She took a deep breath. “Dr. Abrams needs me at the veterinary hospital this afternoon.”
“Mind if I come along?”
“For your story on me?”
“Yes. I’ll want to take pictures, too. Barry’s off today, so I’ll do it myself. Is that all right?”
She shrugged. “As long as Dr. Abrams doesn’t mind, I don’t.”
He gave her a rueful look and touched the spot on his jaw where the cut had been. “You really shocked the hell out of me, Katie.”
“I didn’t mean to.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Automatic reflex, I guess. I saw the blood and wanted to help you.”
Taylor shook his head. “I can’t understand what you do, Katie. The cut is healed. The world I come from, that’s an impossibility.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“And yet, you did it.”
She moved uncomfortably beneath his inspection. “You’re making me feel like a bug under a microscope.”
“I don’t mean to, Katie. The look you see in my eyes is awe, not curiosity. Okay?”
A rush of relief went through her, and she nodded. “I can’t stand being treated like a freak, Taylor. I’m not. We all have gifts. Healing happens to be mine, that’s all.”
He got to his feet and pulled her after him. Uncertainty was written on her face; he leaned down to kiss her lightly on the mouth.
“You never seemed like a freak to me, Katie,” he told her quietly, holding her wide, trusting gaze. “Every hour I spend with you, I realize just how truly special and unique you are. One of a kind.” My kind…but he couldn’t say that. Not yet. Did Katie feel as strongly about him as he did about her? Did she know that one glance from those lapis lazuli eyes sent a shaft of longing straight through to his soul? Did she know one of her effervescent smiles lifted his dark, brooding spirits into the light? His hands tightened on her shoulder, and he yearned to kiss her hard and long, to carry her into that wonderfully romantic bedroom of hers and show her just how much she had come to mean to him.
Devilry lurked in her eyes as she eased from his grip. “We’ll see what you really think of me, Mr. Grant—after you see what I do at Dr. Abrams’s clinic.”
He matched her grin, helping her pick up the dishes. “You’ve got a deal, Ms. Riordan.”
“Katie! Come in!” Dr. Lionel Abrams rose from his desk as Katie and Taylor entered the air-conditioned office. The veterinarian was in his early forties, lean and wearing a white jacket.
“Hi, Lionel. I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Taylor Grant. He’s a reporter.”
Dr. Abrams’s smile disappeared while he gave Taylor the once-over. “Yes, I read his article about you, Katie.”
Taylor gripped the vet’s hand, noticing that Dr. Abrams had a firm handshake. “I’m in the process of trying to atone for that article, Doctor. I want to present the other side. That’s why I’m here.” He pointed to his tape recorder. “With your permission, Doctor, I’d like to photograph Katie touching your patients. And I’d also like to tape the session.”
Abram’s long face sobered as he glanced at Katie. “It’s up to you. I can’t say I was impressed by Mr. Grant’s analysis of your talent, Katie.”
She placed her hand on the vet’s arm. “It’s all right, Lionel. Taylor is here to learn, this time.”
The vet was skeptical, but he relented. He asked his assistant to provide them with white smocks. He looked over at Taylor as he led them through a side door.
“Katie comes here twice a week. She treats the animals—including those scheduled for surgery.”
“I see.” Taylor looked impressed. “And how long has she been doing this, Dr. Abrams?”
The vet smiled at Katie who walked at his side down the tiled hall. “Let’s see…four and a half years now, I believe.”
“And how did you hear of Katie?”
Dr. Abrams’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. He held open the door to the room where animal cages were kept. “Actually, I went to her bookstore to search for a book on Bach flower remedies. At the time, Katie didn’t realize I was a vet. When I saw this troop of people, most of them elderly, bringing in their pets, I decided to hang around and see what was happening.” He stopped at the first cage, which contained an orange cat, and opened the door. He handed the cat to Katie. “I asked if I could stay and watch what she did, and she agreed. So I spent an amazing hour in her back room. I noticed one thing immediately: Every animal she touched became more alert and energetic. These pets were more than just animals to the elderly people who owned them. They were companions. Katie knew that—she was clearly sensitive to it. And I was impressed with her ability to handle both people and animals.”
