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Kiss Your Prince Charming
Jennifer Greene


A PRINCE IN WAITING… She'd kissed her share of frogs, so Rachel Martin never expected her best buddy would become her very own Prince Charming. Life-saving surgery had transformed Greg Stoner from ordinary guy-next-door to extraordinarily sexy bachelor. But it was the compelling look in Greg's eyes that had Rachel wishing their relationship could change into something… oh-so-magical.Although Rachel was a treasure, Greg knew he wasn't the man for her. Yet, whenever he insisted her "prince" still had warts, she dazzled him with intoxicating kisses and promises of forever. Dare this frog prince make all Rachel's fantasies come true?HAPPILY EVER AFTER: Your favorite fairy tales freshly told, with all the passion you've ever craved.







She Was The Princess To His Frog. (#uce65fe0f-a759-5c5e-85b5-323077f97093)Letter to Reader (#ud1b8508a-3737-50bb-bb62-cc42eebead71)Title Page (#u5787884d-4382-51ed-804e-36fa70769d1b)About the Author (#ue05061c9-2091-5ad9-9efb-63624acc58c4)Letter to Reader (#ua2e83085-f7a7-5f5e-a912-1e2201524e90)Chapter One (#u39de47a1-3ca2-58db-af79-52cb30dba5ba)Chapter Two (#uf1b11e4f-cf4d-58c4-b13f-722615c4b823)Chapter Three (#u236d265f-ab3d-5dea-8d38-35a37a60b2b0)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


She Was The Princess To His Frog.

That’s just the way it was.

But now something was happening between him and Rachel. Something new, something different. Something threatening...

Rachel loved him. Or believed she did. It was the vulnerable, yearning way she was looking at him. It was the way her kisses started out playful and turned into something soft and dark real, real fast.

He was enjoying her treating him like a prince—he couldn’t deny it. But when push came to shove, he was the same old frog.

For once in his life, though—for Rachel—he desperately wanted to be that prince she believed in....


Dear Reader,

Welcome to Silhouette Desire—where you’re guaranteed powerful, passionate and provocative love stories that feature rugged heroes and spirited heroines who experience the full emotional intensity of falling in love’

This October you’ll love our new MAN OF THE MONTH title by Barbara Boswell, Forever Flint. Opposites attract when a city girl becomes the pregnant bride of a millionaire outdoorsman.

Be sure to “rope in” the next installment of the exciting Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB with Billionaire Bridegroom by Peggy Moreland. When cattle baron Forrest Cunningham wants to wed childhood fnend Becky Sullivan, she puts his love to an unexpected test.

The always-wonderful Jennifer Greene returns to Desire with her magical series HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Kiss Your Prince Charming is a modern fairy tale starring an unforgettable “frog prince.” In a sexy battle-of-the-sexes tale, Lass Small offers you The Catch of Texas. Anne Eames continues her popular miniseries MONTANA MALONES with The Unknown Malone. And Shen WhiteFeather makes her explosive Desire debut with Warrior’s Baby, a story of surrogate motherhood with a twist.

Next month, you’ll really feel the power of the passion when you see our new provocative cover design. Underneath our new covers, you will still find six exhilarating journeys into the seductive world of romance, with a guaranteed happy ending!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to

Silhouette Reader Service

U S : 3010 Walden Ave , P.O Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3


Kiss Your Prince Charming

Jennifer Greene










www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


JENNIFER GREENE

lives near Lake Michigan with her husband and two children. Before writing full-time, she worked as a teacher and a personnel manager. Michigan State University honored her as an “outstanding woman graduate” for her work with women on campus.

Ms. Greene has written more than fifty category romances, for which she has won numerous awards, including three RITAs from the Romance Writers of America in the Best Short Contemporary Books category, and a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times Magazine. She was also recently inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame.


Dear Reader,

This is the second book in my HAPPILY EVER AFTER series. Do you remember The Frog Prince fairy tale? Where the girl has to kiss the frog to get the prince? Well, personally, I thought that story needed a drastic feminist update. In my version, there’s a woman, of course. And a man who’s a prince of a guy. But today’s woman is way smarter than in generations past, yes? No way, no how, would we be willing to kiss any frogs....

Unless, of course, there was an extraordinarily good reason for doing so.

I hope you like the story! And wishing you all my best—







One

Rachel Martin had had it. She zipped her ancient yellow VW into the driveway, cut the engine and then scowled at the debris piled on the passenger seat. There was no way she could carry the mail, groceries, her purse and her briefcase into the house in one haul—but she was too darn hot and cranky to make two trips.

Since the divorce, of course, Rachel had learned the obvious. A woman could always find a way to do the impossible. Sometimes the impossible was just a little more challenging than other times.

Once she climbed out of the car, she stuck the mail between her teeth, hooked the key ring on a finger and then used both arms to scoop up the grocery sack, briefcase, and purse tote. The success of her hauling mission seemed assured until she tried slamming the car door closed with her fanny—which jostled everything, particularly threatening to topple the ice cream at the top of the overstuffed grocery bag.

Oh, man. She needed that ice cream. She deserved it. The whole day had been a nonstop test of sanity. The air-conditioning had malfunctioned at work. All six of her engineers had been testy and demanding. She’d skipped lunch and then had to work late. Her blue linen suit had more limp wrinkles than a shar-pei’s face, her right stocking had a run and her stomach was making pitiful growling sounds of starvation. The unrelenting heat was so unfair. This was Milwaukee, for Pete’s sake. Cool nights should have been a guarantee by the middle of September—particularly by seven o’clock—and yet the temperature still registered a mean, cruel ninety degrees with enough humidity to melt steel.

Carefully juggling her packages, sweat drooling down the back of her neck, Rachel mentally pictured her life ten minutes from now. Forget chores. Forget the sounds of lawn mowers and honking cars and kids shrieking as they skateboarded down the sidewalks of the old neighborhood. She could be inside her rented house in two minutes. Naked in six. A few seconds after that, she could be draped under the air-conditioning vent in her living room, dipping a spoon into an entire gallon of Fudge Ripple, with an old classic Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn flick plugged into the VCR.

The fantasy was almost as satisfying as sex. Maybe even better. Sex wasn’t a remote possibility in her life right now, where ice cream was definitely a can-do.

“Ms. Martin? Wait, Ms. Martin!”

She recognized Leo Rembrowsky’s voice coming up behind her, and any other time she wouldn’t have minded chatting a few minutes with her elderly neighbor. Leo was okay. Occasionally he’d tried to peek in her bathroom window and he was an incurable busybody, but mostly he was just lonely since his wife died. Swiftly she turned around, so Leo could see her arms were completely stuffed and she was in no position to stop and visit—yet he didn’t seem to notice.

“I been waiting for you.” He huffed and puffed up the driveway until he caught up with her, his Slavic accent even heavier than usual. “You’re late today. I wait outside in the heat. But I thought you should know. Mr. Stoner was in big car accident.”

Her heart clutched. She dropped her briefcase and yanked the mail out of her mouth. “You mean Greg? Our Mr. Stoner?”

“Yes, yes. I heard from Tilda. She heard on scanner. Then Josie, she call the hospital—”

Vaguely Rachel heard the details of the neighborhood gossip vine. Vaguely she was aware of the bloodred sun, dropping fast now, painting the maple leaves gold and brushing the sky with dusky sunset shadows. Life just seemed so everyday normal that it took a jolting few seconds for Rachel to believe something had really happened to Greg. “Mr. Rembrowsky, which hospital? And do you know how badly he was hurt?”

