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  Eventually, though, the weeping died down, and she struggled to break away from him. "Oh, God, I am so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

  But he put the kibosh to that immediately, but gently, not raising his voice. "Stop. There's literally nothing to be sorry about."

  "But—"

  He didn't allow her to continue. "I love holding you."

  "But I—"

  "And rocking the two of us together."

  "No, but—"

  "Soothing you and whispering to you and massaging you."

  Ari brought her hand up to her face and looked up at him, perched as she was, on his lap, like a little bird about to take flight. "Y-you're not angry that I cried all over you?"

  He shook his head emphatically. "Absolutely not."

  Her eyes flickered to his, then down again. "Y-you're sure?"

  "Utterly." He gave her a minute to absorb the truth of what he'd just said, then he carefully but firmly gathered her back into the circle of his arms. "I'm sorry I had to punish you, honey, but I mean what I say."

  "You're sorry?" she whispered, incredulous.

  "Of course. I would much rather make you come than spank you."

  She gave him a sputtered giggle.

  "I don't think I remember how," she confessed in a ragged whisper.

  "No worries. I'm not trying to push—much. I just want you to be aware of where I have the audacity to hope we're going."

  She settled against him again, finally, and he felt that she was calmer with him than ever. "Are we? Can we stay here for a little while longer?"

  She said it as if she thought she was asking him for the moon. "Of course. As long as you want to. We can sleep out here, if you like."

  "No, but I just. I like it right here."

  It wasn't really much for her to admit, in the grand scheme of things, but to him, it was damned near everything.

  She awoke in a bedroom that was unfamiliar. It wasn't the one at the house, but then the memories flooded into her consciousness and she knew that it wasn't supposed to be that room. She didn't think it looked like the one at his place, either, though, into which she'd put all of her luggage, but then there it was, right by the door.

  But then she noticed that the door was on the wrong side of the bed, and she knew she was definitely in the wrong room, so she hurriedly got up, showered, and dressed.

  And by then, she had worked out in whose room she had ended up—his.

  But Hoyt wasn't there, and only one side of the bed was slept in.

  Where was he? What had happened?

  She certainly remembered being spanked—the shower had reminded her of that fact, too, as the hot water had touched her still sore bum—and then they had cuddled on the swing. But the rest of whatever happened was quite fuzzy.

  Too much whiskey, probably.

  When she was reasonably presentable for her first day of work—albeit that meant jeans and a t-shirt—and had made up the bed, she ventured into the hall. A peep into Emmy's room revealed that both she and the dog were still asleep, so she tiptoed away from there.

  But as she deliberately walked by the door to what should have been her room, she heard a loudly whispered, "Arianne!" from behind it.

  "Hoyt?"

  "Yes. I put you in my room because that bed was made and this one wasn't."

  "Oh. Okay. Thank you."

  "Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be doing any work today. I might not even make it out of this room. But I want you to help yourself to anything in the house. If you wouldn't mind seeing to Luci's needs, I'd appreciate it."

  "Of course! Are you okay? Is there anything at all I could do for you?" She wondered what the problem was.

  "I'll be fine. I just need to rest. And no, thank you. I'll be better tomorrow, I hope."

  She could hear what she thought were small groans, and his voice sounded strangled and strange, but it was hard to tell since they were conducting the conversation through the door.

  "Okay," she said reluctantly. "Well, let me know. I'd be glad to do anything to help you."

  "Thanks."

  As soon as she went into the kitchen, the dog appeared, standing at his dinner dish and looking at her expectantly.

  There weren't any tubs near his dishes that might have contained food—especially enough to feed a horse. But she found some in the laundry room. After reading the side of the dog food bag, she measured the correct amount into his bowl and put it down, then she picked up his water bowl, washed and filled it and put it back down.

  "One down, three to go."

  As much as she was not one to pry, she ended up having to go through his cupboards to find out what he had that might constitute breakfast. By that time, Emmy had appeared.

  He had no sugary cereals at all, which she supposed was a good thing, so she improvised with the bran flakes she had found and added raisins and milk to them for her daughter's breakfast and made herself egg on toast.

  Then, once she'd set Em to playing with some blocks, with Luci lying right near her, standing guard over what she considered to be her charge, Ari ventured down the hall again.

  And as she approached the door to the bedroom he was in, she was definitely hearing groans that were full of pain, along with some colorful language she'd only ever heard him use in conjunction with Matt.

  She stood outside the door for a little while, wondering what she should do, literally wringing her hands. Then she screwed up her courage and knocked on the door. "Hoyt?"

  There was a pause before she heard him grind out a barely polite, "Yes?"

  "Can I bring you something for breakfast?"

  "No." More groans. Then, "Thank you. Arianne, I really don't need anything today." A long, sustained moan. "I'd prefer it if you just left me alone." More bad language, and what she thought was heavy panting. "I'll be better and get up tomorrow. I promise." It sounded as if his teeth were clenched tightly together as he was getting out the last two sentences.

  She put her hands on the door, wanting—needing—desperately to help him in some way, although she wasn't at all sure what she could do for him. That would depend on what the problem was.

