The Lone Wolf's Craving

by Beckett, Tina

  “Like your next conquest?”

  Maybe she’d gotten wind of his reputation, as well. He really was going to have to appear a whole lot more boring at work. “I was thinking more along the lines of Nick—your father.”

  Kate’s face drained of all color and she turned to stare at him. “You promised you wouldn’t say anything about that.”

  Hell, the woman really didn’t think much of him, did she? Luke rarely gave his word, but when he did, he moved hell and high water to keep it. He’d learned the hard way that most promises were quick on the tongue and easily broken. Not by him, though.

  And yet he’d made two pretty big promises in the last couple of days. One to Nick and one to his daughter. “I already told you I’m not going to tell him.”

  He stopped for a red light, shifting down to first gear and glancing over at her. “What happened at the hospital stays between the two of us—no one’s going to hear it from me.”

  Her eyes closed for a second, and she nodded. “Thank you. I couldn’t bear it if anyone thought I was...”

  “If anyone thought what?”

  “It’s not important.”

  If that soft sigh was anything to go by, it was important. At least, to her. But if she wanted to tell him, she would have. It was probably best to stick to neutral topics anyway, since the purpose of this outing was to discuss Nick’s treatment, extol his virtues and then each go their merry way.

  The light turned green, and Luke eased back into traffic. “Nick’s going to make a full recovery, by the way. He had some shrapnel—leftover from an old wound—that shifted. It got a little too close to his spinal cord for comfort. He’s just finishing up his course of physical therapy and then he’ll be free to go about his business.”

  Kate twisted in her seat and stared at him. “That’s wonderful. So he won’t have any permanent damage?”

  “No.” Unlike himself, who carried a permanent reminder of his time in Afghanistan. “His physical therapy is taking a little longer than expected because of some nerve damage, but after that he should be good to go.”

  “Maybe I can help. I’m a physical therapist.”

  She was? Luke frowned. He’d been thinking along the lines of socialite, so the fact that she was a PT came as a complete surprise. “I don’t know...”

  “I’m licensed, specializing in LSVT.”

  Luke’s head was still spinning at the revelation as he turned another corner. He’d known plenty of physical therapists, but Kate looked nothing like the professionals who’d hauled his ass out of bed after the injury that had nearly claimed his leg. Who’d propped him upright and goaded him into taking his first shaky steps.

  Although remembering the lean muscles beneath his hands as he’d lifted Kate onto that sink, he shouldn’t be that surprised. And imagining those hands working on his body...

  Good God.

  He swallowed. Nick would not be happy to know the thoughts racing through his mind right now. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything to say, so he asked the obvious question. “LSVT?”

  “It’s a specialized voice therapy for Parkinson’s patients.”

  Ah, so she wasn’t the brute-strength type of therapist after all. “Nick will need occupational therapy, not speech.”

  “Part of LSVT deals with the physical aspects of Parkinson’s.” Her chin tilted stubbornly.

  He tried again. “Your father doesn’t have Parkinson’s.”

  “Yes, he does, he’s in the early...” She let out a soft sigh. “Oh. That’s right. It’s still hard for me to think of Nick as my father. I’m sure I could help him, though. I’ve already checked online, there are several hospitals here in England using LSVT. It could be useful, even though he doesn’t have Parkinson’s.”

  What had made her check on that? Was she thinking about staying in London? “I’m sure he’s getting everything he needs at the hospital’s PT center.”

  “But what about when he’s not there? I could help him with some extra exercises...help his wife out with him. Maybe it would give me a chance to get to know him better.”

  Luke wasn’t sure Tiggy would welcome the reminder that Nick had fathered another child. Especially not in her condition. But it wasn’t up to him. That was a decision the couple would have to make on their own.

  He pulled into the parking lot of the Indian Palace Restaurant and set the handbrake. “Nick and Tiggy are under a lot of stress right now—with the surgery and everything. Now might not be a good time.” Unhooking his seat belt, he waited for her to follow suit. “Listen, we’ll eat, and I’ll fill you in on his surgery and prognosis, and then you’ll have a better grasp of his situation, okay?”

  “Good. That’ll give me more time to convince you.”

  Not good. He might not be the one she needed to convince, but all he could think was that it might be fun to let her try, anyway.

  * * *

  Kate took a quick gulp of water and then another, her mouth on fire. The smoldering sensation of swallowing hot coals continued as she sucked air in and out through pursed lips in a desperate effort to get some relief. “Oh, my God...” Huff, huff. “That’s so good.”

  The man across from her gave her a quick grin. “Your face is pink. And your accent is really coming through.”

  “Because I’m on f-i-ire.”

  She put every Southern bone she had into that last word. The food was just-this-side-of-pain spicy. And she loved it. It was hard to get good Indian food in the States, but Luke had assured her that Londoners loved it. And they were evidently not afraid of a little spice. Or a lot, in this case.

  “Well, when you decide to go hot, you go all the way, don’t you?”

