With a Little Help

by Valerie Parv

  Another legacy from her parents, Emma thought ruefully. Bringing home tales of woe from school, or tears over some childish dilemma had never been the way to gain attention. If there was a solution, they’d offer it, even if all she’d wanted was to vent her unhappiness. But bring home a good grade or an award in sports and they were all ears.

  Old patterns could be broken, she told herself. Maybe she would speak with her grandmother later. After confronting Nate with what she’d learned from Mitch.

  By the time Emma had a chance to call him, the day was almost over. She’d exchanged instant messages with Carla, completed several outstanding estimates and updated her records on the computer. Finally she called the insurance company to arrange to collect the rental car her policy provided until the van was fixed.

  The equipment and serving dishes she’d brought back in the cab from Nate’s house yesterday were enough to handle the jobs lined up for the next few days. She was lucky she hadn’t loaded most of the gear into the van before it was set on fire. She could still work safely on the premises until Doug started removing the wall board, since the asbestos wasn’t harmful until disturbed. Apart from the vehicle, the biggest loss was the banquet trolley. For now, they’d have to manage with only one.

  Like a scene from a particularly vivid movie, Emma’s mind flashed back to the moment when Nate tried to stop the trolley from crushing her. Remembering the heavy steel cart coming at her, she shuddered. Bad enough that Nate’s wrist was sprained, preventing him from working. Taking the full impact might have ended his career, or worse.

  Knowing how much she owed him played havoc with her peace of mind. She was upset that he’d hired Mitch without telling her. But how could she be mad when he’d been hurt saving her? She just had to ensure Nate didn’t meddle in her affairs in future.

  She reached for the phone and punched in his number.

  Joanna told her Grace Lockwood was there, and they were having a meeting. “I swear the man thinks the hospital will grind to a halt without him,” the housekeeper grumbled.

  Why wasn’t Emma surprised?

  Joanna hesitated. “Shall I interrupt them?”

  “No need. What I want to tell Nate can wait. I have to pick up a rental car in a few minutes.”

  “Why don’t you stop by afterward?” Joanna suggested. “They should be finished before long. Dr. Lockwood likes to get home on time as much as possible.”

  Unlike her parents and Nate, Emma couldn’t help thinking. “Is he well enough for a visit?”

  “He’s well enough to drive me nuts telling me how to do my job. You’d be a welcome distraction.”

  Emma laughed. “I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

  GRACE CLOSED HER NOTEBOOK computer. “That’s all your case notes up to date. Your patients were impressed to hear you were injured heroically defending your lady friend.”

  Nate would have preferred to keep his personal life to himself. “She’s a lady and a friend, not necessarily both together.”

  Grace made a show of being affronted, although she knew him too well for the reaction to be genuine. “Well excuse me. At the party, I got a distinctly different impression. You can’t tell me you’re not attracted to Emma.”

  “I won’t tell you because it’s none of your business. Or my patients’. Was it a particularly slow day, or was there another reason you felt they needed to know the details of my injury?”

  She lifted her hands in mock surrender. “I’m not the one telling tales. Cherie Kenner-Jarrett’s your main suspect. I think she likes the idea of you and her daughter teaming up.”

  “Tell me about it.” He’d had the same impression when the woman worked so hard to convince him to hire Emma. Nor had Cherie tried to hide her disappointment over Emma remaining behind the scenes the night of the party. Obviously she hadn’t known—or wanted to know—how hard her daughter had been working.

  Grace stood up. “Before I go, I’ll take a look at your wrist.”

  “It’s fine.” But he slid his arm out of the sling.

  She unstrapped the Velcro splint. “Are you keeping up the ice therapy?”

  “Of course.” He endured her gentle but thorough examination. “And I’ve scheduled another X-ray in three days’ time. The thought of an occult fracture being overlooked doesn’t thrill me, either.”

  “The swelling’s already reduced, and you have a greater range of movement than you did a day ago.” She reached for the splint. “I don’t think there is a fracture, but it’s better to be safe.”

  They both knew that if left untreated, a fracture could lead to chronic disability. He wasn’t about to let stubbornness put his future at risk.

  With the splint back in place, he returned his arm to the sling. The wretched thing was already annoying him although he knew the importance of keeping his wrist elevated. Grace’s examination had been careful, but the throbbing sensation radiating up and down his arm wasn’t pleasant.

  “In the meantime, keep up the ice therapy. Pain relief as you need it.” She tipped two ibuprofen into his hand.

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “I’ll bet that was almost as painful to get out as your wrist.”

  “The door’s that way.” He pointed. “And take your voodoo potions with you.” But he tossed back the pills, washing them down with coffee.

  “No using that hand until Amy Lester or I say you can. The most you should do is wiggle your fingers to keep the blood circulating and help the healing.”

  He restrained his impatience at being reminded of a routine he’d learned as a medical student. “Anything else?”

  “Not for the moment.” She gathered her notebook and papers into her briefcase, then looked out the window. “There is one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “You know that lady and friend we were talking about?”

  “You were talking about,” he growled.

  “I think she just drove into your driveway.”

