“Hey, slugger. You’ve got a doctor’s appointment today. Did you forget?”
Greg didn’t turn his head, didn’t lift his fingers from the keyboard. “I didn’t forget. The appointment’s at one.”
She came up behind him, her hands instinctively molding around his shoulders and neck. As she might have expected, his muscles were all knotted up. No question he’d been sitting here a long time. She started kneading, careful not to touch the bandages wrapped around his head. “And do you know what time it is right now, Stoner?”
“I dunno. Nine? Ten? God, that feels good, don’t stop.”
“It’s noon.” Her fingers dug and probed, trying to relax the knots in his neck. She’d have volunteered such a back rub for any ailing friend—male or female—only Rachel knew it wasn’t the same. Not with him, not anymore.
As if her female hormones had suddenly come awake after a two-year hibernation, she felt conscious of the warmth and scent of his skin, of her sensitized response to everything male about him. And that was wonderful, but also unnerving. She might have missed sex, but she really hadn’t wanted to touch a man in all this time. And because Mark was the only man she’d known—no matter how much he’d hurt her—she’d just never anticipated touching any man intimately but him, either. Now, suddenly, she could imagine all kinds of disastrously wild and inappropriately naked things. With Greg. And once her mind started dripping those ideas, it seemed the leak just kept getting bigger.
“It can’t be noon,” Greg corrected her.
“Yeah, it is—12:02, actually. I don’t know how you could possibly forget a red-letter doctor’s appointment like this one—finally you’re getting those bandages off your face after all this time—”
“I didn’t forget. It’s just I started working after breakfast—”
“And lost track of the time, I know.” The knots had eased, which obliterated the judicious excuse she had for touching him. She dropped her hands. “If you want some company,” she said casually, “I could drive you to the doc’s. Friday’s my home day at work, but I’m all caught up, so taking off a couple hours this afternoon is no problem.”
“Nah. Thanks for offering, Rach, but really, that’d be crazy for you to waste your time sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. There’s no pain or anything like that involved where I’d have trouble driving alone.”
“I know you have some trouble with visibility because of the bandages—”
“Yeah, I do. But it’s just a fifteen minute drive there, and then these confounded bandages are off for good. I’ll be fine, really.” He still hadn’t turned around and faced her, because he was still saving and messing with disks and then exiting the computer.
And she hesitated. If Greg didn’t want her help, then he didn’t. But she was still concerned about his going to this doctor’s visit alone. Even for a man as unvain and totally oblivious to appearances as Greg, this afternoon was a huge traumatic thing.
The plastic surgeon had said over and over that the reconstruction surgeries had been successful...but Greg still really didn’t know what he was going to look like. The doctor had given him computerized pictures approximating his new face, but that was it. Because he never talked about it, Rachel suspected Greg was just being Greg—a man who never thought much about looks. And maybe it was going to be that easy, but she wasn’t convinced anyone could go through a traumatic change of appearance and not feel unsettled. She just wanted to go with him, to be there, to show him positively that she didn’t give a royal damn what he looked like and he’d always be Greg to her.
But now he finished exiting his computer and spun around. “Well, if you aren’t a sight for sore eyes....”
She grinned. Okay, so the jeans were a little baggy and her yellow sweatshirt had seen better days. “I was raking leaves this morning. I think every tree on the block dumped its leaves last night—and mostly in my yard and yours. Actually, I was thinking about raking your leaves after mine—”
“I can do my own.”
“Quit with the pride nonsense, Stoner. Just because you’ve got the cast off your arm doesn’t mean you have any strength yet—either in your arm or your ribs. You’re not up for heavy physical work and you know it. But for the record, I was going to put on a decent sweater if you’d let me drive you to the doc’s office so you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me—”
“I couldn’t be ashamed to be seen with you in this life, Rach.”
Maybe, but she couldn’t talk him into letting her drive him, so she skedaddled home to give him time to get ready and go. She noted him leaving around 12:40 while she was putting together a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As of one o’clock, she couldn’t sit—she was too worried about the outcome of this doc’s visit and what Greg might be thinking when the bandages came off—so she yanked on her old barn jacket and headed outside again with a rake.
Her yard was finished by one-thirty, and she unlatched the white rail fence gate into his. Between a century-old walnut and several maple trees in the back, his yard was a sea of apricot and russet leaves—way more than he could possibly handle alone. The leaves crunched and crackled under the pull of her rake. She made little piles. And then bigger piles. And still Greg didn’t come home, not by two o’clock, not by two-thirty.
Her muscles were screaming by then, but how could she leave? If she stopped by later, Greg could think she only wanted a look at his face. As long as she kept raking, she had a legitimate excuse for being here. And finally, just before three, his black Volvo pulled into the driveway. She had already straightened, had already locked a welcome-hello smile on her face, when he climbed out of the car and faced her.
Her intention was absolute. No matter what Greg looked like, she wanted to say the right thing, the supportive thing—whatever it took to make him believe she was natural with his new appearance.
But “Oh my God” slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it. She was prepared for scars. She was prepared for him to look really different. She was prepared for Greg to need some help coping if the physical changes were disturbing.
But the look of his face was still a total and complete shock.
Three
Greg expected Rachel to notice his “new” face. It’s not like anyone who knew him could possibly fail to notice. But she looked so stunned that he felt an edgy, uneasy lump well in his throat. “Rach, I’m not going to look like this forever. It’s just going to take a while before the last of the swelling and bruises go down—”
“It’s not the bruises or the swelling.” Rachel plunked down on his front porch step as if she were too weak to stay upright. Knuckles cocked up her chin. Those velvetblue eyes of hers seemed glued on his face. A siren screamed in the distance. She didn’t look away. Kids ran down the sidewalk, yelling to each other. She didn’t look away. The paper boy biked up, hurled the newspaper right past her head to his porch, and that didn’t make her blink, either. “I just wouldn’t know you. If I hadn’t recognized your black Volvo pulling in the drive, I’d have thought you were a stranger.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s just me.”
“Stoner. I just can’t get over it. You’re gorgeous.” Her hand shot to her heart. She obviously worried that she had unintentionally hurt his feelings, because she backpedaled immediately. “Not that you weren’t an incredibly goodlooking sexy hunk before, but—”
“Rach, it’s okay. Don’t worry about saying something awkward. Believe me, I feel awkward myself.” And that was an understatement, Greg thought irritably. He’d felt sledge-hammered the instant he saw his new face in the doctor’s office mirror. Whether the damn face was ugly or handsome was irrelevant. The problem was that it wasn’t him.