Hero For the Asking

by Gina Wilkins

Yes, it was perfect for her. Even though it made her cry. "How are you, Summer? And Derek?"

  "We're fine. Connie and Joel were married last weekend, you know. It was a small ceremony, very sweet. Connie and I cried all the way through it. Derek acted like we were being very silly, but I saw him wipe his eyes once. He's denied it ever since, but I know what I saw."

  "I'm very...happy for them," Spring managed, though there was a break in her voice.

  "Clay was there, too."

  "Oh." Don't, Summer. Please.

  "I don't see him as much now as I did before. He's staying very busy these days."

  "Is he?"

  "Oh, Spring, you're miserable, aren't you? And I know he is, too. If only you'd seen his face during that wedding. He looked so unhappy."

  "Summer, he knows where I am, how to get in touch with me. If...if he wanted a relationship with me, he would call." Instead, he'd sent her a bracelet and a card that only wished her a happy birthday. Nothing more.

  "I think he's scared of the way you made him feel."

  "Maybe he was. But whatever the reason, he's the one who ended it. I'm not going to chase after him, Summer. I can't. And, please, don't say anything to him. Please."

  "I won't. He wouldn't let me, anyway. Like you, he refuses to talk about it. I'm so sorry, Spring."

  "So am I. But I'll get over it." Maybe. Like when she was too old to remember.

  "Happy birthday, Sis."

  "Thanks for calling, Summer."

  She hung up the phone and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. Happy birthday, sweet Spring.

  * * *

  It hadn't been one of her better days. It was ninety-seven degrees on this second Monday in July, the humidity was hovering at eighty-three percent and the air conditioner in Spring's offices had gone out. A frantic call had been put in to the repairman, but he hadn't shown up yet. Thanks to one woman who'd insisted on telling Spring her entire history of eye problems, covering some sixty-five years, Spring was running a bit late with her appointments. There were people sweltering in the waiting room, a small child was crying lustily as he waited for his brother to be fitted for glasses and the telephone hadn't stopped ringing all day.

  Kelsey's dark hair was damp around her flushed face as she scrambled to keep up with calls and appointments. Spring's assistant, Andi, was dashing from one examining room to the other and Spring was trying to convince a very vain young woman that her particular vision problem did not lend itself to contact lenses. The woman left in a huff, informing Spring that she would get a second opinion.

  "She'll find someone who'll fit her for contacts, you know," Andi predicted glumly.

  "Yes, I know. And she'll be sorry later." Spring sighed as she swept a damp tendril of limp silvery hair back from her own glasses, which were causing her face to sweat. At times like this she considered getting contact lenses herself. The main reason she hadn't was because she thought they were just too much trouble. "Is the repairman here yet?"

  "Yes, he just walked in. Kelsey took him straight to the compressor and told him she'd chain him to it if he didn't have it working in half an hour or less."

  Spring laughed tiredly. "Sounds like Kelsey. How many more do we have?"

  Andi checked the clipboard she held. "Mrs. Gray is in Room One. Needs a new prescription for her reading glasses. I just took Danny Gipson into Two. His glasses are in; you just need to fit them. We've got one more waiting in the lobby—a woman in her twenties who's been having headaches. Oh, and there's one last appointment due later, but he's not here yet."

  "Maybe he'll be running late, too, and he won't have to wait in this heat. Do you have Mrs. Gray's file with you?"

  Twenty minutes later Spring sat back on her stool, smiling with satisfaction at the seven-year-old boy grinning back at her, two of his front teeth notably absent. His freckled face was now enhanced by a stylish pair of glasses, through which his green eyes sparkled. "I see good through these, Dr. Reed," he informed her.

  "That's great, Danny. Now you'll start making home runs every time you're up to bat, I'll bet."

  He chuckled in pleasure. "Well, sometimes, maybe. I sure was glad to find out I'm not a klutz. Just blind."

  Spring wrinkled her nose at him and affectionately ruffled his sandy hair, causing the gold bracelet on her wrist to sparkle in the bright office lighting. "You're not blind, Danny. You're just a little nearsighted. It happens to the best of us." She tapped her own plastic frames.

