The Party Girl Read online

  “Enough.” Kendra dropped to her knees, taking in the twist of his mouth with a wince. That had to hurt, and as far as she knew, he’d taken nothing more than a few over-the-counter painkillers to cope. She softened her tone and placed a hand on his shoulder. “No one is going to think you’re less of a man if you stay in bed for a few days. Who are you trying to impress?”

  “I’m not an idiot. You can’t tell me what to do either.”

  And just like that, he cast all her good intentions up in a puff of hot air. No one brought out the worst in her quite as effectively as he did.

  Even though keys were one of the most disgusting breeding grounds for bacteria, Kendra took one for the team and shoved them down the front of her bra. Lincoln might not be very good at boundaries, but he knew better than to try and retrieve them by force. “Why do you want them so bad?”

  “Because I want to go home,” he said, teeth gritted against the pain.

  “No problem,” she said brightly. “Then I’ll either call you a cab or take you there myself.”

  He was one throbbing forehead vein away from a temper tantrum. “Why do you have to make everything so goddamn difficult? It’s my car. What I choose to do is none of your business.”

  “Not true. You made it my business when you showed up bleeding on my doorstep in the middle of the night.”

  He paused, watching her, looking for a chink in her determination. Too bad. He wasn’t going to find one. She was usually the one who took the brunt of the blame in situations like this—the hard-ass, the rule maker. Yes, even the bitch. But he’d thank her for it later, when gangrene didn’t settle in and he got to keep all his internal organs. They always thanked her for it later.

  “Fine. I’ll just walk home.”

  Sensing he might actually follow through with the threat, she ran to the door, blockading it with her body. There was probably a collection of people gathered outside, drawn by the sounds of Lincoln’s cries and the thumps of them trying to get the better of one another, but there wasn’t much she could do about it right now.

  “Sit down in that chair and take the pressure off your side. This is getting ridiculous. I’m calling Noah to come get you.”

  “You can’t. He doesn’t have a phone.”

  Kendra stared at Lincoln, sure he was joking. “What do you mean he doesn’t have a phone? Does he communicate via smoke signals?”

  “He doesn’t communicate at all. He’s off the grid. He doesn’t even own a car.”

  That would explain the hobbit house in the middle of nowhere and the mountain man look—but not at all how Lincoln was friends with him. “Then how did you get here?”

  He set his chin at a mulish angle. “I hitched a ride.”

  Only Lincoln. Kendra knew the smart thing to do in this situation would be to call Matt and have him come collect his wayward brother before he bled out all over the New Leaf facilities. The even smarter thing to do would be to take Lincoln to a doctor to get checked out for real this time. Unfortunately, intelligence seemed to have completely fled the building.

  She pointed a finger at Lincoln, her tone brooking no argument. “You’re going to remain in that chair while I go cancel my afternoon appointments. I’m taking you back to Noah’s house in your car, where I’ll have him stand guard over you if I have to. You can have your keys back when he gives you a clean bill of health and not one second earlier. Got it?”

  He smirked. The ungrateful little bastard smirked. “Go ahead and try. Noah isn’t in charge of me.”

  She breathed very carefully, in and out, hoping the air would clear her of the burning desire to pick up the phone and make this someone else’s problem. As the face of the non-surgical side of the practice, she was a firm believer in things like breathing and aromatherapy.

  In theory, anyway. She could really use a Xanax right about now.

  “Don’t touch anything until I get back, okay?”

  Lincoln sat on his hands in an exaggerated gesture as she exited her office to clue the receptionist in to her plans. As suspected, a few staff members lingered outside the door, pretending to be busy in a hallway that contained nothing but a stone fountain and an overwatered fern.

  “Anything I can help with?” Jared rounded the corner, looking competently militant with his lab-coat-covered arms crossed. John, their massage therapist and a man of formidable size, was at his heels, looking ready to shiatsu anyone who dared hurt her.

  Kendra waved them off, though she couldn’t help but feel a surge of affection for the pair. They’d all been friends for so long—been through so much together—she felt awful lying to them.

  “It’s no big deal, guys.” She slapped a cheerful smile on her face, letting none of her anxieties show. “I just need to drop Lincoln off at a friend’s house. Do either of you mind if I step out for the afternoon?”

  She should have come up with a better excuse. The look of incredulity that passed from masculine face to masculine face was impossible to ignore. “What? It’s not like you guys never leave early.”

  Until last summer, Jared had been the quintessential workaholic—worse, even, than her—but True Love had cured him of the worst of his overachieving. And John had been in a semi-stable relationship for months now, had even gone to Mexico last month on one of those all-expenses-paid cruises. Honestly, if any more of them succumbed to the lure of the four-letter curse, they’d have to close their doors for good. Sated sexual appetites were bad for business.

  “Are you sure everything is okay?” John asked, examining her carefully.

  “Everything is fine,” she lied. Then, because there was no way this wasn’t eventually making its way to Matt’s ears, she added, “Lincoln came over last night and was too, um, incapacitated to drive home. We’re sorting out the car situation.”

