A Wolff at Heart. Janice Maynard

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СКАЧАТЬ wasn’t exactly pleasant, but she was distracted by Pierce’s closeness. She was practically leaning on his shoulder. If she was so inclined, she could ruffle his thick hair with her fingers. Feeling hot and shaky and breathless, she watched him wrap gauze around her foot and tape it with the neat precision of a trained medic.

      At last he stood, his big body dwarfing hers in the cramped confines of the bathroom. “That should do the trick. At least you’ll be able to wear a shoe over the bandage.”

      She backed up against the sink, feeling her pulse race. “Thank you. I’m sure it will be fine.” He was staring at her mouth, and she wondered if she had onion ring residue stuck to her chin.

      “Are you ready?”

      Her abdomen tightened as little zings of excitement danced through her veins. “For what?”

      A tiny smile tilted one corner of his mouth, as if he could see what she was thinking. “Dinner. Steak.”

      She swallowed, her mouth dry. “Oh, sure. Yes. Of course.” She eased away from him and out into the hall. “Thanks for the medical attention.”

      “No problem.”

      In the kitchen, he insisted she park herself at the table while he dished up their steak, baked potatoes and Caesar salad onto attractive earthenware plates. Just as he sat down, she popped up. “We haven’t printed out the hospital records.”

      He took her wrist and pulled her back into her seat. “We’re not at a restaurant. We have all evening. You can do that while I’m cleaning up dinner. We can sit together on the sofa and spread everything on the coffee table.”

      “Okay.” She subsided into her chair and cut into her steak. It was cooked perfectly, and they ate in silence for several minutes. Often she grabbed dinner on the fly or ate at her desk at home while she worked on case files. She had forgotten how pleasant it could be to share a meal with a man.

      She debated her next question, but she wanted to know. “How is your father doing?”

      Pierce froze, fork halfway to his mouth, before he set it down and took a long drink of his wine. “Stable,” he said tersely. “I spent a couple of hours with him this morning. My mother hopes to be able to take him home in the next day or so.”

      “And then what?”

      Pierce frowned, his gaze not on her, but on some unseen scenario that made him upset. “More waiting.”

      “When do you plan to tell him the truth?”

      “When we know he’s strong enough to handle it. And it would be a hell of a lot easier if I had more to say than ‘The reason I’m not a match is because I’m not your son.’ How do you tell a man that his only child isn’t really his?”

      “He’s still your father. He raised you...loved you.”

      Pierce stabbed a bite of meat as if it deserved punishment. “I know all that. But blood ties go beyond simple reasoning. It’s something primeval. I never realized how true that was until I had it torn away from me.”

      The conversation had taken a turn that curled Nikki’s stomach. “Families are about love. When someone chooses to love you, you’re connected, blood or no blood. Ask anyone who has adopted a child.”

      He looked stricken. “God, Nikki, I’m sorry. Were you adopted?”

      The irony of the question tightened her throat. “No. No, I wasn’t.”

      Pierce ate the last of his dinner and drank a second glass of wine while she finished her meal. He rolled the stem of his glass between his fingers, his expression grim. “If it was left up to me, we’d drop the whole thing. I don’t need to pursue this.”

      “You say that now, but it would eat away at you. Some questions never go away.”

      His gaze sharpened. “Sounds like the voice of experience speaking.”

      She shrugged. “Lawyers see a lot of stuff people don’t want to admit. Trust me, Pierce. You can’t merely close your eyes and pretend this never happened. Sooner or later, you’re going to want answers.”

      “Which is why I have you.” He stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over his chair. “My office is upstairs. If you have trouble with email or the printer, let me know.” He paused. “Do you need help walking?”

      “No,” she said. “I can manage without you.”

      * * *

      Pierce rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, barely noticing what he was doing. In a few minutes, he was about to discover what might be an awful, terrible secret. If someone had asked him a few weeks ago, he would have said the only thing that scared him was the thought of his father dying. Now he had to acknowledge there were far worse scenarios.

      The selfish part of him wanted to pursue this attraction he felt for Nikki Parrish. She was smart and driven and damned sexy. His gut told him they would be good together. But he needed Nikki’s brain and skills more than he needed to sleep with her. At least for the moment.

      He wanted to go upstairs and hover. But suddenly it was important to make her believe that he was in control. That he wasn’t an emotional mess. He didn’t need her pity. Though, in truth, he was pretty sure she knew how close to the edge he was. He’d tried getting up each morning and pretending his life was normal, but that was a huge lie.

      Distracting himself by flirting with Nikki might work for a moment here and there, and contemplating the escape of sexual oblivion was tempting. But she deserved better, and until he could make sense of his screwed-up life, he should do the honorable thing and leave her alone.

      Touching her could rapidly become an addiction. Even in a decidedly nonsexual situation like patching up her poor injured foot, he’d been hyperaware of her scent, her soft skin, her slender body. There was something so feminine about her. Which was funny, really, because she’d made it clear that she was strong and capable and didn’t want to admit that a man could do things she couldn’t...even if it was something as basic as lifting heavy furniture.

      His head jerked up at the sound of her feet on the stairs. He met her at the bottom. “Well?”

      She held up a sheaf of papers. “This is going to take a while.”

      Sighing, he held out a hand and motioned to the sofa. “Then let’s get started. The sooner I know, the better.” Suddenly, a thought struck him. “I’m paying you for your time,” he said.

      Nikki sat and fanned out four piles. “You helped me move, remember?”

      “Our agreement was that I help you move and you give me an appointment.”

      Her smile hit him low in the belly. It was luminous, teasing.

      She curled her right leg beneath her and sat gingerly, babying her hurt foot. “What if we call this a pro bono consultation? I’ve taken a personal interest in your case. And as of noon today, I am officially off the clock for six weeks.”

      “You don’t owe me anything. We barely know each other.”

      “Well,” СКАЧАТЬ