Meant for Each Other

by Ginna Gray

  “D-dinner? Oh! I...I, uh, I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  “Other plans?”

  “No. Yes! That is, I need to stay with Quinton.”

  “How about tomorrow night?”

  “Well, you see, my parents have just flown in to be with Quinton and, well...”

  She looked so flustered Mike would have laughed if it hadn’t been so obvious that she was horrified at the thought of going out with him. So much for his fatal charm with the ladies. He knew he should let it go, but he wasn’t quite willing to do that. He might never get another chance like this one. “I see. Then how about a rain check? I tell you what, when the transplant is complete and your brother is out of the woods, we’ll go out and celebrate. How about that?”

  “I, uh, I suppose that would be all right.”

  “Good. Then it’s a date.”

  She gave him a reluctant nod and backed away a step. “I really do have to go now. I need to tell Quinton the good news.”

  “Yeah, and I’d better get back to my patients before my receptionist quits,” Mike agreed, but when she turned to leave he remained where he was and watched her hurry away, his expression thoughtful.

  Well. That was a first. He’d never had to coerce a woman into going out with him before. He’d backed her into a corner and made it damn near impossible for her to say no. Not without appearing to be one colossal ingrate.

  It hadn’t been fair of him, he supposed. Probably he ought to call her and let her off the hook. The woman obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

  Shrugging, Mike turned and headed back to his office. What the hell. The least she could do was share a meal with him. Surely a little bone marrow rated that much.

  Once she was out of Mike’s sight, Leah ducked into the first ladies’ room she found. She went straight to the line of washbasins, ran cold water over her wrists and splashed some on her face. Patting her cheeks with a paper towel, she stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sinks. She was flushed and her heart was racing and her eyes were overly bright. Mike had caught her completely by surprise. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected him to ask her out.

  The mere thought made her heart skip a beat. Mike McCall and her? Impossible.

  She shuddered to think what he would say if he ever learned of her connection to his mother.

  She could only hope that by the time Quinton recovered Mike would have forgotten about calling in that rain check. If not, she would just have to makes excuses until he gave up. She couldn’t go out with Julia’s son.

  Impatiently, she told herself to stop worrying. The invitation had probably just been an impulse. She would deal with the problem when and if it came up, which it probably wouldn’t. Right now she had to get a grip on herself and go tell Quinton the good news.

  Pressing the damp towel to her throat, she closed her eyes, drew several deep breaths and willed her racing pulse to calm.

  Ten minutes later when she entered her brother’s room, Leah was once again in control of her emotions.

  Mike eased opened the back door of his parents’ house and stuck his head inside the kitchen. Spotting Tess standing at the stove, he grinned and gave a low wolf whistle. “Hiya, gorgeous.”

  His stepmother whirled around, holding a wooden spoon in one hand. Her eyes lit up when she spied him. “Mike!” Opening her arms wide, she rushed across the room and, spoon and all, enveloped him in a hug the instant he stepped inside. “Sweetheart, it’s so good to see you. It’s been weeks. We were beginning to think you had forgotten us.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry, but I’ve been snowed under lately. Half my patients have the flu, and it seems that all those who don’t have come down with chicken pox.”

  “Oh, the poor darlings. And you, you must have been worked to death.”

  “It was hectic for a while, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Really,” he added, seeing her worried expression.

  Not convinced, Tess searched his face, her eyes full of motherly concern. Mike pretended to scowl. “Hey, don’t fret, Tess. I’m fine. Couldn’t be better. Okay?”

  Despite his protest, her concern warmed him. It was typical of Tess. She was a gentle, loving, nurturing woman, and he blessed the day that she had come into their lives.

  Though his father adored Tess, at first, out of bitterness, he had tried like hell to resist her charms. Not Mike. From the time he had met her as a thirteen-year-old kid, he’d been drawn to her softness and her giving nature. He and his dad had been on their own for eight years, and he had been starved for feminine attention and a mother’s love, and Tess, bless her, had taken him into her heart without reservation. She might not have borne him, as she had his two sisters and brother, but in his heart she was his mother—the only one he had ever known, or at least the only one he could remember.