  The scenario held enough truth to pass both men’s radars. Satisfied that she’d be able to handle herself, they went about their work, leaving her free to cancel an appointment for the first time since she’d been there.

  She hadn’t even called in sick before. Or taken a vacation day.

  And there had definitely been one or two hangovers in there worthy of just such a treat.

  * * *

  Noah worked off the worst of his anxiety in the woodpile out behind his house. The heft of his axe and the sweat of exertion forced him to focus, the productivity giving his twingeing conscience a much-needed boost.

  Even though he’d already split enough logs to see him through the entire next year, there were still a few cords of wood stacked near the edge of the forest he called his own. He planned on hauling the extras to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson, his closest neighbors a few miles along the winding river path—always a self-serving gesture, as Marcia had a tendency to show her gratitude in the form of pie. Noah considered himself a decent enough cook, but he avoided any culinary feats that required more than five ingredients at a time. Pie from the outside was always welcome.

  The sound of a car pulling up broke through the underlying chatter of the chicken coop nearby, and he stopped midswing to wipe his gloved hand along his brow, surprise tightening his shoulders.

  Last night’s invasion to the contrary, visitors to his little patch of earth were a rarity—so much so that he could go weeks at a time without talking to another human being, his voice grown hoarse with underuse. He was never entirely disconnected, of course. It was impossible to exist without a regular influx of supplies being delivered, and people sometimes took a wrong turn and needed directions. He didn’t mind those visits. They were kind of nice, actually.

  Unfortunately, some visitors came searching for more. Revenge. Restitution. To look him in the eye and outline all the ways he’d ruined their lives.

  Those ones weren’t so nice.

  He embedded the axe into the stump and pulled his shirt back on, the thin
material clinging to his sticky skin. Unprepared for company as he was, it seemed better to wait and see if the new arrivals came to him—if maybe he could pretend not to be home—but the sound of bickering filled the air, drawing him inexorably forward.

  “I don’t care how many times you tell me you’re not in any pain. If you don’t sit right there and wait for Noah to come get you, I will show you what real pain feels like.”

  “I think I’ve suffered worse fates than being attacked by a girl.”

  “Lincoln, I remove body hair for a living. I know ways of making a grown man scream that your worst nightmares couldn’t even begin to touch.”

  Noah watched, damn near smiling, as Kendra posted herself outside Lincoln’s door in an attempt to prevent him from exiting the car. She was a small woman, but he doubted few men had the guts to cross her when she glared at them like that.

  He knew he sure as hell wouldn’t. A few hours he’d spent in Kendra’s company last night, and he’d already fallen prey to her strength of character—saw himself at her mercy in more ways than one. Odd how one stranger’s laughter could stir up so much feeling in a short space of time, how one bold look could yank him away from the quiet idylls of his secluded life and force him to question the ground he walked on.

  This was his ground, his land, his home. No one could take that away from him.

  “What is wrong with you?” Kendra saw him standing there and strode to join him, almost as if she owned the place, in defiance of the battle that took place underneath the surface of his skin. “How could you let Lincoln out of your sight?”

  At least she had decent clothes on this time. Noah had spent a very long, very tormented night on the lumpy futon, his eyelids seared with vibrant images of swirled orange silk and impossibly smooth limbs. He’d tried telling himself it was the forbidden nature of her that appealed to him, that his attraction was a matter of too much time spent alone in the woods and nothing more, but the truth stared him angrily in his face.

  Kendra was a stunning woman. The gray slacks and ruffled purple top she wore looked vaguely businesslike, though neither one did the least bit to hide the curvaceous body underneath. Bright gold shoes looked out of place on the dirt drive, and enough jewelry dangled from her ears and along her arms to scare off all the wildlife in the vicinity.

  She was polished. Perfect. Poised. Expensive.

  She was trouble. And he was pretty sure the lingering image of her breasts spilling over the top of silk would keep him awake for the rest of his life.

  “He left while I was out on a walk,” Noah said in his defense.

  “And that’s it?” A look of incredulity passed across her delicate features. “Your whole excuse is that it’s not your fault if Lincoln bleeds out on the side of a dirt road because you had a hot date with a woodpecker? You must be the worst caretaker of all time.”

  Noah had been called a lot worse. “What would you have done in my place? Sat on him?”

  She tossed her hair, the scent of her citrus perfume hitting him right in the gut. It was the same scent she’d worn the night before, lingering in the air long after she’d left for the night. Did she have to wear so damn much of it? It was unfair, immersing herself in a cloud of temptation when he was already fighting so hard against himself. Let Lincoln fall for the pretty ones, the confident ones, the dangerous ones.

  He’d had enough of that kind of woman to last him a lifetime.

  “I have my methods of persuasion.”

  Noah released a soft huff. He could imagine them all too well. “As intriguing as I’m sure your methods of persuasion are, I’m not so sure they’d mean the same coming from me.”

  She laughed, flashing a smile that caught him right in the center of his chest. Damn. That was a good smile—the kind of expression that transformed her from an untouchable beauty to someone real, someone he could see himself setting out to please, if only to catch sight of that warmth one more time.

