From the First Kiss. Jessica Bird

wind and the horizontal rain. Holding on to his best friend’s hand. Feeling that grip slip until his partner was lost to the hungry sea. He saw himself screaming into the darkness until his voice was gone. Searching the waves with a spotlight, looking for a man in the ocean.

      On that horrible night, the wheel of fate had been spun and everyone had lost. Reese Cutler had died. Cassandra Cutler had become a widow. And Alex had been sealed in a coffin of self-hatred he was never going to get out of.

      “Is she staying in this house through your wedding?” he asked tightly.

      “Yes.”

      Alex pushed his palms into the mattress and hefted his upper body to the vertical. Everything hurt so he lay back down. “Then I’m leaving.”

      “Alex, you can’t.”

      “Watch me.” He didn’t care if he had to drag himself back onto Moorehouse property. Their father’s old workshop had a potbellied stove and a bathroom. Combined with a total lack of phone lines, the place was good enough for him.

      “But you promised you wouldn’t move into the shop until you saw the doctor—”

      “I’m meeting with the orthopedist on Monday. Seventy-two hours is close enough.”

      Joy’s eyes drifted to the floor.

      “Alex, I…I was hoping we could all be under the same roof for my wedding,” she said softly. “You, me and Frankie. It’s been so long since you’ve been home. And after the fire—”

      Alex cursed. “Stop. Just stop.”

      Damn it, he had a terrible feeling his escape route was getting cut off. As much of a selfish hard-ass as he was, he wasn’t about to be one more disappointment during what should have been a happy time for Joy. After all, White Caps was uninhabitable following the fire in its kitchen. Most of her stuff had been destroyed in the blaze as the family’s rooms were in the old staff quarters in the back. And he had to imagine she was missing both their dead parents more than ever.

      God, had it been ten years since the two of them had died out on the lake?

      “Alex, please say you’ll stay.”

      “If I do,” he said roughly, “I’m not seeing that woman.”

      “She just wants to talk with you.”

      “Then tell her I’ll call her later.” Like in a decade. Or five.

      “You could do that yourself.” There was a long pause. “She’s hurting, just like you are. She needs some support.”

      “Not from me, she doesn’t.”

      The last thing that widow needed was sympathy from someone who’d lusted after her for years; who’d watched her from the shadows with greed, seeing her as both a miracle and a curse; who’d lain awake wondering what her skin would feel like, what her mouth would taste like.

      Hell, she deserved comfort from a man who had more honor than he did, someone who hadn’t fallen in love with his best friend’s wife.

      And who just might have… God, he couldn’t even bear the thought of what he’d done.

      Alex shut his eyes. Nausea, his constant companion of late, made his empty stomach swell like a trash bag left in the heat.

      “Alex—”

      “I’ve got nothing to offer her,” he spat. “So tell her to stay away from me.”

      Joy recoiled. “How can you be so cruel?”

      “Because I’m a bastard, that’s how.”

      When the door shut, Alex slowly sat up again. His head spun and his eyes pounded. Using his good arm, he picked up his leg by its cast and moved it off the bed. Then he carefully braced his weight on one of his crutches and cantilevered himself into a standing position. He hobbled over to a mirror.

      He looked scary. Bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes with bags under them. Sallow pallor. Sunken cheeks. Whiskers.

      He was fading away, he thought.

      But then unrelenting guilt, and enough time in an OR so he was almost a surgical resident, would do that to a guy.

      He looked down at his leg. In a couple days, he’d know whether he was keeping it or having it amputated below the knee. That shiny new titanium rod they’d used to replace his tibia hadn’t taken after the first implantation, and when the orthopedic surgeon operated again six weeks ago, the woman had made it clear. They’d take one more shot at it and then it was saw time.

      Okay, so she hadn’t been that blunt.

      Not that the outcome really mattered to him. Either way, with an artificial limb or a reconstructed lower leg, his future wasn’t clear. As a professional America’s Cup sailor, and captain of the best crew in the sport, he needed both his body and his mind in top shape. Neither were there. Not by a long shot. And even if they fixed his leg, it wasn’t as if they were doing cranial transplants.

      The knocking started up again.

      “I told you I wasn’t going to see her,” he growled.

      “So I heard.” Through the door, Cassandra’s voice was low.

      Alex shut his eyes. Dear Lord.

      Cassandra Cutler put her forehead on the doorjamb.

      He sounded exactly the same. Impatient. Commanding. And not at all interested in having anything to do with her.

      Alex Moorehouse had never liked her—something that had been horribly awkward considering he’d been her husband’s sailing partner. Best friend. Confidant.

      Reese had tried to reassure her that Alex was just a gruff kind of guy, but she knew it was personal. The man had always gone out of his way to avoid her, and whenever that was impossible, he glowered. At first she’d thought he was being territorial over Reese, but as time passed she’d realized that was too petty for someone like Alex. He simply couldn’t stand the sight of her, though what she’d done to offend him she couldn’t guess.

      So she shouldn’t be surprised he wouldn’t see her now. And she really wasn’t.

      It just hurt. Although exactly why, she wasn’t sure. On so many levels, it didn’t matter that Alex Moorehouse thought she was beneath him. She was never going to run into him again, not anymore. He was nothing in the larger scheme of her life.

      Except she’d always hoped the man would come around and see her as more than just an irritating hanger-on. Alex had this way about him that suggested if he liked you, you’d passed some kind of stringent test.

      With his discipline and his rigor, his rugged body and his fierce intellect, he was all about high standards, for himself and others. It was obvious why his crew both worshipped and feared him, why even Reese had had stars in his eyes when he’d talked about the great Alex Moorehouse.

      Suddenly the door jerked open.

      She looked up. And had to cover her mouth with her hand at what she saw. “Oh…my God.”

      Alex had always been larger than life. A big, muscular man, with eyes like a dangerous animal and an aura like the sun. She’d been totally intimidated when she’d first met him, this sailing phenomenon her husband had revered, this hard man the international America’s Cup community called The Warrior.

      The person standing in front of her in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms was half-dead. Alex’s skin hung off his bones, as if he’d eaten little in the three months since the accident, and he was leaning on a crutch, one leg in a cast. His sunken cheeks were brushed with beard. His thick, sun- streaked hair, always clipped tight like a military man’s, was now shaggy.

      But his eyes. His dark blue eyes were what affected her most. They were dull in his harsh face. Flat as stone. Even the color seemed to have dimmed.

      “Alex…” she