by Dianne Drake
So, for the duration of the cruise, Michael Sloan was her friend. That was a decision with which she was satisfied.
But what would happen after the cruise?
Would he go off to his world and she back to hers?
Somehow that seemed inevitable, yet Sarah caught herself wondering if it would seem strange to book herself on the next cruise after this one, just to spend a little more time with Michael. “He’s a nice man,” she agreed on a melancholy note. The starkest truth of her world was that she might yearn, but she would never touch again.
“You two look so good together,” Martha said. “The way my Robert and I did when we were younger.”
Maybe that was true, but she’d looked good with Kerry, too. People had commented on that, especially on their wedding day. And she’d looked good with Cameron, something that had been said over and over at their engagement party. How did that old saying go? Was it, once bitten, twice shy? Could she change that to twice bitten and third time scared to death?
The truth was, she was attracted to Michael in ways she’d never meant to be attracted again. She would like to look good with him. No, she would love to look good with him, a sentiment that was speeding up her pulse rate and turning her respirations rapid and shallow. That was the problem. “You know what, Martha? You have a lovely voice. After these two guys get off the karaoke, I’d love to hear you sing again.”
He’d worked harder than this, but he couldn’t remember a time when he’d worked in a more distracted condition than he was right now. Sarah was on his mind all the time. After going for so long without any emotional involvements, finally convincing himself that he could get along fine without one, here he was, thinking about something that just couldn’t happen. Not now. Especially not with someone who’d already known more than her fair share of tragedy. How could it be fair to her, dragging her into his own tragedies?
Knowing that he had to put an end to this kind of wasteful thinking, however, wasn’t stopping him from imagining all the things he wouldn’t allow himself to have. And as his patient load was growing, and as he wandered from patient to patient, treating all the common shipboard maladies overtaking passengers, he couldn’t help but wonder how it might have been to work alongside her. She’d volunteered, after all. So he could have said yes, could have taken her up on her offer then scheduled her to work when he worked, saying, of course, that he was duty bound to keep a close eye on her as she wasn’t a regular ship’s employee.
Duty bound! Just like he’d been duty bound to seduce her in Evangeline’s hallway then, later on in the booth, kiss her like he’d never kissed another woman. After all that, there wasn’t an excuse on the face of the earth that he could use to keep Sarah at his side—not one she’d believe, anyway. Especially when the only thing he really wanted to do was finish what they’d started that night. Wanted it so badly he wasn’t even sure he could work alongside her and remain unaffected.
Except there was one big thing standing in the way of letting her work with him, as much as he’d wanted to accept her suggestion…one big thing that set him right back into the professional frame of mind. Sarah had never confided her reason for not practicing medicine now, and that was a huge concern. While he couldn’t imagine Sarah ever doing anything wrong as a doctor, anything that would have had devastating results or even have gotten her sanctioned in some way, he did have to know about her background and her reason. That was ship’s policy, and he had to be careful with the way he proceeded as the responsibility of the ship’s hospital was solely his. But more than that, as a responsible physician, it was his own personal policy to know about the people who treated his patients. So, with the remote possibility that she could have had her medical license revoked, which he doubted, he couldn’t allow her to work. As much as he would have liked to. Loved to!
“We’ve had thirteen new people come in with generalized aches, low-grade fever, lung congestion in the past three hours,” Ina, the nurse in charge, reported to him. “Most of them can stay in their cabins and no one feels all that bad. Oh, and we’re having the normal lot of over-eaters, people who are seasick, pulled muscles, that sort of thing. Nothing you wouldn’t expect to see.”
Michael sighed, looking at the growing stack of patient charts on his desk. That was the part he truly hated—the paperwork. “Well, you can’t do much about the people with the flu-like symptoms, but you’d think some of the others would apply common sense with their eating habits, wouldn’t you? I mean, the stomach’s only got so much elasticity to it, and it gets to a point where it won’t stretch any more. And then their food choices…” He faked a shudder. “Like I said, no common sense at all.”
“Like you have when you eat those huge, porky, greasy Cubanos every day?”
“And what’s your point?” he asked, chuckling.
“Other than the fact that you have horrible dietary habits yourself, and that you’re in a rut with what you eat? Probably nothing, unless you want me to say something about the way you’ve look lately, because that’s not too good. Or the way you’ve been limping, because that’s not too good, either. Or the overall rut your whole life is in, which isn’t healthy for you, Mike. You’re too young to be acting like an old man. Which is what you’re doing.”
“I already have a mother, Ina,” he said, trying to sound good-natured, even though he was a little put off by her observations. He’d have been even more put off if they weren’t true. But they were, and he knew it. He was in a rut in so many ways, and it was easy to get lazy like that. Easier than trying to crawl out of that rut. It was all taking its toll on him, too, both physically and emotionally. Especially these past few days.
“And your mother’s not here, seeing what I’m seeing. So, until she is…”
He thrust out his hand to stop her. “I’ll eat better and sleep better. Is that good enough?”
“I won’t tell you how to run your personal life, but at least have someone look at your leg. Because you need that, too.”
