Bending Over Backwards Read online

  Dedication

  Many thanks to my editor Anne Scott who was so enthusiastic about this book, and to several good friends who read the draft and offered large and small feedback comments. You all make life and writing joyful. Namaste.

  Chapter One

  Leo Fischer stopped to run a hand along the edge of the massive bookshelf that he’d placed in the center of the room, measuring his progress as he removed the layers of paint and rough edges from the old, beat-up wood.

  Getting there. Not bad, anyway, for a guy who’d never wielded sandpaper in his life. A spark of satisfaction lit down deep, filling a need. A gap. The space left empty when he’d lost his work. He hadn’t been a woodworker, but an investment broker.

  Once, his investing must have given him the same sense of satisfaction, perhaps, but he couldn’t remember it. Not even a flicker.

  He had what the doctors called a dissociative fugue, a form of amnesia. His memory hadn’t been completely wiped out, selectively so. As if someone had flipped a breaker on his brain that shut off the power in only one room. The one that housed any memory of his work.

  Leo knew who he was and where he lived. He knew everything about his life—except for his work, how to do it, and anything or anyone associated with it. He’d awakened in the hospital with absolutely no idea why he was there.

  From what he heard and read in the news, that was perhaps a lucky thing too. A former client who had suffered some big losses had come into the office with a gun. Leo didn’t remember any of it, though the pain in his shoulder reminded him.

  He didn’t recognize the people whose funerals he attended, nor his boss or any of the survivors. He couldn’t make any sense of stock prices or financial news on TV, not any more than your average person could. It was all gone. Or, buried. Deep.

  The doctors said the fugue could lift at any time or not at all. The brain was a funny thing.

  Leo didn’t feel like an investment banker, but the proof was all there. He had the midtown Manhattan condo, the closet full of suits and the bank account to prove it. There were pictures of him on the office walls for hitting various investment records and all of the files on his computer. His boss, Neal, who owned this beach house, said he was in line to make associate partner sooner than later. He’d told Leo to use the beach house for as long as he needed to when the psychologist said maybe getting out of town would help.

  So here he was.

  Leo wondered if maybe he didn’t want to remember. Some things were better to forget? The news reports, the pictures in the paper, seeing the anguish of people in the aftermath, were all bad enough.

  Except that now he was drifting somewhere between his past and his future, waiting for one or the other to take shape. How long did he wait?

  Heading into the shower, he shaved and pulled on some cargo shorts and a white tee shirt. He’d had to buy a bunch of new clothes. Back in New York, except for some workout clothes and one pair of designer jeans, all he had were suits. How sad was that?

  He didn’t even like suits. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to tie a tie. His ruminating stopped when he walked back to the deck and she was there.

  She stood facing the water and the sun, and then started moving gracefully, working through a routine of poses he knew was yoga.

  Watching this woman move was extraordinary. Everything so smooth, easy and precise, seemingly timed with the waves hitting the shore. Her copper hair broke loose from its coil and moved around her face, the wind making her part of the scene. The body-hugging, scant yoga gear she wore drove his imagination wild—not that he needed much imagination. He could make out every curve, every contour of her lovely shape.

  Desire, he realized, was still alive somewhere down deep in his blood; at least that hadn’t died inside of him.

  His last sexual encounter made him frown. A blur of limbs and release, but nothing that made any lasting impression. He couldn’t remember the name of the woman he’d been with.

  Looking at the woman on the beach, sex was all he could think about. It made him feel alive, normal. He grasped on to that. There was life somewhere, waiting for him.

  As usual, one by one her group would show up. Some older, some younger. Men, women, heavy, thin. They all followed her as she helped them, correcting their posture.

  He couldn’t hear her, but he wanted to. What did her voice sound like? Would it be as sensual as her moves, her shape? Or strong and steady like her stance?

  She stood at the back of her group, suddenly turning to meet his gaze, as if she knew he was watching. He did the stupidest thing possible and put his hand up, offering a short wave.

  She stared for another second and then looked away without returning his gesture.

  He felt like an idiot.

  Leo knew the routine as well as they did. There were moments he felt his muscles twitch in sympathetic movement, his body wanting to join in as his mind held it back.

  Maybe it was time to change that. He’d been sitting in this house for two weeks, waiting for what? Waiting for his life to come back? He wasn’t even sure if he wanted it to. His shoulder ached all the time, and his physical therapist had urged him to do some kind of therapeutic exercise, including yoga.

  He’d dismissed the idea until this moment.

  Why not? Leo waited for the class to end, and when she was alone, he headed down to the beach.

  Jasmine Stanford pretended to be busy packing up her gear, but she knew he was heading directly for her. It was inevitable, she supposed. He’d been up there gawking for the last week or so, eating his breakfast and enjoying the show.

  Normally, she didn’t mind if people observed her classes, she even liked and encouraged it. She found a lot of new students that way, but she didn’t really care for serving as some trust-fund guy’s morning entertainment.

  “Hi.”

  It was him. She realized that he was right behind her.

