THE PASSION OF PARICK MACNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  "Anyway, it's all right now," Con continued. "Dad's all right. He'll be going home soon."

  Home. Soon.

  That was what was missing, Patrick realized. He needed to go home. Home to Jack. Home to Kate.

  * * *

  She'd neglected the stack of unread medical journals by the living-room couch to attend to the pile of unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink.

  Kate pulled a face, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Who was she trying to kid? Household goddess was not her specialty. Patrick was unlikely to be impressed by her domestic skills whatever she did. Besides, she didn't really expect him home tonight.

  She hung the towel on the oven door and refilled the dog's water bowl. The retriever, Silkie, sniffed politely at the water and then padded companionably after Kate into the living room, her nails clicking on the wide plank floors. With a sigh, the dog collapsed by the big navy chair. Patrick's chair, Kate deduced.

  "Sorry," she told the dog. "He won't be back until tomorrow."

  The retriever laid her golden bead on her paws and pointedly ignored her. Amused, Kate pulled out a study on psychological assessment tools for burn survivors and settled on the couch to read.

  The jingle of keys, the snick of a lock awoke her. Disoriented, she blinked at the black-and-white pages sliding from her lap. The retriever lurched up and dashed to the door, creamy tail flying.

  The front door cracked open on a rush of fresh night air. Alarm stuttered in Kate's chest. Before she could uncurl from the couch, the opening widened, and Patrick MacNeill came home.

  His broad shoulders were silhouetted against the golden glow of the porch light. Moisture gleamed on his short, ruffled hair and on the shoulders of his dark leather jacket. Dazed, Kate watched as Silkie flung herself at his feet in adoration.

  Setting his flight bag just inside the door, Patrick crouched on his heels to praise the dog with his hands.

  "Well." His potent smile lit his eyes as he looked over the dog's body at Kate. "Here's a welcome."

  Heart hammering, Kate retreated into the cushions at her back. "She missed you."

  Head to one side, he considered her. "Did she? How much?"

  The teasing note in his deep voice deprived Kate of speech. Were they still talking about the dog? Vulnerable from sleep, she stared at him.

  His expression altered. His eyes darkened as he rose and crossed the room to tower over her. With some vague idea of regaining her emotional balance, Kate started to slide her feet to the floor.

  Patrick leaned over the couch. His hands came down on either side of her, one in the pool of light on the upholstered arm, one in the shadows at her back. Kate bit her lip. She felt trapped, and yet he hadn't touched her.

  His face was cool and close. His breath was warm and scented with coffee. She could see the faint creases fatigue had carved at the corners of his eyes and his masculine stubble. The air jammed in her lungs.

  "I missed you," he whispered. "Kiss me."

  Hesitantly, she lifted her mouth. He didn't move. Tilting her head, she pushed down on the couch cushions and raised herself awkwardly. Her lips brushed his roughened jaw, his cool, firm mouth. She, felt his intake of breath against her own mouth, and her nipples tightened in response. But he didn't crowd her, didn't grab her, didn't press her back into the couch. He angled his head and waited.

  It was almost unbearably arousing, the promise of all that heat and power hovering above her. Close up, his face was blurred, his eyes almost black. A tiny bead of sweat streaked the upper corner of his cheekbone, just by his ear. She wanted to lick his skin. She pushed and tried again to meet his mouth.

  This time she felt the drag of his lower lip, the slick warmth of its inner surface, before her balance betrayed her and she sank back onto the cushions. At the edge of her vision, his hand fisted on the upholstered arm. She made a sound of frustration and drew her legs under her, wiggling to her knees. She put her arms around his neck.

  "Kiss me back, dammit," she said.

  She watched that well-shaped mouth curve. "Count on it." He took command of the kiss like a Marine battalion establishing a beachhead on a tropical shore: swift, efficient, and devastating. Kate felt her senses overwhelmed, her mouth invaded. He took it deep, drawing her up against his iron body matching the demands of his hungry mouth with his hard hands. Behind her closed lids, she imagined rockets detonating against a night sky.

