Free That McCloud Woman by Peggy Moreland Page B

once he'd assured her he wasn't hurt, but she
kept it there. Her palm smoothed across his bare flesh, brushing away the dirt
and awakening nerves beneath the skin. Though her touch was light, tender,
filled with compassion, for some crazy reason Jack found its movements highly
erotic.
    She
hadn't touched him since that night on the pier—other than that brief contact
in the attic—and Jack hadn't made a move to touch her, either. Didn't dare.
They just danced around each other like boxers avoiding the next punch.
    But
she was touching him now.
    He
lay still as death, cussing himself for a fool in one breath for not brushing
her hand away, and praying with the next that she'd never stop her hand's
seductive play. She continued to stroke him, her palm shaping the hardened
lines of muscle, smoothing across the taut, flat plane of his stomach, slipping
over his side, then starting the journey all over again.
    When
her fingertips dipped into the shallow well of his navel, Jack couldn't stop
the groan of pleasure that swelled from deep inside him, any more than he could
prevent his abdominal muscles from tightening in response to her finger's
erotic play.
    Her
gaze snapped to his at the movement. Jack felt the heat that burned between
them, saw the need that turned her blue eyes to smoke.
    Though
he knew it was a mistake, he reached and covered her hand with his free one.
"Alayna."
    I'm not any good
at sex. He could see the words in her eyes as clearly as if they were written there. He
remembered the morning she'd told him that. Obviously she remembered that
morning, too, because she dropped her gaze from his, her cheeks flushed in
embarrassment.
    "I'm
sorry," she whispered and withdrew her hand from beneath his to curl it
into a fist on her thigh.
    She
drew in a ragged breath. "How bad is Captain Jinx?"
    Jack
wanted to tell her that it was okay to touch him, to beg her to touch him
again. But refrained. Neither of them needed the complication. Instead he took
the distraction she offered. If it was the coward's way out, so be it. Jack
wasn't there to win any medals. "I'm no vet, but I'd say he's pretty bad
off. Not unfixable. Just bad."
    She
pushed herself to her feet, still avoiding his gaze. "I'll call Sam. My
cousin. She's a vet."
    Jack
winced and turned his back to the makeshift table where the vet worked a suture
through the cat's tattered flesh, reattaching its ear. The cat was anesthetized.
Probably didn't feel a thing. But Jack felt every prick of the needle as if it
was piercing his own skin.
    "You're
Mandy's sister, right?" he asked, needing to take his mind off of what was
going on behind his back.
    "Yep.
And Merideth's. I don't think you've met her yet."
    Jack
stole a glance over his shoulder, winced again as the needle pierced the cat's
flesh, and turned his face away.
    "You
gonna faint on me?"
    Jack
chuckled at the question and wagged his head. "No. Just don't ask me to
help."
    "I'm
used to working alone."
    Jack
nodded, but didn't dare turn back around. "The cat's going to be okay,
isn't it? I mean, it would break Alayna's heart if he didn't make it. The
kid's, too."
    "He'll
make it. Not without a few new scars, but he'll make it."
    Jack
felt as if a hundred pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He may
not care for cats, but that didn't mean he wanted the animal to suffer … or the
humans who cared for it, for that matter. He frowned as his thoughts shifted to
Alayna.
    He
remembered the hand on his abdomen, the needs it had drawn, the look of
embarrassment on her face when she realized that she had kept her hand on his
flesh a moment too long. He remembered, too, the yearning he'd seen in her eyes
before she'd turned her face away. He didn't want her to suffer, but something
told him that she already had. Probably at the hand of her ex-husband.
    He
glanced over his shoulder again at Sam's bent head and decided she might just
be the one to answer a few of the questions he had about Alayna's