“I’m sure you do,” Kara quickly agreed. “I didn’t mean to suggest you didn’t.” She looked back at the boy. “Would you like to keep that, Gary?”
Gary looked as if he’d suddenly stumbled into paradise. “Can I?” he cried in absolute disbelief.
“No, you can’t,” his mother told him firmly, even though it clearly hurt her to have to deny him.
Prepared, Kara was quick with her assurances. “It’s okay. I work for the company that produces the game. We’re giving out a few handheld systems as a way of promoting this latest version.”
The boy’s mother looked doubtful. Gary looked ecstatic.
“Really?” he cried excitedly, his eyes now bright and as large as proverbial saucers.
Kara had to struggle to contain her own smile. She nodded. “Really.”
Gary clutched the system, fully equipped with this newest version of “The Kalico Kid,” to his chest. “Thanks, lady!”
Kara solemnly put her hand out to him as if he were a short adult. “My name is Kara—and you’re very welcome, Gary.”
Gary quickly took her hand and tried to look serious as he shook it, but his grin kept insisting on breaking through.
Kara raised her eyes to look at Gary’s mother, half expecting the woman to voice some kind of objection. Instead, she saw tears gathering in the woman’s soft brown eyes. Gary’s mother mouthed, “Thank you,” over the boy’s head.
Her mouth curving just a hint, Kara nodded in response.
Behind her, Dave was busy instructing Clarice, telling her to send another one of the patients to the second newly vacated exam room. Done, he turned his attention to Kara.
“I’d like to see you in my office,” he told the specter from his childhood.
Kara couldn’t help grinning as she followed him around the reception desk, then toward the back of the office. “Bet you’ve been waiting years to be able to say that line to me.”
He bit off his initial response to her flippant remark. After all, she’d just been very kind to one of his regulars. Instead, he waited until Kara had walked into the closet-size office, and then closed the door behind him.
The scarred, faux-mahogany desk listed a little to the right. It and the two chairs, one in front of the desk, one behind it, took up most of the available space. He didn’t bother trying to angle his way behind the desk. He anticipated that this was going to be short.
“You’re not really having some promotional giveaway, are you?” It wasn’t a question.
She would have played this out a little longer just to see how far she could take it, but she was running out of time. As senior quality assurance engineer, she was supposed to set an example for the others when it came to keeping decent hours. “No.”
“Didn’t think so. That was rather a nice thing you just did.” He didn’t bother going into any details about how very strapped Gary’s mother was, or what a brave little person the boy was. That was the kind of stuff that violins were made for and he had a feeling it would be wasted on Kara anyway. It definitely would be on the Kara he remembered.
Or thought he remembered, he amended.
Getting what sounded like a compliment from Dave felt awkward to Kara somehow. Not to mention unsettling. She shrugged, dismissing the words. “Well, I make it a rule not to eat children on Wednesdays.” And then she sobered. Raising her eyes to Dave’s green ones, she started to ask, “Does he have—?”
He cut her off, sensing that talking about the disease that had ultimately claimed her father was difficult for her. “It’s in remission, but I’m not all that hopeful,” he confided.
“That was always your problem,” she recalled, not entirely critically. To her, that was just the way things were and she viewed it as something that needed improvement. “Not enough hope, too much practicality.”
“You were just the opposite.” Almost to the point where she’d stick her head in the ground, he recalled.
She flashed him an irritating smile. “And pleasingly so.”
He needed to get back to work before they were literally drowning in patients, and he knew from experience that Kara could keep up the bantering responses all afternoon.
“So, you didn’t tell me,” he reminded her, taking out his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”
Right, the game. She still hadn’t given it to him. Kara dug into her purse again. This time, she pulled out the copy of the video game she’d brought for him. The cellophane around it crinkled as she said, “Your immortal soul.”
He pinned her with a look. “Exactly how much is that in cash?”
“I’ll let you know.” She had no intentions of selling him the game. That made her too much like a lackey. Giving it to him was far better. Besides, she liked the idea of having him indebted to her. “Maybe I’ll take it out in trade sometime. I might need something stitched up someday.”
He suddenly had an image of her sitting on a rock by the lake, blood running down her leg. The wound had appeared a lot worse than it actually was. That was the summer he’d made up his mind to become a doctor. “You mean like that time at the lake?”
She knew he was referring to that last summer at the lake before he and his family had moved away. She’d been eleven at the time and had slipped on the rocks, trying to elude him after playing some prank. She’d gotten a huge cut on her knee and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She’d valiantly struggled not to cry.
“Those weren’t stitches. That was a butterfly bandage you put on it.”
The point was that it had done the trick and had held until her father could get her to the emergency room. “Would you have let me come at you with a needle?” he asked.
A rueful smile curved one corner of her mouth. “Point taken, Davy.”
He stopped the cringe before it could surface. “No one’s called me that in years.” She had been the only one to ever do it. Dave looked at her pointedly. “I hate being called Davy.”
