Naturally Naughty - Leslie Kelly [53]
She managed to avoid Jack for the most part—not an easy feat considering their close living quarters. But he was usually gone during the day, and so was she. That suited her fine.
Nights were tougher. They slept mere inches apart, separated only by the width of one slim, interior wall. There were times when she thought she heard his hand brush the wall behind her head, when he’d roll over in her old bed next door. She knew from childhood experience that at times she and Cassie had heard each other’s late-night bad dream cries.
On Wednesday morning she stepped outside on the porch as soon as she got up, glad for the fresh early-morning air. Down the block, a mother rode a bicycle, with a toddler in the child seat. The woman waved as she rode by.
A nice, peaceful morning. She didn’t remember those from when she’d lived here, though, she supposed there must have been some. At least for Edie. Otherwise, why would her mother have ever come back here when Kate’s dad died?
Hearing sounds coming from next door, she stepped closer and peered into the front window of her mother’s duplex. She wished she hadn’t. Jack stood in his living room, bare-chested, wearing only a pair of loose white pants. He was stretching, moving his body with fluidity and grace. And power. It took a second for her muddled brain to realize that he was running through some type of karate moves.
He had no idea she was there. So she watched for several minutes. The sweat gleamed on his bare chest and thick arms as he swung and kicked and arched. He moved his body like a sleek animal, a finely tuned—but dangerous—machine.
Walk away before he sees you. She couldn’t, though. She couldn’t turn and walk into her house. Just one more moment of watching…. One moment stretched into five or ten minutes until finally, inevitably, he glanced up and saw her there.
He immediately stopped. They stared at each other through the glass for a minute, then Jack lifted his hand and pointed toward her with his index finger, wagging it back and forth like a parent to a kid who’d done something naughty.
Act innocent. She gave him a “Who me?” shrug.
He crossed his arms and raised his brow, waiting for her to admit she’d been spying on him.
“Oh, all right,” she muttered. As she entered the front door she immediately launched into an explanation. “I didn’t mean to watch you working out. I just stepped out for some fresh air, and couldn’t help noticing.”
“Uh-huh,” he said as he began to stretch his arms out, slowly rolling his shoulders as if cooling down from his workout.
“I mean, the curtains were open. I just caught a glimpse.”
“Right.”
His one-word answers did nothing to hide his amusement.
“Really, Jack, I do respect your privacy.”
He finally stopped moving all those yummy muscles long enough to meet her eye. “Kate, you’ve been standing there for almost ten minutes.”
She fisted her hands and put them on her hips. “You saw me?”
“No,” he admitted. Then he grinned. “But I heard your front door open, and that board on the front porch really creaks.”
She was surprised he’d been able to hear anything except his own churning pulse as he’d flexed and stretched all those lovely, hard muscles. She forced herself to look away, wondering if she’d been drooling while she’d watched from the window. She surreptitiously lifted her fingers to her chin to check.
“So, uh, were you doing some kind of karate?” she finally asked, wanting to fill the charged silence. “I’ve thought about taking some self-defense courses.”
“Tae Kwon Do. If you’re serious, I teach at a studio in Chicago. I can give you the address.”
That implied they’d see one another after they left Pleasantville, something Kate hadn’t really allowed herself to consider. “Well, I don’t know….”
“If you don’t feel comfortable in