FROM HOUSECALLS TO HUSBAND Page 11

  She whipped her wildly curling hair into a scrunchee at her nape. Wondering how she was ever going to tame it for tonight, she added mousse to the mental list of items she needed to pick up on her way home this afternoon—and told herself it was way too soon to panic. She had been pretty upset lately and when she got upset her system did get a little out of whack. She'd skipped an entire period the month she'd taken her nursing boards. Stress could do that. So just because there was a possibility she could be pregnant didn't mean she was. The fact that she was a couple of days late meant nothing. It was rather like watching a pot, waiting for it to boil. Her period would start if she'd just stop worrying about it.

  Still, just to be sure, she added pregnancy test to the list. After all, she was stopping at the drugstore, anyway. If she left work at the exact moment her shift ended, she could make her stop and be home by four-thirty. That would give her exactly two hours to take the test to put her mind at ease, shower, and transform herself into something resembling a vision.

  The plan was sound. It was her timing that was off.

  She left work right on time, but it took longer at the drugstore than she'd thought it would because she decided to go to one she didn't usually frequent so she wouldn't run into anyone she knew. Then, since the store stocked three brands of home pregnancy tests, she had to read them all because she wanted the one that would give her the fastest, most accurate results. Even with those little delays, she figured she could have accomplished everything on time—if Spike hadn't decided he'd been ignored just a little too much lately and unearthed the four-foot fern atop her bookcase. He'd dragged it, rootball and all, over her pale beige carpet and stuffed it under her bed. By the time she had what she could salvage of the listless plant recovering in a milk carton atop her fireplace mantel—the one place Spike couldn't leap on—and the mess vacuumed up, she'd was left with sixty-two minutes to perform a miracle. Mike was there in sixty-one.

  She seemed harried.

  That was Mike's first impression when Katie opened the door and stepped back to hustle Spike onto the sofa so the cat wouldn't make for the pine tree out front. His second thought, as he watched her clip on a long, dangling pearl earring and open the closet for her coat, was that she looked exquisite.

  "I'm almost ready," she said, pulling her long, burgundy raincoat from a hanger. "I can put my lipstick on in the car."

  He reached for the coat. "Slow down."

  "I don't want to make you late."

  "You won't." His appreciative glance moved from the soft curls cascading from the pearl clips that held her hair up and away from her flushed face, past the dangling earrings, and skimmed the satiny expanse of shoulders and arms. Her skin looked as soft as the midnight black velvet clinging faithfully to her high breasts, narrow waist and enticing swell of her hips. The gown was classic, elegant. And Katie filled it out in a way that nearly made his mouth water. "How long can it take to put on lipstick?"

  "With liner? About thirty seconds."

  "I think we can spare that. Go."

  He took her coat when she handed it to him and watched her hurry down the short hall, his glance roving shamelessly over bare skin and the rich-looking fabric that reached from the middle of her back to the floor. He was so accustomed to seeing her in scrubs or a sweater and leggings, that he'd forgotten how stunning she could be. Or had he even known? he wondered. He'd seen her dressed up on any number of occasions over the years. It was just that none of them had been since he'd moved back to Honeygrove.

  Or maybe, he thought, turning away when she disappeared though the bedroom door he'd backed her through three weeks ago, he was just looking at her differently now. And seeing far more than he once had.

  Preferring to avoid the thoughts complicating his life, he turned to face a bedraggled plant in a milk carton on the mantel.

  "That's interesting," he murmured, when the rustle of heavy fabric caught his attention. "New art?"

  Preoccupied, still rushing, confusion shifted through her dark eyes. Clutching a small, beaded bag, she reached to take her coat, and finally noticed where he was looking. "Oh, that. That's why I'm running late. Spike decided to rearrange the bookcase."

  "Were you ignoring him again?"

