One Day in Apple Grove(48)
Tears filled her eyes as the thought of him being in so much pain speared through her. “You must have been in agony.”
He brushed at the first tear that fell. “I was…it still bothers me.”
“All the time, or when the weather changes?”
Before he could answer her, she added, “Mr. Weatherbee’s always complaining that he can tell when a storm’s coming because the wrist he broke as a kid starts to hurt.”
He brushed his thumb along the curve of her cheek and then the fullness of her bottom lip. “There’s something you need to know.”
“Oh Lord, is there still shrapnel in your leg?”
“Legs,” he corrected. “Some, not as much as there used to be. It took a couple of operations to remove the worst of it.”
“But didn’t I hear you and my brother-in-law talking about running together?”
“Yeah.”
“How can you run if it still hurts?”
“I run early in the day when my leg is strong. After standing most of the day, it bothers me.”
Looking at the way he frowned, she urged him to sit. “You should rest.” Worry for him was eating her alive. “Do you need an aspirin? Glass of water?”
“Cait, please!” he said, tugging until she stopped trying to force him to sit on the couch. “I wanted to tell you about the scars before you saw them.”
“Oh, OK.”
He paused and then whispered, “They’re hideous.”
She wanted to throw her hands up in the air but knew that was too dramatic, and she didn’t want him to think she was flippant when he was baring his soul to her. Finally, she shrugged, and said, “They’re scars. They’re not supposed to be pretty.”
He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again and shook his head.
“What?” she demanded, starting to get ticked. Was he was worried she’d bail if she saw his scars? “Did you really think I’d change my mind about making love with you once I saw your scars?”
“Others have.”
“Well, I have news for you, Jackie boy,” she bit out. “I’m not like anyone else.”
“Amen to that,” he said.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Not on your life, babe,” he said, kissing her until her toes curled and her head felt light. “I just wanted to prepare you before you saw them, but you got to my head so fast, I forgot until it was almost too late.”
Taking back control, she needed to show him, without words, how she felt. She pushed out of his arms, flipped open the snap of her jeans, and shimmied them over her hips and let them fall to the floor. “I’ve got scars on both knees from falling on them so often as a kid. It’s why I don’t wear skirts too often unless they come below the knee.”
He started to speak, but she held up her hand. “And here,” she said, pointing to her right side, “is the scar I have from when they took out my appendix.” Before he could respond, she lifted the braid off the back of her neck and turned so he could see. “And here is where I fell on a rock when I was a kid. Knocked me out cold and bled like crazy…don’t remember how many stitches that took to close it up. But my dad turns green if I try to ask him, so I just let it go.”
“Cait,” he said quietly—twice before she answered him.
“What?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
She threw her arms around him and nearly died with pleasure feeling the brush of his crisp chest hair against her breasts, and the bulge behind his zipper, but it was the wild beat of his heart that had her asking, “So will you trust me with your scars, since I showed you mine?”
He leaned his forehead against hers, drew in a breath, eased back, and unzipped his jeans. Pausing with his hands hooked in the waistband, he was undone by the tender look on Cait’s face…it encouraged him. He shoved his pants down his legs and kicked them aside.
Cait held her hand out to him, beckoning him.
Could she see the mass of scars, riddling his leg, pinching the skin where it should be smooth? He held his breath.
She stepped closer and locked gazes with him as she trailed the tips of her fingers along his shoulders, then down his torso, stopping at his hips.
Before he could guess her intention, she knelt and pressed her mouth to the middle of his thigh and the tangled web of scar tissue.
His breath whooshed out and his head felt light as her tongue traced the meandering path, the sunburst pattern—the reminder of the agonizing day he tried to put behind him.
He thought she’d stop there and wasn’t prepared when her tongue detoured to his hipbone across to his navel, where she dipped her tongue in before retreating back to his scarred leg.