  "Am I done now, Dr. Reed?"

  "Yes, you are. What's your hurry?"

  "I gotta go beat up Bobby Clary."

  Spring's eyes widened in surprise. "Why would you want to beat up Bobby Clary?" she demanded.

  "'Cause he's gonna call me 'Four Eyes,'" Danny replied happily. "See ya, Dr. Reed," he added, scrambling out of the examining chair.

  "Don't break those glasses, Danny!" she called after him. Something told her she'd be seeing quite a bit of Danny.

  The repairman had worked some kind of magic with the air conditioner, and already the offices were feeling cooler. Spring sighed in relief as she stepped into her office half an hour later after seeing her next-to-last patient. "Did our final appointment ever arrive?" she asked Andi.

  "He's in Room Two." Andi rolled her expressive blue eyes. "And is he something! Kelsey's already given him her phone number."

  Spring groaned dramatically and straightened her glasses. "What am I going to have to do to keep her from chasing after my patients?" she asked teasingly, glad to know that Kelsey's flirtatiousness remained within the bounds of good taste—while in the office, anyway. "What's this guy's name?"

  Andi checked her clipboard. "Mr. Crowe. He's dressed kind of loud, but he's totally hot. Wait until you see him. Need any help?"

  "I think I can manage, thank you." Spring's smile had faded a bit at the description of the man's clothing. Tiny reminders like that hurt, even after four months. Clay was still as firmly entrenched in her mind and heart as he'd been the night they'd made love, even though she hadn't heard another thing from him since the arrival of the bracelet she'd worn every day since her birthday.

  Spring checked her appearance in a wall mirror before going in for her final appointment of the trying day. Her hair was still pinned up, though the tendrils that had escaped had frizzed a bit from the humid heat. Her makeup had long since faded from perspiration. The white lab coat she wore as a uniform over her plum cotton shirtdress was badly wrinkled. She looked as if she'd just put in a long, hard day. Oh, well, she thought in rueful resignation, it was just as well that she wasn't interested in the "hot" man waiting in Room Two. Kelsey could have him.

  Donning her most professional smile, Spring strode briskly into Room Two, then stopped short, staring at the man in the examining chair. "Oh, my God."

  "Awed reverence isn't necessary," her patient responded gravely, watching her with warm blue-green eyes. "You can just call me Clay."

  Over a bright blue T-shirt he was wearing the wildest tropical print shirt she'd ever seen—huge parrots and oleanders in red, yellow, blue, hot pink and white—with red drawstring-waist slacks and red canvas deck shoes. He'd knotted a yellow kerchief around his right knee—for no particular reason that she could tell. He looked wonderful. Exactly as she remembered him—except, perhaps, for the small lines around his eyes. They seemed deeper, more prominent than they'd appeared before, making him look almost his age. "What are you doing here, Clay?"

  "I need my eyes checked," he replied casually, leaning back in the chair and examining the equipment around him with interest. "Do you really know how to use all this stuff?"

  "You came all the way from San Francisco to have your eyes examined?" Spring repeated sceptically, ignoring his question.

  "Only the best for these baby blues," he replied, batting his eyelashes at her audaciously.

  "Your eyes are not baby blue, they're somewhere between blue and green." Spring twisted her hands in front of her, he
r heart pounding beneath the wrinkled white lab coat. She was fighting two impulses, both equally inappropriate. The first was to run screaming from the room, protecting herself from any further pain at this man's hands. The second was to throw herself on his colorfully clad body and ravish him, keeping him chained to the chair until she grew tired of him. She figured that fifty or sixty years ought to do it.

  "So you went to optometry college in Memphis?" Clay asked, reading the diploma on the wall.

  "Yes. Clay—"

  "See, I read that. No problem, right?"

  Spring moistened her lips, still staring at him from the spot that she seemed to have been frozen to. She wouldn't ask him again why he was here, she decided. Her voice seemed to have left her, anyway.

  Clay looked at her, smiled and held out his hand. "Come here."

  It took her a second to propel herself across the room. And then she was in his lap and his arms were around her and he was kissing her. There were tears on her face, tears on his, and they were both apologizing between kisses.