  She straightened, turning as she prepared to give him a quick brush-off—but stopped when she met his eyes. Jasmine had never seen quite that combination of brown and gold—caramel and chocolate—two of her favorite things. Any response choked in her throat. She couldn’t quite name it, but she could feel the emotion radiating through those gorgeous eyes. A deep sadness reached out and touched her.

  He kept staring, and she finally blinked and spoke. “Hi.”

  He was a bit taller than her five-nine, with an athletic build under the loose, casual clothing he wore.

  It was an expensive brand, she noted. Of course.

  What didn’t fit into the image were the shadows under his eyes; his skin was a bit pale, as well. Up too late partying? Not likely, if he was out of bed as early as she was in the morning.

  A slash of dark hair that the wind kept blowing down over his face made his features all the more dramatic.

  She looked him up and down. “On vacation?”

  He smiled, as if the question was funny somehow. “In a way.”

  What the heck did that mean?

  “I wanted to come down and say hello. I’ve enjoyed watching your class. Leo Fischer,” he said, holding out a hand.

  His accent was New York, not Boston.

  She took his hand and foolishly caught her breath a little at the contact. He didn’t let go right away.

  Leo shifted his stance, and she couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of strong thigh muscles moving under the light material of his shorts and how his tee pulled over his nicely shaped chest and biceps. A little tingle of something ran down her spine. She was a yoga instructor, attuned to people’s bodies, their movements, but this wasn’t professional interest.

  “Nice to meet you.” His smile was genuine and changed his face, softening it and mak
ing him even more handsome. “Except that you haven’t told me your name.”

  Jasmine smiled back, in spite of herself. “Jasmine.”

  “Nice.”

  “Thanks. Can I help you with something?”

  He stared at her for a long minute, as if he didn’t understand the question, and then he blinked.

  “Oh, right. Yeah, I wanted to ask about joining your class. I have a bad shoulder. I was in physical therapy for a while, but it’s still bothering me. I wondered if yoga might help.”

  “How’d you injure it?” Old football injury? Too much jet-setting?

  He looked like the sort who had a lot of money and spent it enjoying his leisure time. Probably his parents’ money. Jasmine knew the life; she had been on the same track way back when.

  “Not exactly. It’s from a gunshot wound, actually.”

  That stopped her thoughts cold.

  “Wait—did you say you were shot?”

  “Yeah. It’s healing up pretty well.” He pushed up the sleeve of his shirt to show her a fresh scar. “But the doctor said the impact caused some nerve damage. They wanted me in physical therapy for longer, but I needed to get out of the city for a while.”

  “What happened?”

  He shifted his stance, looking away from her. “You know, I’d rather not talk about it. I actually don’t remember much, anyway. Post-traumatic amnesia. Who knows, maybe yoga will help with that too, you think?” he asked with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  Jasmine wasn’t sure what to say, and she was suddenly suspicious. It wouldn’t be the first time some guy made up a fantastic line to try to get a woman into bed. But using a terrible story like this to pick up a woman was pretty low. Still, there was something about him that made her think he wasn’t completely jerking her around. He did have that awful scar.

  So he probably had been shot, but she wasn’t really buying the bit about the amnesia.

  “You can’t remember anything?” she asked, challenging him to lie about it.

  “Well, I can remember everything but my work or anything to do with it. There was an office shooting in my building.” As he explained, he became more agitated. “It was bad.”

  Jasmine was taken aback.

  “That’s awful. What was your job?”

  “Investment broker.”

  Right. He had the look. Slick. Smooth. Shark.

  “You must have been good at it to afford a place on the beach like that,” she said, glancing up at the house and wondering why she was still talking to him at this point.

  “The house isn’t mine. It’s my boss’s place. He let me have it when the shrinks said that a change of pace would help me remember something.”

  “I see,” she responded noncommittally. “Any luck?”

  “Nope. Listen, I just wanted to say hello and maybe ask about your class. You think you could help?”

  “A lot depends on the individual and the injury, and I’d want to talk to your physical therapist, but we could probably work something out.”

  She reached into her bag and gave him a card. It was a simple white card with a logo for Body Sense Yoga, the name, address and phone number printed underneath a simple graphic, a stylized blue wave that twisted into a person in a yoga pose in the corner. She’d designed it herself.

  “Nice card.”

  The shadow of sadness was still there in his eyes, as if it hovered over his very spirit. Jasmine was sensitive to people’s energy, for lack of a better word. It wasn’t anything psychic or supernatural, but a result of meditation and years of trying to be in tune with her students. It helped her teach.

  But Leo’s energy was…muddy. Swirling around him in a confused mess. But there was some brightness, too, flickering, as if it couldn’t make up its mind. He definitely had some issues. A spark of sympathy ignited in her chest, but she ignored it.

  “I have to get going to my next class,” she said, turning away.

  “Hey, um, maybe you could come up and have a cup of coffee with me some morning, after your class?”

  There it was, she thought with a sigh. So this was a pickup.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Dinner, then?”

  “Listen, if you really need help with your shoulder, you’re welcome in the class, but if you’re trying to get me into bed, forget it.”