  So he scowled. It was the only thing he could think of to keep himself from slipping even further under her spell. “If you think it’s possible to control Lincoln’s movements, you’re more than welcome to try. Short of tying him to the bed, there’s not much else I can do.”

  Her smile didn’t diminish any. “He’s a persuasive little bastard, isn’t he?”

  “He’s Lincoln.” There was no other way to explain it. Noah’s oldest friend lived according to his own moral code—a wavy, intangible thing with so many offshoots it had become an amorphous blob—and his history of decision making hadn’t always proved sound. But that was his charm. His charm and his curse.

  “At least help me get him inside.” Her eyes roamed over him as if noticing for the first time that he wore sweat-soaked clothes, his muscles tense as they came down from hard work. “He’s being stubborn.”

  “Of course he is.” Noah focused on his friend and not on Kendra’s appraisal, which was making him want to rip off his shirt and pound his chest. “Lincoln’s never cared much for my house.”

  That was a huge understatement. Lincoln had once been forced to spend an entire week here hiding out from a pair of thugs he’d relieved of their stolen car. In addition to no electricity except that provided by the solar panels mounted on the back of his house, Noah had nothing to entertain a man whose attention span ran on a sixty-second loop. No computer, no television, no radio—just a handful of books and a deck of cards. And plenty of wood to whittle, though history had proved that Lincoln and sharp objects weren’t the best of bedfellows.

  “Well, he obviously needs supervision,” Kendra said, her voice low. “He wanted to go for a joyride today, of all things. I refused to give him his keys until he’s healed—holding them captive was the only way I could get him to agree to come out here.”

  Despite his best efforts, Noah felt an amused smile creep across his face. “You know he could probably hotwire that car in under sixty seconds, right?”

  Her open mouth hinted that she hadn’t been aware of that particular skill set. Lincoln had many such skills—ones that could theoretically help him go far in the criminal world but merely made him a target among his boys-in-blue brethren.

  Kendra cast a look over her shoulder to where Lincoln sat in the passenger seat, cursing at his cell phone for not getting reception. “I swear, he’s like a child sometimes. Why didn’t he hotwire the damn thing instead of bothering me at work?”

  Noah just looked at her.

  “What? It’s not like I have oodles of time on my hands.”

  Was he really going to have to spell it out? Why were beautiful, difficult women always the last to realize the depths to which a man would go to gain their attention?

  “You have to take him,” she persisted, her voice a low hiss. “I don’t know what else to do. I can’t just leave him on his own. There’s no telling what he’ll go off and do, and Matt would never forgive me if anything happened to him.”

  “Maybe he’s hoping you’ll take him back to your house instead,” Noah prodded. If he had the choice, he’d definitely pick a ministering angel of Kendra’s build over his own sorry ass.

  She stared at him. “Why would I do that?”

  He shrugged again, but it was a studied movement, a gesture designed to deflect. The truth was, he’d also like Lincoln to stay where he could keep an eye on him. Things seemed to be getting worse for him at the police station lately—though it was hard to tell if the knife wound was a cause or a symptom of that.

  “He gets bored out here,” Noah said instead. “Crazy as it might sound, I think he might prefer the company of someone a little, uh, softer than me.”

  She seemed to zero in on his hands—the hardest and roughest parts of him—and he had to shove them behind his back to prevent them from doing something completely inappropriate and mind-blowingly divine to her body.

  “He w
ants softer?”

  “Yes. Not to mention somewhere he can recover in style.”

  Realization swept over her face, eliminating the look of bemusement and replacing it with wide-eyed incredulity. She took a step back. “Nuh-uh. No way. Absolutely not. He can’t stay with me.”

  “Because of your friend?” he asked carefully.

  “What friend? Oh—you mean Derek? No, he was just a one-time thing. I only meant that Lincoln’s not invited to do anything in my house that requires him to be horizontal.”

  Noah shouldn’t have felt relieved at those words. He shouldn’t have been flush with a warm, glowing pleasure. He should have been heartbroken for his friend, angered by her ignorance, annoyed at her insistence. Knowing what he did about how Lincoln felt for this woman, he should have buried every deep-seated impulse to whisk her into his arms and thrust his tongue into all the places it shouldn’t go.

  Instead, he just asked quietly. “Does he know that?”

  “Oh, he will. Give me thirty seconds.”

  Against his better judgment, Noah grabbed her hand. She stopped almost instantly, staring down at the place where they touched, palm to palm, skin to skin. He wasn’t sure if she felt it too—that strange, almost palpable pulse of heat between them—or if she was simply unused to being physically restrained by a near-stranger, but her whole being stilled.

  “You were right about him needing to be watched,” Noah said.

  Kendra stared at Noah’s hand, mesmerized by the pressure of those sinewy fingers against hers. How was it that one simple touch could be so commanding? She was used to men touching her—and used to touching men—and there was no part of the body that held any mystery for her anymore. It wasn’t just the nature of the esthetician trade, the endless facials and body wraps and hair removal from crevasses best left unexplored. She came from a large, affectionate family where hugging had been the rule rather than the exception. She also had affectionate friends, enjoyed affectionate affairs.