Leo crouched down to pick up the spray of envelopes. “St. John’s, I hear. It was three-car pileup. Early afternoon. Tilda called hospital, but no one would say how he is. You have to be family or nobody wants to talk to you. But I still thought you would want to know.”

“I do. I did. Thank you, Mr. Rembrowsky, and I’m so sorry you waited out in the heat....”

He straightened up and piled the mail on top of her grocery sack. “You just tell me when you find out news, okeydoke? And if there’s something we neighbors can do, you say.”

“Okeydoke. I promise.” She hustled up the sidewalk, shifted everything so she could unlock the back door, then swiftly jogged in and dropped all the debris on the counter in her yellow-and-white kitchen.

Inside, the air conditioner was wheezing and gasping like a four-pack-a-day smoker, but at least it was working—for now. Like most homes in the neighborhood, her two-story frame house dated somewhere around the turn of the century. On the plus side, the rooms had personality and character and unique little architectural features. On the minus side, every appliance in the place had a capricious personality. Greg’s theory was that she needed to get tougher and show the appliances who was boss.

Again her heart squeezed tight at the thought of Greg injured, and she quickly grabbed the phone book and searched for the hospital’s number. Once she dialed and was stuck waiting for someone to answer, her gaze peered outside.

Her kitchen window overlooked his kitchen window. The distance between houses was a mere fifty yards, but the economic chasm between them might as well have been miles. Her rental house mimicked most structures in the respectable-turned-shabby neighborhood. Greg’s elegant Victorian house, though, was the exception, and stood out like a treasured castle with its manicured lawn and wrought-iron balconies and gleaming casement windows. Why he lived alone in the big old white elephant, Rachel hadn’t yet figured out—but over the last couple years, she’d spent countless hours in that house. They’d had dinner in his kitchen two nights ago. Cripes, she’d shared a cup of coffee with him just that morning.

Finally someone at the hospital answered. “Hello, this is Rachel Martin. I’m inquiring about a patient—Greg Stoner—I believe he was brought in this afternoon after a car accident...” Swiftly she crossed her fingers. “Oh, yes, of course I’m a relative. That’s exactly why I’m asking—I just heard about the accident, and I’m his sister—”

The lie slipped out smoother than butter. Thankfully Leo had mentioned the hospital’s unwillingness to give out patient information to anyone who wasn’t kin. Greg had kin—retired parents in Arizona, a brother working for some company in Japan—but there was no one Rachel knew how to contact. If she wanted immediate answers on Greg’s condition, she had to find some way to get them on her own.

And the fib worked—at least claiming to be his sister successfully got her transferred to another hospital floor. But then she was put on hold. And then transferred to yet another floor. One could interpret all this monkeying around as great news, she told herself. If they were moving him around, he was obviously alive, right? And he couldn’t be in too bad a shape or he’d be immobilized in ICU. Yet her fingernails drummed a worried rhythm on the old yellow linoleum counter.

It seemed like she was stuck on hold for hours this time. A dozen memories of the lumbering, gentle giant flashed through her mind. She’d met Greg two years before, the day she’d moved into the neighborhood. He’d stopped by to welcome his new next-door neighbor. She’d nearly bitten his head off.

It hadn’t been exactly her best day. Mark had just announced that he’d discovered “true love” with the bimbo. Rachel knew nothing about divorces then, had no idea you weren’t supposed to leave the marital home—or the savings accounts—unarmed and undefended. She’d never lived anywhere but her hometown of Madison, but she’d impulsively taken off for Milwaukee because it seemed best. She didn’t want to live in the same town as the cheating creep, and had craved a distance from her overprotective family, as well. This house was the cheapest rent she could find, at a time when even cheap was too expensive for her. She had no job, no money, an ego in shreds and a life in shambles. She never planned to trust another man as long as she lived.

She’d never planned on trusting Greg, either. But tarnation. He’d given her absolutely no choice.

“Ms. Martin?”

Finally a live body answered at the other end of the receiver, but the call proved worthless. Greg was still “undergoing tests.” His condition was labeled “serious.” No one would say exactly what his injuries were, or when he’d be settled down in a room and okayed for visitors.

Rachel heard out all the hospital rules, hung up, jammed the ice cream in the freezer and then simply hurled out of the house again for her car. Never mind their rules. Never mind anyone’s rules. Greg had put her pieces back together when she thought she was too broken to mend. It wasn’t his fault that he was one of the Enemy Species with that unfortunate Y chromosome. He was still the best friend she’d ever had—and nobody was going to stop her from seeing him.

Naturally St. John’s was one of the oldest hospitals in the city, which naturally meant it was way downtown, which naturally meant she had no idea how to get there. She knew where to shop, how to locate the art and entertainment centers, could find Rudy’s—the die-cast company where she worked as an engineering secretary—in her sleep. But Milwaukee’s industrial section was a tangle of tanneries and foundries, railroads and shipping canals. Roasting hops from the downtown breweries added an alien, bitter smell to the humid night air. Rachel never had reason to become familiar with these inner-city neighborhoods—nor would she be driving them alone in the dark if she had a choice. Tonight, of course, she had no choice, but fear of getting lost only made her more anxious, and her tummy was already roiling with nerves.

By the time she was parked and galloping through the hospital’s entrance doors, though, that problem was forgotten and another one nipping on her mind. If anyone questioned her claim about being Greg’s sister, Rachel figured no one was going to believe her lie. Obviously lots of siblings looked dissimilar, but man, she and Greg were drastic opposites in physical appearance.

He was a hefty six foot three; she was five foot four—in heels. He had to tilt the scales past two hundred and fifty pounds, where she only weighed one hundred and ten if she wore a winter coat and clunky shoes. She was small-boned; he was a natural defensive end. Their personal styles were even more night and day. Greg often claimed that she looked like a younger Meg Ryan. That wasn’t true—he was just being a sweetie—but she did have the blondish hair and blue eyes, and people had been annoyingly labeling her as girl-next-door “cute” since she was six. Greg.. well. There was nothing wrong with his looks—nothing—but he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who cared about his appearance. His jet-black hair was whacked off in a dorky style; his glasses were usually broken, and his clothes looked like something twenty years out of date—and lacked all claim to taste even then.

Still, as she started asking questions at the hospital’s front desk, no one seemed inclined to challenge her claim to be a relative. Possibly it helped that she looked so pitiful, with her limp hair straggling to her shoulders and her wilted suit and the run in her stocking. Who’d go out in public looking so wasted if they didn’t have to? Cripes, she hadn’t even stopped to put on lipstick. But it wasn’t as if Greg would ever care or notice what she looked like. The only thing that mattered was finding him.

Questions eventually led her up one set of elevators, then down a mile-long hall, where she searched for room 315. Her spirits lifted just knowing he’d been settled in a regular room. At least he wasn’t in surgery or worse. Maybe he was just a little battered up, she tried to reassure herself.

Only, her heart stopped when she poked her head through the doorway of room 315. The room looked like a clone of all the others—a mutated melon color, linoleum too ugly to wear out, inescapable antiseptic smells. It wasn’t that bad. It was just the usual two-bed hospital room...and only the far bed by the window was occupied.

But the occupant in that bed was a long, long way from just “a little battered up.”

She would never have recognized Greg at all, if it weren’t for a glimpse of jet-black hair and the lumberjack shape under the sheets. She tiptoed closer with her heart in her throat. Bandages completely covered his face, except for a narrow strip around his eyes. He was connected to tubes all over the place. There was some kind of contraption affecting his jaw and neck. His left arm was raised on a pillow and immobilized in a splint.

