“Right. When you asked if there was anyone to call. And the answer is yes. I have parents and they live there, too.” He held out his empty coffee mug to her.
She took it and wrapped her hands around it. “Tell me about them.”
“Keep this up and I’ll show you how much better I can do than that kiss,” he challenged, his blue eyes turning dark and dangerous.
“If you want me to leave, why don’t you just ask?”
“If I did, would you go?”
“No.”
“If I ask you to stop with the personal questions, would you?”
With all her heart she wanted to avoid personal. And to do that she would have to disregard his rugged, devil-may-care looks and his sharp, intelligent wit. She’d seen just a glimpse of charm and was eternally grateful. If he had any to spare and used it on her, she would be a goner. And how stupid would it be to fall for a guy who’d been hurt so deeply he had every reason to turn his back on emotional commitment? He was on the edge; obviously he didn’t want to care about anyone.
Even if Janet was right and Megan could work a miracle and get through to him, he was the wrong man for her. The unbelievable coincidence tying them together made it out of the question. She would do her best to bring him back to the living as fast as possible. Before her emotions passed the point of no return.
She stood up. “All you had to do was say you don’t want to talk about it.”
“I believe I did in nearly every way I know.”
Shrugging, she said, “I guess I missed it. Now, since your most immediate problems are taken care of, I have things to do before my shift is over.”
“What kind of things?”
“I need to lay in supplies and make something for dinner that you can nuke. I’ll try to make you comfortable, anticipate your needs. Unless you want me to get a night nurse—”
“No way.” He shifted his position on the sofa as if the vehemence of his answer had somehow vibrated through him, producing pain. Then his gaze met hers, with a swift flash of vulnerability he probably didn’t know was there. “You’ll be back tomorrow?”
She wanted to say no, but fate had taken that choice away from her. “Yes.”
Early the next morning Simon swept aside the sheets Megan had put on the couch. Before she’d left the day before, she’d made up a bed there because it was easier than hauling his carcass up even half a flight of stairs to the master bedroom on the town house top level. It worked for him because there was a half bath on the main floor.
He settled himself and let out a long breath, tired already and he hadn’t performed even half the daily personal care ritual he normally accomplished with hardly a second thought. If Megan hadn’t prepared so much before ending her shift yesterday, he’d have needed that pain medication she got for him. The effort it took to care for himself was considerable. Energy she had said he would need to heal. Which was what had compelled her to return after he’d tried to get rid of her with that kiss.
Would she come back today? Anticipation hummed through him. She’d teased him yesterday about hospital care being more efficient than what she could provide. From his experiences, he knew there were sponge baths. Was there one in his future? A man could hope.
Hope.
There was a word he hadn’t used in a long time. It stretched and groaned inside him. How long had it been since he’d looked forward to anything? When he remembered, guilt crowded in. He had no right to hope. Marcus was gone. He would never be excited about anything ever again—a trip to an amusement park, learning how to drive, the nervous excitement before kissing a girl, making love, marriage. He would never have a child—a son.
Before Simon could descend lower into the familiar black pit of despair, he heard a key in the front door. It opened a crack before Megan called out, “Ready or not here I come.”
Megan. She’d taken a key before leaving the day before. So he wouldn’t have to get up and let her in. She didn’t know peace eluded him day and night.
When the door swung wide, giving him an unobstructed view of her wide, bright smile and sparkling eyes, the most amazing thing happened. His miserable mood evaporated. It didn’t stand a chance in the face of such formidable, unadulterated, cheerful, sunshiny perkiness.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“How are you today?”
How was he? God help him, he could almost do the dance of joy in spite of his bum leg he was so damned glad to see her. It was then he realized how much he’d dreaded that she wouldn’t come back. She’d said she would, but no one knew better than he that you didn’t always get what you wanted.
“I’m sore,” he said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“More sore than yesterday.”
“That’s not a surprise.”
“Those range of motion exercises are an invention of the devil.”
She laughed. “It means they’re working. You could be a good boy and take your medication.”
He wasn’t a boy and definitely not good. “That would be too easy. No pain, no gain.”
“Right,” she said. “Suffering the consequences of your actions and all that.”
“I bet you’re a good mom.”
She stopped in the middle of removing her sweater and met his gaze. Almost guiltily, he thought. What in the world could an angel like Megan have to feel guilty about? He, on the other hand, had a Ph.D. in guilt and couldn’t imagine she could know the first thing about it.
She hung her sweater on the stair rail. “I’d like to think I’m a good mom, but I just try to do the best I can. Have you eaten breakfast?”
He got the feeling she wanted to change the subject and had switched her trademark “hold still” for a food question. He was about to call her on it, then changed his mind. It was prying and that implied interest. He’d lost the right to be interested in anyone.
“No. Have you?”
“Yes. But I’ll fix you something.”
“Gruel?”
