THE PASSION OF PARICK MACNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  Patrick dropped butter into a skillet, swirling the pan with the grace of a short-order cook. "Good. That won't slow his recovery?"

  "Peg doesn't think so. We'll see."

  If it did, Swaim was going to have Kate's head mounted and on display in his office. But two-and-two had been the therapist's original recommendation, overruled by the surgeon's insistence that the boy make rapid progress. One more success story to write up for the medical journals, Kate thought bitterly, and never mind that the kinder, more conservative approach would yield the same results.

  Patrick dumped the contents of a plastic bag into the frying pan. As it sizzled, the aroma of sautéing peppers and onions filled the kitchen. Kate's stomach protested. Her mouth watered.

  "I should go," she said reluctantly. "I'm interrupting your dinner."

  "No, you're not. Jack and I ate hours ago."

  "Then—"

  "Tell me how to use that putty stuff."

  "Oh. Well." She grabbed at the question like a lifeline. She needed some distraction from the tempting aromas and her hungry reaction to the neat, quick movement of Patrick's big hands as he broke eggs into a bowl and whisked them. "It's simple, really. There's a pamphlet in my purse. Peg marked the exercises you should do with Jack."

  She started to describe them, her gaze helplessly following his broad shoulders around the kitchen. As she talked, he tilted the eggs into the skillet and added more ingredients from the fridge. He wrapped something else in a napkin and popped that into the microwave. His utter confidence performing the smallest domestic chores mesmerized her.

  Sexist, she jeered herself. Yet, watching his muscled forearms as he slid a spatula around the skillet's edge, she actually felt her pulse quicken. And so she concentrated on the dry details of Jack's physical therapy, painstakingly reviewing each exercise as if he couldn't see everything illustrated perfectly well in the booklet she'd brought.

  Removing a plate from the refrigerator, Patrick swept off its plastic wrap. Expertly, he slid the contents of the pan onto it and set the plate in front of her.

  Kate blinked at a fluffy yellow omelette flanked by a green salad and a soft roll. "What is this?"

  His voice was amused. "An omelette."

  "No, I meant—"

  "I figured you hadn't had time for dinner. It's the least I could do."

  "But—"

  "Eat," he ordered. "Before it gets cold."

  Obediently, she took a bite. The eggs were moist and seasoned with a melting white cheese that made her close her eyes in ecstasy. Swallowing, she opened them to find Patrick watching her with a peculiar expression on his face.

  She reached for her water glass in embarrassment. "This is very good."

  His mouth quirked. "Don't sound so surprised. I can also make my bed and match my socks."

  Kate busied herself with her omelette. "I just meant it's unusual to find a man who can cook."

  "Not that unusual." With a gleam, he added, "All the MacNeill men are domesticated."

  She doubted that. There was a wild streak in him that sorrow hadn't broken and fatherhood hadn't tamed. "Housebroken, too?" she asked dryly.

  He laughed, squirting detergent into the sink. "Pretty much. My mom insisted we all pull our weight and keep our rooms and noses clean. Dad was overseas a lot, and she had better things to do with her time than ride herd on three rowdy boys."

  She smiled. He made it sound so nice, a family working together. She forked up a man-sized chunk of red pepper, wondering if she dared to eat it. "So you learned to cook."

  "We all learned to cook, but dinner was my responsibility. I was the oldest."

  "Me, too. And did I ever hear about it." She heard the faint bitterness in her voice and tried to lighten it with a teasing imitation of her mother's voice. "Watch your sister, Katie Sue, you're the oldest. Make dinner, you're the oldest. Set an example. Watch your mouth. Don't make your father angry, you're the oldest."

  Patrick turned from the sink, eyebrows raised. "That bad?" he asked with unexpected sensitivity.

  Kate's cheeks heated as she looked away. She didn't want his sympathy. She didn't want this fellow feeling. "No. No, of course not. I'm sorry, I'm just tired tonight." She seized on the Irish mother as a safe topic of conversation. "So. What did your mother do?"

  His smile was wry. "Trauma nurse, Quincy Community Hospital."