“Hey.”

Rachel almost jumped when she heard his voice. He was lying so still that she feared he was unconscious. But the kindest blue eyes in the universe had suddenly opened to half slits and looked drug-dazed. His normally strong tenor was barely a cracked, strained whisper.

“Hey, back.” She plastered on her cheeriest smile and touched his right hand. She was afraid to touch anything else. She didn’t want him to know how frightening he looked. “You can go right back to sleep, Stoner. I’m only going to stay a minute. I just had to know for sure how you were. And I’m not positive you should even be trying to talk—”

He motioned to the constraining bandages affecting his jaw. “I can talk—because nothing hurts. They just dosed me up with morphine. But I can’t seem to speak any louder or clearer than this mumbling...and I guess I’ll be eating dinner out of a straw for a while. Don’t look so scared, Rach. Everything’s mendable. I’ll be fine.”

Rachel wanted that promise in blood from a doctor. “This is a heck of a way to get time off work, you lazy slug.”

“You know me. Any excuse to loll around.”

Yeah, she knew him. He lumbered around with his glasses askew and a chronic distracted air, looking like the stereotype of a bumbling, absentminded professor. But it was so easy to misjudge Greg based on his appearance. The neighbors all camped out on his doorstep whenever there was a community problem, because he was just one of those people who quietly stepped up and took charge.

She’d learned that—firsthand—the day she moved in. Unfortunately there was no denying that she’d been a mortifying disaster that afternoon. The thing was, she’d married Mark with the foolish, naive idea that marriage was forever, and discovering his relationship with the bimbo had emotionally leveled her. She’d taken off with a wild hodgepodge of belongings. A lamp, but no table to put it on. A mattress, but no bed. Her grandma’s sacred red-velvet antique love seat, but no silverware. A few dishes, but nothing she could boil water in. Greg had asked if he could help her carry things. She’d snarled out a no.

He’d chosen to ignore her and simply started toting things in, making trip after trip for no thanks. Eventually it became obvious—even to her—that a puppy could have packed better than she had. For all the stuff she’d mounded together, she lacked even the basics to get through a single day. She didn’t have a broom, didn’t have a spoon. And when she realized that she’d been so stupid as to even forget shoes—plenty of clothes, but no shoes beyond the pair on her feet—she’d plunked down on the porch steps and cried. Greg had plunked next to her and doled out tissue, as if coping with a rude, fruitcake neighbor having an out-of-control crying jag was nothing unusual in his day.

Looking at his white-bandaged face now made her feel fierce and angry. He’d been there for her so many times. She wanted to shoot whoever had done this to him, strangle them with her bare hands, do something. Not just because she owed him, but because she loved the big lug. “Are they giving you enough pain juice in those tubes?” she asked lightly.

“Too much. My head’s in la la land. You don’t have to stand there, Rach, sit...”

“I’ll sit. For a minute. But I can’t believe you need company for long. And I should probably confess that I’m not supposed to be here. I lied and told them I was your sister, so don’t blow my cover, okay?”

“Okay, sis.”

She wanted to chuckle. Even with the strange, strained sound of his voice, she could hear the hint of his dry humor. Through blizzards and power outages and crises, she’d never heard Greg lose his sense of humor. “I want to ask you how the accident happened, but I’m not still convinced that you should be talking. I don’t understand exactly what kind of bandage contraption they’ve got around your jaw, but if it hurts you to talk—”

“It doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. Like I said, I’m in poppy heaven. I just can’t open my mouth very far. I think they wired my jaw, but I was really out of it a few hours ago and I’m honestly not sure exactly what anyone was doing to me in the E.R.”

She scooched a chair closer. “So you think your jaw’s broken. Your arm, too?”

“Yeah, for sure on the arm. They just haven’t set it yet. It was too swollen. The bone guy’s supposed to come back and take a look still tonight.... Rachel?”

“What?” His sudden hesitation, the way he said her name, made her quickly surge forward with alarm. “What can I do? Do you want water? The nurse?”

“No. I’d just feel better to get this said—you may not recognize me when this is over. There was a plastic surgeon in here earlier, too. He was pretty frank about the injuries to my face. He made out like they’ll be rebuilding from scratch. Could be my days of being a handsome hunk are over.”

Rachel felt her heart clamp in a painful fist. She wanted to say the right thing, whatever would help him most, but she just didn’t know what that was. Although the gauzy bandages completely concealed his expression, she could see those steady blue eyes searching hers. And he was joking about the “handsome hunk.” Once Greg had wryly described himself as a fade-in-the-woodwork kind of guy. He was a comptroller, so it wasn’t like he needed to be a GQ fashion plate. And since he chose the geeky haircut and dated clothes and never seemed concerned about the extra thirty pounds, Rachel had just assumed that looks didn’t matter to him. Once she’d come to love him as a friend, she never thought about his physical appearance one way or another.

But she did now. This was way, way different. Maybe Greg didn’t have a vain bone in his body, but facing a drastic change in appearance was still a terribly unnerving thing to cope with. If he had to deal with scars, that was more disturbing yet. Although they’d never been the touchy-feely kind of friends, again she reached for his hand and loosely laced her fingers with his. “You know, if you get a new face, you could be even more drop-dead handsome than you are now.”

“Well, hell. You think that’s possible?”

She grinned. “Hopefully not, because I’m not sure I could survive living next door to that big ego, Stoner. With any luck, they’ll let you keep a few scars, though. I don’t know what it is about scars, but they either seem to appeal to a girl’s pirate or bad-boy biker fantasy. You’ll probably have to beat the women off with a stick.”

“Not that. Not a fate worse than death. And how come I had to reach the vast age of thirty-two before I heard this interesting fact of life? Maybe you’d better explain some more about that biker fantasy—”

There was a hint of devil in his eyes, enough to make her chuckle. “Forget it. Women only tell those fantasies on a need-to-know basis. And you don’t need to know anything else from me—particularly since I couldn’t care less what you look like one way or another—but now you’ve got me thinking about this. Hey. You get a whole new face out of this deal? Where do I sign up?”

“Sheesh. Bite your tongue. You’re cuter than Meg Ryan now. No way you ever need to touch that face.”

“If you feel good enough to flirt, you can’t be too bad off, Stoner. But we have to get serious, because any second now some nurse is bound to walk in and kick me out. I’m trying to think of what you need done.” Rachel foraged in her purse for her checkbook—since she didn’t have a pad of paper—and a pen. “All right. Now you know I have a key to your house, so I can do the obvious stuff—close the windows, take care of perishables in the fridge, get your mail—”

“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“Don’t be a goose. Look at all the stuff you did for me over the last two years.” She ripped off a deposit slip, clicked on her pen and started to make a to-do list.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t know a screwdriver from a hammer two years ago. But...if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate your calling my work. Monica.”

Monica Kaufman was the CEO where Greg worked as a comptroller, Rachel already knew. “Sure thing. And how about your parents? I don’t know if you can make a long-distance call from a hospital room like this. You want me to call them?”

His eyes closed, as if he’d suddenly dropped off, just like that. But then he spoke again. “No. I need to contact them, if only so they know where I am. But they’re both getting older, and I don’t want to give them a shock or a scare if I don’t have to. I’ll find a way to call them myself—but not until I know from the docs exactly what’s going to happen.”

He still hadn’t opened his eyes. She hesitated. “Greg, I don’t want to stay, even another minute, if there’s any chance you could fall asleep and really rest—”

“I’m not sleeping. It’s just the drugs. I seem to keep zoning out and then somehow my mind starts replaying the accident....”

