“Am I in the running yet?”
She took one of the grocery bags and carried it through to the tiny kitchen. She cooked well enough to ensure she didn’t starve or blow all her money on takeout, but a well-appointed kitchen hadn’t been high on her list of priorities when she’d been hunting for an apartment here on the island and she hadn’t really put the kitchen through its paces yet.
It was easier sometimes to just go to her parents’ and eat there while Dougal ran around the backyard in the dark. She put the bag down at the counter. “It’s not the greatest kitchen in the world.”
“Does the stove work?”
“Yes.” She’d made scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, and stir-fries, so she could at least vouch for the burners being in working order.
Lucas put his bag next to the one she’d taken and then leaned down to kiss her. “Then we’re in business.”
He started to draw back but she pulled him closer. It was nearly six hours since she’d delivered him to Deacon Field after their latest trip to Florida. Two nights since she’d had him in her bed. She wanted a taste of him more than she wanted dinner. He seemed to feel the same way. His hands came down to grip her butt and pull her closer as their mouths met and she pressed into him, glorying in the feeling.
Dougal’s patience finally broke and he got to his feet and shoved his nose between them.
“Ow, quit it, dopey dog,” Lucas said, breaking off. He grinned down at Dougal, and bent to rub the dog’s ears. Which led to the two of them wrestling around the apartment for a minute or two, Lucas looking just as delighted as Dougal. Damn it. It was hard to resist a man who loved her dog.
“Did you have a dog when you were a kid?” she asked when he came back to her and Dougal followed to come and lean against her legs.
“No,” Lucas said. “My mother isn’t a fan of dogs.”
Every time he mentioned his family, his eyes went flat. Time to change the subject.
“So, dinner?” she said.
Lucas’s face eased. He nodded and turned toward the grocery bags, Dougal bouncing around his legs.
“Bed,” she said to Dougal, who looked dejected but trotted immediately to the ratty dog bed that lived in the corner of the small living room, circling a few times before dropping down with a whuff. Sara laughed but didn’t relent. There wasn’t enough room in the tiny kitchen for two adults and Dougal. Not if any of them wanted to move.
Lucas kept unpacking the bags. With each package or can or bag that hit the counter, Dougal whined.
“I think you have a volunteer for assistant chef,” Sara said.
Lucas grinned and opened her fridge. “Your dog thinks I’m awesome.”
“He’s a dog, I wouldn’t rate his opinion too highly.” Though she did, to an extent. She’d give anything to know what made Dougal like Lucas so much.
Lucas folded his arms, grin widening. “You’re just jealous.”
She didn’t dignify that with a response. “You’re early,” Sara said. It was Saturday and he’d told her he’d probably be at Deacon until eight-ish. It was barely six now.
“Mal had something to do back in the city,” he said. “So Alex let us out early. In fact, because I’m early, I thought maybe we could do something before we ate.”
“Oh yes?” She grinned at him. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
He opened his mouth to answer but then her phone started to ring. Landline, not cell. Which meant it was probably her mom. “Hold that thought,” she said and looked around to figure out where she’d left the phone.
She spotted it on the kitchen table and scooped it up. Sure enough, it was her mom.
“Sara, honey,” Liza said. “I wasn’t sure you were home tonight.”
Sara’s stomach tightened at the too-bright tone in her voice. She sounded … brittle. Sara knew that voice. It meant her dad was having a bad day. “Hey, Mom. Yup, I’m home. Is something up?”
“I was just wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner. I made lasagna.”
Lasagna. Her dad’s favorite food. Which meant that her mom was definitely trying to either get him to eat or coax him out of one of his down days. She looked over at Lucas, who raised his eyebrows in question. “I’m not…” She hesitated.
“Oh, did you have plans?” The tension in her voice didn’t do anything to ease Sara’s stomach. Damn it. Something was going on and she couldn’t just abandon her mom and let her deal with it on her own.
“Not really,” she said.
“That’s okay, I—” Liza continued in a rush.
“No, Mom, it’s fine. I’ll come. Only, do you mind if I bring a … friend?” She tilted her head at Lucas, and he just nodded. Apparently a surprise meeting with his secret lover’s parents wasn’t enough to throw Dr. Gorgeous. Which made sense, given he wasn’t the one who wanted to keep them a secret.
