by Pamela Aares
He turned his head to call to Chloe, then remembered he’d taken the Muni and walked from Twenty-fifth Street.
Chloe came up beside them. “Poor pupper. He’s starving.”
“And in need of serious medical attention. Do you know of a good vet in town?”
“My dad’s vet is great. She’s in the Marina District. You could take him directly there.”
“I’ll have to call a cab. I didn’t bring my car.”
She appeared puzzled at first, then reached down and patted the dog. “Easily remedied. I have mine.”
After that, he really wanted to kiss her. He resisted his urge and scooped up the dog. It didn’t growl or whimper, another bad sign. They loaded him into the back seat of Chloe’s car, and she drove straight to the vet’s office. They got lucky; it was a light day and the vet called him in right away. Chloe insisted on waiting for them. They’d need a ride home, she said with a gentle smile that lanced right through him. He was pretty sure the woman had little idea of her effect on men. Or if she did, she hid it well.
Helping Scotty with the dog took Chloe’s mind off her worries about her dad. Yesterday he’d talked his way out of the hospital, but only after his doctor made him agree to hire a private nurse to monitor him. He’d continued to be evasive about what was wrong, and the hospital staff followed protocol and wouldn’t disclose information that he wanted kept private. While he napped later in the day, she’d talk to the nurse he’d hired, see if there was anything she should know. She just wanted him better; stressing him out with questions wouldn’t help him. But the compassion in the nurse’s eyes when Chloe left the apartment had told her more than she wanted to know.
She settled into the waiting room of the vet’s office and sorted through the magazines on the table next to her. She wasn’t sure of the differences between People and Us, but she picked up the People magazine and flipped through it. What was it about the challenges and triumphs of celebrities’ lives that held such fascination? She found herself reading about the latest romance between a young actor and a musician she’d never heard of. And why was it that the marvel of galaxies and stars—not to mention the miracle of life, for goodness’ sake—never held such appeal?
Her thoughts didn’t stay on such questions for long. Though she stared at the pages, the images that flew in her mind were of Scotty. He’d barely touched her to help her climb over a high section of rocks so they could explore a hidden cove on the beach, but that touch had sent the same fire through her body that his kiss had on the night of the gala. At one point she’d thought he’d kiss her. She’d felt both relieved and disappointed when he hadn’t.
It’d just been too long since she’d had any sort of meaningful relationship with a man. No—she slapped the magazine closed—it’d been too long since she’d had any relationship with a man. Last year one of her friends had set her up with a guy from the city, but that had been a mistake. Within a week he’d had her life planned out; it didn’t take long to see that the plan was mostly to benefit him and his life and—most of all—to entice her dad to invest in his business. She’d cut it off and kept a low profile ever since.
But she couldn’t deny she was attracted to Scotty. It was the strength of the attraction and the instant flare of it that had her mystified.
She was rational, knew there had to be an explanation for her unsettling reactions.
She closed her eyes and pictured him, immediately smiling at the image. She did that a lot, she realized. Smiled when she was with him, when she thought of him. Being around him, just thinking about him, was drawing her out of her carefully tended shell. The armoring bits of it had already fallen away, though she couldn’t put her finger on exactly when or how. She’d once watched a swallow hatch outside her bedroom window, observing with patient awe as the tiny bird poked its head through the egg that had held it warm and safe. She imagined that the expression of wariness and curiosity, the drive to live that had shown on its still featherless face, was showing on her face as well.
She’d never met a man who shared her passion for the mysteries of life, at least not one with the sensibilities of both poet and scientist. The guys in school had been all over the cool science stuff, but they hadn’t understood the mystery and the allure, the beauty of the universe in all its facets. She loved that she and Scotty shared so many interests. They could talk about anything.
She looked up, startled, at a deep woof from behind a closed door. She and a woman holding a shaking Chihuahua shared a laugh before Chloe opened her magazine again.
Yes, she and Scotty could talk about anything, but who was she kidding? She’d never met a man who fired her up in the deep places of her soul.
Yet Scotty Donovan was off limits. She never, ever let herself get involved with ballplayers, especially baseball players. Such a relationship crossed too many lines. It’d be fodder for the press and if it went sour, no one could fire her. But knowing her father, any player who broke her heart would be at serious risk of losing his job.
She flipped another page in the magazine. There, staring up at her from a sidebar, was a photo of Scotty with a gleaming young woman smiling ear to ear. She was gorgeous. All-Star Scotty Donovan and date at the Black and White Ball, the caption read. She peered closer, bringing the page almost to her nose. The guy was not only off limits, he was a player in every sense of the word. Could have any woman he wanted. Probably did.
She checked the front of the magazine. The date was from the previous week. She told herself that a similar photo could’ve been snapped of her and him at the gala where they’d met and they weren’t in any kind of relationship. That she was even entertaining thoughts about the two of them was ridiculous.
The door to the vet’s exam room creaked open, and Scotty walked toward her. He wasn’t smiling, but she hadn’t expected him to be. She’d seen what shape the dog was in. She snapped the magazine closed and tossed it on the table.
