THE PASSION OF PARICK MACNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  "You'll do fine," he assured her again.

  "Daddy pulls down the thingies on the sides," Jack explained, speaking around a slice of pizza. "To keep the score even."

  Not very even, a disgruntled Kate thought in the sixth frame. Her ball bounced off the bumpers, losing force, or glided along the side, never knocking down more than four pins. Jack had his own, two-handed style, rolling the ball from between his legs with surprising effect. His shouts of glee and whispered instruction relieved her embarrassment and made her smile.

  But when Patrick played, her mouth went dry. The intensity he brought to their uncompetitive family game was positively indecent. Oh, he wasn't obnoxious about it. He joked, Leaning back at the console, and patted and teased his son, and hunched over, making encouraging noises, when Kate got up to bowl. But when he stood and strode to the bottom of the lane, he drew every female eye, from the pink-haired lady spraying shoes at the counter to the teenage girl playing one lane over.

  He walked like a warrior. Beneath his plain knit shirt, his shoulders were broad. His long back rippled with muscle. His concentration as he set the ball tempted every woman to imagine how that powerful attention would feel focused on her.

  Kate knew, and the knowledge made her heart beat faster. She clutched her soggy soda cup, trying to steady her heartbeat by analyzing the man's game. It was all a matter of technique, she decided. He had a smooth swing. Good balance. And a very nice, tight butt.

  "Well, now, this is a pleasure."

  Kate's face flamed. She turned. A graying black man in a bright purple bowling shirt smiled at her, extending his hand over the counter.

  "Jimmy Burke," he said. "I run this place. I've been waiting a long time for Captain MacNeill to bring a lady around."

  She wiped her hand hastily on her slacks. His grip was firm and callused, his forearm tattooed. "It's very nice to meet you. But I'm not his—I'm a doctor at the hospital."

  The man's eyebrows climbed his high, domed forehead. "A doctor. Damn. Never pictured the captain with a medic."

  "Yes, well, I'm sure he feels the same way," she agreed. Patrick's back was to them. He waited politely for the blonde in the next lane to bowl before finishing his own frame. With a wiggle, the teenager released her ball and sashayed to her seat, looking back over her shoulder.

  "I can see why you'd be worried about finding him female companionship," Kate observed dryly.

  "Oh, he's not like that, ma'am. Doctor."

  "Kate," she insisted, smiling.

  He acknowledged her name with a brief nod. "Thank you. Call me Jimmy. Anyway, he don't fool around. Patrick MacNeill was just about the most married man I ever knew. The rest of them couldn't wait to get out on liberty and drink and carry on."

  She was fascinated and trying not to show it. "And he didn't go?"

  The man laughed, displaying perfect white teeth. "Oh, he went. They all went. And being as he was going mustang— He didn't come in from college," he explained at Kate's puzzled look. "Sometimes a likely enlisted man will get tapped as an officer candidate and get a chance at flight school. That's what happened with Patrick. Anyway, maybe he needed liberty more than most."

  She leaned forward, trying to absorb this new image of Patrick. "And … he was married, then?"

  Jimmy Burke nodded. "About two years, I guess. To his high-school sweetheart." She must have kept the pang at her heart from showing in her face, because he continued with his story. "So every time his buddies would go into a bar and start to pairing up, like they do, Patrick would look them over, all the ladies, and pick out the ugliest girl there and buy her a drink."

  Kate winced. "And I'm supposed to find this reassuring?"

  Burke grinned. "Oh, yes. It was strategy," he confided, tapping his graying temple. "One of the reasons he made officer. See, he'd make that girl's night. She'd keep all the other pretty ladies away, and Officer Candidate MacNeill would get back to base without ever being tempted."

  Kate pressed her lips together. Was part of her appeal her own inability to tempt Patrick to emotional infidelity? "That's shameless," she said.

  "No, it was smart," Patrick interrupted, coming over to sit beside her. She was painfully conscious of his arm, warm and heavy, draped along the back of her chair, touching her shoulders. He reached his other hand to Burke.

  "Sir. How the hell are you?"

  "It's Jimmy, now, Captain. I'm not your instructor anymore."