  His lips forayed along her jaw, lingering with explosive results against her ear. She felt the resulting reverberations shower down her nerve endings to her fingertips. She curled them into his shoulders, relishing the resilience of his muscle, and heard him growl before his mouth plundered hers again, his tongue stroking and retreating and plunging deep.

  She shuddered, struggling against the influence of his kiss, the impact of his touch.

  "Wait," she said.

  Patrick's arms tightened around her. His heart threatened to pound its way out of his ribs. Kate's chest rose and fell, pushing her full breasts into him with every breath.

  "Wait?" he repeated.

  "I haven't decided to do this. I'm not the kind of person who gets swept away."

  He regarded her with affection, the double crease forming between her straight, dark brows, the way her teeth worried her bottom lip. "Honey, you were doing fine a second ago."

  She stiffened. "Don't you make me laugh. I need to think."

  Maybe she did. He was more inclined to go on instinct and snap judgment himself, but he could see her training didn't tend that way.

  With one finger, he rubbed at the parallel lines over her nose, as if he could erase her fretting. "You're going to analyze this to death, aren't you?"

  She glared. "What if I am?"

  Nine years celibate, Patrick reminded himself. She had every reason and every right to think it over. Just because he wasn't feeling too reasonable himself right now…

  He tried to think back to his first time with somebody new. There hadn't been anybody, really, since Holly in high school. He remembered that, both of them eager, and him almost as scared as her. But neither one of them had worn quite the look of longing and determination that battled on Kate's face now.

  A gust of tenderness loosened the knot in his chest. She had to want this, he thought. If he wasn't coming to her with a whole heart and total commitment, he had to be certain at least that she wanted him the way he ached for her.

  He released her. "Then I'm going to go make us both some coffee, okay? It's been a long day."

  She scrambled off the couch. In her stocking feet, she barely came to his chin. "It's already made. Let me get you a cup. Have you eaten?"

  Patrick smiled, touched and amused by her automatic attempt to take care of him. Hidden beneath that formidable intellect and doctor's ego lurked a secret nurturer. Maybe he could talk her into a therapeutic bounce on his bed?

  Easy, ace, he cautioned himself. Kate deserved more, she deserved better, than that. He gripped the back of his neck with one hand, fighting fatigue, striving for control.

  "I had lunch with my mom before I took off. Dad's doing well," he added as he followed her through the dining room.

  "So you said on the phone. I appreciate your calling, by the way. Jack was a little anxious."

  The familiar protective surge stopped him in his tracks. "Is he okay?"

  "He's fine." She turned, her small, neat fingers closing around his arm. She tugged him forward into the kitchen. "I haven't starved him or anything. You, on the other hand, look like you could use a meal. Sit," she commanded.

  He dropped into a chair, enjoying the unusual sensation of having Kate in his kitchen waiting on him. He suspected he'd better not get used to it. She poured coffee into a mug, hesitating only briefly over the location of the sugar bowl before setting both before him.

  "There. You can have leftover pizza, if you want."

  His stomach, subjected to five straight days of charter rations and hospital food, protested the very idea. But he didn'
t want to hurt the lady doctor's feelings.

  "Pizza, huh? Jack must have been in heaven."

  She paused, considering him over the top of the open refrigerator door. "Or I could make you a sandwich."

  He grinned his gratitude. "A sandwich would be great."

  With surgical precision, she constructed turkey and cheese on toast, heavy on meat and light on lettuce, just the way he liked it. He'd downed half of it before he remembered that he hadn't bought cold cuts before his trip.

  "You do grocery shopping this weekend?" he asked casually.

  Kate wiped nonexistent crumbs from an already shining counter. "Some," she admitted. "Jack and I had to go out anyway to pick up my bag and check on my cat."

  Patrick nodded. "Did you take money from the mantel?"

  "I— No, I didn't."

  He raised his eyebrows. "You should have. Jack and I don't need charity. And you don't need another person taking advantage."

  "I didn't mean to imply that you did. Were," she corrected herself in that brisk, snooty tone she assumed to hide uncertainty. "But you hadn't authorized any particular expenditure, and I didn't feel I had the right to take it."

