Return of the Last McKenna (Harlequin Romance)

by Jump, Shirley

  Andrew had told him that Kate had taken the divorce hard. That she’d been heartbroken at the breakup of the family, as fractured as it was. Andrew had taken it on his shoulders to cheer up his sister, to keep her from dwelling on the major changes in her life. He could see in Kate’s face that it still affected her, even after all these years. A childhood interrupted, just like his. “I’m glad you had each other,” he said. “Like my brothers and I had each other.”

  “Yeah. But I don’t have him anymore now, do I?” She cursed, let out a long breath, then turned to Brody. “It was my fault, you know.” Her eyes filled with tears, and everything in Brody wanted to head off what was coming. “I was the one that encouraged him to sign up. He kept talking about wanting to make a difference, wanting to change lives, and he was such an adventurer, you know? It just seemed perfect. I thought the war was over, how dangerous could it be?” She shook her head and bit her lip. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have—”

  She cursed. Brody ached to tell her the truth, but how could he do that without adding to her pain? Recount the story of Andrew’s death, and his part in that moment, and see her go through that loss all over again. He bit his tongue and listened instead.

  “A part of me feels like…” at this her eyes misted again, and Brody wanted to both hold her and run for the hills, “if I hadn’t encouraged him, if I had told him to become a hiking instructor or skydiver or something instead, he’d be here today.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Kate. It’s not your fault. Your brother loved—”

  “My brother died because of me, don’t you see that?” Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she swiped them away with a quick, hard movement. “I’m the one that encouraged him, pushed him. If I never said a word, he’d be here today and I’d…”

  He reached for her hand. “You’d what?”

  She exhaled, a long, slow breath. “I’d forgive myself.”

  Brody’s heart ached for her. How he knew that pain. That guilt. “You can’t blame yourself, Kate. People do what they want to do. Andrew was an adult. If he didn’t want to join, he would have told you. You said yourself he loved his job.”

  She shook her head. “Every day, I live with that regret. Every day, I wish I could take the words back. I go to work and I stand there, and I wish I could do it over. It’s like I’m standing in cement, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t pick my feet up again.” Pain etched Kate’s features. Brody saw now why Andrew had been so adamant about protecting his sister. She did blame herself, and the worst thing Brody could do was add to that burden.

  I don’t want her blaming herself or dwelling on the past. I want her eyes on the future. Encourage her to take a risk, to pursue her dreams. Don’t let her spend one more second grieving or regretting.

  Andrew’s words came back to him. Somehow, Brody needed to find a way to redirect Kate’s emotional rudder.

  She sat for a moment, then shifted in her seat to face him. “Before the soldiers even knocked on my door, I knew. I fell apart right then, a sobbing messy puddle on the floor. That pain,” she exhaled a long, shaky breath, “that pain was excruciating. As if someone had ripped out my heart right in front of me.” She drew her knees up to her chest, and hugged her arms around her shins. “What if I’d said ‘be careful’ one more time, or told him I loved him again? Would it have ended differently?”

  “I think you did everything you could. Sometimes…these things just happen.” Every instinct in him wanted to make this better for her, to ease her pain. And somehow do it without violating the promise he had made. “When I was in med school, I lost a patient. I’d seen him a couple times before, and had gotten to know him during the time I was working there.”

  It was a story Brody had never fully told before. The words halted in his throat, but he pushed them forward. He had promised to help Kate, and maybe, just maybe, knowing she wasn’t alone would do that. “He loved to walk the city,” Brody went on. “But he was legally blind, and in a city that busy…”

  “Accidents happened.”

  Brody nodded. “Construction projects springing up out of nowhere create obstacles that he couldn’t see or anticipate. He had a cane, and was thinking about getting a guide dog, when he was hit by a car.”

  “Oh, Brody. That’s awful.”

  “He was just crossing the street. One of those senseless deaths that shouldn’t happen.” Brody sighed and shook his head. “I tried so hard to keep that man alive. So damned hard. I kept pushing on his chest, up, down, up, down, yelling at him to hold, to keep trying, don’t die on me—”

  At some point he’d stopped talking about the patient in Boston. His mind had gone back to that dusty hut in Afghanistan, to a moment that could have been a carbon copy of the one at Mass General. Young man, cut down in the prime of his life, and Brody, powerless to prevent his death.

  “It was too late,” Brody went on, his voice low, hoarse. In that instant, he didn’t see the pedestrian hit by a car, he saw Andrew’s eyes again. So like Kate’s. Wide, trusting, believing the doctor tending to his wounds would know what to do. So sure that Brody could save his life. “It’s in your hands, doc,” Andrew had said. He’d given Brody his life—

  And Brody had let him down.

  Brody heard the choppers in his head, the pounding of the rotors, the shouting of the other soldiers. Heard himself calling out to the other doctors, asking for supplies they didn’t have. Too many wounded at one time, too few resources, and too few miracles available. Brody flexed his palms, but he could still feel Andrew’s chest beneath his hands. The furious pumping to try to bring him back, and the silent, still response.

