by Debra Dixon
Unruffled, Nick said, “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”
“No.” Mercy shook her head as she got up and tugged her white cotton shirt firmly over the waistband of her shorts. “My opinion is about on the money. You see, I’m an expert on doctors. My parents are doctors. All their friends are doctors. Every doctor I’ve ever met has one grand passion, and it’s medicine. So don’t sit there and shake your head, thinking I don’t understand doctors. Or for that matter lust and love. Because neither do you, Dr. Devereaux. Your grand passion is medicine, not lust or love.”
“You’re wrong, Mercy.”
“I don’t think so. You want some coffee? I want some coffee. Don’t get up.”
“Black and strong enough to stand a spoon in,” Nick instructed before she hightailed it out of the living room.
While he hated to see her go, he also knew he’d never make it back to Louisville unless he got some caffeine into his personal carburetor. When he closed his eyes to wait, he whispered softly, “Ah, Mercy, you may know everything there is to know about Louisville doctors, but what do you know about Cajun doctors?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” murmured Mercy as she returned to the living room with two mugs of steaming French roast. She angled her wrist and checked the time. Nine-thirty.
Nick Devereaux slept peacefully in her favorite chair, arms dangling over the rests and legs supported by the cushioned footstool. Sleep softened the intensity of his expression, transforming him from gorgeously hard-edged to boyishly appealing. For once, Mercy found she could look her fill without having to face the amused glimmer in Nick’s eyes.
When he’d put his shirt back on, he hadn’t bothered to fasten the first couple of buttons. Tanned skin and the glitter of his gold chain contrasted sharply with the crisp white of his shirt, reminding Mercy of the thoughts that had run through her mind as he had stripped to the waist to fix her pipe. He might be irritating as hell, but he was one incredible piece of God’s handiwork.
Mercy tiptoed around the sofa and set the cups down on the end table, using a news magazine as a coaster. Sighing didn’t help much, but Mercy did it anyway. What was she supposed to do with the man?
Sending him out into the rainy, summer night with an hour’s drive ahead of him seemed heartless and was probably dangerous as well. Nick hadn’t complained of long shifts, but he was obviously bone-tired. Too tired to drive anywhere, her conscience added. Why else would he have collapsed so readily in the chair of a near stranger?
If she woke him, he’d be too stubborn to check into the local motel. No, Nick would drive back to Louisville, or die trying. However, the alternative was waking him up and suggesting that he spend the night with her. Ha! Mercy wouldn’t willingly borrow that particular cup of trouble. It seemed her only choices were: Send him out into the rain, or let him sleep until morning.
He does look harmless enough now that he’s asleep.
What a day, thought Mercy. First the flood. And then Nick Devereaux. Two disasters in one day. Resigned, she got up and pulled a light blanket from the downstairs closet and covered Nick. Even in sleep he took her breath away. His chiseled jaw showed the shadow of his beard, and his lashes were ridiculously thick and long. Without a doubt, Mercy knew, this man would make beautiful babies.
Too bad she wasn’t in the market for a man to clutter up her life. Nick almost made her wish she were.
The first time she felt the featherlike touch, Mercy sleepily brushed at the sensation tickling her cheek without opening her eyes. She might even have recaptured sleep if her well-trained nose hadn’t caught the scent of coffee, and when the touch turned into a gentle caress on her neck, realization ripped through her. Mercy’s eyes snapped open just as she heard Nick Devereaux’s smooth, creamy voice confirm her worst suspicions.
“Mornin’, chère,” he said as he rubbed his knuckles one last time down her neck and over the collarbone exposed by the loose T-shirt in which she slept.
He sat on the edge of the brass bed as though he brought her coffee every morning. Gone were the shadows beneath his eyes, and his shirt hung open all the way now. Now she could see that the small gold medallion on the diamond-cut chain was of St. Christopher, patron saint of children and travelers. Mesmerized by the need to find out if the medal was as warm as his body, Mercy reached up.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” She snatched her hand back just in time.
Nick chuckled, but wisely said nothing.
