In A Heartbeat (4 page)

Chapter Three

ONLY A FOOL would not take advantage of a warm break in early October, resplendent with fall colors, and Angela was no fool. After her stress-laden week, she needed a therapeutic walk in the flame-splashed woods that bordered the reservoir.

She steered her car into a deserted parking lot while Oreo jumped back and forth over the front seat in fevered anticipation of a romp through the woods. For years this had been her refuge, her sanctuary away from an over-protective family and her own struggle to be normal.

“I suppose there’s no harm in letting you off the leash.” Angela looked out the window, verifying there was no one around to object. “Looks like we’re all alone.”

She opened the car door, barely escaping before twenty pounds of black and white fur bounded out. Oreo raced ahead, stopping every few feet to sniff at the ground. Just in case it was needed, she retrieved the dog leash from the front seat before closing the car door.

They walked through the woods, Angela lost in her thoughts over the past week, Oreo lost in the titillating smells of leaf mold and wild animal. The dog trotted ahead of her, sniffing at rotting logs and upturning piles of brown leaves with her nose before chasing a surprised chipmunk or squirrel. Accustomed to Oreo’s forays, Angie paid little attention until Oreo’s mad dash through a low clump of bushes generated a very human, and very male, cry of alarm.

“What in the…” She chased after the dog. “Oreo!”

Her foot caught an exposed root. She propelled forward, flying head first into a blur of flannel.

Suddenly she stopped, landing face down in a warm, firm swatch of denim.

“Don’t move!” A strained voice, forced and breathless, warned from above.

Good Lord! She was laying in a man’s crotch, breathing the deep, musky scent of his most intimate parts. Her cheeks heated in embarrassment. Oreo would be so proud.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, but her words were lost in the stream of obscenities overhead. If only her limp body could somehow dissolve into the muddy ground, she wouldn’t have to face him. But that was unlikely. He took a deep breath, inadvertently causing her head to sink deeper into the warm nest of his thighs.

“Jesus.” His voice regained some control and depth, and for an instant, sounded vaguely familiar. “Are you all right?”

Soothing fingers gently pulled at her hair, exposing an ear and part of her cheek to the air and the searching thrust of Oreo’s cold, wet nose.

“Shoo!” He pushed the dog away before his voice softened. “Did you hurt anything?”

My pride,
she wanted to scream.

She turned her head, acutely aware that her chin dragged up the inside of a very muscular thigh. She pushed her hand against the ground intending to sit, until a sharp pain stopped her cold.

“My ankle,” she groaned.

“Don’t move,” he commanded again. She froze as his thighs jostled beneath her. A steady hand cradled her chin briefly. “Here, rest your head on this.” The synthetic lining of a jacket replaced his hand. He slipped out from beneath her.

She saw retreating denim, then the muddy bank of the reservoir, then his shadow stretching over her. She gulped. It must be a trick of the light that his shoulders spanned that impressive width. The shadow doubled over, hands on knees.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Catching my breath.” His voice still sounded shaky. “For a little bit of a thing, you sure pack a wallop.”

She turned her head from side to side, but she couldn’t see the shadow. Surely he wouldn’t have left her alone in a mud patch like this?

“Which ankle?” His voice sounded in the vicinity of her feet.

“The right,” she said, relieved to hear it.

He worked the laces of her hiking boot and gently tugged it free. Oreo pressed her furry body tight against her side, working her nose under Angie’s arm.

“Stop that,” Angie scolded. “You’re going to be a mess, scooting along the bank like that.” Oreo responded by inching further.

“What kind of dog is that?” He peeled her sock down her foot.

“A mutt,” she answered, trying to keep her lips clear of the advancing dog nose.

“Well, that mutt scared the crap out of me, bursting through the bushes.”

Strong fingers gingerly touched her ankle. She stiffened in reflex.

“It’s pretty swollen,” he said. “Could be broken, or maybe a bad sprain. Can you wiggle your toes?”

She complied, but hissed as pain exploded though her ankle.

“I think I’d better take you someplace to have this checked.” He carefully returned the injured foot to the ground. “I’m new in town. You’ll have to tell me where to take you for an x-ray.”