  The exactness with which she divided what was hers from what was his, as neatly as she'd bisected his sandwich, set his teeth on edge.

  Patrick hadn't planned on admitting Kate into their lives. He wasn't ready to let anyone behind the barriers where Holly had once laughed and loved and lived with him. Once those defenses were breached, who knew what rage or grief would find its way over the walls? But he couldn't stand to see Kate set those limits around herself, as if she were of no account.

  Patrick pushed his plate away. "You were buying food for my son. You were staying in my house. I figure that gives you some rights, Kate."

  She twisted the dish towel in her hands, her big brown eyes wary and aware. "Does it?"

  She was asking him for something, Patrick realized. For all her formidable self-sufficiency, for all his obligations to Jack, she needed to know that what they had between them was more than the physical release he'd offered her before. He didn't know how much more. But somehow the physical distance between them during his trip to Boston had provided room for their emotional closeness to grow. In spite of his uneasiness about letting anyone inside his iron barricades, it was surprisingly easy to give Kate the reassurance she needed.

  "In my book, yeah."

  Her smile flickered. She sat down opposite him. "Well. How's the sandwich?"

  Patrick cleared his throat. "Good. It's great. Thanks."

  She lifted one shoulder, and her soft, wavy hair fell forward on her cheek. He wanted to thread his fingers through it and tuck it behind her ear. "I owed you one," she said.

  With an effort, he recalled the omelette he'd made for her. "No, you've got it backwards. That was payback for you helping out with Jack."

  "Jack is my patient," she said earnestly, retreating to her doctor role. "Well, the center's patient, anyway. It's my responsibility to do everything I can for him."

  He nodded. "I appreciate you coming out, all the same."

  "No, I… It meant a lot, you asking me." She smiled wryly at her lap. "I'm not exactly Mary Poppins."

  She was cheapening herself again. He didn't like it.

  "No. But then, it's tough to find a nanny with a medical degree and pediatrics training." She blinked at him. "Look, Kate, it took a big load off my mind, knowing you were with him." He picked up the other half of his sandwich, stared at it and then put it down. "I thought I wouldn't get up there in time," he confessed.

  Kate regarded the top of his dark head, unsure what he was telling her but more than ready to listen. "To see your dad?" she asked.

  His mouth compressed. "Yeah."

  She could hear the wealth of pain in his voice and the control he imposed over it, like an iron grating over a pit.

  "But the surgery wasn't scheduled until Monday," she said quietly.

  "I know. I guess I thought… I was afraid it would be like last time."

  Last time? she wondered. Oh, Lord. Last time. His wife. No wonder he had to go to his father, even if it meant leaving Jack with an interloper in his house. Horrible speculations made her stomach churn. "Were you—away—when your wife had her accident?"

  He turned his head to stare through the open doorway. She didn't think he saw the dining room. She didn't think he was going to answer her, either. But after a minute he nodded.

  "I was on assignment with the reserves," he said. "It took them sixteen hours to track me down. Holly's identification burned up in the crash."

  She heard stories like this all the time. She lived with them day by day. But she hadn't known about Patrick's wife. Compassion twisted her gut.

  Trying to keep the horror from her voice, she asked, "Was she— Did she make it to the hospital?"

  His head jerked. No. "They airlifted Jack. They couldn't tell who he was, of course, not until they'd traced the license plate, but they took him to Jefferson because of the burn center. Holly—" His throat moved once, convulsively. "—Holly never made it out of the car."

  Kate's eyes stung. Her own throat burned. She felt awful and inadequate, but she couldn't let the moment pass without offering some comfort. Lightly, she rested her hand on his big one, clenched on the tabletop. After a moment, he turned it palm up and held her fingers tightly.

  "I am so sorry," she said.

  "Yeah, well." He rolled his shoulders, still not looking at; her. "It was over four years ago."

  And he'd been carrying it around ever since, Kate suspected. The grief and the guilt and the anger.

  "Did they ever catch the other driver?"

