Holiday House Call

by Doyle, Jen

  Would anyone care about the night Tuck and Karen had met? Probably not. And although it was wildly out of character—he could still remember the driving, compelling need to get his hands on her once they’d started dancing—Tuck wasn’t at all ashamed of it. He hadn’t even so much as dated anyone he’d met in a bar before or since. But he wasn’t like Karen in that regard; he didn’t think anyone needed to know about his sex life, much less talk about it. And he’d take no end of shit if anyone found out that he’d spent more hours naked with her than he had clothed.

  “You can give your friends all the details you want,” he said. “But I would really prefer the people I work with not be aware of how you and I met.”

  “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, Tuck,” she said softly, and when he turned to her briefly, he saw every bit of warmth and compassion that she gave to her patients.

  He liked the way it felt being directed his way. He liked it a whole lot. But with extreme effort, he focused on the road ahead of him, making every attempt not to react. It was clear that wasn’t a permanent thing as far she was concerned. It also only lasted the remaining ten minutes into town.

  Her attention snapped to the Deacon’s Bar and Grille sign across the street as Tuck pulled into a parking spot. “Why are we here?”

  Yeah, he knew this was a bit of a gamble. “To get something to eat.”

  “I said I wasn’t interested in a date.”

  “This isn’t a date,” Tuck corrected. “This is stopping for a bite.”

  All that heat was replaced with ice as her eyes narrowed and honed in on his. “This is called getting dinner, which is also known as a date.”

  “I have dinner with a lot of people I don’t date,” Tuck answered. “In fact I haven’t dated anyone recently, but I’ve had dinner every single night.”

  He thought that was a perfectly reasonable response, but it didn’t placate her in the least. With irritation, she warned, “Tuck...”

  He looked at her and then stared straight ahead. He should just drive her back to her car. She’d made it so very clear how she felt. But, damn it, she made no bones about the fact that she wanted to sleep with him again. And he would really enjoy taking her up on that. So he wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “I’d like to get to know you, Karen. I really would. And I understand exactly what you’re saying, so if you’re really that opposed I’ll drive you directly to your car and never mention it again.” He looked down at where she clasped her hands together tightly in her lap.

  It was almost too intimate a gesture, but since she’d been very open about wanting to have sex with him again, he decided it wouldn’t be an awful idea to reach out for her hand and grab it. So he did.

  Gently, though. He knew how powerful her hands were. That they were literally the difference between life and death for her patients. It was almost jarring that they were also so damn soft—and felt incredible on his skin. “But I would really like to have dinner with you tonight.”

  He heard her breath hitch. Felt her muscles tense and thought he’d lost her. But rather than pull her hand away, she twisted it just enough to run her thumb up along his palm, so slowly and sinuously that he felt the pull run through him.

  “Okay,” she finally said, and it felt far more monumental than it should have.

  Rather than make an idiot of himself and say anything to that effect, Tuck cleared his throat, gave her an answering, “Okay,” and then got out of the truck. She’d already gotten out of her side before he could come around and open the door for her. The smile she gave him was both a bemused “were you really going to open the car door for me” and a challenging “because I open up people’s heads on a daily basis and can sure as hell open it up myself.” That wasn’t exactly a hill to die on, however, so he just returned her smile and didn’t mention it as they walked across the street.

  Deacon’s was pretty crowded, and he saw a lot of people who had been at the high school earlier in the day. There were a lot of questions about Justin, of course, and although people looked at Karen and clearly recognized her, they were used to getting their reassurance from Tuck, so he said exactly what he would have if Karen hadn’t been involved. “He’s stable and they’re running tests. I’m sure Teresa and Gary will let everyone know as soon as they have some actual news.”

  With his hand at the small of her back, Tuck just kept on moving until they got to the back booth, which either Deke or Lola—the brother and sister team that ran the place—had reserved for him after he’d texted from the hospital.

  She slid into the booth and grabbed the menu as if it were a life raft. After a minute, she put it to the side. “Did you grow up here?”

  There was an undercurrent to her question; a whole huge landmine he could see but had no idea how to navigate. “I spent a few summers at a camp here, but I grew up in Des Moines. We moved here when I was fourteen.”

  Her gaze, which had been sweeping the room, came back to his. “That must have been hard, moving at that age.”

  Most of the people around here knew his backstory—he’d never shied away from it and, in fact, wanted the kids to know that everyone’s life was different than what it seemed. There was always light somewhere up ahead, and some people just had to work a little harder to get to it. But he didn’t have the best opinion of her profession; it was the one thing in his life where he couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from seeping in—how many times they’d been turned away because the paperwork wasn’t filled out right. Being referred to the same specialists over and over again only to be told that those specialists didn’t take his parents’ insurance. Scraping up every cent in order to get his mom the medication she needed, only to put up with the looks of disdain as he used food stamps to buy each of his brothers a candy bar because they’d been really good for the hours they’d spent in the waiting room of one doctor or another.

