Kiwi Rules (New Zealand Ever After Book 1) Page 16

  Jax

  Something had happened when I’d taken that jump, or when Margarete had, and I hadn’t been able to shift back since. Now that I’d kissed Karen, that shift was going to be impossible.

  She’d frozen when I’d done it. I didn’t know what that meant, and I needed to find out before I thought about touching her again.

  As for me? I was already there.

  Ever since the explosion, my life had been about getting through one more day. When I’d been medevac’d out and was lying flat on my back in the battering, mind-numbing clamor of a helicopter in flight with a medic bent over me checking the tourniquet on my leg, the drugs taking only the barest edge off the searing pain when he’d touched my skin, while I’d had my eyes squeezed shut, and my mouth, too, to try to keep from screaming, and I’d still seen my boot in the silty brown dirt and the torn body of Ali Madad, his arms and legs sprawled at impossible angles, his blood turning the sandy brown to liquid red—that had been nothing but a time to get through. I’d thought, Hang on till we get there. Don’t think. Hang on. When I’d been flat on my back in a hospital bed, my face stitched shut, my chest covered by a dressing so enormous, I shied away from knowing what was under it, and I’d looked down at the outline of a single foot under the blanket, in the fuzz of a narcotic drip and the terror of knowing I was still alive, and I had to live this way from now on, forever, I’d thought, Sit up. You can sit up, anyway, you bastard. Sit UP.

  Later, when my chest had healed enough for me to propel myself in a wheelchair, I’d got myself into it under the watchful eye of a nurse and told myself, Get out there. I’d wheeled myself through the door and into the corridor, had seen blokes missing both legs, missing an arm, a hand, and guessed they were thinking the same thing. What am I, now that I’m not the man I was? I’d felt like shit, and had known they all did, too, but I’d also known that they were hoping exactly what I was—that if they got stronger today, tomorrow would be better.

  When I’d stood between the parallel bars for the first time and hopped and pulled my way down them, the sweat standing out on my forehead, my breath coming in gasps, the pain like fire, I’d thought, Tomorrow, it’ll be the second time. First time, worst time. When I’d got my prosthesis and had taken the first steps on it, one arm still in a crutch, I’d thought, Ten steps. Rest, then ten more. When I’d walked down a city street for the first time and had seen every passerby’s gaze go to my legs, then swivel hastily away, I’d thought, Doesn’t matter what they think. It matters what you can do. And the day I’d met Karen, when I’d come out of the sea on my knees, then got to my foot, and she’d looked at my scars, I’d thought, What do I do now? I try not to let it matter. Again.

  My life for the past months had been one long endurance test. A shameful one at that, for taking so long to adjust. I was still here, my mind intact. I was walking again, while all those flag-draped coffins had gone home in a cargo hold. I’d made it through all those first times, and moved on to the next one, because what I’d told Karen was true. What was the choice? Lying down and dying? I’d muscled my way onward, knowing that tomorrow, there’d be another step, and I’d have to take that one, too. Knowing that no matter how strong I got, no matter how hard I worked, my leg wasn’t coming back.

  For the first time in my life, there was a limit I’d never get past. Not with willpower, not with running until I vomited and swimming until every muscle was shaking, not with diet or strength training or protein powder or belief or faith. And still, there was no choice but to tell myself, Push through it today, and tomorrow, you’re that much stronger.

  Today, though? Today hadn’t been another day of pushing through. I’d done things I hadn’t been sure I could do anymore, which made it another first time, but it hadn’t felt like that. Since I’d met Karen, none of the days had felt like that. Maybe it was me, but I thought it might be her, too. I’d made mistakes all over the shop, and it had still felt better, because I’d felt . . . alive again. Out there living my life, getting it wrong and having to make amends. So far, I’d engaged in a highly dubious race that had almost drowned a kid, picked up a morally deficient hitchhiker, had to explain myself to the police, collected the most useless duck known to man, and probably pushed both my own leg and my prosthesis past manufacturers’ specifications. And maybe, somewhere in there, I’d remembered to listen to other people again, too.

