Granted she might be making a mountain out of a handful of Play-Doh. But she couldn’t shake free of the thought that these small instances of behavior, and others like them, didn’t quite ring true, didn’t seem in character for the man she’d once known.
Just how much had he really changed in six years? And changed how, for the worse? She didn’t want to think so, but there were times…
There was something in her voice that alerted the agent in him. “Changes?” he echoed. “What kind of changes?”
For a moment, despite the fact that they had just made love for the third time, that they were still lying here, nude beneath the sheets, their bodies touching and damp from the sweat of desire, she felt estranged from him. Adrift on an ocean of loneliness.
She shrugged. “Changes. Like your body’s harder now than it was before.”
Good, she wasn’t alluding to anything more serious. For a second he’d thought she saw through his cover. There were times he could swear she could see right into his mind.
Terrance pretended to glance down past his waist. “Well, that’s your work.”
She laughed despite the serious bent her thoughts had taken. “I mean your body’s harder now than it was six years ago.”
He got comfortable again, pulling her to him so that she was on top, her hair a silky blond curtain framing his face on either side. He began to strum his fingers along her body, gently tugging away the sheet.
“I was thinking of something a little more recent.” Raising his head, he caught her lower lip and slid his tongue over it every so lightly.
She could feel her body quickening. Again. She laughed, the sound softly raining down on him. “Your stamina’s improved, too.”
He grinned and it was positively wicked, so reminiscent of the boy she’d fallen in love with a lifetime ago. He cupped the back of her head, about to guide her mouth down to his. “Like the man said, ‘Lady, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’”
“Show me,” she whispered, her breath warming his face.
One last time, she thought, just one last time she wanted to lose herself. For it was in the world Terrance created for her in his arms that everything seemed right.
But just as his mouth met hers, the phone beside her bed rang, its shrill noise cracking apart the warmth that had begun to reclaim her.
Already resigned to the inevitable, Alix sighed, sagging against him. She looked accusingly at the phone as it rang again. “You don’t think it might be a telemarketer, do you?”
He shook his head, his hands on her slim shoulders. “Not at this time of night.”
Blowing out another breath, Alix braced herself. She dragged her body away from his, one last surge of desire shooting through her. Reaching for the telephone, she brought the receiver to her ear.
“Alix DuCane.”
He watched her become instantly alert, the wild, unbridled passion vanishing from her countenance as if it had never existed. She sat up, murmuring “Yes, I see. All right.” He didn’t need to hear the other side of the conversation to know what was going on. She was all pediatrician now, and one of her small patients obviously needed her.
“Take her to Blair’s E.R. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes. She’ll be fine, Mrs. Lewis. Just keep Claire in a sitting position and get her to the hospital.” The instant Alix hung up, she bounced out of bed, making a beeline for her bureau and a fresh set of underwear.
There was nothing to do but get up himself. “Need someone to drive you?” He looked around, trying to remember where he’d left his clothes.
She tried not to look at him. Seeing him naked like that, even after the night they’d spent together, would only make her knees melt and distract her. The man had a body that could bring a stone statue to life.
“No, that’s all right,” she assured him, turning away. “I have no idea how long I’ll be. You go on home. One of us should get a good night’s sleep.”
He stopped at the doorway, looking for all the world like something Michelangelo would have wanted to preserve for all time. He winked at her.
“I don’t think I’ll be doing much sleeping,” he confided.
She flushed with pleasure, knowing it was adolescent to feel this way. It had been a long time since she’d been an adolescent. And a long time since she’d felt like this, period.
She pulled on a pair of pants and reached for a fresh bra from the drawer.
“You can stay here as long as you’d like, you know. Julie’s at my father’s for the night and nobody’ll be here until at least midmorning. Norma has no reason to come early with Julie not here. If you’re tired—” She didn’t want him driving if he was sleepy.
But he shook his head. “You make me feel like a kept man.”
“Very funny.” Pulling a blue sweater out of the closet, she quickly donned it. Poking out her head, she saw that he’d left the room. Probably on his way downstairs to his clothes. Thank heaven. “There hasn’t been a woman born who could keep you under lock and key,” she called after him.
Already downstairs, he paused as he tugged up his jeans. It amazed Terrance how little she knew about the power she had over him. After punching his arms through the shirt, he began buttoning it. There were two buttons unaccounted for in the middle. By all rights, her ignorance should have been a good thing, he thought, but he couldn’t make up his mind whether he believed it or not.
“Sure I can’t drive you?” he asked as he watched her come flying down the stairs. He pushed his feet into his loafers.
She came to a halt, looking around for her purse. It was under the table. She didn’t bother trying to remember how it got there. “I’m sure.”
“By the way, what’s the emergency?” He wanted to know. In all the excitement, he’d forgotten to ask.
Catching her hair with one hand, she stuck a barrette through it, keeping it from her face. She looked all of twenty, he thought. “Three-year-old with the croup.”