“You want to talk about it, get it off your chest?”

Outside the door, carts wheeled by, nurses called, the loudspeakers kept snapping out codes. But inside Greg’s room it was another world, a quiet, private world that only included the two of them. Their fingers had been loosely threaded together, but now his grip tightened until the heat of his palm nested in the heart-bed of hers. “I was in the old MG, not the Volvo. On I-94 in the middle lane, just driving back to work after lunch. That’s all. Nothing weird. Only this truck ahead suddenly blew a front tire and he was swerving everywhere, all over the road.. and so was everyone behind him, trying to clear out of his way. I was the peanut butter between a Cadillac and an Explorer. My MG squished like a pancake. Lucky.”

He wasn’t through talking, but his voice was losing power, sounding increasingly syrup-thick and slow. She leaned forward, clasping his hand more snugly. She’d never held hands with Greg—there’d never been even a teensy problem with male-female chemistry between them—and she felt embarrassed at her sudden awareness of his big fingers and maleness and the electric feeling of connection. Naturally, though, her emotions were nerves-sharpened. He was painfully describing how lucky he was to even be alive.

“Three other cars were in the same smash-up. At least nobody was killed. Took the Jaws of Life to get two of us out of our cars. I don’t even know where all the glass came from. The back of the one truck, maybe. But it was the glass that cut up my face—could have my eyes so easily. And I kept hearing this little girl—she was crying. Rach? Will you find out how she is for me?”

“I’ll ask, Greg. I promise.”

“She was crying so hard, I told myself she had to be okay. I mean, nobody could bawl that loud if they weren’t basically pretty strong. But find out, okay? She was so little.”

It was so typical of Stoner, worrying about others. “I’ll get an answer. But in the meantime, I think I should leave and you should rest. Only, before I come back tomorrow, can you think of some things you need me to bring? I assume you want your own toothbrush, but I don’t know if you can use one if your jaw’s all wired up—”

“Believe me, I’ll find a way to use one. If I can’t brush my teeth, I’d have to commit hara-kiri. So yeah, I really would appreciate that.”

“And you probably want your own pajamas—”

“Um, Rach. I don’t do pajamas.”

“Oh. Well.” She could feel a flush blooming on her cheeks and wanted to kick herself. At twenty-nine years old—and having been both married and divorced—it was downright ridiculous to fluster up at the idea of a man sleeping naked. Particularly when Greg was just a friend. “Well, with all those bandages on your face, I don’t think you’ll be needing a razor for a while. I’ll bring some books and magazines, but there must be something else I can do.” Abruptly she snapped her fingers. “I know what.”

“What?”

“Your sacred lawn. All life would end if it didn’t get mowed by Saturday, wouldn’t it? So I’ll get your grass cut. I won’t manicure it like you do, but consider this is an offer I wouldn’t make to even Mel Gibson. Even Brad Pitt. We’re talking a true test of how much I love you, neighbor. Now...what else could be worrying you?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, something else may cross your mind, but I’ll come back and visit tomorrow after work. You can make a list if you think of anything else.”

His hand clutched hers just for a second longer, and then loosened. “Rach—thanks for coming.”

“No sweat.” But once she stood up, Rachel couldn’t just leave. He looked so alone in that bed, so isolated behind the wall of bandages. And though he had dozens of friends, right then she felt like the only family he had. There was simply no way that she could walk out of that room without expressing support and caring in some concrete, physical way.

So she bent down, but finding a spot to kiss him was almost a humorous challenge. His face and brow—and really, most of his head—were wrapped in white gauze. The only uncovered spot was his mouth.

His lips were naked, warm, soft. She snapped her head back up. Instantly. Not because she suddenly, inappropriately, felt her pulse buck and bolt—but because all she intended was a kiss lighter than the stroke of silk. Anything else risked hurting him. Anything else risked...well, this was Greg. Not just a good man, but a true hero of a friend. Rach would die if he misunderstood any gesture from her.

“All right, you,” she said firmly. “I’m outa here. But I want you to behave yourself until I come back tomorrow—no seducing the nurses, no playing football in the hall, no wild drinking parties, you hear me? And I’ll be in tomorrow right after work.”

She made it outside in the hall, out of Greg’s sight, before abandoning the cheerful smile and leaning weakly, sickly, against the wall. God. All those tubes. All those bandages. Sure, it could have been worse, but there was no question in her aching heart that he was lucky to be alive.

Without talking to a doctor, she had no idea what his prognosis really was. Or what be had to face ahead. The only thing Rachel felt sure of was fiercely wanting to be there for him.

Whatever it took to get him on his feet again, she was more than willing to do.


Two

“And how’s my gorgeous hunk doing today? Running around the halls naked again? Seducing all the nurses? Giving all the doctors hell?”

Greg’s pulse stopped dead, then suddenly bolted faster than a runaway horse. For almost a month now, Rachel had visited at the same time every evening—but tonight she wasn’t expected. And because he’d been so positive she wasn’t coming, he had no time to mentally brace. For one vulnerable minisecond, the sound of her voice made his heart dip into that wild, wicked well of forbidden waters.

But that was just because he was in love with her.

By the time he turned his head to face her and started cranking up the bed to a sit-up posture, naturally he’d squashed the inappropriate emotion. It wasn’t that hard to do, not anymore, particularly when he risked losing Rach altogether if she ever discovered how he felt about her. She was the princess to his frog. That’s just the way it was, which he’d accepted ages ago. Still...after a man had been cooped up all day in a tediously monotonous hospital room, Rachel was like a burst of vital, vibrant stinging life.

Raindrops spattered everywhere as she stripped off her trench coat, revealing the suit and heels she’d worn to work. Knowing Rach, the suit couldn’t have cost much, but she had this way of wearing clothes that made everything look expensive and sharp. Not flaunty. She didn’t go for flashy styles that showed off her figure, yet typically this outfit was a subtle feast for his eyes. The suit was a soft cherry-red, with a slim skirt that palmed the curve of her fanny and a short jacket that bared a spot at her neck for jewelry. She did like her beads. Temporarily her tawny hair looked wind-tousled and shaggy—the way he liked it best—and framed a small face with giant blue eyes, an itsy nose and a generous, wide mouth. Rach hated the label of “cute,” but man, she was. Darling. Cute. Irresistible. Words Greg never used on a woman, vocabulary he never used at all. Except for her. In the privacy of his mind.

“I’ve been giving everybody hell,” he assured her. “One of these days, I figure it’ll work and they’ll throw me out of this place. But I didn’t expect to be venting any bad temper on you tonight. Didn’t you get the message on your answering machine? I called to tell you not to come.”

“Yeah, I got your message about the weather. I just ignored you, big guy. What, did you think I’d melt if I drove in a little rain?”

It wasn’t raining “a little.” A harmless drizzle had started around noon, putting a shine and glisten on all the orange and gold autumn leaves, but by nightfall, the friendly little rain had turned into a gusty, moody storm. If and when all that water iced up, the roads would turn into a skating rink. “You’re supposed to listen to the advice of your elders,” Greg said sternly.

Her peal of laughter was infectious. “You don’t get credit for being a mere three years older than me! And yeah, I know the roads may freeze, but the temperatures aren’t supposed to drop that low until midnight. The nurses’ll toss me out long before then.” She kicked off her wet heels and padded closer to the bed in her stocking feet, her gaze narrowed as she studied him. “Well, I can’t tell if they put you through any fresh torture today. Are you in pain?”