  After an inspection satisfied her that he wasn’t about to keel over from exhaustion, Tess smiled tenderly and patted his cheek. “If you say so. Anyway, I’m glad you came by. We don’t see nearly enough of you these days.”

  “Yeah, well, the feeling is mutual.” Mike raised his head and sniffed. “Something sure smells good. I hope there’s enough for one more.”

  “There’s always enough for you. You know that.” She put the spoon down on the counter and linked her arm through his. “Now, come on, let’s go into the den. Your dad will be so pleased to see you. So will the kids.”

  Mike’s father sat in his favorite chair reading the newspaper. Eight-year-old Katy lay sprawled on her belly on the floor in front of him, her gaze glued to the television.

  “Look who’s here,” Tess said.

  Mike’s baby sister tossed an indifferent glance over her shoulder, did a double take and shot up like an uncoiling spring. “Mike!” she squealed, and launched herself into his arms.

  “Hey, Katydid! How’s it going?” He whirled around with the child, and she squealed again with delight.

  Mike’s father lowered his newspaper and got to his feet, a smile softening his harshly handsome face.

  “When did you get here? Are you staying for dinner? Will you play checkers with me after?” Katy asked.

  “Katy, let your brother catch his breath before you start bombarding him with questions,” their father ordered.

  Ryan clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder, and when Mike turned his head and met his gaze he felt that old familiar tug of love and admiration for this strong, good man who was both his father and his best friend. A few wrinkles lined his father’s face these days and his hair was going gray, but at fifty-five, Ryan McCall was still lean and fit and ruggedly handsome.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “’Evening, Son. It’s good to see you. You are staying for dinner, I hope.”

  “You bet. I wouldn’t miss a chance at Tess’s cooking. Just the smell is driving me nuts.”

  “Mmm, you and me both.”

  Ryan glanced at his wife, and they exchanged a look so full of love and unspoken communion that Mike felt a twinge of envy. His father and stepmother had a special relationship, a sort of bonding of souls that you rarely saw. Even after sixteen years of marriage the sexual tension between them was so strong the air practically crackled with it when they were in the same room.

  “Well, you’re going to have to wait a bit,” she informed them. “Dinner won’t be ready for another half hour.”

  Ryan gave Mike’s shoulder another pat and nodded toward the bar in the corner. “If you want something to tide you over, there are beer and soft drinks in the fridge and the usual assortment of hard stuff. Help yourself.”

  Mike was behind the bar, bending to inspect the contents of the small refrigerator, when a commotion erupted in the hallway just outside the room. Seconds later the elder of Mike’s sisters, sixteen-year-old Molly, burst into the den. Dogging her heels and making sappy faces at the back of her head came their brother.

  “Stop it, you little dweeb, or I’m going to slap you silly.”

  Thirteen-year
-old Ethan was not in the least intimidated. He danced around her, weaving and bobbing, thumbs stuck in his ears, fingers wagging, a taunting expression on his face.

  “‘Molly and Steven, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,‘” he chanted in a tormenting singsong.

  “Oh, that is so immature.”

  “‘First came love, then came marriage, then came—’”

  “Moth-er! Will you please make this brat shut up?”

  “Ethan, behave yourself.”

  “‘A baby in a baby carriage.’”

  “All right, Ethan, that’s enough,” Ryan ordered in the quiet but firm voice that all the McCall children, Mike included, knew meant business. “Leave your sister alone.”

  “I was just singing a song. I wasn’t doing nothing,” the gangly boy insisted, giving his father a wounded look.

  “You weren’t doing anything.” the former schoolteacher in Tess corrected automatically. “And I want you to stop it right now.”

  “Aw, Mom—”

  “You heard your mother.”

  “Shoot. A guy can’t have any fun around here,” Ethan groused, and flopped on the sofa in a sulk, his arms crossed over his scrawny chest.