Closing her eyes, Mercy counted calmly while dragging her hair away from her face. One … two … three … When she told Nick to get his butt out of her bedroom, she wanted to do it without anger. Four … five … six … She opened her eyes.
Struggling to maintain her composure, Mercy sat up, pulling the thin, satin-edged sheet with her. Although the old UCLA college T-shirt wasn’t particularly revealing, she found herself wishing for a granny gown and a thick down comforter. Seven … eight … nine …
“You do take a while to focus on the world when you wake up, don’t ya, darlin’?” Nick asked with a sexy grin, and offered her the “dolphins are people too” mug.
… ten, she finished silently.
“Sometimes the world is pretty hard to take first thing in the morning,” Mercy informed him as she plumped the feather pillows behind her. She took the coffee from his hand, but before she could coolly ask him to leave, Nick stood up and planted his hands on his hips.
“Pretty hard to take? Well, darlin’, you’d better be ready to take whatever comes your way if you gonna let strange men sleep in your house and then leave your bedroom door unlocked!”
Frustrated because Nick had managed to make a good point, Mercy retaliated with, “I don’t recall asking you to sleep over! You collapsed in my chair. What was I supposed to do with you? Put you in a car and let you kill someone when you fell asleep at the wheel? And I didn’t lock my door because it doesn’t lock!”
“Well, it should!”
“Well, it doesn’t.” Mercy sipped her coffee and glared at him. “I’m not stupid. I called the hospital and verified that you really do work there. The girl in Emergency was happy to talk about the charming Dr. Devereaux. But despite her assurances, if I’d known you weren’t housebroken, I’d have barricaded the door! Where were you raised anyway? In a barn?”
“Close, darlin’, real close. On the Bayou Teche in a little shack with a galérie across the front and rain on the tin patched roof.”
The air Mercy had been storing up for her next blistering retort sort of whooshed out. Quietly, she said, “That’s no excuse for barging into my bedroom uninvited.”
“I guess not, but you asked.”
Silently, Nick admitted that invading her bedroom had been overstepping his welcome a bit, but truth be told, Mercy Malone was a magnet that drew him. The moment he entered her room and saw her sleeping, he’d felt his gut stirring with protective instincts as old as time. Dieu! This woman felt right. This house, this room felt right.
Like every other room in her house, her bedroom was filled with an odd collection of furniture, and each probably had a story. There was an old wood-and-leather domed steamer trunk, a small sheepskin rug at the foot of the bed, which he assumed was for the dog, a bentwood rocker, a skirted vanity table in front of a round gilt-framed mirror, and a full-length cheval mirror. A fancy interior decorator hadn’t been anywhere close to this house, and all of it reminded him of home.
Mercy drank her coffee and stared at him, waiting for some act of contrition.
“I can see that I owe you an apology of sorts.” Nick rubbed his neck again, pacing toward the door.
“Of sorts?” Mercy snorted and shifted her legs under the sheet. “How charming of you. I let you get some sleep—which you desperately needed, by the way—and the thanks I get is a lecture on safety tips for the single woman.”
“The thanks you got was hot coffee in bed,” Nick pointed out. “Although I don’t know why you bother to drink such a weak excuse for coffee
. It has no bite, no soul.” He shook his head in disappointment. “That coffee can’t warm a man that’s been all day on the bayou, wet and chilled from a drizzle of rain. Next time I’ll bring my own chicory blend and show you what a real cup of coffee tastes like.”
“Next time?” As usual with Nick, Mercy found herself forgetting what she wanted to say and focusing on the time bombs he dropped into the conversation. Next time he spent the night?
That set off warning bells in Mercy’s head. The only foolproof way to ensure that a relationship didn’t turn nasty and bitter was never to start it in the first place. “Next time” wasn’t a good sign. Phrases like “next time” were how relationships got started. Situations like this had to be dealt with ruthlessly. Mercy made what she thought was a valiant attempt to pretend nothing was happening between them.
