THE PASSION OF PARICK MACNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  Jack gave his father a look, surprisingly adult in its scorn. "I like her better than any old doctor. I like her living in our house. I wish she could stay."

  Uh-oh. Here was trouble. What had Kate said, that first night he'd kissed her? Patients frequently develop crushes on their doctors. Jack had fallen hard for Kate. But Kate was devoted to her career. The up-and-coming surgeon had no place in her sterile, well-ordered life for the MacNeill men. No patience with messy passions. No need for him. Resentment flashed through Patrick, overriding the nagging recollection that he'd been the one initially to set limits on their relationship.

  He poured four uniform pancakes onto the griddle, buying time to let his boy down easy. "Just because we like a person doesn't mean they have to like us back in the same way. Or the same amount. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

  "You mean she's mad at you?"

  Patrick muffled a laugh that could have easily been a curse. "That, too. I just meant… Don't get your hopes up, buddy."

  Jack held out his plate for the finished pancakes. "It's okay, Dad. She loves me back. She told me so."

  "She loves you." That was a kicker.

  "Yeah."

  "She told you so," Patrick repeated. It took some getting used to.

  "Yeah. When she was staying here." Jack waved his plate impatiently. "Can I have some pancakes, please?"

  Wordlessly, Patrick slid four perfect circles onto his son's plate. All this time he'd been struggling to keep Kate out of his life with Jack, the lady doctor had already made a place for herself in his boy's heart.

  "Besides, she wasn't mad when she said 'good night' to me." Climbing down from his chair, Jack pulled his plate toward the edge of the counter. He grinned, obviously enjoying the unfamiliar sensation of being one up on old dad. "But if she's mad at you, I think you should 'pologize."

  It wasn't such a bad idea. Patrick was uneasily aware he was out of line last night. He figured his defensive reaction was at least partly Kate's fault. The woman got under his skin. She saw into his brain. And she was dangerously close to his heart.

  He still owed her an apology.

  He didn't know Kate's schedule. So while Jack poured syrup on his pancakes, Patrick called the hospital. The receptionist was evasive. Nurse Williams was blunt.

  "We've got twenty-one beds and twenty-three patients," she reported. "Dr. Sinclair's got three surgeries scheduled this morning, and an abuse case just came in. I'll give her a message, Mr. MacNeill, that's the best I can do."

  Patrick, already uncomfortable at the prospect of apologizing, declined to leave a message. Kate wouldn't thank him for broadcasting their association, he rationalized. Besides, what he had to say wouldn't sound right through a third party. It wouldn't come easy in front of an audience, either.

  Hanging up, he studied his boy's dark head, bent over the plate of pancakes, and came to a decision.

  "Hey, buddy. You want to have dinner tonight with Ray and Shelby?"

  "Has she had her baby?"

  Meeting Billy had whetted Jack's appetite for friends. Even a new baby was better than nothing. Patrick made a mental note to call Kate's sister and arrange a play date with the nephew. Better yet, Kate could make the call. "Not yet."

  Jack shrugged. "‘Kay."

  So Patrick called Ray to confirm that his partner didn't have any flights scheduled for that afternoon. A few hours later, he dropped his son off at their house.

  Shelby, swollen with child and bursting with impatience, welcomed them at her door with a hug. "I need the distraction about now," she admitted frankly. "And Ray can use Jack's help putting the changing table together. Don't you worry about a thing."

  Patrick wasn't worried. He had it all figured out. Obviously, he'd screwed up. He'd never dreamed the restrictions placed on their relationship would hurt self-sufficient, self-possessed Dr. Kate Sinclair. He'd made no promises. She had no expectations. Correction, Patrick thought ruefully. She'd said she had no expectations. He should have known better.

  Backing the Volvo out cautiously to avoid the garbage cans at the end of Ray's drive, Patrick considered Kate's confessed lack of experience. She'd confided her crazy insecurities about that sweet, curvy body of hers. He reminded himself a woman didn't do without sex for nine years and then go to bed and have it mean nothing. He'd done without for four, and it had meant plenty to him. Hell, he'd been immersed in her, lost in her, in her scent and her cries and the soft, wet clasp of her body. For a while there, he'd forgotten everything but the need to touch her, to take her, to have her.

