Since this was Rach, though, he tried to erase the impatient frustration in his voice and make a joke out of the situation. “I stopped for gas on the way home. Same station I’ve gone to for years, and Maurie didn’t even recognize me. I feel like I walked into the doctor’s office being me, and came out starring in an X-Files episode. Maybe the truth is out there, but this alien just isn’t me.”
Instead of chuckling, like he intended her to, Rachel slowly stood up with a thoughtful expression. “I was afraid this’d be harder than you expected. To a point, it’s different for women. We go for makeovers and new hairstyles all the time. We love that stuff. Change is a way to give us an emotional lift. But hair grows back, and we can use our old eye shadow if we don’t like the new colors. But it’s a whole different thing when you’re not choosing to change and never had a vote in it. Let’s see that forehead scar....”
She stepped closer, raising her hand to push aside his hair near the right temple. Greg knew what she saw. On the underside of his jaw were the newest and rawestlooking scars. His eyes still had a raccoon look with the bruising, and a jagged, skinny scar bisected his right eyebrow. His jaw really throbbed and the nerve endings felt hypersensitive, finally exposed to light and air, but nothing was really that horrible to look at. It was just different. His chin was square now. He had a Frenchman’s aquiline nose. The cheekbones were still his, but they looked completely different in a face that used to be shaped full and pudgy, and now looked sculpted with a decisive, strong brush.
The plastic surgeon had been ecstatic with his finished product.
Greg had no time to decide what he thought of the new face yet—but he knew precisely what he felt about Rachel being this close. His pulse responsively bucked for the sparest, barest touch of her fingertips.
He told himself that a guy couldn’t help reacting to a woman who was so sensitive to his feelings—but that was a total lie. Yeah, she was perceptive, and yeah, her kindness was a wonderful quality. But his hormones had always gone into a delicious dither anywhere around her.
He tried to analyze the problem. The way Rachel touched his forehead was obviously intended as a friendly, caring, but specifically nonsexual gesture. He understood that. It just didn’t matter to his hormones.
His whole damn world still suffered a complete metamorphosis solely because of her nearness. Hours earlier he’d noticed the gunmetal-gray clouds festering in the west, likely swollen with snow this late in the fall. Yet now he saw the sun spearing down in a gold-kissed haze on the brilliant tangerine and magenta leaves. Before, the wind seemed mean-cold and now felt spanking fresh and invigorating. Suddenly he could smell leaves and pumpkins, cider and cinnamon, the leather and wool of coats—maybe all those autumn scents had been there before, but he hadn’t noticed. And his hormones—the ones that had always been content to snooze through most male-female events—suddenly woke up and wanted to party.
Rachel dropped her hand and rocked back down on her heels, but her gaze still focused on his face in a studying way. “I’m not sure you’re even going to have any scars when it’s all healed, but right now you’ve still got places that look really painful,” she said gently. “The stitch marks, for one. But also, even though the swelling and bruising is way down, you have to still be feeling tender.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Maybe it’s small-potatoes-pain compared to what you’ve been through these last weeks. But it’s still not nothing. And I think it’s a good thing you’re not due back at work for another week yet.”
“Rach—?”
“What?”
He had a question he wanted to ask her, but somehow it completely flew out of his mind. The thing was, she was still standing close. Nothing fancy about her play clothes; she was just wearing an old barn jacket and jeans and boots, but everything about her was beautiful to him. The wind had put rouge in her cheeks, and her eyes always did look softer than velvet, and the breeze was teasing her hair, making those honey-blond strands flutter and curl around her face. She just looked...kissable.
And suddenly he remembered all those kisses she’d tortured him with in the hospital. Every time he’d had bandages and casts and tubes trapping him. He could never touch her back. He could never kiss her back.
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