She took a casual swallow from the mug and suggested, “Next time let’s meet at the hospital. I really should see Sister Aggie anyway.”
“Don’t you worry. We’re gonna meet in lots of places, chère,” Nick assured her as he turned the crystal doorknob and pulled. “Places where you’ve never been. I promise you that.”
“Where are you going? Wait—” Mercy ordered, but the master of innuendo was already out of her bedroom, and her gut told her he’d keep right on going out the front door. “Dammit!”
Quickly, she shoved the coffee onto her nightstand and flung off the covers. Racing to her closet, she grabbed a pair of black jeans and dragged them on while listening for the piercing screech of the screen-door hinge. She had to catch Nick before he left and make sure he understood that she only promised to help with the fund-raiser. Nothing else.
Mercy zipped on the run, and the screen door slammed closed behind Nick as she flew down the staircase. “Nick, wait! I cannot believe this. You can’t just turn your back and walk away. I’m not through with you!” she called as she burst through the door.
Stopping on the bottom porch step, shirt still open, Nick turned. “Then that makes us even, chère. ’Cause I’m not through with you either. Not near through.”
Nick swept back up the steps and pulled her against his bare chest in one motion. Shamelessly, he snugged her body next to his, slowly making sure every possible inch of contact was made. The rush of sensation was incredible and Mercy didn’t fight it. She leaned into the embrace, admitting to herself that she’d wanted this kiss since yesterday, since the first moment she’d gotten a look at his sensual mouth. For a heart-stopping moment she thought he was finally going to kiss her, but then he smiled and released her.
“Wave to Sophie,” he advised as he descended the steps again.
He waved once at the older woman who was crossing the quiet tree-lined street and then walked calmly across Mercy’s small yard to his glossy black Chevelle and got in. The engine kicked over instantly, sounding as rough and dangerous as Nick Devereaux. When the car pulled away from the curb, Mercy closed her mouth.
“Hello, dear!” Sophie shouted. “How’s the plumbing?”
Mercy marveled at her neighbor’s ability to completely ignore the fact that Nick’s car hadn’t moved a millimeter since last night, that he’d wandered out of her house at seven-thirty on a Sunday morning looking considerably worse for wear, and that he’d all but kissed her on the porch. “My plumbing’s fine, but my nerves are completely shot.”
“Oh, dear.” The exclamation sounded more delighted than concerned, but Sophie climbed the steps and linked arms. “Then you’ve got to tell me everything. Is that coffee I smell?”
“Not according to Nick.”
“Let’s have some anyway, shall we?”
As she sat at the kitchen table, stirring her second cup of coffee, Mercy wished she could turn down the wattage on Sophie’s bright yellow Mexican dress. The hem of this one was decorated with entwined blossoms in purple, turquoise, and pink. Sophie resembled nothing so much as a cheerful canary, and Mercy found the image distracting when she was trying to carry on a serious conversation.
Sophie—her sweet, gentle, grandmotherly neighbor—never directed a question at her that wasn’t fully loaded. “So tell me, dear, is he good with his hands?”
A large gulp of coffee went down the wrong way, and Mercy grabbed for her napkin.
FOUR
When the coughing fit subsided, Mercy looked at Sophie through watery eyes and croaked, “Excuse me?”
“Is he good with his hands? On the phone you told me he was a doctor.” Sophie rolled her eyes. “Some doctors just can’t cope with the real world, you know. Did he take care of your plumbing problem with a minimum of fuss?”
Mercy breathed a sigh of relief, sniffed, and dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, that. He was very capable.”
“Yes,” agreed the older woman sagely. “He did strike me as the sort of fellow one could count on.”
“I said he was capable. Not reliable.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Not even close.”
Sophie set her cup carefully on the saucer, worry creasing her brow. “You don’t sound as though you like the boy very much.”
“Boy? Nick Devereaux can hardly be called a boy! The word implies youth and uncertainty.” Mercy tapped her fingernail against the cup edge. “I don’t know how old Nick is, but he’s years past being young and uncertain.”
