by Valerie Parv
Levering himself to his feet, he began to pace. “You’re the problem. We’re both the problem for each other.” He swung around. “You’ve told me often enough you don’t want to get involved with a doctor.”
Hard to see how she could get any more deeply involved. “Are you trying to say you have regrets?”
“Of course I do. Not about making love to you. Never that.”
“Then what?”
He gestured around them. “Dragging you into my life. I saw what being married to a doctor did to my mother. I won’t do that to you.”
“You don’t have to. Things can change.” Who was she trying to convince?
“I’m an all-or-nothing man. There isn’t room for anything besides my career.”
“Nate, that might have been true once. But you’ve already changed. When you were told you could return to surgery in another couple of weeks, you looked…I don’t know…disappointed.”
“I admit I wasn’t as thrilled about the prospect as I thought I’d be.”
“Do you know why?” When he looked as if he was about to protest, she held up her hands. “Fair’s fair. You had your turn digging around in my psyche.”
“No hidden secrets, no surprises. What you see is what you get.”
“Except I don’t get anything.”
“It’s nearly daylight; Joanna will be arriving soon.”
“Oh, you fight dirty, Dr. Hale. What if I told you I don’t care if she finds us in bed together?” Emma was surprised to discover it was the truth.
He released her hands from his neck, kissing her fingers before he stood up, causing her heart to give a slight skip. “I believe you, but it isn’t that simple. Your parents are coming to see you this morning.”
“They’re coming here? Why?”
“I told them what happened yesterday.”
Her heart jolted, then anger flooded through her. “You shouldn’t have, Nate. It’s not as if I was hurt or anything.”
She flung the covers away to see that her nightgown had ridden up. His gaze heated at the sight of her long legs. “When will you stop deciding what’s good for me?”
“Would you have told them yourself?”
She dragged a robe from the foot of the bed and jerkily pushed her arms into the sleeves. “Eventually.”
He angled one shoulder against the door frame. “I thought it was time they heard something good about their daughter.”
“I can imagine my mother’s excitement.”
His eyes narrowed. “She’s relieved you’re okay. And impressed that you saved Doug’s life.”
Emma couldn’t mask the flicker of hope. “Really?” When Nate didn’t answer right away, she dropped her gaze. “That’s what I thought.”
“They want the best for you,” he suggested.
She gathered her hair off her neck and secured the twist with a clip. “Their definition of best is me marrying a doctor so I fit into their world…your world.”
“A moment ago, you didn’t think that was such a bad idea.”
“Nobody said anything about marrying. A moment ago, I wanted you to make love to me.”
“And now?”
“I still want you to.” Did he have any idea how much? “But you’ve invited my parents over, so the question is moot.”
“What does moot mean, anyway?”
Her eyes snapped. “In this case, it means impractical. I’m not going to be having sex when my parents arrive.”
“Then we’re taking a rain check?”
Mindful of his wrist, she gave him a gentle but firm push. “You’re getting out of here while I shower and dress, then I’ll make breakfast.”
Once again he surprised her by having the table set and French toast sizzling when she joined him in the kitchen. “How did you manage one-handed?”
“I talked Joanna through making the egg mixture last night, so I only had to soak the sliced bread and toss it into a pan. Electric can opener took care of the berries, which I’m warming. All you have to do is sit down at the table and eat.”
Unused to being waited on, Emma played with the cutlery. Villeroy & Boch, like the dinnerware, she noticed idly. Must be a favorite of Nate’s. Unless his decorator had made the choice for him. How did you read a man without clues to his personal tastes? The lack of clues were in themselves clues, she decided, resting her chin on her hand. Nate didn’t have time to decorate his own home. How much time would he have for love when a partner couldn’t be outsourced like so much of his life? Everything besides medicine. And why do I care?
Confusion rolled through her. He was in a kitchen he barely knew his way around, cooking a meal for her. He was either still in medical mode and considering her well-being, or she meant something to him. He was certainly starting to mean more to her, she acknowledged, pensively twirling a fork. Letting him think she only wanted sex wasn’t wholly honest. She wanted him, period. Waking up to him this morning had felt so right.
Oh, Ma, you would be planning the wedding if you could hear me thinking. The idea wasn’t as impossible as Emma had once believed. She could actually imagine herself walking down the aisle toward Nate.
Get real, she ordered herself. He didn’t want the commitment, and she was dreaming if she thought life with Nate would be different from growing up in her family. He’d said himself he didn’t want them to end up like his parents, driven apart by work pressures. Why wasn’t her heart paying attention?
Nate was the injured one; she’d been hired to feed him. She jumped to her feet, determined to set him straight on their relationship, but he was coming through the door carrying a plate. “I’ll be back with mine,” he said, putting the plate in front of her.
She couldn’t help it. She gaped. He’d not only cooked the French toast to puffy perfection, but dusted it with sugar and mounded the drained berries carefully between the slices. Good grief, he’d even spotted drops of strawberry syrup around the edge of the plate by way of presentation.
