by Julie Miller
Before Lucy could mention Millie’s distress, Jane Boyle dismissed herself from the conversation. “I select my assignments very carefully, Mr. Watson. If I don’t feel good about the patient’s home environment, then I don’t take the job.”
“Home environment?” Thomas pointed a finger at the nurse. “Are you questioning my—”
“I’ll be in Dr. Koelus’s office for another ten minutes if you want to continue the interview. Then I’ll be looking for my next potential assignment.”
The younger brother, Keir, was a shorter, twenty-twenty version of Niall. He eased a low whistle between his teeth as the nurse brushed past him to turn the corner into the crossing hallway leading to the doctor’s office. “You get a load of that lady? She’s full of herself, isn’t she?”
Duff needed a shave and something to take the edge off the wary tension surrounding him. “The fact that she didn’t succumb to your questionable charm is the only thing she’s got going for her.”
“Hey, I get along great with older women. Isn’t that right, Millie? Millie?” Keir turned to discover Lucy’s new friend had disappeared. “Where did she go?”
“Is Tommy all right?” Niall asked, noting the baby’s absence.
Lucy tilted her chin to see concerned looks on the faces of all four men. But it was Niall’s probing gaze she answered. “The baby is fine. None of you have any clue to what just happened, do you? Millie cares about Seamus—she thinks of your family as her own.”
Keir’s blue eyes narrowed. “She is part of the family.”
Lucy shrugged. “She might even have extra feelings for your grandfather.”
“Extra?” Niall adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, demanding clarification.
“I think she’s sweet on him. Or whatever it is that a woman in her seventies feels for an eighty-year-old man.”
Duff scrubbed his fingers over the stubble of his beard. “She’s got the hots for Grandpa?”
Thomas silenced him with a look and urged Lucy to continue.
“She certainly cares about him.” Lucy gestured down the main hall to the room where Seamus Watson lay just a few doors away. “She hasn’t even been allowed in to see him yet because, strictly speaking, she’s not a relative.”
“Of course she’s family.” Thomas shook his head as if her statement didn’t make sense. “The two of them have lived in the same house for twenty years. I’ve been so preoccupied with Dad, convincing Olivia and Gabe to take some sort of honeymoon, and trying to make sense of the whole damn shooting—”
“You’re not in this alone, Dad. We all dropped the ball.” Niall reached over to squeeze his father’s shoulder. But he was looking to Lucy for an answer. “How do we make it right?”
Lucy wasn’t sure it was her place to interfere, but she was starting to get used to explaining people and emotions to her intellectual neighbor. “She’s always taken care of all of you, right? I think she’s hurt because you’re hiring someone else to do her job.”
Thomas muttered a rueful apology under his breath. “Ms. Boyle is a registered nurse. She’ll be Dad’s caretaker and physical therapist. I don’t expect her to do anything else. And I’m certainly not kicking Millie out of the house.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell her. Let her know she’s welcome, that she’s important to each of you, that you still need her...even if it is just to cook and clean, or to spell the nurse when she needs a break. And she probably wants to be close to Seamus. She’s feeling like there’s nothing she can do to help right now.”
Duff swore under his breath. “I can relate to that.”
Thomas agreed. “We all can.”
Lucy startled when Keir leaned over to kiss her cheek before thumping Niall’s arm and leaving the carpeted waiting area. “Thank you. You know, I like that Niall’s finally got a real live girlfriend.”
“Oh, I’m not—”
“Excuse me?” Niall frowned at his brother’s teasing assertion.
Keir ignored both protests and headed down the hallway. “I was beginning to think Dr. Frankenstein was going to have to build one in that lab of his.”
“Where are you going?” Thomas asked.
“To find Millie. I’ll take her to lunch and make amends, while you and Duff and that battle-ax Boyle make arrangements to take Grandpa home and get him set up.” He turned, backing down the hallway without missing a step. “You are hiring her, right? I mean, who else is going to put up with his guff? She stood up to all of us, didn’t she? Not an easy task, is it, Luce? You said what we needed to hear.”
“I was just pointing out—” Keir winked at Lucy and then turned, including her in that sideways compliment before planting himself outside the ladies’ restroom.
“You need to learn to keep your mouth shut, Lucy Claire McKane. No man on this planet likes a woman who doesn’t know when to zip it. Now you go right back to the Campbells’ house and apologize to Roger.”
“But Mama, he slapped me.”
“Well, he wouldn’t if you ever learned to stop talkin’ when it’s not your business. How he treats his own dog isn’t your affair. And put on them tight jeans I got you before you go back to see him. Those curves will help him see how sorry he is for mistreatin’ ya. He’s a Campbell—the best ticket out of this two-bit town we’re ever gonna get.”
Lucy squeezed her eyes shut against the bile rising in her gullet at the remembered incident. She’d never learned to keep her opinions to herself. And while, idealistically, she never regretted standing up for someone in need, she had learned to regret speaking those opinions without thinking through the consequences first.
Dropping her head, Lucy crossed back to the chair where she’d sat to go through her purse, ostensibly looking for something to busy her hands with until she could bury the painful flashback in her memories and concentrate on the present again—and how best to apologize to the Watsons for butting into their family business when they already had plenty on their plate to worry about.
