Yet he was oddly grateful to her. There was something reassuring about his body's almost painful response to that unexpectedly passionate kiss in the hall. Patrick grinned derisively. Sort of like completing a successful pre-flight inspection when you had no intention of taking off.
When the coffee finished dripping, he filled two mugs and carried them through to the dining room. Kate turned quickly from her examination of the pine breakfront to accept the proffered cup. She was wearing her doctor's face again, he noted, interested and polite.
"Black, right?"
"Yes. Thank you." She blew on the coffee before sipping. "You have some lovely pieces here," she added, nodding toward the cabinet.
He had a bowl and a jug of blue-glazed North Carolina pottery, a Waterford bud vase he'd given Holly on their first anniversary and an incomplete set of his grandmother's china. Nothing, Patrick thought, to arouse much excitement. Which probably explained the doctor's intense interest in them now.
"Thanks," he said wryly.
She actually tossed her head, so that her light brown curls danced above her shoulders, and stabbed one slim finger at the glass. "Yours?"
He moved closer to see what had brought that note of challenge into her voice. A miniature tea set was displayed on the second shelf, its delicate, creamy porcelain painted with twining shamrocks.
"My mother's."
She inspected it, her face softening. "It's very pretty," she said, almost wistfully.
Her yearning expression pulled another admission from him. "She gave it to us when Holly was pregnant. Said she hoped it would encourage us to produce a female grandchild."
"Oh, that's sweet."
Kate was sweet, Patrick thought with a shock. Her wavy hair, scented by some citrusy shampoo, brushed his shoulder. Her face was open as a child's. Her very vulnerability made her dangerous in a way her no-nonsense competence did not. He tightened his hands on his coffee mug until it seared his palms and stepped back, away from her.
"We going to talk about tea sets all night?"
"No, of course not. Actually…" She squared her shoulders. "I felt we should talk about what happened upstairs just now."
He lifted an eyebrow. He couldn't resist. The workings of this woman's mind were a mystery and delight to him. "What happened?"
"What didn't happen," she clarified. "What isn't going to happen."
Amusement loosened the knot in his gut. "Fine. What isn't going to happen?"
"We're not going to have a relationship. Apart from Jack being a patient at the burn center, I mean."
He'd just finished telling himself the same thing. So why did it irk him to hear it from her?
"And how are we not going to do that?"
"It shouldn't be difficult," she said primly, standing with her hands clasped around her coffee mug and her neat ankles close together. "You don't really want me, and I can't afford to want you."
Fascinating as he found the second half of her pronouncement, he couldn't let her casual dismissal of his desire pass. "You don't think I wanted you?"
"I think that's evident."
"Honey, I don't want to flatter either one of us, but I'd say all the, ah, evidence, pointed the other way."
Her face turned scarlet. "Obviously, physically, we respond to one another. We're both adults. And you clearly have a great deal of experience—"
"I haven't had any experience, as you put it, since Jack's mother died."
Her lips parted in surprise before she pressed them firmly together. "There you are, then. That's a long time to go without, um, physical release. It has nothing to do with me personally."
She sounded like a doctor. She sounded like his mother.
"Uh-uh. How long has it been for you?"
"We're not talking about me."
"I am. How long?"
"A while," she admitted reluctantly.
"One year? Two?"
"Why does it matter?"
Damned if he knew. "I'm just trying to get a handle on your argument here. How long, Kate?"
"Nine, all right?" she snapped. "Nine."
"Years?" He couldn't believe it.
"Yes." She wouldn't look at him.
Hell. Dr. Perfect was practically a virgin. The burst of tenderness that knowledge produced astonished him.
"So when you kissed me," he said carefully, "it wasn't because you were attracted to me or anything. You've just done without for a couple of years, and I was handy."
Her earnest brown eyes widened. He was touched and amused by her apparent concern for his feelings. "Of course not. I find you personally very attractive."
"Yeah? Well, I find you personally very attractive, too."
Her pretty mouth dropped open at the way he'd managed to turn her argument around. "Oh."
