by JoAnn Ross
"Mr. O'Halloran and I were discussing his grandmother's case," Nora said.
Mabel turned back toward Caine, who was standing with his arms crossed over his broad chest. "I thought I recognized you."
"Mabel Erickson, Caine O'Halloran," Nora introduced them reluctantly. "Mabel runs the emergency room." "No wonder everyone looks so efficient/' Caine said. "Believe me, Ms. Erickson, I've been in a lot of emergency rooms over the years and I could tell right away that yours is one of the best."
"Call me Mabel." She beamed. "I've got your Playgirl calendar in my locker," she surprised Nora by revealing. "If I go get it, will you autograph it for me?"
Caine grinned. 'Til stop by your desk on my way out."
Mabel's fleshy, smiling face was the hue of a late-July raspberry. "Don't you dare leave this hospital without signing it."
"I wouldn't think of it," Caine said easily.
"Mabel?" Nora called out to the receptionist's back.
The clerk stopped on her way out the door and glanced back over her shoulder. "Yes, Dr. Anderson?"
"What did you want?"
"Want?" Mabel's gaze slid back to Caine.
"The intercom," Nora reminded her. "bu buzzed."
"Oh, that. The Protective Service's social worker is here. About that little boy. I put her in waiting room B."
"Thank you." But Mabel had already bustled off toward the staff locker room, leaving Nora talking to air.
"You've obviously made another conquest," she snapped.
Her withdrawal was as familiar as her smoldering sexuality. Caine remembered all too well how Nora had never grown accustomed to having her husband surrounded by baseball groupies. Not that she'd ever needed to worry.
Recalling her passion that Midsummer Eve in the cabin, Caine hadn't been terribly surprised when their first encounter as man and wife six months after their marriage confirmed his long-held belief that they were a perfect sexual match.
What had come as a distinct shock that afternoon years ago, before their son was bom, was the realization that somehow, when he wasn't looking, he'd fallen head over heels in love with his wife.
"I don't think this is the time or the place to get into another argument about my alleged infidelities, Nora," Caine said now. His mouth set in its grim line again; all the heated emotion he'd displayed in his kiss had disappeared from his eyes.
"It's a moot point/' Nora said between clenched teeth, "since it's over between us. I gave up worrying about all your other women a very long time ago, Caine."
She brushed her hands down the front of her jacket, smoothing the wrinkles that remained as damning evidence of her uncharacteristically unprofessional behavior.
Caine rubbed his jaw. "You know, I thought it was over, too. But I'm beginning to have my doubts."
She tilted her chin. "I haven't any doubts."
"Not even one?"
"None at all."
He could have murdered her for unleashing so much raw emotion, then behaving as if that shared kiss had never happened. He could have dragged her onto the couch, her desk, hell, the floor, to prove to her how very wrong she was.
"Well, then, if that's really the case, we shouldn't have any problem getting along while you're treating Maggie."
Maggie. Caine couldn't accept the idea that his grandmother was dying. It was something he would have to think about later. When he was alone. Or better yet, with his new best friend, Jack Daniel's.
"No problem at all," Nora agreed stiffly. "I really do have to leave." Unwilling to look directly at him, Nora focused on the wall thermostat beside the door.
"Before you go, can I ask what happens next?"
"With us? I told you, Caine. Nothing."
Caine saw the lingering reluctant desire she hadn't been able to hide glowing in her eyes. That she wanted him was obvious. That she didn't want to want him was also all too apparent.
It was just as well, he decided grimly. He had enough problems right now without getting involved with the only woman he'd ever met who could make him willing to beg.
"Actually, I was referring to that little boy."
"Oh." Embarrassed that she'd misunderstood him and surprised by his obvious concern for someone other than himself, she said, "Children's Protective Services will begin an investigation. I could release him this afternoon, but I'd rather keep him here and avoid the risk of the social workers deciding to leave him with his mother while they conduct the investigation."
