when her life was in perfect control. Which—hah!—hadn't been the case for a long time.

Setting the martini glass in easy reach on the tiled surround of the tub, she closed her eyes. The warm water soothed her tired body. The even warmer burn of alcohol radiated through her, its potency reminding her that lunch had been a lot of hours ago.

She breathed in. Slowly, deeply.

The lavender took her back to Camp Skookumchuck. Mr. and Mrs. Broadbent, a childless couple, had turned their oceanfront Gulf Islands property into a camp for kids and teens. Mrs. B was not only a great cook, but an avid gardener. She grew vegetables and herbs behind a deer fence. The flower beds around the house featured lavender, yarrow, and other plants that were deer-resistant.

The scent of lavender was tied to those wonderful summers when Lily had been free of her parents' rules and expectations. Free too of the pressure of competing with her two-years-younger brother Anthony, who'd attended a different camp. At Camp Skookumchuck, Lily was a kid like any other kid, able to explore, play, learn, even make mistakes. She attended from the time she was ten until she was seventeen, the last two years as a counselor.

It was that last summer that she and Dax had gotten together.

Lily sipped her martini and, behind her closed lids, pictured her first night at camp. When her eight ten-year-old charges had finally fallen asleep in the four pairs of bunk beds in Heron cabin, she'd slipped silently out the door. In her wrinkled camp shorts and tee, her shoulder-length hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail—her mother would be appalled!—she headed for the beach. Growing up near the ocean, she was used to air with a salty tang, but here, with no city smells to dilute it, the scent was even fresher and more pungent. She found a smooth log to perch on, gazed out at the ocean and stars, and savored the idea of two full months away from home.

From behind her, where the dozen rustic cabins nestled among fir and cedar trees, came the occasional muffled laugh as the campers settled down for the night. Then, from closer at hand, she heard a clunk of wood on metal. Startled, she gazed around.

At one side of the small bay where she sat, the camp dock extended a weathered wooden finger into the ocean. On the scrub-grass bank by the dock, canoes and kayaks rested in metal racks, their bright colors bleached by the moonlight. But one of the canoes was moving. She made out the shadowy figure of a person—adult-sized, not a kid. Was one of the counselors sneaking out for a paddle, or was someone stealing a canoe?

“Hey,” she called, rising from the log and hurrying over, her bare feet tender from a winter in shoes.

“What?” The voice was male, rough and challenging. It didn't sound like one of the four male counselors', and it sure wasn't mellow-tempered Mr. B's.

She stopped abruptly. If this was a canoe thief, she should run for help, not challenge him. But then the guy stepped toward her and details materialized from the darkness. A lean, muscular body in frayed cutoffs and a tee with the sleeves ripped off; a face with bold, striking features; hair blacker than the night sky. Recognition locked her in place. “You're Dax Xavier.” The words came out as breathy as a puff of wind. He'd been in her twelfth grade class. The hot new bad boy who had every girl dreaming wild and crazy dreams.

His eyes widened in apparent surprise, and his gaze raked her, then a grin tilted that sexy mouth. “You're Lily Nyland.”

He'd noticed her at school? Knew her name? Suddenly, she was aware of every wrinkle in the olive-drab shorts and red tee, of the loose hairs straggling from her ponytail, of her total lack of makeup.

“Camp counselor?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Figured you'd spend your summers at chess camp or finishing school.” It was a taunt, yet something about the lazy, teasing way he spoke made the comment sound almost seductive.

Warmth crept through her. If she'd been Lily back home, she'd have stiffened her spine and strode up to the Broadbents' house to report him. But she was Lily at camp, and instead she tilted her head and studied him, trying to look casual and confident. “Not that I thought about how you'd spend your summers, but I suppose if I had, stealing canoes would have been right up there.”

He gave a quick, low chuckle. “If I was gonna steal something, I'd pick a Ferrari, not a canoe.”

“Maybe you're starting small, honing your skills.”

Dax took a step closer, so their bodies almost touched. “My skills are plenty honed.”

That memory had Lily, in her scented bath, opening her eyes and sitting up. Yes, Dax had proved that point over and over.