  For the first time since he'd arrived, she didn't simply brush a glance past his shoulders or his chin. The faint smile curving her lush, rose-tinted mouth was fleeting, but there was enough of that soft expression in her eyes for him to feel the connection that had been missing the past few weeks. Insignificant as the subject was, he'd immediately suspected why her cat had decided to punish her. And without words she'd confessed to the transgression. There was something nice about being that attuned to someone.

  He hadn't realized how often they communicated in that once comfortable, companionable way. At least, he hadn't until communication between them had become so strained. Before, they could speak without words. Now, they were so busy not talking about the thing that loomed as large as an elephant between them that when they spoke, they actually said very little that mattered.

  "I'm ready." Since it was apparent he wasn't going to simply hand over her coat, she turned to let him help her on with it. "I hope I haven't forgotten anything."

  A shining strand of hair spiraled from her nape. He didn't know if it had escaped the clip holding up the rest of her hair, or if she'd left it down on purpose. But he lifted her coat over her shoulders, then untucked the intriguing lock to keep it from being crushed.

  "I can't imagine what else you'd need. You look great."

  He didn't know if she was surprised by the flattery or not. With her back to him, he was aware only of the way she'd tensed when he'd slipped his finger under her collar to rescue the curl. Or maybe it was the weight of his hand on her shoulder that had made her go still.

  Dropping his hand, he let the other slide from her shoulder.

  "Thank you."

  Her hesitant thanks could have been for the compliment, or for letting her go. Had they not been on the way out the door, he might have asked her to get more specific. But discretion truly was the better part of valor and now was not the time to rock their boat. It was more like a leaky canoe, anyway. An extremely narrow one in rough water. The only thing that had kept it from tipping so far was their tacit agreement to ignore what had happened. As they hurried out to his car a few moments later, then spent the fifteen-minute drive in a stimulating conversation about the weather and the road construction they encountered, he knew that wasn't going to be possible much longer.

  The grand ballroom of the Westridge Country Club was an enormous space lined with gilded mirrors, hung with massive chandeliers and set with round tables sporting red linens, white china and sparkling stemmed crystal. The Heart Ball was considered one of the main social and charitable events of the season, which meant the women—mostly wives or girlfriends of the various doctors, lawyers and corporate types in attendance, if not doctors, lawyers and corporate types themselves—were all properly gowned and coiffed. There were black gowns, of course, and every jewel-tone imaginable. But with the heart theme, many of the women had opted for shimmering red taffeta or satin. Even a few of the men sported red ties and cummerbunds with their tuxedos.

  With the strains of a classic concerto filling the air, compliments of the ensemble near the dance floor, Katie couldn't help thinking that the overall mood would have fit right in with the little fantasy Lee had been working on in the dressing room. Unfortunately, Katie couldn't appreciate the ambiance as much as she would under other circumstances. Apprehensive and anxious, she just wished it were midnight and the ball were over. Mike was trying as hard as she to keep things pleasant, but there was an unfamiliar tension in him tonight that had her nerves jumping like the tracings of an EKG.

  She stood near a set of the ballroom's huge, open doors, watching the crowd while Mike dealt with their coats. By being his nondate, she'd tacitly agreed to support him by putting up a good appearance. That was exactly what she'd do, too. As
important as it was for him to maintain the right connections, and keep his chief of staff happy, she couldn't let him down. Aside from that, her parents were in there somewhere, along with many of their friends and acquaintances. So were Mike's colleagues. And some of the doctors she worked with. It wouldn't do any good at all to let the strain between her and Mike show.

  There was one other little matter preying on her mind.

  She hadn't taken the test. She'd simply been too rushed. So now she had to spend the evening pretending everything was fine between her and Mike while trying not to obsess over whether or not she was carrying his child.

  "Show time."

  Mike drawled the words from beside her. Feeling his hand on her elbow, she looked up, her glance skimming the row of black studs on his white pleated shirt and the satin stripe edging the lapel of his black jacket. The last time she'd seen him in a tuxedo had been at his wedding. She'd thought he looked incredibly handsome then. Tonight, when she needed him to look comfortable and ordinary, when she needed him to look like her friend, he looked devastating.

