A Hero's Homecoming

by Laurie Paige

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Because.”

  He clasped her arm and guided her to the four-wheel-drive sports utility vehicle she had recently bought when her fifteen-year-old compact had gasped its last breath and refused to start again.

  She realized she liked old, familiar things around her. Her compact had been a trusted friend. The ute was too new for her to know how it behaved in different weather and road conditions. She glanced at the man beside her.

  How would he react in passion? Rough? Impatient? She didn’t consider him a gentle man, but she instinctively knew he would handle a woman carefully.

  He waited without one sign of impatience while she fished the keys out of the oversized bag she carried.

  “Here.” She handed him a packet of pills, then unlocked the door.

  “What are these?”

  “A sample pack of vitamins. Salesmen are always loading me up with pills. I ran into one when I stopped at the drugstore to pick up a card for a friend.”

  J.D. grunted and stuck the packet in his pocket. His hands settled on her shoulders before she could leap into the ute and be off. She saw the intent in his eyes before he bent his head toward her.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. Panic eddied around her.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  He smiled at her use of his laconic term. “Afraid?”

  “No.” She knew that he knew she lied. “It would be pointless. An affair is out of the question.”

  “Is it?”

  She huffed in irritation at the question. “Of course,” she began strongly, then stopped, uncertain what she wanted to say next. The words were swept away on the wind.

  He shifted so she was shielded from its force, then his breath caressed her lips as he leaned forward. She froze like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

  “How about a ride back to my truck?” he asked.

  The words freed her to move. She turned her head. “At the café?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hop in. I have to get home.” She remembered there was no one at the house waiting for her.

  He walked around and climbed in the passenger side. She cranked the engine to let it warm, then fumbled with the seat belt.

  He twisted sideways and caught her hands. “Let me do it. Your hands are like ice.”

  His, she noticed, were warm, yet he hadn’t worn gloves, either. Warm hands, cold heart?

  He didn’t fasten the buckle. Instead, he unzipped his coat and guided her hands inside, up under his arms so she could soak up his body heat. She didn’t draw away. She knew she should. She told herself to. But she didn’t.

  “You’re like a furnace,” she said. Her attempt at a laugh was breathless. Oh, help, she sounded like a teenager in the presence of a rock idol.

  “So are you.”

  He slipped his hands inside her coat and lightly grasped her waist. His thumbs slid back and forth over her sweater. She swallowed a moan.

  The parking-lot lighting created interesting shadows and points of brilliance in the dim interior of the ute. She saw his head move toward her. The light concentrated in his eyes for a second, then winked out. She realized he’d closed his eyes.

  His lips touched hers.

  The electric jolt went clear to her toes. Heat flowed between J.D. and Carey. She knew all the things she should do—pull back, berate him, get her own shaky emotions in hand. She knew—oh, yes, she knew. She didn’t do any of them.

  She let her hands glide over him, along his sides and up his torso. He lifted his arms, letting her explore where she would, then clamped down, trapping her hands against his body again. The heat was incredible. It melted any resistance she might have made.

  His lips moved over hers, gently at first, then harder as the kiss became complicated, a thing of growing passion, of lips and tongue and teeth, of light touches and deep explorations and shimmering sensations.

  The moan she’d suppressed escaped in a demanding tone of need. He drew her closer, deeper into his embrace.

  She slipped her arms around him. Their knees hit. He wedged an arm under her legs and lifted them over his lap so that her thighs rested on his. Then he trailed his hand up her leg on the return journey. He didn’t stop at her waist, but slid under her sweater with a sure touch.

  Her breath caught when his hand cupped her breast and kneaded it in his supple fingers. A sound like the keening of the wind rushed through her. She heard their quick breaths and knew the wonder of shared desire.

  Somewhere inside her, knowledge grew. The months she’d spent avoiding him since he’d shown up in town had come down to this moment in his arms. Each chance meeting of their eyes, each accidental touch, had proclaimed the inevitable—that sooner or later, she’d end up here, like this.

