Wicked Nights (Men of Discovery Island 2)

“You kissed me,” Cal pointed out cheerfully, punching the button for the elevator. He looked down at her feet. “I assume we’re not taking the stairs, since you’re wearing those shoes.”

“What’s wrong with my shoes?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said. “But I am wondering how you manage to walk in them. Doesn’t your knee bother you?”

She wasn’t talking about her knee. “My knee is none of your business,” she gritted out. The hotel had to have the slowest elevators known to humankind. She’d take the stairs, but Cal was, of course, right. Her feet hurt, her knee throbbed, and if it had been anything other than a business meeting, she’d have toed off the shoes and swapped them for the flip-flops in her tote bag.

“Actually, your knee kind of is my business.”

The elevator dinged, the doors slid open and she limped inside. Unfortunately, like always, Cal was right on her heels. He held the door with one large hand and then reached around her to press the button for the third floor.

The doors shut, making her uncomfortably aware the space was too small for the both of them. Plus, all her elevator fantasies rushed unbidden to the forefront of her head.

Cal filled up all the available space, big and sure, but she still wasn’t discussing her knee with him. After all, every possible angle of the injury had already been discussed in the national media. When it had become clear she wouldn’t be resuming her platform-diving career, the media had run stories about the accident and her broken dreams. She preferred not to relive those moments.

Move ahead.

Don’t look back.

If she could change that day, she would. But life didn’t pass out do overs, and Cal had saved her life. The truth rankled, if she was being honest. She’d always stood on her own two feet, always pulled herself out of the water, no matter how hard or badly she hit. Except for that one afternoon when she’d needed Cal to do it. Of course, there were worse things than having to say thank you. Things like being dead. So even if she wished she’d gotten herself out of trouble, she still appreciated everything Cal had done.

“Third floor?” she asked, ignoring the fact that since he’d punched the button, it was clearly their destination. Cal never got the details wrong.

“Yeah.” He settled in on the other side of the elevator as if she’d never sat on his lap last night or made free with his body. “So, how is your knee?”

“Better.” She owed him that much. “Stiff sometimes, and it can only take so much stress before it buckles. I appreciate what you did for me that day.”

She did, too, even if she would prefer not to talk about it.

This wasn’t the first time she’d thanked him—although, admittedly, it was only the second because, hey, she had her limits—and he once again shrugged off her thanks, as if she’d expressed her appreciation for a cut in line or a cup of coffee. Clearly, in Cal’s world, a rescue was just all in a day’s work, no matter how much his rescue had meant to her. He dropped his gaze to her knee. For one charged moment, she thought he’d reach out and touch her there.

“So no more platform diving?”

No, and the truth still stung. “The knee can’t handle the hurdle. As soon as I push off, it buckles. I couldn’t get the air height to be competitive.”

“And being competitive mattered most?”

Pretty much. Piper’s family competed. In the pool, on the ring or on the field, the Clarks competed and they won. Her parents didn’t know what to make of her newfound desire to own a dive shop. Her brothers were simply, fiercely, adamantly protective. Moving to the island and temporarily putting some ocean between her and them had been the only way to avoid suffocating. She’d had a career-ending injury, not a deathblow, but they had a hard time seeing it that way. While she appreciated the open offer of a job on the ranch, it wasn’t what she wanted for herself.

“I didn’t want to climb the tower and dive, knowing I’d score dead last in every meet. Plus, I would have been cut from the team after one season anyhow.”

So she’d left.

“I tried,” he said abruptly. “I did everything I could think of to miss hitting the Jet Ski.”

Cal had driven his motorboat into the breakwater, trying to avoid the crash. If he hadn’t... Well, the alternative was one more thing on the list of things she didn’t think about. She hadn’t known he blamed himself in any way for the accident. That was why these things were called accidents and not on-purposes.

“I know,” she said, because she did.

“Jesus, Piper. You shouldn’t have been out there. You knew better.”