Free Crossed Hearts (Matchmaker Trilogy) by Barbara Delinsky

wearing his sweater. It was far too large for her, of course, and she’d rolled the sleeves to a proper length, but the way it fell around her shoulders and breasts was far more suggestive than he’d have dreamed. She looked adorable. And unsure.
    He gestured toward the sofa. With a tight smile, she took possession of a corner cushion, drew up her knees and tucked her feet beneath her. That was when he caught sight of the tear in her slacks.
    “How’s the leg?”
    “Okay.”
    “Did you change the dressing?”
    “No.”
    “Have you looked under it?”
    “I’d be able to see if something was oozing through the gauze. Nothing is.”
    She hadn’t looked, he decided. Either she was squeamish, or the gash didn’t bother her enough to warrant attention. He wanted to know which it was.
    Facing her on the sofa, he eased back the torn knit of her slacks.
    “It’s fine. Really.”
    But he was quickly tugging at the adhesive and, less quickly, lifting the gauze. “Doesn’t look fine,” he muttered. “I’ll bet it hurts like hell.” With cautious fingertips he probed the angry flesh around the wound. Leah’s soft intake of breath confirmed his guess. “It probably should have been stitched, but the nearest hospital’s sixty miles away. We wouldn’t have made it off the mountain.”
    “It’s not bleeding. It’ll be okay.”
    “You’ll have a scar.”
    “What’s one more scar.”
    He met her eyes. “You have others?”
    Oh, yes, but only one was visible to the naked eye. “I had my appendix out when I was twelve.”
    He imagined the way her stomach would be, smooth and soft, warm, touchable. When the blood that flowed through his veins grew warmer, he tried to imagine an ugly line marring that flesh, but couldn’t. Nor, at that moment, could he tear his eyes from hers.
    Pain and loneliness. That was what he saw. She blinked once, as though to will the feelings away, but they remained, swelling against her self-restraint.
    He saw, heard, felt. He wanted to ask her, to tell her, to share the pain and ease the burden. He wanted to reach out.
    But he didn’t.
    Instead, he rose quickly and strode off, returning moments later with a tube of ointment and fresh bandages. When he’d dressed the injury to his satisfaction, he replaced the first-aid supplies in the cupboard, took a down vest, then a hooded rain jacket from the closet, stepped into a pair of crusty work boots and went out into the storm.
    Leah stared after him, belatedly aware that she was trembling. She didn’t understand what had happened just then, any more than she’d understood it when it had happened the night before. His eyes had reflected every one of her emotions. Could he know what she felt?
    On a more mundane level, she was puzzled by his abrupt departure, mystified as to where he’d be going in the rain. A short time later she had an answer when a distinct and easily recognizable sound joined that of the steady patter on the roof. She went to the window and peered out. He was across the clearing, chopping wood beneath the shelter of a primitive lean-to.
    Smiling at the image of the outdoorsman at work, she returned to the sofa. While she directed her eyes to the fire, though, she wasn’t as successful with her thoughts. She was wondering how the hands of a woodsman, hands that were callused, fingers that were long and blunt, could be as gentle as they’d been. Richard had never touched her that way, though as her husband, he’d touched her far more intimately.
    But there was touching and there was touching, one merely physical, the other emotional, as well. There was something about Garrick … something about Garrick …
    Unsettled by her inability to find answers to the myriad of questions, she sought diversion in one of the books she’d seen on the shelf. Sheer determination had her surprisingly engrossed in the story when Garrick returned sometime later.
    Arms piled high with split logs, he blindly kicked off his boots at the