As the heavy door closed with a solid thud behind him, he focused on the hot pink stethoscope draped around her neck. She’d taped a tiny, golden guardian angel pin above the bell. He started to touch it, to touch her, only to fist his hand and drop it to his side.
“About the Heart Ball,” he began.
Katie’s glance immediately faltered. “You don’t want me to go.”
“Of course I do.” A frown sliced through his features. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t want to back out.”
It wasn’t necessary for her to ask why he thought she might do such a thing. With the reason fairly screaming between them, the question would have been a tad redundant.
“I said I’d go.”
“I know what you said.” Defensiveness gave way to caution. She’d also implied that she intended to forget what had happened between them. But if the past few minutes were any indication, she was having as difficult a time doing that as he was. “I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t reconsidered. Or, if you had reconsidered, that you hadn’t changed your mind.”
“I haven’t.”
“Good.” He gave her a tight little nod. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she said quietly, still feeling his tension snake toward her. “So, I’ll see you later....”
Her last words were muffled by the echoing bang of a door being thrown open above them. Hurried footsteps, of the high-heel variety, sounded on the upper landing.
Catching Katie as she started down the stairs, Mike called, “Wait a second. What do I tell Cameron? About the cookies. She’s calling me tonight.”
Katie opened her mouth, but it wasn’t her soft voice he heard. The throaty, “Good morning, Dr. Brennan,” came from the owner of the high heels, a strawberry blonde in a brown suit that fairly shouted “accounting department.” Bouncing her way down the last couple of steps, she smiled her way past, wiggling her fingers at him on the way. He hadn’t a clue who she was. Nor did he care. Since she’d barely acknowledged Katie, his only thought was that her cheerfulness was obviously gender-specific.
Watching her sway out the door, Katie muttered, “I’ll take a box of whatever has the least fat in it.”
The response was typical Katie, which would have relieved him enormously had he time to think about it. The door swung open again, the rattle of glass tubes in a plastic carrier identifying the young man toting it as someone from the lab. Thinking it a miracle that people actually managed private conversations in this place, Mike hurried down the stairs, purposefully ignoring the odd twinge in his gut when he heard Katie laughing with the lab guy as she headed up.
The break Katie had taken that morning was the only one she had all day, which meant she didn’t eat until she came flying in the door of her duplex late that afternoon. With the flu continuing to play havoc with the nursing staff, those who’d already survived it were still running themselves ragged. Katie was no longer thinking about work, though. All she cared about as she changed into fresh scrubs while apologizing to Spike for not being able to play, then shoveled down a carton of yogurt while wrapping a baby gift she’d bought for a young woman she’d befriended at the free clinic, was that Mike wasn’t avoiding her.
She hadn’t been at all sure what to expect when she’d seen him in the cafeteria that morning, but he hadn’t acted at all as if he were trying to distance himself. That had been her biggest fear. That he would decide for whatever reason that he didn’t want anything to do with her. But she knew Mike didn’t play games. He hated them, in fact. So she knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t still want her to go to the Heart Ball with him if he didn’t want her around.
Curling a pile of pink and blue ribbons on top of the square white package, she told herself she should simply accept that it would take a while for their former comfort level to return and let it go at that. She shouldn’t worry about why it had been so important to Mike that she wasn’t backing out. But she obviously had far less willpower than she’d thought she had where Mike was concerned. She simply couldn’t help wondering if it was because he wanted assurance that they hadn’t done anything irreparable to their friendship. Or because he didn’t want to have to scrape up another date. A “real” one this time.
Thinking some questions were best left unanswered, she tried to ignore the faint sting that came with that last thought. She knew Mike didn’t want an emotionally involved relationship. That was why he’d asked her to go to the obligatory affair in the first place. Yet the need to know his rationale tugged at feelings she very much wanted to protect.
She set the package by her purse and grabbed her coat. She was due at the clinic at six o’clock, which gave her exactly fourteen minutes to make the ten-minute trip. Considering her tendency to be tearing out the door without a minute to spare, she was way ahead of time.
Or so she was thinking when the phone rang, catching her with one arm in the sleeve of her burgundy raincoat.
It was nearing the dinner hour. That being the case, odds were that the caller was a solicitor wanting to sell her something she didn’t need or want, or some charity seeking a donation to the cause du jour. Deciding to let the answering machine get it, she pulled her coat on the rest of the way, picked up her purse and the package and waited to see who it was in case Spike erased the message before she got back.
It was Mike. He asked if she was there.
She cut him off just as he asked again.
“I haven’t left yet. I’m about to,” she hurried to add, glancing at her watch while she listened to the sounds on the other end of the line. “Are you in your car?”
He was. And he was ten blocks away.
“Wait for me,” he insisted. “I have to tell you something.”
There was no mistaking the unusual excitement in his voice, or the gleam of it in his eyes moments later after he pulled his black sedan up to the curb and strode up to her door.
Holding Spike so the straining feline wouldn’t bolt, Katie stepped back when Mike came in and watched him close the door. His raincoat hung open over his jacket and slacks, and his dark hair had been ruffled by the late January wind. His big body seemed to fill the room, raw energy radiating from him in waves.
