A Matter of Trust (The Boston Five Series #5)

by Poppy J. Anderson

  She wasn’t chiding him, but Kyle felt his neck burn anyway. Yes, he had taken a slice of meatloaf last Sunday, wrapped it in foil, and brought it to Cody, because the boy was sick of the daily fare in the hospital. And Kyle couldn’t blame him for that. He sometimes preferred a half-rotting pizza to the food in the canteen.

  He didn’t know why he hadn’t told his mom right away that he’d like to take some of her food to his patient. Maybe he’d been afraid his family would tell him the same thing Pam had told him—that he should keep his professional distance.

  “How is the little guy doing?” Ellen asked.

  Kyle juggled the small containers that were heavy with food in order to hold them in one hand. “He’s doing quite well, improving every day. A few weeks ago, nobody expected him to recover, but he’s got the will of a warrior.”

  “The poor boy.” His mom sighed. “A real tragedy. No child should be going through a thing like this. How much longer will he have to stay in the hospital?”

  Kyle took a deep breath and shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said evasively. “Cody still needs physical therapy, and then a few screws have to be taken out, in his ankle and his knee. Also—”

  “I’d rather not hear the details, if that’s okay.” His mom rose on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Hug the little man for me, Kyle. And if he has a favorite pie or cake, let me know so I can bake it for him.”

  He gave her a weak smile. “Thank you, Mom.”

  Chapter 2

  When Kyle stepped through the doors of the pediatric ward, he kept his head down and hastened to Cody’s room.

  His rush didn’t have anything to do with the fact that it was his day off and he was worried he’d be consulted by a colleague. It was instead the result of his experience that a single doctor was viewed as fair game by any nurse who also happened to be single. There were innumerable porn movies that dealt with nymphomaniac nurses who loved getting it on with doctors in examination rooms, and Ryan had watched lots of those before he’d gotten with Jordan, but Kyle knew that in reality, the nurses saw him less as a sex object and more as wedding material.

  Instead of hot booty calls in examination rooms, he was smothered with offers of freshly baked muffins, tasty casseroles, and frosted cakes. Though his roommate was in no way averse to him bringing home mountains of food several times a month, Kyle himself wasn’t so happy about all the nurses who wanted to convince him of their housewifely qualities. The prospect of a booty call now and then would have pleased him a lot more, to be honest. He was well able to cook his own dinner …

  Like any other man, Kyle was flattered that the women flirted with him, put little notes with their phone numbers in his locker, and batted their eyelashes at him, but he didn’t appreciate being woken every twenty minutes during a night shift, only to realize that yet again, a nurse was giving him a threadbare reason to get up and look at a patient who usually turned out perfectly fine—and fast asleep.

  Plus, he just wasn’t on the lookout for a woman who’d make a good housewife. He didn’t care whether a woman was a good cook, because he didn’t plan on entering into a relationship that would lead to the woman giving up her job, playing the little wife, and popping babies out left and right. With the life he was leading, how would he be a good husband and father? If he ever did choose to get married and have kids, he’d want to be there for his family, not slaving away on endless shifts in the hospital.

  Kyle had never believed the theory that nurses were notorious players; instead, he believed his popularity with the staff was because he was fond of children, and good with them. Women tended to have stars in their eyes when a man had a soft spot for children. If he had proceeded to adopt a puppy, their enthusiasm for him would surely have gone through the roof.

  It was suspiciously quiet for a Sunday afternoon as he crept down the hallway and squinted at the admissions desk and the staff room behind it. Fortunately, the only person to be seen was the head nurse, Patricia, who was thoroughly engrossed in a crossword puzzle. The coast was clear for Kyle to reach Cody’s room without interruption.

  The ten-year-old was lying in his bed watching TV, the cast on his right leg placed on a cushion to keep it slightly elevated. Even though his room was filled with toys, colorful drawings from other little patients, and loads of flowers, Cody looked so lost and forlorn that Kyle felt a stab right to his heart.

  As he did each time he came in.

