His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Used your preventive medicine?"
She gaped at him. "What?"
"Your nedochromil sodium," he replied, and then added the brand name she was prescribed.
"Yes," she said shortly. "That and the al-buterol as well. Religiously. I don't like ending up in the emergency room."
"See that you keep using them properly. You've got a wheeze."
"Cold nights and warm days for a week," she said.
He shrugged. "Yes. I've noticed the increase in my little asthmatics' visits." He picked up his jacket. "Is the medicine giving enough cover?"
His concern touched her, but she wasn't going to let him know. "Yes, sir."
"Good." He checked his watch, nodded and left her in the waiting room as he went out the back way to his car. She felt a warm glow at the personal conversation they'd had. Nothing in their relationship had been the least personal until now.
But when she realized what she was thinking, she clamped down hard on her wandering attention. She'd have to be crazy to let Dr. Morris get under her skin. Even crazier than she'd been to go out with Guy Fenton.
Dr. Morris was just being the ideal boss, concerned for his workers' welfare, she told herself. So she'd better concentrate on just doing her job and not trying to make intimate comments out of impersonal observations about her health. He was a doctor, after all. It was natural for him to be concerned with someone's health.
Chapter 2
In the months since their disastrous date, Kitty had put Guy Fenton out of her mind. She knew that he and Millie had a brief fling together, of sorts, but it didn't seem to last long. And not because of any interference from Guy's ex-girlfriend. In fact, there were rumors that she was seeing someone else.
Kitty hadn't expected Guy to ever apologize for his behavior on their one and only date, but he did, when he came to have a routine physical for a new insurance policy, long after his cast had been removed—a procedure that she remembered he'd had done at the hospital rather than at Drew's office.
"Letting you leave the theater that night without even noticing was a low thing to do, and I'm sorry," he told her. "I love bulldog-ging. Millie was hanging on every word, and I'd been sweet on her for a long time. But that was no excuse for ignoring you until you left and went home alone at night. I'm really sorry—several months too late," he added with a sheepish grin. "To tell you the truth, I was too ashamed to call you afterward."
"No harm done," she'd told him.
"Lucky for me," he added vaguely. "Your, uh, boss had quite a lot to say about it."
She was shocked. "Dr. Morris?"
"The very same. He dragged me out of bed in the bunkhouse at the ranch the day you told him and read me the riot act for ten minutes in front of the whole crew." He quirked an eyebrow. "Wouldn't have taken it from anyone else, but he had a point. I should have checked to see where you were when you didn't come back with popcorn. Anything could have happened to you." He stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "There's another reason I stayed away. I thought he might have designs on you." He noted Kitty's sudden color. "My mistake. I guess he only felt responsible for you since you work for him."
"Yes," she said, her head whirling, "I suppose so."
He glanced at her with amusement. "I don't suppose you'd like to try going out with me again? Even if I swore I wouldn't talk rodeo with anybody in a nearby seat?"
She smiled pleasantly. "No, thanks." She looked at the intercom and saw the light flashing. "You can go in now."
He hesitated, but then he gave her a rueful smile and walked on down the hall. They had too little in common to make many waves together, anyway.
Later she was curious enough to ask Dr. Morris about what he'd said to Guy.
He gave her one of his blandest looks. "You could have been assaulted, walking around town alone at night, even in Jacobs-ville. Somebody needed to put him straight."
"Shades of my dad," she murmured.
Something changed in his expression. He studied her far longer than he meant to before he shrugged and turned away. "Just the same, pick your dates more carefully in the future, would you? I've got better ways to amuse myself than play nursemaid."
"Such as?" she blurted.
He stared at her blankly.
"What better ways do you have to amuse yourself?" she persisted. "You work all day and then you help out in the emergency room if you don't have late hours, which you mostly do. On weekends, you cover for doctors who are going on vacation or spending time with their families. I doubt you've dined out, taken in a movie or gone bowling in the past five years."