  Nope. He wasn’t about to mention those details, especially because Inspiration had been a salvation, not a curse. And if he got too much into it with her, his feelings about the entire medical establishment might come through. He was already on much too thin ice. “It wasn’t bad, actually. I made a lot of friends at camp, so by the time we moved here it already felt like home. How about you?”

  “I grew up in a town very much like this one.” Then she fiddled with the menu again, suddenly finding it very interesting. “But the only place that ever felt like home to me was the hospital in Denver.”

  Well... Crap. So her black was his white. It wasn’t at all encouraging and Tuck wasn’t sure what to say. Given how reluctant she was about this dinner in the first place, he didn’t want to pry, and yet he hadn’t been ready for her to sound a little bit broken in the way she did; that she could be anything other than confident and assured. Or that they’d be coming from entirely different places.

  He was saved from answering by Deke appearing to take their order. And he was put on notice by the mischievous look on Deke’s face. This had the potential to not go well at all, especially because Deke was the one who’d give him the most trouble should the man ever find out how Tuck and Karen had met.

  “Welcome,” he said, flashing an evil grin at Tuck before turning to Karen. “Seltzer with lime?”

  Karen nodded with surprise.

  Had Deke just guessed, or did he know Karen? Deke was happily married now—to Fitz, a woman who’d been one of his best friends for nearly half his life. But they’d only gotten together within the last year or so, and prior to that Deke had sown his oats thoroughly. Tuck also knew for a fact that Ames was one of Deke’s former stomping grounds. So his knowing Karen wasn’t something Tuck wanted to think about.

  But she seemed to be wondering as well, and Tuck couldn’t deny how happy that made him. She cocked her head. “Was that just a guess, or did you actually remember my order?”

  She’d been here before? Tuck
wasn’t sure why that bothered him. She was Zachary’s cousin; she had no ties to him. And yet he found he didn’t want to share her, not even one bit.

  “Oh, I remember,” Deke said. “I remember every moment of that horrible night.”

  Despite his words, there was a smile on Deke’s face. Not the typical response, and Tuck hoped to hell that their meeting had been completely platonic because no matter how open and friendly a guy Deke was, that didn’t seem at all okay of a way to talk to a woman about a night they had shared. Except then Deke went on to say, “It was the only time in the history of Trivia Night that my team didn’t make the final round. I should ban you from here for life.” Then he gave that grin all the ladies loved. “But my wife would say that’s poor sportsmanship, and since you beat her team, too, I suppose I can let you stay.”

  Okay then. Trivia Night was a whole other thing. Except when Karen laughed, Tuck got jealous all over again. She’d laughed like that the first night they met, but not with him. It was before they’d even spoken, while she’d been holding court at the other end of the bar. It was flirty and sexy and sounded far too inviting for Tuck’s comfort. Then again, when she was truly inviting someone, she seemed not to be any of those things.

  Her smile brightened. “Yes. Seltzer with lime. And if you want to add a cherry or two in there, maybe even a slice of orange, I wouldn’t be sad.”

  Now it was Deke’s turn to laugh. “Well, we wouldn’t want the lady to be sad.” He looked over to Tuck. “Still on duty?”

  Tuck shook his head. “Surprise me.”

  Deke nodded. “Anything else I can get you for now?”

  Tuck wasn’t thrilled at how quickly she placed her dinner order, as if she couldn’t wait to get this started and then ended, but she was here for the moment, so he’d take that as a win.

  After Deke had walked away, she sat back in the booth. “He knows your order without you saying a thing?”

  She said it as if it weren’t a good thing at all, whereas Tuck was more than happy to have that decision off his plate. “I come here a lot. They know what I like.”

  She looked around for a minute before picking up the napkin and fiddling with it. “You really don’t mind this whole everyone-knows-your-business thing.”

  Now it was his turn to sit back. For someone who told the people she worked with some very personal details, that wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. “I think of it more as everyone-has-your-back.”

  Her response to that was a snorted, “Hmph.”

  “So you’re not a big fan of small towns.” Obviously. Which was too bad, because he certainly loved his. He probably should have left it at that, but he might have added a little defensively, “Because everyone’s a little too decent?”

  Deke brought their drinks over right then, interrupting the conversation, and Karen gave him that warm smile before turning back to Tuck and completely cooling it down once they were alone again. “Ryan has a big mouth.”

  When she didn’t say anything else, Tuck said, “I’m not sure I’ve ever had being decent used against me before.”

  She carefully took each cherry out of the glass to eat before laying the stems on her napkin. Then she took a long sip from her straw. He was pretty sure she didn’t mean it to be enticing, but everything about it was. It took her almost a full minute before she looked up at him again. “I gave up on nice a long time ago.”

  “That’s too bad,” he answered, something stirring inside of him at how sad of a statement that was. “Because I’m not in the habit of giving up.”

  He hadn’t intended for the conversation to turn so serious so fast, but he wasn’t entirely surprised when she said, “I’m happy with my life the way it is, Tuck. I have no intention of changing it.”