  The entire staff did their best to cheer up the handsome blond boy who was charming and endearing, but no toys or flowers could make the kid forget that he would never see his parents or brother again. Kyle had talked his twin brother into lending him his PlayStation and had connected it to the TV for Cody’s entertainment, but of course that couldn’t alleviate his loss either.

  “Hey, pal.” He quietly stepped into the room and closed the door behind him so they could sit and talk in peace, safe from the advances of overeager nurses.

  As soon as Cody heard his voice, his face lit up. He muted the TV with a click, turned around, and beamed at Kyle.

  “Kyle! I thought you wouldn’t come today.”

  “Of course I did,” Kyle replied as he pulled up a chair and sat down. Then he held up his assortment of Tupperware. “How could I not? I’m sure they offered you that stuff that looks like cat food again, didn’t they? So I brought you my mom’s meatloaf.”

  The boy’s eyes widened with excitement. “Meatloaf? The yummy one with the beans?”

  “And the potatoes you liked so much last week,” Kyle confirmed, pushing the little swinging table closer to the bed, so he could set down his smuggled wares. “How could I forget how much you liked my contraband?”

  The boy squinted up at him with an almost scared expression. “And you won’t be in trouble for this?”

  “Hey,” Kyle replied gently, before giving Cody an encouraging poke in the upper arm. “I’m the doctor here. I can do whatever I want.”

  Cody answered that with an unmistakably mischievous wink. “Then why are you so scared of Nurse Patricia?”

  Kyle pretended to flinch and shudder. “Everyone’s afraid of Nurse Patricia. Even the director of this hospital doesn’t dare to address her directly.”

  “Well, I like her,” Cody confessed as he opened the one drawer of his nightstand, which held his treasured possessions as well as his fork and spoon. And his biggest treasure: his family photos. Looking at the little guy’s meager belongings, Kyle’s throat constricted. On top of everything else, the bank had already been to the Bakers’ house early on, throwing out things or lobbing them in storage, since the house had to be sold. A kind neighbor had come by the hospital and brought a cardboard box with books and photographs she had been able to salvage in the rush. Cody had been closely guarding the few photos ever since.

  “Say, Cody, how about I bring you a photo album tomorrow?” Kyle pointed at the loose photos in the drawer next to his bed. “Then you could put your photos in it, stick them to the pages so they can’t get dog-eared or scratched.”

  The boy didn’t say anything, but his nod spoke volumes. Then he hesitantly began to eat the food from the containers.

  “My mom said she’d like to bake a cake for you if you tell me what kind you like the most.” Kyle stretched his legs and watched as Cody munched on the remains of the Sunday meatloaf, eager but still incredibly cautious and slow. Brady would have finished that portion as quickly and ravenously as a combine harvester, much like his dad, Shane.

  Cody let his fork sink, gave Kyle a wide-eyed look, and asked in a whisper, “Do you think your mom can make a lemon cake with thick sugar frosting that tastes like real lemons?”

  The corners of Kyle’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure she can.”

  Cody gulped and went on bravely, “My … my mom used to make a cake like that, and it was my favorite kind.”

  If Kyle wasn’t careful, tears would well in his eyes. He forced himself to sound earnest but not too emotional. “That sounds like
the perfect cake, pal.”

  “My dad and Matt preferred my mom’s chocolate cake, but she always made an extra lemon cake … just for me.”

  Kyle nodded. “Moms who bake more than one cake at a time are the best. I’m sure both cakes were awesome.”

  Cody nodded. “Mom was a very good baker, and she also cooked lots of great things. Matt and I helped her in the kitchen a lot when she was cooking.”

  As he often did, Kyle realized that the boy desperately wanted to talk about his parents and his brother. Even though he had no idea what Cody’s psychologist had to say about that, he always encouraged Cody to tell him whatever he felt like, because he sensed it did him good.

  “What about the washing up afterward? Did you help with that, too?”

  Cody shook his head and put his fork into a tasty stack of beans. “Washing up’s a girl’s job.”