  "Spring, I'm so sorry."

  "Oh, Clay, I never should have said—"

  "God, I've missed you."

  "I've missed you, too. And you do have dignity."

  "And I'm sorry I called you a snob. You're—"

  Spring leaned backward, frowning. "You didn't call me a snob."

  "I didn't?"

  "No."

  "Oh." He kissed her again, then smiled. "Then I'm sorry I thought about calling you a snob."

  She cupped his face in her hands and stared fiercely into his eyes. "Clay, why are you here?"

  "To get my eyes checked, Spring. And to see you."

  She laughed, happier than she'd been in four long months. "You really want me to examine your eyes?"

  "You bet. You can handle it, can't you?"

  "I can handle it." She leaned forward and planted her mouth firmly on his, her arms going around his neck.

  "Dr. Reed, there's a tele— Oh, excuse me."

  Flushing vividly, Spring looked around to find her assistant staring at her in wide-eyed astonishment. "Oh, Andi. What is it?"

  "You have a telephone call."

  Feeling Clay vibrating with suppressed laughter beneath her. Spring planted her hands on his chest and pushed herself out of his lap. "All right, I'll take it. And then," she added to Clay, "I'm going to test your vision. Actually, I've been wanting to do so ever since I caught you playing slide trombone with the play program on our first date."

  Clay frowned. "You're not really planning to put me in glasses, are you?"

  "We'll see," she replied mysteriously, throwing him a laughing glance over her shoulder as she left the room. She decided to take the call in the business office that looked out on the empty reception area.

  "Want me to go keep our patient happy while you take this call?" Kelsey asked hopefully when Spring reached for the phone on Kelsey's desk.

  Spring held the receiver, her finger hovering over the hold button. Now she knew why she'd chosen to use this particular telephone. "Did you really give him your phone number?"

  "You bet. Isn't he gorgeous?"

  Spring leaned her hip on Kelsey's desk and gave her friend a hard stare. "I want your phone number changed. Immediately."

  With a sputter of startled laughter Kelsey dropped her pencil and stared back at Spring. "Does this mean you're over that Clay guy in California?"

  "This means he is that Clay guy. And he's not in California, he's in my examining room!"

  Kelsey's mouth fell open comically. "That's him? No kidding?" At Spring's happy nod she sighed gustily. "Wouldn't you know it. I fall in love at first sight, and the guy's already taken. Besides that, I think I've just lost your grandmother's earrings!"

  Her heart jumping. Spring took a deep breath and took her call, trying to sound professional when all she wanted to do was sing with joy.

  Clay had come for her!

  Chapter Ten

  "Spring, are you quite sure I need glasses?"

  "Clay, I've told "you that they're only for reading. You'll be much more comfortable with your school paperwork when your eyes are under less strain."

  "What did you call what I have again?"

  Spring smiled indulgently and unlocked the door to her apartment. "Hyperopia. You're slightly farsighted, Clay, and you have a touch of astigmatism. I explained all that in my office." She pushed open the door and stepped in, her stomach tightening nervously now that she and Clay were actually going to be alone for the first time in four months.

  "Yes, I know, but...glasses! Just think how everyone will tease me."

  He reminded her of Danny ready to beat up Bobby Clary for calling him "Four Eyes." She had to laugh. "They certainly would tease you if I'd let you choose those frames you tried on. Honestly, Clay, they made you look like...like Elton John, in one of his flashier concert outfits."

  "Hey, you're the one who carries them in stock."

  "Yes, but I never sell them to adults. Only to very strange teenagers."

  "And I qualify on only one of those counts, right?" Clay walked around the living room into which she'd led him, trailing his fingers along a particularly nice Louis Philippe reproduction table. "You seem to be very good at your job. Very thorough."

  "The exam doesn't normally take quite that long. But then, most of my patients don't pull me onto their laps or pinch me in various places when I look into their eyes."

  He grinned. "I have to admit that I haven't enjoyed an examination so much in a long time." Without waiting for her response he looked once more around what he could see of her apartment. "This is nice. Very nice."