Touchy subject. He didn’t really talk about it unless someone like Ina forced him to. “My leg is fine,” he snapped. It did tend to bother him the more tired he was. His emotional turmoil was beginning to drag him down physically. But there was an easy cure for that and maybe he’d take a week off after this cruise was over, just to rest. It was all part of the same restlessness.
“No, it’s not, or you wouldn’t be so grumpy about it.”
“If you weren’t such a damned good nurse, I’d fire you,” he grumbled.
“If I weren’t such a damned good nurse, I wouldn’t care what’s going on with you. But I am, and I do, and you know I’m right, even if you won’t admit it out loud. So, how about a cup of tea?”
Ina’s hideous brew from hell. He really should tell her how bad it was, declare it a hazard of some sort, then take her teapot and throw it overboard. But he wouldn’t be that unkind to someone who thought she was doing a good thing, even if that good thing turned his stomach. “I’d love a cup of tea,” he said, fighting back a cringe.
An hour later, back in his cabin, he rinsed the aftertaste of Ina’s tea from his mouth and turned on the shower to let the water warm up. Now that he was off duty again, he had eight blessed hours before he went back on duty, and he intended to spend each and every one of them with his eyes closed. Unless, of course, he got called back, which was a possibility with another of his medical crew taken ill in the past hour.
Pulling off his white uniform shirt, Michael dumped it into the laundry bag and was starting to unzip his pants when a knock on his door stopped him. His first thought was that he was already being called back and he hadn’t even been off fifteen minutes yet. “I’m coming,” he called, grabbing his shirt out of the laundry bag. He was shrugging it back on as he opened the door, expecting to see Ina standing there with another cup of tea. Instead, he saw Sarah.
“I don’t want to bother you,” she said, “but I wanted to talk about my offer. I heard someone else on your crew i
s sick.” Her eyes raked over his chest. “And I…um…I wanted to tell you that I’m serious. If you need me to come and work…”
Two of the purple-hat ladies, obviously lost and wandering down a passage where they weren’t supposed to be, took a look at Michael in his half-dressed condition, then started to titter. “Come in,” he muttered, grabbing Sarah by the hand and pulling her into his cabin, then shutting the door behind him.
“I’d expected something bigger,” she said, looking around the room. “Since you practically live here, I thought you’d have larger quarters than the passengers have.”
He laughed. “They’re large, if you’re not claustrophobic and don’t have a lot of personal possessions.” Which he did, but they were in storage back in Florida. His real life all locked up safely while he lived this life.
“I meant what I said, Michael. I want to help in the hospital. Whatever you need me to do is fine.”
Maybe he would take up her offer. With the right permissions, it could work out. Having a little more time with her wasn’t a bad incentive either. “Can you give me ten minutes to shower, then we’ll discuss it? I’d like to get myself cleaned up before we talk about anything, if you don’t mind.”
“Should I come back later? Or do you want to meet me somewhere else?”
“No. This if fine. Just make yourself comfortable here. Like I said, ten minutes.”
Michael disappeared into the bathroom and Sarah could hear the water running. She sat in the single chair in his cabin, feeling awkward, three steps away from his bed, fighting back the fantasies assailing her. On top of that, the purple-hat ladies outside were probably spreading rumors that turned her fantasies into reality, but the truth was that, she really had come here to offer her services again. That’s all! While she didn’t want to return to work on a regular basis, the urge to get back into it for a little while was taking over, and getting back into it with Michael at her side certainly had more than its fair share of appeal.
But right now, as she waited, she was so close to his bed she could smell the slightly musky scent of his aftershave, probably permeating his sheets. Musky sheets. Then all of a sudden she was picturing his bare chest, and the way his partially zipped white uniform pants had ridden low on his hips, revealing the sexiest patch of dark hair trailing below his belly button.
All of a sudden she felt hot. Jittery. It wasn’t a panic attack this time though. Not in the traditional sense, anyway, as the panic she was feeling had much more to do with a dormant libido waking up—waking up, screaming—than it did the walls closing in on her. Which they weren’t doing, amazingly enough.
Walk, Sarah. Just walk it off.
But she didn’t want to walk out of his cabin as the reason for her being there was, truly, to offer her help. It was genuine. She did want to help.
Shake it off before he comes back. Shake what off? The fact that she could picture herself between the sheets with him? That her cheeks were flushed? Or that her hands were shaking?
Or that she was merely giving in to all the silly romantic notions of a cruise and this wasn’t at all about Michael? That was probably the one she didn’t want to shake off, the only thing in these past few days that made any sense to her.
Except knowing that and walking straight through his door, back into the corridor, back to her cabin, were things that didn’t seem to mesh so well because here she was, still ignoring what was becoming increasingly obvious to her…almost as obvious as the steam that was seeping into the room from underneath the bathroom door.
She was getting hotter by the minute. Steam, yearning, raw emotions, both old and new, it all caused her to jump up from her chair and start pacing. Back and forth, round and round. The space was too small to take many steps, but she walked from one end of his bed to the other, back and forth to his closet, to the cabin door, forming a precise rhythm to her steps so she could count off the cadence rather than think about anything.
