Kate snipped off the ends of her suture.
She then proceeded to bandage his head. "Are you sure you're all
right to drive?"
"
Give me a break, Dr. Martin. I'm sober as
a judge now." Cal Braddock laughed shakily, holding out one hand,
palm down, in front of him, as if to prove his words.
"
Then you should go straight home." Kate
stood to put away her equipment. "You need to rest and make sure
you keep the wound clean. And you certainly can't have a drink with
the antibiotics I'm going to prescribe. Absolutely no alcohol,
until you've finished the full course."
Kate pushed her discards into the
hazardous goods bucket before washing her hands. She didn't have
long to wait for Cal's response.
"
Ahhh, have a heart, Doc." He groaned as he
sat up on the couch and swung his legs over the edge. "A couple of
beers never hurt anyone. I drive trucks for a living. I work hard.
I've earned them."
"
Not until you have finished the course,"
Kate replied patiently, pursing her lips and shaking her head at
this completely male piece of logic.
Turning away, she began writing out the
required prescription. She peeled it off the pad and held it out.
"I'll need you to come back next week to remove the stitches so
I've also given you another appointment. I know you'll keep the
area clean and dry." Kate feigned a stern expression.
"
Okay, Doc, you're the boss." Cal Braddock
shook his head, as he pulled a black knitted rugby beanie gingerly
over his bandaged ear.
Kate finished typing up the notes, before
reaching over to switch off the computer. "Now, please be careful
out there. I don't want to stitch you up again today."
"
Fair enough, Doc. See ya."
Kate smiled as she opened the outer surgery
door to let him out into the warmth of the late afternoon. Giving
her a brief nod of thanks, her patient sauntered off towards his
car, whistling painfully off key.
Kate shut the door. She heaved a sigh,
wondering what she should do next when the surgery telephone
rang.
She picked the receiver up. "Mountaindale
Surgery, Dr. Martin speaking."
"
Auntie Kate?" It was Jamie. "Are you
coming back tonight?"
Kate's
heart contracted as she thought of
the crowds and the noise and knew a sudden need for the uncluttered
silence of her own company away from Spencer's watchful gaze. "I
don't know. I'm rather tired, Jamie. Maybe another
time."
"
Oh. All right." Jamie paused for a long
moment then he asked, "Well, can you come over tomorrow? To help us
work with the horses. Papa, he said I could ask you. If you wanted
to come."
Kate felt her heart contract tightly. The
boy sounded so worried that she would refuse his innocent request.
How could she turn him down and not feel mired in guilt? In the end
she simply couldn't do it.
"
Thank you, I would like that," she said
cautiously.
"
Good." He breathed gustily. The relief in
his shy voice was painfully obvious. "I'll see you
tomorrow."
"
I'll be there." Kate hung up the receiver
carefully, not at all sure she should have agreed. Or exactly what
she had agreed to.
Not certain what constituted horse working
attire, Kate dressed the next morning in her oldest denim cut-offs
and a black T-shirt. She'd barely eaten her breakfast when there
was a knock at the door.
It was Spencer and behind him, she could
see Jamie and Lobo. "Come in." Kate stepped back quickly to invite
them inside. "I was just putting the coffee on."
Spencer held up a hand. "Sorry, no. Kevin
needs help with an emergency. He's there with the ambulance now. I
stopped to ask if you could take care of Jamie for me. I won't be
long."
"
Of course," Kate replied automatically.
She looked up into his face. Without his
glasses, his gorgeous eyes were clear and direct. They moved over
her face with slow deliberation, as if he was searching for
something. Her heart stuttered under his scrutiny, but she managed
to hold steady beneath his cool appraisal, even after her cheeks
caught fire.
Spencer seemed to hesitate, as if he had
something he wanted to say. His throat moved as he swallowed hard.
"I should be going."
"
Yes, you should." Kate fought the urge to move
closer.
Reassure herself of his solidness and vital
warmth. The wanton memory of his kiss resurfaced in her mind. Her
eyes dropped to his mouth. Her heartbeat skittered out of control,
thundering in her ears.
She heard Spencer clear his throat. He
stiffened. "I'll see you both later."
He turned to Jamie. "Be good." He ruffled
his son's hair.
"
I'll try, but I can't promise." Jamie
smiled his reply, waving as his father walked towards his four
wheel drive, got in and drove off.
Jamie turned back to Kate. "Papa said
we'll still do the horses after lunch."
"
I see." Kate slanted the boy a thoughtful
look. "So, you get to keep me company then?"
"
I wanted to come over anyway." His small
face screwed up with a small boy's disgust. "You don't have any
kids. Mrs. Henry's baby threw up all over me on Friday. It smelled
funny."
"
Babies do that, I'm afraid." Kate fought
to keep the smile from her voice. "I think I can manage to look
after one small boy." She lifted her shoulders, pushing her hands
into the pockets of her shorts. "Have you had
breakfast?"
Jamie nodded vigorously. His brow creased.
"Yes, but, Papa and me, we ate all those cookies we
made."
His bright look of hope shafted through
Kate's defenses. He looked so adorable. She wondered how any woman
could abandon such a gorgeous son. Or a man like Spencer Stelanos,
the small, traitorous voice in the back on her mind added. She did
her best to ignore it. It would get her nowhere to think about
it.
"
All right then, let's go into the kitchen
and make some more of those cookies you love." Kate smiled down at
her small guest.
An hour later Spencer stepped through the
open front door of Kate's house and stopped dead in his tracks. His
wary senses took off in two different directions at once. The
practical part of his brain demanded he talk to her immediately
about leaving her door wide open for anyone to walk in.
