by Laurie Paige
So was Carey. His heart twanged energetically.
She pinned him with her doctor glare. “Can’t I take my eyes off you for a minute?” she demanded. “Come here and sit down. You’ve probably ripped your wound open.”
“Lunch in two minutes,” Lorrie announced calmly.
He hung his jacket and hat on a peg, then took a seat. Under the table, he rubbed his thigh as the pain seared the nerve endings like heat lightning. Carey thumped two pills and a glass of water on the table.
Without a word, he took the pills. Something that had been hard and tight within him eased up a bit. He breathed deeply and caught a whiff of Carey’s enticing scent. Mixed with the aroma of stew and some kind of pie baking in the oven, it was almost enough to send him into ecstasy.
Lorrie served up three bowls of the stew and a basket of assorted crackers and crispbread. She removed a cobbler from the oven. Carey sat down opposite him.
The pain began to fade. By the time he finished the bowl of homemade mutton stew, he was feeling good. Watching Carey across the table, he began to feel other, less clearly defined, emotions. That made him uneasy. If they could solve the ranch problems, then he could leave.
Assuming Jenny was okay, of course.
Her eyes met his, cool as the under side of a pillow. “What happened at the ranch?”
“Someone burned the winter hay.”
“Right after a storm?”
She looked so shocked and indignant his heart strummed again. “They were smart.”
“Well, you can bring the cattle over to my place,” she said, nodding decisively. “There must be three years’ worth of hay on the ground. This snow will soon melt off and the cattle can get to it. Would that get you through the winter?”
“Yeah.” His voice came out husky.
Her generous offer hit a spot that was tender in him. At the same time, desire thickened, sending a hot shaft of need pulsing through his body. What a fool that husband had been to give up a woman like her.
Realizing what he was thinking, he forcibly turned his thoughts to the two women and their conversation.
“Don’t forget, the school play is next Friday,” Lorrie reminded Carey. “You volunteered to bake scones and do the clotted cream again this year. She’s a glutton for work,” she added in an aside to him.
He nodded. A yawn overtook him.
“We’d better feed him and get him to bed,” Carey suggested dryly. “Would you like milk with your cobbler?”
“Coffee.”
“No coffee,” she said firmly.
“If I didn’t have a choice, why did you ask?” he demanded, not at all annoyed, but feeling compelled to assert his independence against this female barrage.
“You may have water if you don’t want milk.”
He knew when to give in gracefully. “Milk.”
She beamed a smile his way. “Good boy.”
Lorrie laughed as if this were the funniest thing in the world. Carey did, too. Women were strange creatures.
The housekeeper checked the calendar. “Sophie can eat with us tonight. I’ll take her to the play practice along with my granddaughter. I can drop her off when practice is over, probably around eight.”
Carey spooned up the cobbler. “That would be good. I want to stop by the hospital and check Jenny McCallum.”
“Any word on the transplant?” he asked.
“Not yet. We’re watching for allergic reactions.”
“I hope it takes.” He rubbed his leg and managed a rueful smile.
“Don’t we all,” Lorrie declared.
Carey served the cobbler, along with milk for him and herself. Lorrie got to have coffee with hers, but he didn’t ask why.
“You need the calcium,” Carey said, reading his mind. “And the protein. And a nap after lunch.”
“Okay, I’m not complaining. This is the best cobbler I’ve ever had.”
“An old family recipe. I’ll give it to you.”
“Yeah, thanks.” He felt a tug at the corners of his mouth as she grinned at him. “You’re feeling frisky today.”
“She’s like this when things go well with a patient,” Lorrie warned. “You’d better watch out. She’ll have you up dancing the watusi before you know it.”
Carey laughed, a surprisingly young sound. With her smooth complexion and tousle of curls, she looked hardly older than her daughter. He suddenly remembered times when his mother had laughed. And that she’d loved to dance.
He’d once caught her and his father dancing very close and very suggestively when he’d been a youngster. It had excited and embarrassed him at the same time. When he’d grown knowledgeable in the ways of men and women, he’d realized why.
The mating instinct. It was an elemental driving force between the sexes.
Carey glanced at him, found him staring and stopped smiling. Her pupils expanded to blot the complex hazel flecks from her eyes, making them appear dark and mysterious.
Silence reigned as the older woman straightened up the kitchen and prepared to leave. She covertly studied them while she wrapped up to brave the cold. “See you later,” she told them, and left.
Carey stood, too. “I have to go.”
“Now?” He couldn’t stifle the disappointment. His thoughts had been drifting toward bed and a nap. Maybe a nap, but definitely bed.
“Patients, lots of them this afternoon. It’s cold and flu season.” She washed her hands and rubbed in lotion.
His skin flushed as he remembered those ultrasmooth fingers touching his flesh. He pushed himself upright with an effort. Forgetting the cane, he hobbled over to her.
“Then I need this to get me through the day.”
He put his arms around her, half expecting protest, in which case he’d argue. He hoped it wouldn’t be an outright refusal. He didn’t want to hear no from her.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say a word. She laid her hands on his chest, but didn’t push away. She lifted her face to his and watched as he leaned down to her.