With a bump, she sat down. “Where did you learn to do this?” she asked when he returned with his plate.
“I worked my way through medical school as a barista in a café.”
Now she knew why he made good coffee. “But the food presentation?”
“Observation is a key skill in medicine. I watched and learned.”
“But you never cook.”
“What’s the point when I’m only making dinner for one? Eat before this gets cold.”
She ate. The creamy French toast contrasted deliciously with the tartness of the unsweetened berries. “This is good,” she said around a mouthful.
He reached across the table and dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Berry juice. Do you still think I’m a one-trick pony?”
“I’m sure you have others, but don’t choose to use them.” She gestured with her fork. “This for example. You have the makings of a passable cook.”
“Only passable?”
“Way better. I might try you on the spinach roulade I’m preparing as part of an order for tonight.”
His eyes sparkled. “I might surprise you.”
Surprising her was becoming routine. She had to be careful he didn’t surprise her into making an admission he didn’t want to hear. That she was falling in love with him. Shock made the fork slip, landing with a crash onto the plate.
He was beside her in seconds, his cool fingers dropping to her wrist. “I’m okay,” she insisted, his touch vibrating through her.
“Are you sure? You went pale and your pulse is a little fast.”
Realizing you were in love would do that.
SOPHIE HAD GONE TO PICK UP some ingredients they needed. Emma was well into preparations for the cocktail party they were catering when Nate’s doorbell chimed. Not close enough to the video monitor to see who the caller was, she tensed at the sound of her father’s voice as Joanna showed him in.
She washed her hands and untied her apron, then went into the den. Nate stood beside the firepl
ace and Greg Jarrett sat beside her mother on the sofa. A tall, rangy man who looked more like a farmer than a senior obstetrician, he seemed ill at ease. Which made two of them, she thought as she took a straight-backed chair. “What’s this about, Ma?”
“Nate told us what happened yesterday. We wanted to be sure you’re all right.”
She flashed a look at Nate. “He should have told you I’m fine. So is Doug Armstrong.” She’d called the hospital earlier, relieved to be told the builder was expected to fully recover.
“Thanks to you,” her father observed. Then he frowned. “Nate said you had a phobic response to being in the cellar.”
Again she glanced at Nate, this time in annoyance. “Nate fusses.”
“With good cause,” Cherie contributed. “Tell her, Greg.”
Her father gathered himself with an effort. “It’s my fault that you have a problem.”
This was news. “This morning I remembered falling into the hole left by a tree at Gramma’s place. Or I thought I had.”
Her father linked his hands together. “Your memory is accurate. I planted the idea that you’d been playing by the creek, so you wouldn’t tell your mother you’d been half-buried in that hole.”
A memory of soil raining down on her flashed through her mind and she shuddered. “Why didn’t you want me to remember?”
Her mother’s face had gone pale. “He did it for my sake. You know that my parents met in a war zone?”
None of this was making much sense. “Yes. But what does that have to do with me?”
Her mother balked but Emma’s father clasped her hand. “It’s time she heard the whole story, Cherie. I’ll tell her if you’d rather not.”
Cherie shook her head. “My parents went through some really rough times in Vietnam. I was only thirteen when they took me to Ho Chi Minh City to show me where they’d met. We went on a tour into the countryside outside the city to see the networks of tunnels my parents said the Vietcong had used for surprise attacks.”
Emma nodded. “I’ve heard of them. Grandma and Grandpa Kenner had to treat soldiers who’d gone into the tunnels and been maimed by booby traps or bitten by snakes and scorpions.”
“Must have been disturbing for you as a teenager, Cherie,” Nate contributed.
Greg looked down. “Worse than that. The ground was damp and she slipped and fell into one of the hidden air vents servicing the tunnels. She was trapped for hours before she could be freed.”
Cherie nodded. “Your father didn’t want to remind me of the horror of that day by telling me what had happened to you, Emma.”
Greg lifted his gaze to Emma. “I owe you an apology for putting your mother’s welfare before yours. Encouraging you to talk about what happened would have helped you process your fears and perhaps headed off a phobia.”
“If I’d known, I might have been able to help you in some way,” Cherie said.
When Emma sat in stunned silence, her father added, “Sorry is inadequate now, but it’s all I can say, and I am truly sorry I let my career come between us. I thought you were doing okay, but I see now your experience did more harm than I realized.”
More than he could imagine, she thought. She didn’t kid herself he would change, or that her mother and brother would be less career focused. But she felt relieved at knowing what had happened. And her father’s apology put them on a more even footing than she’d ever experienced.
Greg stood. “I’m glad Cherie knows the truth at last.” He made a wry face. “When she told me about Nate’s call and your reaction to being in the cellar, I told her everything.”
“And I gave him hell for keeping it from me,” Cherie said. “I’m a pediatrician. I should have been able to help my own daughter.”
Compassion gripped Emma as her mother’s voice cracked. She’d never heard Cherie sounding less than calm and capable. “I survived,” Emma assured her shakily. Contrarily, she wanted her old mother back, and acknowledged how much comfort she had always drawn from Cherie’s confidence. “You didn’t know.”