  Kate looked at him sharply, wondering if the amusement in his voice was in regard to the food or if he was talking about something else. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and reached for her napkin, using it to dab the still-burning corners of her mouth. The words had stung, but only because she’d let them.

  Her mom had been a wonderful, loving mother, but she’d also been impulsive, throwing her whole being into whatever caught her interest. That had tended to change weekly—even daily. When she’d found Nick’s note in that shoebox, it hadn’t been the only “call me later” letter. There’d been others. Many of them. If not for the fact that her baby picture had been stapled onto a corner of one of the envelopes, which contained a picture of her mother with a much younger Nick, along with his note, she might never have wondered if the man she’d known as her father was actually her biological father.

  Her mom’s impulsiveness hadn’t been restricted to hobbies and charities, it would seem. It had spilled into other areas. And she’d left a trail of broken hearts along the way. Her dad never seemed to indicate she’d strayed during their marriage. Or maybe he didn’t know. Kate had never doubted his deep love for her mother, though. He’d been devoted to her. Her death had devastated them both. She was thankful she’d found that box and not her dad. She’d hidden everything except Nick’s letter and her photo, which had been when her father had broken down and admitted he’d adopted her after he’d married her mother. She’d been two years old at the time.

  All those men. Several of them had clearly not understood why her mother hadn’t returned their calls. And she’d kept those letters. Why? As reminders?

  God. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt anyone like that.

  She glanced at Luke. He seemed well able to take care of himself. Their little fling in the storage closet probably hadn’t left the slightest scratch.

  Unlike she herself, who was still reeling from her actions. They’d been totally out of character for her.

  Or were they? She didn’t know anymore.

  Dropping her napkin back in her lap, she feigned a sweet smile. “I always say if you’re going to d
o something, you might as well make it worth your while.”

  He nodded at her plate. “Even if it stings.”

  “Maybe that’s the goal.”

  His smile faded. “To do something that hurts you?”

  “Better than hurting others, don’t you think?”

  He leaned back in his chair and regarded her for a few seconds, his expression grim. “Absolutely.”

  What was he thinking about? It didn’t matter. The sooner she got this question-and-answer session over with, the better. The man had the ability to get under her skin, and she didn’t like it. She’d never had casual sex before, and the last thing she wanted to do was look her mistake in the face repeatedly—no matter how handsome that face might be.

  “So, you said Nick put me down on his list of relatives. What made him decide to do that?”

  “That’s something you’ll have to ask him. But I assume it’s because you’re his daughter, and he’s happy to have finally met you.”

  Something pricked at the back of her mind, raising her suspicions. “At the hospital, you said you weren’t Nick’s doctor anymore, so why are you the one filling me in on his condition? Why not his current doctor?”

  “Because he asked me to.”

  “Why would he do that?” Her brain worked through the possibilities and came up with the most obvious choice. “You know him, don’t you? Outside the hospital, I mean.” It seemed like Nick knew everyone, except her.

  “Yes.”

  She picked up her fork but didn’t use it. She just stared at the gold-rimmed plate for a moment or two. “Did he know about me at all? Or did my mom never contact him again after their...time together?”

  Did she want to know the answer to that? Not really, but she couldn’t crawl back inside her shell and act like the past six months hadn’t happened. Just like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what was known couldn’t be unknown ever again.

  A warm hand reached over and covered hers. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I do know that Nick’s a good man.”

  Really? She’d thought her mother had been a saint, too, until a couple of months ago.

  “So you know everything about him, do you?” Nick hadn’t seemed all that thrilled to find out he’d fathered a child after a one-night stand. And he’d never mentioned whether or not he’d been married to someone else at the time he’d slept with her mother. Please let it be no. She didn’t want that hanging over her mother’s memory, as well.

  Everything inside her was so jumbled right now. She didn’t know what to do or think. Her world had ceased making sense the moment she’d peeked inside that shoebox.

  What was the big deal, anyway?

  Nick had just had a one-night stand. Okay, well, she’d had a one-day stand. So who was she to judge anyone?

  Luke’s eyes hardened, and he let go of her hand. “No, I don’t know everything about him, but I can tell you he once saved a self-destructive dumbass from himself.”

  She tried to work through what he meant. Who...

  Before she could finish her thought he dragged a hand through his hair and blew out a rough breath. “This dumbass owes him one. Big time.”

  Oh...oh!

  She caught his hand, the same way he’d caught hers a few minutes earlier. “You’re talking about yourself.”

  He wrapped his fingers around hers, holding her in place and sending crazy tingles skittering up her arm. And that slow, sexy smile was back full force. “Which word gave me away, Kate? Self-destructive? Or dumbass?”

  “Neither.” She was about to lay herself bare before him, and she had no idea why. “It was the talk about owing him. You’re not the only one who does. I owe him, too. For my very life.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHY THE HELL had he said anything?

  Driving back to the hotel after their meal, he cursed himself for revealing so much. She’d already been warming up to the sparkly image of Nick he’d tried to paint, without needing any additional props. So why had he admitted to owing him?