"Can you do that?" Caine asked. Concern for the unfortunate child temporarily overrode his concern for Maggie. "When there really isn't anything wrong with him?"
"You can always find something wrong with a kid if you're creative."
"Sounds as if you've had some experience with this."
"More than I'd like." She picked up the file, prepared to leave the office. "I really do have to leave."
"Sure." Caine stepped aside. "Do you think it'd be okay if I dropped in on the kid?"
"That would be terrific. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself." She rewarded him with a faint, ap-predative smile. "He's upstairs on the pediatric ward. Perhaps you could go up now while I talk with the sodal worker."
"Great." He frowned. "I just wish I had a baseball or something for him."
"I think meeting you will be tonic enough." The smile reached her eyes as she put her hand on his arm. "Thank you."
"No thanks necessary, Doc." Caine covered her hand with his own. "I'm just happy to be able to help out."
He decided, for discretion's sake, not to admit that if he were to go home to that lonely cabin to think about Maggie, and face his undeniable role in the failure of his and Nora's marriage, he'd give in to the need to get very very drunk.
Her soft smile—a portent that perhaps things might be looking up—stayed with Caine as he took the deva-tor to the second-floor pediatric wing.
For a man who'd been seeking something—someone—to make him feel like a hero again, Johnny Baker proved the perfect prescription.
But it was more than just being put atop his lofty pedestal again, which, Caine considered, wasn't all that bad. After drowning in self-pity for months, one look at those small bandaged hands went a long way to putting things back into perspective. If what Nora suspected was true, fate had certainly dealt this kid more them his share of rotten luck.
Although Johnny had surrounded himself with protective walls even Nora might have envied, after a few minutes of regaling the seven-year-old with tales of games past, Caine began to breach those parapets.
Enough so that Johnny had actually begun to rdax when Nora entered the room with the social worker.
"Look who came to see me, Dr. Anderson," Johnny greeted her. "Caine O'Halloran." He breathed the name in the way a religious zealot might whisper the name of his god. Johnny7s eyes, which had been so flat and lifeless during her examination, gleamed with youthful enthusiasm.
"Dr. Anderson and I are old friends," Caine said.
"Wow!" The boy's gaze went back and forth between them. "You're really lucky, Dr. Anderson."
"I guess I am at that," Nora said.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"He's gonna bring me an autographed baseball."
"And a Yankees cap," Caine reminded him.
"Yeah." Johnny Baker's expression was that of a boy for whom Christmas had come seven months early. "A real Yankees cap. Autographed by Billy Martin and Mickey Mande!"
Knowing how he had revered that particular piece of baseball memorabilia, Nora looked up at Caine in surprise and received an embarrassed grin in return.
"That's wonderful," she said with a smile. "Johnny, this is Mrs. Langley. She'd like to have a little chat with you."
The light left his eyes, like a candle snuffed out by an icy wind. "You're from Social Services, aren't you?" He said die words without emotion, but his flat, older-than-his-years tone touched Caine more deeply than his earlier hero worship.
A little pool of sil
ence settled over the room. "Yes, I am," the social worker agreed quietly.
Thin shoulders, clad in a pair of the Superhero pajamas given to all the little boys on the ward, lifted and fell in a resigned shrug. "I figured you were." "Have you talked with social workers before, Johnny?" Nora asked.
"Yeah. In Portland. And a couple times in L.A. And every time, Mama'd get mad afterward and we'd have to move again." He sighed. "I'm gettin' awful tired of moving."
"Perhaps you won't have to," Mrs. Langley suggested. She pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. When she sat down, she was at eye level with the boy. "Perhaps this time, things will be different."
He stiffened slightly, as if bracing for the worst. "That's what they all say."
He was retreating, back behind those self-protective walls. Feeling the boy's pain and experiencing a strange sort of kinship with this child whose life had started out on such a different path from his own, Caine squeezed Johnny's shoulder.