Taylor watched as Katie held the orange tomcat. Its ear appeared to have been all but chewed off in a recent fight. Taylor decided to take a couple of photographs. At his request the vet moved to stand beside Katie.
“Tell me, Doctor, did you believe in Katie’s healing ability?”
“Her gift? Of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Because any doctor or nurse who genuinely loves his patients—animal or human—is in the business of healing, Mr. Grant. One of my instructors at Ohio State University had hands like Katie. I saw some pretty miraculous things there at the vet college.”
“So you accept this phenomenon?”
Dr. Abrams gave him a pained look. He took the cat from Katie. “It’s a gift.”
“All right. What determines this gift, Doctor?”
Abrams shrugged and moved to the next cage. He extracted a small, furry white kitten with a bandaged front leg. “God decides. I certainly don’t.”
“Is it genetic? Katie says her mother had the same healing touch.”
“Could be.” Dr. Abrams held up his splayed fingers and grinned at Katie. “I wish I had it. But all I’m good for is cutting and sewing.”
“That’s not true, Lionel!” Katie objected, stroking the green-eyed kitten. It purred madly in her arms. She glanced over at Taylor, the flash of the digital camera blinding her momentarily. “He has the ability to heal, too. He just won’t admit it.”
Taylor put down the Canon digital camera and drew out his notepad. He had his iPhone microphone running, but wanted to jot down a few of his ideas.
“I don’t have the same energy Katie does,” Lionel corrected.
“What do you mean?”
The vet studied his hands. “Most people with ability experience either a powerful tingling, or a warmth which passes through their fingers. I get only the barest hint of a tingle, nothing more. I’ve tried, believe me. My touch does not alter the condition of a scratch or bruise, or cure a headache.” He looked over at Katie fondly. “Now, this little lady can take away a headache, stop bleeding and heal surgical incisions. I can remove stitches sooner because of her.”
“So, from your perspective, what Katie does is normal? An everyday event?”
“Of course. The important thing is that my animals get well swiftly and with a minimum of suffering.”
Taylor smiled. “Most doctors don’t quite see things your way.”
“Plenty,” Dr. Abrams agreed. “But so what? Look, Mr. Grant. What Katie does isn’t odd or unusual. The general public is simply uninformed. Healing isn’t magic. We don’t understand quite how it works, but I suppose we will eventually. Soon the medical establishment will investigate people like Katie, and they’ll learn that gifts like hers are positive and productive.”
Taylor followed them around the spotless air-conditioned room. He took before-and-after photos of the animals Katie held. In each case, the animal became more active, its eyes brighter and more alert, following her touch. Well, Taylor couldn’t blame them. He’d like to be stroked and patted by Katie, too. He noted that the amount of time she spent with her hands on an animal varied.
“How do you know when to stop?” he asked her.
Katie had her hand on a huge, gray Irish wolfhound. “The heat stops flowi
ng through my fingers. That’s when I take my hand away.”
“Who controls this stopping and starting?”
“Not me. I try to keep my mind blank when I’m working. But you don’t have to. I can carry on a conversation, as I’m doing now, and the energy flows just the same.”
Dr. Abrams glanced at Taylor. “Katie once explained that a healer is like a piece of tubing. Her body is simply a conduit through which the energy flows.”
“But where does this energy come from?” Taylor pressed.
The vet shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. “Katie calls it the cosmos. I call it God. I’m sure others have other ideas.” He smiled slightly. “How can you put a name on love? That’s what this unseen energy really is, in my opinion—love, need, compassion, a desire to help a suffering fellow being. The healer is the vehicle for this energy.”
“You’re talking a lot of philosophy and very little evidence, Doctor.”
Katie looked up. “You’re seeing the invisible side of physics at work right now, Taylor.”