“He’ll have to stay here for a few days.” He sat in the chair next to hers and dropped his head into his hands. “But he’s not in as rough shape as he looks. The vet says he’s made of strong stuff; he’ll pull through. She’s got him on an IV.”
He ran one hand around the back of his neck and then met her eyes.
She felt her heart drop to her belly. She wasn’t only looking at him, but into him. He had a deep capacity to love, she could see it. Could actually see the compassion reaching out from him. But she quickly told her herself that she mustn’t confuse his love for an injured dog with affection toward her.
“That’s great news,” she said, wishing her voice hadn’t wavered.
“Yup, and I’m going to keep him. He’s not chipped. Any jerk who would neglect a dog doesn’t deserve to have him.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
As soon as she said it, butterflies started tumbling in her stomach. But what danger was there in driving him home? After all, she knew her mind. And while she didn’t exactly trust her body anywhere near him, surely her mind and will could force it to behave. She hoped they could, even though from the first time he’d touched her she’d wanted to push further, explore the emotions he’d stirred. He’d opened untraveled territory, and she’d loved it. Had wanted more.
The feel of his hands and the strength of his kiss had called her to taste life in a way she never had. And why shouldn’t she? Didn’t she deserve passion?
But he was a ballplayer. Thus the dilemma.
Right instincts, wrong guy. Right desires, wrong time.
It was as though she had an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other, both whispering to her at the same time so she couldn’t decipher the no from the yes.
But all that was concern for another time; she simply couldn’t let him take a taxi. In San Francisco you could wait ages for a taxi.
At least that’s how she rationalized her offer.
The whispering voice that rejoiced in spending thirty more minutes with him in the close confines of her car, out
sang the voice trying to tell her it was a bad idea.
Chapter Five
Scotty managed to talk Chloe into stopping for Indian takeout and coming up to his place for a bite. She’d resisted; he expected it, maybe liked her better for it. Most women threw themselves at him, not that he’d ever complained. But though he knew he shouldn’t, he wanted more time with her and might not get another chance anytime soon; the team was headed out on a three-day road trip after the game that night.
“Make yourself at home,” he said as he rummaged through his cabinets for plates and forks. He didn’t have much in the way of kitchen items, but he did have four great plates his grandmother had given him.
“We could eat in the living room,” she suggested. “You have a great view of the bridge.”
“I love that bridge.” He stood for a moment admiring the orange towers and the arching cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. “I love everything about San Francisco.”
He put the plates on the redwood burl coffee table and pulled the food out of the bag. He watched her scan the bookshelves that lined the back wall of the living room. She stopped in front of a shelf that held photos of his family, picked up a framed photo and smiled. He’d have to do some serious concentrating to ignore his desire to kiss that beautiful mouth of hers.
“Are all these people related to you?”
He glanced at the photo she held. “That’s the Donovan family reunion. My dad insists on hosting one every summer. I miss most of them now, but if the schedule allows, I try to make it.”
He hoped she wouldn’t pick up the next photo, but of course she did. He shouldn’t have put that one out. It was a fuzzy shot of him at ten, standing with a bat in a cornfield.
“You got started at the game early, I see.” There was no derision in her voice.
“Most guys do. But I don’t hit any better now than I did then.” It was his pitching that landed him in the major leagues; hitting was a skill he struggled to master. It hadn’t happened yet.
“Sure it’s not Photoshopped for PR? ‘All-American Boy in a Cornfield’?”
He liked her playful tone. “Afraid it’s real. That field is where I learned to pitch. My dad should have a medal for the hours he spent chasing wild balls.” He scooped steaming rice and curry onto their plates.
She replaced the photo, turning it just so. She ran her fingers along the shelf and pulled out a book.
“Gravitational Physics and the Powers of the Universe—not a breezy read.” She looked over at him, still smiling. He suddenly felt weak, as if he had no bones. Except for one. He shifted, hoping his hard-on didn’t show. Hell, he felt like a thirteen-year-old with his first crush.
Chloe put the book back in its place on the shelf. What a puzzle he was, a combination of heartland charm and physical prowess and yet curious too, with the brain to go with it. But it wasn’t his brain that was making her pulse jump.
“Your food’s getting cold,” he said, handing her a plate as she sat on the couch in front of the window. She was hungry and dug into the curry and rice. The hospital food earlier in the week hadn’t appealed, and she’d been dying for something with flavor.
After several delicious forkfuls, she looked up. Scotty was watching her.
“Anyone ever tell you that you eat like a Midwesterner?” he said as a grin curved along his lips. “Too many women in this town act like they’re afraid of food.”
“Might be my best quality,” she said between bites.
“I doubt that.”
She lowered her fork. She heard the invitation in his voice. If she made any move to open that door, she knew he’d be right there. But if she walked through it, she’d surely pay later.
She pushed what was left of her rice aside and laid her fork on the plate. It was a lovely dish, hand-painted and ringed with color, a strange plate for a man to own. There were so many strange things about him, odd pairings she wouldn’t imagine the universe would conjure and put side by side.
When she looked up, he was still watching her with an expression she’d seen only in movies or her dreams. It nailed her.
