Shades of Passion

by DePaul, Virna

Every year, he reminded Nina Whitaker that Beth was dead—and that it was her fault.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SEVERAL DAYS AFTER BEING told he had an appointment with a shrink, Simon pulled into San Francisco Memorial Hospital’s parking lot. If he drove a little faster and slammed his car door a little harder than normal, so be it. Normally, he was cool as ice, unflappable and disciplined enough to work a case for hours, days, even months—whatever it took to get the job done. But he was here under protest and he was pissed and he didn’t care who knew it.

  Damn it, he had interviews in the Cann murder case to conduct. At least, he should be conducting them. Instead, he’d been forced to hand off a few of them to DeMarco just so Simon could spill his guts to some stranger. If his fellow SIG members had thought he was surly before, they’d better watch the hell out. Work was supposed to be his escape, but ever since his conversation with Mac, all he could think about was Lana.

  Not good. He needed to burn off some of his anger and frustration before he met with Dr. Kyle Shepard or he might just find himself on a leave of absence from SIG before he was ready for it.

  As he made his way to the hospital’s main entrance, the sound of female laughter caught his attention. To his right, two women were getting into a convertible Bug. They smiled flirtatiously when they caught sight of him, but he felt no surge of attraction toward them; that worried him. They were young and pretty and he felt nothing? It was as if Lana’s death had killed his ability to be attracted to another female.

  Hell, who was he kidding? He hadn’t been attracted to another woman well before Lana’s death. And since they’d broken up before she’d died, it had been over eight months since he’d even had sex.

  That couldn’t be good. Simon was an extremely sexual man and like many cops, he relied on an active sex life to balance out the stress of his career. Before Lana had died, despite the fact she’d still been grieving her dead husband, Johnny Hudson, he’d been focused on her for close to two years. He could barely remember being attracted to a woman before her. After she’d died, well...romance was the last thing on his mind. It hadn’t escaped his notice that of the SIG team members, he was the only one who was currently single or not getting any. Mac had his wife, Jase had Carrie and DeMarco was constantly hooking up with some new woman.

  No wonder Mac and Commander Stevens were worried about him. He’d obviously been ignoring his baser needs too long.

  Maybe when he was done talking to Dr. Shepard he’d go to McGill’s Bar, a local cop hangout. Pickup joints and one-night stands weren’t his style, but he could probably do with some physical relief. Sex with no emotional commitment. It wasn’t pretty, but not much about his life was.

  Without another thought for the females in the convertible, he continued forward. When he caught sight of another woman getting out of her car, however, his gut immediately clenched.

  He froze. His first thought was...she looks like Lana.

  His second thought was...something’s not right with her.

  His cop senses went on alert.

  He knew immediately why she reminded him of Lana. She was blonde. Not just pretty. Gorgeous. Elegant. Like Lana, she was the kind of woman you couldn’t help noticing.

  So Simon noticed.

  And this time when he was confronted with a good-looking woman, he felt an unmistakable stirring of attraction.

  He studied her more closely. Her resemblance to Lana was only superficial. Her face was more angular, her features sharper and her eyes were almond-shaped, suggesting she had some exotic ancestry. Her body was also different. Where Lana had been slim and athletic, this woman’s curves were more lush. Her hips wider. She looked tidy, pulled together in a silk blouse and tailored skirt.

  Her car, on the other hand, was god-awful ugly. An old Ford station wagon in a faded eggplant color. The contrast between her beauty and the car’s run-down junkyard condition didn’t connect. That immediately made him edgy. He didn’t like things that didn’t make sense.

  He told himself he was being ridiculous.

  Driving a beat-up old car wasn’t a crime. Maybe she spent her money on hair salons and fancy clothes rather than what she drove.

  With a shake of his head, he walked until he was right next to her. Before he could pass her, she turned and brushed against him. Innocent as it was, the brief contact caused both of them to jerk back. She dropped her bag, spilling its contents on the ground.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. He crouched down to help her, frowning when he saw the small, crudely sewn rag doll, just about four inches tall, lying amid her keys, wallet and—

  She stepped closer and crouched beside him. He couldn’t help noticing the graceful sweep of her slender calves. To his utter surprise, his fingers itched to touch them. To determine for himself if they were as smooth as they looked. Disturbed, he jerked his gaze away and somehow ended up knocking heads with her.

  She gasped.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  She raised a hand to briefly rub her temple. Her eyes were green. Soft and pale just like her creamy skin and her golden hair. “It’s okay. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I—”

  Her gaze flickered to the ground. Abruptly her words cut off and her face turned bright red. Simon looked back down at the contents of her purse. He noticed something he hadn’t seen before and felt heat spread through his body; not to his face but someplace farther south. The word Sextuplets blazed up at him.

  Was that—?

  She snatched up the DVD case and shoved it back into her purse, then threw in everything else before standing. He straightened far more slowly.

  He swiped a hand across his face but obviously didn’t do a good enough job of hiding his smile.

  “Not a word,” she said and started to walk away.

  Her voice was like another punch in the gut. It was a bit gravelly. A rocker chick’s voice inside a woman who looked like an angel. He fell in step beside her.