  "It's Patrick, now, First Sergeant. I'm not in the Corps anymore."

  Kate listened, both attracted by and excluded from this masculine exchange, reminded again how little she really shared of Patrick MacNeill's life. When Jack got up to bowl, she excused herself to watch, leaving the men to their conversation.

  The boy danced in excitement. "Spare!" he crowed. "I'm beating you, Dr. Kate!"

  Smiling, she tugged on the brim of his baseball cap. "Showoff."

  Patrick unfolded his long body from his chair and came up behind them. "Are you being disrespectful to the lady, buddy?"

  "No, sir." Jack tipped his head back, grinning at his dad. "I'm just beating her."

  Kate laughed. "Don't sound so proud of yourself. I stink."

  "I don't know," Patrick said. "Maybe you just need a lesson."

  She eyed him warily. "A lesson?"

  "Mmm. You're letting your arm cross your body before you release."

  He was almost certainly right. And she didn't care, Kate reminded herself. But the hint of criticism raised her competitive hackles. "So?"

  "So you want to bring the ball forward straight from the shoulder." He picked up her ten-pound ball like it weighed so many ounces and handed it to her. "Here, let me show you."

  She could hardly object with Jack standing there, with Jimmy Burke looking on. But instead of demonstrating, Patrick wrapped his body around hers and guided her hand.

  "Bring it back smoothly," he murmured into her ear, while she tried to ignore that his arm was warm and close along hers and his hips cradled her bottom. "That's it. And then forward … like this … and release when the heel of your thumb is pointing at the center pin."

  The ball flew from her fingers, gliding almost straight down the wooden lane to crash into the number eight pin.

  "Seven!" Jack shouted, bouncing up and down. "That's good, Dr. Kate."

  "There," Patrick said, his breath stirring the hair just behind her ear. "Much better."

  Reaction shivered through her. She shrugged away, damning her susceptibility. She didn't want to respond to him on a purely sexual level, not when he kept so much of his mind and his life locked away from her. With a jolt of dismay, she discovered her heart was capable of misleading her more thoroughly than Wade Preston ever had.

  "Let me see if I've got it."

  Grimly, she retrieved her ball from the conveyor. She could do this. She would do this. She was smart enough to master a simple game. Two steps, the way she'd seen him do it. Back from the shoulder, smoothly. Forward, straight. And with only a kiss from the bumper, Kate bowled her first spare.

  She turned with a smile of triumph to meet Patrick's gaze, amusement and a hint of admiration in his blue eyes.

  "Yeah, I guess you do," he said. "And all by yourself, too."

  Her chin went up. "Don't mess with me, flyboy. I've had a bad day."

  "Tell me about it," he invited quietly.

  She opened her mouth to do exactly that before she realized how inappropriate it would be with Jack there and the bowling alley owner listening in. How inappropriate it would be, period. Patrick MacNeill had made it clear from the start he didn't want her problems. He wanted a physical distraction and help with his son.

  "I don't think so," she said.

  Something—frustration, fatigue, the lick of loneliness—must have colored her voice. She caught the look Patrick exchanged with Burke, leaning over the counter behind them, and was annoyed at her loss of control.

  The owner straightened, elaborately breezy. "I'd best go check on l
ane four. Those league bowlers get mighty thirsty." He shook Patrick's hand again and nodded to Kate. "Ma'am. Don't be a stranger."

  She forced a smile. "Thank you. It was nice to meet you."

  "My pleasure," he said before he walked away.

  "Is it my turn?" Jack demanded, tugging at his father's arm.

  "No," Patrick said slowly, eyes steady on Kate's face. "No, I'm thinking it's mine. Is that what you're thinking, Kate?"

  "I'm not thinking anything," she snapped. Experience had taught her that much. The less you hoped for, the less likely you were to be disappointed. The less you asked for, the less, in the end, you gave away.

  His dark eyebrows raised. "So what are you feeling?"

  Don't think, he'd urged her last night. Feel. The memory shivered between them.