"Listen, sport. I've got a feeling that between the four of us in this room, we can make a difference. But you've got to help."
"How?" A glimmer of hope cut through the shadows as Johnny looked up at his hero.
"Ybu've got to tell the truth." When the seven-year-old didn't immediately answer, Caine leaned closer and whispered in his ear.
"I'D think about it," Johnny replied. "But only if you promise."
"Scout's honor."
Johnny Baker looked into Caine's face for a long time. "I guess I can trust you."
"I wouldn't let you down, Johnny. You can count on it."
Apparently making his decision, the boy turned back to the social worker. "So, what do you want to know?" "What did you say to make him change his mind?" Nora asked, as she and Caine left the room.
She'd seen similar cases where there were obvious signs of abuse and the children, whether from fear or misplaced loyalty, absolutely refused to say a single accusing word against their parents.
"Not that much." Caine pushed the elevator button. "I simply told him that I wouldn t let Social Services send him back to his mother."
"Caine!" Nora stared up at him. "You had no right to tell him any such thing!"
"Why not?"
"Because you have no control over the situation."
"Of course I do."
The elevator reached the floor; the green metal doors opened. Caine stood aside and gestured for Nora to enter first.
"If Social Services drops the ball and lets his mother take him back home again," Caine said as he followed her into the elevator and pushed the button for the first floor, "I'll call a press conference and tell everyone in the state what she's done. That should get the bureaucrats off their behinds."
"You can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"Because the mother could turn around and sue you for libel, or slander."
"Let her sue," Caine said. "I'll just hire the best attorney in the covin try and keep her tied up in court until the kid's an adult and safely out of her control."
He meant it, Nora realized, stunned by this man she'd thought she knew so well. "Why would you go out on a limb for a child you don't even know?" "Why would you?" he countered. "Obviously filing a suspected abuse form is not something a doctor does without weighing all the options."
"He's a child at risk. I had no choice."
"Exactly." Caine nodded, satisfied. The car reached their floor. "And believe it or not, for once in our lives, we're in perfect agreement." He followed her out of the elevator. "And there's something else."
"What?"
"Dylan probably would have looked a lot like Johnny Baker," Caine said in a hushed, pained voice. "If he'd lived."
"Dammit, Caine..."
Tears began to well in Nora's eyes and she turned away. She felt his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't you think it's finally time we dealt with it, Nora?"
She could have wept with relief when the speaker above her head began to blare a code. "I've got to go," she said. 'Tm on duty."
He dropped his hand to his side. "What time do you get off?"
"Three-thirty, but—"
"I'll be waiting."
"But, Caine..The code continued to blare. "Oh, hell. Do whatever you want. You always have." Welcoming the irritation that steamroOed over her earlier emotional turmoil, she took off running to the ambulance entrance.
Caine watched her talking to the paramedics as they pulled a gumey from the back of the red-and-white vehicle. She was no longer the young woman he'd seduced in front of a crackling fire on Midsummer Eve so many years ago. Nor was she the exhausted, surprisingly insecure, angry bride he'd alternately fought with, shared terrific sex with, and ultimately abandoned.
A late bloomer, Dr. Nora Anderson had definitely come into her own. That she was satisfied—even happy—with her life was obvious.
Not for the first time since returning to Tribulation, Caine wished he could learn her secret.
NORA WAS not SURPRISED to find Caine waiting for her when she left the hospital that afternoon. Nor was she all that surprised that he'd ignored all the posted signs and parked in the staff parking lot.
"Eric was right," she said as she approached the man who was leaning against the gleaming black car. "That Ferrari does look like the Batmobile."
"I know." Caine grinned. "It's a ridiculously juvenile car for a grown man, but I couldn't help myself. Think I'm going through male menopause, Doc?"
Her mind, so calm and deliberate earlier in the emergency room, sprang to fevered life at his cocky grin. Her body followed at an alarming pace.