“Scary thing,” he agreed.
She remembered her first encounter with the disease that hopscotched through early childhood, wantonly making patients uncomfortable and terrorizing parents. “Scarier looking than it actually is. All parents think their child is choking to death.”
About to dash out the door, Alix paused suddenly. Turning toward Terrance, she allowed herself one last quick, hard kiss, knowing that there was nothing about the future she could predict. For all she knew, this was their last kiss and she wanted to leave a resounding impression on him.
“I’ll see you at the hospital.”
And with that she was gone.
She sank down on the sofa in the doctors’ lounge. Her back was killing her, she realized. She couldn’t help wondering if that was because she’d been on her feet the last few hours, or because of the acrobatics she’d executed before that.
Didn’t matter, it still hurt. And her eyes felt like lead, but she knew that, too, would pass.
As soon as she had the little Lewis girl stabilized, she’d called her father and explained the situation. She didn’t know what time she could come by in the morning to pick Julie up. He’d told her not to worry, that Norma would be more than happy to bring her after breakfast. His housekeeper doted on the little girl as if she were her very own granddaughter.
At least she didn’t have to worry about Julie, Alix thought. Just about everything else.
Her eyes closed, Alix blew out a long breath, wondering if it was the lack of sleep or the evening itself that had her feeling neither here nor there. Well, the evening had accomplished one thing: she’d found out that she still loved Terrance with a fierceness that shook her very soul.
Big surprise there, she mocked herself. In her heart, she’d always known that with very little prodding, she would do exactly what she’d done tonight.
Last night, she amended, glancing at her watch. It was almost six in the morning.
So much for playing hard to get, she thought cynically.
But then, she’d
never been good at playing any kind of game. Besides, that wasn’t the problem right now, anyway. The problem was that she had an uneasy feeling that Terrance was only passing through again. Maybe he’d returned to convince himself that he hadn’t made a mistake all those years ago by leaving.
There was something about him, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He was edgy, as if he was prepared to vanish at a moment’s notice.
You’re tired, she told herself.
Tired, and her mind was wandering. This wasn’t the time to try to make any life-altering decisions. For now, she decided, life would go on as it had. One day at a time, that was all any of them could live. Done right, the day that followed would take care of itself.
But how did she know what right was?
Alix placed her hand to her forehead. She had a headache and it was only threatening to become worse.
“Coffee helps to open up the capillaries if you have a headache.”
Her eyes flew open at the sound of his voice.
Terrance was standing in front of her, holding out a container of coffee like a silent peace offering of some sort. He had a second one in his other hand. Both containers sported the logo of the café across the street. Was it open already? she wondered.
Taking the container from him, she smiled her thanks. “What are you doing here, Terrance? You’re not on until eight.”
“I thought you might need some decent coffee.”
She removed the lid, looking at him incredulously. “So you came in two hours early to bring it to me?”
He dropped into the seat beside her. The chocolate-colored sofa sighed, its cushions sinking and bringing their two bodies closer.
“Seemed like the thing to do.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So, how did it go?”
The frantic couple had arrived at the exact same moment she had. “Had more trouble calming down the parents than treating the child.” At one point she’d seriously considered giving the mother a sedative.
“First timers?” She nodded in response. “They’ll learn.” He looked at her. She looked tired clear down to the bone. “If you want to take a quick catnap, I can cover for you.”
A fond feeling surged through her. Did that seem like old times or what? Fresh out of medical school, they had both managed to get accepted at the same hospital for their intern stint and had somehow gotten into the same rotation together. During graveyard shift, they would cover for each other when things got slow, with one of them taking on double duty while the other slept for an hour.
And then he’d left.
Somehow, that always seemed to come up out of nowhere, to hit her as hard as it could right between the eyes. But she had to remember that. Because if she didn’t, when he did it again it would be unbearable.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Alix forced a smile to her lips and shook her head. “No, that won’t be necessary. This coffee should keep me going for a few hours on the fumes alone. What’s in this, anyway? I’m feeling almost human already.”
“Just a double cappuccino.” He remembered she liked regular coffee, but that didn’t seem good enough for the situation. “I took a chance.”
She looked at him over the rim of her container. “Wasn’t that much of a chance.” She looked at him significantly, her mind not on the coffee but the night they’d just shared. “You were pretty assured of the results.”
His smile was slow, easy. “Not as sure as you might think.”
She searched his face. Had he changed that much? “Never knew you not to be confident.”
The shrug was light, careless, belying the import of the words behind it. “I didn’t always tell you everything.”
“No,” she agreed, otherwise she would have had some clue about his sudden departure, been somehow prepared. “You didn’t.”
But the idea of a Terrance who wasn’t sure of his every move was utterly foreign to her.
Uncertainty shimmered in the air, making her wonder. Was he telling her everything now, or were there things he was keeping back? It suddenly occurred to her that he hadn’t done much talking about his life in Boston. Or for that matter mentioned his life once he’d left here. Why? Was he hiding something? A girlfriend? An ex-wife? Or something else?