  The second he’d seen the confusion in her eyes, heard the raw vulnerability in her voice, he’d been lost. He’d kept up his crusty, uncaring shell through the rest of the meal, but his insides had turned into a gloppy, gooey mess. Like a marshmallow held a little too close to the fire.

  Kate didn’t owe Nick. Not the way he did. Yeah, his friend may have donated a few thousand sperm to the making of her, but that had been a rash, spur-of-the-moment act. What the man had done for him had been far different. Luke had been awake long enough after his injury to hear brief snatches of a heated argument between Nick—who’d been an army medic at the time—and someone else, their accents placing them as English.

  “He’ll die, if we don’t clamp those vessels right now...”

  “...give me a few more minutes here.”

  “...lose the leg, but save his life...”

  “...get your bloody hands off my patient, and give me some room!”

  “...Americans would rather have him back alive than in a body bag.”

  The second Luke’s eyes had opened again, and he’d spied the familiar walls of a field hospital, his hands had gone straight to his leg. The sense of relief that had swept through him when his fingers had met thick wads of bandages—instead of empty air—had been enormous. Until he’d seen the actual damage and heard the grim prognosis.

  He hadn’t been out of the woods, and his leg, even if it could be saved in the long run, would never be the same.

  Well, the appendage was still with him, but he wondered sometimes if the trade-off had been worth it.

  Even as he thought it, his hand came off the stick shift of his car to massage the twisted muscles, but he stopped short. Kate didn’t know exactly how Nick had saved his life. For all she knew, he’d simply kept him from doing anything stupid. No reason for her to know the literal truth.

  She hadn’t said much as she’d finished her meal and he’d paid the bill. They’d simply talked about Nick’s original injury, about why it had flared up after all these years, and what had needed to happen during surgery to give him a shot at a normal life.

  He turned a corner, heading toward her hotel. This was it. It was probably the last time he’d ever see her, if he was smart. He’d done what Nick had asked, there was no reason to prolong the inevitable. He glanced over at her and frowned. Her head was against the headrest, eyes closed.

  Was she sleeping? He looked at the road, and then back at her. Her throat worked a couple times.

  No, she wasn’t asleep.

  Oh, hell. Surely she wasn’t fighting back tears. The sooner he got her back to...

  A car from one of the lanes of oncoming traffic suddenly shifted for no apparent reason, its trajectory forming a weird serpentine shape as it drifted farther into their lane. It was coming right toward them!

  “Hold on.” Luke jerked the steering wheel hard to the left to avoid hitting it head on, the tires of his little car striking the curb hard and bumping up onto it. He braked, glancing into the rearview mirror just as the other vehicle passed them, creeping into the wrong lane yet again. If the idiot didn’t gain control, he was going to...

  The squeal of tires and the awful crunching sound that followed said the worst had indeed happened.

  Luke swore and pushed a button to turn on his hazard lights. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, but... Oh, no!” Kate’s eyes were now wide open, her head craning to look behind them.

  Grabbing his cell phone from the clip on his belt, he dropped it in her lap. “Dial 999. Tell them we need an ambulance and that there’s a doctor at the scene.”

  Not waiting for her reply, he leaped from the car and half skipped, half sprinted toward the accident scene, trying to override his pain threshold with gritted teeth. Damn it!


  He tried to mentally separate the rubberneckers from those involved in the crash. Hell. Not good.

  Three cars. No, four.

  And there was smoke pouring from one of the vehicles, preventing him from getting a good look at its occupants. He headed toward that one first, seeing someone stagger from the driver’s side and collapse onto the road a few feet away. If the smoke was obstructing the view of cars still coming toward them, the already bad accident could turn catastrophic.

  He yelled to one of the bystanders, “Can you try signaling a warning to cars that are headed this way?”

  He reached the victim who’d fallen, a young male, and crouched down, his leg screaming as the muscles contracted too quickly. He ignored the pain, noting the trickle of blood from the man’s mouth was due to a busted lip and not from internal injuries.

  Sour fumes hit his nostrils, drifting up his sinus passages.

  Alcohol. Shit! This was the idiot who’d swerved into their lane. He wasn’t hurt, just drunk.

  “How can I help?” A man’s voice came from over his shoulder. He glanced back beyond the man who had spoken and saw Kate running toward him, as well. He motioned her back, not needing a million bodies wandering around on a smoky roadway.

  “Think you can drag him to the curb, in case his car goes up?” He hated that he had to ask for help, that he couldn’t do it himself, but there were people in other cars who might be worse off.

  But the man got beneath the drunk’s arms and dutifully hauled him away from the smoking vehicle. Luke called out, “Don’t let him go anywhere. The police will want to have a word or two with him.”

  Kate got to him just as he reached the second car. “I called it in. Help is on the way.”

  He glanced at her, before taking in the occupants of the next car, whose small red hood was now a crumpled mess. “I thought I told you to stay back.”

  “I know, but I’m strong. I can help.”

  The inference was plain. She’d seen him hobble down the road. Seen him pass off the first victim to someone else. No time to worry about that now.