turned on, and the image that planted in his head needed to be erased. Fast. So he decided to work out with his hanging punchbag in his screened-in patio, which he used as a makeshift gym. He changed clothes and headed to the back of the house, turned on a John Coltrane set, his favorite music to hit the bag with, and got down to working out.
With his hands up, chin tucked in, he first moved in and out around the bag, utilizing his footwork, warming up, moving the bag, pushing it and dancing around, getting his balance. With bare hands he threw his first warm-up punches, slap, slap, slap, working the bag, punching more. The stitches across his rib cage pulled and stung a little, but probably wouldn’t tear through his skin. Though after the first few punches he checked to make sure. They were healing and held the skin taut that was all.
As his session heated up, so did the wild saxophone music. He pulled off his T-shirt and got more intense, beating the hell out of the innocent bag where he mentally pasted every wrong the world had ever laid at his feet. His wife sleeping with his best friend, the lies about her baby being his. The divorce. He worked through the usual warm-up, heating up quickly. Then he pounded that bag for women abused by boyfriends and innocent victims who got mugged after getting off buses. Wham. He hit that bag over and over, pummeling it, his breath huffing, sweat flying. Thump, bam, whump!
“Excuse me, Joseph?”
Jolted, he halted in mid-punch, first stabilizing the punchbag so it wouldn’t swing back and hit him, then shifted his gaze toward Carey. She had on different jeans, and one of his sister’s bright pink cotton tops, and her wet hair was pulled up into a ponytail, giving her a wholesome look. Which he thought was sexy.
“Oh. Hey. Call me Joe. Everything okay?” he asked, out of breath.
“That music sounds like fighting.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the jazz.
“Oh, sorry, let me turn it off.” That’s why he liked to work out with Coltrane, it got wild and crazy, often the way he felt.
Her gaze darted between his naked torso and his sweaty face. “I was just wondering if I could make a sandwich.”
“Of course. Help yourself to anything. I’ve got cold cuts in the fridge. There’s some fruit, too.”
“Thanks.” Her eyes stayed on his abdomen and he felt the need to suck it in, even though he didn’t have a gut. “You know you’re bleeding?”
He glanced down. Sure enough, he’d tugged a stitch too hard and torn a little portion of his skin. “Oh. Didn’t realize.” He grabbed his towel and blotted it quickly.
“Did you get hurt when you helped me?”
“Yeah, the jerk sliced me with his knife.” Still blotting, he looked up.
Her eyes had gone wide. “You risked your life for me? I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, I didn’t risk my life.” Had he? “I was just doing my job.”
“Do paramedics usually fight guys with blades in their hands?”
“Well, maybe not every day, but it could happen.” He flashed a sheepish grin over the bravado. “At least, it has now.”
Her expression looked so sad he wanted to hug her, but they hardly knew each other.
“Thank you.” He sensed she also meant she was sorry.
“Not a problem. Glad to do it.” He waited to capture her eyes then nodded, wanting to make sure she understood she deserved nothing less than someone saving her from an alley attacker. They stood staring at each other for a moment or two too long, and since he was the one who always got caught up in the magic of her eyes, she looked away first. Standing in his boxing shorts, shirtless, he felt like he’d been caught naked winning that staring match.
“So...I’m going to make that sandwich.” She pointed toward the door then led into the small kitchen, just around the corner from the dining area and his patio, while he assessed his stitches again. Yeah, he’d taken a knife for her, but the alternative, her getting stabbed by a sleazebag and maybe left to die, had been unacceptable.
The woman had a way of drumming up forgotten protective feelings and a whole lot more. Suddenly the house felt way too small for both of them. How was he going to deal with that while she stayed here?
Maybe one last punch to the bag then he promised to stop. Thump! The stitches tugged more and smarted. He hated feeling uncomfortable in his own house and blamed it on the size. He’d thought about selling it after Angela had agreed to leave, but the truth was he liked the neighborhood, it was close enough to work, and most of his family lived within a ten-mile radius. And why should he have to change his life completely because his wife had been unfaithful? Okay, one last one-two punch. Whump, thump. Ouch, my side. He grabbed his towel again and rubbed it over his wringing-wet hair.
One odd thought occurred to him as he dried himself off. When was the last time a woman had seen him shirtless? His ex-wife Angela had left a year ago, and was a new mother now. Good luck with that. He hadn’t brought anyone home since she’d left, choosing to throw himself into his expanding business and demanding job rather than get involved with any poor unsuspecting women. He was angry at the world for being sterile, and angrier at the two people he’d trusted most, his wife and his best friend. Where was a guy supposed to go from there? Ah, what the hell. He punched the bag again. Wham thud wham.
“Would you like a sandwich?”
Not used to hearing a female voice in his house, it startled him from his down spiraling thoughts. A woman, a complete stranger no less, was going to be staying here for an indeterminate amount of time. Had he been crazy to offer? Two strangers in an eleven-hundred-square-foot house. That was too damn close, with hardly a way to avoid each other. Hell, their bedrooms were only separated by a narrow hallway and the bathrooms. What had he been thinking? His stomach growled. On the upside, she’d just offered to make him a sandwich.
Besides everything he was feeling—the awkwardness, the getting used to a stranger—he could only imagine she felt the same. Except for the unwanted attraction on his part, he was quite sure that wasn’t an issue for her—considering her situation, she must feel a hell of a lot more vulnerable. He needed to be on his best behavior for Carey. She deserved no less.
“Yes, thanks, a sandwich sounds great.” Since the bleeding had stopped, he tossed on his T-shirt after wiping his chest and underarms, then joined her in the kitchen.
“Do you like lettuce and tomato?”
“Whatever you’re having is fine. I’m easy.” His hands hung on to both sides of the towel around his neck.
“I never got morning sickness, like most women do. I’ve been ravenous from the beginning, so you’re getting the works.”
She was tallish and slender, without any sign of being pregnant, and somehow he found it hard to believe she ate too much. “Sounds good. Hey, I thought I’d barbecue some chicken tonight. You up for that?”
She turned and shared a shy smile. “Like I said, I’m always hungry, so it sounds good to me.”
He got stuck on the smile that delivered a mini sucker punch and didn’t answer right away. “Okay. It looks like it’ll be nice out, so I thought we could eat outdoors on the deck.” He needed to put some space between them, and it wouldn’t feel as close or intimate out there. Just keep telling yourself she’s wearing your sister’s clothes. Your sister’s clothes.
He’d done a lot with his backyard, putting in a garden and lots of shrubbery for privacy’s sake from his neighbors, plus he’d built his own cedar-plank deck and was proud of how it’d turned out. It had been one of the therapeutic projects he’d worked on during the divorce.
The houses had been built close together in this neighborhood back in the nineteen-forties. He liked to refer to it as his start-up house, had once planned to start his family in it, too. Too bad it had been someone else’s family that had gotten started here.
Fortunately,