With some sort of tacit agreement reached, Duff and Thomas followed Nurse Boyle around the corner to Dr. Koelus’s office while Keir called someone on his cell phone and paced back and forth at the far end of the hall. Lucy pulled a tube of lip balm from her cosmetic bag and ran it around her mouth before she realized Niall was still standing behind her shoulder, staring down at her. She recognized that look, as though she was a specimen under a microscope he wanted to understand.
She dropped the lip balm back into her purse and turned, chin tipped up to meet his studious gaze. “What?” she asked, hearing a defensive edge to her tone she instantly wished she could take back. That only made him curious to ask more questions.
“You’re avoiding me. Did Keir embarrass you with the girlfriend comment? He’s a relentless teaser.”
Those blue eyes were perfectly serious. Bless his stoic heart. The man could earn a medical degree and help solve crimes for the police department, but he still had no clue about the crush she’d had on him since their first meeting in the laundry room. Keir might have tuned in to her interest in his older brother, but she wasn’t about to explain that attraction to Niall and risk the alliance they’d made for Tommy’s and Diana’s sakes. She also wasn’t about to embarrass herself with any more details about her past than she’d shared with him earlier, either. “Don’t worry. I know you and I are just friends. I hope I didn’t overstep the boundaries of our agreement by butting in to your personal family business. Perhaps I didn’t choose the best time to mention my suspicions about Millie.”
He nodded, although what Niall was agreeing to, she couldn’t be sure. “Keir was right about one thing. You have a real talent for reading people. You understand the subtleties of emotion in a way I never will.”
“That’s not true. I know you rely on that brain of yours, but you have good instincts, too.” Lucy
tucked a stray curl behind her ear and smiled up at him. “You knew where to find me last night when I needed you. And look at the bond between you and Tommy. You know when he needs you, too. I think he’s already forming an emotional attachment to you. He senses you care about him.”
Niall’s gaze followed the movement of her hand. And then he surprised her by capturing one of the strands of hair that had curled beneath the neckline of her sweatshirt between two fingers and freeing it. She tried to dismiss the way he held on to the curl, arranging it just so behind her shoulder. It was probably just a scientist’s impulse to have everything in a neat and tidy order, but her pulse was having other ideas. “I’m a calm presence, that’s all. I’m guessing he’s had a lot of upheaval in his young life.”
Upheaval, yes. She could relate. With Lucy’s pulse leaping at his curiously intimate touch, her words held double meaning. “Some people find security in that sort of quiet confidence.”
“I hope he knows one day what a champion you are for him.” As he pulled away, Niall paused, brushing away the imaginary mark his brother’s lips had left on her cheek.
If the tangle of his fingers in her hair hadn’t been unsettling enough, the warm stroke of his thumb across her cool skin made her remember that pragmatic touch in front of the clothes dryer last night, and she shivered. Her words came out in an embarrassingly breathy stumble. “You are, too. A champion, I mean.”
Niall’s fingers splayed along the line of her jaw, his thumb lingering against the apple of her cheek. When his eyes narrowed behind his glasses and the distance between their heights disappeared, Lucy caught her breath in a gasp that was pure anticipation.
Lucy’s awareness of the world around her—the bustle of hospital workers, the constant beeps and whirrs of medical equipment, and the medicinal smells wafting through the chilly air—shrank to the subtle pressure of Niall’s warm mouth curving over hers. Her palm found a button at the middle of his shirt and settled there, balancing her as she tipped her head back to move her lips beneath his. They shared a quiet, deep kiss that heated Lucy’s blood all the way down to her toes.
She wasn’t sure when her heels left the floor or when her fingers curled into the crisp cotton of his shirt, or even when her tongue boldly reached out to touch his. But Lucy was blatantly aware of her world shifting on its axis, of a two-year-old fantasy coming to life—of something stirring inside her that felt as dangerous as it was desirable. Niall Watson was kissing her. It was sweet and patient and thorough and perfect, made all the more sexy by how clueless he was of his masculine appeal. His mouth was an irresistible combination of tender purpose and firm demand. And that crazy heat he exuded that drew her like a moth to a flame—
An abrupt chill filled the air around her when Niall pulled his mouth from hers. His chest expanded against her hand as he drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. But his blue eyes remained locked on hers. “Was that all right? Your pupils dilated. Did I misread the signal you were sending? Or did I just interpret it the way I wanted to?”
“The signal? No. You read me just fine.” Lucy pulled away from the tempting warmth radiating through the Oxford cloth she’d crinkled beneath her hand. She wished she wasn’t blocked by the chair behind her or she’d put some serious distance between them while she gathered her wits. Did I misread the signal? “Was that an experiment to test your people-reading skills?”
“An experiment?” He shook his head. “I wanted to thank you. Millie means a lot to me—to all of us.”