  “Ah, yes, the plaintive call of adolescence.” Mike popped the tab on a soft drink. “I remember it well.”

  Molly swiveled her head around. “Mike! I didn’t know you were here.”

  For a second Ethan jerked to attention, his eyes widening with excitement. Just as quickly he subdued the reaction, slumped back on his spine and strove to appear cool. Rolling his head on the sofa back he smiled lazily. “Yo, Mike. How’s it going, man?”

  “Great. Just great. So how’s school?”

  Ethan groaned.

  Grinning, Mike tipped up the can of soft drink and took a long pull as he came out from behind the bar. He paused beside the sofa long enough to ruffle the boy’s red hair, then he went to his sister and gave her a hug. “Hiya, beautiful. I swear, you’re getting prettier by the day.”

  “Really? Do you mean that, or are you just teasing?” Molly cast a baleful glance at her younger brother. “Like someone else I know.”

  “Sweetie, I’m dead serious. One of these days you’re going to be as gorgeous as your mother.”

  Molly blushed, but it was easy to see that she was pleased.

  “Hey, Mike, got any new jokes?”

  “Oh, please. Does a goose go barefoot?” Tess said, chuckling.

  “Honestly, Ethan, you are such a baby.” Molly gave a sniff of pure disgust. “You know that Mike just makes up those corny jokes to entertain his sick patients.”

  “Yeah, right. Then why have I been listening to them ever since he was four years old?” Ryan muttered, but one corner of his mouth twitched.

  “Sure I’ve got a joke. Knock, knock,” Mike started.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Cash.”

  “Cash who?”

  “Gee, Ethan, I didn’t realize you were some kind of nut.”

  The boy fell over on the sofa in a fit of giggles, while Molly rolled her eyes. Mike grinned at his groaning parents.

  “Tell me one! Tell me one, Mike!” Katy jumped up and down, clapping her hands.

  “Okay, munchkin. Here’s yours. Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Snow.”

  “Snow who?”

  “Snow use asking me. I don’t know.”

  The giggles from Katy and Ethan and his parents’ groans all increased in volume, and Mike’s grin widened.

  “Mothhh-er, make them stop!” Molly wailed. “Steven will be here any minute. I’ll just die if they tell any of those awful jokes in front of him.”

  “Steven?” Mike looked at his sister, then his parents. “Who’s Steven?”

  “Aw, he’s just some geeky guy Molly’s all goo-goo eyed over. She’s always talking to him on the phone and mooning over his picture.”

  “I don’t do any such thing! And Steven is not a geek! And if you say anything to embarrass me when he comes to pick me up for our date, I swear I’ll make you sorry, Ethan McCall.”

  “Date? What do you mean, date? You’re going out with a boy? All by yourself?”

  “Of .course with a boy. You don’t have to make such a big deal of it. This is my first single date, but I’ve been double-dating for the past six months.”

  “What! Why didn’t anybody tell me?” Mike felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. His little sister, out with some hormone-crazed adolescent? Not if he could help it.

  “Maybe because we knew you’d go ballistic.”

  “With good cause,” Mike fired back. “You’re too young to be dating.”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “You see what I mean. You’re as bad as Daddy.”

  Mike turned an accusing look on his father. “I can’t believe you’re allowing this.”

  “Hey, I don’t like it any more than you do, but I got outvoted. Her mother thinks it’s okay.”

  “It most certainly is not okay! Tess, what were you thinking? Why, she’s just a baby.”

  “I am not a baby. I’m almost seventeen!”

  Mike snorted. “Yeah, in another seven months. I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit. Just what do you know about this young punk?”

  “Mom!”

  “Calm down, Molly. Everything will be fine.” Tess sent her stepson a reproving look. “Mike, I know this is difficult for you and your father to accept, but Molly is growing up, and sixteen is old enough to date. I seem to recall that you dated at sixteen, just as soon as you got your driver’s license.”

  “Yeah, well, that was different.”