She grinned, her eyes laughing at him. “I know.” She had to get going, and from the sound of the noise in the next room, so did he. “Forget about owing me anything for the game,” she told him. “It’s on the house. For old times’ sake,” Kara added.
If she was making restitution for things she’d done to him all those years, this didn’t begin to make a dent. But he saw no point in saying anything. After all, Ryan really wanted the game, and she had been nice to Gary, who had enough hard knocks against him. Besides, saying anything remotely adversarial to Kara would only embroil him in another no-win verbal match. She was probably still a master at that and he wasn’t up to one at the moment.
“Thanks.” As he said the word, his stomach growled, as if adding a coda.
She stared at him. He couldn’t begin to read her expression. Some things never changed, he thought.
“I had no idea you were a ventriloquist.”
His stomach growled again, a little softer this time. This was getting embarrassing. “I am on the days I don’t get to eat breakfast—or lunch.”
She cocked her head, as if she found the information fascinating. “You haven’t eaten yet?”
He knew her well enough to wonder what she was up to now. “No.”
“But you will.”
What kind of a question was that? Everyone had to eat—or expire. “Eventually.” He could feel her eyes delving into his skin. Just what did she expect him to say? “Someday,” he allowed, then amended his answer to, “Yes,” as he brushed past her to get back into the tiny hallway that was desperately in need of a paint job. “Right now there’s no time to go get something.”
She could see how he couldn’t leave, but that didn’t mean he had to go hungry. “Why don’t you send out Ms. Personality?” When Dave looked at her blankly, she nodded toward the reception
room. “The anaconda at the front desk.”
“We’re shorthanded. Clarice’s my backup nurse—and the only one manning the front desk. I can’t spare her, either.”
Dave always did make things more complicated than they were, she recalled. Resigned, she dug into her purse yet a third time. “In that case, take this.”
Though he would have preferred not to admit it, Dave stared in fascination as the woman from his past pulled out what appeared to be an entire foot-long sandwich from her purse. It was cut into two equal halves.
What else did she have in there?
“Is that your equivalent to a clown car?” he asked. “Do you just put your hand in, then pluck an endless amount of things out?”
She didn’t feel like being on the receiving end of what he might call wit. She had traffic to face and a game with her name on it waiting to be further deconstructed. Holding it out to him, she asked, “You want this roast beef sandwich or not?”
He’d always thought of her as being rather unusual, but he had a feeling she wasn’t given to arbitrarily carrying food in her purse. There was only one other explanation for it. “Isn’t that your lunch?”
“Well, if you take it, it becomes yours,” she pointed out with a trace of impatience. And then she sighed. “Look, it’s not like I can’t buy myself another one on my way back to the office. You, on the other hand, look like you haven’t a prayer of making it out the door without that gestapo agent throwing a net over you and stopping you before you take three steps.”
He felt honor bound to defend the woman working with him. “Clarice’s okay.”
“I’m sure. For a gargoyle,” Kara agreed. She raised the sandwich a little higher, into his line of vision. “You want this or not?”
She might be annoying, but that was no reason to deprive himself in order to show her he didn’t need her help. “I’ll take it.”
She placed the wax-paper-wrapped sandwich into his hand. “Very kind of you.” With that, she turned on her heel to leave.
“Kara?” he called after her.
Pausing, she looked expectantly at Dave over her shoulder. “Yes?”
He still really hadn’t thanked her—and found that it was difficult to form the words where she was involved. He settled for: “Tell your mom I said thanks.”
Amused, Kara inclined her head and said, “Sure.”
That, he knew, was a cop-out on his part. He was better than that, Dave reminded himself. Just because this was Kara shouldn’t mean that he reverted back to behaving like an adolescent. “And thanks for bringing it by.”
She gave him a quick two-finger salute. “I live to serve.”
Same old Kara, same old sarcastic remarks, he thought as he walked out behind her.
“You look good.”
The words had slipped out without his permission, going directly from his gut to his tongue without pausing to clear it with his brain. His brain would have definitely vetoed having the words said aloud.
Surprised, Kara stopped abruptly and turned around, causing a near collision between them. He immediately took a step back.
“Are you addressing that assessment to me in general or just to the back of me?” she asked, an amused smile on her lips.
She could still fluster him, Dave thought. He’d assumed that reaction was years behind him. After all, he’d graduated at the top of his class, been voted into all sorts of positions of honor and had, in general, become confident in not just his abilities but in himself, as well.
Five minutes around Kara and he turned into that gangly, tongue-tied geek whose physique was all but concave the last summer their families had vacationed together.
“Let me think about it,” he said evasively.
She nodded. “Thought so.”
As she walked out, Gary rose to his feet. “Thank you,” he called after her.
She spared the boy a wide smile. This made everything worthwhile. “My pleasure, Gary. All my pleasure.”
With that, she was gone.
But not, Dave thought as he turned away to see the patient in room one, forgotten.