  She stared at him in astonishment before she remembered to close her mouth. "Well, that helps explain your attitude toward doctors," she said.

  He chuckled.

  "Ready," Jack announced, dragging his feet in the kitchen doorway.

  He didn't look ready to Kate. He looked apprehensive and forlorn. If she gave him half an excuse, he'd bolt.

  Briskly, she nodded, pretending she had his complete enthusiasm. "Sure. You can't play for long, though. Isn't it almost bedtime?"

  She held her breath as Patrick's blue gaze measured her over his son's head. "That's right," he concurred. "Nine o'clock."

  "How about five minutes with me, and five with your dad," Kate proposed with a warm smile. "You can do more tomorrow."

  Now that he had a definite time limit, Jack looked more at ease. "‘Kay."

  He hopped up on the chair beside her, sneakers dangling above the floor.

  Swallowing past the constriction in her throat, Kate pushed her plate away and rummaged in her purse for the putty. "All right. Try this."

  And for five minutes after that, Jack did try, his face scrunched with effort. As Kate had hoped, the novelty of the colored putty made the exercises easier. With more control over his own movements, his cooperation increased. Even when Patrick took over, flexing the boy's fingers and thumb through a passive range of motion, Jack tried not to resist.

  As they worked, Patrick kept up a stream of quiet nonsense to distract the boy. Kate tuned out his soothing rumble, observing his technique as his long, strong fingers pressed and stretched his son's hand. She couldn't see his face. Only the top of his dark head as he bent over his son, and the supporting curve of his broad shoulder, and the play of his hands.

  He looked up, and her cheeks got hot, as if he'd caught her spying.

  "Am I doing it wrong?" he asked.

  "No." Her heart was pounding. She felt like an idiot. "No, you're doing fine."

  His smile gleamed with satisfaction. "Good. Okay, Jack-o. Time for bed."

  "‘Kay." His sneakers thumped on the floor.

  "This won't take long," Patrick said, standing. "He's already brushed his teeth. I'll be right back."

  "I can let myself out."

  "I'll be right back," he repeated firmly.

  Before she could protest, he'd followed his son from the room, leaving her alone at the kitchen table. Well. Kate exhaled, unsure if she were amused or offended by his unthinking faith in her compliance.

  "I guess I'll wait," she said to the empty room. But she couldn't sit still. Her headache was gone. Her stomach was satisfied. But a peculiar energy had seized her. Her blood fizzed with unrest. Her skin hummed, as with static. She fidgeted with her fork and knife and then stood, depositing her dirty dishes in the sink. How long did it take to put one small boy to bed?

  She prowled into the dining room, clasping her arms under her breasts, as if she could trap her skittishness inside her. As she circled the table, something gave underfoot. Kate stumbled and jerked back.

  Under the chair, plush arms wide, sprawled Jack's teddy bear. She scooped it up and set the shabby how to rights.

  Didn't Jack need it? Had he forgotten it?

  Wandering into the hall, she glanced up the darkened stairs. She ought to take it up to him. And yet, did she really want to intrude any further? Interrupt their precious bedtime ritual? Could she risk getting closer to Patrick MacNeill and his son?

  She didn't know. Supremely confident at work, she was a muddled mess of insecurities when it came to personal relationships. She couldn't escape the feeling that by going up those steps she was stepping off her
chosen path and into the unknown.

  She hugged the plush toy cradled in her arms: Finn MacCool, a sign of little Iron Man's bravery, a talisman against things that went bump in the night.

  Don't be such a coward, Katie, she told herself, and hurried for the stairs.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  The carpeted steps absorbed the squeak of Kate's sensible shoes. On the landing, a lamp cast a pool of yellow light. She hesitated at the top of the stairs, reluctant to trespass beyond that lit circle into the shadowed hall.

  A door clicked shut. Glancing toward the sound, she saw the dark profile of Patrick MacNeill outside his son's bedroom. He leaned against the door frame as if, Kate thought with a queer twist of heart, for that one private moment he needed its support. His strong head bowed.