He was clouding up again, like a thunderstorm waiting to crash down on her head. “My private life is no concern of yours," he said pointedly. "Just do your job."
She searched his hard face quietly, seeing deep lines there, and the beginnings of gray at his temples. He'd been a little overweight when she'd first come to work for him, but he'd lost the extra pounds and now he was streamlined; probably from all the work he did.
"There's a whole world out there that you can't even see," she said, thinking aloud. "Children playing baseball, old men talking about past glories on their bench in the grocery store, gardeners telling lies about their prize roses over the fences. You don't see any of that because you run past it." She saw him tense, but she didn't stop. "Dr. Morris, the only thing you're going to accomplish is to put yourself in the grave next to your wife."
"Stop it."
His voice cut like a lash. "I'm sorry," she replied. "Nobody else seems to care if you kill yourself. Being a workaholic is fine, for a while, but it catches up with you eventually. You should already know that you're a prime candidate for a heart attack. Or is that why you push yourself so hard?" she added softly. "Is life so unbearable without her that you're trying..."
"I said, stop it."
This time there was no mistaking the threat. Any minute now, she was going to be minus a good job.
She backed off mentally, holding up her hands in mock defense. "Okay, I quit," she said. "I'll be a model secretary-receptionist from now on, seen but not heard."
"Great idea, if you plan to keep working here," he said, putting what he felt into words. He didn't need to. The black fury in his eyes was threat enough. "If you want something to worry about, try having someone sort your hose so that you can wear two of the same shade!"
He indicated her feet. She looked down and grimaced. Peeking out from under her charcoal gray slacks were a pair of knee-high hose so obviously different that she flushed.
She looked up, tossing her head. "Done on purpose," she proclaimed triumphantly. "I'm setting a new fashion trend."
He made an odd sound. His eyes twinkled but he turned away before the grin inside him got loose.
"Get to work," he muttered.
"Yes, sir!"
She whirled and headed back to her office, so flushed that Nurse Turner stopped her and felt her forehead.
"I'm fine," she assured the middle-aged nurse. "I've just been rushing again."
She glanced back toward the doctor and said loudly, "You've got workaholitis. It's contagious!"
"There goes your Independence Day bonus," he called over his shoulder without breaking stride.
Nurse Turner made a face at him.
"I saw that," he called from his office without looking back.
"See?" she told Kitty. "You can't win."
"I already knew that."
Nurse Turner took her by the arm and pulled her into the receptionist's cubbyhole, closing the door carefully behind her.
"Don't mention his wife, ever," she cautioned gently. "He tends to brood around the time she died. It makes things worse for him."
"When did she die?"
"Six years ago tomorrow," the nurse said in a quiet tone. "The first year after it happened, he ran his car into a tree. Fortunately he was only mildly concussed. After that, Dr. Coltrain started keeping an eye on h
im. They're friends, you know. Dr. Louise Blakely went out with him a time or two, and people began to wonder if he wasn't getting over his wife, but then she married Dr. Coltrain. He's been a real hermit ever since she married."
"It's his life, I guess," Kitty replied. "But it's such a shame. He's a good man. Surely his wife wouldn't want him to live alone forever?"
Nurse Turner shook her head. "She was a tenderhearted little thing. She'd never have wanted that. But he misses her something fierce. Always has. Pity they couldn't have a child."
"Yes, isn't it?" Kitty replied.
She didn't say anything else to Drew, but it was obvious by the next day that she'd already said too much. The first thing he did when he came in that morning was to give her a black glare and read her the riot act about the condition of the waiting room.
"Those magazines are two years old," he said shortly. "Throw them all out and get subscriptions to new ones. Meanwhile, buy some at the drugstore."
"Yes, sir," she said, and resisted the urge to salute.
He sighed angrily. "And do something about that stupid rubber plant in the corner. It's dying."
"You'd die, too, if little boys dumped gummy worms and old soft drinks and used bubble gum on you," she murmured.