"That would be a little difficult," she said in a dry tone meant to conceal the havoc going on inside her, "since emotionally, you still haven't gotten out of your teens."
The smile in her eyes took the sting out of her words. "Ouch. You really know how to hurt a guy, don't you? And here I thought we were becoming friends."
"Fine. As your friend, I feel it's my duty to point out that you're parked in a reserved spot."
"It was empty."
"It belongs to the chief of staff."
"If the guy worked a full day like he was supposed to, his spot wouldn't have been vacant, so I couldn't have taken it," Caine argued. "So, what was your big emergency?"
"A sixteen-year-old girl was kicked in the abdomen by a horse."
"Is she going to be okay?"
"It's touch and go. The surgeon repaired her lacerated liver and removed a ruptured kidney, but it's still iffy." Nora frowned. "Here's a kid who could very well die and you know what she's worried about?"
"That her parents are going to get rid of her horse?"
"Exactly. How did you know?"
Caine shrugged. "You're the one who pointed out that I still haven't outgrown my teenage stage. I guess I can identify with a sixteen-year-old kid."
"I'm sorry about that. I was out of line. Especially after the way you jumped to Johnny Baker's defense." Nora managed a weak smile. "I suppose I could use the excuse that I'm exhausted, but I think the truth is that snapping at you is a leftover knee-jerk reaction."
"Makes sense to me," Caine said agreeably. "Since I'm suffering from a few old knee-jerk responses myself."
"Really?"
"Really. Except in my case, the feelings are a bit different."
Nora saw the devil in his eye and turned away to unlock her car door.
"Don't you want to know what they are?"
"Not really," she said with pretended indifference, struggling to turn a key in the lock.
"I think I'll tell you anyway." He plucked the keys from her hand, located the correct one and unlocked the door. "I can't seem to resist the urge to taste you whenever those ridiculously kissable lips come within puckering distance.
Before she could get into the car, he cupped her chin, lifted her frowning lips to his and gave her a long, deep kiss that left them both breathless.
"We still set off sparks, Nora," he murmured when they finally came up for air.
He brushed the pad of his ultrasensitized thumb against the flesh of her bottom lip. Caine's heart was pounding with a rhythm he usually associated with spring-training wind sprints. He'd never met another woman who could make him suffer so, and relish the pain.
"You can't deny it, babe."
"It's only sex. Nothing more."
"You were always good for my ego."
"And you always had sex on the brain."
Amusement flickered in his eyes as he skimmed a slow, sensual glance over her. "I don't remember you complaining/''
Once again the atmosphere between them had become intensely charged. "Dammit, Caine—"
"Besides," he said, "I think we were wrong."
"About what?"
"About the only thing we had going for us in those days, besides Dylan, was sex. Oh, I know that's what we always used to say," he said when she opened her mouth to argue. "But you've no idea how many women I've gone to bed with over the past nine years faying to forget you, Nora."
"I don't want to hear about all your other women."
"That's fine with me, since I don't want to talk about them." He ran his palm down her hair. "Your hair has always reminded me of com silk." Memories of it draped across his naked chest, after making love, made his already aroused body hard.
"I suppose you tell that to all your women."
"I thought we'd agreed not to talk about other women."
"Although what you do and who you do it with isn't any of my business, as a doctor I have to point out that casual sex is dangerous, Caine. Especially these days."
"True enough. But you know, Nora, sex was never casual with you." His fingers curled around the back of her neck, his warm dark blue eyes captured her wary ones.
"Don't you think I know how uncomfortable this is for you?" he said in a low rough voice. "But it's not exactly a picnic for me, either, babe. Because right now my life is really messed up, and I have this feeling that if you and I could at least try to put the past to rest, maybe I'll be able to handle whatever the future brings."
"Besides—" he took hold of her hand, brought it to his lips and kissed her fingertips, one at a time "—we're still emotionally linked, Nora, whether we want to be or not."
"That's ridiculous."