  "Start looking for Dr. MacAllister," he said, leading her into the crowd. "We're at his table." He nodded to a couple who smiled and nodded back. "It's number twenty-something."

  Grateful for the diversion, her glance swept over the numbers in the silver holders on the nearby tables. They were in the forties. "Do you know who else we'll be with?"

  "Aniston and Chapman and their wives."

  "What?" he asked, when she wrinkled her nose.

  "We have to sit with Dr. Aniston?"

  "What's wrong with him?"

  "Other than the fact that he's a short, bald, ill-tempered egotist?"

  With his hand on her elbow, Mike steered her in the direction of a white-coated waiter bearing a tray of champagne. "You forgot opinionated. But that's just between you and me. Anyway, you know how to deal with difficult people. You do it all the time. And Aniston's all right," he said, clearly seeing no cause for concern. "He's just got a Napoleon complex. Do you want champagne? Or would you rather have something from the bar?"

  Considering that another minor stress had just been added to the evening, she didn't just want a drink, she wanted general anesthesia. Unfortunately, there was a little possibility she needed to consider. And considering it had her looking everywhere but at him. "I'll just have water. Or a soft drink."

  Mike's eyebrow shot up. "You sure?"

  "I'm sure." If she was pregnant, she wasn't going to take any chance of harming her … their … baby. "Ginger ale would be fine," she expanded, not sure she hadn't paled as the idea became more real.

  Their baby. Hers and Mike's. A little dark-haired, blue-eyed Brennan, she thought, her hand flattening on her stomach.

  "Are you all right?" Mike's glance followed her unconscious motion, then sharpened on her face. "You're not fighting something off again, are you?"

  "No! No. I'm—"

  "Katie! There you are. And Michael! It's so good to see you."

  Katie's mom enveloped first Katie, then Mike in a Chanel-scented hug. Unaware of her daughter's relief at the interruption, she stood back, smiling fondly at them both. With her smooth, ash blond hair tucked in a shining chignon and her petite frame encased in a long, red beaded sheath and jacket, Karen Sheppard looked perfect, as always. Which made Katie, as always, feel as if she'd just stepped from a wind tunnel.

  Self-consciously tucking back a strand of the hair that had survived her every effort to tame it, she straightened her shoulders and smiled back.

  "You look charming," Karen pronounced, scanning the earrings and black velvet gown. "The dress is even prettier than you described. You should have borrowed my pearls, though. They would have looked perfect. But never mind that," she hurried on, looking chagrined at having been unable to resist the suggestion. "Your way is lovely. Where are you sitting?"

  "Table twenty-something." Suddenly self-conscious about her bare throat, wondering if maybe she should have borrowed the pearls, she covered the offending spot with her hand. "Hi, Dad."

  Like Mike, Dr. Randall Sheppard looked as comfortable in a tuxedo as he did a lab coat. He did not, however, look like a man about to turn sixty. If not for his thick, silver hair, he could have easily passed for a man ten years his junior. His personality and reputation gave a person the impression that he was a large man, though he was actually as lean as a runner, and easily an inch or two shorter than Mike's six feet.

  Hearing his daughter's greeting, he glanced toward her, his hand falling from where he'd clapped Mike on the shoulder. His patrician features folding in puzzlement, he stepped forward to place a quick kiss on her cheek.

  "This is a surprise, Kathleen," he said, his use of her formal name creating a certain distance even as he smiled. "I expected to see Mike, but what are you doing here?"

  "Oh, Randy," Karen murmured, sounding more conciliatory than exasperated. "I told you she was coming with him." She shook her head, the rubies in her ears catching the light from the chandeliers. "I must have mentioned it while he was preoccupied with something," she explained to Katie with a dismissing little laugh. "I can't hold him responsible for what I tell him unless I'm sure I have his attention. You know how your father always has a million things on his mind."

