“I don’t have anyone to pass the buck to,” he pointed out.
He’d tried to gloss over the sorrow, but she’d heard it nonetheless. “I know and I’m sorry about that. But—” Nikki brightened “—on the plus side, you get to experience everything and be there for all the special times you might have otherwise missed.”
Heather picked that moment to have her face take on a shade of beet-red. Hands clenched, she made a straining, grunting noise. The air around her suddenly turned very pungent.
“Like that?” Lucas asked, looking at Nikki pointedly.
“Like that,” Nikki conceded. The little girl definitely needed changing. Quickly. “Because I’m in a generous mood, I’ll spot you one,” Nikki offered. She glanced toward the stairs. The nursery was upstairs. “You keep her diapers in her room?” It was a rhetorical question.
“After the last time you were here, you should know better than I do,” Lucas told her. After all, the woman had been the one who had organized everything in what had seemed like lightning speed. Luckily, he hadn’t allowed things to get away from him too much yet.
“Just checking,” Nikki replied, then turned to Heather. She began to undo the straps that were holding the little girl in her high chair. “C’mon, princess. Let’s get you smelling pretty again.” Lifting the small tray that was in front of Heather, Nikki angled the little girl out of the high chair and scooped her up into her arms. Just then, the doorbell pealed. “You weren’t kidding about them taking a shortcut,” she commented, glancing at her watch. “It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes since you placed the order.” Now that she thought of it, she was pretty hungry. “I can feel my mouth watering already,” she told him as she walked out of the room with Heather tucked against her shoulder.
Lucas watched her leave for a moment.
So can I, Lucas silently said to the departed physician’s back.
And then he hurried over to the door, doing his best to block out any other thoughts. It was obvious that his common sense had taken the night off.
Chapter Nine
Thinking was highly overrated, Nikki decided later that night. Spending too much time at it just led to false starts and massive confusion.
The latter place was where she was right now.
The few times that she’d actually been attracted to someone beyond a fleeting infatuation, she’d just gone with the feeling instead of holding it under the microscope and examining it from every conceivable side. She hadn’t wondered if she was reading things into the actions of the person she was drawn to. She didn’t waste time speculating if the hoofbeats she heard belonged to a horse or a zebra—she’d just gone with horse every time.
And ultimately wound up having her heart badly trampled.
This time around, she was afraid to make a move, afraid to enjoy what was happening because, burnt more than once and convinced that all her luck with men was bad, she was anxious that she might be misreading signs again. Anxious that she might be deluding herself as to where things could eventually go.
At the end of the evening, after she and Lucas had done justice to the pizza, put Heather to bed and talked for what seemed like hours, Lucas had walked her to her car, waited for her to unlock the driver’s side door and then held it open for her.
What he didn’t do was kiss her.
It was then that she realized that she’d really wanted him to, despite the fact that if he did, it would have really complicated things. As it stood right now, the unexpected kiss in the kitchen was just a function of time and place, not necessarily opportunity or even desire.
As she made peace with her disappointment, she knew that in addition to that disappointment she was also somewhat relieved that he hadn’t kissed her again because if he had, it would have seriously jarred their footing. Right now, they were still pediatrician and patient’s father, not two people on the possible brink of something a great deal more complicated.
But what if…
Nikki sighed as she stared at the shadows growing larger on her bedroom ceiling. The full moon seemed determined to push its way into her room. Just as determined as her thoughts were to go on a wild goose chase.
“Damn it, Nik, just enjoy the moment and stop thinking about what it might mean in the bigger scheme of things,” she chided out loud.
If men could enjoy spending time with a woman, no strings attached, no attachments implied, why couldn’t she just enjoy spending time with Lucas? He appeared to be a warm, caring father—clearly out of his element and in over his head, but still a warm, caring father. And he was interesting, intelligent and funny. She liked talking to him, liked his company. And she wasn’t at a place where she needed things to become serious, no matter what her mother said to the contrary. She had time. Lots of time.
What’s more, she didn’t need a man to complete her. She liked herself just the way she was.
That settled—she hoped—Nikki turned on her side. If she didn’t get some sleep soon, she was going to be a zombie tomorrow and then all those chores that she’d planned to catch up on were just going to continue piling up and becoming less and less manageable.
Forty-five minutes later, after tossing and turning enough to scramble her sheets beneath her, Nikki finally fell asleep.
Nikki wound up sleeping in, although she hadn’t intended to when she’d originally made her plans for the day. Her body was so overjoyed at being able to remain horizontal for longer than four hours at a clip, she decided to stay that way just a little longer.
The next thing she knew, three more hours had gone by.
Startled when the numbers on the nightstand clock registered, Nikki bolted upright. She was about to spring out of bed when she realized, belatedly, that it was Sunday, not Monday.