  Pain was a selfish beast. It wanted all your attention, and it took all your focus. Now, though, my focus had shifted at last. I’d started paying attention to something besides myself, and I wanted to keep doing it.

  The other thing I wanted? I wanted to be in and out of that shower in two minutes. I wanted to be back there with a couple of beers when Karen stepped out of her own shower. I wanted to take her hand and lead her, wrapped in a towel or a dressing gown or whatever she’d be wearing over her nakedness, back through the drawn-back fabric of the tent door. I wanted to pull the ties on those flaps and shut out everything but the world of that enormous bed, and then I wanted to light the candle lanterns, take off my leg, and see what happened next.

  And, no, I didn’t really want that last bit. I wanted two legs. I wanted that with the aching, hopeless desire of knowing I could never have it again. I wanted not to have to worry about what she’d say or how she’d look at me when it came down to two bodies, one of them whole and beautiful and one of them . . . not, when there was no disguising what I felt and what I wanted, or what she did. I didn’t want to have to think about anything except putting my hand in the top of that towel or at the neckline of that dressing gown, pulling the edges apart so I could see every bit of her, then coming down over her and kissing and touching and loving her slow and easy, all the way until the candles burned down.

  Instead, I went over to my tent and took off my leg, and then my clothes. After that, I crutched over to my own bathroom block, indulged in five minutes of water as hot as I could stand it, headed back to my tent, still naked but for a towel, stood there and looked at my leg, and thought—No.

  I didn’t want to put it on. I didn’t want to cover up my scars. I didn’t want to hide what was missing. I wanted her to see who I was, and I wanted to know what she thought when she saw it.

  It was the moment of truth. It was jumping off that cliff, accelerating through the air for those long, terrifying seconds, and not knowing what would happen when I hit. It might be pure exhilaration, and it might be the end. Whichever it was going to be, I needed to know.

  Karen

  I came around the path into Jax’s campsite fast. Fast because I’d heard the thunder as I’d stepped out of the shower, and it had now started to rain, and fast because I probably didn’t want time to think twice. Part of me, what I thought of as the top of my head, the logical part, knew it was impulsive, and it wasn’t like my impulsivity had yielded great dividends so far on this trip. But I was jumping off the cliff again anyway. I needed to take the fall, and I needed to hit the water hard and go down deep.

  It was the way he’d kissed me. How gentle his lips had been, and how strong his hand had. When I’d taken my shower, the warm water had sluiced over me in that way warm water did, and I’d shuddered under it, but all I’d felt was that hand and that mouth. It was as if he were still there with me, wrapping his strong arms around me and holding me close, kissing my neck, being gentle, and being so firm, too, letting me know he was here to stay. I’d put on dry clothes to the pat-pat-pat of the first raindrops hitting my tent, and all I’d heard was his voice, warm and low, saying, “You’ve got guts and no mistake.”

  What, that isn’t the way the man in your life does sexy talk? Maybe it depends on how desperately you want the man, because it had sent a shiver straight down my body. I’d been tingling ever since, and not just where you’d think. I had flutters in my belly. My inner thighs were tingling. It was like my whole self was being pulled along the track to him by those threads I’d stupidly told him about, the ones that wrapped around my body and my mind every ti
me we were together and tried to drag me closer.

  That wasn’t the point, though, because however I felt, I wasn’t coming over to drape myself across his bed, pull my shirt up sexily to reveal my belly piercings, and suggest that he could keep going until he reached my decidedly unimpressive breasts. I wasn’t planning to lick my lips and breathe, “Take me now,” and risk him saying, “Uh . . . maybe not the best idea.” After which he’d come up with some excellent reason why that wasn’t actually a rejection.

  I was coming over for the first-aid kit. It just didn’t feel that way, except in the top of my brain. The rest of me was having a problem with those stupid silver threads.

  I would’ve knocked, but there was no door, and the rain was picking up. I called out, “Jax?” and stepped under the shelter of the tiny deck, and he was there. Standing by the bed on one leg in the low, flickering light of a single candle lantern, his hair wet, wearing only a white towel around his waist. The stump of his leg, the rough tangle of pink scars on his chest, and all the hard muscle and beautiful proportions of him. He got a hand on the bed and turned on his one foot to face me, and I couldn’t read the look in his eyes at all.