“Nope, I’m fine, really.”

She rolled her eyes. “You always say that. And I think all those white bandages are mysterious and sexy and all, but I’m awfully sick of not being able to see your face, Stoner. I can’t tell when you’re lying. I can’t tell when you’re hurting or happy or anything else....”

As far as Greg was concerned, the only good thing to come from the accident were the bandages. Yeah, they were annoying, but at least Rach couldn’t see his expressions. For a whole month now, he could look at her without worrying about giving away his true feelings for her.

“But you’re finally at the end of this torture setup. I know you have to be feeling raw after the surgery yesterday, but this is the last time the plastic surgeon plans to cut you, yes? Didn’t he promise? No more? So if you just heal from this sucker, you’re home-free. I don’t suppose they let you have solid food today?”

“No. And I’d rather have a cheeseburger right now than a million bucks. But at least that’s the only blackmail they’re still holding over my head. The minute I can keep down some solid food, I get to bump this pop stand and go home...only, that’s tough to pull off when nobody’s willing to bring me anything but a liquid dinner.”

Her soft eyes swam with sympathy. “Now, Stoner. You know the broken jaw thing was the toughest problem, but you’re on the total mend track now. It won’t be that much longer.” She shot him a teasing diamond-watt grin. “Although I’m not sure I’m going to recognize you when this is all over. A whole new face is only part of this. You’re practically down to skin and bones. No love handles. Only half of you to hug. We’re talking about a woman’s dream—you’ve lost so much weight that you’re going to need a giant shopping trip to buy all new clothes.”

Temporarily he couldn’t wince—but he wanted to. “You call that a dream? I call it a nightmare. I’d rather have chicken pox than shop. I’d rather eat liver. Hell, I’d rather do anything.”

Rachel perched a hip on the bed and pulled the hospital tray table between them. A deck of cards appeared in her hands. “Well, from the goodness of my heart, I’ll help keep your mind off your troubles. You prepared to lose the rest of your life savings tonight?”

“Are you gonna fleece a poor, disadvantaged invalid again?”

“Yup. In fact, while you’re on this losing streak, I think we should up the ante to maybe a dime a game instead of just a nickel.”

“There goes my retirement,” Greg said plaintively, and was rewarded with her rich throaty chuckle.

Rach shuffled with the flashy style of a Las Vegas hustler and then dealt the cards. He cheated so she’d win—but no more than three out of four hands. If she won them all, Greg figured she’d guess something was fishy, particularly since he was a comptroller and should have had some skill with numbers.

His bumbling ineptitude didn’t seem to trouble her, though, possibly because she loved winning. And since he loved watching her win, Greg considered them even. Tonight, besides, he really couldn’t concentrate on the cutthroat canasta game.

His ribs still screamed when he laughed. The broken arm itched. And in the beginning, the bandages swathing his head had aroused his sense of humor—he did look like a mummy in training—but they also constricted his sight and movement and he was sick of them now. What the plastic surgeon had cut—and recut—on his face over the last weeks had involved constant bruising and swelling, and their rebuilding his jaw had been the worst. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, could never just let down and relax because there was always some kind of pain nagging at him.

But he forgot all that while Rach was here.

Thunder boomed outside. Rain slashed against the windows, running down the glass in silver ribbons. Against that black night, Rachel’s skin looked pearl-soft and luminous, like a treasure a man felt compelled to protect—even if her eyes were full of the devil and she was unrepentantly trying to sneak a peek at his cards. “Are you saving aces over there, Stoner?”

“Like I’d tell you.”

“I think you are.” Again she peered into his eyes as if she could see the truth there. “You know I’m at a disadvantage because I can’t see your face, when you can see mine. So I think it’s only fair that you give me a hint whether you have an ace or two.”

“Fair? Fair! You’re talking to a man who’s lost for four nights running. I’ll tell you whether I have aces when hell freezes over.”

She sniffed. “Okay. When you get home, I was going to make you a big fat steak on the grill with French fries, because I thought that’d taste good after all the meals you’ve had to drink from a straw. But if you can’t even give me a teensy little hint—”

“God. You play just like a girl. Sneaky. Manipulative. Making low-down blackmail threats—”

“Yeah. So what’s your point?”

He let out an exhausted sigh. “I have aces. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Uh huh.” She promptly dispensed a deuce—and a female-rascaly grin at the same time.

They kept playing...but Greg’s mind couldn’t help spinning back to the day he’d met her. She was full of frisky sass now, but not that day. That afternoon she’d reminded him of a kitten drenched in a storm. Miserable, huddled into herself, eyes shell-shocked and lost—but just like a cat, she spit and clawed if anyone tried to help her. Particularly anyone male.

She’d been married to Mark for seven years.

Two seconds after meeting Rach, Greg was inclined to murder the guy—and he didn’t even know the whole story then. The details had drifted out over time. She’d still been wildly in love when her Sacred Mark walked out. She had no idea there was another woman in the picture. She had no clue there was even a problem. They hadn’t argued. He hadn’t complained. She was under the impression their sex life was superb.

From the start of the relationship, Rach had dropped out of college to put her True Love through school. Then she’d worked two low-wage jobs while the spineless jerk was getting around to sending out résumés. Her turn to finish college somehow never happened. Mark-O just had a lot of needs—like the right clothes and wheels suitable to a certain status, then the right house in the right neighborhood, and naturally he couldn’t sacrifice any fishing or hunting trips with his pals.

Greg figured that Rach had had plenty of clues early on. She just hadn’t wanted to see that her Sacred Mark was a selfish, immature jerk. Actually, to a point, Greg didn’t think that particularly mattered. If she loved the guy, then she did.

But what killed Greg—what fried him upside and down the other—was that the son of a bitch had broken her heart. Mark had obviously been the only guy she ever loved, ever knew intimately. His chasing another woman had the same effect as ripping the heart right out of her. The day she’d moved next door, she’d had nothing—a checkbook with a couple hundred dollars, no job, no plans, and a little rented U-Haul heaped with impractical, sentimental junk that she couldn’t even sell, much less wear or eat.

Greg had never felt it happen before. His heart, doing the slam-bam-alakazaam thing. His hormones, suffering instant delirium His nerves, trying to electrocute him with the lightning-bolt voltage.

Of course she wasn’t for him. Greg recognized that right off. Look what happened when King Kong pined after the blonde. When Romeo started moping after a Capulet. When Bogart got obsessed with a married woman in Casablanca. When a guy fell in love with an mappropriate woman, nothing ever followed but a heart-gashedin-two and disaster. There was love and there was love. If you had the wrong kind, best you bite the bullet, shut up and just try to value what you did have.

“I’m out.” Rachel—the fragile, withdrawn, vulnerable woman he’d fallen in love with—snapped down her last card and then wiggled her fingers. “Gimme, gimme, gimme. Thirty whole cents. Am I good or am I good? You might as well admit it, Stoner. I buried you. I trounced you deep. I beat the pants off you.”

“You’re the worst winner I ever met, ” he grumbled, and dug in the bedside table for his wallet. “You ever hear of the word humble?”

“What’s to be humble for? I won, I won, I won.”

He couldn’t grin because of the bandages. He couldn’t laugh because of the sore ribs. But he wanted to do both. As he forked over her thirty cents, he savored how much she’d changed from two years ago. For a while, Greg had his doubts she’d ever recover from the blows that creep had inflicted on her.