She could have sworn she felt that elemental power when his eyes met hers. It seemed to tug at her midsection, drawing her toward him even though she knew she never moved.
“I was on my way to the gym when I got a call from Robert Thornton,” he began, seeming oblivious to the disconcerting sensation himself. “He’s on the panel for the Seattle conference. The chairman,” he explained, ignoring the way the cat leapt from Katie’s arms and started purring against his leg. “They want me, Katie. They want me,” he repeated, his voice quiet with awe. “But that’s not all.”
Looking somewhere between stunned and wanting to grin, he settled for pushing his hand through his hair. Most of it fell more or less into place.
He took a step toward her, one dark lock promptly falling back over his forehead. “All I did when I started this study was modify a standard surgical procedure and tweak a drug protocol. Now they want me to present my preliminary findings. And,” he stressed softly, “they want me to demonstrate my technique at the medical school.”
His gaze danced over her face, years seeming to wash away with his smile. Katie knew he’d changed. She’d even worried about how he seemed to be closing himself off, losing bits of his personality the more he buried himself in his work. Yet, until she witnessed his transformation now, she truly hadn’t realized how much of himself he’d locked away.
He didn’t appear to be holding anything back at the moment, however, and the pleasure she felt for him overrode her concerns. He had earned an honor many doctors labored years to achieve, if they ever won such recognition at all.
“That’s wonderful! Have you told your parents?” she asked, throwing her arms around his neck to give him a hug. Had she not been so thrilled for him, she might have considered what she was doing. As it was, she could
only react as she would have a week, a month or a year ago. “And your brothers?”
Telling her he hadn’t had a chance to share the news with anyone but her, he lifted her, hugging her back. Had he been with anyone else, he would have been far more circumspect in his delivery of the news. For one thing, he wouldn’t have been battling a grin. It would be considered bad form among his peers to act like a kid who couldn’t believe he’d hit a home run. Understated pride was the accepted way to deal with this sort of professional stroke. That was what the rest of the world would see once he walked out Katie’s door, his family included. But with Katie, he could share this first blush of excitement and know she would be as pleased for him as anyone could be. That was why he’d had to see her.
It was only a matter of seconds, however, before he began to think seeing her might not have been a good idea after all. Actually, seeing her was okay. Holding her was the problem. The scent of her, the feel of her in his arms, jolted him with a swiftness that nearly stole his breath.
His body was hardening in response even before he lowered her to the floor. The same thing had happened to him in the cafeteria that morning; that swift, gut-tightening awareness that threatened to scramble his senses. He’d felt the smoothness of her skin beneath his hand and his mind had flooded with memories of how she’d tasted, the shape of her breasts when he’d peeled off the amazingly provocative scraps of lace she’d worn. The feel of her body now brought those memories back with a vengeance—along with a few others that were playing utter havoc with certain parts of his anatomy.
Now that he’d been intimate with her, all he had to do was touch her to want her. Hell, he thought, all he had to do was think about her.
With anyone other than Katie, he’d have seen no problem with that. Considering how long it had been since any woman had affected him even half as strongly, he should have been relieved by the phenomenon. Now he considered it a curse, the Fates’ idea of some perverse joke.
Tension flowed into her muscles even as she slowly slipped her arms from around his neck. Stifling the urge to tangle his fingers in her hair and turn her face to his, he locked his hands loosely at the back of her waist, curious to know what she would do. By the time her hands were flat on his chest, he could tell by the wariness shadowing her expressive eyes that she was going to pull back.
Not ready to risk a lifelong friendship by pushing, wishing he’d never touched her at all, he made it easy on them both and dropped his arms to his sides.
Her glance moved over the five-o’clock stubble shadowing his jaw, not quite meeting his eyes. “This is great news,” she began, her voice thready. “It really is, Mike. If I wasn’t on at the clinic tonight, I’d like to help you celebrate.”
He watched her back up, his eyes narrowing at the way she touched her fingers to her lips and trailed them to her throat. The motion had to be subconscious, a behavior triggered by her own memories of how they’d responded to each other. It was too enticing to have been deliberate. And too telling for him to ignore.
The thought that she might be struggling with the same feelings he battled did nothing to cool him down. “I think I’ll just head to the gym.” A workout definitely held merit. So did the cold plunge pool. “That’s where I was going, anyway.”
“But that was before,” she reminded him, referring to the call that had brought him there. “You can’t just do the gym, then go home to that empty house. You should celebrate. Call friends and go out.
“That’s what you should do.” Warming to the idea, or the diversion, she motioned to the phone. “Call Jerry and Sue,” she suggested, referring to the radiologist he sometimes jogged with and the man’s wife. “I bet they’d love to—”
“I don’t want to call Jerry.”
“Then call your mom and dad,” she hurried on, undaunted. “I’m sure they’ll want you over for dinner. Or they’ll take you to the club.”
“I’ll call them later.”
“But if you call now, they can get a table.”
“I don’t want to go to the club,” he muttered.