  Something fierce kindled to life inside her, surprising her with sudden heat. Impelled by a surgeon's need to heal, a woman's need to touch, she bustled down the hall with Jack's bear in her arms.

  "Mr.—Patrick?"

  He whirled at her whisper, head snapped back.

  Kate stopped three feet away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. It's just I found this downstairs and I thought…" He regarded her impassively. She extended the toy, feeling foolish and inadequate. "Does Jack need it?"

  His tense shoulders eased. His teeth glimmered in his shadowed face. "Trying to make things all better again, Doctor?"

  If only she could. "That's my job."

  His long fingers reached out and plucked the bear from her grasp. "Thank you," he said, so gravely she wondered if he mocked her. "It was thoughtful."

  Dismissed. She watched as he tapped on the paneled door and went in. "Hey, Jack-o, missing somebody?"

  "MacCool!"

  The boy's happiness reached all the way into the hall. Smiling, Kate leaned against the wall. She should go downstairs, she thought, listening to Jack's muffled explanations and his father's soft, rumbling reply. She would go downstairs, in just a minute.

  She stayed where she was, heart heating high and fast.

  Patrick backed out of the open doorway, shoulders blocking the faint glow of the boy's night-light. "‘Night, now, buddy."

  "‘Night, Daddy. Tell Dr. Kate thank you."

  "I will. Sleep tight."

  He pulled the door shut, the click of the lock unnaturally loud in the stillness of the hall, and turned.

  "You're still here."

  Kate felt a flare in her stomach that wasn't indigestion and swallowed her excitement. "Looks like it."

  "Missing somebody?" he taunted gently.

  She didn't answer. He rested one hand on the wall above her, close enough for her to feel the warmth emanating from his body, close enough for his breath to touch her face. She saw his eyes, with their thick, short lashes, his pupils nearly swallowing the blazing blue. Her stomach squeezed into her chest, crowding her lungs. She couldn't breathe. She felt the warmth of his arm, close by her head. She heard her blood thundering in her ears, and the rasp of his quickly indrawn breath.

  He kissed her.

  It was over before she could say if she liked it, before she had time to react. He lifted his head, and she felt the absence of his mouth more keenly than she had felt its pressure a moment before.

  "Well?"

  She lifted her chin. She had to, to meet his gaze. "Well, what?"

  His firm, well-shaped lips curved at the corners. "Are you going to object?"

  She dug deep for a cool response, her hands pressed flat to the wall behind her. He was probably the most vital, potent man she'd ever met, and she was merely unattractive Katie Sue Sinclair, too smart for her own good and stupid with men. She couldn't let him see how he got to her, how she was affected by his nearness. He would eat her alive.

  Maybe she wanted him to.

  Greatly daring, she replied, "To what? You didn't give me much to go on."

  The arm above her tensed with surprise. Good, Kate thought, savoring the heady, unfamiliar awareness of feminine power. And then his mouth came down on hers, and her brief satisfaction caught like paper and went up in smoke.

  Hot. His mouth was so incredibly hot and moist. Her own temperature shot up several degrees in response. His teeth nipped at her lower lip. His tongue thrust into her mouth. With hold, lavish strokes, he fed and consumed her. Thought fled, and the darkness behind her closed lids was streaked with fire.

  "I can give you more," he promised.

  Muscled and heavy and hot, he pressed all along the front of her, crushing her against the smooth, cool wall at her back. The contrast made her toes curl. Her hands abandoned the painted plaster for the hard curve of his shoulders.

  He made an encouraging sound deep in his throat, tangling his fingers in her hair, angling her head to take more of him. She wanted more. She wanted everything. Blanketed by sensation, covered by his body, she ignited. Her hands flashed over him, the long muscles of his back, the taut, high buttocks.

  Greedy, grasping, as if she could gather him up and into her. It wasn't enough.

  He widened his stance, letting her feel the ridge of his desire. Oh, glory. She was not a passionate woman. She wasn't. But as his rough hand glided up from her waist to cover her breast, she shuddered at the intimacy, arching her back to push her aching nipple into his palm.

