She wasn’t overly talkative, and that surprised him. It could be because of the pain medications, but from what he remembered of her when he’d see her in the hospital halls and the cafeteria, she was usually the one talking. Izzie or Nikkie Jean. Annie was the quiet one of their little group.
She seemed content to curl up in a lawn chair he’d picked up at the camp store for her and watch him as he tinkered with the engine on the van, scribbling in the notebook on her lap. She’d refused to tell him what she was writing.
He wanted to know. He wouldn’t pry.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked finally. She’d stripped down to a tank-top with a familiar cartoon garlic on it that she’d found at the secondhand store. The cast was a garish accessory that gleamed white in the afternoon Texas sun. She’d completely refused to put the splint back on.
He’d given up arguing and settled for wrapping her wrist himself in an elastic bandage. There was a dark bruise under her eye, but she’d found mirrored sunglasses that hid it, mostly.
“I do. My father was an engineer. He designed engines for several car manufacturers in Texas. He worked for Barratt-Handley for most of Shelby’s childhood.”
“Wow. Nice. So you’re good with bodies—and with engines. You are a very marketable catch, Dr. Jacobson.”
“He enjoyed it. He made certain both Shelby and I knew how our engines work. I enjoyed it to some extent. We built a go-cart from scratch when I was eleven.”
“Sounds fun.”
“He didn’t have a lot of free time, but he made certain what he did went to Shelby and me. I couldn’t have asked for a better father.”
Her face pinched, and he wondered what he’d said wrong now. He almost asked her, but…they all had memories they wanted to forget.
Allen turned away, grabbed the wrench set he’d found in the rear of the van, and knelt down. He’d do a quick check to make certain everything was in good working order.
He’d always believed in being prepared for any eventuality.
Mechanical problems were not something they needed on this little trip.
It gave him something to do with his hands—kept him from putting his hands on his little van-mate in all the wonderful ways he kept imagining.
Allen had been lucky. Izzie thought about that as she kept developing the character in the latest book she was attempting to write.
That character kept sounding more and more like Allen.
When she had been ten, her mother had left her at home in the trailer for sixteen days while she went on vacation with her latest lover. Her mother hadn’t even known his last name.
Izzie certainly hadn’t.
Izzie had gone through each of those days avoiding the telephone bill collectors and hoping the box of cereal and three dollars’ worth of hot dogs she’d been able to buy would be enough food to last her through those sixteen days. She had had no clue how long her mother would be gone. She’d been gone one day and back sixteen days later.
It hadn’t been the only time.
Annie…Annie had saved her, then, too. Annie had stolen money from her own mother’s purse to buy Izzie a loaf of bread and a box of instant mashed potatoes when those hot dogs and cereal had run out.
She still couldn’t eat mashed potatoes without wanting to vomit.
Izzie had made it through, somehow.
How different their childhoods had been was well illustrated.
What would Mr. Perfect think if she opened up and told him the kind of world she came from? He’d probably take that first opportunity to head for the hills in an instant. Like she was tainted or broken or something.
She wasn’t. Jake had made certain of that.
She was lost in her own thoughts while he played around the engine. She shot him a look, wondering what the first-shift nurses who were so wild about him would think seeing him like this, all hot and sweaty and gorgeous.
Her hormones stood at attention, full alert.
He slid under the van, then cursed.
When he pulled himself back out, she saw the blood.