One of the rehab staff—a buxom nurse named Maeve—cocked her head through the doorway. “Well, if this isn’t typical. Visiting hours are over. The whole floor’s quieted down. All my good patients are behaving themselves. And then there’s you two.”

Rachel chuckled, but she also swiftly scooched off the bed. “I’m sorry. And I promise, I’m leaving right away.” The nurse had barely disappeared before she added to Greg, “I’ll give you a chance to earn back the loot tomorrow.”

“You’d better,” he said with the tone of the longsuffering.

With a cheeky grin, she started searching for her shoes and found them lying cockeyed under the chair. “You know what?”

“What?”

She pushed on the shoes, then grabbed her trench coat. “Every day you’ve sounded stronger, Greg, but tonight was the first time that you really, really sounded like yourself. I realize you’re not quite ready to climb K-2, and those bandages still make you look like one of those Egyptian pharaoh mummies. But I think they just might let you out of here soon.”

“That’s exactly what I told the doc this morning. It’s time to throw me out. Tomorrow wouldn’t be too soon for me.”

“I don’t blame you for being impatient. If I’d been cooped up this long, I’d be going just as nuts. But this started out almost as scary as the Humpty Dumpty story, Stoner. They had a lot of pieces to put back together.” She cinched the belt on her trench coat and then clipped toward him. “Just for the record, I am going to make you that steak and French fries as soon as you get home. You just have to stay cool a little longer and do what the docs tell you, okay?”

She bent down. He saw her wispy bangs, the faint spray of freckles on her nose, her soft mouth. He knew she was going to kiss him. Before the accident, she’d never touched him, but she’d pulled this kiss-good-night routine fairly often since he’d been in the hospital.

Now, like those other times, her lips had to search for a spot to kiss because almost everything above his neck was covered with white gauze.

Now, like the other times, her blue eyes flashed on his first. For two years Rach had been allergic to men, never went out, never gave a guy a chance to hurt her. Greg was positive that he’d earned her trust, yet still she needed to do that affirming quick eye study to remind herself that he was different—a proven friend, not a predator, not a male where sex or intimacy was an issue.

Now, like the other times, she seemed to decide it was okay to express an honest affectionate gesture with him...and did. Her lips touched down, softer than satin, gentler than a sigh. He caught the faint drift of the spicy scent she wore, saw her silky blond hair sweep down in pale, fine curls, inhaled the rustle of girl clothes and the pure delicate femaleness of her. And the first time she’d kissed him, all he had to do was brace because it was all over in two seconds.

But now, like the other times, Rach seemed to unconsciously stretch it out. Past two seconds.

Past five.

Past the point of a good-night-smack between pals, although Greg was meticulously careful not to touch her, not to move, not to breathe.

When she finally lifted her head and straightened up, her eyes flashed on his again, then swiftly shifted away like a nervous gambler’s. Color streaked her cheeks. Her hands restlessly tightened a belt that was already securely tied.

“You really need to get out of here.” Greg covered the sudden awkward silence. “I’m going to worry about your driving on ice if you don’t get home.”

That coaxed back her natural smile again. “I’m going, I’m going.” She snatched up her purse and hiked toward the door. “Give the nurses hell, I love you and sleep good, okay?”

Once those orders were delivered, naturally she whisked out of the room before he could respond. For a few seconds longer he could hear her heels clicking down the hospital linoleum, and then she was gone. Greg sank against the pillow and squeezed his eyes closed. It was worrisome. Not just her recent habit of kissing him, but her brand new habit of leaving him with that light, blithe, “I love you.”

Only a few moments passed before Maeve ambled back in. “Hi, darling’. Your company finally gone?”

“Yes.”

“As many visitors as you get, she’s my favorite. Such a sweetie. And cute as a button.” Efficiently Maeve wrapped his arm in the blood pressure cuff, then did the temperature and the pulse routine. “I got a secret for you. Dr. Webster says we can try you on real food tomorrow. And if that goes okay, you’ll be out of here in a matter of days. Now I’ve got some juice and couple of pills for you....”

Greg sipped the juice, ignored the pills, and when Maeve had moved on to badger the patient in the next room, he twisted to a sitting position and slowly stood up. He made it the five steps to the window, but the sensation of dizzy weakness was exasperating.

All the broken parts on his torso were healing fine. It was his face that had kept him trapped in the hospital all these weeks. From the broken jaw to the reconstruction surgeries, he’d been drinking dinners for weeks now. He could do physical therapy, but he simply could not build up strength when his diet maxed out at soft foods like tapioca.

Bracing both hands on the windowsill, Greg scanned the rain-slick parking lot below, hoping to spot Rachel. Headlights blinked and glared, but it was too dark to identify any cars, even anything as distinctive as her classic-survivor yellow VW. He was about to give up and step away, when he caught his mirror reflection in the glass pane.

The tall, lean man in the reflection was stunningly—eerily—unfamiliar. Yeah, he’d always been tall, but even from childhood, he’d been chunky and stoop-shouldered. Now his body felt like a stranger’s. The new lean build and straight posture just didn’t feel like him, and he was increasingly edgy about the mystery face under the bandages. The plastic surgeon had repeatedly promised him that the reconstruction surgeries had gone “fabulous” and he was going to look great. Truthfully, Greg didn’t care what he looked like, as long as he didn’t have scars that would scare children or draw attention to himself.

But suddenly he did care.

Something was happening between him and Rachel. Something new, something different. Something threatening. She just wasn’t behaving the same around him. Sooner or later Rach was always going to realize that she wasn’t allergic to men anymore, that Sacred Mark hadn’t wounded her for life, that sleeping alone wasn’t any fun for grown-ups. Greg had loved helping her. Loved feeling a part of her healing. Loved knowing he was one of the few men in the universe that she trusted.

But once he got home from the hospital, he just wanted to feel sure their next-door friendship went back to the way it was. He was the frog. She was the princess. Everything had always gone well between them as long as Greg never tried coloring outside those lines.

Slowly he turned around, then went through all the stiff contortions it took to get himself ready for bed and covered up again. Once the lights were off, he stared at the black ceiling, remembering Randall Conrad, the class bully in fourth grade. Greg had taken one beating from the bully and never told. Then another beating. It seemed that was around the time he started wolfing down extra snacks, playing the bumbling brain, making good-natured jokes no matter what anyone said to him. Randall had quit hounding him. Nobody had really picked on him after that.

In fact, girls had always liked him. Greg couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t have close female friends. He didn’t threaten women. Didn’t inspire them either— but Greg knew himself incapable of doing that. By age thirty-two, naturally he’d had some serious relationships. If none had ended in marriage, none had ended badly or cruelly, either. They just seemed to fizzle out like champagne left uncorked. Personally, he never thought sex was worth all the hoopla. He seemed to bore the lovers he’d chosen, almost as badly as they’d bored him. He’d like to marry sometime. He’d like kids, like a family. But just to have another body in the house was no justification to pursue something where Greg had already proven to be mediocre.

Unlike the old song claimed, one wasn’t the loneliest number. Two was. Being with someone you really didn’t want to be with was not only exhausting, but the most painful brand of loneliness.

Greg was pretty sure Rachel felt nothing but sympathy for him. He was also pretty sure she had no clue he was in love with her. Her sympathy should die a natural death once he got home and back to normal life again, but he treasured their friendship and worried doing anything to screw it up.

The second he met Rachel, he’d known she wasn’t for him. He had money. He had brains. But he’d never had the kind of zesty style and people skills and innate guts for life that she had. She’d shoot him for using the word class but there it was. It’d be like trying to pair a Chevy with a Jag. A guy could admire a Jag. Could lust after it. Could look. But a grown man with character knew better than to touch something that couldn’t belong to him.

