Ever since the other day when she’d talked about Bayleigh’s father walking out and why, he couldn’t forget the way she’d looked. He’d watched the tension in her face, the pain in her eyes. Didn’t they say the eyes were the window to the soul? If that was true, Megan’s soul needed therapy as much as his leg.
And he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was holding something back. He’d never been especially intuitive. If he had, he’d have known how unhappy Donna was long before she’d announced she was leaving him. But it was different with Megan. He would swear she had something to tell him. It was as if, in some weird way, his pain was connected to hers, giving him insight via some invisible conduit. How crazy was he?
She was right. He shouldn’t give Dr. Phil a run for his money. He was a fool to think about Megan. But he couldn’t help it.
She walked out of the kitchen carrying a tray. He could see steam rising from the plate and the mug of coffee beside it. Then there was that tall glass of juice.
“Here you go.” She bent and set the tray on his lap.
The fragrance of flowers that surrounded her mixed with the smell of cooked bacon and eggs. Her cheeks were pink from the heat of standing over a hot frying pan. Or at least he thought so until her gaze didn’t quite meet his.
“So vitamin C promotes healing,” he said, taking a long drink of juice.
“That’s what I hear.” She walked into the kitchen and came back with a mug of coffee. Then she sat in one of the wing chairs. It was her habit to keep him company while he ate. She always had breakfast with her daughter.
“You don’t think I’m progressing fast enough so you’re bringing in the big guns?”
“I’m merely attempting to provide well-balanced meals.”
“To promote healing.”
“Of course.”
“So you can go on to your next assignment. Someone who isn’t saturated fat?” He thought that was as good a time as any to eat a piece of bacon.
As she blew on her coffee, her gaze—tinged with guilt—met his over the rim of the cup. “Simon, you’re progressing extremely well. Very soon you won’t need me.”
“But not today.”
“Not today,” she agreed. “It’s been a week and you need those stitches out. You’ll want to see the doctor—”
“Why?” He forked up some scrambled eggs as he watched her.
“The wound should be looked at to make sure it’s healed sufficiently. Checked for infection.”
“You can do that.”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“It doesn’t take twelve years of medical school to see it’s healed, then snip and pluck.”
He ate a piece of toast—wheat he noticed—and watched emotions drift across her face like clouds floating over the sun. Reluctance, dread, anticipation, fear. But she didn’t say anything.
“Come on, Megan. I’ve taken my own stitches out before and lived to tell about it.”
“So do it.”
He rolled his shoulder, testing the level of discomfort. “It’s hard to reach. And I can’t do it one-handed.”
“Okay.” She met his gaze. “But sooner or later you’re going to have to see the doctor about that leg.”
“Okay, I will,” he agreed.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
Without comment, she crossed one slender leg over the other and sipped her coffee. The silence stretched between them as he finished his breakfast and put down his fork. She rose and put her mug on the tray, then lifted it from his lap and started for the kitchen.
“Wait a minute,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“The least you could do is argue with me. Don’t you care what happens to my leg?”
One corner of her full mouth quirked up. “Of course.” She started to turn away.
“If you’re concerned, why didn’t you try harder to convince me to let the doc have a look?”
She smiled at him—a serene, indulgent sort of look. “Simon, Simon, Simon. As a rule, a man’s a fool. When it’s hot he wants it cool. When it’s cool he wants it hot. Always wanting what is not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re acting like a cross little boy who’s not getting his way. I can’t make you do anything. I’m not going to waste my breath arguing with you for your entertainment.” Then she turned away.
He grinned at her back as she walked the tray into the kitchen. She sure had his number. And, damn, it felt good to smile—a genuine, spontaneous one that split his face from ear to ear.
A few minutes later she came back and stood beside him. “Okay, let me take a look at those stitches. Take your shirt off.”
“Right.” He grabbed the hem of his black T-shirt and yanked it up and over his head.
She sat beside him on the couch. Her medical bag was on the coffee table next to his propped-up leg and she leaned over to take scissors and tweezer-looking things from it. As she did, her cotton top pulled snugly along the slender line of her back. Not an especially sexy move, but it worked for him. His palm itched to touch her, rub his hand up and down, feel her heat through the material of her scrub top.
She straightened and met his gaze, then her own skittered away. The pulse at the base of her throat fluttered. He wasn’t a health-care professional, but he would swear it was a shade too fast. Did he make her nervous? The thought pleased him in a blatantly male, self-satisfied way.
“Now, then,” she said. “This won’t hurt.”
“So I can leave my biting stick in the drawer?”
“Very funny. I think you can handle this. But the stitches could stick, so you might feel a pull.”
Apparently, she wasn’t content with her angle of attack, because she stood, then bent her knee and knelt on the sofa. She peeled away the tape and lifted the nonstick square covering the area. He watched her small, sure hands as she quickly snipped the sutures, then efficiently plucked them out. He hardly felt a thing. In his shoulder.
Other areas were definitely pulling tight. He wasn’t sure if it was her zinger about him acting like a cross little boy, but he felt the need to know if he was right that she noticed him as a man.