  “They had to stop me from doing CPR,” Brody said. The other doctor, pulling him off, telling him it was too late. There was no hope. “I just…I wanted him to live so bad, but it wasn’t enough. Not enough at all.”

  Now her hand covered his, sympathetic, understanding. “Oh, Brody, I’m so sorry.”

  On the other side of the reservoir, Brody saw the gray flash of the soldier’s T-shirt moving down the path. Guilt and regret settled hard and bitter in Brody’s stomach. Did he want to see Kate living with that the rest of her life?

  He wasn’t here to assuage his own pain. He was here to help her with hers.

  “How did you…” she took a breath, let it out again, “how did you get past that loss?”

  “For a long time, I blamed myself,” Brody said, his mind drifting back to those difficult days in med school. “For a while, I thought I should do something else, something outside of medicine. I felt so damned guilty, like you do.”

  She nodded, mute.

  “He was always joking, that patient of mine. It got so that I even kidded him about walking the streets of Boston, told him to keep an eye out. He thought that was the funniest damned thing he ever heard. It became a running joke between us. He’d thank me for stitching him up and joke that he’d be back for another appointment next week. I did the same thing you did, Kate, I blamed myself. What if I didn’t joke with him? What if I’d lectured him about being careful?” He tossed the remains of the leaf onto the ground and turned to her. “For weeks, I was stuck, like you. Then I realized I wasn’t doing myself, or his memory, any good.” His gaze swept over Kate’s delicate features. He thought of all she had told him in the last few days, and of what Finn had said. Do something proactive. That was what Brody had done all those years ago, and what Kate needed to do now. “I ended up going down to city ha
ll and petitioning them for an audio crosswalk at the intersection where my patient was hit. The kind that beeps, warns people with vision problems. It might have been too late for him, but it wasn’t for the next person. Doing that helped me a lot. It made me move forward.”

  “That’s what I need to do.” She sighed. “Someday.”

  Then he knew how he could help her. How he could get her out of that self-imposed cement. Something bigger, better than baking cupcakes and delivering desserts. “How do you feel about taking a trip to Weymouth this afternoon?”

  “Weymouth? Why?”

  “Let’s go look at that location you were considering. See if it’s good enough for another Nora’s Sweet Shop.”

  “Oh, Brody, I can’t—”

  “Can’t? Or won’t? I’ll be done with patients at three, and last I checked, the sign on the door said you close at three. I’d say that’s a sign we should go. Do something proactive, Kate, and maybe…” his hand covered hers, “maybe then you can move forward again.”

  She studied him for a second then a smile curved across her face. “You’re not going to let me say no, are you?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “Okay. Meet me at the shop at three. I’ll give the realtor a call this morning.”

  He got to his feet, put out a hand and hauled her to her feet, too. Now she stood close, so close, a strong breeze would have brought them together. His thoughts swirled around the sweet temptation of Kate Spencer. Her emerald eyes, her beautiful smile, her slender frame. And then to her lips, parted slightly, as if begging him to kiss them. How he wanted to, and oh how he shouldn’t. “Then it’s a date.”

  * * *

  A date.

  Kate pondered those words all day while she worked. Joanne had called and said she’d be tied up for a few more days with her daughter. “She’s finding out a new baby is a lot more exhausting than she thought,” Joanne said, “and my son-in-law couldn’t take any more time off from work to help her. Are you sure you’re going to be okay without me?”

  “I have temporary help,” Kate said. “You just enjoy that new grandbaby.” She and Joanne chatted a bit more about the new baby, then Kate hung up. She glanced at the clock, saw the hands slowly marking time until Brody arrived.

  Nerves fluttered in her stomach. Crazy. He might have used the word date, but that didn’t mean he meant it. They were going to look at a piece of real estate, for goodness’ sake, not go dancing.

  That word conjured up the memory of dancing with Brody, of being in his strong, capable arms, pressed to his broad, muscled chest. He’d had a sure step, a confident swing, and when she’d been in his arms, she’d felt—

  Safe. Treasured.

  Nope, nope, nope. Her goal today involved real estate, not potential husbands.

  Still, a part of her really liked Brody. He’d told her not all doctors were the same, and the more she got to know him, the more she wondered if he was that one rare animal in the room. Could this man who volunteered in needy areas, who’d taken the time to help a stressed out baker, could he be the one for her? Or too good to be true?

  The last thing she wanted to do was repeat her mother’s mistakes and rush into a relationship that was doomed from the start, then spend the rest of her life fighting to make it into something it could never be. Better to be cautious, to find a quiet, gentle man. Not one who sent her heart into overdrive.

  Easier said than done.

  Kate fussed with her hair. Checked her lipstick twice. Rethought her choice of a skirt instead of jeans at least a dozen times. Ever since she’d met Brody, her mind had been working against her resolve to business only. First peppering her dreams with images of him, then flashing to his smile, his eyes, at the oddest times. She was hooked, and hooked but good.