“A friend? Honey, you didn’t tell me you were seeing someone. That’s wonderful. Of course he can come. It’ll be ready in about an hour. Bring Dougal, too. And … what is your friend’s name?”
Sara bit back the groan that rose in her throat. “Lucas. His name is Lucas, Mom.” Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, her parents didn’t exactly run in the same circles as Alex and Mal, and they didn’t have anything to do with the Saints. Even if they knew about her and Lucas, keeping it quiet at work should still be doable.
“I always liked that name,” Liza said. “So we’ll see you and Lucas around seven?”
She hoped. “Sure, Mom, see you then. Love you.” She waited until her mom hung up and then turned back to Lucas.
“So, I guess you heard that.”
“I got the gist.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Meeting your parents. No, of course not. I’ll cook you dinner tomorrow night.”
“My mom’s making lasagna. It’s pretty good.” She smiled at him. “Though maybe not as good as your mom’s.”
“Trust me, I’ve never had lasagna that my mom made from scratch.”
“You haven’t?”
“My mom leaves the cooking to the housekeeper,” Lucas said.
Right. She’d forgotten how he’d grown up for a moment. “Well, in that case, you’re going to love it.” She stopped. “You know, it’s okay if you don’t want to come.”
“Why would I not want to eat your mom’s lasagna?” Lucas asked, wondering why she looked worried.
Sara’s face didn’t relax even though she shot him something he thought was supposed to be a smile.
“Is there something wrong?”
She shrugged, mouth twisting. “I’m not sure. Mom sounded … tense. I think maybe Dad’s having a bad day.”
“His leg?”
“Yes. I think it hurts him more than he lets on. And he doesn’t seem to be progressing like he did at first.”
“Sometimes things are never quite the same,” Lucas said. “Surgery isn’t perfect. Sometimes there’s just too much damage.”
“Or maybe his doctors are screwing up,” Sara said. She hesitated. “I know I don’t have the right to ask you this, but do you think you could talk to him? He might listen to you, you’re a surgeon.”
A surgeon who was sleeping with his daughter. If Sean Charles was anything like the fathers of most of the women he’d dated, then taking Lucas’s advice about medical issues on first meeting wasn’t necessarily likely to happen. “Let’s see what happens.”
Sara’s face fell. He walked over and pulled her close. “I didn’t mean I won’t talk to him, just that tonight might not be the perfect time. I mean, they didn’t even know I existed until a few minutes ago, did they?”
“No.” Her voice was somewhat muffled against his chest. “You’re right. I’m just worried about him. It’ll kill him if he never flies again. He needs two good legs to fly.”
“It’ll be okay,” he said. He wanted to make it okay. Wanted to chase that fear out of her voice. And the ferocity of that emotion startled him. He thought he’d been keeping himself back a little. Trying to play it smart, given that she didn’t seem to be sure about him.
But apparently she’d wriggled her way into his heart deeper than he thought.
And breathing in the smell of her hair as she held on to him, he couldn’t bring himself to feel too upset about that.
Sara was worth getting attached to. He admired her determination to work hard and solve her own problems. He admired her guts—she’d flown in war zones, for Christ’s sake—but the fact that she was strong didn’t mean she couldn’t use a hand now and then. He could make things easier for her.
Don’t bring home strays, Lucas
. He could almost hear his mother’s precise tone in his head. His parents had never understood his impulses to try to save baby birds and feed the feral cats that he’d found hiding out under one of the garden sheds any more than they’d understood his love of baseball.
Odd when his mother was so big on charity work. Though Lucas had come to think, perhaps unfairly, that his mother did charity work because it was expected and because, in the world of the Angelos, the men ran the business and the women ran the home and made sure some of the money went to good causes so that they could all sleep easier at night. It was stupid and antiquated and yet another reason why he’d run like hell into the arms of first baseball and then medicine when he’d gotten the chance to get out.
Maybe after all, it was the fact that his mom didn’t really like anything that took his attention away from the things she thought were important. Which didn’t include saving strays.
All the more reason to help Sara out. Because she wasn’t a stray. She was his. She deserved a life that wasn’t a struggle all the time.