  “You taste of wine and cherry cobbler,” he murmured on a half laugh.

  He licked at her lips, driving her mindless with the unappeased hunger he incited in her, and it was on the tip of her tongue to invite him to her house. With Sophie away, there was no one to witness her indiscretion, no one to face but her own accusing eyes in the morning. She clamped her teeth into her bottom lip to hold the words in while he kissed along her neck.

  He pushed the bulky cardigan aside and kissed down to the vee of the sweater she wore underneath it. He eased the knitted material over until he could kiss the swell of her breast. With careful expertise, he pulled her bra down and tasted the passion-hardened nipple.

  She moved against him. Her thigh came in contact with the hard shaft contained by his jeans. He groaned her name, his deep, raspy voice exciting her as much as his touch. She pressed closer, harder, to that warm strength.

  It would be so easy to let it happen. Mindless bliss. A few hours of forgetfulness. And then?

  She frowned, not wanting to think beyond the moment. Slipping her hands around his neck, she held him to her breast while he laved and sucked at the engorged tip. She caressed him until he clasped her knee and held her still against him.

  “Enough,” he warned, “or I’ll take you right here.”

  She nearly invited him to do so. Or maybe her actions had done that for her. They watched each other warily, their faces only inches apart, their breaths mingling as they sought control.

  The wind hit the truck with renewed force, rocking it on the extra-wide, thick-treaded tires she’d bought for winter driving. She needed something firm and dependable under her for stability at this moment. He shifted and his rock-hard thighs flexed under her as if offering that solid base she so desperately needed.

  “We’d better go. I need to get home.” She cleared the huskiness from her throat.

  He didn’t argue. Instead, he carefully adjusted her bra, then the sweater, to cover her breast. Each touch of his fingers was like a lick of fire against her skin. She’d never been so sensitive, so aware of a man, in her life.

  When she moved her legs, he let her go and slid over to his side of the vehicle, pulling his Stetson back into place. He continued to study her for a long, silent minute.

  With trembling fingers, she fastened the seat belt, then put the truck into reverse. She realized she couldn’t see out the rear window. All the windows were covered with a dense fog.

  “Worse than a couple of teenagers,” she muttered, her anger directed more at herself than him. “Steaming up the place.” She turned the fan and heat on high. The fog didn’t clear.

  He reached over and flicked the air-conditioning on with the heat. “That should clear it faster.”

  It did. She adjusted the temperature as the windows cleared, then she backed out. “You need to fasten your seat belt.”

  “It’s too late,” he said. “I’ve already crashed.”

  She flicked a grimace his way. He grinned, reached across his chest with his left hand and snapped the buckle in place with the skill of one who was ambidextrous.

  “Very funny.” She headed away from the hospital before remembering she
’d intended to look at the test results once more. Gloom settled around her shoulders. What for? The prognosis was as clear as a laser printer could make it.

  “What’s wrong?” J.D. asked.

  “What?”

  “You sighed.”

  “Oh. It’s nothing.”

  “Just the weight of the world on your shoulders, huh?” he said, mocking her short answer. “Fortunately for us lesser mortals, you medical types can carry it.”

  She shot him a warning glance. “I’m in no mood for your rancor.”

  “Your moods change fast. Two minutes ago, you were in the mood for some pretty heavy—”

  “That was a mistake, one that won’t happen again.”

  “A mistake,” he repeated. “Well, glad to get that cleared up. I sure as hell thought it was passion.”

  She gave an audible huff. Her head was beginning to pound again. Thank God they were at the restaurant. She whipped into an empty parking space on the street and hoped no cop saw her parked facing in the wrong direction—the police station and courthouse were down the street.

  “Don’t go highfalutin on me,” he ordered. “You were giving as good as you were getting.”

  An unexpected chuckle brought her head around. She glared and waited for him to climb out.