Greg sighed heavily and closed his eyes. Most of his life he’d been invisible, the kind of guy who faded into the woodwork and no one noticed. Other men liked attention. Not him. And right now all he wanted was to be home again—back to his work, back to his life, back to being comfortably invisible. Especially with Rachel.

A week later, Rachel rapped on Greg’s back door, and when no one answered, she twisted the knob and poked her head inside. “Stoner! It’s me, Rach! Are you here?”

“Yeah, I’m back here in the den.”

Shaking her head with impatience, she stomped inside and closed the door. Technically Greg was still on a medical leave of absence, but there was no telling him that. When the hospital finally sprang him four days ago, he’d had a co-worker bring him work from the office ever since. He was always in the den working on the computer. Reminding him that he still had a doctor’s mandate to take it seriously easy fell on deaf ears.

Quickly she peeled off her pea coat and tossed it on a kitchen chair, automatically glancing around the room. No crumbs cluttered the red-tile counter; no dishes were stacked in the white porcelain sink. Old-fashioned glass cabinets revealed neatly stacked plates, and the long oak table held a nauseatingly tidy pile of mail and magazines. Personally Rachel didn’t trust anyone who didn’t leave a shameful mess somewhere—it just wasn’t human—but Greg was a friend. One had to forgive a friend a few revolting habits.

Momentarily, though, she only glanced around the kitchen to ascertain how he was doing today.

The dimwit wouldn’t ask for help if his life depended on it, so Rachel had to rely on clues. He’d been working too hard ever since coming home from the hospital, but Stoner was too much of a hard-core perfectionist to ever leave a mess unless he were exhausted or in pain. Today, his spotless kitchen reassured her that he was feeling good.

Pushing off her shoes, she padded in stocking feet down the wainscotted hall and through the living room. His decor always struck her sense of humor. Greg had told her that Stoners had built the family home in the 1890s, and some furnishings were obviously heirlooms from that elegant Victorian period—like the mahogany breakfront and a burgundy crushed-velvet rocker and the rich Oriental rugs. And then there were Greg’s choices. Futuristic minimalist. A spear of a lamp, a lapis lazuli slab for a coffee table, a giant wall-size TV and entertainment center, futons for seating. The furnishings were backdropped by old fashioned stuccoed walls and fancy copper-carved ceilings.

Rachel was unsure whether Greg didn’t realize that nothing went together or, worse, that he thought it did. A wolf had to have a better sense of style that he did. The French doors at the far end of the living room opened onto his study.

She paused in the study doorway. The closed wooden blinds sealed out the midday sun and made the room murky-dim. All she could really see was Greg’s back, hunched over a glowing computer monitor, his fingers clicking on the keyboard. He was wearing his favorite Green Bay sweatshirt—which was so decrepitly frayed that it should have seen a trash bin up-close-and-personal years ago—and he was obviously concentrating hard. One look, and a lump filled her throat.

She’d loved him as a friend for ages now, but feelings had hugely and drastically changed since his car accident. Maybe it was watching him cope with so much pain. Maybe it was all those nights in the hospital, the way he teased her, the way he cheated at cards so she’d win, the way they so easily laughed together.

Somehow she had just never looked at Greg as a man before. She’d seen him as a brainy, overweight nerd, because that was how he’d always made such a point of billing himself. And more privately she’d thought of him as a gentle giant, because that’s how he’d been with her—a neighbor, a friend, a fixer of fuses and a stealer of cookies and an unbeatable listener. She’d seen Greg in lots of roles. All of them wonderful.

But until the accident, she’d just never thought of him as a sexual being. A sexual single male human being.

Rachel wasn’t positive she wanted to see him that way. To risk screwing up the best friendship she’d ever had troubled her. But in the silence of her heart, she couldn’t deny that just being in the same room with him aroused emotions that had never been there before.

“Hey, slugger. You’ve got a doctor’s appointment today. Did you forget?”

Greg didn’t turn his head, didn’t lift his fingers from the keyboard. “I didn’t forget. The appointment’s at one.”

She came up behind him, her hands instinctively molding around his shoulders and neck. As she might have expected, his muscles were all knotted up. No question he’d been sitting here a long time. She started kneading, careful not to touch the bandages wrapped around his head. “And do you know what time it is right now, Stoner?”

“I dunno. Nine? Ten? God, that feels good, don’t stop.”

“It’s noon.” Her fingers dug and probed, trying to relax the knots in his neck. She’d have volunteered such a back rub for any ailing friend—male or female—only Rachel knew it wasn’t the same. Not with him, not anymore.

As if her female hormones had suddenly come awake after a two-year hibernation, she felt conscious of the warmth and scent of his skin, of her sensitized response to everything male about him. And that was wonderful, but also unnerving. She might have missed sex, but she really hadn’t wanted to touch a man in all this time. And because Mark was the only man she’d known—no matter how much he’d hurt her—she’d just never anticipated touching any man intimately but him, either. Now, suddenly, she could imagine all kinds of disastrously wild and inappropriately naked things. With Greg. And once her mind started dripping those ideas, it seemed the leak just kept getting bigger.

“It can’t be noon,” Greg corrected her.

“Yeah, it is—12:02, actually. I don’t know how you could possibly forget a red-letter doctor’s appointment like this one—finally you’re getting those bandages off your face after all this time—”

“I didn’t forget. It’s just I started working after breakfast—”

“And lost track of the time, I know.” The knots had eased, which obliterated the judicious excuse she had for touching him. She dropped her hands. “If you want some company,” she said casually, “I could drive you to the doc’s. Friday’s my home day at work, but I’m all caught up, so taking off a couple hours this afternoon is no problem.”

“Nah. Thanks for offering, Rach, but really, that’d be crazy for you to waste your time sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. There’s no pain or anything like that involved where I’d have trouble driving alone.”

“I know you have some trouble with visibility because of the bandages—”

“Yeah, I do. But it’s just a fifteen minute drive there, and then these confounded bandages are off for good. I’ll be fine, really.” He still hadn’t turned around and faced her, because he was still saving and messing with disks and then exiting the computer.

And she hesitated. If Greg didn’t want her help, then he didn’t. But she was still concerned about his going to this doctor’s visit alone. Even for a man as unvain and totally oblivious to appearances as Greg, this afternoon was a huge traumatic thing.

The plastic surgeon had said over and over that the reconstruction surgeries had been successful...but Greg still really didn’t know what he was going to look like. The doctor had given him computerized pictures approximating his new face, but that was it. Because he never talked about it, Rachel suspected Greg was just being Greg—a man who never thought much about looks. And maybe it was going to be that easy, but she wasn’t convinced anyone could go through a traumatic change of appearance and not feel unsettled. She just wanted to go with him, to be there, to show him positively that she didn’t give a royal damn what he looked like and he’d always be Greg to her.

But now he finished exiting his computer and spun around. “Well, if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes....”

She grinned. Okay, so the jeans were a little baggy and her yellow sweatshirt had seen better days. “I was raking leaves this morning. I think every tree on the block dumped its leaves last night—and mostly in my yard and yours. Actually, I was thinking about raking your leaves after mine—”

“I can do my own.”

“Quit with the pride nonsense, Stoner. Just because you’ve got the cast off your arm doesn’t mean you have any strength yet—either in your arm or your ribs. You’re not up for heavy physical work and you know it. But for the record, I was going to put on a decent sweater if you’d let me drive you to the doc’s office so you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me—”

“I couldn’t be ashamed to be seen with you in this life, Rach.”