The voice clicked. She rolled to her back and pushed up on her elbows, ignoring the throbbing pain. The friendly gray eyes, the dimple in the right cheek. She gasped.

“You!” She dropped back. “Tell me this isn’t happening.”

“Angela?” Recognition drained the warmth from Renard’s smile. “What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?” She pushed Oreo away from doing a happy dance on her chest. “Why are you here? You shouldn’t even know this place exists.”

“Fishing.” He stood, then walked toward the water’s edge. “At least I was until your dog jumped me.” He picked up the remnants of a fishing pole from the bank.

“Fishing in October?” she repeated, bewildered.

“It helps me think,” he snarled, examining the broken halves of his pole. Slapping the skinny sticks against his open palm, he marched toward her.

“Look,” he said. “Is someone paying you to make my life miserable, or am I just lucky where you’re concerned?”

Angie rolled to her knees, wincing from the pain in her ankle. “If you’ll just hand me Oreo’s leash. It flew out of my hand in that direction.” She pointed with her chin. “We’ll leave you to think in peace.”

“I doubt that,” he muttered, stooping to collect the leash. “How are you going to walk with your ankle swollen?”

She retrieved her boot then pushed herself up, balancing awkwardly on her left foot. “Perhaps you could find me a stout stick?” she asked hopefully.

He mumbled something she couldn’t quite catch, but the damning tilt of his brows translated. Tossing his broken pole under a tree, he marched toward her. Her breath caught, her pulse pounded in time to the throbbing of her ankle.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage?” With alarming ease, he swooped her off the ground and into his arms. “You want a stick to finish me off?”

“I didn’t mean…” Her hands fluttered up to his shoulders by instinct. In the process, she accidentally whacked him in the head with her boot.

“I could leave you here, you know,” he said with a scowl.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. Why was she always apologizing when he was around? “I’ll be still.

He continued down the bank, Oreo trotting merrily behind. “I said I’d take you someplace to have that ankle checked and I mean to do it.”

“But we’re going the wrong way,” she protested. “My car is in the lot on the other side of the woods.”

“My car is closer. You can have someone come back later to get your car.”

“I can’t.” She pushed away from him slightly to make her point. “My purse is in the car. My medicine—”

“You’re sick?” He stopped and studied her face. “You don’t look sick.”

“It’s personal.” She lowered her head so he couldn’t see her face. “I have to keep my medicine with me. It’s important.”

“All right.” His voice held that stern tone of authority. “We’ll drive to your car and collect your medicine before going to have that ankle x-rayed. Any more objections?”

She nodded her head, relieved to see a car parked nearby. Perhaps with a little distance between them, she could regain some the control that she’d clearly lost.

SEVERE SPRAIN, THE doctor said. Keep it elevated, put ice on the swelling, and don’t walk on it for at least 24 hours. On Monday, after the swelling diminished, she was to see an orthopedic doctor. With those words of wisdom, a pair of crutches and an elastic stocking to control the swelling, she was discharged from the clinic.

Renard had only raised an eyebrow when the nurses recognized her on sight. And if he thought it strange that they had listened to her chest and took her blood pressure before looking at her foot, he didn’t comment. He chuckled with the rest of them when the doctor pronounced this “a common injury”. Renard’s silence made the ride home a bit awkward but now as they sat in his car across from her house, it became downright annoying.

“You live here alone?” he eventually asked, assessing the old two-story brick building.

“I live with my mother.” She reached behind the bucket seat, trying to grasp the crutches in the back, but Oreo kept interfering. “She’s in Florida right now with my sick aunt.” She pushed the furry head back, “Stop that.”

“And your father?”

The question drew her up short. She stopped fishing for the crutches and glanced up into Renard’s eyes. “He died about ten years ago. Heart failure.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, a bit awkwardly. He glanced about, at everything but her. Eventually, his gaze returned to house.

“How do you plan to get up those porch steps?” His brow raised.

“I’ll manage,” she answered tersely, though in truth, she wondered the same thing, and not just about the porch steps. Her bedroom was on the second floor.