She wasn’t due anywhere for any reason, although she supposed that she should give her mother a call—or at least call Theresa to thank her for the cake the woman had made for her to bring to Lucas’s house. The rum-flavored bundt cake wasn’t exactly the first thing someone thought of as going with pizza, but it still tasted out of this world. It made her really wish that she was as creative in the kitchen as Theresa was, but her abilities began and ended with setting the microwave timer.
She glanced at the phone, debating calling her mother’s friend.
Maybe later, when her brain didn’t feel so foggy and she was up to fielding the inevitable questions that would come her way.
Nikki knew that if she called Theresa, Theresa would call her mother the moment she hung up. That was how the Mother Grapevine worked. Theresa, Cecilia and her mother were lifelong friends who watched out for each other and, more to the point, watched out for each other’s daughters. Her mother was the fiercest one at this game, but Theresa and Cecilia were no slouches, either.
Right now, she didn’t feel up to taking questions—even politely worded questions—because she was no less confused this morning as she had been last night.
Although, in the light of day, Nikki realized that from a professional point of view, the right thing had happened. They’d said good-night and gone their separate ways. If, in time, they became good friends, that was fine. A lot of her patients’ parents thought of her as a friend, someone to turn to and lean on during mystifying phases of their children’s lives.
She’d encouraged that actually, because she liked the country-doctor aspect of medicine that had all but disappeared from existence in the face of modern technology. None of her patients’ fathers were potentially something more than just parents. That was going to have to be true of Lucas as well. The line that had been temporarily breeched last night was back in place by the end of the evening.
God, she thought as she went off to the shower, was in His heaven and all was right with the world.
Except for her coffeemaker, Nikki thought darkly some thirty minutes later as she stared at the defunct machine. After several attempts to turn it off and on, then unplugging and plugging it back in, the coffeemaker still refused to brew
or to even show any sort of signs of life.
Well, she thought in exasperation, she’d showered and was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She supposed that there was nothing wrong with getting into her car and driving to a coffee shop—or even stopping at a fast-food place. There was one close by that had revamped its breakfast menu and claimed to now sell coffee that didn’t taste as if someone had boiled black crayons to achieve the right color.
Nikki frowned at the coffeemaker, giving it a sound whack on the side in one last attempt to jar it back into productive service. The only thing that happened was that the water she’d poured in sloshed from side to side. A little spilled out on to the counter. But the major portion of the water remained in the urn, refusing to even entertain a nodding acquaintance with the coffee granules she’d put into the filter.
Nikki glared at the inert coffeemaker. What was it with machines and her? Vacuum cleaners seemed to die a premature death whenever she bought one and used it. Computers developed viruses—
Computers.
Oh, God, she’d left her laptop at Lucas’s house last night, she suddenly remembered. Between the fiasco with the vegetables, feeding Heather for Lucas and sharing the pizza, they hadn’t even gotten around to talking about the computer’s problems. She’d brought it into the house with her and then promptly forgot about it.
Especially after that unexpected, temperature-raising kiss.
Lucas was going to think she was an idiot. Either that, or devious, leaving the laptop so she had an excuse to see him again. Right now, she preferred that he thought of her as an idiot. She definitely didn’t want the man to lump her in with women who went out of their way to play those insipid male-female games.
What did it matter what he thought, she silently demanded the next minute. She knew she wasn’t playing games and she wasn’t in the market for anything—except for success when it came to her practice.
Nikki chewed on her bottom lip. So what did she do? Did she call Lucas and mention the laptop? Or did she let it slide until at least tomorrow? It wasn’t as if she and her laptop were inseparable. She wasn’t one of those people who felt a compelling need to check her e-mail every fifteen minutes. If she should suddenly be overcome with an overwhelming need to read her e-mail, she could always go to the Internet café to catch up. The café was only a couple of miles from here. She was fairly certain that it was open on Sundays.
Besides, she reminded herself, the laptop really wasn’t working all that well. That had been the whole reason behind her bringing it to Lucas in the first place.
And the reason behind leaving it? a small voice taunted.
There’d been no reason for that, but there was a reason for getting it back, she suddenly remembered. She’d promised to download a paper that one of her friends from medical school had written and asked her to review.
Okay, new problem. Did she call Lucas about the laptop, or call Wendy to tell her she was too busy to read anything this weekend?
Coffee—she needed coffee, Nikki thought, looking at the dormant coffeemaker as her brain bounced back and forth from one thought to another. Coffee shop first, Nikki silently declared, grabbing her keys and her wallet. She wouldn’t be needing anything else—
Except to answer the door, Nikki thought in exasperation. The doorbell rang just as she reached for the doorknob.
Please don’t let it be my mother.
She felt too scattered right now to be up to any kind of verbal sparring and her mother had the uncanny ability to hone in on that kind of thing. The woman could see right through her and get to the heart of whatever it was that was going on.
It wasn’t her mother but the one person responsible for her feeling so up in the air in the first place.
“Forget something?” Lucas asked her in amusement.
Upon seeing her, Heather began to wave her feet in gleeful recognition. Sitting on her father’s hip, the little girl leaned as far over as she could to reach for Nikki.