  Kate looked away, rubbing the spot beneath her ribs where her cheeseburger burned. Feeling was dangerous. Feelings were unreliable. What had feeling ever gotten the women of her family but headaches and heartaches? She'd always prided herself on her rational decisions, her dogged, methodical approach to problems. It was time to step back, to take a long, cool look at what she wanted and what she could reasonably expect from this man.

  How did she feel?

  Wretched. Besotted. Confused.

  "Tired," she said.

  "Do you want to go home?" he asked.

  "But, Daddy," Jack objected, "it's my turn."

  "One more frame," Patrick said, his gaze never leaving Kate's face. "And then we're going home."

  "Not to your house," she said quickly.

  Jack hefted his ball from the conveyor belt and carried it to the bottom of the lane.

  "Why not?" Patrick asked.

  "I don't have any clothes."

  "What you're wearing looks fine to me."

  "I have to feed my cat."

  "You don't put out dry cat food for her?"

  She did. Of course she did. Blackie would be fine. That wasn't her real objection, and Patrick knew it. She might have responded to his perception—she wanted to accept his invitation—but she was afraid of exposing her feelings to him while he still maintained his careful emotional distance. Not tonight.

  "Jack—" she began.

  "If Jack thinks anything about it—which he won't—he'll figure you're sleeping down the hall."

  She needed to know what he wanted, what he was offering. "But I wouldn't be."

  A gleam appeared in his blue eyes. "Sleeping? I don't think so."

  She was unbearably tempted to give up, to give in, to go home with him. But she was dreadfully afraid last night had been a mistake. She was almost convinced he thought so, too. What had his sergeant called him? The most married man he'd ever known?

  She thought of the photograph of Patrick's pretty wife, his remote courtesy that morning, and shook her head. "I can't."

  "You won't."

  "I shouldn't."

  "Was it Roberts seeing us together?" he asked suddenly. "Are you worried about your job?"

  "That's part of it." She wasn't sure if her new rapport with Owen Roberts extended to his keeping silent, or what it would mean if he didn't. But she didn't want Patrick to feel hedged by her concerns. Her mother claimed there was no surer way to drive a man off. Ten-year-old Kate, standing in the driveway watching her daddy desert them, had vowed fiercely never to confide her troubles to anyone again.

  She shrugged. "Don't worry about it. It's my job. My choice. My problem."

  Patrick's face shuttered. "I see."

  Kate doubted it. But until she decided whether or not she could live within the posted limits of Patrick's life, it was easier to let him think she was covering her ass than to explain she was protecting her heart.

  "Are you up to driving?" he asked.

  She scowled. Her head pulsed, and there was a hollow in the pit of her stomach that neither the burger he'd fed her or the heartburn that followed had managed to fill. But she was an independent, competent, professional woman. Jack needed to get to bed soon. And Patrick, as always, would put his son's needs first. He ought to. She expected him to. Perhaps that was the part of him she admired the most. There was no way she would interfere with that, or encourage Patrick to see her as a drag on them.

  "Of course I can drive."

  "We'll take you to pick up your car, then."

  The woman was retreating faster than an ambulance under fire, Patrick thought, as they cruised the highway back to the hospital. What the hell had happened to last night's responsive, eager lover? The street lamps lay a pattern of flickering black and white over the pale, set face beside him.

  He depressed the gas pedal, picking up speed. Fine. He didn't need another dependent. It wasn't his place to worry over the shadows bruising those wide brown eyes, the creases dug in between those smooth, straight brows. Kate had made it clear she wouldn't welcome his concern or tolerate his interference. She didn't need him. He should be glad.

  He was irritated as hell.

  He glanced over at her, at her small, neat hands folded quietly in her lap and her face turned toward the window. Everything about her challenged him. He wanted inside that cool, analytical brain of hers, that hot, tight little body. Her snooty refusal to admit him really pushed his buttons.

  Why should he care? He didn't want to divide his attention or divert his focus from his son. He didn't need a complicated and consuming passion. He'd brought Jack along tonight to demonstrate to her—to prove to himself—that nothing in his life had changed since he'd opened the door to his room and found Kate Sinclair half-naked on his bed.

  Man, was he ever wrong.