She removed her hand from the wolfhound, patting his head. The dog thumped his long whiplike tail. She smiled.
“Is that it for today?”
“Not quite, Katie. I’ve got a cat that was hit by a truck yesterday. Its skull was caved in above his eyes. I really don’t think he’s going to make it. But the cat belongs to a blind boy and he’s distraught over the loss of his friend….”
Taylor saw the sudden anguish in Katie’s face, as if she were assuming the boy’s pain. They followed the vet to a large cage where the gray-and-black-striped cat lay. The animal was unconscious; an IV was attached to his bandaged rear leg.
“Now, what I’ve done so far is to relieve the skull pressure from the cat’s brain. But the brain could be bruised or even hemorrhaging and that will cause death, too.”
“I see,” Katie whispered. Gently, she placed her left hand lightly on the cat’s shoulder.
“I was up every two hours last night to see how he was doing. At three this morning he went into a convulsion so I added an anticonvulsant drug to the IV”
Taylor took a photo. “Doctor, what are this cat’s chances of surviving?”
“One in a hundred.”
Taylor sat at his desk, rereading his article a third time, occasionally editing the text on the screen of his Apple computer. He had another hour of work to do, but he wanted to go home. Home to Katie and her apartment. Funny, Taylor mused, that in two weeks’ time, his entire life had been turned upside down by Katie and her world.
He stared at the screen, not really seeing it at all. Katie and her world. More and more, it was his world, too. The threatening phone calls had not stopped, and Taylor didn’t feel comfortable leaving Katie alone. He had never mentioned the prowler he’d seen at the door to her store, but he’d talked her into changing her locks to stronger ones. With a sigh, he got up, moving to the coffee machine. He smiled. If Katie knew how much coffee he’d consumed, she’d hit the roof. For all intents and purposes, she’d nearly turned him into a damned vegetarian. But she was a great cook, and he’d do damn near anything for a home-cooked meal, he was discovering. He’d even acquiesced to her demand that he help with the cooking. Now he could turn out a halfway decent rabbit food meal, too.
By now, though, Katie would have eaten. She would have taken her lilac-scented bath and would be playing the piano—as she did every evening after work. And Lord—could she play! How many times had Taylor sat there in the evening, herbal tea in hand—instead of coffee—listening to her play classics from memory! He and Katie had grown incredibly close. And it took every shred of Taylor’s control not to move beyond that barrier he had placed between them.
Sitting back down, Taylor stared at the screen. To hell with it! He wanted to go home to Katie. He printed out a copy of his article. He wanted her to read it. He picked up a set of photos, then stopped to stare at one of them, an odd smile on his face. The cat with the head injury had lived. In another week, he’d be going home to the little blind boy who waited anxiously for his friend. Taylor made a mental note to have Barry go over to the boy’s home and take photographs of the reunion.
Katie flew to the door as Taylor closed it behind him. His exhaustion disappeared at the sound of her throaty laugh. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. He juggled his briefcase and camera, then took a step back to steady both of them.
“Hey…what’s this for?” he asked, sliding his free arm around her to hold her tight against him. She felt good! So alive…Taylor closed his eyes, burying his face in the fragrant mass of her newly washed hair.
“I missed you!”
“Made two of us.”
“I was worried.”
“I wanted to finish the article about you, Katie.” He released her, shutting the door. Glancing at the phone he asked, “Any more calls?”
She stepped away, dressed in a pale lavender granny gown sprigged with tiny violets. “There were only two today.”
“Did he say the same thing?”
“Same thing,” she said, watching as he put his jacket in the closet. Usually, Taylor would come and have lunch with her. Today he hadn’t, and Katie had missed his company even more than usual. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved. What kind of rabbit food do you have in store for today?” he teased, taking her into his arms and lifting her off her bare feet.
Katie clung to him, her laughter childlike as he whirled her around three times. Every day, Taylor was allowing her to see more and more of his real self. No longer was he her brooding, dark knight. He smiled often, and she melted beneath his gray gaze that smoldered with raw hunger for her. She kissed his nose, his eyes and finally molded her lips to his strong male mouth, finding utter pleasure there.