  Even now, negotiating rush-hour traffic on his way to her apartment, he wanted her. More than her body in his bed, he wanted the cool challenge of those intelligent eyes and the warm compassion of her smile.

  Maybe that had scared him at first, he acknowledged. A man didn't change the emotional habits of a lifetime in one night. He was used to sleeping with his wife. Maybe Kate had had a point about his ambivalence. Maybe he hadn't been ready for another relationship.

  But he was willing to risk it now. After all, Kate wasn't asking him to change his life or priorities. It was only reasonable that with her soft heart and hard experience, she needed more from him than occasional sex. Well, Patrick thought righteously, he could accommodate that. She could move in with them.

  He waited for panic to hit with the scattering impact of shrapnel, and felt only a quiet, solid sense of rightness. His son would still be at the center of his life, but Kate would fill the corners very nicely. He wanted her. And Jack liked her. It would mean a longer commute for Kate, of course. She would need a new car. Maybe a Landrover ATV? Something safe and reliable for transporting her and Jack, but sporty enough to look at home in the doctors' parking lot.

  Satisfied with his solution, he pulled in front of her building. He turned off the engine and sat for a minute with his hands resting on the steering wheel. Maybe he was nuts. He was buying her a car, and she wasn't even speaking to him.

  He glanced at his wristwatch. Six o'clock. Her battered gray excuse for transportation was already taking up space at the curb, so she was home. But when he rang the bell, no one answered.

  Fine. He'd had a mobile installed in the car so that Jack could always reach him on the road. Turning the ignition key, Patrick punched in Kate's number.

  Her machine picked up. "This is Dr. Sinclair," it announced in her cool, clipped voice. "I can't come to the phone right now, but if you'll leave a message at the tone…"

  Patrick opened the door of the car. With the headset tucked against his ear, he snapped a directive at her front window. "Kate, this is Patrick. I'm out front, and I'm not going away. You want to let me in, or you want to have this discussion at the hospital?"

  This time, when he marched up the crumbling sidewalk to her door, it opened. She stood in the doorway with her arms folded and her eyes glittering in her white face. Tears? Guilt punched him in the chest. Had he done that? Left her hurt and defenseless?

  She tipped her head to one side, considering him. "I'm sure this will come as a shock to you, flyboy, but not every woman is secretly thrilled by the Neanderthal act."

  Ouch. Okay, hurt but not defenseless. He tried a smile, stepping forward to enter the apartment. "I'm not interested in every woman."

  She didn't budge. "Oh, right. Just one. Only she's dead." Her eyes widened at the words that had escaped her.

  Anger flicked through him. He fought to contain it. "Not dead, honey. Just real, real cold."

  Her head dropped as she looked down and away. "I'm sorry," she said stiffly. "That was an awful thing to say."

  He frowned. Twin grooves carved between her brows, and tiny lines bracketed her mouth. She looked every one of her thirty-six years. And yet, studying her averted face, he still felt the tug of lust, the more irresistible pull of concern.

  "Let me in, Kate."

  She stepped back, admitting him.

  He'd come prepared for dinner and an apology. The wine and bread and cheese were
still in the trunk of his car. Pulling the cellophane-wrapped bunch of grocery-store flowers from behind his back, he thrust it at her.

  "Here."

  She looked, if possible, more miserable than before as she accepted the bouquet. "I… Thank you."

  "We need to talk."

  She put up her empty hand, as if to hold him off. "Please. Not now."

  The vulnerable gesture unsettled him. It wasn't like Kate to plead off a confrontation. Or to strike out cruelly, as she had a moment ago. Something had happened to wreck that brisk composure. Something was eating her, gnawing her from the inside out. Something more than him or them. Again, he felt that tug, as if she were drawing his heart out of his chest.

  "What is it?" he asked quietly.

  She shook her head.

  "Is your sister all right? Your mother?"