Maybe, but she couldn’t talk him into letting her drive him, so she skedaddled home to give him time to get ready and go. She noted him leaving around 12:40 while she was putting together a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As of one o’clock, she couldn’t sit—she was too worried about the outcome of this doc’s visit and what Greg might be thinking when the bandages came off—so she yanked on her old barn jacket and headed outside again with a rake.

Her yard was finished by one-thirty, and she unlatched the white rail fence gate into his. Between a century-old walnut and several maple trees in the back, his yard was a sea of apricot and russet leaves—way more than he could possibly handle alone. The leaves crunched and crackled under the pull of her rake. She made little piles. And then bigger piles. And still Greg didn’t come home, not by two o’clock, not by two-thirty.

Her muscles were screaming by then, but how could she leave? If she stopped by later, Greg could think she only wanted a look at his face. As long as she kept raking, she had a legitimate excuse for being here. And finally, just before three, his black Volvo pulled into the driveway. She had already straightened, had already locked a welcome-hello smile on her face, when he climbed out of the car and faced her.

Her intention was absolute. No matter what Greg looked like, she wanted to say the right thing, the supportive thing—whatever it took to make him believe she was natural with his new appearance.

But “Oh my God” slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it. She was prepared for scars. She was prepared for him to look really different. She was prepared for Greg to need some help coping if the physical changes were disturbing.

But the look of his face was still a total and complete shock.


Three

Greg expected Rachel to notice his “new” face. It’s not like anyone who knew him could possibly fail to notice. But she looked so stunned that he felt an edgy, uneasy lump well in his throat. “Rach, I’m not going to look like this forever. It’s just going to take a while before the last of the swelling and bruises go down—”

“It’s not the bruises or the swelling.” Rachel plunked down on his front porch step as if she were too weak to stay upright. Knuckles cocked up her chin. Those velvetblue eyes of hers seemed glued on his face. A siren screamed in the distance. She didn’t look away. Kids ran down the sidewalk, yelling to each other. She didn’t look away. The paper boy biked up, hurled the newspaper right past her head to his porch, and that didn’t make her blink, either. “I just wouldn’t know you. If I hadn’t recognized your black Volvo pulling in the drive, I’d have thought you were a stranger.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s just me.”

“Stoner. I just can’t get over it. You’re gorgeous.” Her hand shot to her heart. She obviously worried that she had unintentionally hurt his feelings, because she backpedaled immediately. “Not that you weren’t an incredibly goodlooking sexy hunk before, but—”

“Rach, it’s okay. Don’t worry about saying something awkward. Believe me, I feel awkward myself.” And that was an understatement, Greg thought irritably. He’d felt sledge-hammered the instant he saw his new face in the doctor’s office mirror. Whether the damn face was ugly or handsome was irrelevant. The problem was that it wasn’t him. It wasn’t the face he’d grown up with. It wasn’t anyone he recognized. And it was the eeriest sensation to be walking around with a stranger’s face.

“A little unnerving to look so different?” Rachel said gently. “But you do look wonderful, Greg. I don’t even see any scars except for the one on your forehead....”

“There are plenty of scars, but the doc did a good job putting most of them under my chin or around the hairline. Especially since I haven’t had a haircut since the accident, most of those scars don’t show. In fact, that’s what the doc suggested—just wear my hair longer, like it is now.” Greg could hear the restless, impatient tone creep into his voice again, but he couldn’t help it. The doc’s advice was fine, but all that unruly, thick hair hanging around his collar and forehead was another weirdness. He’d always worn his hair ultrashort. Maybe the style had been a little dorklike, but it took no care or maintenance beyond remembering to have a barber chop it off every few weeks. Hell, he hadn’t even known he had all this hair.

Since this was Rach, though, he tried to erase the impatient frustration in his voice and make a joke out of the situation. “I stopped for gas on the way home. Same station I’ve gone to for years, and Maurie didn’t even recognize me. I feel like I walked into the doctor’s office being me, and came out starring in an X-Files episode. Maybe the truth is out there, but this alien just isn’t me.”

Instead of chuckling, like he intended her to, Rachel slowly stood up with a thoughtful expression. “I was afraid this’d be harder than you expected. To a point, it’s different for women. We go for makeovers and new hairstyles all the time. We love that stuff. Change is a way to give us an emotional lift. But hair grows back, and we can use our old eye shadow if we don’t like the new colors. But it’s a whole different thing when you’re not choosing to change and never had a vote in it. Let’s see that forehead scar....”

She stepped closer, raising her hand to push aside his hair near the right temple. Greg knew what she saw. On the underside of his jaw were the newest and rawestlooking scars. His eyes still had a raccoon look with the bruising, and a jagged, skinny scar bisected his right eyebrow. His jaw really throbbed and the nerve endings felt hypersensitive, finally exposed to light and air, but nothing was really that horrible to look at. It was just different. His chin was square now. He had a Frenchman’s aquiline nose. The cheekbones were still his, but they looked completely different in a face that used to be shaped full and pudgy, and now looked sculpted with a decisive, strong brush.

The plastic surgeon had been ecstatic with his finished product.

Greg had no time to decide what he thought of the new face yet—but he knew precisely what he felt about Rachel being this close. His pulse responsively bucked for the sparest, barest touch of her fingertips.

He told himself that a guy couldn’t help reacting to a woman who was so sensitive to his feelings—but that was a total lie. Yeah, she was perceptive, and yeah, her kindness was a wonderful quality. But his hormones had always gone into a delicious dither anywhere around her.

He tried to analyze the problem. The way Rachel touched his forehead was obviously intended as a friendly, caring, but specifically nonsexual gesture. He understood that. It just didn’t matter to his hormones.

His whole damn world still suffered a complete metamorphosis solely because of her nearness. Hours earlier he’d noticed the gunmetal-gray clouds festering in the west, likely swollen with snow this late in the fall. Yet now he saw the sun spearing down in a gold-kissed haze on the brilliant tangerine and magenta leaves. Before, the wind seemed mean-cold and now felt spanking fresh and invigorating. Suddenly he could smell leaves and pumpkins, cider and cinnamon, the leather and wool of coats—maybe all those autumn scents had been there before, but he hadn’t noticed. And his hormones—the ones that had always been content to snooze through most male-female events—suddenly woke up and wanted to party.

Rachel dropped her hand and rocked back down on her heels, but her gaze still focused on his face in a studying way. “I’m not sure you’re even going to have any scars when it’s all healed, but right now you’ve still got places that look really painful,” she said gently. “The stitch marks, for one. But also, even though the swelling and bruising is way down, you have to still be feeling tender.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Maybe it’s small-potatoes-pain compared to what you’ve been through these last weeks. But it’s still not nothing. And I think it’s a good thing you’re not due back at work for another week yet.”

“Rach—?”

“What?”

He had a question he wanted to ask her, but somehow it completely flew out of his mind. The thing was, she was still standing close. Nothing fancy about her play clothes; she was just wearing an old barn jacket and jeans and boots, but everything about her was beautiful to him. The wind had put rouge in her cheeks, and her eyes always did look softer than velvet, and the breeze was teasing her hair, making those honey-blond strands flutter and curl around her face. She just looked...kissable.

And suddenly he remembered all those kisses she’d tortured him with in the hospital. Every time he’d had bandages and casts and tubes trapping him. He could never touch her back. He could never kiss her back.




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