  “Sorry,” I said, backing up a step. “Sorry. I . . . uh, I thought you might help me bandage my arm again. And, uh, it’s raining, and I thought I’d do the work for once. Coming over, I mean. For the beer.”

  Yeah. Smooth. Not so much jumping off the cliff, then, as trying to get back onto it again, a cartoon character scrabbling in midair just before he plummeted toward the ground with a whistling whoosh. And an anvil landed on top of him.

  “Come in,” he said. “And we’ll do that.” He wasn’t quite smiling, but his face had changed. I thought. I wasn’t quite looking.

  “I’ll just . . .” I made some sort of vague gesture, kicked off my jandals, and stepped into the tent in my bare feet. “I’ll turn around, if you want, so you can get dressed.”

  It was a bit late to realize that I could’ve dressed a little more seductively if I’d wanted him to get some other message than “Please bandage me.” I was wearing wide-legged gray cotton pants with a drawstring and a red T-shirt. You didn’t seduce a man in your comfy PJs, because, yes, that was what they were. My hair was wet, and I wasn’t wearing any makeup, because I’d also forgotten that. I’d been in sort of a . . . hurry. To be bandaged.

  “You can do that,” he said. “Sit down on the other side of the bed, if you like.”

  I did. I faced the wall of the tent, heard the rustle of fabric behind me and the thud that was Jax hopping, and then he said, “All clear,” and I turned around.

  Blue rugby shorts. Another white T-shirt, with all that body under there. And no leg.

  He said, “I’ll grab us a couple beers, and we can do your arm. Bit of anesthetic, eh.”

  “I’ll go,” I said, hopping up. I needed a second. I needed a do-over. I was going to embarrass myself. I remembered too late how everybody had flirted with him today. If he realized how much I wanted to throw myself at him, and he let me down gently, I’d . . . well, I’d possibly die.

  I was a mature woman who was turning thirty in about three days. I was highly intelligent. I was extremely capable. I was economically secure and emotionally stable. Just not right now.

  “Nah,” he said. “I’ve got it.” He grabbed one crutch and headed out of the tent, and came back seconds later with two bottles, before I’d had nearly enough time to talk myself into the “stable” idea.

  “It’s good that you can still hold things,” I said, still standing up. “With the crutches being on your forearms.” Which was lame, yes.

  His face hardened some. “Yeh.” He got the tops off and set the bottles on the table at his side of the bed. “Come around here and sit next to the light, and I’ll get your arm sorted.”

  “What, I’m not supposed to say that?” I asked as he grabbed his little first-aid kit and sat beside me.

  “Let’s say it begins to pale as a topic,” he said. “Never mind.” He’d picked up my wrist and was inspecting my forearm, and he was so close, I could feel his heat, and the prickle of the hair on his thighs next to mine. I could smell the rain-clean, full-man scent of him, like the smell of testosterone, and I could see the blue line on the side of his face. All I wanted was to kiss that line, wrap myself up in him, and climb inside. He looked up, his eyes caught mine, and he said, “This isn’t looking too flash. Redness, eh. Got some swelling here, too.”

  See? Not sexy. Not even close. I swallowed and said, “I know. Could you put some more antibiotic ointment on it, maybe?”

  “I could.” He opened the little tube, and his hands were gentle as he dabbed the colorless ointment onto the considerable expanse of scraped, reddened flesh, draped gauze over the whole thing, and taped the top and bottom edges. “We’ll let it breathe, eh.”

  How could you be turned on by the competent way a man tore tape? With his big, strong hands? I didn’t know. All I knew was, those tingles had started up again, and they’d brought their friends. I was also getting flutters in my chest to match the ones in my belly, and even my throat felt tight. Jax started putting away his supplies and said, “You could hand me that beer, and drink your own. It’s a dark ale. I’m telling you that, as you’re a food person.”

  I handed his over. He was smiling, now, just a little. I checked out the bottle, just for something to do. “Emerson’s Weizenbock. You brought out the big guns.” I squinted at the label. “Whoa. More than eight percent alcohol.”