When she finished with his shoulder, she looked at him and said, “I think you’re going to live.”
“Yeah?” He curved his arm around her waist and tugged her down, onto his lap.
“Simon, what—”
He cupped her cheek in his hand and watched awareness chase the surprised expression from her blue eyes. He was going to kiss her and she knew it. He meant business and he was going to do a thorough job. The pounding pulse at the base of her throat told him she knew that, too. Finally, when she didn’t move, he lowered his head and touched her lips with his own.
Slanting his mouth over hers, he moved slowly and deliberately. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue and she instantly opened for him. When he dipped inside the honeyed interior, the sweetness of her drove him to the edge. It had been so long since he’d touched a woman like this, since he’d even wanted to. But there was something about Megan he couldn’t ignore. She gave as good as she got, so vital, so alive.
She made him want more; she made him want—period.
He dragged his mouth from hers and trailed kisses across her cheek and down to her throat. His breathing was ragged; he could barely draw air into his lungs. It was as if she’d knocked the wind out of him. But he could no more pull away from her than he could change the past.
Her hand caressed his bare chest until she slid it up to his neck. In its wake, her palm left a trail of fire. He moved his hand from her face down her shoulder and rested it at her waist. After denying himself for so long, the need to touch her bare skin, to explore the texture of her silky flesh, was a temptation he couldn’t resist.
He found the hem of her shirt and nudged his fingertips beneath, sliding upward. Over her flat midriff, he explored. He savored the sof
tness, the warmth, and settled his palm over her bra. Only thin, nearly transparent lace was between his hand and her small, perfect breast. He heard her sharp intake of breath when he took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, feeling it grow hard.
His insides were like dry tinder. Her moan of pleasure was like a tossed match. Heat exploded inside him. His heart thundered. Where was the heart monitor when you really needed it?
“As a rule a man’s a fool,” he said, his voice husky.
“When it’s hot he wants it cool,” she whispered.
“Not this time.”
He was hard and his erection pressed against the softness of her hip as she burrowed into his chest. She slid her hand from his neck and over his shoulder, fast, frantic movements as if she couldn’t touch him enough. He felt her brush the spot where she’d just removed his stitches. He felt no pain, made no sound, but she froze. In the next instant, she sat up out of his arms, then wiggled off his lap.
“This is wrong,” she said, breathing hard as she looked down at him. “It’s inappropriate.”
“It felt pretty damned appropriate to me. How is it wrong?”
“Let me count the ways,” she said. “I’m your nurse. I kissed you. That behavior crosses the line between personal and professional. I could lose my job.”
“First of all, I started it. Second, no one will find out because I don’t plan to tell. Do you?”
“Of course not.” She put her hands on her hips as her chest rose and fell rapidly. “This can’t happen again, Simon. Not ever.”
“Megan, I—”
“I mean it. I need you to promise or I won’t be back. You can call and have them send someone else.”
He didn’t want anyone else. He also knew she meant what she said. “Okay.”
“Okay. Good.” She let out a long breath. “Now I need to clean up the kitchen.”
He didn’t say anything, just watched her walk away. And tried to ignore the painful throbbing in his groin. It was hard evidence that he wanted her. And she was right about him being a rule-breaker, because he hadn’t promised not to kiss her again. All he’d said was “okay.”
After two years, Simon felt alive again. He had Megan to thank—or to blame. He wasn’t sure which. Nor was he particularly happy about not wanting to let her go.
But none of that changed the fact that he was coming back to life and he didn’t know how to make it stop.
Chapter Nine
“Your pocket is ringing,” Simon said.
Megan looked at him sitting on the couch with his splinted leg elevated and an open book on his lap. She was still mad at him for that kiss two days ago. Or at least trying to be.
“Thanks. If you hadn’t pointed it out, I never would have heard that noise loud enough to wake the deaf.”
It wasn’t easy to stay angry when he looked so good—handsome as opposed to innocent. There was nothing remotely angelic about the dark-blue T-shirt clinging to the muscular contour of his broad chest and pulling snugly around his upper arms. She’d bullied him into letting her trim his hair and she hadn’t done a half-bad job, but she kind of missed the rebellious, longish hair brushing the neck of his shirt. It was almost time for her to leave for the day and she was making sure everything he needed was easily accessible to him.
But as he regarded her, his blue eyes simmering with a hint of humor, she struggled to resist smiling. She was still mad at him. At least she was doing her darnedest to be. It was her best defense against the mysterious thing that drew her to him. What was it? Could she put up a better resistance if she named it?
She wouldn’t call him especially charming. Definitely not charming, she thought, looking at the dark, intense expression on his face.
Still, humor was shining through more often these days. Then there was his in-your-face masculinity and the come-hither expression in his eyes that turned her insides to quivering gelatin. He was probably the sexiest man she’d ever met. And so much more. It was hard not to care about someone who cared so deeply he still grieved.
Putting her back to him, she pulled the cell phone from her pocket. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mommy. What took you so long to answer the phone?”
