Dear Reader,
I fell in love with Kate Larimer way back in high school. At the time, she'd have nothing to do with me, and how can I blame her? I was just a scrawny, awkward teenager. I guess when I went off to Hollywood, somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking—I'll show her.
Now, three wives, one highly sculpted body and a hit TV show later, I find I'm right back where I started—making passes at Kate that fall flat on the ground. She thinks I'm careless, cocky and irresponsible, and—hey!—I am. But what's worse, she thinks I'm false.
Well, there's nothing false about the way I feel for Kate, and there's nothing false about the way I keep coming back to Victoria Bend, Mississippi just to see her.
All I know is, whatever it takes, I've got to make Kate Larimer see the real me.
Kevin Dawson
HARLEQUIN ENTERPRISES LTD.
225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9
AFTER THE STORM
Copyright © 1986 by Donna Ball. Inc.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utlilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada, M3B 3K9
ISBN 0-373-45174-1
Published by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. 1986, 1993, 1994
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
® and ™ are trademarks used under license. Trademarks recorded with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office, and in other countries.
Printed in the USA
Chapter One
Katherine Larimer had known Kevin Dawson since the third grade, when he used to consistently con her out of the last Twinkie in her lunch box. He hadn't changed much.
He strolled into her office with his jacket tossed carelessly over his shoulder, his curly brown hair professionally tousled, his sexy, sauntering gait professionally coached and his grin warm enough to melt the coldest heart. "Hello, sweetheart," he greeted her. "How about buying a poor boy dinner?"
Kate restrained the urge to applaud lightly. No one had a way with an entrance like Kevin Dawson. But then, no one had had as much practice.
She feigned innocence. "Why Kevin, what a surprise! I didn't know you were in town."
His grin sparked into something a bit more natural, and he lounged against the doorframe. Every man, woman and child in Victoria Bend had known of Kevin's impending arrival for slightly over a month now. He put on a straight face and inquired politely, "Should I have phoned first?"
She looked at him dryly. "I probably wouldn't have answered."
His eyes twinkled. "Exactly. So I saved myself a quarter."
Kevin Dawson was Victoria Bend's proudest product, the local boy who made good, the favorite son of a small town, which, before Kevin, had been on its last legs. He was Colt Marshall on the prime-time action-adventure series Code Zero. He was also incredibly wealthy, and half the women in the United States were in love with him. And that was just for starters.
He was in Victoria Bend to officiate at the groundbreaking ceremony of the new hospital—a project made possible largely through his funding. For all his many faults—and there were plenty—Kate had to give Kevin credit for one thing: he had never forgotten where he came from. A good portion of all his charitable, and business, activities had been funneled back into Victoria Bend, and the contribution to the small town's economy was not to be taken lightly. The hospital was the latest of his benevolent gestures, and though it was desperately needed and greatly appreciated, Kate couldn't help wishing it could have been acquired without her ever having to deal with Kevin Dawson.
So far, it had worked out quite well. She had worked exclusively through Kevin's lawyers and planners and managers, for Kevin Dawson was a busy man and couldn't be bothered with details—fortunately for everyone concerned. On camera he was brilliant; off camera he was hopelessly incompetent. He had simply never learned how to deal with real life.
Feeling some token thanks were called for, Kate said now, "It's a good thing you're doing with the hospital, Kevin. We really need it."
He straightened up, smiling endearingly. "I know. Aren't you impressed?"
"Not as much as you are." Kate lost her own battle with a rueful smile and gestured him toward a chair. ''Sit down. I have some work to finish up."
Kevio arranged his long body in the faded orange easy chair before her desk and looked lazily around the familiar surroundings. There was a couch, a desk, another chair, a couple of filing cabinets. Kate's diploma hung on one wall; her medical books lined another. It was a very dull office. He said, "So how's business?"
"Slow, thank goodness."
He lifted an eyebrow. "That attitude will not lead to fame and fortune, Katie. Take it from me."
She got up to file the chart on which she had just made her last notation of the day. "Fame and fortune is not why I became a doctor in Victoria Bend, Mississippi. And in the medical business, it might surprise you to know, a slow day is a good day—it means everybody is healthy."
He shrugged cheerfully. " Well, just wait till we get that hospital finished. You'll be a rich woman in no time, up to your elbows in gallbladders and appendixes."
She rested her arm on the open file drawer, turning to look at him with a mixture of tolerance and dismay. It never ceased to amaze her, the ease with which this thirty-four-year-old man had allowed himself to become trapped in perpetual adolescence—and how little he seemed to care. She said, "What do you want from me, Kevin?"
"Dinner," he replied promptly. "I haven't had a home-cooked meal in so long—"
"I don't have time to cook for you." She closed the drawer.
"Well..." He knotted his brow dubiously. "We could go to Jacksonville, but the fans would drive you crazy."
"I don't want to have dinner with you at all, Kevin," Kate explained patiently, clearing off her desk. "Why don't you make the mayor feed you?"