  The blue and white lights of the hospital glowed up ahead. They were almost to her car, and he hadn't said a word to break that self-sufficient silence of hers. Couldn't say a thing, with his son sitting up and listening in.

  Patrick slowed at the entrance to the staff garage. "Which way?"

  She delivered brisk directions to her parking spot. At nine o'clock, there was no activity in the shadowed garage and plenty of empty spaces. He hated the thought that she must regularly walk to her car alone. At least she had the sense to park under a light near the elevator. He found an empty slot three spaces down and pulled in.

  Kate undid her seat belt. "Jack, thank you for letting me go bowling with you," she said warmly. Opening her door, she glanced back over her shoulder at Patrick. "Thanks for the ride."

  The lady was brushing him off.

  Patrick clenched his jaw. "Stay put," he instructed Jack, and got out of the car. "What's your hurry?"

  Her head bent over her car keys. "You have to get home. So do I."

  "So come home with us." Now where the hell had that come from? Panic nearly made him light-headed, like a pilot trainee at high altitudes. But that's what he wanted. Kate in his house. Kate in his bed. He forced a smile at her surprised expression, trying to soften the rawness of his need. "I'll buy you a toothbrush."

  Just for an instant, he thought he saw an answering flame leap in her eyes. And then she shook her head, her soft hair falling to veil her face. "Not tonight."

  He laid a hand on the car door, preventing her from opening it. "When? Tomorrow?"

  "I'll sleep on it," she said coolly.

  Frustration boiled through him. She was slipping away. Dammit. Damn her, and damn the need that raked his gut.

  "Sleep on this," he growled, and reached for her.

  The kiss was hot and hungry and rough. Way too much for persuasion, and not nearly enough. When he raised his head, she was shaking, and he was breathing hard. Releasing her shoulders, he waited for Kate to slice him into ribbons with her razor mind and scalpel tongue. She pressed her lips together. Oh, God. Was that hurt shimmering in her eyes?

  Guilt flayed him. "Well? Aren't you going to say anything?"

  She fumbled behind her for the door handle. "What would you like me to say?"

  He was furious with her for failing to lose her temper. With himself for his failure of control. "You're pretty
good at playing therapist. Why don't you spout that grief recovery bull you're so fond of?"

  She lifted her chin a notch. "I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist. And I'm not your therapist."

  "So what about your little theories this morning? How I can't handle intimacy with you because I'm still getting over my dead wife?"

  "Is that what you think you're doing?"

  "Hell, no." He dragged his hand through his hair. "I don't know."

  Her eyes were bright as surgical steel. "Actually, I do have something to say."

  Relief cracked his chest. "Fine. Say it."

  Finally, she succeeded in opening her car door. She got in. "I don't need this. I don't need you. Go to hell, MacNeill."

  The door slammed behind her. He stood there like a sorry ass and watched her red taillights as she drove away.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  «^»

  "Daddy, do you like Dr. Kate?"

  Patrick, pouring pancake batter, froze. He'd figured he owed his son their traditional Saturday morning breakfast after being away all weekend. Now a single drop fell and sizzled on the hot griddle.

  He cleared his throat. "Why do you ask?"

  "Well, I saw you kissing her. Last night."

  Damn. Jack hadn't said anything when he got into the car. Patrick had assumed his son hadn't seen. Or maybe he'd hoped Jack wouldn't care. Or maybe, in the heat of the moment, he just hadn't thought at all

  Jack, standing on a chair beside him, reached forward to catch another drip on his finger.

  "Watch it," Patrick said automatically. "You'll burn yourself."

  Obediently, Jack slid his elbows back across the counter. "So, do you?"

  Patrick wasn't sure he could explain the dynamics of his relationship with Kate in a way that an almost-five-year-old could understand. Hell, he didn't understand them himself. But he'd always tried to be honest with his son.

  "Yeah, I do."

  Jack nodded with satisfaction. "Good. I do, too."

  Patrick hesitated. He didn't want the kid getting the wrong idea. Kate had been kind to Jack, but that was as far as it went. He and his son were doing great on their own. And the lady doctor had made it clear that she didn't want anything further to do with Jack's daddy. "She's a very nice doctor."