Patrick grinned, absurdly pleased by her reaction.
She pressed a hand to her stomach before she rallied. "That's different."
"Why?"
"You hardly know me."
"You don't know me."
"You don't like me."
"Not at first, not much." Regretting the hurt that flashed across her face, he paid her the highest compliment he could. "You're good with Jack."
She nodded. "That's it. Patients frequently develop crushes on their doctors."
He leaned one shoulder against the wall. "You are not my doctor."
"Still, if we… If you… It would be a transitional relationship for you. I'd be part of your recovery process."
Her clinical analysis both entertained and annoyed the hell out of him. "So what's wrong with that? Isn't that the physician's mandate or something? 'Heal the sick'?"
"That's 'Do no harm.' I can't risk that. I'm not Jack's doctor, but I do work at the center where he's seen. Any hint of personal involvement…" She lowered her gaze to her cooling coffee. "I can't let my social life detract or distract me from my relationship with a patient."
The hell of it was, she was right. Jack came first. Patrick could no more spare the time and energy for a relationship than she could. And there was simply no way he could justify lusting after his child's doctor.
But even as Patrick acknowledged that, even as he applauded her professionalism, he was briefly, keenly sorry that all he'd ever have of her was one taste in the shadows.
He rolled his shoulders. "Fine. We'll keep it strictly business. Maybe I'll see you Wednesday."
She balked even at that, he noted with exasperation, a vertical furrow appearing between her smooth, dark eyebrows.
"Why Wednesday?"
"Jack has his therapy session that morning. And we have an appointment with Dr. Swaim to discuss his surgery."
"Oh, of course. Wednesday." But the parallel lines of concern between her brows didn't go away.
* * *
Kate lifted her head from her clinic notes. A man was reading someone the riot act down by the nurses' station. Quietly, but the intensity of his tone penetrated the hall. She recognized the timbre of his voice before she heard the anger, and registered the anger before she distinguished the words. Her heartbeat quickened. The voice belonged to Patrick MacNeill.
Swiftly, she left her cubbyhole, her crepe-soled shoes squeaking on the blue-and-gray linoleum, anticipation humming through her blood. An expected adrenaline response to the shouting, she told herself, but Patrick's voice was low and firm. He towered over the desk, palms flat on the counter, addressing Sharon Williams on the other side.
"You told me he was in a meeting. Now you're telling me he's not here. I want to know where he is and why he can't be paged."
The veteran nurse didn't back down from the tall man looming over her, but she signaled Kate for help with her eyebrows. So it was serious, Kate thought. Nothing rattled Amazon Sharon.
Adjusting her stethoscope, Kate made a grab for her professional composure and waded in. "Can I help you?"
Patrick pivoted, battle ready, relaxing only slightly when he saw her. "Yes. Where's Swaim?"
Well, though
t Kate. And hello to you, too. Any secret hope that he might be haunted by the memory of their scorching kiss, that he might be experiencing disturbed sleep and lapses in concentration, that he regretted even a tiny bit her insistence that they cool things between them, withered swiftly and died.
Clearly, she was the only one suffering.
Jack poked his head around his dad's thigh, eyes bright under the bill of his baseball cap. "Hi, Dr. Kate."
She smiled warmly at his eager face. "Hey, Jack. Aren't you guys supposed to be with Peg right now?"
"We're finished. I did real good, she said. Now I got a doctor 'pointment."
"He had a doctor's appointment," Patrick stressed. "Only the doctor seems to be missing."
"I told him I'd be happy to reschedule," Sharon interjected.
"For the—what—third time? Fourth?"
"You can't get in to see Dr. Swaim?" Kate asked.
Patrick plowed his fingers through his already disordered hair. "No, I just felt bored and decided to pass the time by terrorizing the nursing staff."
"And very well, too," Kate agreed politely.
That earned her his vital, mocking grin. "I've had practice."