Chapter Three
Kara barely had time to run to the sandwich shop to purchase another roast beef sandwich for herself and get back to her desk before her lunch hour was officially over. Just when she’d managed to finally catch her breath, the phone on her desk rang.
Picking it up, she cradled it against her neck and ear. She needed her hands free for the control pad. The newest version of the game still had the pesky Black Knight’s horse water surfing.
“Hello?” Kara said absently, guiding the horse and rider over the water to see just how far this glitch extended.
The voice on the other end of the line responded with a single word. “So?”
Kara came to attention as she recognized her mother’s voice. The Black Knight and his horse were temporarily forgotten.
“So?” she repeated, having no clue what her mother was asking or saying.
She heard her mother sigh on the other end of the line, then carefully enunciate her question. “Did you bring the game to Dave?”
The question irritated her. Why wouldn’t she take the game if she’d already told her mother that she would? “I said I would.” She picked up the control pad again. The horse resumed galloping erratically. “Yes, I brought the game to Dave.”
“And?”
Kara frowned. Just what was that supposed to mean? “And what?”
A note of frustration entered her mother’s voice. “How did he look?”
Damn, the horse just rode off the edge of the earth. This was not good. “Like a maniacal serial killer. What do you mean, how did he look? He looked like Dave. Only taller.” She paused for a moment, then added, “And handsomer.”
“Aha.”
“Aha?” Kara repeated, confused. Okay, just where was this conversation headed?
“Never mind,” her mother said quickly. “Sorry, I need to go.”
Her mother definitely had too much time on her hands. “What you need, Mom, is a hobby.” Other than me, she added silently. Kara paused to make a notation about the game on the pad she kept by the computer.
“Agreed. Maybe someday you’ll give me one,” she thought she heard her mother say. The next moment, the line went dead.
Kara looked thoughtfully at the receiver in her hand. Maybe someday you’ll give me one. Under ordinary circumstances the most logical “hobby” would be one involving playing on a gaming system. But she had a feeling that her mother was not referring to anything as run of the mill as a video game.
And then, just like that, that strange, unsettling feeling that the universe was tilting began to come into focus for her.
The “hobby” her mother was referring to was a grandchild. Her mother wanted a grandchild. And the only way to get one of those, according to her mother, was to get her married and pregnant.
The woman was actually trying to play matchmaker. Damn. Ordinarily, her radar was better than this. How had she missed it?
For the time being, the black stallion was on its own. His aquatic adventures were definitely the last thing on her mind now.
Kara looked at the framed photo on her desk of her mother, her late father and her, taken when she was seventeen. It was the last family photo she had. Looking at her mother now, she shook her head.
“Why, you little sneak. I know what you’ve been up to. I’m really disappointed in you, Mom,” she murmured.
Jake Storm, the man occupying the cubicle next to her, rolled his chair back a little in order to catch a glimpse of her. He had hair and eyebrows that made him look like an affable sheepdog. One shaggy eyebrow arched in amusement now.
“Talking to yourself, Kara?”
She glanced to her right. “No,” she told him. “To my mother.”
Jake rolled his chair out a little farther, allowing him a clearer view of her space, which was, due to her position in the hierarchy, twice the size of his.
“That would be your invisible mother?” he asked.
“No,” she answered. “That would be the meddling mother on the other end of this now defunct phone call.” Putting the receiver down, she pushed the offending instrument back on her desk.
“Ah, meddling mothers. Tell me about it. Mine isn’t going to be happy until I chuck this game-testing job to the winds, get a degree in something she can brag about, marry the perfect girl and give her three and a half grandchildren—none of which is really doable,” he said with a heartfelt sigh, then brightened as he looked at her again. “Unless you’re free tonight to drive to Vegas and become Mrs. Jake Storm.”
She knew he was kidding. They were friends—without benefits. “And the three and a half kids?” she asked, mildly curious.
“We could rent them.” He grinned. “I think a month of endless babysitting might teach my mother a valuable lesson, as in ‘careful what you wish for.’ Might even be worth the effort,” he said wistfully.
However unintentionally, Jake had just given her an idea. A very good idea. She looked at him sharply. “Jake, that’s brilliant.”
“Clever, maybe,” he allowed, “but not brilliant. By the way—” he leaned in closer “—what clever thing did I just say?”
“Something,” Kara told him as she shifted over to the other monitor on her desk, the one directly hooked up to the internet, “that just might get my beloved mother to back off.”
“Well, I’m all for that,” Jake declared with feeling. Anyone who knew him knew that to be true. His mother was forever trying to set him up with the offspring of her friends. “Let me know how it goes.” He nodded toward his own area. “Gotta get back to that crazy horse. He’s still walking on water.”
“Tell me about it,” she murmured under her breath as Jake moved back into his cubicle.
She had no idea what Dave’s number was, but she assumed that, as an M.D., he had to be listed somewhere. Starting out in the most obvious place, she did a people search through the white pages. The effort took several tries, but ultimately, she came away a winner.
The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition) Page 3