He felt her sigh just before his lips settled over hers. Need beat through him like a mad drummer in ecstasy. He adjusted his body to fit her curves, using his greater weight to press her against the cabinet. He wished he could lift her to the counter, but that would have to wait for another time.
She rocked against him, her arms sliding up and over his shoulders. Strength poured into him when he felt the sensual imprint of her breasts and stomach and thighs against his. She made little sounds that drove him to fever pitch.
He moved against her, tucking his thigh between hers and rubbing insistently, until she clutched at his shirt, as desperate for him as he was for her.
“Stay,” he whispered.
“I can’t.”
“An hour.”
“Umm…no…really….”
He cupped her breasts and nuzzled them through her shirt until they formed hard beads against his mouth. She gasped and held on tighter.
“Come home early.” He let her go and stepped back.
Her face was flushed a becoming rose. He almost drew her back into his arms. Instead, he took a breath and let it out with a calming whoosh.
“You drive me right to the edge,” he muttered, not sure he liked a woman having this much control of his life.
“Me, too,” she said, a bit glumly. She tucked the loose edges of her shirt in. “I’ll probably see you around seven or eight. I might pick up Sophie.”
“Coward.”
She shook her head and her curls bounced, enticing him to run his fingers through them. He did under the pretext of smoothing them into place.
“An affair between us would be foolish.” She retrieved her bulky sweater and her purse, which was big enough to carry a full pack of surgical instruments… and no doubt did.
A sense of tenderness tugged at him again, and again he was surprised by it. She looked around for her gloves.
He opened the drawer and pulled out a pair, holding them while she slipped them
on.
“Thank you.” She found her keys and dashed out as if the devil were on her heels.
With a wry chuckle, he limped down the hall to the bedroom—her bedroom—and shucked his pants. He climbed in and went to sleep before he’d more than registered her scent on the pillow next to his.
Carey studied Jenny’s pink cheeks in alarm. A fever could indicate her body was throwing off the marrow cells instead of accepting them. Or it could mean the child was coming down with an infection.
“She’s looking better,” Jessica said. “I think she’s livelier than she’s been in a week.”
Carey didn’t glance at the hopeful mother. “Wait until next month,” she said in a light tone. “We’ll have to tie her to an anchor to keep her in one place.”
Jenny gave her a faint smile.
Carey hooked the chart on the door, then washed her hands and put on rubber gloves. Through sealed openings on the bubble, she examined Jenny, checking the lymph glands for signs of swelling. She swallowed against tears. The child was so thin she could see the damned glands and trace every vein under the pale skin.
Last, she took the temperature and read the digital number that appeared. One hundred and one.
She silently said an imprecation. Hiding all emotion, she tickled Jenny’s feet. The child moved slightly and frowned at her. Carey smiled, chucked her under the chin as a reminder of her “chin up” lecture and withdrew her hands.
“You’re looking good, kid,” she assured both the patient and the mother. “Dr. Hunter will be in later. I didn’t find any swelling, so that’s good. She is running a fever, but that’s not unusual.”
After telling Jessica good-night and checking on two other youngsters, she left the hospital and walked through the slush to her vehicle. At her house, she pulled into the garage and sat in there in the dusk before climbing wearily out. The scent of stew greeted her when she walked in.
The table was already laid for two.
“Hi, you’re just in time,” Wayne said.
She blinked warily. She trusted a domesticated wolf even less than she did a wild one.
“You look very much at—if you’ll forgive the pun—home on the range.” She allowed herself one sardonic smile.
He cocked his head and studied her for a long twenty seconds. “You’re tired. Change clothes, then it’ll be time to eat.”
She sniffed at his order, but carried it out. When she returned to the kitchen, she found warm bread in a basket on the table and the bowls filled with stew. A glass of milk was at each place.
“You’re supposed to be the patient,” she told him, slipping into the seat. “Did you rest this afternoon?”
“Yes, ma’am. After those knockout pills you gave me, I snoozed like a baby all afternoon.”
“Good.”
The conversation lapsed after that. Strangely, she didn’t feel uncomfortable with the silence.
She watched him for a while. He was handsome in a rough kind of way, with nothing of the smooth, flawless boy about him now. Well, of course not. Twenty-five years would make a difference in anyone’s looks. Still, she’d seen men who remained what she termed as “smoothies” even as they grew old. Her husband was such a man. He always had a smile and looked like a million.
The telephone rang just as she finished. She was up and across the room before her guest could move. “Hello.”
“This is Kane.”
Her heart sank. “You’ve seen Jennifer?”
“Yeah. I see you started her on one of the new antibiotics. Good thinking. It’s usually well tolerated in cases like this.”
“You think it’s an infection, then?”
He sighed. “It’s fifty-fifty right now. It could be a bug…or rejection.”
She heard the quiet seriousness in his tone. “That’s what I thought. I’ll stop by in the morning.”
“Good. How’s our other patient doing?”
She glanced at Wayne. “Fine. Thanks for calling.” She hung up, then stood there staring out at the twilight.