She stood on the other side of the coffee table and looked down at him, regarding him thoughtfully. Maybe sadly? “Because you’re being punished for something?”
Well, wasn’t she hitting awfully close to the mark. “No. Because you have a finely tuned capacity for healing and I figure you for a health-nut kind of person who believes in the restorative powers of gruel.”
“Oatmeal professes to lower cholesterol,” she shot back, her mouth twitching.
“Is it a talisman against a bad relationship? A way to ward off jerks like me who are the saturated fat in the veins of your life?”
“What would you like to eat?” she asked sweetly. Too sweetly if the raised eyebrow and spark in her blue eyes were anything to go by. Obviously, she planned to ignore the question.
“Eggs, ham, bacon or sausage. Or better yet, all three. Hash browns, biscuits. Coffee and juice.”
“Well, you hit one healthy food group.”
“Sausage?”
“Juice. Coming right up,” she said, breezing into the kitchen.
Frustrated, he stared at the space where she’d been standing. Then he grabbed his crutches and hauled himself off the couch. Not because the emptiness Megan left in her wake got to him enough to brave the discomfort of a trip to the kitchen. He’d be damned if he’d let her get away with having the last word.
“What gives?” he said. He stood in the doorway, letting his crutches bear the brunt of his weight. The view was worth the aggravation of moving, he thought, admiring her backside.
Bent at the waist, she was scoping out the contents of the refrigerator. She glanced at him, then pulled out food and straightened. After setting the items on the counter beside the cooktop, she said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You gave in without a fight. Are you planning to put me out of my misery by plying me with cholesterol then watching my arteries harden?”
“I thought this was what you wanted.”
“It is, but—”
She pulled a frying pan from the cupboard underneath the cooktop and turned on the burner before settling sausage links in the bottom of it. She angled toward him, a smile softening her mouth as she shook her head, bemused.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re like a teenager who’s begging for limits while at the same time claiming you don’t need any.”
Simon bristled at the comparison. A teenage boy was the last thing he wanted her to see. If he weren’t on crutches he would show her the difference between a boy and a man. Then he remembered how well that kiss had gone over.
“So why are you fixing me what I want without a fight? And why did you buy all that heart-unhealthy stuff in the first place?”
“Because I had a feeling you were a heart-unhealthy kind of guy. And right now your body needs fuel and protein to heal. After that, you can deal with cholesterol issues. If you choose,” she added.
“Why wouldn’t I choose?”
“I didn’t say you wouldn’t.”
“But you don’t think I will?”
“Based on the fact that you don’t even wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle? No.”
He grinned suddenly. “There’s the Megan I know and love.”
She turned back to the pan as it started to sizzle and he missed her reaction to the word love. Why had he said it? Would his off-the-cuff remark scare her away like the kiss had? It was just an expression. She’d said, or almost said, the same thing to him, stopping short of the L word.
“Hey, hotshot,” she said, tossing him a glance over her shoulder. “I’m already cooking. You don’t have to flatter me into doing the dirty work. It’s in my job description.”
So he was just a job.
Good. His conscience was already full without adding Megan to the list. He would only complicate things in her admittedly reluctant love life. She didn’t need the likes of him mucking things up beyond recognition. And if he’d said any of that out loud, she would make some sarcastic remark about protesting too much. She would be right.
“You’re looking awfully serious about something,” she commented. “Let’s table the cuisine debate and talk about something else.”
Fine by him. “Like what?”
“Like why you don’t have any family photographs?”
“I never said I don’t have any.”
“Not displayed,” she pointed out.
“I’m not a picture-displaying sort of guy.”
“Okay.” She turned the meat in the pan and held the tongs over it as she glanced at him. “Tell me about your family. What’s your brother’s name? Are your parents retired? Did you grow up in Arizona? Are you going there for Thanksgiving?”
“Time out,” he said, fitting the palm of one hand over the fingers of the other to form a T.
He didn’t do holidays. Not since Marcus had died. How did she know the most painful things to ask? Was it the contact of that kiss? Did it give her some sort of insight into his subconscious? If so, and for reasons he didn’t want to examine too closely, he wished he hadn’t been stupid enough to kiss her.
“What’s wrong?” she said, all innocence while studying him.
“Let me refresh your memory. Yesterday you said you would stop asking personal questions.”
“Let me set the record straight.” She held up the tongs like a teacher about to use visual aids. “I said if you wanted me to stop, you had to ask.”
“I stand corrected. Would you stop asking personal questions?”
“No.” She turned back to the stove.
“I’d like to trade one nosy home health-care worker for an abrasive ER nurse,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“I said, why are you so nosy?”
She shrugged. “I told you. I like to get to know my patients.”
“Why? Part of the curative process?”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
“I don’t want to try it. The real question is how can I get you to stop the third degree?”
She removed the sausage from the pan and placed it on a plate covered with a paper towel. “Okay. You want me to stop? You’ve got to give me a little something.”
“What?”