“Oh. Of course. Glad I could help.” Lucy managed a smile, salvaging some pride at the knowledge that her first, and most likely only, kiss with Niall Watson hadn’t been in the name of science. Still, that tender exploration wasn’t any admission of a mutual attraction. He’d intended to express his gratitude while she’d taken another step toward falling in love with the man. He probably thought her traitorous pupils and the goose bumps that prickled beneath the warm fingers still resting against her neck were some sort of involuntary response to the cold, filtered air inside the hospital. “I kind of specialize in creating healthy family relationships. It’s the least I could do after all you’re doing to help Tommy and Diana.”
“Lucy—”
He opened his handsome mouth to say something more, but Thomas Watson appeared around the corner and called for his son to join them. “Niall. I’d like your two cents on this, too. Sorry. Am I interrupting?”
Lucy sidled away the moment Niall turned to his father’s bemused smile. “What do you need, Dad?”
“I thought you’d have a better idea of where we can fit all of Dad’s medical equipment. There’s more room in the guest suite, but if we have to accommodate Ms. Boyle for a few weeks, then she’ll want a private bathroom—”
“You’d better go.” Lucy gave Niall a nudge toward his father. “It’s important.”
He glanced over the jut of his shoulder at her. “So is this. I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding between us.”
“Not at all. You said thank you, and I said you’re welcome.” They were friends, allies—and she was grateful for that. But a few minutes apart would allow her to clear her head of any of the misguided fantasies that were still firing through her imagination. “Looks like we might be at the hospital a little longer. Could I borrow your keys and get my knitting bag out of your car? It’ll help me pass the time. Tommy will be fine with Millie until I get back.”
After a momentary pause, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and handed them over. “Straight there and back, all right? If you overhear any arguments, call me before you go investigate on your own.”
“I won’t be gone more than ten minutes. Then I’ll come back and spell Millie with the baby.”
“Ten minutes,” he clarified.
“Okay.” She uttered the promise in as conversational a tone as she could muster, not wanting him to suspect just how eager she was to put some thought-clearing distance between them.
He didn’t release the keys once she’d wrapped her fingers around them, holding on without actually touching her. “I haven’t forgotten about Tommy and Diana. We’ll go to the lab right after this.”
“I know.” She could never question his commitment to finding answers.
Lucy pocketed his keys and hurried to the elevator, knowing Niall continued to study her retreat, probably trying to make sense of her passionate response to a simple thank-you kiss. But she refused to look back and let him see the confusion and embarrassment that was no doubt evident on her face. Last night he’d touched her, more than once. They’d traded some full-body contact that had ignited more than a distant fantasy. And now he’d kissed her. With any other man—like that drunk in the disreputable neighborhood the police had dubbed no-man’s-land—she’d think he was into her. But Niall Watson didn’t quite understand the intricacies of attraction—and these increasingly intimate interactions that were wreaking havoc on her heart and hormones were nothing more than gratitude and practical necessities to Niall.
When the elevator opened, Lucy dashed inside and pushed the button for the lobby. When she did dare to look back across the hallway, she saw that she was still the object of Niall’s piercing scrutiny. It wasn’t until she held up ten fingers right before the doors shut that he finally turned away to Dr. Koelus’s office. And it wasn’t until she broke contact with those blue eyes that she was finally able to release a deep sigh of relief.
The elevator descended, and with each floor, a little more common sense returned. She was foolish for letting her feelings for Niall simmer into anything more than a stupid crush. Maybe these weren’t real feelings, anyway. It made sense for a woman with her background to idolize a man who was the complete opposite of a volatile glory seeker like Roger Campbell, to be drawn to a man to whom family was so obviously important. But that didn’t mean she was falling in love with the quiet mystery man across the ha
ll. She had far more important things to worry about than her love life, anyway. Like finding Diana. Making sure Tommy felt safe and nurtured. Even just finishing the blue cap she was knitting for him.
When Lucy stepped outside the hospital’s sliding glass doors, she was hit by a sharp blast of damp wind that cut through her sweatshirt and camisole, reminding her that she’d been in such a hurry to escape before Niall started grilling her with questions she didn’t want to answer, that she’d left without her sweater coat. Spring was trying to come to Kansas City, but it wasn’t here yet. Although the temperature was well above freezing, the drab day did little to perk up her spirits. She crossed her arms in front of her and surveyed the dingy landscape of sooty snow melting against the curb and the muddy mess of brown grass surrounding a few denuded trees. Even the evergreen shrubs had a grayish cast that reflected the low, overcast sky.
Maybe the promised rain would wash away the last dregs of winter and she wouldn’t worry quite so much about Diana being out in this. Was money the reason she’d left Tommy with her? There’d been nothing with the infant but the clothes on his back. She and Niall and Thomas Watson had bought or borrowed everything Tommy could need. But did Diana have a warm coat to wear? A safe place to stay out of the weather? Food to eat? Did she know how much Lucy ached to see her foster daughter’s beautiful smile and hug her in her arms again?
Warmth of a different kind trickled down Lucy’s cheek and she quickly wiped the tear away. Crying wouldn’t do Diana or Tommy any good. And she certainly didn’t need to embarrass herself any further by standing here in front of a big city hospital crying her eyes out, especially after that humiliating lapse in judgment with Niall upstairs.