  “That’s quite an assumption.” He slipped his sunglasses on, his cheeky smile in place. She could almost feel the sexual vibe coming from him.

  Unfortunately, she could feel it in all the right places.

  But this guy was really a shark in surfer’s clothing. Leo played the wounded hero pretty well, and she’d almost bought into it, but his disguise had fallen long enough for her to see the truth.

  Jasmine knew his type better than she wanted to. These kinds of guys—wealthy, powerful, controlling—could turn on the charm for as long as it took them to get whatever they wanted, and then turn it back off again once they’d gotten it. No doubt he had a real injury, though who knew how much of the rest of his story was true? She wasn’t interested in finding out.

  Snatching her card back from him, she shoved it in her bag.

  “Bye, Leo,” she said, really intending to leave this time. “There are lots of good yoga teachers on the Cape. I’m sure you’ll find someone who can address your needs,” she said, not bothering to hide the innuendo.

  “See you later, Jasmine.” There was a note of promise in his voice that no doubt had gotten more than one woman on the hook before he decided to throw them back. She ignored it.

  Jasmine walked up to the parking lot where her car was parked, and peeked back behind her. He was still standing there, watching.

  He waved again, like he had from the deck.

  She got in her car, regretting that she was caught looking. Guys like Leo were all hard candy shell, nothing good inside. She knew that, and she knew there were better men for her to meet.

  Her last relationship had ended a few months ago when her lover, a local teacher, had gotten a job in Virginia. Neither one of them had been interested in pursuing anything long distance. It was what it was, good while they had it, and then it was over.

  She was okay with that; her life was here. She’d built a pretty steady foundation for herself, lifting her life out of the chaos of her youth. Now Jasmine had friends, her business and hard-won stability. And she had a solid rule about not dating guys like Leo. She’d had her fill of them back when she had been too confused and naïve to know better. When she thought they were what she wanted.

  Guys in suits—powerful, suave men like Leo—were Jasmine’s kryptonite. She’d thought she was past it. Some women liked bad boys, cowboys, blue-collar boys, whatever. For Jasmine, none of them lit her fire like a man with a hard body and a sharp mind in a silver-gray suit. Throw in a pair of Italian dress shoes and she was butter on toast. Success was an aphrodisiac.

  But that depended on how you defined success, she reminded herself. She wanted a certain quality of life, and while money was important, it wasn’t her goal. She wasn’t wealthy, but she was happy. She’d accomplished what she had because she counted on herself and made smart decisions. Leo was not a smart decision.

  See you later, Jasmine.

  He had a great voice too. Dammit.

  Jasmine sighed as she let herself in the front door of the small cottage where she lived, dropping off some things before she headed to the studio for the day.

  Leo’s energy clung to her. She paused for a moment to look out at the deck, at the morning sun. Leo’s caramel-colored eyes burned through it all, as if he were watching her right now. Maybe because she could see that while he might be a shark, he was a wounded one.

  All the more dangerous.

  Whatever the reason, he’d done something that no man had done for a long, long time—he’d gotten under her skin, and quickly. He’d somehow disturbed the placid calm and balance she worked so hard for.

  Jasmine closed her eyes and push
ed him from her thoughts, focusing on her breathing and making herself focus.

  But not on Leo.

  Chapter Two

  Jasmine sank into the seat at her desk, casting a lustful glance at the cushy sofa on the other side of the room.

  She was exhausted.

  She was fortunate enough to make a living doing something that she loved, something that made people happier and healthier. But too much success had her in a bind.

  She had more students than she could handle, even though she’d let Amanda, her best friend, take a few of the walk-in classes that Jasmine had scheduled for tourists.

  There was only so much one person could do, and she was running classes every day, all day. She used alternate schedules, teaching advanced and beginner yoga on different days, but it was still wearying.

  She’d considered making DVDs to run sessions as she walked around and simply monitored progress; it was a real possibility. But it was also expensive to have professionally produced DVDs, and she had to get the copyright and so forth. Who had time?

  She didn’t dare put her head down; she might fall asleep. The yogi in her knew this was wrong—her life was out of balance. The businesswoman in her told her that to succeed as a small business, you had to play hard. Yoga studios were popping up all over the place; she needed to stay competitive. Hiring extra people wasn’t as easy as it sounded. This wasn’t Boston or New York, and there weren’t a lot of local yoga teachers who didn’t already run their own studios. Also, she was hesitant to place her students’ welfare in someone else’s hands.

  The chime over the door rang, and she looked up to see Amanda walk in from the street.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked Amanda, smiling in welcome.

  “I thought I’d drop by and see if you had any time in between classes to catch a break.”

  “I have a whole hour before the next one, and I could use some downtime. Want to get an ice cream and sit outside for a few minutes? Fresh air and sugar might be almost as good as sleep.”

  “That sounds great. You know you never have to talk me into ice cream, and with how many classes you’re teaching lately, you could get a double scoop. You look a little thin,” Amanda said, sizing her up. “Too thin. I could take over more of the classes if you need me to.”