  There was still a definite residual concern, though. She didn't want to make him angry. Ari couldn't imagine that that would be a pleasant sight, and she wanted to avoid it at all costs. He'd said he just wanted to be left alone. He was a grown adult, and he should know what he needed.

  She'd offered to help him, and he hadn't taken her up on it. What more could she really do?

  So, Arianne set her mind to not worrying about him, but that didn't work well at all. He was in her thoughts the entire rest of the morning, even as she and Luci and Emmy went out to play in his massive back yard. She ended up doing exactly what he had—chasing them around as they chased each other and/or the ball, and it was great fun.

  When they were back in the house, she was picking things up and saw a yearbook in his bookcase. She fought with herself about whether or not she wanted to look at it, and although she felt very guilty doing so, she really did.

  It was literally full of notes from practically everyone in his senior class. Someone had signed pretty much every page. She saw that he had played football and wrestled, earning a letter in each. And then she saw his yearbook photo. She'd been right. He was gorgeous.

  Ari put the book back then noticed what looked like several framed photos lying on top of the books on that shelf, and she couldn't help herself.

  They weren't the pictures she was hoping for, but rather certificates from the military—one for a purple heart and the other a silver star. The silver star was framed along with an article in the Knoxville News Sentinel that detailed what he had done to earn them.

  Hoyt and his men had been caught in a firefight in Afghanistan. The enemy had set fire to the building they were hunkered down in. Hoyt had gone into the burning building multiple times to rescue his men—he'd gotten all but two of them before part of the roof collapsed onto him, which resulted
in his burns and injuries, although he managed to crawl out, barely.

  The paper said that he'd spent more than a year in the hospital and physical rehab before he was discharged.

  So, he really was a lifesaver and a hero! That's what Skip had meant when he'd said that last night was the second time he was a hero.

  Torn between feeling ashamed of herself for having invaded his privacy—although if he didn't want people to read or see the stuff, he should have kept it elsewhere—and feeling a mixture of incredible pride and almost overwhelming sadness, she put the things away, vowing not to snoop any further than she already had. If he wanted her to know about these things, he could tell her, himself.

  Lunch was some really delicious chicken salad that she'd found in the fridge for herself and some roasted chicken and celery sticks with peanut butter for Em. Of course, she gave one to Luci, who left the celery intact but delicately licked out all of the peanut butter.

  It was time for Emmy's nap, and even before she finished the one story she was allotted, both she and Luci were asleep.

  But Ari certainly wasn't. She could hear the clear evidence of Hoyt's discomfort through the wall they shared, and she was determined to do something about it.

  Chapter 9

  She left Emmy's door open but put a baby gate across it.

  Then she scoured his bathroom, looking for anything that might help with pain. She came up with several kinds of analgesics—Tylenol, aspirin, and Motrin. Then she found one of those tubs from a hospital that helped you bathe in bed and filled it with hot water and dropped a hand towel into it and grabbed a couple other dry ones. She found a bottle of hand lotion, made sure it was sealed, and put that in the water, too.

  Lastly, she filled a sports bottle with ice and water, and a baggy with apple slices, a Clementine, a yogurt, and some peanuts, in case he was hungry.

  Then, after standing in front of the door for a few minutes, working up her courage—which happened more quickly than it might have if she hadn't been listening to how painful he sounded while she did so—she knocked on the door as brusquely as she dared and said, "It's me, Hoyt. I'm coming in."

  His emphatic, "No! Don't!" occurred at the same time she turned the knob, but she ignored it. She'd half wondered if it would be locked, with his love of locks and security, for which she was grateful, of course, but it wasn't.

  He was lying there, in the dark room, in a bed that was much too small for him—probably a double. His feet were practically hanging off the end. The bed wasn't even made, although she could see sheets were piled on a chair in the corner.

  What she truly wasn't prepared for was the fact that he was naked, and her first inclination was to turn around, which she did, but then she forced herself to turn back around again. It wasn't as if she hadn't seen a naked man before.

  But certainly, nothing like him, in sheer size and with the extent of his disfigurement on full display. Not to mention endowment, which she steadfastly tried to ignore and failed miserably.

  Ari hadn't realized the extent of his scarring. It covered the left side of his body, from the top of his skull down that side of his face and neck, over his shoulder and all of his arm, his chest, stomach, hip and buttock, then down that leg, out of which there seemed to be a lot of flesh and muscle—in his thigh particularly, but also his calf—that was missing.

  But what was left of all of that, seemed to be rioting. She could see muscles jumping beneath the ravaged flesh, from his toes to his shoulders.

  "Ari, go. Please. I don't want you to see me like this."

  "Not on a bet," she answered, hearing him sigh at that.

  After she gave him some Motrin, noticing that the whiskey bottle was standing empty on the nightstand, it took her several cycles of applying those hot compresses over every inch of his left side to get the parts of him that were rebelling to calm down. Between rounds of warm, moist heat, she massaged him the best she could, and he was in so much pain that he allowed her to do all of that for him.