  A little after one, the bell over the door rang, and Kate had to force herself not to break out in a huge smile when Brody walked into the shop. “You’re here early. I thought you said you wouldn’t be over until three.”

  “My one o’clock appointment canceled, and I had an hour until the next one, so I thought I’d stop by and see how you were doing.”

  Thoughtful. Sweet. Because he liked her? “It’s been a busy day.”

  “Too busy for lunch?” He held up a bag from a local sub shop.

  She snatched it out of his hands. “Bless you. I was about to eat the fixtures.” She glanced up at him, trying to read the intent behind his blue eyes. “You’re always taking care of me.”

  “I’m trying to, Kate.” His gaze met hers and held.

  “Well, thank you.” The intensity in his eyes rocked her, and she turned on her heel, heading for the kitchen, rather than deal with the simmering tension between them.

  He followed her out back and sat across from her while she ate.

  She finished up the sandwich. “Thank you again. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that fast in my life. And one more healthy meal from Doctor McKenna. This is becoming a habit.”

  “All part of the service, ma’am.” He grinned. “Besides, it’ll be on my bill.”

  She laughed. “Well maybe I should charge you for cupcakes consumed.”

  “Who me?” He snatched one of the miniature ones she’d just frosted, and popped it in his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Show me the evidence.”

  “I’ll do better than that.” She wagged a finger at him. “I’ll make you work harder next time we’re in this kitchen.”

  He glanced around the room, at the stacks of orders on the counter, the tubs of supplies waiting by the mixer. “If you want, we can tackle whatever is on your To Do list after we see that property today.”

  “That would make for a really long day. Wouldn’t that interfere with your plans?”

  “Plans?”

  A flush filled her cheeks. She got to her feet, and tossed her trash into the bin. “Well, it’s Saturday and I didn’t want to assume you didn’t have…” Push the words out, Kate, you’ll never know unless you ask, “a date or anything.”

  “I don’t have a date.” He came over to her, lowered the apron to the counter. “Not tonight.”

  “What about tomorrow night?” Who was this forward woman? Hadn’t she vowed a thousand times not to get involved with a man like him? To be cautious, look for someone who didn’t inspire her to run off to the nearest bedroom? But a part of her wondered if Brody was different, if the risk in falling for him would end in the kind of love story her grandparents had enjoyed. And that part wanted to get that answer. Very, very badly.

  “Not tomorrow night, either. I’m not dating anyone right now.” He reached up a hand and captured the end of her ponytail, letting it slide through his fingers. She inhaled the dark woodsy scent of his cologne. “In fact, I don’t even have a date for my own brother’s wedding.”

  “That’s too bad. Especially if there’s dancing.” A smile curved across her face. “I bet Tabitha is free.”

  “I’d much rather take someone closer to my own age. Someone who could use a night off.” He twirled the end of her hair around his finger, his blue eyes locked on hers. “Someone like you.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest. Her pulse tripped. She reminded herself—twice—to breathe. “Are you asking me on a real date, Brody McKenna?”

  “I am indeed.”

  Now the smile she’d been trying to hold back did wing its way across her face. Her heart sputtered, then soared. “Then I accept.”

 
; “Good.” His hands took hers, and he pulled her to him. “You know, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all day. I would be talking to a patient, and end up thinking about you. Or I’d be trying to write up my notes, and think about you. I even called poor Mrs. Maguire Kate today instead of Helen.”

  “Because of my cupcakes?”

  He traced a finger along her face, down her jaw, over her lips. She breathed, and when her lips parted, his finger lingered on her lower lip. Tempting. “Because of your smile. Because of your eyes. Because of the way you make me hope and dream of things I…well, I hadn’t wanted before. You…you’re not what I expected.”

  Another odd comment. Brody McKenna seemed full of them. The man had more dimensions than a layer cake. “What you expected?” She laughed. “It seems my reputation has preceded me, if you had expectations.” She lifted her jaw to his, sassy, teasing. “Have other people been talking about me and saying I’m this boring old fuddy duddy who does nothing but work?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then what expectations did you have? Because you seem to have a heck of a bead on everything about me. As if you knew me before you met me.”

  The humor dropped from his face, and he took a step back, releasing her hands. He turned away, facing the wall where she had hung the plaques and reviews of the shop. “I’m not…not who you think I am, Kate.”

  “Not a doctor?” She grinned. “Don’t tell me you’re actually a nurse.”

  “No, no, it’s not that. It’s—”

  A ding sounded from the oven. “Oh, the cupcakes are done. I have to get them out of the oven or they’ll burn.” Kate pivoted to take the trays of baked cupcakes out of the oven and set them on the racks to cool. “God, what a busy day. Good thing you’re taking me to Weymouth this afternoon, or I’d be liable to work until I passed out. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m still working on the prioritizing thing. Like learning to add a little fun into my day and keep my eye on the bigger goal.”