  WHEN EMMA REACHED NATE’S house, the first thing she noticed was Grace Lockwood’s car. The meeting must have been a long one. Or something was wrong. Despite Joanna’s assurance that Nate was fine, concern for him pushed past Emma’s anger. Had his injury worsened since yesterday?

  Grace came down the front steps as Emma approached the house. “Is Nate all right?” she blurted out.

  The doctor looked amused. “I checked him out under protest, and he’s doing well. I came to finalize some medical matters with him, as much to stop him from coming in to the hospital as anything.”

  “Would he do that?”

  “He’d move in and live there if he thought he’d get away with it. Nobody can run Nate’s department as well as he can.”

  “Sounds like my parents and their practice.”

  “It’s fairly common in our profession,” Grace admitted.

  “You seem to balance home and work fairly well.”

  “Ah, but I’m female. Multitasking is what we do best.” With a friendly wave, she headed toward her car.

  Deep in thought, Emma walked up the steps. If her mother’s attitude had been more like Grace’s, how different their family life might have been. Shaking off the futile yearning, Emma rang the bell.

  Nate himself answered and she’d swear his face brightened for a second before the shutters came down. “Come in,” he said almost grudgingly.

  She followed him into the house and down the hall. Emma’s awareness sharpened but this time they went nowhere near his bedroom. Not that she wanted to go there. Once was enough, especially after what she’d learned from Mitch. The thought didn’t stop desire thrumming through her, though, as he walked ahead of her into the kitchen.

  Seeing the clutter of half-open packages on the counter, she frowned. “Has Joanna gone home?”

  “Fifteen minutes ago. Dental appointment.”

  Why hadn’t Joanna mentioned she wouldn’t be here? Emma wasn’t sure she’d have agreed to come if she’d known they would be alone. Too la
te now, and she was a big girl, she reminded herself. She could handle a one-armed man.

  The man himself was having trouble, she saw as he returned to fighting with a package. “Damned frozen meals,” he muttered. “How are you supposed to open them with one hand?”

  “I don’t eat much frozen food,” she said. “I prefer using fresh ingredients. Here, let me.” She had the package open in seconds but frowned as she held it up and read the ingredients. “You’re a surgeon. Are you sure you want to eat this stuff?”

  “I’d rather book a table at my favorite restaurant, but I’m damned if I’ll let someone cut up my food for me in public, so I don’t have much choice.”

  Even now, he couldn’t see what was right in front of his nose. “You have a chef standing in your kitchen.”

  He looked stunned. “You’d actually make dinner for me, after cooking all day?”

  “Luckily for you, I’ve been staring at a computer screen most of the day, so preparing a meal would make a pleasant change.” It would also repay a small part of her debt to him, but she kept that to herself. “What would you like?”

  “Anything I can manage with one hand.”

  Pasta, she decided, and began to forage. She’d provided the ingredients for his party, but still had a fair idea where everything was kept, and soon had the makings of a light, nourishing meal assembled on the counter. “You must have something better to do than watch me,” she said, his intense scrutiny making her feel as if she was one of his patients.

  Her irritation bounced off him. “Nope. You remind me of a dancer, the way you bend, stretch and spin around the room. Like there’s an invisible triangle drawn on the floor, and you’re performing within it.”

  The comparison would have pleased her if she wasn’t here to tell him off. That could wait until after he’d eaten, she’d already decided. “It isn’t such a fanciful notion. A good kitchen designer creates a work triangle between refrigerator, cooking area and washing-up zone.”

  Nate rested his elbow on a counter and lounged. “Much like the design of an operating room, except we don’t cook the patients.”

  With onions already caramelizing in olive oil, she added garlic, the appetizing aroma filling the kitchen. She saw his nose twitch appreciatively. “What about radiation?”

  “It isn’t politically correct to call it cooking.”

  Having him watch her work was unsettling. And far too intimate. She began to chop some cooked chicken she’d found in the fridge. The meat went into the oil with canned tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped mushrooms and pitted olives.

  Fresh basil and oregano would have been better, but she settled for the dried versions he had available. After tasting and seasoning the sauce, she increased the heat to thicken and reduce the liquid. In another saucepan, she added pasta spirals to simmering water.

  “I’m making enough so you can have leftovers tomorrow,” she told him.

  “The way this meal smells, there won’t be any. What are you making?”

  “It’s a traditional Italian dish called pasta puttanesca.”

  He grinned. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

  “Harlot’s pasta,” she translated. “Supposedly made by the ladies of the night after work. They could throw together whatever ingredients they had on hand, and the meal didn’t take long to make.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What does ‘hmm’ mean?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “If you’re comparing me to a lady of the night…”

  “Only in the sense of how much I’d like to take you to bed with me.”

  This was dangerous ground. “Before or after the pasta?”

  “Decisions, decisions.”

  She aimed a dish towel at him but he ducked and the cloth sailed over his head. The pasta began to bubble and she moved quickly to turn down the heat. She was sure he had only mentioned bed to get under her skin, or perhaps pay her back for running away yesterday.