  “And it was damn good,” he declared. With that, he opened the door and swung to the ground.

  She tore out before he’d hardly stepped back and slammed the door. She hit the button that locked her inside the warm truck and drove straight home. The light was on at the house. Lorrie—Lorenza Garcia, her housekeeper and baby-sitter—had left it on for her.

  After parking in the garage, Carey went into the homey warmth of birch paneling and knitted afghans on overstuffed sofas, a wood-burning fireplace and… emptiness.

  She glanced in Sophie’s room as she passed, even though she knew the child was spending the night with a friend. Carey smiled wryly as she changed into a warm flannel nightgown. Maybe the five-year-old would make it fine through the night, but would her thirty-two-year-old mom manage to get any sleep?

  Seeing that it was only ten after nine, she made a fire in the grate and prepared a cup of hot chocolate. Seated in front of the crackling blaze, she thought over the evening and wondered why she’d let herself fall into J.D. Cade’s arms like that.

  She just wasn’t that type of woman. Passion—or to put it bluntly, sex—had never been that important to her. Her daughter and her profession came first in her life. Really, that was all she had time for.

  Tomorrow was going to be a rough day. She was going to drop by the McCallum home at eleven. Oh, God, she dreaded it. She set the mug of cocoa aside and covered her face. For a moment, she wished she had a pair of strong arms around her. She wished for kisses and caresses that would drive out all thoughts of tomorrow. It would be harder not to think of those things in the future now that she knew there was one man whose touch could do that very thing.

  Why, oh, why, had she let herself respond to a drifter like J. D. Cade even for a moment?

  Madness, that’s what it had been. And maybe loneliness, too. A little. But it wasn’t something she wanted to admit.

  She sighed and listened to the wind outside the house. Inside, there was only the merry snap of the fire to keep her company.

  Two

  “Umm, love you.” Carey nuzzled her daughter’s neck above the fleecy sweater.

  Sophie gave her a milk-damp kiss on the cheek. “Love you, too.” She’d joined Carey for a second breakfast when she’d arrived home from the sleepover.

  Carey straightened and spoke to Lorrie. “I’ll be home around noon, I think. I only have one appointment this morning after my rounds.”

  “Sophie is invited to the Saturday matinee at the Roxy. Dina’s mom is picking her up,” Lorrie reminded her.

  “Oh, that’s right. I’ll have lunch in town. Why don’t you take off when Carol comes by for Sophie? I’ll be here when she gets back.”

  “Unless there’s an emergency.” Lorrie smiled in understanding of a doctor’s life.

  Carey thought of Jennifer McCallum. “Unless there’s an emergency,” she echoed. She pulled her favorite cardigan on, slung her purse over her shoulder and left the warm kitchen. She honked after she backed out of the garage. Sophie waved her spoon at the window.

  As soon as she was on the road, Carey felt the weight of worry drop on her again. Childhood leukemia had over a ninety-percent survival rate. Usually. However, they had already tried Jennifer on chemotherapy. The test results had shown it hadn’t worked, not as they needed it to.

  She parked in her usual spot and rushed to the double doors of the hospital. She didn’t want to remember how wanton she’d acted the previous night, making out in the hospital parking lot. Stupid, really stupid.

  In the staff room, she stored her purse and cardigan in her locker and slipped a green surgery gown on over her T-shirt before stopping by the nurses’ station.

  “Hi,” Annie greeted her. Her mop of red hair was contained in two thick braids this morning. “Everything is under control. Rachel Parma lost her breakfast, so we switched back to a liquid diet. She kept down six ounces of soda and four of Jell-O.”

  “Good.” Carey picked up the charts for her patients and went through each one before beginning her rounds.

  Annie joined her when she was relieved at the desk. Together they examined and joked with the twelve children in the pediatric wing.

  During the holidays, the medical staff had tried to send everyone home, if at all possible. So far, there’d been only a couple of tonsillectomies admitted in this, the first month of the new year.