  Kyle chuckled. “Make sure you never let my sister hear that.”

  He hadn’t finished his sentence when someone opened the door and a voice grumbled, “Are you bothering my patient again, Dr. Fitzpatrick?”

  Of course none other than Nurse Patricia stood in the doorframe, scanning the room and then staring at the assortment of Tupperware with a meaningful expression. “Didn’t I tell you last week that you’re not supposed to bring Cody food from outside? What is that, anyway?”

  “Meatloaf,” Cody piped up happily. “And it’s so good!”

  “We were just talking about you, Nurse Patricia.” Kyle leaned back in his chair and offered the woman a dazzling smile, though she was at least twenty years his senior. “Cody told me in strict confidence that you really like him, but that must be a misunderstanding, I’m sure. I’m your favorite after all, aren’t I?”

  The guffaw of his little patient felt like a small triumph to Kyle.

  Nurse Patricia, on the other hand, shook her head. “You must be delusional, Dr. Fitzpatrick. You’re not my favorite—the only boy who might be my favorite is sitting across from you, eating contraband meatloaf.”

  Cody beamed at the usually grumpy head nurse as if he was seeing the incarnation of the Holy Grail.

  “Okay, you win, pal.” Kyle shook his head in mock regret. “It seems as if the head nurse’s love is reserved exclusively for you.”

  “Exactly.” The gray-haired nurse made a note on Cody’s chart and murmured, “And he’s also the only one I allow to finish his illegal meatloaf.”

  Still beaming, Cody hastened to do precisely that, as the head nurse retreated from the room. Kyle nodded at her, and his lips formed a silent thank you. He might yet believe in miracles, he thought, when she gave him a tiny sliver of a smile before shutting the door with so much force that he was surprised the wall around it remained intact.

  ***

  “A Guinness, Kyle?”

  Kyle sat on a bar stool in his standard haunt, nodded heavily, and took a deep breath. The barman set a pint in front of him. “Thanks, Ted.”

  “Hard day?”

  “Depends on how you look at it,” he told the gray-haired man who’d been running the pub as far back as when Kyle’s dad had brought his kids to eat Shepherd’s Pie and watch baseball on TV. Kyle and his siblings had probably spent more time in here than in the church three blocks over—much to their mom’s dismay.

  O’Reary’s was still the Fitzpatrick watering hole, even though Ted hadn’t always been particularly fond of Shane and Heath. During their high school years, Shane had introduced Ted’s niece to the advantages of the well-sprung backseat of his car, and a few years later, Heath had started a brawl in the rustic bar, ending in the destruction of quite a bit of furniture.

  Kyle, on the other hand, was in Ted’s good books after he’d prevented Ted’s granddaughter from going into anaphylactic shock two years ago. Ever since, he always got a spot at the bar in the notoriously busy pub, and his Guinness was served promptly.

  Though its floor was as sticky with spilled beer and discarded peanut shells as ever, the pub was uncharacteristically empty today. It was summer, and there was no baseball game tonight, both of which probably accounted for the emptiness. Kyle preferred the place quiet, for that meant he was safe from the chatter of former colleagues from the fire department. And he was certainly not in the mood for his roommate’s lectures on aneurysms or admonishments regarding his attachment to his littlest patient …

  No, this evening he felt like sitting here alone with a nice beer, letting his thoughts roam …

  “Excuse me, could you please pass me a coaster?”

  Kyle blinked and turned to the left, where a pair of bright green eyes was giving him a questioning look.

  He immediately sat up straight, because he didn’t want to look like a sack of potatoes to this woman with green eyes and fiery red curls. His pulse had accelerated in a dizzying fashion, and he chalked that up to the fact that his unexpected neighbor differed dramatically from all the other patrons currently in the pub: She didn’t have any bald spots on her head, nor did she possess a beer belly that jiggled above her belt buckle. She didn’t look like the type who’d complain about long-gone glory days, when a president with Irish roots had been sitting in the White House and a man wasn’t condemned to eating microwave dinners because his wife had gone to Zumba class. No, she possessed the prettiest face Kyle had seen in a long time. Large eyes with thick lashes and elegantly curving brows were looking at him, her face even. Her chin might have looked a little too pointy if the generous mouth with the insanely full lips and the round cheeks hadn’t soothed this one flaw in her features.

