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if he had done the right thing, and maybe the only thing. A thing that would have made his grandparents proud of him. This was his grandparents’ land. They would have never turned away someone in need. That was the unspoken creed they had lived their lives by, and no one had benefited more than he from their strict adherence to the golden rule.
He stood there for a moment too long, because Brook’s eyes opened, sleepy and disoriented at first, and then they widened.
She sat up on the bed. A scream of pure terror erupted from her. She scrambled backward, knees to her chin, pulling the covers along with her and putting her back into the corner.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, Brook, it’s okay. It’s me.”
That apparently was not reassuring, as she screamed again, a scream of fear so primal it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
“Jefferson Stone,” he said, but then it occurred to him he had not volunteered his name as of yet, so it might not reassure her at all. It also occurred to him, the light in the room was very dim. All she could see was a hulk standing in her doorway.
He stood there for a moment trying to get his eyes to adjust more fully. She scooted out of the corner bed, and he lost sight of her in the darkness. And then something crashed down on his head. By instinct, he reached out, connected with the arm of his attacker and pulled her in close to him.
“Let me go,” she screamed, fighting like a wildcat.
Instead of letting her go, Jefferson pulled the panicky woman into his chest and held her hard and tight. She pummeled him with her fists. She reared back and hit his chest with her head. He was afraid she might bite him. But he would not let go.
“Brook, stop it,” he said quietly. “Stop it. It’s just me. Jefferson.”
Finally, his voice seemed to penetrate all that panic. The wriggling strength of her went suddenly still, though he could feel the rabbit-fast beat of her heart against his chest.
“Jefferson?” She tilted her face up at him, and he could see the glitter of gold in her eyes as she stared up at him, frightened and baffled.
“Jefferson Stone, your new boss?”
Silence. And then, recognition pierced the glaze in her eyes, and for the first time he thought she might actually be wide-awake.
“Oh, my God! My new boss. I just hit my new boss with a lamp.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I’m so sorry. No. I’m beyond sorry. I’m mortified. Devastated. Appall—”
“I get it,” he said drily.
She seemed to realize she had made no effort to pull away from him. He realized how delicate she felt pressed into the length of him. He realized what he wanted to realize the least: that his life had become too vacant, lacking almost completely in this most basic of human needs. To be touched.
Jefferson Stone was far too aware that Brook felt good. And smelled good, and that a man could live to see eyes like that searching his face for goodness.
And finding it.
She seemed to realize now that rather than fighting to get out of his arms, she was clinging to him. Embarrassment painted her cheeks a delicate shade of pink. She dropped her arms to her sides and took a wobbly step back from him. After a moment, she lifted her arm and pushed her hand through her rumpled curls.
“I think you should sit down,” he said.
No argument. She retreated to the bed. She sat on the edge of it, peering through the darkness.
He reached over and flicked on the overhead light.
Jefferson had never seen terror as naked as what remained in her freshly illuminated face. He held up his hands, like a cowboy who had dropped his weapon, and he backed toward the door. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
But now comprehension was dawning in her own features.
“Of course, you’re not,” she said. “I know who you are now. I thought you were...” She dropped her head into her hands. Her whole body shuddered.
“Are you crying?” he asked. It was the first time since this whole thing had started that he felt panic.
“N-n-no.”
Clearly she was lying. Sheesh. She was the world’s worst liar.
Jefferson hesitated in the doorway. What he wanted to do was run from the sheer need in her. She was about to hit emotional meltdown.
“I’m practically a hermit,” he told her. “I don’t know how to help you.”
“I—I—I don’t need any h-h-help from you.”
But she did. She needed, obviously, to be comforted.
He was in no way qualified to do that. His every inclination was to keep backing up until he was all the way down the stairs.
But what he wanted to do, and what he did, were two separate things.
“Has anyone ever told you that you are the world’s worst liar?” he asked.
“THAT WOULD BE a good thing, wouldn’t it?” Brook sniveled. “Being a bad liar?”
In any other circumstances, Jefferson would have agreed with her. But at the moment? He would have liked to believe her. That she did not need any help from him.
Jefferson told himself that rap on the head with her bedside lamp was preventing him from thinking rationally. He was shocked at himself when he did not retreat from Brook’s naked need but, instead, dropped his arms to his sides and moved with measured steps into the room, around the shattered lamp and across to the bed.
She looked very vulnerable, still in the blouse and shorts she had arrived in, though now her outfit was quite crumpled. He was ready to stop the second she indicated he should, but she never did. He arrived at the bed, and felt large and oafish, towering over her. She peeked through the fingers that covered her face. She drew in a long, shuddering breath.
She was trembling. It reminded him of aspen leaves in a breeze. Given how frightened she had been, he was sure his very size intimidated.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I feel like an ogre in a fairy tale.”
She hiccuped, glanced at him through her fingers again and tried for a wobbly smile. “Then I hope it’s Wreck.”
“I don’t have a clue who that is,” he admitted.
“Wreck and Me? It’s a kid’s movie about an ogre.”
“I’m not up on my kids’ movies.”
“Wreck turns out to be the good guy, despite appearances.” She wasn’t sobbing uncontrollably anymore, so he was making progress. Maybe. Did he want her to think he was a good guy? Not really.
Women like her pinned their hopes and dreams on men they perceived to be good guys. Like most, he would eventually let her down.
But not tonight. Tonight he could be a good guy. He hesitated, looking for a way to not be quite so big against her tininess. And then, seeing nothing else to do, so he was not hovering over her from a great height, he sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress gave under his weight, and she slid toward him. Their thighs touched. Hers were bare.
A truly good guy would not be so suddenly and painfully aware of her.
She did not try to scoot right through the wall, but regarded him with wide eyes studded with tears.
“So, Brook, who did you think I was?” he asked.
For a moment, she didn’t comprehend the name, confirming