But Mr. Worth clearly felt guilty about something connected to Jacob, and Ria couldn’t help but wonder what it was.
Plus she hated the thought of Jacob being unhappy. No matter what he’d done, she’d loved him a lot, and those feelings linger, far longer than we ever want them to.
She was saying goodbye to Martha when she heard a pounding sound from somewhere below her. “What’s that?”
“Jacob. Working in the basement. Place is a mess. He’s been trying to fix some things up.”
“Oh.” She paused, feeling like she was torn in two.
“You wanna say hi to him? You can go on down.” Martha wasn’t a lady who smiled very often, but her eyes looked almost sympathetic now. Like maybe she could see how torn Ria was.
The last thing Ria wanted was another awkward conversation with Jacob, but there was a compulsion inside her that she couldn’t deny.
It was pulling her. Hard.
Pulling her toward Jacob.
So she finally nodded. “Okay. I guess I will.”
JACOB HAD BEEN WORKING in the basement of the old house for most of the day.
Not only was it stuffed full of decades’ worth of junk, but it was also in woeful disrepair. It leaked in all four corners of the basement. Support beams were rotting, and the cracks in the cement floor were appalling.
This was far more than a one-man job, but Jacob had nothing better to do with his time, so he figured he’d start on some of the most basic repairs.
It was late afternoon and he was replacing one of the beams when a voice from behind him startled him.
“Jacob.”
He knew the voice. Knew the sound of her saying his name. Heard it sometimes in his sleep.
Whirling around with his heart in his throat, he saw Ria standing a few steps up from the bottom of the stairs.
He dropped his hammer with a loud clatter. The beam he was working on started to fall too, but he clumsily managed to grab it and hold it in place.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Ria’s pretty face twisted as she registered his shock. “I didn’t mean to surprise you. Here, let me help.”
She hurried down the last few steps but didn’t count on the mess on the basement floor. Her foot landed on an ancient newspaper that had fluttered off the four-foot-tall pile of them nearby. She slipped. Wobbled as she tried to keep her balance. Then went down, landing hard on her butt.
“Shit,” Jacob muttered, hurrying over to her in alarm.
The beam he’d been holding crashed down onto the cement.
Ria had cried out as she slipped. Then she winced at the crash from his dropped beam. She looked stunned and pained as he reached her and knelt down beside her on the floor.
But then she seemed to process the ridiculous debacle. He saw the succession of expressions on her face. Heard a choked-off laugh.
“It’s not funny,” he muttered, his heart still pounding from the fear of watching her fall and his cheeks warming at the ridiculous figure he must have made. “You could have really hurt yourself.”
“I didn’t. I just slipped on a stupid newspaper.” Her shoulders shook with repressed amusement. “You didn’t have to drop everything—including the ceiling supports—and rush over to save me.”
“It was just a beam. I think the ceiling will hold.” He was relaxing now. Almost smiling at the warm amusement and ironic resignation spilling out of her eyes. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Just bruised my... pride.” Despite her words, she winced visibly as she tried to get up.
He watched her closely as he helped her to her feet. Then he stiffened as he saw a trail of blood running down her leg. “You’re bleeding!”
She looked down at herself, clearly trying to process what had happened to her. “Am I? I don’t know— Oh.” She pulled her skirt up slightly to reveal a cut on the side of her slim thigh. “It’s from that old bed frame. Must have hit it as I went down. What’s it doing in the middle of the floor like that?”
“I have no idea. The whole place is a hazard. It needs months’ worth of work. I’m really sorry you got hurt.”
He was sorry. And worried about her. And also ridiculously gratified that she was talking to him like this. Naturally. For real.
And his body was also noticing the delicious lines of her bare legs.
What the hell was wrong with him? Getting turned on when she was obviously hurt.
“I’m okay. Just need a couple of Band-Aids, I think.” She slanted him a little look that was still so familiar, even though he hadn’t seen it in years. “And maybe an ice pack for my ass.”
He choked on a laugh and put an arm around her to guide her back to the stairs. “Let’s go fix you up.”
RIA’S BUTT WAS REALLY hurting. She’d landed hard. And now that the shock was wearing off, the cut on her thigh was starting to sting as well.
But she was also buzzing with excitement at the feel of Jacob’s arm around her.
Which was ridiculous.
She shouldn’t be feeling that way. She didn’t like the man anymore. Yes, he was hot. Of course he was hot. He was even hotter than she remembered with his broad shoulders, big arms, and scarred, tanned skin. That cleft in his chin. The way his jeans molded the thick muscles of his thighs. There was no one in the world hotter than him.
But you didn’t get excited about a man you didn’t like.
Right?
Surely that wasn’t how it was supposed to work.
She went upstairs and down the hall with him until they ended up in the kitchen. She sat in the chair he indicated and accepted the wad of damp paper towels he offered her before he left to get some bandages.
She mopped up the blood on her thigh, relieved that the cut wasn’t very deep. It wouldn’t need stitches or anything.
When Jacob returned, he knelt on the floor and, without asking, applied antibiotic cream to the cut before he covered it with three Band-Aids.
She watched him, her breath caught in her throat. He was so close she could smell him—effort and soap and the still-familiar scent of Jacob. There was a sheen of sweat on his skin. She could see it glinting in the artificial light of the room. He was breathing quickly. His shoulders rose and fell as he worked.
She was shaking and she didn’t know why.
“Does it hurt really bad?” Jacob asked after a minute, more gravel than normal in his voice.
“No. I’m okay.” She wished she didn’t sound quite so breathless.
He looked up at her face, still kneeling beside her chair. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was the mess in our basement.”
“Again, not your fault.”
His eyes looked steel gray at the moment. Strangely soft as they gazed up at her.
She could no more restrain the impulse than she could keep the sun from rising. She reached out and let her fingers trail along the line of the long scar on his jaw. “How did you get this?”
He sucked in his breath audibly at the first touch of her fingers. He held himself very still. “It was a line on a fishing boat. In a storm.”
“It looks terrible.”
“It could have killed me.”
“Really?” Her chest ached at the thought. At the idea of there being no more Jacob Worth in the world. “I’m glad it didn’t.” The pads of her fingers were still gently stroking his scar.