Second Chance Lane (Brockenridge #2) - Nicola Marsh Page 0,32

man. A man pushed to his limits. A man defeated.

Blinking back the sting of tears, she rummaged through the drawers beneath the island bench, discovering what she needed in the last. She snapped an extra large garbage bag from a roll and grabbed some ties, then dragged in a few breaths. She could do this. She could help get Kody sorted for his bath, then make a run for it.

However, as she followed the sound of running water to a room at the end of the hallway, she knew she couldn’t abandon him. He’d need food and maybe a top-up of painkillers. She’d make sure he was okay before bolting because he was a man in need.

‘Hey, I found what you were after …’ she trailed off as she reached the bathroom, completely gobsmacked by the sight that greeted her.

Kody. Naked.

Well, not completely naked. He still had his jocks on—she didn’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed—but his chest and legs were on full display where he sat on the edge of the bathtub. He’d always been lean but sported more muscles than she remembered: clearly defined pecs and abs, impressive biceps, delineated quads … wowza.

‘You’re staring at me like you used to, but you don’t have the excuse of studying anatomy anymore.’

His amused drawl snapped her back to attention. She should say something, make light of the fact she’d been blatantly perving on his impressive body, but her brain wouldn’t work in sync with her mouth and she couldn’t think of one damn thing to say.

With a knowing grin that did strange things to her insides, he turned off the taps, giving her time to reassemble her wits. Hating how discombobulated he made her feel, and channelling her old nursing training in which bodies were nothing more than something that had to be healed, she barged into the bathroom and squatted in front of him.

‘Here. Stick your leg in this,’ she said, holding open the garbage bag.

‘Damn, this plaster is heavy,’ he said, grunting as he lifted the lower half of his leg and slid it into the bag.

‘Depending how bad the break is, you could make do with a fibreglass cast, or even a walking boot,’ she said, focussing on securing the top of the bag with the ties. ‘Did you get an opinion from the orthopaedic surgeon?’

‘No. The registrar on duty read the X-rays, said I had an ankle fracture, and plastered it.’

‘You should get a second opinion,’ she said, standing and backing away a few steps so she wasn’t so close to all that tempting skin on offer. ‘It’ll be much easier for you to move around in a boot.’

‘And miss out on having you help me like this?’

He was laughing at her. She could hear it in his voice and when she finally raised her eyes to meet his, what she saw took her breath away.

Awareness. Not anger. Not loathing. Recognition of what they’d once shared.

She swallowed and backed up some more. She couldn’t do this, let down her guard, for him to revert to disdain tomorrow. Because she had little doubt the painkillers were responsible for blunting the edges of his pain—emotional and physical.

‘I’ll fix you something to eat while you take a bath,’ she said, only stopping to close the door on his soft, taunting chuckles.

Kody hated baths. Growing up in foster homes, he’d barely have a shower because being naked in a houseful of sadists, even with a lock on a door, left him uneasy, so no way in hell would he ever take a bath. Besides, he could never see the attraction in sitting around in one’s filth. But Tash had loved baths and he remembered her squeezing into the tiny tub in his studio apartment, covered in strawberry-scented bubbles, poring over textbooks. He wondered if that’s what her stunned expression had been about as she stared at him earlier.

The painkillers may have taken the edge off but he wasn’t a complete idiot. She’d been staring at him, not the tub, and by the high colour in her cheeks and the way her lips parted, she’d liked what she’d seen. It had been the damnedest thing, because in those moments when she’d been devouring him with her eyes, he’d forgotten that he’d been responsible for the deaths of seven innocent people, forgotten that she’d deprived him of almost thirteen years of his only child’s life, and forgotten that she’d turned his life upside down with the revelation he had a