The thought of how much practice dragged at her sympathies. She looked from the sturdy little boy with the scarred cheek to his tall, dark-haired father and sighed. She ought to stay out of it. She ought to stay away from them. Interfering between Swaim and one of his patients could jeopardize her academic appointment. Exposure to Patrick MacNeill's potent charm could destroy her emotional distance. Yet she felt herself responding to the appeal in the child's smile and the challenge in his father's blue eyes.
"Why don't you come into my office," she suggested, "and we'll discuss it."
"Dr. Sinclair…" Sharon began.
It was a warning. Kate appreciated the nurse's concern even as she chose to disregard it. "I'll take care of it. Thank you, Nurse Williams."
Patrick paced the corridor behind her, trailing Jack from one hand. By now Kate was almost used to the feeling of the big man stalking her. She pointed him to the patient chair, taking care to put the desk between them.
"Where am I supposed to sit?" Jack asked, leaning against his father's knees.
"On my lap," Patrick said promptly.
"Actually, I've got another…" Kate stooped to dig under a pile of papers for her step stool. She couldn't reach the top shelves without it. "How's this?"
"Cool," Jack approved. He settled next to his father.
"Do you want some paper? I don't have any crayons, but—" Kate rifled through her desk. "How about highlighters?"
Jack held up his splinted right hand, the palm supported by a thin plastic plate, the fingers stretched back by rubber bands fastened to a loop around his wrist. His face was solemn. Too solemn for a four-year-old boy, and his voice was too accepting.
"I can't draw."
Patrick's mouth compressed, not accepting at all. Kate felt a tug of compassion for them both. "You can draw when we get home, buddy. Two hours on, two hours off, remember?"
"No, you can draw now," Kate said. Plucking more rubber bands from her top drawer, she came around her desk to kneel beside Jack. Carefully taking his hand, she inserted two markers between his fingers, interlacing them with the bands to hold them steady without cutting off his circulation. "Try that. I'll bet if you're careful, you can draw two pictures at once."
Jack giggled, waving his hand. "I look like Wolverine."
"Is that good?" she asked.
"Awesome," Patrick assured her solemnly. She looked up to find him watching her with a warm appreciation that curled her toes inside their sensible shoes. "You're good with people."
Amy had a way with people and a special touch with men. Kate was merely competent at her job. Instinctively, she rejected the compliment. "No. No, I'm not."
"You're good with Jack."
"It's because of my pediatrics rotation. I'm trained to work well with children. I'm no good with men."
Oh, lord. Had she actually said that? Kate winced, wishing she could recall her thoughtless, revealing words.
Patrick's rich, amused voice rolled over her head. "If you think that, you haven't known the right men. Or you're ignoring the available evidence to the contrary."
The evidence. Yes. She swallowed, registering that she was practically kneeling at the man's feet, her shoulder brushing his thigh. Rising hastily, she retreated behind her desk.
"I don't think we should be having this discussion in my office."
"Yes, Doctor. Where would you like to have it?"
"I brought you in here to talk about Jack."
"Yes." His expression sobered. "Look, we're having trouble getting in to see Swaim. This is the fourth appointment he's cancelled on us. What's going on?"
Kate didn't know how much to tell him about her director's recent aberrant behavior. She didn't want to tell him anything. But this was Jack, coloring on the other side of her desk. This was Patrick, fighting for his son. Faced with the boy's candid smile and the father's level blue gaze, she felt she owed them something, some explanation.
"The situation isn't unique to Jack," she began carefully. "Since he returned a couple of weeks ago, Dr. Swaim's schedule has been … erratic."
"Is he sick?"
The possibility had occurred to Kate. But the director had vehemently denied any suggestion that he wasn't up to his regular duties. "I have no reason at this time to believe so."
"Don't try to feed an ex-Marine the official line, honey. What's his problem? Drink? Drugs?"
"No. I don't think so. I don't know," she said honestly.
He nodded, accepting that. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"Besides cover for him?" The joke, if it was a joke, fell flat. Kate sighed. "I don't know."
"You should report him."
