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Now who’s the liar?
“Lincoln,” the young man said softly as if testing the sound of my name.
He may as well have run his sinful tongue over every part of my body.
“Theo,” the man added with a nod.
It was the same name he’d been introduced to everyone else with but the way he’d said it to me felt different somehow.
“Theo,” I repeated dumbly.
Like me, Theo had blond hair, but his was several shades darker than my own naturally curly hair and while my locks were long enough that I could tie them back with a hair tie, Theo’s were short and perfectly groomed.
Tooperfectly.
His eyes looked like the most dangerous of storm clouds and his lips practically invited anyone brave enough to get past those eyes to steal a taste of him. His body was lean, but it was hard to tell with the loose-fitting clothes he was wearing if it was just trim or if he was on the wrong side of skinny.
The fact was that nothing about him was what I would have considered mytype, but my body seemed to have conveniently forgotten that point.
My body seemed to have forgotten a lot of things.
First and foremost, that I was supposed to let go of him at some point.
“You almost done takin’ his temperature the old way, Nurse Ratchet?” my current charge and never-ending pain in my ass, Walter, practically bellowed as he rolled his wheelchair into my leg to get my attention. It wasn’t enough to get me to release Theo’s hand, but I did finally realize the young man was indeed trying to get free of my hold with a discreet but nonetheless forceful tug.
I immediately dropped his hand.
“Come on, son,” Walter said as he motioned to Theo. “Me and Lenny will give you the real tour of the place… the one that includes all the places Ford and Sheriff Loud-n-Plenty like to do it when they think no one notices them sneaking off.”
“Jesus, Walter,” Ford moaned as his partner, Cam, my other employer, chuckled and pulled Ford back against his big body and whispered something into the younger man’s ear that had him turning red but nodding his head all the same.
I would have found amusement in the situation if I hadn’t been so busy studying Theo’s movements as he was introduced to Walter’s beloved Lenny who stood protectively next to Walter. No doubt it wouldn’t be long before Theo learned of Walter and Lenny’s seventy-year-plus odyssey to finally be together. It was a tale I never tired of hearing.
Theo kept his distance from Lenny and Walter but once they introduced him to their pride and joy, Puddles, Theo did what most people did upon encountering the cute little white dog—he leaned down to give her a little pat as she squirmed on Walter’s lap. The smile that passed over his features was very different from the ones he’d given to the other occupants of the room. It was softer somehow.
It was real.
And I felt it like a punch to the gut.
What would it take to get him to bestow one of those beautiful smiles in my direction?
Focus, Lincoln.
I did as my inner voice said and studied Theo as he moved. I finally noticed that he seemed to be holding one arm close to his body. At one point when Puddles lurched forward and put her little paws on that arm, Theo flinched but his features remained frozen. There were no outward signs of pain, but he had no way of masking the tiny dots of perspiration on his forehead.
It took everything in me not to step forward and force Theo to show me his arm or to spread my palm over his forehead to see if his skin was hot to the touch. A foreign sensation stole over me as I watched Theo accompany Walter and Lenny as well as Riley, the teenager Ford and Cam had taken in when he’d been disowned by his family, into the house.
I thought it was fear at first—that I was afraid for the young man and whatever pains ailed him—but it didn’t take long for me to realize that wasn’t it. I knew fear. It had followed me for years on the battlefield as I’d fought for my country, and it still followed me as I tried to outrun my sins.
This wasn’t fear.
It was something that came on the heels of fear… something I hadn’t felt in a really long time. Something I’d hoped to never feel again.
Helplessness.
“He seemed good, right?” I heard Ford murmur softly to Cam.
I didn’t hear what Cam said in response but from the way Ford leaned into him as I stepped away to give the men more privacy, I knew that Ford was on the same page about his best friend as I was.