"Oh, come on, Katie!" He looked pained. "You know everything the mayor's wife cooks comes wrapped in tinfoil. I damn near broke a tooth on it one time."
"Nobody ever broke a tooth on tinfoil."
"Well, it can't be good for the digestion."
"I don't believe there's ever been an adequate study made on that."
"We could pick up a couple of steaks—"
"Cook your own steaks."
"I haven't even opened up my house yet," he insisted. "I'm not even sure the electricity's on, and I know there's nothing in the fridge. Katie..." His eyes took on a hint of hurt. "I came all this way to see you."
She had no intention of falling for it, of course. It was the same whenever Kevin came to town. He would borrow her car and leave it with the gas tank empty. He would invite himself to dinner and tie up her telephone with long-distance calls to people he called "babe." He would keep her up half the night earnestly seeking her advice on some project or another and then do the absolute opposite from what she had suggested. And it didn't matter whether it was the last piece of pie or a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon she was saving for a special occasion or the package of M&Ms she hid at the back of the cabinet to satisfy a sud
den chocolate attack—or the last Twinkie—before Kevin left her house, she could be certain he had helped himself. To the rest of America, Kevin Dawson might be the hottest thing since the Hula-Hoop, but to Katherine Larimer, he was a pest.
She looked at him with as much forbearance as she could muster at six o'clock in the evening of a muggy Mississippi May. "Why do you keep bothering me, Kevin?"
"Bothering with you, you mean."
She repeated firmly, "Bothering me."
He was not in the least offended. He thought about it for a moment and came up with a grin and a shrug. "Because you turn me down with more class than anybody I know."
Kate snorted and picked up her medical bag. "Nobody turns you down, Kevin Dawson. That's your trouble."
"You just did," he pointed out.
"So I did," she agreed with satisfaction. Not that she believed for one minute that she had gotten away with it.
"Isn't there something in the Hippocratic oath that keeps you from letting a man starve?"
Kate smiled patiently. "There are almost twelve thousand residents in Victoria Bend, any one of whom would be beside himself at the thought of having Kevin Dawson to dinner. My conscience is utterly clear when it comes to your starvation."
He looked at her with a fair imitation of genuine perplexity. "Why do you always give me such a hard time, Katie dear?"
"It's nothing complicated, Kevin," she told him pleasantly, as she must have told him a dozen times over the course of the years. "It's just that I really don't like you. I've never liked you. Now, I realize that there are millions of people in the United States who disagree with me, but then, that's what makes horse races, isn't it? And please don't call me Katie dear."
His lazily amused brown-eyed gaze didn't waver. "You always were a poor judge of character."
She moved toward the door, stepping carefully over his long legs and half expecting him to trip her.
"It's a little late to look for another date," he suggested, somewhat mournfully.
"It certainly is." There was a note of smugness in her voice. She wasn't proud of it, but Kevin always brought out the worst in her.
He lounged back in the chair, ankles crossed comfortably, hands linked across his flat abdomen, looking as though he had no intention of leaving and gazing at her with patience and confidence. Kate had never considered him a very good-looking man—perhaps because she remembered him with braces and too-short jeans and the occasional outcropping of adolescent acne. He had always been tall, and his arms and legs grew too fast for the rest of his body, so that, from ages twelve to fifteen, she had secretly nicknamed him Lurch—an appellation that had initiated particularly vicious retribution on more than one occasion. Of course, by age sixteen he had filled out quite nicely, and that, in combination with his innate effusive charm, had made him Big Man on Campus in no time at all. That was when Kate had really begun to dislike him.
Even now, however, she couldn't entirely understand what a swooning female population saw in him. His features were too sharp for Kate's taste, and they didn't quite fit with those soft, mischievous brown eyes. He certainly kept himself in good shape, lean and rangy rather than muscle-bound, which she supposed some women would find appealing. The thick, curly chestnut hair made him look younger than he needed to look, and so did that impish grin that he thought was so adorable. All in all, he looked manufactured, put together for effect and not quite real. But thirty-nine percent of the American viewing audience could not be wrong, and Kate could only conclude that he must have something she hadn't discovered yet. And most likely never would.
He said now, reasonably, "Come on, Katie, what's one evening out of your life? A couple of hours at most. Where's that hometown hospitality this part of the country is supposed to be so famous for?"
The comers of Kate's mouth came down dryly, but she didn't bother to point out that his "couple of hours" invariably stretched into marathon sessions that robbed her of sleep, stripped her cupboards bare and eroded her temperament to the jagged edge of civility. Instead, she replied with simple finality, "I'm sorry, Kevin. I have other plans for the evening."
He thought about that for a moment; then his face relaxed into an easy smile. "Oh, right, I forgot; tonight's Monday. You'll be watching my show. No problem; we can watch together."