“I’m sure they’ll make reservations wherever you want to go.”
Since he seemed intent on ignoring her practicality, she started punching in numbers herself. The senior Brennans had had the same phone number for as long as she could remember. She knew it as well as she knew her own. “This isn’t your mom’s bridge night, is it?”
He took the phone from her hand, careful not to snatch it, and dropped it back on its base. “I have no idea if it is or not.”
Just because he probably would wind up at the club with his folks didn’t matter at the moment. He didn’t need Katie making sure he had someone to be with tonight. He didn’t need her reminding him that his house was so damn empty. What he really didn’t need was the disappointment he felt knowing she wouldn’t be part of his evening. “I’m not in the mood to go out.” His voice sounded tight and just a little edgy. “I want to go to the gym.”
That really wasn’t what he wanted, and he knew it. What he wanted to do was take her to dinner. And to bed. Not necessarily in that order. That he was suddenly feeling as frustrated as hell about it didn’t help, either. Neither did the fact that Katie looked even more wary than she had moments ago.
“I’m making you late,” he muttered, hardly able to blame her for the way she crossed her arms as she backed away. He was being ridiculous. He knew it. But he couldn’t seem to help it.
Digging in his pocket for his keys, he took a step away himself, giving her even more space. “Are you working tomorrow?”
She eyed him uncertainly, her hair shimmering with shades of dark honey and gold as she gave him a nod. “I’m scheduled for the next seven days.”
“You have to work this weekend, too?”
She nodded again, clearly bewildered by his scowl. But she went along with him the way she might a confused, agitated patient, watching him just as closely. “One of the nurses wanted to get away this weekend with her husband. I traded days off with her.”
All Mike had wanted to know was if she’d be at the hospital tomorrow, thinking he’d tell her he’d see her then. Now he felt exasperation join the annoyance he was trying to curb. Not only had she worked last weekend and spent that Sunday evening at a meeting of the organization she was presently on her way to help, she had now committed herself to working a week straight so someone else could get away to relax. Considering that the free clinic attracted mostly pregnant, indigent women and that she had a sack of diapers and formula and what looked like a baby gift parked by the back door, he wouldn’t hazard a guess as to who she was rescuing now, or what else she’d committed herself to.
It was no wonder she’d gotten sick a couple of weeks ago. The woman took care of everyone but herself.
Not trusting himself to share his theory about why she did that, not sure he trusted why it mattered, he turned to the door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” was all he said before he pulled it open.
Katie’s response was just as guarded. “Sure,” she replied, her tone faint and decidedly puzzled. “You have a good evening.”
Oh, he and the free weights would have a great time. “Thanks,” he mumbled, thinking he might as well add a few dozen laps to the night’s routine. “You, too.”
Chapter Six
“That’s the one.” Dana stepped back, critically eyeing Katie’s image in the dressing room mirrors. “Definitely.”
“It certainly has more potential than that last one.” From where Lee sat in the corner of the multi-mirrored fitting room, she gave a dismissing wave toward the black crepe, halter-style gown hanging on the louvered door. “At least it has part of a back. You’d freeze in that other thing.”
Katie glanced from her friends, who were both still in uniform since they’d hit the mall straight from work, to the strapless, black velvet gown Dana had just zipped her into. With its long, slim skirt and fitted bodice, it was very understated, very elegant and, most important
, on sale. It just didn’t have a lot of material on top. “Don’t you think it’s a little low?”
Dana made a tsking sound. “You only think it’s low because you’re usually buttoned up to your neck. It barely shows your cleavage.”
“That’s because this is all I’ve got.”
“Not to worry. We’ll get you more in lingerie.”
“More what?”
“More cleavage. We’ll get you one of those push-up bras that make mountains out of molehills, so to speak.”
“I don’t want mountains.”
“We’re not talking the Andes here,” Dana muttered. “Just a little something to make it more interesting while still being subtle.”
Katie eyed her friend evenly. “I believe ‘interesting’ and ‘subtle’ are a contradiction in terms.”
“That depends entirely on the wearer. With your hair up and those long, drop pearl earrings of yours, you’ll look smashing.” Enormously pleased with what she was creating, Dana tugged on the wide strip of velvet that skimmed the top of Katie’s breasts. “What I have in mind is to play up your feminine allure. You know, be subtly sexy.”
“She’d need ‘subtly sexy’ if she was going with someone who’d notice. Like she keeps reminding us,” Lee said, “this isn’t a real date. Mike asked her to go with him because he needs a warm presentable body to occupy a chair next to him at dinner.”
Dana refused to let her creative balloon be robbed of its air. “You’re being entirely too practical, Lee. Who she’s going with is a mere technicality. This is her Cinderella night, remember? For one evening, she’ll just have to pretend Mike Brennan is her knight in shining armor.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors.” Far more anxious about the impending evening than she wanted to admit, Katie gave the top of the gown a yank herself. No way was she adding more cleavage. With her arms, shoulders and the top of her chest completely bare, she was exposing enough skin as it was. “The knight goes with Guinevere. Cinderella got a prince.”
From House Calls To Husband Page 10