“I suspected something might be troubling you, but we were always too busy to delve. I hope you’ll come to dinner tonight so we can start making amends.”
“I’m working tonight.” Seeing her father’s face fall, she added, “But I’m free tomorrow. Nate might have other plans.” She cursed the yearning she couldn’t keep out of her voice.
She’d long thought of her father as a big man, but Nate was bigger, stronger, more masculine as he came to stand beside her. “Before you go, I have something to ask you.”
A medical question about her, she supposed. Her stomach knotted in protest. “You don’t have to, Nate.”
His gaze swept over her, his expression unreadable. “I think I do. It might be old-fashioned, but I want to ask your parents for their blessing so we can get married.”
“What?” Her knees weakened and he put his arm around her. “What did you say?”
Something like gratitude came into her father’s face as he looked at Nate and smiled. “Patient’s hearing is affected. Might be worth looking into.”
“I’m not your patient, either of you,” Emma protested. “And my hearing’s fine.”
Nate shrugged. “Emma thinks I meddle.”
She struggled free and planted her hands on her hips. “What do you call this? Asking my parents if I want to marry you before you’ve asked me.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.” The admission slipped out. “I mean, I need to think about this. My business will be affected.” Not to mention the rest of her life.
“So will mine,” Nate said easily. “I can cope if you can.”
Everything she’d seen so far suggested he could. But could she?
Her father moved toward her awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. She made it easy for him by holding out her arms and he came into them. Forgiveness would take time, but Emma didn’t believe in holding on to past grudges. Not when the future was so bright with promise. “What do you think, Dad?”
She saw something she’d never expected to see in her reserved father’s eyes. A wet glimmer. “You’re old enough to know your own mind, but for myself, I’m delighted.”
“Me, too,” Cherie agreed, sounding a little more like herself.
Nate stepped forward. “Thanks, Greg and Cherie. I’ll take good care of your daughter.”
Emma was tempted to stamp her foot, but she resisted. “I don’t need taking care of, thank you very much.”
Greg’s hold tightened then he released her, looking older than she had ever seen him. “We’d better leave you two to work out the details.”
“Yes.” No sense fighting the inevitable. Emma saw her parents to the door and returned to find Nate looking so smug she wanted to smack him. “You realize you’ll have to marry me after this? Knowing my mother, the news will be all over the hospital by lunchtime.”
“Saves us telling everyone.”
Already suspecting the answer, Emma asked anyway. “What happened to not wanting to put me through the same heartache your mother had with your father?”
“I still don’t, and I won’t. Spending the night watching you sleep, and holding you when you woke from the nightmare made me realize I can’t let you go, so it’s up to me to make sure my work never comes between us. My father never learned that lesson, but I will.”
By now she knew him well enough to trust he meant what he said. “About the meddling in my life,” she began.
“I can’t promise not to meddle. It’s inbred. But I’ll try and remember to ask first.”
She lifted a hand to his face. “As long as you try.”
He released his breath. “It’s all any of us can do, Emma. Mistakes are human and humans are often mistaken.”
“Sounds like something Sophie would credit to Confucius.”
“She’s a smart woman.”
Before Emma could agree, she found her words stolen by the pressure of his mouth.
None of this made any sense. All her life she’d promised herself never to get involved with a doctor. But this was different. This was Nate.
“I can hear you thinking again,” he said, his lips moving over her hairline and sending shivers of sensation down her spine.
“There’s a lot to think about. This morning I woke up with no plans except organizing tonight’s job, and now I’m discussing marriage with you.”
“What else is there to discuss?”
“You haven’t even asked me properly.”
He held her a little away from him. “You want me to do the bended knee thing?”
With his injured hand, he’d have trouble. “No,” she conceded. “You asked and I answered, however indirect it was. I guess it’s a proposal to tell our children about in the future.”
“Do you want children, Emma?”
She knew a second of concern. “Don’t you?”
“They could turn out like Luke, lost and troubled.”
“Or like you, brilliant and reliable to a fault.”
He nodded. “Or some mix of us both we can’t imagine yet.”
A recipe for the future, she thought, banding her hands around the strong column of his neck. The day she’d stepped into his kitchen, she knew her life had changed. Now it was going to change again, in ways she couldn’t fathom. She only knew she wanted this, wanted him, as she’d never wanted anything in her life. A sigh slipped between her lips.
He held her close. “Happy, Emma?”
“I think so. Yes. Happy and a little scared of what we’re getting into.”
“No need to be. We can handle whatever comes up.”
She let the mischief shine in her eyes. “I can’t wait till you get full use of your hand back.”
He grinned. “Is sex going to be our main meeting point?”
“No doubt about it.” She glanced at the leather sofa where they’d made such glorious love a few nights before. “And it won’t always be in bed.”
“I’d say you were a woman after my own heart, if you didn’t already possess it,” he ventured. “Although that’s hardly sound medical thinking.”
“You’re not my doctor,” she reminded him hoarsely.