Her face drained of blood. Her lungs emptied of air. She felt almost lightheaded at the risks she was running. She could barely bring herself to hint to Patrick that Swaim wasn't at the top of his powers. She would never criticize the unit director to the chief of surgery.
"No. I don't have any reason to suspect him of doing anything wrong. I've been with him in surgery. The only observable difference is that he's leaving more of the work for me and Owen—Owen Roberts, the other attending. He's edgy, he's distracted. But he hasn't made any mistakes. He isn't hurting anyone."
"Yet," Patrick said grimly.
The single word dropped like a stone into her fluid explanation. Kate thought of Swaim's unaccountable hesitation on the day of Jack's operation and the stitches she'd removed that night. Reluctantly, she agreed. "Yet."
"I'm done," Jack announced, waving his paper.
"Let me see." Patrick took the offering, studying the bright, duplicate designs of pink and yellow. "Not bad for highlighter hands," he teased, and Jack grinned in delight. "Why don't you go show it to Nurse Williams?"
The boy hopped to his feet. "You're not mad at her anymore?"
"No, I'm not mad. Go on, buddy. I'll see you in a couple minutes."
His dark head turned as he watched his son leave. The love and pride that shone in his eyes shattered Kate's resolution. In her entire life, no one had ever looked at her like that.
She waited until her office door closed behind Jack before she said, "I'll talk to him."
The dark brows lifted. "Swaim?"
"Yes." She fiddled with her pen. Click, cap off. Click, cap on.
"What will that do?"
She tried to imagine a best-case scenario, as if wishing could make it happen. "Well, he might tell me what's going on. At least he'll know I've noticed something. Maybe he'll be more careful. Or get help."
Patrick was still frowning. He must find her assurances as vapid as she did. "No, I meant, what will that do to you?"
"Oh, I don't know. Nothing, maybe. Maybe he'll thank me for my concern. Maybe he'll pat me on the head and tell me I'm imagining things." She fought to keep her voice steady, proud
when she succeeded. "Or maybe he'll kick me out of the program."
Patrick's expression was troubled. "Kate—"
She turned from him, turned from the sympathy he offered. If she let herself rely on him, the inevitable disappointment would only make her feel worse.
"He won't do it right away. We're really short-staffed at the moment." She smiled feebly.
Patrick stood, ramming his hands in his pockets. "What can I do?"
"Wait until I've talked with Dr. Swaim. Please. I'll have a better idea what your options are then."
He paced the narrow space before her desk. "What about Jack's surgery? Could you do it?"
Kate hesitated. She was dangerously flattered that he'd ask. "I could, yes. But I think it would be premature."
"It needs to be done as soon as possible."
"Why?"
"Jack starts kindergarten in the fall. That's only four months away."
"Yes, but why operate? The scarring on his face and ear won't stop him from functioning in school."
"Acceptance," Patrick said simply. "Functioning in class is fine, but functioning socially is even more important at his age."
"Jack functions beautifully," Kate protested.
"With adults," Patrick countered. "Yeah, he does great with the nurses and my family and my partner and his wife. All the people he's come in contact with care about him, not his face. But all that's going to change when he starts school. Kids can be cruel."
"There are reentry nurses who can go to the school and explain to his classmates about Jack's accident."
His head came up in automatic rejection. "No. He doesn't need to be singled out or explained away, like he's some sort of freak. I don't want him to feel different."
Kate sympathized with his concern. She honored him for it. But his solution—Swaim's proposed course of treatment—was no solution at all.
"Even with the surgery, Jack will look different," she said as gently as she could. "It's better for the children to understand that, to know that the difference doesn't matter, that he's a little boy just like them who's survived a terrible accident."
Patrick's blue eyes pierced her. "How can a bunch of kindergartners understand that? How can they accept it? How can they possibly believe that in one sunny afternoon drive, in a moment, in a heartbeat, your life can be changed and your mother killed and your face destroyed, and it's not your fault? How could anyone accept that?"
THE PASSION OF PARICK MACNEILL Page 7