by Diana Palmer
“Going to church in the morning?” he asked, in no hurry to leave.
“Thought I might,” she replied.
“I’ll pick you up at ten-thirty, if nothing comes up. If I can’t make it, I’ll ring.”
She searched his lean face with quiet, curious eyes. Things had altered between them. She didn’t understand how, but they had.
He sighed, catching her face in his hands to lift it. “I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered, bending to her mouth.
He kissed her softly at first, and then hungrily, deeply, slowly, so that she curled up against him and moaned under his demanding mouth.
He lifted his mouth slowly, reluctantly. His breath was as ragged as her own. “After church, we’ll have a picnic. I’ll pack something and we can pick it up after the service.”
“I’ll have to change.”
“So will I.” He kissed her eyelids, feeling the wonder of being with her. “I hope it doesn’t rain.”
“Me, too,” she whispered.
He kissed her again, very gently. “See you in the morning. Lock the door,” he added firmly, glancing back as he left, his eyes dark and warm and possessive.
* * *
Kitty didn’t sleep. Her heart raced every time she thought about the wonder of the dance. Drew had become entwined with her, so closely that she couldn’t bear the thought of losing this magic.
Apparently he couldn’t, either, because he was right on time to pick her up for church. They sat close together in the pew, barely aware of watching eyes, and shared a songbook. After the service, they held hands on the way to his Mercedes.
He dropped her off to change clothes and picked her up on his way back from changing his own clothes and retrieving the food he’d already packed for the occasion.
He drove them to a quiet riverbank with a small stone table and benches, and spread a disposable cloth over it to put the picnic basket on.
“This is fun.” Kitty laughed, looking summery in her yellow-and-white sundress and sandals.
Drew glanced at her with pure appreciation. She looked young and pretty and very sexy with that low-cut bodice that left tantalizing skin bare.
He was wearing slacks and a green sports shirt. He looked younger, much more relaxed. As he unloaded the food, Kitty noticed his left hand and realized that they still had a very long way to go. He was wearing his wedding band. He never took it off. Of course, it was early days yet, and Kitty was more optimistic than she’d ever had reason to be before.
After they finished the cold lunch, Drew stretched out on the grass with a sigh.
He opened one eye as Kitty muffled a cough. “Brought your spacer, I hope?”
She nodded.
He closed the eye and smiled. “Good girl.”
She lay down beside him, drinking in the peace and beauty of the secluded spot.
“A free Sunday,” he murmured drowsily. “I haven’t had a free Sunday in years.”
“You haven’t wanted one, I’ll bet.”
He smiled. “No. I haven’t.” He rolled over and stared at her. He searched her face quietly. “I want a lot of things lately that I thought I’d learned to live without. Come here, Kitty.”
She went to him without protest, sliding into his arms as naturally as if she belonged there. He rolled her over beside him and kissed her.
Long, drowsy minutes went by while she savored his touch on her body, his kisses hard on her mouth. For a while, the world seemed very far away indeed.
Finally, she lay completely against him with her cheek on his rapidly moving chest, catching her breath.
“We should do this every Sunday,” he murmured, his eyes closed. “I’m only really required to be on call one Sunday a month.” He smiled, contented, and sighed. “All it needs is a child running around, doesn’t it, Eve?”
Eve. Kitty froze in his arms. She felt as if every single hope died in her, right there.
He cursed under his breath. He heard himself say his late wife’s name with complete shock, because it was Kitty he was holding, Kitty who was in his mind. Habit, he thought, died hard.
His regret was too little, too late. Kitty was already on her feet, gathering things together.
“I didn’t mean to say it,” he said when they were back at the car.
She shrugged. “I know.” She managed a credible smile. “It’s still too soon, isn’t it?”
He looked at her hungrily, searching for words to repair the damage he’d done.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. Her eyes were sad, at variance with her light tone. “But can we go home? My favorite show is on tonight, and I really don’t want to miss it. Okay?”
“Okay.” He drove her home, and he still hadn’t found the words to apologize when he left her at her door.
* * *
She cried herself to sleep. She was so over-wrought that she forgot to take her medicine. To compound it, she walked to work, right past a huge lawn that was being mowed. She’d no sooner made it inside the office than she collapsed on the floor, coughing so violently that she thought she was going to choke to death.
At some level she was aware of Drew bending over her and then slinging orders at Nurse Turner as he lifted her.
“Hold on, darling,” he said at her ear. “Hold on! It’s all right. Try not to panic!”
He sounded as if he needed those words spoken to him, Nurse Turner thought as she watched him rush out the door with Kitty in his arms. She phoned right through to the hospital emergency room and told them he was on the way, and gave them his instructions. The way he looked, he wasn’t going to be in much condition to give orders when he got there.
Sure enough, Drew was half wild when he slammed on the brakes in front of the emergency room. A nurse and the resident physician rushed out with a gurney and scant minutes later, Kitty was in a cubicle being saturated with bronchodilators.