  The picture of amused tolerance, she skimmed her smile to Mike, avoiding her daughter's subdued expression as she tactfully changed the subject. Katie was so accustomed to the way her dad seemed to forget she existed, and her mom's excuses for him, that her own responses were just as automatic. Having been so subtly dismissed, however unintentionally, she simply crossed her arms and told herself she didn't care.

  "I do wish your parents could have come tonight, Michael," her mother was saying, "but they wouldn't miss Paul's tournament. Imagine. He could be state swimming champion."

  The murmur of other conversations drifted between them. Over the high-pitched enthusiasm of two ladies who apparently hadn't seen each other in a while, Mike responded to Mrs. Sheppard with an oldest brother's pride in his youngest sibling, and replied with ease to Dr. Sheppard's inquiry about how his practice was going. There was no mistaking the genuine interest in the older man's question, or the sincerity in his response when he said he was glad Mike was doing so well. Dr. Sheppard had been interested in him for as long as he could remember, and Mike had always found him willing to listen and explain. But even as they spoke, he could see Katie withdrawing from the brief conversation.

  He'd seen her smile slip while she'd talked with her mom. Now, as she stood with one hand covering her throat, her other arm banding her waist, she'd grown quieter, her expression losing what little animation she'd managed. She'd seemed preoccupied since he'd picked her up, but this was different. This had to do with her parents. She was always more subdued around her mom, but with her dad, she nearly turned mute. She couldn't be around her father for sixty seconds without seeming to shrink into the background.

  "And we really shouldn't hold you two up any longer,"

  Mrs. Sheppard concluded a minute later. "I see Angie Baker coming now."

  A woman Katie recognized from her parents' church was moving in on them like a heat-seeking missile. Having caught the woman's eye herself, Mrs. Sheppard leaned forward and dropped a quick kiss on Katie's cheek.

  "Have fun tonight, sweetie. And you, Mike," she added, smiling up at the man she'd known since he was in diapers. "Mark the fifth of next month on your calendar. It's Randy's birthday. His sixtieth. We'll need you to help celebrate."

  Mike assured her that he'd be there if he could, but he was more aware of Katie than whatever else it was her mother said, as a woman in a dress the shade of bile, but what he supposed would be called "lime," tugged her away. The stunning woman at his side seemed to visibly relax as her parents were whisked off, her slender, enticingly bare shoulders falling as if some of the air had just leaked out of her.

  "You don't need a necklace."

  Surprise registered in her eyes, just before appreciatio
n settled in. Her hand fell from her throat. "Thank you."

  "Are you sure you don't want that wine?"

  Though her smile faltered, she murmured, "I'm sure. Listen, Mike. About dad's birthday," she began, only to find the rest of what she wanted to say stuck in her throat.

  His hand had settled on her bare back, right between her shoulder blades.

  "What about it?" he asked, letting his hand slip down to the soft velvet as he guided her to the bar.

  "I have no idea what to get him." His fingers were now splayed at the small of her back, his thumb moving in a slow caress. Thinking he might just like the feel of the fabric, she tried to dismiss the motion. "If you can think of anything, will you let me know?"

  "I'll see what I can come up with. There's Dr. MacAllister." Looking as innocent as an altar boy, he increased the pressure of his hand, slipping it just a bit lower. It was almost as if he were testing her, challenging her to question the contact. "It looks like the Anistons are with him."

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  « ^ »

  "You're Randy Sheppard's daughter?" Dr. Aniston posed the question over a forkful of Chicken Oscar, his attention momentarily diverted from the conversation taking place to his right. "I've known Randy for years. He was our children's pediatrician. You and I have met before, haven't we?"

  Dr. Aniston's beady little eyes narrowed. Had she been in scrubs and standing by the nurses' station at the hospital, Katie was sure he'd have had no trouble placing her at all.

  "At Memorial," she politely replied. Seated between him and Mike at the table of eight, she rearranged her asparagus, pretending to look as if she, too, was enjoying what was probably a delicious dinner. "I'm on the cardiac floor."