“Hi, sweetie. It wasn’t long, was it?” Had she zoned in on Simon so completely she’d lost track of time? This was where she changed the subject. “Is everything okay? I’ll be at Grammy’s in a little while to pick you up.”
“I’m fine. But I want to stay with Grammy.”
“What’s going on?”
It was Friday and her mother had picked the child up from school and would keep her until Megan could get there after work. With her cell phone to her ear and Simon close enough to hear every word, she listened to her daughter.
“I want to have a sleepover. Grammy and Grampy are having chicken nuggets and French fries for dinner. You know that’s their favorite.”
“And I guess you don’t like chicken nuggets and fries anymore,” she said, making her voice completely serious as she grinned. Her daughter would eat that seven nights a week if no one forced on her a well-rounded diet.
“They’re okay,” the little girl answered.
Megan could tell she was trying not to sound excited. “I don’t mind if you have dinner there. But I don’t know about a sleepover, sweetie.”
“But Mo-om, we’re going to watch a video. And play games. Grammy’s going to let me do stuff on her computer. And Grampy’s going to get powdered sugar donuts for breakfast.” She stopped, obviously listening to someone in the background. “Grammy says I have to have an apple slice for every donut. And milk. It’s not a school night,” she finished, her voice just this side of a whine.
Megan smiled. “Can you put Grammy on the phone?”
“Okay. Grammy?”
The shout came over so loud and clear, Megan held the phone away from her ear. Then she heard her mother’s voice. “Megan?”
“Hi, Mom. Are you sure this sleepover is okay? She’s pretty high energy. She’ll wear you and Dad out.”
“She’s no trouble. We love having her. You know that. And she loves being here.”
“What’s not to like? You guys spoil her rotten. She gets to do everything she wants. Her every whim is indulged. Why would she give you trouble?”
Her mother laughed. “Are we that bad? Don’t answer that,” she added quickly. “It’s a grandmother’s prerogative to spoil. I did my time with you and Dan and Cassie. My only obligation with Bayleigh is to keep her safe and happy while she’s with me. Don’t scold me, Megan. I earned it.”
Megan shook her head and laughed. “When you put it like that, how can I say no?”
“Good. Mommy said okay,” she told Bayleigh, who was no doubt standing at her elbow. A resounding cheer came through loud and clear. “Besides, Megan, you’re working so hard. It will give you a chance to take it easy for one evening. I get the feeling this particular nursing assignment is pretty demanding.”
Megan glanced at Simon, who was watching her. The smoldering look in his eyes sent sparks dancing over her skin. Definitely demanding. But after the kiss she couldn’t forget, she didn’t want to think about what he was demanding. The other day, if she hadn’t already removed his sutures, the heat the two of them generated would have melted them. Ever since, she’d had a heck of a time keeping her mind on good medicine instead of, good God, why doesn’t he do that again. For one thing, she’d made him promise not to.
If her mother only knew the half of it, how intense this assignment was. Megan had only told her it would last two weeks without a replacement, as requested by the patient. Her parents didn’t know that she was caring for the man whose son had donated corneas to Bayleigh.
“Megan?”
“I’m here. Tell Daddy hi. Don’t let Bayleigh run him ragged.”
“I won’t. She wants to say goodbye.”
“Okay. Bye, Mom. And thanks. Love you.” She waited several seconds.
“Mommy? I love you. Bye.”
“Wait. I love you, too. Be good for Grammy and Grampy.”
“I will. Love you. Bye.”
Then the phone went silent. Megan closed it up and slid it into her pocket. She braced herself, then turned to look at Simon. “I guess I’ll get your dinner started.”
“I couldn’t help overhearing that your responsibilities for the evening end when you’re finished with me.”
She nodded. “Bayleigh’s spending the night with my folks.”
His laserlike gaze locked on her. “Is that a problem?”
He must have heard the what-am-I-going-to-do-with-myself tone in her voice. She was so accustomed to responsibility, without any she felt like a boat ripped from its moorings.
“Not a problem, except for the attitude she’ll bring home with her. But after I get you squared away for the night, I’m footloose and fancy-free.”
“Then don’t go.”
“What?”
“Why don’t you stay and have dinner with me? I can’t promise much but I guarantee it won’t be chicken nuggets and fries.”
It was a really bad idea. She knew because of how badly she wanted to say yes. Because of the way her heart lurched and the way her blood sang through her veins, bringing a heated flush to her skin.
“Thanks, Simon. But I really have to go home.”
“Why? Your daughter is with her grandparents. What’s so pressing?”
“Would you believe a pair of slippers, an easy chair and a good book?”
“I can do better than that.”
His deep, husky tone invaded her body, acting on her senses like warm brandy, caressing her from the inside out. She’d just bet he could do better. A pair of hands that would make her an easy mark and a good kiss that could so easily lead her down the primrose path to paradise followed by pain.
“Simon, you don’t have to entertain me. I really just need to get home.”
“What are you afraid of, Megan?”
“Nothing. I—”
“I know you’re off the clock and my welfare is not your duty, but it would do me good to have your company tonight.”
Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles Page 11
