“You think of it as a weakness,” he said in disbelief. “Your injury.”

“It is a weakness. I’m your guide, I’m not supposed to be whining about a little residual pain.”

Putting his hands on her shoulders, he turned her back to face the tree again. Then he lifted her hands to the trunk and pressed gently, signaling that she was supposed to stay like that, just where he put her.

No one ever got to tell her what to do, and yet he did, and she’d let him-

He dug his fingers into the muscles of her shoulders, and ohmigod, all thoughts flew right out of her head because he hit it right on the nail. His fingers moved over her muscles, coaxing out the tension, and before she could stop it, also a throaty moan that horrified her with its neediness. She clamped her lips shut tight, but he just leaned in, putting his mouth to her ear. “Relax,” he said. “I’m good at this.”

He wasn’t kidding. She tried to relax, she really did, but she could feel his body just behind hers, not quite touching, but almost…

“Relax,” he said again. Those talented fingers moved up her neck and down her back and shoulders, unbelievably pulling out the tension and relieving the pain.

Not to mention melting her bones.

Seriously, if he kept this up, she was going to slip to the floor in a boneless heap, maybe even have an orgasm. Or maybe she’d just strip and beg him to take her.

“Good?” he asked.

“You must have girls falling all over themselves with this talent,” she managed.

His fingers went still for a beat, then resumed. “Yeah, I have them lining up at my door.”

Tipping her head back, she looked up at him.

“I’m not exactly a babe magnet,” he explained, and at her bemused look, he smiled. “Techno-geek, remember?”

“Well,” she said softly, oddly touched, her voice suddenly gruff. “Women can be extremely shortsighted.”

At that, his smile reached his eyes. “It doesn’t help that I used to work 24-7, without time for anything else. I’m trying to fix that.”

“What, being a techno-geek?”

He laughed. “Working 24-7.”

Reaching up, she ran her fingers through his hair. “You know what I think? That any woman who passed you over was an idiot.” Including herself.

“I pretty much fly under most women’s radar.”

It shamed her to know that he’d nearly flown under her radar. That she would have passed him by on the street without a second thought, shrugging him off as not her type, simply because his world was so different from hers. “Women need to be retrained from adolescence,” she decided. “The bad boys? Not where it’s at.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Thanks.” He set her hands back on the tree and resumed his incredible assault on her tense muscles, and pretty soon, she was a puddle at his feet. Another minute, or even less, and she was going to start drooling. “That’s good,” she managed. “Thanks.”

He didn’t take the hint and remove his hands from her. In fact, he kept at it until she could feel the last of her tight muscles loosen, until she could hardly remember her own name.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he said quietly, still massaging. “Better, huh?”

So much better that she had to lock her knees.

“You’re like a rock quarry.”

“I know.” She felt his gaze on her, and kept silent.

He didn’t. “So you fell off a cliff trying to fight an out-of-control forest fire, you nearly died, were told you’d never walk again-which you proved wrong by sheer wil-and…help me out here…you honestly think of it as something to be ashamed of.”

“No.”

“You do,” he said, putting his hands on her hips to turn her to face him, dipping down a bit when she tried to look away. “Seriously, Lily. Life’s too short for that kind of shit. Trust me. I know.”

She was eye level with his throat, which just this morning had been silky smooth, fresh from a shave. Now there was a day’s growth there, and suddenly he didn’t seem quite so neat and tidy. “There’s…something you don’t know about what happened to me.”

“What?”

“Before I slipped off the cliff, there’d been a fire.”

“I figured that, since you were there as a firefighter.”

“I was on mop-up duty. It was my job to make sure there were no flare-ups. And I fell asleep.”

“You were probably exhausted.”

“When I woke up, the fire had started again. That’s my fault. I missed a flare-up. I screwed up big-time, Jared.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Lily.”

“Yeah.” She looked away. Needed to look away. “Thanks for the massage.”

“But?”

She looked at him, and was caught by his wry smile. “But?”

“I’m pretty sure I heard a big but at the end of that sentence. Thanks for the massage, Jared, but you’re not my type…right?”

“You’re not,” she reminded them both.