* * *
As Sara took the plate from in front of Lucas and he smiled at her, her father pushed his chair back and rose from the table.
Lucas didn’t miss the wince that crossed his face or the unevenness of his gait as he carried the salad bowl into the kitchen, following his wife.
Beside Lucas, Sara stilled as her eyes tracked her dad’s progress.
“How recently has your dad seen his surgeon?” Lucas asked, keeping his voice soft so Sean and Liza wouldn’t hear.
“It’s been months,” Sara said. “He’s been doing physical therapy mostly.”
“And he’s not improving?”
He reached for the lasagna dish and saw Sara bite her lip.
“He was at first but he’s been like this for a while now. Though today seems like it’s a bad one.”
Lucas couldn’t argue with that diagnosis. Sean Charles was too thin for a man of his height, and there were light-gray patches in his brown hair that Lucas suspected were new. The dark circles under his eyes meant he wasn’t sleeping well. He hadn’t eaten much of his wife’s delicious lasagna but he had downed two beers. Plus another during the somewhat awkward small talk they’d all exchanged before dinner. The man was obviously in pain.
Something wasn’t right. Discomfort was to be expected from a major injury—hell, even his shoulder ached now and then when he overdid it, and that was from nearly twenty years ago—but the type of pain that required self-medicating with three beers before eight p.m. was something else. “He should go back and see his ortho guy.”
“I’ve tried to get him to,” Sara said. “But he’s worried about the money.”
“Who was his surgeon?”
“Garth Nixon. Do you know him?”
Lucas nodded. He’d met the guy a couple of times. Nixon was competent but hardly brilliant. He didn’t work at Lucas’s level. And from what Lucas had seen of Sean Charles, he hadn’t brought his A game to this particular case. “He’s good,” he said. But just good. And in Sean Charles’s case, maybe just not good enough.
“But you’re better?” Sara said softly. “Do you think you could talk to Dad, convince him to get it looked at again?”
He didn’t think Sean was ready to take any advice from him. The looks he’d been getting from the older man over dinner had confirmed his earlier suspicions. Sara’s dad wasn’t impressed with the hotshot doctor who was screwing his little girl.
Lucas couldn’t blame him for that. If he ever had a daughter, he’d probably want to wring the neck of any male who tried to put a hand on her. But Sara was looking at him with hope in those gorgeous blue eyes. So he had to try.
“I’ll try,” he said. “But if he’s as stubborn as his daughter, then I’m not making any promises.”
“Just try,” she said. She took the lasagna dish from him and balanced it on top of the stack of plates. “I’ll send him back out here.”
Sure enough, a minute or so after she disappeared into the kitchen, Sean reemerged, looking grumpy. A blue checked dish towel was flung over his shoulder. “Sara has suddenly expressed an irresistible urge to dry the dishes. I expect that means she wants us to do some bonding or something.” He looked Lucas up and down. “Come into the den, we can have another beer.”
“I wouldn’t say no,” Lucas said. He’d only had one. So another wouldn’t hurt. Manly and responsible, that was the impression he needed to give. So he would have one more beer and then switch to coffee.
Sean led the way, still limping, and Lucas studied him from behind, walking slowly to accommodate the older man’s halting walk. The den was small but Sean had managed to squeeze in two well-stuffed brown leather recliners that looked well used along with a reasonable-sized flat-screen TV. The walls were lined with photos of helicopters and grinning men who were obviously former generations of Charleses.
There were several of Sara, too, both alone and with a young guy who looked like a more rugged version of her.
He walked over and took a closer look.
“That’s my son, James,” Sean said with another wince as he lowered himself into the left-hand recliner.
Lucas didn’t think the wince was entirely due to his knee. “Sara hasn’t mentioned a brother.”
“He died.”
Ah. “I’m very sorry to hear that, sir,” he said. “That’s a hard thing.”
Sean nodded, hand rubbing at his thigh. “He was a good kid.” His jaw clenched.
Time to talk about something else. It wasn’t going to win him any brownie points to poke at the man’s emotional wounds. No, he should try to stick to the ones he might actually be able to do something about.
“Sara told me about your crash,” he said as he took a seat in the other recliner. “Does your leg still bother you?”
“Sometimes,” Sean said. “My physical therapist said it will get better.”