Hawk's Way Grooms

“Mac—”

He cut her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t say it. Don’t even suggest it.”

“Suggest what?”

“This doesn’t change my plans.”

“But—”

His face turned hard, jaw jutting, shoulders braced in determination. She had seen that look before, but she had been too young and naive to recognize it for what it was.

“Be my friend, Jewel,” he said. “Don’t tell me why I can’t do what I want to do. Just help me to do it.”

She stared at him as though she had never seen him before. She knew now why Peter Macready had survived a form of cancer that killed most kids. Why he had become the best rookie receiver in the NFL, despite the fact he had never been the fastest athlete on the field. Mac didn’t give up. Mac didn’t see obstacles. He saw his goal and headed for it without worrying about whether it could be reached. And so he invariably reached it.

Jewel wished she had half his confidence. She might be a married woman now with a baby in her arms.

Maybe it wasn’t too late for her. Maybe she could learn from him how it was done. Maybe she could take advantage of Mac’s presence to give her the impetus to change her life. If Mac could recover from a shattered leg, why couldn’t she recover from a shattered life?

The boys returned with two dish towels loaded with ice and fell all over each other arranging the cold compresses around Mac’s ankle. Jewel saw Mac wince when their overenthusiasm rocked his ankle, but instead of snapping at them, he launched into a story about how he had played a whole football game with a taped-up sprained ankle, thanks to an injection of painkiller.

The teenage boys dropped to his feet in awe and admiration. Jewel started to leave, but Mac reached up and caught her hand. “Join us,” he said.

“I have work—”

“Just for a few minutes.”

She figured maybe he didn’t want to be stuck alone with the boys. She would stay with him long enough to let them hear a story or two before shooing them away. She settled beside Mac on the worn leather couch—another donation from her grandfather’s house at Hawk’s Way. Mac’s arm slid around her as naturally as if he did it every day.

She resisted the urge to lay her head on his shoulder. Putting his arm around her had been a friendly gesture, nothing more. But she was aware of the way his hand cupped her shoulder, massaging it as he regaled the three of them with stories of life in the pro football arena.

As she sat listening to him, an insidious idea took root.

What if she came to Mac tonight and explained her problem and asked him to help her out?

She trusted Mac not to hurt her. She trusted him to go slow, to be patient. He didn’t love her, and she didn’t love him, so there wouldn’t be that particular pitfall complicating matters. It would be just one friend helping out another.

She could even explain to him how she had gotten the idea. That she had seen his determination to play football again and been inspired to try to solve a problem that she had thought would never be resolved.

All she wanted him to do was teach her how to arouse a man and satisfy him…and be satisfied by him.

She tried to imagine how Mac might react to such a suggestion. He was obviously an experienced man of the world. Only…What if he wasn’t attracted to her that way?

Her mind flashed back to the scene in the canyon earlier that afternoon, when she had felt Mac’s arousal. But he had apologized for that. Maybe when push came to shove, he wouldn’t want to get involved with her.

Jewel didn’t hear much of what Mac said to Colt and Huck. She wasn’t even aware when he sent them away. She was lost deep in her own thoughts. And fears.

She wished the idea hadn’t come to her so early in the day. Now she would be stuck thinking about it until dark, worrying it like a dog worried a bone.

All she had to do was cross the hall tonight and knock on Mac’s door and…She didn’t let her imagination take her any farther than that. Oh, how she wished night were here already! It was so much easier to act on impulse than to do something like this with cold calculation.

Of course, she was far from cold when she thought about Mac. Her whole body felt warm at the thought of having him touch her, having him kiss and caress her. She just wanted to get through the entire sexual act once without cringing or falling apart. That’s all she wanted Mac to do for her. Just get her through the moments of panic before he did it. Get in and get out, like a quick lube job on the truck.

The absurdity of that comparison made her chuckle.

“Are you going to let me in on the joke?” Mac said.

“Maybe.” If she didn’t lose her nerve before nightfall.

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