  "They're fine."

  "Your job?" he ventured. He remembered she'd been upset last night when that other doctor had seen them together. "You haven't been fired or anything?"

  "No, I almost wish I had."

  He heard the tightness in her throat and deliberately kept his own voice easy. "Another bad day?"

  She closed her eyes. "Yes."

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  "Not particularly."

  Patrick told himself that suited him fine. In his opinion, open communication was highly overrated. He respected Kate's desire to handle things her own way. All the same, he didn't like her pale, set look. And he wasn't crazy about being shut out like this, either. Maybe she'd feel better after a meal. That had worked the night before, at least until he screwed it up.

  "Look, I've got dinner stuff in the car. Why don't I go get it while you put those flowers in some water?"

  She nodded. But when he came back through the unlocked door a few minutes later, she was standing where he'd left her, her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth pinched tight, hugging his flowers to her chest.

  Tenderness shook him. "Aw, hell, honey."

  He set the bags on her desk table. Removing the flowers from her grip, he tossed them beside the groceries. With one finger, he tilted up her chin. "For someone who's always going on about sharing your feelings, you are one stubborn, silent woman, you know that?"

  She didn't even glare at him. That as much as anything worried him.

  "Come on, Kate. What happened?"

  Turning her head from his gentle badgering, she said tonelessly, "We had a kid brought in today. A little boy, Jack's age."

  Apprehension tightened Patrick's gut. The burn center saw kids all the time. "And?"

  "You really want to know?" Finally, she opened her eyes, and the desolation in them startled him. "His stepfather doused him in gasoline and set him on fire."

  He sucked in his breath. "That's horrible."

  Kate shrugged. He watched her struggle for her usual composure, heard her retreat to her customary objectivity. "It's fairly common, actually. About a third of the pediatric patients we see are abuse cases."

  The statistic staggered him. He could only imagine what the reality must be like. "What are you doing about it?"

  She raised her eyebrows. "I'll spare you the medical details. The boy had third-degree burns over sixty-two percent of his body. Owen and I worked on him for five hours."

  Patrick recognized the deliberate understatement and the dry tone. He ought to. He'd used the same defenses often enough. "I wasn't talking about his medical treatment."

  "Oh." She rubbed two fingers between her brows, as if she could erase the lines of tension or smooth her tangled thoughts. "Well, the social worker took pictures, of course. The psych team is meeting tomorrow morning to discuss issues with the mother. With the stepfather arrested, the other children should be okay."

  "That's good, but that's not what I meant either. What about you, Kate? How are you feeling?"

  "I'm not feeling anything. I can't afford to feel anything."

  She felt something, all right, Patrick thought grimly. It was tearing her apart. He didn't like it, didn't like not being able to fix things for her. He took her shoulders, but she was straight and stiff as a rifle under his hands. And as likely to go off, if she didn't find some safe release for the emotions churning inside her.

  "Don't give me the medical line. You're off duty now. You don't have to play Super Doc."

  She flashed. "Listen, flyboy, my Super Doc act kept that kid alive."

  He preferred her anger to her distress. "Great. He's alive. Now cut yourself some slack. Cry, if you have to."

  She jerked away from him. "I can't cry. I won't cry. Crying doesn't help."

  He was used to being the strong one. Now he watched in equal parts irritation and sympathy as she paced her tiny living room. And understanding. God, how he understood. Her words were a bitter echo of his own soul's cry after the accident.

  "Not the kid, maybe. It might help you."

  She fetched up by the window, staring out as if her tidy living quarters were too small to contain her grief. "I can't afford to break my heart over every child who comes through the unit. How I feel isn't going to make anybody any better."

  "So you don't let your feelings get in the way of what you have to do. But the feelings are there, Kate. You can't ignore them."

  She whirled to face him. "You mean, like you do?"

  It was a well-aimed shot, and it hit right on target. "We're not talking about me."

  "No, we never do, do we?"

  She was bitter, defensive. Right. And she still hadn't cried. Maybe talking wasn't such a good idea after all.