Drew was cursing steadily, while the staff stood by, wide-eyed, and listened. Probably learning new words, Kitty thought through her discomfort, because he was eloquent. His face was dark with color and his eyes were blazing like black fires. It was flattering that he was so concerned about her, but she wished he was quieter with it. The emergency room staff—the whole hospital staff—would have a gossip feast that would last weeks.
When she was able to draw breath again, she tried to explain. “They were…mowing grass, and I didn’t have…a mask,” she said before she was stuffed right back into the mask to inhale the rest of the bronchodilator he’d prescribed.
“Why the hell were you walking to work in the first place?” he demanded coldly. “When did you use your preventative?”
She grimaced. “I meant to have it refilled…”
“God deliver us from idiots!” he raged. He paced the room, mussing his hair. He glanced irritably at his watch. “I’ll have patients screaming their heads off!”
“Go back to the office, then,” she growled through the mask, and then coughed at the effort it took to speak.
“I’ll go where I damned well please!”
She laid back, too worn to argue with him. He might have forgotten what he’d said the day before, but she hadn’t. He’d called her Eve. They were never going to get past that, even if he did care enough to raise the roof of the emergency room because she’d had an asthma attack. Probably it made him mad because he cared.
He stood over her, glaring, until she’d finished the treatment. Then, leaving her long enough to fill out the paperwork, he went to check on a patient he’d admitted Saturday. He was back when she was ready to leave.
He didn’t say a word. He helped her into the car and they drove straight to the pharmacy. She knew without being told why they were there. Fortunately the pharmacist wasn’t busy and immediately refilled her inhalant.
She showed it to him when she got back into the car, subdued and a little surprised at his irritation.
“They’re my lungs,” she muttered.
“They work for me,” he
countered, reversing the car. “From now on, keep up with your preventatives.”
“Yes, sir,” she muttered.
He drove back to the office and marched her right to her desk, past an office full of surprised patients.
He pointed at her. “It’s her fault. She forgot to use her medications and she had an asthma attack right here on the floor. We’ll all be here until midnight because she won’t take care of herself!”
He stormed off into his office, leaving behind a roomful of shocked and amused patients and a horribly embarrassed receptionist.
* * *
For a week, Drew was cold and absolutely remote. Friday afternoon, he brought his father-in-law and mother-in-law in to meet Kitty.
“They’re spending the weekend with me. We’re going fishing,” he told Kitty with a vindictive look in his eyes. “We’re very close.”
“Yes, I know,” Kitty said gently, and smiled as she was introduced to them.
That seemed to make Drew even angrier. He bustled his in-laws out the door and gave Kitty a glare that would have stopped traffic.
“How very odd,” Nurse Turner remarked as they were closing up the office for the weekend. “Goodness, he hasn’t had them here for five years or more. I know he spends Christmas Day with them, but mostly he stays in a hotel and watches television to make everyone think he’s enjoying himself. He doesn’t have anything in common with them except Eve and fishing.” She shook her head. “He’s acting very oddly,” she murmured, glancing at her coworker. “I thought I was going to need an ambulance for him the morning he walked in and saw you on the floor. My goodness, normally nothing shakes him. Nothing at all.”
“Maybe he has a terror of asthma attacks,” she murmured self-consciously.
“Not him. I just don’t understand him at all.” She glanced again at Kitty. “Maybe he’s in love.”
“If he is, I feel sorry for her,” Kitty said curtly. “She’ll never be able to compete with his beautiful ghost.”
“I wonder,” Nurse Turner said, but she smiled and went home.
* * *
Kitty was invited to have Sunday dinner with Drew and his in-laws, whom he brought to church with him. But Kitty made sure she had other plans. She refused on the grounds that she’d accepted an invitation from Guy Fenton to go to a movie with him. She’d agreed to the date against her better judgment. He promised not to take up with another girl in the middle of the show, though, and it was a movie that she very much wanted to see. Drew’s reaction to the news made her a little uneasy. He was furious and unable to hide it.
She settled into her seat at the theater, and Guy draped a gentle arm around her.
“I was surprised that you agreed,” he commented quietly. “I wasn’t very kind to you last time.”
“I wanted to see this movie,” she replied, smiling.
“I like science fiction, too,” he agreed, smiling back.
It was a good movie, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was remembering how hard Drew was trying to make her see her lack of importance in his life. If he was willing to have his in-laws practically live with him to keep her at bay, he must be serious about trying to keep her at arm’s length. It made her sad to think how little she mattered. As long as she lived, she was going to hear him calling Eve’s name on the banks of the river.
Guy took her home and kissed her gently, but he knew at once that she felt nothing for him.
He touched her nose gently. “Any time you’re at a loose end, we can go to a movie. I’m not in the market for a wife or a steady girl, but I like you.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I like you, too.”
“Don’t grieve too much over the doctor,” he advised quietly, and the familiar smile was temporarily in eclipse. “It wouldn’t have worked. Everyone knows how he loved his wife. You just can’t compete with a perfect memory.”
“I know that.”
“Of course you do. You’re no dummy.” He kissed her cheek. “Good night, pal.”
