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‘So where my physios have failed you think you can help me?’
‘I can try,’ she said quietly.
‘One of these days you’re going to meet yourself coming back,’ he exclaimed with an angry gesture.
She could see where Diego was coming from. Yes, she was pushy, and, yes, she was taking a risk in offering to try, but she had always tried to help and she couldn’t shake that off just because Diego hated her seeing him like this.
Everyone felt vulnerable sometimes. ‘Please let me try, Diego. It can’t do any harm, can it?’
His expression suggested she had better not get this wrong.
CHAPTER SIX
MAXIE was already regretting her reckless offer—maybe because her natural impulse to help had never been challenged by such rampant maleness before. Diego was relaxing on one arrogant hip and staring down at her, as if daring her to touch him—and the truth was she wasn’t so sure she dared.
‘There’s oil on the table,’ he said, with the mocking smile firmly fixed on his lips.
‘What is this?’ She turned the bottle in her hands.
It was a potion he had bartered for with some quack in return for a lead rope and a packet of mints. ‘I don’t know. It’s massage oil. Does it matter what it is?’
As she turned to look at him he wondered if this was the moment when she’d make some last-minute excuse and pull out. But, no—removing the cork, she sniffed the liquid inside the bottle.
‘It certainly smells like muscle relaxant.’ Upending the bottle, she rubbed some between her thumb and fingers. ‘And I think there are emollients in here too. I don’t think it matters where it comes from, just so long as it works …’ Her grey gaze held his steadily.
‘Then you’d better get started,’ he said.
She was right. He had nothing to lose. Let Maxie try her hocus-pocus on his leg. The risk of embarrassment to him was hugely outweighed by the thought of her dark head bent over him as she worked diligently with those tiny hands in an attempt to ease his pain—an attempt that would fail, but still …
‘Well?’ he prompted. ‘It’s time for you to put your technique to the test.’
Putting a towel on the lounger, to protect it, she indicated that he must stretch out on top of it. ‘I’m going to warm the oil first,’ she explained.
He had to admit that after so long a drought the sight of Maxie warming massage oil in her tiny hands was a provocation too far. Grabbing a towel, he covered himself with it. ‘Do your worst,’ he said, and then he closed his eyes to blot out the sight of both Maxie and his scarred leg.
What madness had brought her to this point? Maxie wondered as her oiled hands hovered above Diego’s spectacular form. Telling Diego to relax was a joke when she was the one most in need of stress relief. The thought of touching him as intimately and as firmly as she must was a daunting prospect. But exciting too.
‘I’m ready,’ he prompted.
‘Good.’ And now she must ignore him and concentrate on what she had to do. She had helped her mother, but could she help Diego? She had to help him. Tugging a cushion off one of the other loungers, she put it on the floor at his side and knelt down.
‘The injury is here,’ Diego said, pointing to a place just below his knee. ‘But it seems to affect all my leg right up to—’
She cut him off. ‘I’ll find it.’ Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply and began to work.
‘Don’t you need to see what you’re doing?’
‘Please be quiet.’ She said this calmly, then explained in the same soothing tone, ‘If I close my eyes and concentrate it allows my senses to come into play. If you talk, I’m distracted.’
She heard him shift position restlessly. Diego didn’t like to be told what to do. She was certain no one had ever told him to be quiet, other than perhaps his siblings, but as he relaxed and the stillness of the room enveloped them both she began to feel the resistance of damaged flesh and muscle beneath her fingers and worked with more confidence.
He couldn’t believe he was allowing Maxie to do this. Struggling to relax, he knew that if she proved even one iota less than good he would shrug her off and never forget this intrusion into his private world. Dissatisfaction at being so slow to heal was steadily eating away at him without this interference from her.
‘I’m not hurting you, am I?’ she asked him as he flinched with self-loathing.
‘No,’ he snapped as she hit a tender spot.
Maxie’s small hands were surprisingly strong, but then he remembered the heavy ropes she’d tossed to shore. She might be small, but in determination Maxie was not to be underestimated. Against the odds, he began to relax. He stared down at her dark, silky head as she worked. There was something about her touch, her scent, her calming approach, her very presence when he had spent so much time alone, that made her intriguingly different—and incredibly, beneath her skilful fingers, he felt his damaged muscles begin to yield and loosen. Having lived with pain since the accident, his relief was indescribable. Closing his eyes, he rested back against the cushioned headrest …
‘Does that feel better?’