  “Good thing we don’t have to drive anywhere. Born and brewed in Dunedin. Taste of home, eh.” He tapped his bottle gently against mine. “Cheers. Well done today.”

  I took a sip, and then I took a few more, because it was absolutely, sinfully delicious, rich and malty and clove-scented and complex, like alcoholic gingerbread. Heady, too. I drank some more, realized I must be thirsty, wondered how half a beer could affect you this fast, and shivered some. The rain had picked up, the patter of drops becoming more of a drumming, and the beer was good, but it was chilling me more.

  Jax asked, “Cold?”

  “No. Yes. Sort of. It’s funny—I think of men as having beer voices, and this is the kind you are. Winter ale, is what I thought that first day, on the beach. Like this. Darker. More complex. Stronger. Nothing like a grapefruit IPA.” I was babbling. Yep, definitely babbling.

  “Mm. I’ll wait to be pleased about that until I find out whether you like it.” He grabbed the throw from the bottom of the bed and put it around my shoulders. Is there a sweeter, more I’ve-got-you-baby gesture than a man wrapping you up to keep you warm?

  “I like it,” I said. “Actually, I love it.” I was having trouble catching my breath, and now I’d said the L-word. I should suggest we go outside, where I wouldn’t be sitting on his bed, except that it was raining, and he was looking at me, smiling over the bottle, then tipping his head back to drink. The leg that was beside mine was the left one, the one missing a foot, he was strong enough not to care about that, and I wanted him like you want dark-chocolate, high-butterfat ice cream when you’re hurting. Straight out of the carton, because you don’t have strength to resist anymore, and you just want to eat it all down. I reached my hand out, hesitated, touched his thigh lightly, hoped like hell that he wouldn’t look at me like his little sister had just made a move on him—or worse, laugh—and said, “It was a good day. A little too focused on you, maybe, on the part of—oh, everybody else. I could’ve been a little . . .” I had to force myself to go on. Come on, Karen. Say it. “A little jealous. Because you looked so good and were so impressive, and everybody thought so. I was glad about that, but maybe I wasn’t, too. Not exactly.”

  Jax

  She’d taken her hand away again, but she was so close, and this time, she hadn’t frozen up. She was doing the opposite. I couldn’t be wrong about that.

  There were still a dozen reasons it was a bad idea. Somehow, I couldn’t listen to any of them. Maybe it was that if she was wea
ring a bra under that thin little T-shirt, I couldn’t see it, and I’d been watching her nipples harden for the past ten minutes, over and over again. When I’d sat down beside her. When I’d put the throw over her shoulders. When she’d touched me. And most of all—when I’d touched her. When I’d picked up her wrist and held it. She’d shivered, then, and I didn’t think it was because she was cold.

  I said, “You don’t have to be jealous. A bit of leftover celebrity, that’s all. Nobody was in love. Do you want to know who I was watching?”

  “Yes,” she said. “No. I don’t know.”

  “I was watching you.” I put a careful hand on the side of her face and brushed my thumb over her cheekbone, and she swallowed and didn’t move away. Instead, she leaned in. I couldn’t be wrong about that, either.

  I was nearly as scared to do this as I had been that first time, when I’d been fourteen, and the surge of heat I got was, if possible, even more intense. I leaned in and brushed my lips over hers, felt her inhalation of breath, and got the kind of shock down my body that hit you like a two-by-four. And then she touched my thigh again with the other hand and drew it down my leg all the way to my knee, and I might be the one freezing up.

  She moved her lips over and kissed me beside my ear. On my scar, I realized dimly, as she said, “Jax. I want to touch you so much. And I don’t know what’s OK.”

  I had to laugh, even though it came out choked. “Assume it’s all OK.” I leaned over her and set my beer on the table, and she put hers down, too. Which meant she stopped touching me, and I needed her to keep touching me, even if it scared me. Exactly like all of this was scaring her.

  “Has anybody . . .” she said. “Right, I’m just going to ask.” As if I’d have expected anything else. “Have you been, uh, trying stuff, since the leg and all? Having sex?”