  “No, dearest, it wasn’t. I know you don’t believe it, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this.” Smiling, Tess patted Mike’s cheek. “Now, wipe that frown off your face, and when Steven comes to pick Molly up you be nice to him.”

  It wasn’t easy. When the introductions were made Mike had to grit his teeth and force a smile as he shook the seventeen-year-old’s hand. The kid was painfully shy—gangly and awkward, all hands and feet and bobbing Adam’s apple. Mike might have felt sorry for him if he had been dating anyone else’s sister. Before he could ask the kid any questions, Molly hustled him out the door.

  “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.” Taking both Mike and his father by the arm, Tess steered them away from the window and toward the dinning room as Steven’s battered pickup roared down the street. “Stop worrying. Molly is a sensible girl with a level head on her shoulders and a strong sense of right and wrong.”

  “It’s not her behavior I’m worried about,” Mike grumbled.

  He was so unsettled he contributed little to the conversation over dinner beyond an occasional grunt or nod. He barely even tasted the delicious roast chicken and dressing that Tess had made. He couldn’t help it. Anyway, it was a big-brother’s prerogative to worry about his sister.

  Mike supposed, technically speaking, he wasn’t really Molly’s brother. They weren’t blood kin, anyway.

  Molly was Tess’s daughter from her first marriage, but her husband had died before she had even known she was expecting his child. Molly had been only a few months old when Tess and his father had married, and from that day forward, as far as Mike was concerned, Molly had been his baby sister. In his heart, she was as much his sister as Kate.

  Mike spent so much time fretting over Molly he almost forgot the reason he had come over. Halfway through coffee and dessert, he made the announcement as casually as possible.

  “By the way, just so you’ll know, I’m taking a few days off this coming week.”

  “Good. You need a vacation.”

  “Tess is right. You work too hard. It’ll do you good to get away for a while. Where are you going?”

  “Well, actually, I’m not going anywhere.... I’m going to donate bone marrow on Friday.”

  Tess’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “What did you say?”

  “I’m donating bone marrow,”
he repeated, keeping his gaze on his food and his voice matter-of-fact. “Dr. Albright’s younger brother has leukemia. He’s critical. His only chance is a transplant. It’s the darnedest thing—a million-to-one miracle, really—but my HLAs match his perfectly.”

  “Dr. Albright,” Tess said tentatively. “That’s the young woman doctor you told us about, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one who won’t give you the time of day, right?”

  His father’s bluntness came as no surprise to Mike. Nor did the slight edge to his voice. Ryan McCall loved Tess more than life itself. She had made him happy beyond his wildest dreams. Still, every now and then traces of the old bitterness toward Mike’s mother, and women as a whole, surfaced.

  “Yeah, well, there’s no accounting for taste,” Mike replied with a grin. “The point is, her brother needs my help.”

  “Is this procedure dangerous?” Tess tried to appear calm, but her hand shook as she reached for her coffee cup.

  “Nah, not really. Not for me, at any rate. From my side, it’s fairly simple. After the doctors harvest my marrow I’ll have to stay in the hospital for a few days while my body recovers and regenerates marrow. That’s all. It’ll be touch-and-go for Dr. Albright’s brother, though.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Ryan watched his son, his face harsh with concern.

  “A seventeen-year-old kid will die if I don’t, Dad.”

  “Can’t they get anyone else?”

  “Apparently not. They’ve been trying to find someone for weeks with no luck. I’m the boy’s only hope.”

  “I see.” Ryan thought for a moment, then said decisively, “Reilly and I were going to the Dallas Home Show tomorrow, but I’ll have my secretary cancel my reservations so Tess and I can be there.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. That’s not necessary. There’s no need for either of you to be there. Look, I know how important the Dallas Home Show is to your business. I don’t want you to miss that. Besides, I swear to you, the risks for me are minimal.”

  A frown creased Ryan’s brow. “You’re sure about that?”

  “Hey, I’m a doctor. Remember? You just go on to Dallas. I’ll be fine.”