“Hi, little one.” Brushing a kiss against the top of the baby’s head, Nikki took the baby into her arms. “Name, rank and serial number?” she asked with a hopeful note in her voice, looking at Lucas.
Taken aback, he stared at her as if she’d suddenly lapsed into some elaborate form of unintelligible gibberish.
“What?”
Nikki shook her head, dismissing her admittedly feeble attempt at humor. “Nothing. Just being flippant.” She glanced accusingly over her shoulder toward the kitchen. “I get that way without coffee in the morning.”
“Funny you should mention that,” he said with a grin. “I’ve got some in the car.”
She was still annoyed with the sudden demise of the coffeemaker and was focused on the machine. “You’ve got a coffee urn in your car?”
Why would she think that? “No, just a couple of large containers. I stopped at a drive-through,” he explained.
Relief swept over her. “Oh, God bless you. Could you bring it in?” she all but pleaded.
“You really like coffee that much?” he asked.
She laughed somewhat self-consciously. “You have no idea.”
“No problem. I’ll go get it now.” With Nikki holding his daughter, his hands were free to bring in what he’d brought over. “I’ll bring in your laptop, too. That’s what I was referring to just now when I asked you if you’d forgotten something.”
So completely it was as if her mind had been erased, Nikki thought. But that was his fault. His and that kiss of his.
Not that she was about to even remotely hint to him that that was the reason.
Instead, she pulled her lips into a generic smile and nodded. “I guess I did. Sorry about that.”
“No reason to be sorry,” he told her. “I kind of snared your attention with my tossed vegetables trick. Anyway, it’s all fixed.”
She wasn’t following. “What’s all fixed?”
“The laptop. You really do have trouble concentrating until you have your coffee, don’t you?” The corners of his mouth curved in amusement. “I’ll bring in both,” he said, walking out again.
She followed him out, unconsciously rocking Heather ever so slightly. “How could you have fixed it?” she asked. “I didn’t even show you what the problem was.”
“It wasn’t exactly a baffling mystery,” he told her as he returned. He carried the laptop with one hand and balanced the cardboard tray with two coffee containers with the other. “What happened was that you downloaded some mail that had a hidden Trojan in it. Once you did that, the Trojan let loose a virus that affected the laptop’s performance. Lucky for you, whoever did that was an amateur. Someone better at it could have corrupted the whole hard drive and then I would have had to install a new one. All the data you had on there could have been lost.”
“But—”
He second-guessed her question. “It wasn’t.”
That wasn’t what she was about to say. “I wouldn’t have opened up mail with a virus attached to it,” she protested.
He grinned at her innocence. He knew she wasn’t a naive woman. She’d struck him as being very intelligent. But there was no such thing as a renaissance person these days and computers were obviously her weak point.
“It’s not as if it was flagged. You wouldn’t have known it was there,” he pointed out gently.
“Oh.”
“That’s how most viruses are spread. Not as dramatically as it was in that last Die Hard movie, but it can do just as much damage,” he assured her. “There’re viruses out there that can do irreparable damage, affect countless systems and bring them down in seconds. The one your laptop ‘caught’ is small-time. Think of it as being a gremlin instead of a dragon. This virus’s purpose is just to annoy the recipient. Hackers like to play those kinds of games.”
She thought of the number of times the whole thing froze on her and she’d had to shut it down only not to get it to reboot.
“Well, whoever did it certainly achieved his goal.”
Setting both the laptop and the tray with the coffee containers down on the counter, he took back his daughter. Nikki immediately picked up the coffee container, wrapping both her hands around it. She tipped it back and took a long, sensuous sip. As she swallowed, the hot liquid wound its way down through her system.
Heaven.
She could feel herself becoming human and rational again. A sigh of contentment escaped her lips. She took another long sip, then, putting the container down for a moment, she took a closer look at the laptop. Working with one hand, Lucas had opened it and turned it on.
The screen came on. Blue lights danced around as the machine went through its paces.
The first thing she noticed was that the annoying, intimidating grinding noise was gone.
Respect filtered through the wonder. “And you fixed it?”
The look on her face amused him. He grinned. “I fixed it.”
She had no idea where to begin. The computer technician she’d contacted had told her he’d have to take possession of her computer for a week. “So quick?”
It was no big deal as far as Lucas was concerned. “Like I said, it wasn’t a very sophisticated virus.”
That all depended on your point of view, Nikki thought.
“It was to me,” she told him. “I was this close—” she measured out a tiny space with her thumb and forefinger “—to tossing the laptop across the room and stomping on it.”
Lucas tried to wrap his head around that image and couldn’t. “You just don’t strike me as being hot tempered.”
“I’m not,” she said with conviction. “Usually,” Nikki felt compelled to add. When he raised his eyebrow quizzically, she made a full confession. “There’s just something about computers and machines in general that bring out the worst in me. I suppose it’s only fair, since I seem to bring out the worst in them.”
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