  She didn’t look at him. When they reached the front entrance and passed through the automatic sliding doors, she paused in front of the Information counter. He followed suit.

  Her gaze met his and her chin tilted up. “A patient gave it to me. She’s an older woman and she has a collection and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings—”

  He pressed his lips together and managed to keep a serious expression on his face. He nodded. “Right. She collects porn and thought for some reason you might be interested. I wonder what made her draw that conclusion?”

  She narrowed her eyes, trying to look threatening but only managing to look adorable. The tendrils of attraction he’d been feeling exploded into something hot and wild. It took him by surprise, so much so that she’d already moved toward the lobby elevators before he noticed. He followed.

  She frowned at seeing him standing next to her again.

  “What?” he said. “We’re in a public hospital and I have a doctor’s appointment.”

  It had been a while since he’d met a woman who blushed so easily.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Are you one?”

  “Am I one what?”

  “A doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be so embarrassed about getting caught with a skin flick in your bag. The human body and what it needs to survive is nothing new to you, right?”

  She smiled tightly. “Right. Excuse me...”

  She turned and walked away.

  He cursed himself for driving her off. “Weren’t you going to take the elevator?” he called.

  “Yes, I was.”

  He watched her go with more than a little regret, but he was smiling when he got into the elevator. Too bad he couldn’t have run into the doctor at McGill’s. He’d have spotted her and he’d have done his best to bed her. Because despite his musings in the parking lot, he was definitely interested in having sex again.

  And suddenly she was the only one he was interested in having it with.

 
; * * *

  NINA ACTUALLY FANNED herself as she took the stairs up to the sixth floor. Whew.

  That was one handsome man. Not pretty-boy handsome, either.

  Manly man handsome.

  Manly man sexy.

  And given the way he’d reacted to seeing the porn she’d had in her purse, he had a sense of humor, too, which merely made him more attractive.

  She cringed at the memory of him seeing that DVD case, but at least it had distracted him from Rachel’s rag doll. She’d noticed the brief surprise on his face when he’d glimpsed it and she’d once again wondered whether her inability to get rid of the doll represented a bigger problem than she’d thought. She didn’t need an object to remember her sister, after all. Especially one that her sister had been cradling on the night she’d...

  Swallowing hard, Nina shook her head. No. She wasn’t going to deal with that particular memory right now. Especially not today. It was the third anniversary of Beth Davenport’s death and Nina had no illusions about what was in store for her today. Last year, Beth’s father, Lester Davenport, had proven how resourceful he was, once again tracking down her place of work and mailing her one of those hideous cards of his. Before the day was over, she’d probably get another one. Until then, she would damn well think about something else.

  Someone else.

  With determination, she thought about the man from the parking lot again.

  He wasn’t quick to smile, but when he did, the expression softened his intimidating, almost grim countenance into something mischievously boyish. It made her think of playing tickle-tag along the ocean shore or dancing the salsa at a hip city club or resting her head in his lap while she read a book in Golden Gate Park. In other words, it made her think of all the things she’d like to do with a partner, yet her life had become her work and she rarely dated, and she hadn’t yet met a man she could picture herself doing all those things with. At least not before him...

  Given he was a complete stranger, that was either pathetic or a sign that she was ready to explore dating again. It was all a matter of interpretation.

  The question was which interpretation she was going to choose.

  Having reached the sixth floor, Nina pulled open the stairwell door and headed toward her office. And just like always, once she immersed herself in work, thoughts about what might be possible in any other aspect of her life faded away.

  * * *

  HIS LONG LIMBS SPRAWLED out in front of him, Simon tried to put the pretty doctor out of his mind and waited for his appointment with the shrink to start. As more and more time went by, he found himself thinking about her and wondering if he should track her down. Then what?

  Despite that porn DVD in her purse, she didn’t look like a woman into casual sex, which meant she probably had gotten it from one of her patients.

  When he caught himself smiling, he shook his head. He had to focus here, not think about some intriguing woman and the equally intriguing contents of her purse.

  Impatiently, he glanced at his watch. It was already twenty past the hour. Rising, he strode to the receptionist’s window. She was another pretty blonde and she was talking to...

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  The pretty doctor.

  Simon waited as the women continued their chat, then cleared his throat.

  They looked up. The blonde doctor’s green eyes widened in recognition.

  Simon nodded. “Hello again.” Their gazes remained locked before he managed to turn his attention to the receptionist. “Do you know how much longer Dr. Shepard is going to be?” Simon asked.

  “It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

  “Right.”

  He felt the gaze of the other woman on him and looked back at her. She smiled.

  She had an incredible smile.

  Attraction once again morphed into something else. Desire. Need.

  He made up his mind to ask her out. Maybe she wasn’t into casual sex, but he could always get lucky, right?

  Then he noticed the badge now hanging around her neck.

  Nina Whitaker, MD, PhD. Psychiatry, Psychology.

  A psychiatrist.

  Just like Lana. Only Nina Whitaker was a twofer. An MD and a PhD.

  She’d truly made it her life’s work to help the mentally ill.

  Air left his lungs and the damned pain wormed its way upward again. Silencing a swearword, he turned away without returning her smile.