"Fertilize the thing and keep it watered or get rid of it," he muttered. "And your desk..."
"It looks better than yours," she snapped right back, losing her temper. "At least I don't save year-old sale papers from variety stores and parking tickets that I don't pay!"
He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again and marched off down the hall so loudly that Nurse Turner came out of the filing room and stared after him.
From that point on, the day deteriorated. Grown-up people who came in for minor complaints got lectures, children went away sulky, Nurse Turner finally hid in the bathroom and Kitty was thinking seriously of sitting under her desk until quitting time.
The telephone rang noisily and she answered it, painfully aware that Dr. Morris was standing nearby, visibly hoping for someone he could attack on the other end.
"It's Coltrain," came the deep voice over the line. "Are the closets full yet?" he added with faint amusement.
"Every one," Kitty said. "Not to mention the bathroom."
"Let me talk to him while there's still time."
She handed the receiver over smartly. Drew came to stand beside her, far too close, while he spoke tersely to Dr. Coltrain. One hand was in his pocket, moving his car keys and loose change around. His arm in its lab coat brushed against Kitty's with the movement, and she felt odd sensations all over her body. It disturbed her. She tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go. She was already wedged against the desk.
Drew asked Dr. Coltrain something and then listened. While he was listening, he happened to glance down at Kitty and his black eyes met her searching, uneasy green ones with an impact that stopped her breath. It felt a little like asthma, when the air got trapped in her lungs and she couldn't get it out again.
He didn't look away, and neither did she. The sudden tension in the office was almost tangible. She saw muscles move in his jaw as his teeth clenched. His eyes began to glitter faintly, and she became aware of him as she never had been before.
"What?" he murmured into the telephone, because he hadn't heard a word Coltrain was saying. He blinked and managed to look away from Kitty's eyes. Odd, how he felt, as if he'd stuck his fingers in an electric socket. It made him angry, that he should feel such things today of all days. "Yes, I'll meet you at the restaurant," he said. There was a pause and he glanced at Kitty as if he suddenly hated her. "No, I don't want to bring anyone," he said deliberately.
Kitty dropped her eyes and didn't move. He was still too close and she didn't trust her voice, either. She wanted to get up and run away.
"Yes, I'll do that," Drew finished. He hung up the telephone and abruptly bent, jerking Kitty's chin up so that he could search her eyes. "Have you been talking to Lou?"
Her breath fluttered in her throat. "Dr. Lou?" she faltered. "I...I haven't seen her since Christmas."
"I don't need the Coltrains to play Cupid for me, and I don't want you as a dinner date," he said flatly. His eyes ran over her angrily, noting the rise and fall of her firm breasts, the increase of her breath. She was aware of him, and he knew it, and hated it. "I don't want you, period. You're an employee. Nothing more. You make that clear to the Col-trains."
"I'll do that very thing," she said, losing her own temper. "And for your information, I am not interested in you in any respect at all. I don't date people who are married to ghosts!"
He glared at her even more as the sound of footsteps coming along the hall diverted him. He realized that he was holding Kitty's soft little chin in his long fingers and he dropped his hand abruptly before Nurse Turner came into Kitty's office.
"Doesn't anybody work around here?" he demanded when he saw his nurse standing behind him.
"It's lunchtime, Doctor," Nurse Turner stammered.
"Then why the hell don't you both go and eat something?" he demanded. He stormed off back to his own office, leaving Kitty and Nurse Turner and the last patient of the morning openmouthed.
It didn't get any better after lunch. There were three small emergencies that held up office hours, so that it was after seven when they ushered the last patient back to Dr. Morris.
"Run for it," Nurse Turner advised, grabbing her sweater and purse. "When he comes out of there with no patients as buffers, you're going to need an asbestos shield."
"I can't," Kitty groaned, "I have to put everything away."
"I'll pray for you," Nurse Turner said sincerely, glanced down the hall from which an audible roar could be heard and shot out the front door.