“Thanks for the movie.”
“You’re welcome. Next time, we’ll have pizza and then go to a movie.”
She grinned. “I’d really like that.”
“Me, too. I’ll phone you.”
He waved and made his way down the stairs. Watching his back, Kitty thought that he’d been a constant surprise. She wished she could have given her heart to somebody like Guy or Matt—someone who might want it.
She went into her apartment and sat down on the sofa. Alone, all the misery of the past week came back to haunt her. She was going to have to do something. She couldn’t go on like this, seeing Drew every day and knowing that he didn’t want her.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, Drew was eloquent about his visitors and how much he’d enjoyed his company. Nobody knew that he was lying through his teeth. Especially not Kitty.
Surprising everyone, mostly herself, she typed out her resignation and put it on Drew’s desk. He glanced at her curiously before he read it.
“You want to leave?” he asked.
There was nothing in his face or voice to indicate that he gave a damn, so she said, “Yes, I do.”
“All right,” he replied. “I’ll phone the agency right now and see when you can be replaced. If they have someone free, you can leave tomorrow. I’ll write you a good reference and give you two weeks’ severance pay.”
She didn’t argue. She was tired of the continual misery. “Thank you,” she said, and walked out.
Drew stared at the closed door. He should have felt relief. His memories of Eve were safe now. He could live in the past, continue to be in love with his sweet ghost. Kitty, that pain in his heart, was about to depart forever. Why, oh, why, didn’t he feel relief? He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. If he felt anything, he had to admit in the privacy of his mind, it was grief. But this time, it wasn’t for his ghost.
* * *
The agency came through. A new receptionist would be in the office the next morning. Kitty emptied her desk that afternoon and was ready to leave at the end of the day.
Nurse Turner was sorry to see her go, but too shrewd not to guess why she was going.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you,” she said. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” She picked up her sweater. “He won’t eat breakfast. But maybe my replacement could bring him a roll or a bagel occasionally. He’ll eat it if it’s put in front of him with coffee.”
“I noticed,” Nurse Turner said dryly.
“It was just a thought.”
She hugged Kitty. “Where will you go?”
“There are always jobs for a good typist,” Kitty said simply. “I’ll find something.”
Nurse Turner hesitated. “Aren’t you going to tell him goodbye?” she asked, nodding toward the back of the office.
Kitty hesitated, but only for a minute. “No,” she said rawly. She left the office without another word.
* * *
Two weeks later, she was enjoying a snatched cup of coffee when her new boss, Matt Caldwell, peered around the door.
“Got that disk copied yet?” he asked.
She grinned and held it up, in its jacket.
“Good thing for me you were tired of being a receptionist just when my secretary went into labor. You’ve saved my life. These are herd records for that group I’ve got at the Ballenger’s feedlot. I want to show the birth weight ratios to a prospective buyer.” He stuck the computer disk in its case into his pocket. “You’re a jewel, girl. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She chuckled. “I doubt that. Probably half the women in Jacobsville would have come running if you’d advertised.”
“That’s why I didn’t,” he murmured. “I’m quite a catch, didn’t you know? Handsome, rich, sophisticated and charming, and modest to a fault.” He took a bow.
She burst out laughing. “I noticed the modesty right away.”
He opened the door. “Go home
early if you like. I’ll be out for the rest of the day.”
“I’ll stick around to answer the phone.”
“Where do you go from here?” he asked, scowling. “I could make a job for you quite easily…”
She shook her head. “I’ve got two interviews in Victoria.”
He grimaced. “Listen, child, you don’t have to leave the county just because Drew Morris can’t live in the present.”
“Yes, I do,” she replied firmly. “I’m not going to sit around here eating my heart out every time I see him. I’ll be happy in Victoria. I’ll find another man and marry him and have five kids.”
“You could marry me,” Matt suggested. “I’m not interested in anyone seriously these days. And at least I’d be sure you weren’t marrying me for my money.”
She smiled warmly. “Thanks, Matt, but I don’t think either of us could settle for a loveless marriage.”
He shrugged and sighed. “I could.”
She knew his past, and she doubted it, but she didn’t say so. “I appreciate the offer,” she told him sincerely. “I’ll remember it and gloat every time a local belle swoons over you.”
He threw her a wicked glance. “Likely story.”
* * *
After he left, she organized the filing and then just sat staring at the blank computer monitor. She was totally miserable. She hadn’t really expected Drew to call, and he hadn’t, but she’d hoped that he might miss her. That was wishful thinking, nothing else. He was probably happy that he didn’t have her to divert him from his memories.
She was briefly ashamed of herself for being like that, when he’d loved his wife so much. She’d never be loved as Eve had, despite the feelings she harbored for Drew. Love that was unreturned was a bitter thing indeed.
As she filed the new jackets, she wondered how she’d ever come to this incredible low in her life. Not even the loss of her father had left her so depressed and miserable. If only she could work up just a spark of enthusiasm for a new job. Perhaps she’d find something in Victoria that would heal her wounds.