Kate hoped he couldn't see the guilty truth that backed her irritable scowl. As a matter of fact, she was a closet Code Zero addict, a phenomenon she had never been able to explain adequately to herself. Unless it was the fact that Colt Marshall was the ultimate hero—clever, strong, courageous, gallant... everything that Kevin Dawson was not. It was a pity.
She turned back to him with a pleasant smile. "Go home, Kevin," she advised. "Fix yourself a nice TV dinner and watch your reruns by yourself. The solitude will do you good. I'll see you tomorrow at the councilmen's luncheon."
He made a wry expression of resignation that brought the dimple in his cheek to prominence and very reluctantly gathered himself to his feet. "Your final word?"
"My final word." She opened the door.
He sighed. "There's just one problem. I told my driver to pick me up at your place. I don't suppose you'd consider giving me a ride home?"
Kate turned to him, weary incredulity etched on her face. Just when she thought he had finally run out of ploys. "That was rather irresponsible of you, don't you think?"
He looked defensive. "Hey, even the servant class deserves some time off every once in a while." Then he shrugged and grinned, hooking his thumb in the collar of his jacket and flinging it over his shoulder again. "Besides, irresponsibility is one of my trademarks. Isn't that what you're always saying?"
With her hand still on the doorknob, she hesitated, scowling as she battled with herself. He knew as well as she did that she was not going to make him walk the five miles to his place. For one thing, the mayor would never forgive her. For another... She sighed inwardly as she faced the inevitable. As irritating as he was, she owed him a lot. The town owed him a lot. And, she supposed, deep down, beneath all the tax shelters and investment quotients and scatterbrained notions of philanthropy, he did mean well. She only wished he didn't get on her nerves quite so badly or that she could learn to live with it.
"All right," she agreed with considerable ill grace. "How much can one ride cost me? Let's go."
A suspicious light of triumph was in his eyes as he sauntered toward her, politely holding the door as she passed through. Then he grinned and draped a companionable arm around her shoulders. "We've got to stick together, Katie. After all, you and I are the only things worth mentioning that ever came out of this town. It's only right."
She gave him a withering look, and he dropped his arm as they moved through the deserted reception room. He knew when he was pushing his luck.
The evening was sticky and overcast, prematurely twilit because of the low gray sky. The humidity and the barometric pressure were working on Kate's mood, she knew, and this was not the most propitious time for a visit from Kevin Dawson. She had other things on her mind.
Kate had never had any ambition beyond obtaining her medical degree and coming back home to Victoria Bend to join her father's practice. She had no illusions about herself: she was a good doctor, but she did not like challenges. A practice in a big city or a metropolitan hospital ward would have made a wreck of her in no time. The slow-paced, easygoing life-style of the small town was perfect for her, for it allowed her time for the rarest and the finest of the medical arts—compassion. But while the advantages of a small practice in a relatively isolated town were many, the one glaring disadvantage quickly became obvious: the lack of adequate medical facilities.
Kate's office included a small clinic that could handle most emergencies, but major cases had to be transferred to the county hospital twenty miles away. For some of than, the slow trip over poor country roads proved to be too much. The town desperately needed a hospital of its own, and Kate had campaigned for one since she had come here. Her relief a
t finally winning the battle—even if it was due to an unwelcome benefactor—was overwhelming. But she had not been prepared for the fact that the real challenge had just begun.
Her father, an ex-navy doctor who had kept Victoria Bend healthy with commonsense medicine and house calls for over thirty years, had retired when Kate came home to practice. He still saw a few old-timers who simply would not trust a female doctor—even if she was Doc Larimer's daughter—but for all intents and purposes, Victoria Bend had only one practicing physician. It had therefore been up to Kate to meet with the planning committee, lawyers and consultants in these first stages of organizing the hospital. It was no small task.
The conununity hospital was designed to grow with the town, beginning with sixty beds, two operating rooms, a fully equipped lab and maternity, cardiac and emergency units. It was Kate's responsibility to consult on design, order equipment, formulate policy and hire a staff, all of which were overwhelming tasks. She had done more traveling in the past year than she had ever done in her life; she had spent at least twice as much time on the phone embroiled in red tape as she had with her patients. She disliked the upheaval in her life and resented the time the project took away from her patients, but it was a necessary evil. And so far the only thing with which she had not been able to cope completely was the hiring of the staff.
It was an awe-inspiring responsibility. Kate had a very protective, almost possessive attitude toward her patients, and it was very difficult to entrust them to some stranger. The plan was to take a surgeon into partnership in her practice immediately, train him until the hospital was open and expand the medical staff from there. Kate had interviewed scores of candidates and had yet to come to a decision. Her father accused her of acting like a mother hen toward her practice, and she was beginning to worry that he was right. Another candidate was due to arrive tomorrow, and the interview weighed heavily on her mind. She couldn't postpone making a decision indefinitely. But how could she entrust the people who had come to depend on her to someone who was no more than a one-page résumé?
After The Storm (Men Made in America-- Mississippi) Page 1