The patient, middle-aged Mr. James, came rushing down the hall despite his painful arthritis, grasping a scribbled charge slip.
"Here," he said, thrusting it to Kitty with a quick glance over his shoulder, like a drowning man expecting an imminent shark attack. "I'm to stop smoking, lose thirty pounds and move the building five feet to the left," he added with grim amusement. "I'll send a check right along, and you can give me another appointment for my arthritis in three months on whichever day you think he might be in a good mood!" He turned and fled for his life. "On second thought, I'll phone you about that appointment!" he called as he left.
He went out the door just as Drew came into the hall, and it seemed to Kitty as if flames were following right behind him. He paused at her desk, his black eyes glittering at her as if all his problems were her fault.
There was only one thing to do. She stood up, sighed and held her hands high over her head as if she were an escaped prisoner trying to give up while there was still time.
He started to say something and suddenly burst out laughing. "My God, is it that bad?" he asked.
"Mrs. Turner left skid marks. She offered to pray for me," she informed him. "And I wouldn't bet good money that Mr. James will ever come back."
He let out a weary sigh and leaned against the door facing, checking his watch. "I'm late for dinner, to boot." He glanced at her almost sheepishly, for him. "Go home."
"Post haste," she promised, grabbing her jacket and purse. Her hands were all thumbs as she tried to mate buttons. She was out of breath, not only due to Drew's bad temper. It was hard to make her lungs work. The pollen count had been extremely high.
"Good God, Kitty, you're hopeless," he said impatiently. He took the purse from her nerveless fingers, put it down on the chair and pulled her close. He slowly fastened the buttons, his mouth just inches from her forehead. She could feel his warm breath there, his knuckles moving gently against her breasts, and her legs trembled under her.
Drew was feeling something equally powerful and trying with all his might to resist it. This was the day, the anniversary of his beloved Eve's death. He felt guilty that he was attracted to Kitty at all. It had made him irritable and impatient all day.
> He looked down at her soft mouth and his hands stilled as he wondered how it would feel to kiss her. He hadn't kissed a woman, touched a woman, since his wife's lingering death. He was hungry and alone and miserable.
His fingers slid up to Kitty's face and cradled it, lifting it slowly. His eyes lingered on her lips while he fought his own need, and hers.
Inevitably he bent those few inches, drawn like a puppet on a string, and he heard her soft intake of breath as his mouth pushed very gently at her set lips. His fingers tightened to hold her there; unnecessarily, because she couldn't have drawn away to save her own life.
He made a rough sound and his mouth pushed down against hers with years of hunger behind it, grinding her lips under his. He moaned out loud, his arms dropping, enfolding her, lifting her to the length of his hard, fit body.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Kitty knew that he was using her, that in spite of the fervor and heat of his passion, she was standing in for his late wife. But it didn't seem to matter. No one had ever kissed her with such anguished need, with such hunger. She gave in to him at once, swamped by his fervor and her own curiosity and need. She knew what it was to be alone. She understood his grief. He only wanted comfort, and she could give him that. She sighed and pressed into him, not counting the cost, not looking ahead even by a second. Her arms clenched at his back and she gave him what he wanted.
Time seemed to stop while they kissed like starving people, there, in the silence of the office with only the big grandfather clock in the waiting room to be heard above their own rough breathing. She felt Drew move, leaning back against the wall so that he could, more comfortably, take her weight. His hands slid up and down her back, smoothing her against him. He became aroused, and his groan was rough in the silence as he turned her quickly, so that she was against the wall and his full weight was pressed to her.
He felt her quiver with pleasure and he had to drag his mouth away from the nectar of hers. He looked into her eyes with blinding passion, racked with desire he hadn't felt in ages. He knew his body was trembling, but so was hers. He hesitated, trying to clear his mind just enough to allow for rational thought. He couldn't even focus. She tasted like the sweetest kind of honey under his mouth, generous with her kisses, her embraces. Generous, like his Eve...
Books By Diana Palmer Page 167