  He crossed the room in two long strides, nearly stepping on the cat, and grabbed her. Her defiant face, her troubled eyes, tore at him.

  "It didn't use to bother me," she snapped. "Don't let it get to you. I tell them all that, all the residents. You can't do your job if you let it get to you. Only I looked at this boy, this baby, and I saw Jack. I know what he's going to face. The process will be that much harder because he doesn't have a daddy like you to support him. His mother doesn't have it together, either. I'm in there trying to evaluate his wounds, and I came this close—" She held up her thumb and forefinger, half an inch apart, and shook them in his face. "—This close—to losing it. I don't want to feel this way. I'm no damn good if I let myself feel this way."

  Frustration drew a noose around his chest. No damn good? She was the best thing that had happened to him in a long, sorry while.

  He tightened his hold on her. "That's a load of crap," he said brutally. "Your patients deserve a doctor who will treat them with her heart as well as her hands and her brain. It doesn't make you less effective if you see them as people and not just as meat on a table."

  She stared at him, shock plain on her face. And then, quite suddenly, tears welled, blurring her burning anger and her fierce intelligence. She cried.

  Patrick gathered her against his chest, trying to absorb both her tears and her grief. If he'd had any illusions left that he could enjoy a limited, physical relationship with this woman, her tears destroyed them. His hand, as he stroked her soft hair, trembled slightly.

  "He's so little," she wept. "They're supposed to take care of him. How can any parent do that to a child who depends on them for love?"

  He didn't have an answer for her. All he had was the strength of his arms and the comfort of his embrace. So he held her, just held her, while she sobbed noisily and without pretense against his heart. After a long while, she quieted. Her breath flattened the damp fabric of his shirt.

  Deep inside, where Patrick had thought it safely smothered, an ember of guilt burned, sparked to life by the honesty of her emotion and fanned by her breath against his chest. So little. He closed his eyes in pain, remembering another small boy, another burn survivor. So little, and so frighteningly dependent.

  Kate shuddered, empty of tears. A new, delicate peace expanded to fill the hollow space inside her. Her nose, buried against Patrick's chest, was stuffy, and her throat was raw. With her protective docto
r's shell cracked around her, she felt wet and naked as a new chick. And yet, anchored in Patrick's arms, she also felt curiously weightless, and free for the first time that she could remember of the burdens of her profession and the weight of her own expectations.

  "I love my son." The words grated out.

  She tightened her arms around him, instinctively responding to the rough need in his voice. "Of course you do."

  "But I wasn't there for him, either."

  She shifted to look up into his face. "What? When?"

  "When he had his accident. When Holly died. I wasn't there."

  Indignation swelled, disturbing her fragile sense of well-being. "That's not the same thing. You were on assignment, you told me. With the reserves."

  He shrugged, like a warrior resettling heavy armor. The gesture almost dislodged her hold on him. "Yeah. But the bottom line is, I wasn't there when he needed me."

  All her protective instincts surged to deny it. She was fiercely angry he could think that way. "Don't you believe it," she said. "Jack lived. I remember. The nurses called him Iron Man, because he fought so hard to live."

  Patrick's face had resumed its mask. She wasn't reaching him. Kate punched his upper arm in frustration. "Do you know how many patients we lose just when it looks like everything is going to be all right? Their immune system shuts down or their metabolic rate goes up or an infection starts in their wounds or in their lungs, and they just give up. Jack never gave up. You wouldn't let him give up. I saw you in his hospital room. I was just doing a visiting rotation, but I heard the stories. He held on to life, for you."

  Patrick's eyes met hers, cautious with the need to believe. With fierce conviction, she said, "Don't you ever, ever tell me you weren't there when he needed you."

  His guard raised, revealing the wound that still oozed inside him. "I couldn't make the pain go away. I couldn't make him better. I still can't."

  Her heart ached for him. But he didn't need her coddling. He needed to pull his head out of his hero hat and take a good hard look at reality. "So what? You do what you can," she argued. "You give him your love and support. Yes, Jack's scarred, but he's happy and secure, because of you."