  * * *

  AS THE TALL, BROODING man stalked away from the receptionist’s window, Nina reached past Sandy to close the sliding Plexiglas window.

  “God, isn’t he gorgeous?” the receptionist gushed.

  That, Nina thought, is an understatement. For the second time that day, the brief glimpse of the man had gotten her motor running. “Gorgeous, sure, but he also has a major chip on his shoulder.” Her heart had nearly exploded out of her chest at seeing him again, but despite the renewed spark of interest in his eyes, she hadn’t missed how his expression had grown disdainful once he’d seen her name tag. “What’s his name?”

  “Simon Granger. Isn’t that just hunky?”

  The strong name fit him, she thought. “Who’s he here to see?”

  “Dr. Shepard.”

  Ah. That made sense. Kyle worked primarily with military and law enforcement. And since Simon’s hair was on the longer side, that meant... Nina nodded. “He looks like a cop.”

  “Yep. You wanna talk to him? Who knows? Maybe he could be of service.” She grinned. “Seriously. Didn’t you say your meetings with the police chief had stalled?”

  More like hit a brick wall, Nina thought. Karen had been wrong. Even given Nina’s experience with establishing the MHIT program in Charleston, she was having little luck convincing San Francisco officials that spending time and money to train officers on advanced strategies to deal with the mentally ill would be worth it in the long run. The police chief hadn’t disputed the training could make a difference for the suspects, but thought it would likely jeopardize his men more than it would help them.

  “My men are trained to use force only when it’s absolutely necessary to protect themselves or others. They don’t need to be second-guessing themselves by considering the mental health complexities of the suspect in question. That’s something that becomes relevant once the suspect has been contained and any threat he poses diminished. In the moment, it doesn’t matter why someone’s acting dangerous, only that he is,” he’d said.

  Nina had heard the same argument again and again. And in all fairness, it had some validity. But protecting police was only one aspect to be considered. Those same cops had to make distinctions between the suspects they apprehended all the time. They handled men and women and children differently. They approached things differently if someone was elderly, had an established record, or had never been in trouble with the law a day in his life. They considered how someone was dressed, how they walked, how they talked. An understanding of someone’s mental condition was another aspect that should be considered when entering a situation, and glossing over it was the easy answer.

  Bottom line, however, was most cops hated the idea of coddling a criminal and were resistant to seeing one in a compassionate light. Maybe it was because it made it harder for them to do their job. But that was no excuse for ignorance.

  She looked once more at the gorgeous guy in the waiting room. “Too bad I don’t do cops,” she murmured only half-jokingly.

  Sandy laughed. “You don’t do anyone, Nina. Good thing I do.”

  Smiling, Nina straightened. She’d leave the flirting to the receptionist. As sexy as Simon Granger was, he was still a cop. One who obviously disdained what she did for a living. “I’ll be on the geriatric floor.”

  “Ms. Horowitz still there?”

  Nina pictured the elderly woman who’d gifted her with the DVD Simon Granger had seen and who had a penchant for Old Hollywood lingerie, even when she was hospitalized. “For a little while longer, I think.
Then the family will likely call hospice.”

  “It’s hard to imagine a life as vibrant as hers coming to an end.”

  Nina frowned. She tried, she really tried to hold back the dual images, the first of her sister as she lay in her coffin, and the second of a teenage girl with a pink ribbon tied around her neck, but it was impossible. It had been exactly three years since Beth Davenport had hung herself, but Nina knew no amount of time would make her forget the horror of finding her body.

  Just like it wouldn’t erase the horror of finding her sister’s.

  She swallowed hard, speaking only when she was sure her voice would be steady. “The end of any life is hard to imagine. But there are far worse ways to go. Ms. Horowitz will be surrounded by people who love her when her time comes. That’s really all any of us can ask.”

  “I’d rather fall asleep and never wake up without ever having to deal with a deteriorating body or mind.”

  “Most dementia patients aren’t aware of the infliction,” Nina reminded her.

  “But we are. And we pity them. That’s enough. I never want to be pitied.”

  Nor do I, Nina thought. But sometimes circumstances just lend themselves toward pity.

  Without her permission, her gaze once again wandered to the big man now pacing in the waiting room. The set of his shoulders and his energy-driven stride told her he wouldn’t want to be pitied. Would likely deplore such sentiments more than most. Yet she’d seen the shadows in his eyes. Knew he grieved, if not another person, then some loss of self that had happened a long time ago. Her instinctive desire to soothe and heal him wasn’t surprising, but the renewed surge of chemical attraction was. Her mind wanted to get to know Simon Granger better, but so did her body. Nina turned back to Sandy, who was also staring at the man. “I’m heading back to my office. Want me to see what’s keeping Kyle so you can stay and enjoy the view?”

  Sandy didn’t take her gaze off him. “You don’t mind? I’ll be your slave for life.”

  Nina laughed. Before she left, she couldn’t resist one last glance at him. He looked up, and through the Plexiglas partition, his gaze immediately collided with hers. For tense seconds, they stared at one another. Then he glanced away, leaving her to simultaneously savor and curse the sizzle of desire that once again coursed through her.