Jenny had nothing left in her body to fight infection except the intense heat of fever. If an infection took hold, it would be hard to stop. Carey’s shoulders slumped. She’d faced death before. And been beat by it.
A warm arm draped over her shoulders. “Tell me.”
She stared at the man who’d once been the golden boy of the county and shook her head. “I was remembering…”
“What?”
“In ten years, since I entered medical school and started actually seeing life and death, I’ve lost four patients. The first time I went into a frenzy of study. I read everything I could find on the disease for months. Then I went over every treatment I’d tried. I thought there had to be an answer. That if I had worked harder, longer, done something differently, I could have made it work.”
“But you couldn’t have.”
She shook her head. “The chief resident took me aside one day. He sat me down in a corner of the children’s playroom and made me look at all those kids. He pointed out one little boy and told me he was going to die. He said the same about another. He said he couldn’t save them, that he wasn’t God. He asked me if I could.”
“Is this about Jenny?”
She nodded, opened her mouth, closed it, swallowed, then nodded again. The hot ball of tears stuck in her throat, making speech impossible. She pressed her forehead against his chest and closed her eyes.
“Make love to me,” she said after a while.
“It might not be wise. You’re hurting.”
She was. Everywhere. His warmth helped. She wanted more. Lifting her head, she kissed him. For a second, she sensed his hesitation, then his muscles tightened, and he answered the kiss. The passion escalated.
She rubbed against him, sensuous as a cat, demanding fulfillment, needing him in a way she hadn’t let herself need another being in a long time. Fire spread through her, thawing all the cold, angry places where logic couldn’t reach. Her body softened, yielding to the desire.
He slid his hands over her, down her hips, catching her and bringing her into hard contact with the rigid staff of his need. She reacted instinctively, lifting one leg to entwine with his, melding them closer, moving against him in a primal rhythm.
After an eternity, he set her away. Their breaths came quickly. She returned the searching look he gave her, not backing down as his eyes questioned.
“I want you,” she said softly.
“All right, then.”
Together, without need for more words, they walked down the hallway and into her bedroom. Her hands, quick, capable and efficient, moved over him, then herself, as she removed their clothing. They kissed, then somehow—she never knew exactly when—they fell into bed.
“You’ll have to do the riding tonight,” he murmured, a quick smile lighting his face for an instant.
“Yes, but first, I want to feel you all over, with my entire body.”
“Have it your way.” His smile teased, but his tone was serious, almost as if they exchanged vows.
If they did, only their hearts knew the words. Neither spoke aloud of feelings, but a certainty grew in her—that this was right, that it was okay to care, that she could trust again….
She lay so that they touched all over, her head next to his on the pillow. “Does this make you uncomfortable? Any pain?”
He grinned in that slow way he had that stirred her senses and her heart. “Only the one of wanting you.”
She gazed into his eyes, so blue, so easy to drown her worries in and forget tomorrow. He’d said he would be leaving soon. Part of her was sure he wouldn’t.
However, he hadn’t made any promises. If she just remembered that, she would be okay. She would make sure Sophie knew it, too.
When he cupped her hips, then began a slow rhythmic stroking over her back and sides, the flame burned out the last cautious thought on a future with this man.
His kisses imprinted her soul and fed her hunger for more of his t
aste. She repeated his restless movements until they were both hot and gasping. When she could stand it no longer, she pushed upright and took him into her.
“Ah, love,” he whispered, his hands moving, searching, finding her most sensitive spots. “Carey, my love.”
Her world, which had come perilously close to shattering earlier, locked tightly into one solid sphere in that instant—whole, complete, fulfilled.
Ten
Jennifer McCallum’s temperature hit 105 and stayed there. Carey ordered cool baths and consulted with Kane and the cancer specialist on fever-reducing medications and methods.
They had to be extra cautious. Jenny’s young life was in the balance, and everyone in the town knew it. The one time Carey took a few minutes to stop at the café for lunch, her presence produced an immediate and deadly quiet as the local folks looked at her, a question in their eyes.
She shook her head to tell them there was no change.
At home, Lorrie and Wayne and Sophie made life easy on her. Meals were prepared when she arrived each day. She and Sophie made the scones for the school play, while Wayne watched them with a smile that seemed tender, yet serious.
Each night, she turned to him, needing the haven of his arms and the drugging effect of their tempestuous lovemaking to fall asleep. Even then, she often stirred restlessly, unable to relax. Once, she awoke to find him rubbing her back and neck, his voice a low, rough croon as he spoke softly, telling her to sleep.
A week sped by, with the days blurring together as her workload increased. On Friday, Carey was up and dressed before the sun was above the horizon. She’d planned to take the day off to help with the school play, but her patients’ needs were too pressing as a new virus made the rounds.
At noon, Wayne appeared at the office. He carried a large brown bag. “Time to eat,” he announced. “When does she get a lunch break?” he asked the nurse.
“There are four more morning appointments yet,” she said.
Carey wrinkled her nose at him. “Thanks for lunch. Just leave it on my desk. I’ll get to it—”
The next thing she knew she was hauled into her office and the door firmly closed. He pushed in the lock.