“Isn’t there someone who could help you?” he asked. “A neighbor, a significant other?”

She laughed at the suggestion of a boyfriend. “No. It’s just Oreo and me.” She scratched between the dog’s floppy ears. “Right, girl?”

“And the dog?” He petted the furry white head as it extended further and further between the seats. Oreo’s tail thumped out a rhythm against the back seat. “You’ll be able to manage this terror on paws all alone while on crutches?”

She hadn’t thought about that. She supposed she could call Stephen. He should be back from Florida by now, but she dreaded the smothering attention that plea would bring. Wasn’t she the one who had demanded independence? The one who had asked her family to stop interfering in her life as if she were still an invalid, too weak to do anything but ask for help?

“Is she housebroken?”

“Of course she is.” Indignity on behalf of her pet gave her voice a sharp edge. “Not that it should matter to—”

“Give me your keys,” he ordered with his hand extended.

“Excuse me?” Indignity on her own behalf contributed her glare. “Why do you want my keys?”

“The company provided me with a fully furnished ranch-style house to use until I find a place of my own.” He spoke more to the windshield than to her face. “There are four bedrooms, no stairs to hobble up and down, and plenty of room for Fido here.”

“Oreo,” she corrected, “and the answer is no.”

“Look, I’m interested in giving you an alternative to doing permanent damage to your ankle, nothing more.” He looked her in the eye. “The house is too big for one person.” Something about the house must have amused him as he looked as if he was about to laugh. “We wouldn’t even have to see each other, if you like.”

“Mr. Renard…”

“Hank,” he interjected. She glanced up. “My friends call me Hank. And after our chance meeting this afternoon, you know parts of me better than my best friend.”

Memory of that encounter burned bright on her cheeks. “Okay, Hank. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your offer, but I can’t afford to lose my job.”

“Who said anything about losing your job?”

It would be her turn to laugh if her response wasn’t true. “You did… Twice.”

He brushed his hand in the air, dismissed her claim. “I wasn’t serious. You just…managed to catch me at a bad time.”

Her lips thinned. “Do you ever have a
good
time?”

She waited a moment then took a deep breath. “If Falstaff and Watterson found out I was staying at your house they’d fire me for certain.”

“We’re not meeting for some clandestine affair,” He protested, as if the thought of her as a sexual partner was beneath consideration. That hurt. “I’m only offering a spare bedroom. Why should that jeopardize your job?”

“Because of appearances.” She fumbled with a button on her coat. “Even if it appears that we’re not involved. Falstaff would still question my objectivity. They might not trust my judgment when auditing your books.”

“Let me get this straight.” A smile teased his voice. “If you exercise some common sense and accept my offer, you might get fired. But practically emasculating me in a public woods, that’s okay?” He hesitated. “And I pay you for this?”

She yanked on the door handle, wanting to run before he laughed.

“Wait!” His hand grasped her thigh, stopping her exit. She froze. The heavy denim of her jeans felt almost sheer beneath his touch, especially when his fingers drew tiny circles on her leg.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said gently. His gaze captured hers. She fought the urge to lean toward him like a flower tracking the sun. “The truth is, the house I’m in is extremely private. More people have probably seen you sitting in my car while we’ve been parked here than will see you at my place.”

Crap!
She hadn’t considered how this innocent discussion might appear to someone driving by.

“I guarantee I won’t say anything to Falstaff and Watterson.” He raised his hand as if taking an oath. “Unless
you
tell them, I don’t think your job will be in jeopardy.” His dimple deepened as his lips lifted in a smile. “After all, we both know your objectivity is uncompromised, at least as far as I’m concerned.”

She wondered if that were really true. Warmth spread from the base of her spine. The same protected, secure warmth that she had felt in his arms as he carried her effortlessly along the bank of the reservoir.

Oreo whimpered from the back seat reminding her that the dog had been confined overly long. Angie slid from under Renard’s hand. “We’ve got to go.” She let the dog scramble over her to exit the car first. Then using the toes of her injured foot for balance, she followed.

“Wait a minute, let me help you.” Hank’s door creaked open.