Paying later suddenly didn’t seem so very important.
She slid closer to him on the couch, watched the look in his eyes shift, saw the ripple of his throat as he swallowed. She lifted her hand to his face. She hadn’t known she needed to touch him, feel his skin, register the heat and life in him, but as her fingers traced along his jaw, she recognized the need. No thoughts distracted her as she touched her lips to his. He slid his arms around her, and the worries that had kept her on edge for so many days and nights dissolved in the power of his kiss.
Just when she was sure she couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop with just kissing, her phone rang with the insistent tone she’d assigned to her father.
Hands on his shoulders, she pressed away from Scotty. “I have to take this.” Her heart pounded hard and her hand shook as she rummaged in her purse.
When she heard the nurse’s voice, her stomach did a dive to her knees. She didn’t have to hear the words to understand the message. All she knew was that she’d be breaking every traffic law to get to her dad’s apartment. As she dropped her phone into her purse and felt around for her keys, she tried to control her face, her voice and her hands. She didn’t know Scotty well enough to share this news with him and didn’t want to.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Can I drive you? That didn’t look like good news.” He stood when she did.
“I’ll be fine, thank you.” She hadn’t meant to sound frosty, but she couldn’t worry about how she was coming across.
“Can I help?”
If only he could.
When Chloe reached the apartment, her dad was squabbling with the nurse he’d hired.
“I am not going back to the hospital,” she heard him say as she ran down the hall.
“Indeed you are, McNalley,” Chloe said as she entered the room.
The nurse waved her hands, revealing her frustration. “Miss McNalley, I think we should call the paramedics. I tried, but he said he’d fire me.”
That her dad could stop a nurse from calling for help was just another reminder of his power. “He can’t fire me.” Chloe grabbed the phone from beside the bed and dialed.
“Chloe, wait.” Her dad tried to push himself up in the bed.
“No.”
“I’ve raised a stubborn girl,” he said to the nurse as he sank back against the pillows.
Chloe sat beside his bed for three days in the hospital. Only three days and yet he changed almost beyond recognition. But on the afternoon of the third day he insisted that she drive down to Stanford and teach her class. It was important to him, he argued. It’d make him feel better, he insisted. He’d be there when she got back, he said.
When her phone rang in the middle of class, she knew she’d made the wrong decision. Again. When would she learn to stop letting him talk her into things? But that was who he was, maybe even part of what she loved so much about him. Peter McNalley was a hard man to argue with.
When Chloe reached the ICU, the nurse in the bear and bunny lab coat waved her into her dad’s room. Other than an IV, he didn’t have any tubes or machines hooked up to him.
“Dad.”
He opened his eyes. His arms were swollen, and he struggled to lift one to wrap it around her neck, lifted himself off the pillow to kiss her cheek.
“Spitfire.”
“Dad, why aren’t any of the machines hooked up?”
He dropped his head back on the pillow. “It’s too late for all that, honey.”
She wanted to scream, but she swallowed the impulse. She wanted to rage at the heavens. He was only fifty-six years old. He was all she had. He couldn’t die. Not ever.
“No. Tell them to hook them up. Tell them.”
He shook his head.
A nurse came in with a syringe.
“No.” He pushed the nurse’s hand away. “I want to talk to my daughter.” He turned his he
ad to Chloe. “That stuff puts me out.”
“Maybe you should let them give it to you.”
“I’d rather have the pain and be able to talk to you.”
She turned to the nurse. “Can’t you do something? Can’t you hook him up? He’ll pull through, he’s tough.”
“Leave us, please,” her dad said to the nurse. But the nurse crooked a finger and called Chloe to the door.
“He’s going.”
Chloe didn’t want to believe what the woman’s tone said all too clearly, but she knew it was true.
“Talk to him,” the nurse said. “Just talk to him. And if he needs to talk to anyone else, get them on the phone.”
Chloe walked back to the bed and took her dad’s hand. Tears welled and she couldn’t hold them back. “Dad.”
With a groan he reached toward her and wiped at her cheek. His own eyes pooled with tears.
“I’m glad you made it,” he said with great effort. “I love you, Spitfire.” He patted her cheek. “Everything will be okay.” A slight smile curved into his lips. “You’ll see.”
She twined her fingers in his swollen ones. “I love you too, Dad.”
She wanted to say don’t leave me, but she didn’t want to make him feel rotten. It wasn’t like he could do anything about dying. He certainly didn’t want to go.
As if he read her mind, he slowly stroked his fingers over her hand. “I’ll be watching over you.” His head fell back on the pillow. “We all will.”
And then the light in his eyes faded and lost focus. A moment later, those eyes went blank. His hand still gripped hers, but it felt different. They were connected, still, but the energy had shifted. She sat in the silence, enveloped in an uncanny feeling, as if she were floating away with him. She stared at him and couldn’t bring herself to let go of his hand, even as it cooled against hers. Time passed and passed again until she once more heard the sounds in the hospital corridor, understood that others around her were still involved in their own battles against death. But all she could feel was the ache of the gaping space where her heart had been carved out of her body.