  “You could do something useful like set the table,” she suggested.

  “You’re staying, of course.”

  She hadn’t planned to, but suspected he wouldn’t eat unless she agreed. And good food was healing. “There’s plenty here. I may as well.”

  He opened a drawer and took out knives and forks. “Try not to sound so enthusiastic.”

  “I didn’t know I’d be cooking dinner and eating it.”

  “With me. That’s what you’re not saying, isn’t it?”

  She tested the pasta for tenderness. “Yesterday we agreed not to get involved.”

  At the door to the breakfast room, he swung around. “Sex doesn’t have to come with involvement.”

  “To me it does.”

  Muttering something she didn’t catch, he went into the other room and she heard him slamming things down on the table. Her heart was thumping at just the idea of going to bed with him. Not that she would, of course. She’d already made up her mind before discovering what else Nate had been up to. So why did the right decision feel so wrong?

  She drained the pasta and added it to the sauce, stirring until the spirals were nicely coated. In his fridge, she’d found a wedge of fresh parmesan cheese and shaved some into a bowl ready for serving. By the time he came back into the kitchen, she had filled two deep bowls with pasta.

  “Table’s ready,” he said.

  She almost echoed his earlier words, try not to sound so enthusiastic, but didn’t want to get back on a personal level. Better to keep things as businesslike as possible between them. “If you can bring that basket of rolls, I’ll carry the bowls through.”

  Opening the door with her hip, she kept it braced until he’d walked past her, then let it swing shut as she placed the pasta and shaved cheese on the table. To her surprise, a red candle flickered in the center. How had he lit it one-handed? Then she saw the lighting wand on a side table. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I wouldn’t have bothered for cuisine de cardboard. Good food seems to need the atmosphere.”

  Touched in spite of herself, she took the seat he held out for her. “I’m glad you think my food is good.”

  He sat down across from her, raising a glass of water in a toast. “Better than good, it’s superlative.”

  The way he attacked the pasta should have reassured her, but there was still the question of why he’d interfered in her business. She ate her own meal in thoughtful silence, the breaking of bread the only sound between them for some time.

  He mopped up the remnants of sauce with a piece of bread, then looked at her across the table. “Okay, spill.”

  She finished the last mouthful and put her bowl aside. “What?”

  “You know what. I said or did something to make you mad at me again. That’s becoming a habit.”

  “I’m not mad at you. Well, I am.”

  “Then spill.”

  Cooking for him, eating with him were mistakes. Letting him eat his frozen whatever-it-was would have set a more appropriate tone for what she wanted to say. “Actually I came here on business.”

  With his good hand, he stacked the dishes into a pile.

  “I told you there’s no rush to collect your stuff, unless there’s something you need urgently,” he said.

  “Sophie will come for the equipment tomorrow.” Emma hadn’t allowed for the distracting effect Nate was having on her. Telling herself that her response to him was purely physical didn’t make it any easier to confront him. “On the way here, I picked up a rental car, but it’s too small to hold much of my gear.”

  When he’d let her in, he must have seen the compact hatchback parked in the driveway. “Couldn’t they have given you something larger? You’ll find it a challenge supplying your clients in that little thing.”

  “It doesn’t look as if that will be my problem.”

  “Why not?”

  She hadn’t intended to share her worries with Nate. Thanks to her mother speaking out of turn, he’d already tried to do too much
on her account. “Today my builder found asbestos in the kitchen walls and in one wall of my flat.”

  Nate leaned back in his chair. His strained expression reminded her that he was far from well.

  “Tough call. When builders at the hospital found asbestos in an old storage facility, they had to close an entire wing down. Seeing the experts go in all suited up in white and wearing respirators was like something out of a science fiction movie.”

  “Except this is real.” And her home and income were at stake.

  Putting two and two together, he asked, “How will you keep your business going while the cleanup takes place?”

  She had no intention of telling him how adrift she felt. Not when he was more involved in her affairs than he had any right or need to be. “I’ll manage.”

  “If there’s any way I can help—”

  “Thank you, but no,” she cut in. “As I found out today, you’ve already been far too helpful.”

  His eyes darkened. One thing she granted Nate, he was quick on the uptake. “Mitch Kelso.”

  “Don’t blame Mitch. I dragged the truth out of him.” She leaned forward. “What were you thinking, paying him to work for me without telling me?”

  At least Nate looked embarrassed. “I probably should have told you, but you made such a big deal out of how expensive he is.”

  Her anger swelled afresh. “I suppose making me into a charity case helped you feel superior.”

  “There’s no charity about it, Emma. And I thought we sorted out the superiority thing yesterday.”

  “I did, too, until I found out what you’d been up to behind my back.”

  Nate got to his feet. “Paying Mitch to work on a project he’s enjoying is more like therapy for him than going behind your back.”

  “If you’d told me that from the start, I might have believed you. But you never meant me to find out, which is sneaky and contemptible. When I started to add up the small things, like the increased amount on your check—I’ll be returning the excess, by the way—and Mitch’s involvement, the pattern became clear. You think you can run my business better than I can.”