He couldn’t believe he’d been asleep, or that her voice had wakened him.
‘Well?’ she prompted. ‘Has it helped?’
He flexed his leg and could hardly believe there was just a low, throbbing ache where so recently there had been acute, stabbing pain. And the dull throb was probably due to the force of Maxie’s fingers. ‘It’s a lot better,’ he admitted.
‘Well, don’t look so surprised. If you patronise me I won’t do it again.’
His mouth tugged in the first real smile. ‘I shall consider myself chastened, Señorita Parrish.’
‘You do that,’ she advised. ‘I’m going to wash my hands now.’
He caught hold of her wrist as she moved away and had the satisfaction of hearing her suck in a sharp breath. She stood trembling and aware as he held her, reminding him of one of his wild ponies. When they were first captured and brought to him they averted their gaze just as she was doing now, as if to look at him would be an admission that they wanted to stay. He felt how vulnerable she was beneath his huge fist, and how delicate her bones were. He could feel her pulse fluttering beneath the skin and felt some primal urge to protect her. For Maxie’s sake he let her go.
She felt light-headed as she walked the length of the swimming pool on her way to the changing rooms. And that wasn’t just the Diego effect—which was disturbing enough in itself. Her mother had always said Maxie had healing hands, and though Maxie had laughed at this suggestion sessions did take a lot out of her. She could only describe it as her own strength pouring into someone else. How did Diego feel about it? Why had he caught hold of her wrist? He had let her go again, she remembered wryly.
She took her time washing her hands. Closing her eyes, she prepared herself for a return to a world with Diego Acosta in it and a wedding planner with an increasingly bad habit of straying from her brief. But at least she’d had good news to give Holly. Palacio Acosta had the best facilities for a wedding that Maxie had ever seen.
By the time she returned to the side of the pool Diego was standing on his good leg, flexing the other. ‘Does your leg still feel better?’ she said, hoping there hadn’t been some unexpected reversal.
The dark gaze reached deep inside her. ‘There is some improvement,’ Diego admitted. A faint, attractive smile played around his lips, making a crease in his cheek. ‘Same time tomorrow?’ he suggested, pulling on his jeans.
She quickly averted her gaze and stared over his head. ‘I’ll see if I can fit you in,’ she said.
‘You do that.’ Diego’s dark eyes were amused as he fastened his belt. ‘Or we could run a barter system,’ he suggested, tugging a polo shirt over his head. ‘I teach you to ride. You work on my leg?’
‘Why not?’ she said, still dwelling on his naked torso, covered now—unfortunately. ‘That sounds fair.’ And totally insane.
‘I’d better
find you a good ride,’ he said, with the attractive crease back in his cheek. ‘You better had,’ she agreed.
And there it would have ended, with a good bargain made, had she not been trying so hard not to look at Diego when she walked past him. If she had been paying any attention to where she was going instead of avoiding his glance she wouldn’t have tripped over the leg of the lounger and he wouldn’t have been forced to catch her.
‘Careful.’ His face was only a breath away.
‘Thank you,’ she said, pulling away as if he had burned her.
‘My pleasure,’ Diego murmured, with a great deal too much insight in his voice and in his eyes for Maxie’s liking.
This was like trying to take on the forces of nature single-handed, she concluded. Her heart was pounding a tattoo, and if she couldn’t trust herself to behave what hope was there? But instead of taking things further as Diego so easily could have done, he let go of her arm and stood back to let her pass.
He wanted her. His hunting instinct was in full flood, but his instinct also told him to keep her safe. From him. He wanted to thank her for bringing him relief from pain, but he knew where that would lead. And he could sense that Maxie was vulnerable. In business she had all the confidence you would expect, together with the skills necessary to succeed, but in her personal life … He knew nothing about her personal life, except that she was innocence personified compared to him. What was she hiding? he wondered as he stared into her cool grey eyes.