Trying not to seem too invasive, she turned to face him. “So tell me everything now.”
The request took him completely by surprise. He wondered if she was just talking, or if he should read something into it. “Looking for something to put you to sleep?”
“Nothing about you ever put me to sleep, Terrance.” The wariness that came into his eyes just made her wonder that much more. Was he protecting secrets?
Damn, reality was a bitter brew to drink. She liked it far better when she believed that Terrance would never lie to her, never hold anything back. When she could believe in him even more than she could believe in herself. But those days were gone.
“Don’t look so uneasy, I’m not asking you to play Truth or Dare.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, telling herself she was a big girl now and this kind of thing shouldn’t bother her. Losing your dreams, your faith, was all part of being an adult. “You can keep your secrets. You don’t owe me anything.”
He wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened here, other than he had somehow managed to hurt her again. “Alix—”
Alix rose to her feet, handing him the half-full container and pulling her dignity to her. If she couldn’t have his trust or the truth from him, then she didn’t want anything from him at all.
“Thanks for the coffee, Terrance. But I just remembered, I’m not on E.R. rotation today. That means I get to go home for that catnap.” She glanced at her watch. It was later than she thought. Maybe it was later than they both thought. “I’ve still got a little less than three hours before I see my first patient.”
According to Beauchamp, she still had a few days to go as his E.R. guide and mentor.
“You mean you’re letting me fly solo?” Terrance asked.
His light tone left her cold. “As I recall, you tried out your wings a long time ago. They worked just fine.” And then, just in case he ran into a problem, she added, “Lukas Graywolf is on if you find yourself running into trouble. And you won’t even have to spend the night with him.”
He was on his feet beside her. “Alix—”
But she was already turning on her heel and walking away.
He watched her leave, stunned. He wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened, but he knew he wasn’t happy about it.
“One cold fish, that one.” Harris was slurring his words and swaying dangerously on the bar stool that evening. The man had corralled Terrance just before his shift was over, asking him to come to Gallagher’s with him. It was obvious Harris wanted to unload to someone, and Terrance had hoped that somewhere in the middle of complaining, the man would let something slip.
No such luck. So far his complaints all centered on Alix and the unfruitful evening Harris and his ego had endured.
He’d been lending a sympathetic ear for the past three hours and he’d had about all he could take of this waste of human flesh, but he bit his tongue. Terrance eyed the way Harris was swaying.
He pointed to a booth in the corner. “Why don’t we get a table?”
Harris wrapped both hands around his drink, as if that could somehow steady him. It didn’t. “Can’t. Need to be out in the thick of things.” He nodded at the area around the bar. “Otherwise, how’re all these beautiful women going to see me?”
They saw him, all right, Terrance thought. And probably to a one, they were repulsed. He looked down at the ground beneath the stool. “It’s long way down to the floor from up there.”
Harris tried to stiffen and succeeded marginally. “I’ve got great balance.” He took another partial hit from his glass, then added, “Unlike Juarez.”
Terrance pretended not to be familiar with the name. Riley had given him a complete l
ist just this morning before he’d come in to get his head chewed up by Alix. That’s what he got for trying to be nice.
“Juarez?”
“Security guard.” And then Harris began to laugh as if he’d just told himself a great joke.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Harris began to wave away the question and almost fell from his perch. Terrance caught his arm, steadying him. “You wouldn’t understand.”
His hand still on Harris’s arm, Terrance leaned into him. “Try me.”
Harris licked his lips. “Hiring Juarez as a security guard’s like getting a wolf to guard the sheep.”
Terrance felt he could safely make the only logical guess. He doubted that Harris knew about Juarez’s arrests for petty theft. “He takes things?”
Harris looked at him long and hard, as if debating saying something curt. The next minute he burst out laughing. “Like there’s Krazy Glue on his fingers.”
He and Riley were pretty sure that Juarez had been the guard Alix had seen Harris talking to. But all that could still mean nothing, even with Juarez’s rap sheet. It was ancient history and circumstantial. They needed more. “Big things or little things?”
Harris pulled himself up, sitting straighter. “You ask an awful lot of questions.”
Terrance shrugged, pretending not to care. “You brought up the subject.”
“And since it’s my subject, I’m taking it off the table.” Using his almost empty glass, he pointed toward two women at the far end of the bar. “Hey, how about those two? You like those two, Terry? I’ll let you have first pick.”
“They might have something to say about that.”
“Yeah. ‘Yes,’” Harris said in a breathless voice, mimicking a woman. And then he suddenly paled, his eyes widening in surprise. “Oh, God, I think I’m going to be sick.”
Considering how much Harris had imbibed over the course of the past few hours, Terrance was surprised the man hadn’t gotten sick sooner.
Undercover M.D. Page 12