  She figured she was in for a doozey of a spanking when she was done, but it was more than worth it. She couldn't bear for him to be in so much pain and just do nothing about it.

  And the longer she did it, the bolder she became when he protested that she shouldn't, finally getting sick of arguing with him about it and telling him to lie there and concentrate on getting better rather than wasting his breath telling her to leave, because she simply wasn't going to.

  The hardest thing for her—besides that he was in this much pain at all—was the massaging, because she didn't have a lot of experience doing that, and specifically not for whatever his problems were. And every time she made him groan, accidentally hurting him by touching an area he couldn't bear to have touched, or applying more pressure, she was very nearly in tears.

  "Do you want me to stop massaging? Am I hurting more than I'm helping?" she finally asked, taking her hands off him entirely. She'd been in constant contact with him since she'd gotten in there, even when he was covered in towels. She'd sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his head, massaging his temples and just trying to help him cope with the pain in any way she could.

  "No! Please! It feels so good!" he panted. "I-I didn't want you to come in here. No one has ever seen me like this. I always deal with it by myself. But everything you've done has helped tremendously. I'll never be able to thank you enough."

  She allowed herself a small grin as she began to massage him, slowly and gently, again. "Ah, the thank you is finally on the other foot!"

  Ari saw him smile at that. "This should wipe out any and all indebtedness you feel toward me—unnecessarily, I might add."

  "Well, I don't know about that."

  "I do," he stated firmly.

  "You must be feeling better; you're getting more autocratic by the second!" She paused for effect then teased, "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

  He growled at that.

  "Are you hungry at all? I brought some light snacks and ice water, too."

  He was still panting, and some of his muscles were still spasming, but it was much better than it had been. "I told you that you were an angel."

  "If anyone should know that I'm not, it's you, since you keep spanking me."

  "Yes, well, that's because I care about you."

  Ari halted in the act of handing him the bag of food, nibbling on her lip.

  "Should I not have said that?" he asked, taking a bite of apple and reaching for her hand to draw her down to sit on the edge of the bed. "I thought it was pretty obvious, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean, I don't just spank anyone, you know. I'm not some kind of door to door spanker who goes around taking strange women over his knee."

  She had to laugh at that outrageous idea.

  He caught her eyes and let himself say what had been on his mind for a while now. "I think I started falling in love with you the moment you scurried over to rescue Teensie from me when you really didn't have to. You couldn't have known that I would never hurt you, and I could see that you were afraid of me—which I put down to how I look—but you did it anyway, all the while saying that 'I'm sorry' chant that was like a kick in the gut. I admired your bravery, and I still do. My heartstrings were plucked right then and there, and they've never been the same since, lovely."

  "Hoyt! I'm still married!" She blushed.

  He scowled deeply, which once might have made her afraid but didn't anymore. "Not as far as I'm concerned, you're not. That man doesn't deserve you or Teensie in any way. Not that I think I do, necessarily, but at least I know how to treat you as you deserve to be treated—like the queen that you are."

  "Stop!" Her hands went to her hot, beet red face at that.

  Hoyt took possession of her other hand, too, and began to draw her inexorably closer to him. "I'll do anything I can to help you get rid of him, Arianne, because I want you all to myself."

  She ended up lying stretched out on top of him, and he was gratified to realize that she'd not protested very much on the way
there. But she was lying rather stiffly, and he wondered if she was afraid, but then she answered his unasked question.

  "I shouldn't be up here. I couldn't bear it if I hurt you." Ari made as if to leave, but he simply wrapped his bad arm around her and put his hand on her back. It was more than enough to keep her right where he wanted her.

  "You're not hurting me, honey. If you were, I would tell you. I promise you that."

  She met his eyes at that and settled back down, quite a bit less tensely than she had been.

  "I want you to promise me something else, too, Hoyt."

  "Oh yeah? And what might that be?"

  "You have to tell me when you're hurting like that. I-I can't take the idea that you try to get through all of that pain all alone."

  He gave her a considering look and took his time answering. "All right. I promise."

  She looked skeptical. "That was too easy."

  Hoyt laughed. "You'd rather I argued with you?"

  "Well, it would be more in character for you."

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Minx."

  "Really, Hoyt. It drove me crazy when you wouldn't allow me to help you."

  The tears were plain in her voice. "I understand, honey. I do, because I feel the same way about you. I'm sorry that I allowed my pride to keep you away."

  "Is there anything they can do for you? I assume you've seen all of the specialists that might help?"

  "I did before I was discharged, yes. It's nerve pain. I take stuff for it, but it doesn't cover it." He very carefully didn't let on that it was all of the physical activity of last night that had probably kicked it off. He didn't want her feeling any guiltier than he knew she already did about what he'd done. It was probably—mostly—the levering himself up with no help when he'd gone to her after the dickhead was unconscious. That wasn't the smartest thing to do, but it was muscle memory—something he'd done a thousand times before.

  He just couldn't do it anymore, and he'd forgotten—or had been caught up in a fog of adrenaline, or whatever. He shouldn't have done it, and he'd been paying for that mistake all night and half the day. Until she'd come and rescued him.