But first he wanted to speak with her about
giving him some of those cookies he could smell. The rich warm
scent of them drifted through his troubled senses like sweet
smoke.
But the kitchen was empty. He went right
through the house without finding anyone except Lobo curled up
asleep on the back doorstep in a square of warm sunshine.
"
Some guard dog, you are," Spencer said
with asperity, shaking his head as he stepped over the slack
chocolate brown body.
Lobo opened one dark eye, but he didn't
move.
Spencer looked all around the garden before
he saw them. They were deep in the flower beds involved in
struggling to erect some sort of brush fencing. It looked like a
losing battle. The stubborn brush was winning hands down.
As Spencer watched, it toppled over. Kate
bent slowly to pick up the frame again with a grim determination
obviously born of dogged desperation.
"
Crazy woman." Spencer shook his head at
her stubbornness.
Kate obviously wasn't giving up and Jamie
was doing his five-year-old best to help. They both looked hot,
disgusted and bushed. Spencer moved against the sudden tight fit of
his jeans, finding he couldn't tear his eyes away from Kate's
shapely behind, flexing beneath the faded denim of her ancient
cutoffs as she fought to bring the fencing under
control.
The alluring sight messed with his strong
intention to maintain his distance from such obvious temptation.
What was he thinking? She'd been involved with a married man. Even
though Eric had returned to his wife, Kate was still a marriage
breaker. Yet, somehow, whenever he came close to her, he kept
losing sight of that one vital fact. He needed to remember it at
all times.
Coming over here had been his son's idea.
Spencer had given in unwillingly. And also his son's idea that Kate
could help them with the horses this morning. Spencer didn't have
the heart to refuse, even though it threw him right back into the
very situation he was trying to avoid.
But he could feel his pulse beginning to
hammer as he watched the two of them. Things starting to shift deep
within him that had no business moving at all. He wanted nothing
more than to be able to turn around and walk away.
As he stood watching, chewing over his
thorny dilemma, the fencing fell again. It was the final straw to
his crumbling desire to walk out.
"
Oh, for God's sake!" Crossing the garden
in long, impatient strides he came up close behind Kate. Her unique
floral perfume surrounded him.
"
Here, let me do that," he muttered,
reaching an arm over her shoulder to help prop up her
burden.
Kate yelped as she spun around and
stumbled away from him. She clutched a hand to her chest. "Oh,
help! You nearly scared the life out of me," she accused, her
cheeks heating to a deeper rose beneath his exasperated
gaze.
Kate stared at him, pressing her lips
together. Spencer had been moving through her subconscious, an
elusive image she couldn't pin down. A restless need hunted after
his image making her feel strung out and confused. Her whole body
throbbed with the turmoil of an unfulfilled desire. The stubborn
fencing refusing to cooperate only served to sharpen the raw edge
of her dissatisfaction.
"
You're back early," she stated
unnecessarily.
"
I wasn't needed after all. Kevin had it
covered by the time I arrived. You two look like you've been having
fun." The smile he offered his son looked strained.
"
We're putting up this fence." Jamie
frowned. "But the darn thing just won't go."
"
Okay, let's see what we can do then."
Spencer leaned into the task, lifting and pushing the fence firmly
into place, under Kate's harried direction.
Kate fumed as she stepped around him to
secure it at ground level with metal stakes. "Show-off," she
muttered close to his ear, before she moved quickly back out of
reach.
"
What did you say?" Supporting the brush
with one hand, Spencer turned his head to stare at her mutinous
face.
The single muttered word tempted him to
reply in kind. Tempted him with all kinds of sensuous ideas. It was
a dangerous and disturbing notion to be verbally sparring with
her.
"
You heard me." Kate's wary blue eyes held
his.
Her heart flipped over and hitched to a
halt. He was staring hard at her, but for the first time the
intense expression in his eyes was completely unguarded. A deep
shudder rippled through her senses. Her lower body tightened and
began to hum with an awareness that frankly scared her half to
death.
He was big and male and so gorgeous, and
he smelled of fresh air and sunshine and pure unadulterated man—and
she should be running a thousand miles in the opposite
direction—instead she remained locked in place, neatly trapped in
the heart stopping look in his blue eyes.
Her knees were threatening to give way and
he was staring at her like she was some great new kind of edible
treat he just had to have. She saw his tongue breach the seam of
his lips to pass slowly over his open mouth. She wanted to follow
that sensuous path with her own, make him aware of her and what his
look was doing to her traitorous body.
She frowned, stifling a rueful groan as
she tried very hard to remember the scents of Eric's body—but the
stubborn memory refused to surface. The cluttered space in her mind
that had once held all that Eric had meant and said to her—both
good and awful—was suddenly blank. The complete emptiness startled
her into voicing a short disturbed cry of chagrin.
"
Are you all right?" Spencer straightened
up slowly. "Have you hurt yourself?"
He saw the deep confusion surface in
Kate's clear blue eyes. Her soft beauty shoved his heart into top
gear. He fought to keep himself from responding to her; from giving
in to the simple, almost overwhelming need to reach out and touch
her. Compound every mistake and draw her closer to relearn every
inch of her soft curves while he plundered her mouth.
To make her irrevocably his.
Spencer inhaled, shaking his head. Where the
hell did that crazy idea come from?
He took a step back, aware it could never
happen. Kate could never be his. She would be gone one day from
their lives as soon as she got restless and realized what she was
missing in this small backwater place. He couldn't become any more
involved. Certainly not with a woman who didn't even respect the
sanctity of marriage. But even mussed and dirty from her fruitless
labors, she looked good enough to eat. Against his will, a fresh
wave of desire surged through him on potent wings of
fire.