Page 6 of Bad Decisions

I watch him remove his thick sweater, revealing a tight-fitting white T-shirt, and I’m not surprised to see his muscled chest stretching the fabric in all the right places. A lot of my clients are sportsmen, and Will’s muscles would put most of them to shame.

“So, you live in Brooklyn? And what do you do there?” he asks, while barely needing to stretch to remove several books from the highest shelf.

Every defined muscle in his back is contracting and on display beneath the thin T-shirt.

My observation is purely a professional appreciation of the human form, I tell myself, and for once, my thoughts stay in my head.

He adds the bundle in his hands to the stack beside me, then walks back to the full shelves to repeat the process. I still haven’t picked up from the last lot.

“You don’t want to tell me?” he asks, reminding me he’d asked a question.

“What? No, it’s all good. I work in a Brooklyn clinic as a physiotherapist.”

“Really?” His eyes are wide when he turns. “I never would have guessed that. You seem too tiny.”

“Hey, I’m not that little. Just because you’re a big guy …” A flash of heat burns my cheeks with the realization that what I was going to say could be taken the wrong way. “What I mean is you’re tall.”

It’s bad enough for me to ogle him when he’s just here to help. But to inadvertently slip innuendoes into our conversation is embarrassing.

A laugh rumbles up from his chest. “I’m six one, and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination,” he says with a sexy waggle of his eyebrows.

With a barely contained smile, I wave a hand in front of my face to bring my color down from traffic-stop red to rosy. “Enough. Please,” I beg.

His chuckle rumbles around the room, filling the silence that has been hard to escape these past weeks. It’s like the house is coming back to life. My home growing up was always full of fun and laughter, and maybe the rooms can echo with joy again, even if my heart is still a long way from feeling that emotion.

He hands me a bundle of five more paperbacks.

“I think it’s time you told me a little about yourself rather than me doing all the talking.” I attempt a light laugh, but it comes out as a forced choke, like the muscles in my throat have forgotten how to do that. I clear my throat, then try again. “You said the other day you had a new job in DC. Is that still with the military?”

“No. I’ve completed my service with the 75th Ranger Regiment,” he says, placing another bundle of books beside me. “I’ll be joining my friend’s security company in just over a week. Ben, Parker, Tim, and I all served together, and they started the company a few years back.”

“But you stayed in longer?”

His hand freezes midair, a book clasped so tightly in it that the knuckles look white. “I did. Probably longer than I should have.”

I can’t see his face, but the tension in his back and shoulders speaks volumes. This is not a subject he wants to dive into, so I quickly change the topic.

“Have you read this book?” I ask as I pick one up from the top of the pile. “I love a murder mystery, and Agatha Christie’s are the best.”

He turns. “Are you a Poirot or Miss Marple fan?”

“Hard choice. But I’d have to say Hercule Poirot because Murder on the Orient Express is my favorite.”

“Me too,” he agrees, smiling down at me.

We clear the highest shelves first, and the stack of full cardboard boxes grows taller. Working alongside Will makes the mammoth task more enjoyable than I’d ever have thought possible. He’s the perfect helper. Not only can he reach the top shelf effortlessly, but he clearly loves books as much as I do. Then, when we discover one we’ve both read, a lively discussion ensues. A suspenseful murder mystery is a common favorite. While I’m a steamy romance kind of girl, he’s more of a science fiction fan like my dad was, and there are plenty of paperbacks on the dusty shelves that capture his interest.

Will is full of interesting facts and conversation, but what I notice more about him is that he listens when I speak. Not just pretending to. No, he really listens, and I like that a lot.

By lunchtime, we’ve cleared all the bookshelves, leaving a stack of three boxes for me to take home to my apartment, a small pile of five books Will has selected to take with him, and several towers of boxes for the charity group to collect.

Washing my dusty hands in the kitchen sink, I ask, “How about I make us lunch? If you don’t need to rush off, that is?” I turn and watch him place a final box on the high stack next to the round wood dining table.

My eyes can’t look away from the flex of the deltoid muscles in his shoulders, the lengthening of his triceps, and then, even better, the bulge of his biceps as they shorten with the bend of his arm. This is arm porn at its finest and the stuff of this physiotherapist’s fantasies.

He clears his throat. “Jewel, did you just check me out?” he asks, grinning.

“Purely in the professional sense.” I rush to explain. “I like to run through the muscle groups in my head. It’s a quirky habit.”