  Oh, how he wanted to challenge her statement. Wanted to ask her how she could give so much to her patients without anyone giving that to her in return—because that seemed to be the pattern. It clearly wasn’t the way to go, however. He dialed it down, trying to decide if he could be happy with what she wanted, which was, clearly, no-strings-attached sex. And he was pretty sure if anyone knew he was balking at that, they’d take away his man card without a second thought.

  So he nodded, held his beer up to her in a toast, and then made sure to lighten up the conversation entirely. “So tell me—everyone else in the world can say that at least what they do isn’t brain surgery. What do you say?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Those rocket scientists sure have it rough.” Then she switched it over to embarrassing stories about Zachary. Of which they each had a few. By the time he drove her back to her car, he knew she had a fondness for awful reality TV, occasionally binged on bad sci-fi movies, and would eat a thick, rare steak every night if she could.

  Everything she said drew him deeper in. And although it wasn’t the way he generally approached it, he was seriously considering the sex with no strings attached part. After all, if she was okay with that, why wouldn’t he be? It wasn’t like he had some driving need to be in a relationship. He wasn’t particularly interested in getting married and he had all the family he needed here in Inspiration. So why the hell not, especially if it meant spending more time with her?

  Except when he pulled into the empty high school lot and saw her car sitting there, all by itself and beckoning, he knew he couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter that all he needed to do was give the word and he could have her right here. Well, right there, because there was no way in hell he was having sex in his squad car, off duty or not. But even the idea of inviting her back to his place for the sole purpose of getting naked with her felt entirely wrong.

  Her laugh proved she could read his thoughts perfectly. “I won’t say Goody Two-shoes,” she said, “but I can sure think it.”

  The designation didn’t bother him. “My brothers were awful growing up. I did everything I could to shore up my family’s reputation.”

  She seemed very reluctant to go and he was fine with that. Of course that could just be because it was mid-October and had dropped down to about thirty degrees outside. Her car was probably pretty damn cold. “I don’t suppose you have a remote starter on that thing.”

  Honestly? The car she drove threw him. Hell, it was the same one from Denver and had seemed old and beat up even then. From the quality of the clothes she wore—her handbag alone cost nearly a thousand dollars, something he was well aware of after being far too close to a Christmas wishlist conversation at Deacon’s one night—it didn’t appear she was hurting for money.

  She shook her head. “Bruiser’s a big boy. He’s tough. He don’t need no stinking starter.”

  The movie reference he got. But, “Bruiser?”

  “My car. That’s his name. We go a ways back.”

  “I noticed.”

  She yelped in outrage at his response. Then she raised her eyebrows as he held out his hand for her keys.

  “You’re going to start my car for me? Do you always insist on doing things that people are perfectly capable of doing on their own?”

  He shrugged. It was the way he’d been raised. But she let him take them from her, and she stayed sitting there, watching him from the passenger side window, as he started up the engine. He ran it for a minute, blasting the heat.

  When he got out, she just looked at him for a few seconds before opening her door. “We’re not having sex tonight, are we?”

  Against all good sense, he shook his head. “Not tonight.”

  “That’s too bad.” Her hand went to the edge of his jacket and she pulled him closer.

  Yeah, it was. And yet...

  “It’s just not who I am,” he said, even as he let his own hands fall to her waist, the need to touch her still simmering just under the surface. She’d unbuckled her seat belt and turned to him, her legs open enough for him to stand between them.


  But he couldn’t leave it at that. Not when he’d spent this much time with her, when he had her in his hands. And so he bent down, closed his eyes, and kissed her, because he wasn’t sure he’d have that chance again. He didn’t get the sense her interest would hold for too much longer if she didn’t get exactly what she wanted.

  Then again, from the way she clutched the back of his neck—oddly startled at first, but then pulling him in tighter as she deepened their kiss—maybe he had a chance.

  Before he could fully lean into her, though, she pulled away, ducking her head down as she reached for her purse, and he knew it was time to step away. He held open her door for her, smiled when she snorted and rolled her eyes, and then leaned back against his car as she got ready to drive away.

  “You can call me anytime you know,” she said, lingering in a way that surprised him.

  “Same goes.”

  Her returning nod felt far too final and maybe a little sad. But without another word she pulled away.

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m sorry, did I just hear you were making a house call?”

  Damn it. Karen had very deliberately not said anything the day before because she knew Ryan would make a big deal of this, especially given that Taylor Bradshaw had experienced a setback—a bilateral occipital lobe hemorrhage, to be exact—and they’d needed to bring her back into surgery. The blood clot she’d developed wasn’t an entirely unusual side effect, but given Taylor’s age and general good health it had been unexpected. It had been even more unexpected for her blood pressure to drop dramatically during the surgery, to the point where she coded twice.

  At no point during the surgery should Karen have been thinking about Taylor’s kids. Or her husband. Or—for heaven’s sake and all that was holy—Tuck. But she had. And she was certain she would have gone to the same lengths to save any one of her patients. She was absolutely certain of it. It wasn’t the first time Karen had looked up to see the expectation everyone’s eyes that she was about to call it.