“Mmm,” she whispered, “you’re my advance dessert.”
Taylor stared into her lustrous blue eyes and swallowed hard, wildly aware of her slender body pressed close to him. “Just being around you is my dessert.” How he wanted her! Taylor gently let her down and kept his arm around her as she led him to the kitchen.
Katie curled up on the settee with his article while he ate a late makeshift lunch. A softened smile touched her lips, and she returned her attention to his story. Finally she had finished it and allowed her hands to rest on the sheaf of papers.
“Well? What do you think?”
“I think it’s terribly one-sided.”
“Slanted,” he corrected. “Why not? The first story was slanted, too.”
“But is that good journalism?”
“This is a human-interest piece. It’s okay to editorialize in such cases. I make it quite clear to the reader where I’m coming from. It’s fine, sweetheart.”
Her eyes grew warm. “I like it. I can feel the emotions coming through in your words.” Katie picked up the printed-out color photos. “And these show great care and sensitivity on your part.”
Taylor rose and came to sit down beside her, his face grave as he studied her. “You do like it, then?”
“Of course I do. I love it. Maybe now people won’t be so afraid of me and what I do.”
He took an ebony curl and wound it gently around his finger. “There were a lot of things I wanted to put in that article but didn’t, Katie.”
She lifted her eyes to meet his, yearning to move into his arms, to love him. “Like what?” She gave Taylor an impish smile.
“Such as, she’s a scatterbrain who can’t walk three feet without bumping into something. She’s terrible at math and even worse at inventory. She can never find her keys.”
Katie grinned. “Did you want to say that if you hadn’t helped me with the account books, and found a three-thousand-dollar error in my favor, I’d have missed a mortgage payment?”
Taylor smiled slightly, inhaling her special fragrance, entranced by her lips as they formed the words. “No,” he said quietly, leaning over to place a feathery kiss on the velvet slope of her cheek. “I wanted to tell the worl
d how you’ve changed me in the past three weeks. That healing is more than just the laying on of hands. You’ve transformed my life, too.”
Katie quivered beneath the gentle assault of his kisses, her eyes closing, a sigh escaping as she leaned back, allowing him to continue his foray down her neck. Automatically, she placed her hands against his chest, feeling the beat of his heart beneath her palm. His moist breath trailed along the open V of her dress, and she felt her nipples grow taut.
“I wanted to tell them how you brought sunlight back into my gloomy existence, how you made me smile again,” Taylor went on, sliding his fingers into her wealth of hair. Gently he massaged her scalp. Katie’s moan of pleasure went through him like molten lava as she gave herself to his ministrations. “And that your laughter lifts me, your smile melts me and your touch…” He ran his tongue across her exposed collarbone. “Your touch,” he breathed thickly, “makes me starve for you.”
Taylor sat up, allowing her time to assimilate what he had said, aware that her half-closed eyes were aroused with pleasure. It made him feel good to know he could please her. He had never known how to please Mary Ann. Katie responded to each caress, to each minute touch he bestowed. He was in awe of their chemistry—the way it exploded into a raging fire each time they came close to each other.
Taylor held his breath. He watched Katie languish in the passion that spun between them like gold eiderdown. He wondered if she knew what he was asking of her. He wanted to take her to bed tonight. To love her. Make her his…share the magic that always simmered around them. Marry her. Fear clashed with need. Would she reject him? Mary Ann had…Taylor froze inwardly, afraid of what her answer would be.
Chapter 10
Katie slid her fingers around Taylor’s neck, following his hairline. There was invitation in her lapis eyes. “I’d like to add a few things to your article, too,” she began, her voice tremulous. “That you’ve given me sunlit days—” —she drew him forward, placing her lips against his mouth —”—and rainbow nights. Take me to our bed, Taylor darling. Love me? Let me share with you?”
A Chance Encounter Page 13