“One personal detail about yourself. Something to appease my natural curiosity and stop the questions.”
“Promise?”
“It’s got to be a good detail.”
If she only knew there were no good details in his life. That wasn’t true. There’d been Marcus. But he wasn’t going to share that with her. He couldn’t talk about his son. “Okay. I’m an engineer.”
She glanced over her shoulder and gave him an “oh puhleeze” look. “C’mon. That was on your hospital records. My questions are stacking up and ready to spill over.”
“I started my own company and sold it for a bundle.”
She sighed as she picked up the pan and started to drain the grease into an empty soup can. “You call that a personal detail? I could find that out on my own if I chose to. I want a good detail.”
“Define ‘good.”’
Her brow furrowed and full lips pursed as she thought. “You know. Juicy. Like were you married?”
“Why past tense?”
“This is me. Remember? If you were still married, I wouldn’t be here to take care of you.”
“I could be separated.”
“Are you?”
He shifted his weight on the crutches as his arms started to ache. Something told him she wouldn’t let up unless he told her the truth. “Okay. You win. I was married.”
“Was?”
“She divorced me three years ago. That company I started was pretty successful and turned me into a workaholic. Gone all the time. Business trips. She was lonely and got tired of being ignored.”
“Simon, I’m s—”
“Don’t, Megan.” He heard the sharpness in his tone and almost regretted it. Almost. “Is that juicy enough for you?”
“I believe it takes two people to make or break a relationship.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I’m trying to,” she said.
He met her gaze and despised what he suspected was pity on her face. If he didn’t know better he’d swear she knew… But she couldn’t.
“Look,” he said. “I told you something. Now it’s your turn to share a secret.”
And that was when she dropped the hot skillet.
Chapter Six
Megan managed to dodge the hot pan and scalding grease she’d been draining. The next thing she knew Simon was there. Who knew a recently injured man on crutches could move so fast?
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking her over.
She glanced down. “Nothing worse than grease spots on my scrubs.”
And a zinger to my conscience, she thought. He wanted her to tell a secret? Why had he phrased it that way? Did he know about Bayleigh’s eyes? No way. He wasn’t subtle. If he knew, she would know he knew.
“The pan slipped out of my hand. Just clumsy, I guess,” she said, meeting his gaze.
“I’m glad you didn’t get hit with the clumsy stick when you were picking gravel out of me,” he said, his mouth turning up at the corners.
She snapped her fingers. “That’s it.”
“What?”
“My secret. I’m a kitchen klutz.”
“A hanging offense if I ever heard one.”
Megan’s heart pounded and she couldn’t tell if it was from dropping the pan, his wanting to know her secret, or—she very much feared it was number three—the fact that he was standing a mere two inches from her and she wished he was closer.
“Simon, don’t take this the wrong way, but—”
“When you start out a request like that, it’s a foregone conclusion that bad is going to be the only way to take it.”
“Why don’t you go sit down and elevate your leg?”
“Is that a medical directive or a personal request?”
“B
oth.”
Dark-blue eyes gleamed with male satisfaction. “Do I make you nervous?”
“Yes.”
“In a good way or bad?”
“I’m not going to answer that. Suffice it to say if you want a meal anytime soon, it’s in your best interest to get out from underfoot.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, saluting smartly.
Megan grabbed paper towels to clean up the floor and heard the clump, click of his crutches as he left the room. At least while he needed them to move around, he couldn’t sneak up on her. Letting out a cleansing breath, she closed her eyes for a moment. Fortunately, he didn’t question the fact that her response to his question was flippant. Next time she would be ready when he asked her to reveal something about herself. And there would be a next time because she intended to chip away until he opened up. And she had no doubt he would give as good as he got.
He’d opened the door a crack and, when she made him open wider, she intended to stick her foot in so he couldn’t slam it.
“So when are you going to give me my sponge bath?”
Megan looked up from the blood pressure gauge and met Simon’s enigmatic gaze. He’d eaten breakfast then napped in spite of his stubborn protest that he wasn’t tired, and now she was taking his vitals. The idea of a wash had occurred to her, but she’d been putting it off, hoping he was mobile enough to accomplish the task for himself. Or not bring it up.
“What makes you think you’re entitled to one?” she asked.
“Because the whole concept behind home health care is receiving all the comforts of a hospital, including bed baths, on one’s own turf.”
Megan glanced at his chest. It was automatic, as if someone had said “Don’t look” and of course nine out of ten people looked. In her precarious state of mind the worst thing she could do was look at this half-naked man who did things to her insides she didn’t want done.
And why the heck wasn’t he wearing a shirt? Injuries were no excuse. But she knew even if his chest was covered, the material wouldn’t completely hide the wide shoulders and contour of powerful muscles that tapered to a flat stomach. What it would conceal was the masculine dusting of hair that made her want to touch him, to explore the male textures. How stupid and unprofessional was that?
Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles Page 7