  He felt the goosebumps rise on his arms, which must have been down to her voice, which was far too husky, deep, and sensual for a woman with a pert little nose and a dimple in the right corner of her mouth. A high-pitched, squealing voice would have suited her better, a woman with such a young face, that massive head of red curls, and her almost boyish body.

  Only when his neighbor tilted her head and knit her brows a little did Kyle realize he’d been studying her silently. He must seem like the biggest moron on earth—or at least in Boston.

  He shuddered inwardly, reached for a cardboard coaster, and pushed it over to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, her amusement plainly visible.

  “You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat and watched her set down her own pint of Guinness on the coaster, after taking a large sip. The fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off the way she tilted her head back and presented her slender white neck told him it’d been far too long since he’d had sex. It was sad but true: this utterly innocuous motion was the most erotic thing he’d seen in months.

  “The bar’s always grimy,” he said, not caring whether Ted heard him. “A coaster won’t help that much.”

  The young woman, who was wearing a pair of black cutoffs and a casual denim shirt—and not a wedding ring on any of the fingers of her manicured hand—uttered a brief laugh as a curl of her fiery hair fell across her forehead. “Sounds like you come here often.” She winked at him and tapped a cherry-red nail on the bar. “Should I be concerned?”

  “That I come here often?” He turned toward her on his bar stool. “Well, there are two possible explanations, I guess.”

  “I’m listening.” She turned toward him as well, resting her left elbow on the grimy bar.

  Kyle grinned—the sight of the woman before him was just too delectable, and he’d noticed his subdued, gloomy mood lift instantaneously. “Either I suffer from a serious alcohol problem, or I have zero friends and am unbearably boring.”

  She clucked her tongue. “None of those options seems particularly charming to me.”

  “You’re right.” He exhaled in mock despondency. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  He full lips curved into a smile. “Or maybe you’re a true gentleman, and you come here so you can hand a helpless woman a useless coaster.”

  “Touché.” He held out his hand. “I’m Kyle.”

  “Morgan,” she said, holding on to his ha
nd for an instant longer than was normal. “Now, Kyle, what really brought you here tonight?”

  “It was a bit of a rough day. I wanted to treat myself to a pint before I go home,” he said truthfully. “And what lured you into this gem of a genuine Irish-American den of filth?”

  Her breathy laughter hit him right in the gut. God, he couldn’t recall any woman’s laugh ever arousing him like that. Nor could he recall ever feeling like an immature boy next to a woman in a denim shirt and sneakers.

  “You want an honest answer?”

  “Only if you don’t tell me about your hot date. It would break my heart.”

  When she rolled her bright eyes, Kyle knew it might really break his heart if she’d come here for a hot date with some other guy. But he couldn’t fathom where his sudden urge to have a date came from.

  “Nope, no hot date …”

  “A lukewarm date, then?”

  “No date at all.” She shrugged, lowered her eyes for a moment, and then replied, “To be quite honest, I had cabin fever at home, so I went out, wandered the streets, and somehow ended up here.”

  “How fortunate.”

  “Watch out, Kyle.” She squinted at him through the curtain of curls that had fallen over her face, before smoothing back her hair. “If you go on like this, I might have to conclude that you’re flirting with me.”

  He grabbed his glass from the bar and raised it to toast her. “Damn, I should really rethink my strategy.”

  Her laughter made him shiver inside. As he took a sip, he continued to watch her from the corner of his eye, seeing her lean back and look at her beer with a contented smile.

  “So this is your first time here?” he asked, after setting down his glass again.

  “Yes. I just moved to Charlestown a short while ago, so I haven’t found my favorite places yet.”

  Before he could yield to the temptation of offering his services as a local guide, he asked, “Where did you live before?”