  Pleased, she smiled at him. "Somehow I thought you'd like it."

  "Odd, isn't it? This could almost be my place." He shot her a look that made her skin tingle, then glanced at the painting above her mantel. "I was with Summer when she bought this. She said you'd seen it and liked it."

  "Yes." She didn't tell him why she hadn't bought it for herself. Nor did she tell him how many times in the past weeks she'd stared at it and cried. "I haven't thanked you yet for the bracelet."

  "Yes, you did. You sent me a very proper little note thanking me and telling me that I shouldn't have sent it." A note he hadn't answered. Stopping beside her, he caught her hand in his and lifted it, admiring the bracelet on her wrist. "Thank you for not sending it back. I wanted you to have it."

  "Why?" she asked, the word a mere whisper.

  He pressed a kiss into her palm. "I wanted you to wear it and think of me."

  She swallowed. "I didn't need a bracelet for that."

  "Did you think of me, sweet Spring?" He pulled her closer, his hands sliding around her waist as he asked the question.

  "Yes," she murmured through suddenly dry lips.

  "A lot?"

  "Yes."

  "Good," he muttered into her hair. "Because I haven't stopped thinking of you since you left. Or missing you. Or wanting you."

  "Oh, Clay." She didn't consciously place her arms around his neck, but suddenly they were there, and she was crowding close to him with all the hunger that had built up in the months since she'd seen him. He groaned and gathered her into his arms, holding her as if he'd never let her go again. She prayed that he wouldn't.

  "Spring, there's so much I want to say to you, but all I can think about right now is making love to you. God, it's been so long."

  "Yes, Clay, please. We can talk later." Trembling in anticipation, she pressed dozens of little kisses on his jaw, his neck, his cheek, anywhere she could reach.

  His hand removed her glasses and placed them on a nearby table, then went to her hair, scattering pins across her cream-colored carpet. "You're wearing it up again," he complained.

  "There's been no one to wear it down for," she answered, shaking her head slowly so that the tresses he'd loosened fell in a tumble around her shoulders.

  "Thank God." He lifted her into his arms, swinging her in a full circle before stopping to kiss her.
"Where's your bedroom?" he demanded when he released her mouth.

  "Upstairs, first door on the left," she answered, snuggling into his shoulder.

  "Too far." He lowered her to the carpet, following immediately to capture her mouth again. Before the kiss ended, he had her plum cotton shirtdress unbuttoned and halfway off. She cooperated eagerly, as anxious as he to be rid of the barriers between them. When her clothing was gone, they both began on his, tossing the colorful garments into a careless heap beside them. "Come here," he muttered, when nothing was left to separate them.

  He pulled her into his arms, then rolled so that she was stretched on top of him, her hair falling around their faces. "This is what I've needed for the past four months," he told her, his fingers sliding slowly down her back to cup her bottom and hold her to him. "Nothing between us. No miles, no arguments, no clothing. Just you and me."

  She lowered her head to nibble on his lower lip, wriggling a little to settle herself more comfortably against him. He was hard and hot against her, eliciting a warm, throbbing response from deep within her. "What took you so long to get here?" she asked, amazed at the sultry sensuality of her own voice. She was so different with Clay. Sexy and uninhibited and playful. She loved the way he made her feel. She loved him, but she wasn't ready to tell him. Not until he gave her some indication of his own feelings.

  God, he loved her. He pulled her mouth firmly to his, kissing her as if to make up for four months of deprivation. She felt so good on top of him. Holding her, he twisted onto his side. She felt so good beside him. He rolled again. She felt so good beneath him.

  "You feel good everywhere," he told her huskily, relishing the little laugh he received in response. "Am I too heavy for you?"

  "No," she answered, looking up at him with an adoring expression that made him want to shout in masculine triumph. Or cry. He kissed her instead.

  "Love me. Clay. Please love me."

  "I will, Spring. I do. I love you so much." And then he was moving, slipping inside her to lose himself in the dark velvet depths of her, and she was curling around him to hold him and he thought he'd never felt such pleasure in his entire life. Or at least, he amended on one last, rational fragment of thought, not since the last time he'd been inside her.