  "Yeah. They got him on DUI manslaughter. Prosecutor called me personally to tell me so." Patrick shook his head. "Hell, I didn't care. Holly was just as dead."

  Kate was silent, respecting his reaction, trying to absorb everything he'd told her. To learn of his wife's death and her murderer's fate from worried officials, to know that his baby son was sick and all alone in the care of strangers… She squeezed his hand.

  "No wonder you had to go to Boston," she said.

  His thumb rubbed the back of her hand in acknowledgement, creating a tiny spot of warmth. "Thanks for watching Jack," was all he said.

  Her eyes misted at his gruffly expressed gratitude. She held the memory of his son's confession of love to her heart. "He's a wonderful boy. Thanks for asking me."

  Patrick shook his head. He was already more indebted to her than he'd been to anyone in a long, long time, and she persisted in acting as if it were all the other way around. He grinned at her, deliberately lightening the atmosphere.

  "You've got it backwards again, honey. But, hey, if you want to show me how grateful you are…"

  She gave him her hospital look, surgeon-to-scum-of-the-earth. "Just eat the sandwich, flyboy."

  But he saw the smile tugging the corners of her mouth. A warm and unfamiliar satisfaction filled him. "Yes, Doctor."

  When he was done, she got up to clear his place.

  "Leave it," he ordered. "You've done enough in here. Why don't you go put your feet up?"

  He watched her consider that, her teeth fretting again at her lip. He wanted her to relax, sure, but more, he wanted to make out with her on the big, overstuffed couch. He wanted her to welcome him home again, to taste her, shallow and deep, to reacquaint himself with the generous curves of her body under the soft knit shirt she wore. He wanted to neck, the way he hadn't wanted since he was a randy teenage boy.

  "I'm not sure. I have to be at the hospital early tomorrow." She tried a smile. "Rounds at seven."

  He nodded to hide his disappointment, stuffing his lust back into its closet. "Fine. You go on up, then."

  Standing alone in his kitchen, he listened for the pad of her footsteps crossing the dining room and going up the stairs. Silkie whined and thumped her tail on the hard linoleum floor.

  "Tell me about it," Patrick muttered, and scratched her be
hind the ears.

  He turned off the coffeemaker and the lights. He checked the locks on the doors, a holdover from years on military bases, trying not to think about Kate getting ready for bed upstairs.

  What was it about the lady doctor that got to him so bad? It wasn't just the possibility of liftoff after four years of aborted missions and flying solo. Yeah, okay, that was a hell of a long time to go without sex, but before he'd met Kate his libido hadn't bothered him that much.

  There was no denying her curvy body tempted him. A man could slake himself on those generous breasts, find ease between those firm, round thighs. But it was the whole package that attracted him, the unlikely combination of that soft, giving body and compassionate heart with her hard-edged intelligence and brisk determination.

  Kate was probably the smartest woman he knew, certainly the most educated. He could only guess at the stubborn will that had sustained her through her years of medical school and training. She was tougher than his wife had been, more driven, and possibly less secure. The last woman in the world, he would have thought, to appeal to him.

  But the past four years had put him through the fire. Maybe in Kate's tempered strength, he'd found his match.

  Yeah, right. She was smart enough and tough enough to resist him, at least.

  Grabbing his bag from where he'd parked it by the door, Patrick headed up the stairs. He checked in on Jack, sleeping peacefully on top of his covers, and forced himself past the closed guest-room door to his own room at the end of the hall. He set down the bag. Opened the door.

  And saw Kate, wearing a blue scrub top and a determined expression, sitting on the edge of his bed. Her legs were long and bare. He wondered if she had anything at all on under that top. And be wondered what the hell he was going to do now.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  «^»

  Kate pressed her legs together on the edge of the mattress, hoping to make her thighs look thinner. Downstairs she could bear Patrick moving around, talking to the dog. Nerves jitterbugged in her stomach.

  She was cold. The skin of her arms and legs bumped like uncooked chicken. But her cheeks were hot. She could feel the blood heating there, and beating in her throat and in her chest, and pooling warm and liquid in her lower body.