Kiss Your Prince Charming. Jennifer Greene
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Название: Kiss Your Prince Charming
Автор: Jennifer Greene
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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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 СКАЧАТЬ