  “Hi, Dr. Hall, can I go home today?” her third patient demanded, as he had each morning that week.

  “Yep.”

  The ten-year-old looked so surprised it made her laugh.

  “Really? I can?”

  “Yes. You’ve driven Annie to the point where she told me just this morning, either that kid in 4B goes or I go. It was an easy choice. You’re outa here. Call your mom and tell her to pick you up in an hour.”

  She got a high five, then a choke-hold hug, before she moved on. She dismissed the two tonsil kids with a stern admonition to take it easy for a week and eat lots of ice cream. That always made them laugh.

  It was the last patient in the ward who had her worried. An eighteen-year-old who seemingly had the world at her feet couldn’t keep any solid food down. Involuntary bulimia. The girl had lost thirty pounds since the beginning of the school year. Technically, the patient shouldn’t have been in pediatrics, but Carey had been her doctor for six years.

  “Hey, Rachel,” Carey greeted the patient. “Annie says you kept some soda and Jell-O down this morning.”

  Rachel gave her a wan smile. “Finally.”

  “That’s good news.” Carey sat on the side of the bed and took the girl’s hand. “Tell me about your summer. Did you break up with your boyfriend?” she asked softly.

  Rachel’s chin quivered as she shook her head.

  Carey thought she must have hit a sore spot. She sent Annie a look that asked her to leave. Annie glanced at her watch, mumbled something indistinct and rushed out.

  “So what’s eating at you?” Carey asked when she was alone with the patient she’d known since birth. “We’ve run a bunch of tests, all negative. Do you have any idea what we should be looking for?”

  Rachel pleated the sheet between nervous fingers for a long, tense moment before she answered. “Did you do a pregnancy test?” The words were hardly audible.

  Carey almost dropped the chart. Rachel was a straight-A student, had been secretary of her high-school class and was now on the student council at college. Carey had expected boyfriend problems or worries about her grades—college was a hard transition for some kids—but not this.

  “Why don’t we do the test and see how it goes before we worry ourselves to death about it?” she suggested.

  Rachel caught her arm. “Don’t
tell anyone, please.”

  Carey patted the hand that clutched her so desperately. “I’m your doctor. Whatever we say is confidential. Even from parents,” she added, and saw the swift look of relief on the youngster’s face. “I’ll stick with you through whatever happens.”

  That broke the dam of worry that had prevented Rachel from keeping any food down. She told Carey everything.

  Rachel was at college on a scholarship. To lose it would bring shame and disgrace on her parents. All their hopes for the future were pinned on their bright but vulnerable child.

  Carey sighed as she walked down the corridor an hour later. She’d been lucky to have parents who didn’t live their lives through their children, who had expected goodness and decency and a reasonable level of accomplishment, but not the impossible from their kids.

  Rachel’s parents hadn’t prepared their smart, earnest daughter for the senior who was president of the student body. He’d found the freshman an easy mark for his charm. He’d used her, then dropped her when his old girlfriend had decided to take him back.

  Rachel, alone and desolate, had worried herself into being ill. She wasn’t pregnant, only ashamed of being foolish and falling for the first line she heard.

  “We have three going home today and one tomorrow,” Annie remarked when Carey joined her at the desk.

  “You read my mind. I was just thinking how much better it is for children to be home, if possible.”

  “They need their families.” Annie put the charts away and leaned against the end of the desk, where the other RN talked on the phone. “Is Sophie at her dad’s place for the weekend?”

  “No, we’re staying around here. By the way, I’ve signed the final papers on the ranch, and it’s really ours. Sophie thinks it’s a great adventure to stay at the old Baxter cabin and hike around in the hills, so we’re taking off three days next weekend to explore the place.”

  “How does it feel to own your own spread? Do you have any cattle yet?”

  Carey laughed. “Not one scrawny cow on the place. I’ve wondered why the Kincaid trustees never put cattle over there. I guess they never got around to it.” She shrugged.