“Look, I’m well aware of the fact that you’re totally out of my league.” He let out a rough laugh. “And only six months ago I’d have had to talk myself into trying for you. A year ago I’d never have even considered it.”

“Why not?”

“Because, like I said, I was an ordinary working stiff turned classic workaholic, who put in twenty-hour days, seven days a week. I was addicted to the office, to the work, to the adrenaline and excitement that comes from making money hand over fist. I wouldn’t have had time even to think about going out with you.”

“Why did you stop working like that?”

He looked away, a rare thing with him, and her stomach dipped, insinuating she knew, that whatever it was, it was bad. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

His smile was a tad crooked, and extremely endearing. “Don’t really want to know, huh?”

“I just have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”

“I got sick.”

Her stomach dipped again. “What happened, your boss fire you for missing a few days?”

“I’m my own boss,” he reminded her. “And I missed five months.”

She swallowed hard past the uncomfortable lump in her throat. Yeah. Definitely bad. “That must have been a helluva sickness.”

“It was cancer,” he said. “And I know this sounds clichéd, but I should have died and I didn’t. I cheated the Grim Reaper and because of that, I’m not the same anymore.”

“Cancer?” she whispered, and found her hands clutching his arms. “Are you…did you…”

“I’m recovered, heading toward remission.”

She couldn’t take her hands off him, as if he might vanish if she let go, and he seemed to understand the reaction, because he let out a little smile. “I’m okay, Lily.”

“Of course you are.” She tried to loosen her fingers so at least she wasn’t hurting him, but couldn’t. He felt okay, she assured herself. Beneath her fingers he was warm and strong. “My God, Jared. You must have been through so much.” She managed to let go of him to reach up and run a hand over his short, short hair.

“Yeah.” His smile went a little self-conscious as he ran his fingers over it. “That’s all new growth.”

And just like that, right then and there, she felt her heart catch. Oh, God. That couldn’t be good.

She hadn’t realized that she’d put a hand over her aching heart until he took her fingers in his. “Mostly,” he said. “I learned, along with the newfound humility, and how much being sick sucks, that life is damn precious. I missed too much of it, Lily. No more.”

She couldn’t tear her eyes off him either. More, she found she had to hear him say it again. “You’re…fine though. Right?”

“Very,” he assured her.

Still staring at him, she let out a long breath. “Okay. Okay, then.” She breathed some more. “Wow. That word sort of just grabs you by the throat. Cancer.”

“Not many people actually use the word in front of me,” he admitted. “I hate that.”

“Cancer.” She fisted both hands in his shirt. “Cancer. It’s just a word, not so scary, right?”

He smiled, and cupped her face. “I’m really okay, Lily.”

She resisted the childish urge to make him promise. “So…it changed you.”

“You saw my list.”

“Yes.” And now the significance of it made so much more sense.

“I wrote it on the day I decided not to die.”

She wanted to flinch from that word, but refused, for him. She imagined him in the hospital, writing that list, not sure if he was going to live to do those things on it. It grabbed her by the throat and held tight. To combat it, she bent for the two pots she’d cleaned in the river.

“Actually,” he said. “I’ve thought of a new addition to the list.”

“What’s that?”

He smiled and nudged her backwards against the tree again. “To be with a fiercely independent, prideful, tough as hell, prickly, oblivious-to-her-own-appeal woman.”

“Jared-”

“You, Lily.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “I want to be with you.”

She felt her insides melt away. She’d been so busy trying to be strong, and had always wanted a guy with that same obvious strength. But here the quiet, easygoing guy had turned out to be the one with the strength-the inner strength.

And it was more arousing than any show of muscles had ever been. “By be with, you mean-”

“Well, this for starters.”

And pressing her up against the rough bark, he kissed her, long and hard and wet, and ohmigod, like he was never going to let her go, and at the moment, that worked for her, it really worked.

8

KISSING LILY was like…well, Jared didn’t really know because there was nothing like it. Nothing. He experienced the unique, rushing thrill of hearing her drop the two pots at her feet, as if she couldn’t concentrate on both his mouth and a single other thing.

Oh, yeah, he liked that.

And then there was the way her hands came up and sank in his barely-there hair, tight, like maybe she didn’t want him to get away until she was completely finished with him.