“Good. Then it’s not totally hopeless.” Sophie beamed and clasped her hands. “Joan and I were beginning to worry.”
“Excuse me?” Mercy asked again, unable to keep the stunned expression off her face.
“Well, dear, we’ve tried to fix you up with every eligible male in these parts without much luck.”
Mercy’s mouth fell open. Finally, she sputtered, “You haven’t! Tell me you haven’t.”
“Of course we have, dear. What are friends for?” Sophie patted her knee in an attempt to alleviate her distress. “We tried everyone—handsome, passable, widowers, even a few unemployed men. Only, you see, this is a small town. None of the men wanted to fail in front of his friends. You intimidated them.”
“How could I intimidate them? I haven’t even spoken to most of them!”
“That racy young woman you play on television intimidated them, dear. We tried to tell them that the woman on television isn’t the real you, but men’s egos are so fragile. All of them were positive you wouldn’t give them the time of day, at least not after the first date. Especially the unemployed ones. Well, their loss is your doctor’s gain,” she finished encouragingly.
“He’s not my doctor,” Mercy argued lamely.
“Well, not yet, but I have hopes.”
“No, you don’t.” Knowing she had to take control before Sophie began planning a fall wedding, Mercy told her the facts. “Nick slept in a chair last night. He fell asleep, and I didn’t have the heart to send him out in the rain. That’s all there is to it. I’m sorry, but we didn’t spend the night in wild passionate abandon. Nick Devereaux and I are not—I repeat not—romantically inclined. And even if he were, I wouldn’t be.”
“Oh, dear. This is going to be more difficult than I thought. Are you sure Nick isn’t interested? He seemed awfully interested to me.”
Mercy groaned and cradled her head in her hands for a moment. Snapping her head up and flipping long hair out of her face, she said, “Sophie, you’re like family to me, and I appreciate your concern. But I am not looking for a man. I like my life. I like my job. Believe me. I meet men. If I wanted to date, I could.”
“That’s all very nice, dear. But is Nick interested or not?” Sophie persisted. “He seemed interested to me. The man drove all the way down here from Louisville, and he kissed you.”
“He didn’t come to see me, and he didn’t kiss me! Actually he did, but he didn’t.”
“Well, which is it? Did he or didn’t he kiss you?”
“He didn’t kiss me, and he didn’t come to see me. Not the way you mean.” Drumming her fingers in an irritated rhythm, Mercy explained, “He works in Emergen
cy at Mercy Hospital. He needs some help with a benefit for the hospital.”
“Then he’ll be back?” Sophie was obviously relieved.
“No, he won’t.”
Horrified, Sophie drew herself up. “You don’t mean to tell me that you refused to help that gorgeous man after he fixed your plumbing?”
“I didn’t turn him down!” Consciously, Mercy relaxed her jaw. “Even if he hadn’t fixed my pipe, I would have said yes.”
“Then why won’t he be back?” Sophie demanded. “This whole thing doesn’t make a bit of sense.”
“He won’t be back here because I’m going to make sure that all the details are taken care of in Louisville. I have no intention of encouraging a relationship with a doctor. I won’t spend my days and nights waiting for a beeper to go off or the answering service to call. I moved to Haunt to get a little old-fashioned peace and quiet.” Mercy gave Sophie a meaningful look. “I won’t have any peace and quiet with Nick camping out on my doorstep.”
“Trying to keep that Dr. Devereaux away from here is a bit like closing the barn door once all your horses have bolted, if you ask me.”
Most of the time, Mercy adored Sophie. Now was not one of those times. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I don’t think your Dr. Devereaux is going to play by your rules.”
“He’s not my doctor,” Mercy corrected again.
“Well, he could be with just a little effort on your part,” Sophie said firmly.
“This is too absurd,” Mercy muttered.
She picked up her empty coffee cup and carried it to the sink with her. The view out the window was one of the reasons Mercy bought the house. An enormous crab-apple tree stood watch over her back fence. Now its branches were weighed down by thousands of rain droplets from last night’s storm.