  He tore his mouth away and leaned his forehead against hers. His was damp with sweat. Maybe hers was, too. Dropping her head, she nuzzled the strong column of his throat, intoxicated by the smell of soap and skin.

  "Not here," he murmured.

  Reason blipped across her mind like the warning tone of a heart monitor. She opened her eyes. "What?"

  "Not in the hall, Kate." He sounded patient, almost amused. She might have believed in his good humor if she hadn't felt his impatience pressing against her stomach. "Not when I've got a perfectly good bed to take you to."

  Panic. She wasn't ready for this. She wasn't good at this. "Is that what you think you're doing? Taking me to bed?" Her voice was too high. Shaky. She hated it.

  He eased up on her slightly so that she no longer felt him warm and close. She shivered in reaction, in longing, her body protesting the loss of his heat.

  "Aren't I?" he asked coolly.

  She hugged her elbows, not meeting his eyes. "No. I'm sorry. It wouldn't be… It's a completely understandable assumption for you to make, given the way I was grabbing at you. But—"

  "I didn't mind," he interrupted her.

  She felt the slow, betraying crawl of blood in her cheeks. "Yes, well, I shouldn't have done it. It was unprofessional. I realize I aroused, um, created expectations that I had no intentions of satisfying, but—"

  His arm dropped from the wall beside her head. He took a step back. "Kate, relax. What do you think I'm going to do? Jump my child's doctor outside his bedroom?"

  "No, of course not." She drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said again.

  Patrick bit back his frustration. His blood pooled in his loins and pounded in his veins. He could ignore it. What he couldn't dismiss was Kate's obvious distress. He didn't like seeing the brisk and bossy lady doctor so miserable and uncertain. What bastard in her past had convinced her that his erection was her responsibility?

  "Not a problem," he assured her roughly. "Let's go downstairs."

  Her neat white teeth bit down on her lower lip. Patrick wanted to soothe the tiny sting with his tongue.

  His hands clenched at his sides. Sweet heaven, did she have any idea what it did to a man's guts to look at her, with her tidy blouse rumpled and her wavy hair slipping free and her intelligent eyes dark and cloudy with desire?

  Of course she did. No wonder she couldn't wait to get away. He jeered his eager body. In his present state, hard as a rocket and ready to burn, he wasn't fit for a first-time lover. It had been too damn long.

  "Downstairs," he repeated firmly. "I'll make us coffee."

  Straightening her shoulders, she nodded, still not quite meeting his g
aze. She marched down the steps in front of him like she was going to her own court martial. He would have laughed if he hadn't found her discipline so endearing, if he weren't still struggling for his own control.

  "You want to wait in the dining room? I'll bring it in."

  She needed the space, he figured, to reestablish some professional distance between them. He needed the time to cool down.

  So he waved her into the dining room while he went into the kitchen. He rinsed out the coffeemaker, counting on the small domestic routine to distract his ready body. Who would have guessed the tart-tongued, prickly doctor would have this effect on him?

  He caught himself grinning like a fool at his reflection in the coffeepot. He shook his head in disbelief, jolted as much by the force of his desire as by its unlikely object. The last time the MacNeill clan had gathered he'd flown Jack to his parents' house for Easter—his worried mother had made her oldest son's celibacy a topic of family concern.

  "Four years is a long time, Padraig," she'd said in her forthright way, using his Gaelic name. "Too long for a man to do without. It's not healthy."

  Sean, seeing the warning light in his brother's eye, spoke up. "That's not what you told us in high school, Mom."

  And Con, closer in age, added in his cool, assessing way, "Give it time. He might surprise you. Or himself."

  At the time, Patrick had appreciated his brothers' intervention without giving much weight to their words. Holly's accident had killed his desire. All his energy and attention since then had been focused on Jack. It was disconcerting to discover that all systems were go again.

  Not that he was going anywhere. Kate Sinclair had called a halt to that.

  Patrick spooned grounds into a paper filter, the rich aroma sharp to his heightened senses. He should be glad. He had no heart for a serious relationship, and she struck him as a woman who took most things seriously. Pushy, opinionated and probing, she was the worst woman in the world for him.