Husband Needed. Cathie Linz
mental image switched from him lying on the bedroom floor, to him lying in the bathroom, his chest bare...perhaps even all of him bare.
“Oh, great, that’s very helpful,” she muttered under her breath. “Having steamy fantasies about your client when the poor man is injured and could be in trouble.”
So what should she do? Knock on the bathroom door and make sure he was okay? Let him know she was there? She certainly didn’t want him walking out of the bathroom nude or anything. He seemed the type to do just that. Yet she didn’t want to startle him, either. He might slip in the shower and break his other leg.
Putting her ear to the door, she heard him singing. Okay, that meant he wasn’t in trouble. In fact, his voice wasn’t half-bad. Neither was the rest of him. The rebellious thought slipped into her mind before she could stop it.
“That’s enough of that,” she muttered under her breath. “Get your mind out of the shower!”
In the end, Kayla decided to write a note telling him she was there. She taped it to the bathroom door. She’d no sooner done that than the phone started ringing. Expecting an answering machine to pick up, she waited for seven rings before the noise drove her crazy, forcing her to answer it herself. She’d never been able to just ignore a ringing phone—after all, it might be an important call.
“Mr. Elliott’s residence,” she said briskly, juggling the six-pack of soda she was trying to place into the fridge at the same time.
“Who is this?” a woman’s voice demanded. “Where is Jack?”
Wishing now that she hadn’t answered the phone, Kayla said, “He’s in the shower.”
“In the shower?” the woman repeated in disbelief. “What kind of answer is that?”
“The best one I’ve got,” Kayla retorted. “May I tell him who’s calling?”
“Misty. And have him call me back as soon as he gets out!”
“Fine. Does he have your number?”
“Honey, he knows me inside and out,” the woman purred before hanging up.
Kayla had no sooner hung up the phone than it rang again. She’d automatically picked it up before realizing what she’d done. “Hello?” she said before belatedly tacking on, “Elliott residence.”
“Oh, my, you’re not Jack!” Caller number two had a husky female voice that was made all the more sultry by a Southern accent.
“That’s right,” Kayla said cheerfully. “I’m not Jack.”
“Which girl are you?” the woman asked. “You don’t sound like the snippy attorney who was chasing him last week. And you’re not the waitress with the English accent, either.”
Kayla began wondering if that was how Jack had broken his leg, from being chased by endless lines of women.
“Mr. Elliott is unavailable at the moment,” Kayla stated. “May I take a message for him?”
“Tell him Mandy is worried about him and willing to drop everything to come on over there to take care of him. He just has to say the word and I’ll be right there.”
“I’ll tell him.”
By the time Jack came out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a smile and a pair of running shorts, Kayla had collected a stack of nearly half a dozen messages—all from women with names that rhymed.
“You got calls from Misty and Mandy, Tammy and Sammy, Barbie and Bobbie,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.
“What are you laughing at?” he demanded defensively.
“Nothing.” Her earlier amusement disappeared as the details of his appearance belatedly sank in with her.
He’d looked good before but now...now he was raw masculinity incarnate. More of him was bare than was covered. He was a throwback to another age, a time when men survived by their physical strengths.
Although solidly built, there wasn’t an ounce of extra flesh on him. Dark hair covered his chest, trailing down from collarbone to navel, but not so thick that she couldn’t see the ridges of muscles beneath. He radiated presence and power—a knight minus his shining armor.
Which left her as what...a damsel in distress? Realizing she’d been holding her breath since he’d walked in the kitchen, she belatedly inhaled. She could smell the fresh scent of his soap. Her gaze fastened on the single droplet of water slowly meandering down toward the waistband of his running shorts, which clung to his still-damp lower torso.
The silence was deafening as Kayla heard the increased pounding of her own heartbeat. She saw the way his chest rose and fell. Was he breathing faster, too? Her eyes lifted to meet his. Only then did she realize how pale he was.
Quickly gathering her wits, Kayla asked, “Uh...are you supposed to be taking a shower so soon after breaking your leg? When did you break your leg, anyway?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday!” His answer evaporated her steamy fantasies as concern took their place. “And you’re singing in the shower today? Are you crazy?”
“Probably,” he muttered, grimacing at the pain shooting up his right leg.
“A three-year-old would have more sense! Here, you’d better sit down before you fall down,” she said, scooting a kitchen chair over to him.
“I’m not an invalid,” he snapped.
“No. You’re an idiot!” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
She immediately clapped her hand to her lips with such a look of guilt that Jack had to smile.
“No, don’t hold back,” he teased her. “Go ahead and tell me what you really think.”
“I think you should sit down.”
“I’ll never get used to these stupid crutches by sitting down.”
“What’s your hurry? Didn’t the doctor tell you to take things easy for the first few days?”
“I’ve had emergency medical training. I know what I’m doing. What are your qualifications?” he growled irritably. Willing himself past the pain wasn’t working, and the pain medication the doctor had prescribed made him too damn groggy.
“I broke my leg once. When I was ten,” Kayla told him.
“Oh, and I suppose that makes you an expert?”
“Are you always this grouchy or does a broken leg bring out the worst in you?” she inquired in exasperation. Remembering that he hated anyone fussing over him, she deliberately focused her attention on unpacking the remaining groceries.
“Very funny.”
“Not really,” Kayla replied, opening a cabinet and finding it empty except for... She held up two plastic bags of dried beans. “Having nothing to eat in the kitchen but lentils, now that’s funny.”
“I don’t know how they even got in the kitchen,” Jack muttered. Deciding enough time had passed to make his point—that he wasn’t a weakling who obeyed orders—he carefully made his way the three steps to the kitchen chair, hoping it didn’t look like he collapsed into it. “I hate lentils,” he said, before reaching over and snagging a clean T-shirt from the laundry basket on the kitchen table.
“Maybe one of your girlfriends brought them for you,” Kayla said, trying not to notice the way his muscles rippled as he lifted his arms to tug the T-shirt over his head. The movement ruffled his still-damp dark hair, adding to his roguish appearance.
“None of my girlfriends know how to cook,” Jack replied.
“Really? You mean you weren’t attracted to them because of their culinary