This is crazy, Sarah. OK, so a little thinking was sneaking in.
You’re attracted to the man, so why not admit it? Especially after she’d crawled all over him already. But was this more than a physical attraction? That notion was slipping in, which scared her. Admitting to something physical was one thing, but to something more…
“Too much thinking,” she muttered, deciding this wasn’t a good idea. She still wanted to volunteer, but she couldn’t stay in his cabin. The feelings and awareness were squeezing her out. She’d leave him a note, telling him she’d catch up with him later.
Good idea. Get out of his cabin before he was out of the shower because Michael in the shower was too potent an image for her to deal with.
In a hurry to leave, Sarah searched the nightstand next to his bed for a piece of paper and a pen, but no luck. The was nothing on the little table in the corner but a stack of medical textbooks. So she decided to check his closet, not to go through personal belongings or anything like that, but to see if what she needed was in there.
When she opened the door, her eyes went immediately to the array of white uniforms hanging in a neat row. He looked so good in his uniform. Then to the few off-duty clothes he had hanging there. He looked good in those, too. She didn’t see a pen on the shelf, and when she glanced down she saw shoes, and a…
Dear God! It was a prosthetic leg.
Michael’s limp!
How could she not have recognized it?
The way she hadn’t noticed Kerry’s melanoma or recognized Cameron’s leukemia. That’s how!
Taking two steps back, she bumped straight into Michael. She turned, stared him straight in the eyes, then drew in a sharp breath. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to work for you.”
After that, Sarah walked very calmly to Michael’s door, turned the handle, then left the cabin. And slumped against the wall outside while her whole body began to tremble.
How could she have ever thought she could be a practicing physician again when she couldn’t even see the things she should have, the things that were so close to her?
CHAPTER SEVEN
MICHAEL stared at the cabin door for a moment, then finally looked into his open closet. What he saw first…his running prosthesis, one made especially for the hard, pounding run he liked to have three times a week, four if he could fit it in. Was that what had caused Sarah’s reaction? She’d seen it, been repulsed, then left?
Surely she’d known about it, hadn’t she? He always limped a little, even on his best days, and Sarah did have a trained eye, so she must have noticed it. Then again, maybe she hadn’t. And it wasn’t like he’d slipped a mention of his injury into his casual conversations, because he never discussed it with anyone. Not even Ina. But he didn’t keep his amputation a secret either. If someone asked a question it, he answered. Sarah, though…he’d really thought she would have known, would have seen it.
Or perhaps, deep down, he’d hoped she wouldn’t.
He hadn’t been involved with anyone as a casual friend, or even as a lover, since he’d been jilted after his injury. Emotionally, he wasn’t ready for it yet—a fact of which he was painfully aware. Something else he was just as painfully aware of was what he had to do before he could ever hope to have a semblance of a normal life again. But that had much more to do with the circumstances surrounding his injury and not the injury itself. Sometimes, though, it all blurred together…the loss of his leg, the loss of his dream, the loss of himself all tied up in there somewhere.
Could, or would, he ever let himself fall in love again? Yes, he had thought about what could happen if he ever did, thought about what kind of woman would be attracted to someone like him, to someone disabled the way he was. He tried not to, though, because he wasn’t at a place in his life where any of that would fit in.
Of course, he’d be lying to himself if he said it didn’t bother him—not the injury itself as much as what might come about as a result of it. That wasn’t the reason he’d avoided any number of women who’d made advances these pa
st months since he’d come to work as a ship’s doctor. Or the reason he’d avoided even looking at them. Heaven knew, he wasn’t a saint when it came to that part of his life. Wasn’t even close to it. He’d had relationships, long and short. He’d had his share of casual flings, short and shorter, too. Quite a vigorous, healthy past, all things considered. Yet right now getting involved in any manner wasn’t right, not when he had so little to offer someone.
So little to offer himself, for that matter.
But Sarah…she was different. Someone who intrigued him. Someone who had captured his interest and held it. Someone so sexy and yet so vulnerable he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to have a woman like that in his life for a little while, maybe even for ever. He hadn’t meant to look, hadn’t meant to go any further after he had. Just look at him, though, all caught up in thoughts he simply didn’t need to be having. Sarah was on his mind in ways he didn’t want, and couldn’t control, and he was disappointed by her reaction to his prosthetic leg. More than disappointed, he was surprised.
Better to find out now, he supposed, unable to shake off the letdown seeping through him as he sat down on the edge of the bed, getting ready to sleep. What had he expected, though? It wasn’t like this was the first time someone was turned off by him. It wouldn’t be the last time either.
Sinking back into the pillows, Michael stared up at the ceiling for much longer than he cared to before he finally dozed off. But it was a fitful sleep that overtook him, not at all restful, and when he woke up seven hours later he felt agitated and restless—much worse than he had before he’d gone to sleep. Naturally, the first thing that came to his mind when he opened his eyes was Sarah.
