From House Calls To Husband Read online

  She was right, of course. He firmly believed there were physiological benefits to owning a pet. He even recommended them to some of his elderly patients; especially the ones who lived alone. He just liked giving her a hard time about her cat. He wasn’t sure why, exactly. Maybe it was because she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, and he liked the look she got when she was trying to figure him out. Maybe it was because she was fun to tease and it wasn’t often that he had fun anymore. She was right, though. In a way. He did feel the need to hold something soft and warm. Her pet just wasn’t it.

  “I need food.” With one hand, he scooped the cat to the floor. “I didn’t get any lunch.”

  She didn’t question the change of subject. She simply held his glance long enough for him to know she knew exactly why he’d had no time for the meal, then turned on her heel to head for the microwave.

  “Food,” she announced, wrestling out the steaming containers with a hot pad. “I’ll dish up. You load the VCR. Do you want a salad?”

  He told her he wanted anything she put on the table. Since she was sharing his dinner, she contributed a loaf of French bread and a salad she created in thirty seconds by emptying a bag of mixed greens into a bowl, adding what was left of a bag of croutons and tossing the lot with bottled dressing.

  Within two minutes, she and Mike were passing the bread, the wine and watching the opening credits of the movie. Within twenty minutes, the meal was history and each had claimed a spot at opposite ends of the sofa.

  Any other night, the psychological thriller the woman at the video store had recommended would have easily occupied Katie’s mind. The plot was full of twists and turns. The pace was breakneck. Yet, an hour into the video, Katie had completely lost track of the story line. Even as she dutifully attempted to concentrate on the images flickering over the screen, her thoughts restively wandered.

  While the attorney on-screen passionately argued his client’s case, Katie thought about Eva, about the pacemaker implant in 318, and about how she was never going to get the hang of the new computer program that had been installed that morning. Telling herself to stop thinking about work, she shifted her thoughts to Dana and about the new position her friend had applied for, wishing she had the guts to make some sort of a change herself, but not sure what she’d do if she did find the courage.

  Not liking the direction her thoughts had taken there, either, she shifted her glance from the thread she was picking on the cuff of her sock to where Mike lounged on the opposite end of the sofa. What she really wanted was to shut out distractions the way he seemed to be able to do. He was totally, completely, one hundred and ten percent absorbed in the movie. He always had been able to focus when he wanted to. When he had that intent, intense look on his face, nothing short of an explosion could get his attention.

  She curled up a little tighter in her corner, wondering as she did if he was conscious at all of what he was doing. Somewhere along the line, he’d toed off his shoes and slumped down to rest his head against the back cushions. His long legs were crossed and stretched out ahead of him. Beside him, stretched the length of his thigh and jammed as tight as he could get, was Spike.

  The cat lay on his back, his white belly exposed, eyes closed and clearly relishing the gentle, distracted way Mike’s long, elegant fingers slowly-stroked his thick fur.

  She wasn’t sure what it was about hands that fascinated her. But they did. Her grandma Sheppard’s were old and withered, but her fingers were as straight as her spine and her nails always perfectly polished in pale mauve. Her Grandpa Hancock’s were gnarled and spotted, his middle finger enlarged with a callus where he held his brush to paint Her mom’s were dainty and soft. Her dad’s were blunt. Alice’s were always beringed and her nails brightly colored.

  Maybe that was what it was, she thought, Spike’s little chest disappearing as Mike’s palm covered it. Maybe she found hands interesting because they said so much about a person. Mike’s spoke volumes about him. Sinewy and strong, his were incredibly masculine, yet so skilled, so capable of the most delicate, minute motions. His hands held the power to heal, to cure.

  As she watched him idly slip his fingers through the velvety fur, she couldn’t help considering what other powers they might hold. A woman couldn’t look at hands like that and not wonder how they would feel on her body. At least she hadn’t been able to look at his lately without the thought occurring. As patient as he could be, she didn’t doubt he’d be an incredible lover. But he could be demanding, too, and that thought was even more provocative.

  With a typical feline change of heart, Spike decided he’d had enough just about the time Katie figured she had, too, and he silently leapt to the floor. Mike, his focus glued on the set and blessedly oblivious to her little flight of fancy, didn’t move a muscle. His hand lay exactly where it had fallen when the cat slid from under it.

  Curious to know what held him so rapt, anxious for something—anything—else to occupy her mind, she glanced at the television.

  The images on the screen didn’t quite provide the distraction she was looking for. The action had moved from the courtroom to a bedroom. Fifteen feet away, across the coffee table that held their empty plates and half the bottle of wine, the attorney on the screen was relieving his seductive female client of her blouse. He was also engaged in a rather long, decidedly thorough exploration of her tonsils.

  Katie’s first thought was that the actress had been surgically enhanced. Her second was that she doubted Mike was considering the surgical technique such enhancement required. But thinking about what was going on in Mike’s mind when the woman had been stripped to her garter belt didn’t seem like such a good idea. Especially since he was beginning to shift rather uncomfortably on his end of the sofa.

  When the man pushed the woman onto a bed and she clawed his back with her nails, Katie swore she heard Mike groan.

  “I think we should have picked something with a few good chase scenes,” he muttered, his attention still riveted on the screen.

  “It started out with one,” she offered helpfully.

  “Yeah, well, that was more the sort of action I was in the mood for. All this does is remind me of what I’m missing.” The muscle in his jaw jerked as he reached for his glass of wine on the end table. His deep voice dropped like a rock in a well. “If it weren’t for the diseases out there, I’d can the celibacy routine.”

  More surprised by the admission than the topic, she murmured, “I know what you mean. It’s been so long since I made love I’m sure I’ve forgotten how.”

  “Keep watching.” Sitting back, he raised his glass toward the couple on the screen. “I think you’re going to be reminded.”

  Sure enough. The camera panned down. The man rose up. A female hand clutched the sheet.

  Katie slowly blew out a breath. “Sex is highly overrated.”

  “Spoken like one of the deprived.”

  “It is,” she defended, her attention, like Mike’s, fixed on the screen.

  “So’s the need for oxygen.”

  “Humans can survive without sex.”

  The hand clenched again. “Not as a species,” he countered.

  “I mean, we can survive longer.” An artful closeup of a naked hip—or maybe it was a shoulder—filled the screen. “You can live a whole life without sex, but only minutes without oxygen.”

  “Exist,” he corrected, over the sounds of heavy breathing and violins. “Some people would say you can exist a whole life without sex.”

  Did he feel that he was simply existing? she wondered, not liking the thought at all. “Tell me. Is this discussion we’re having practical, or philosophical?”

  “Diversionary.”

  “I see. Well, as long as we’re diverting ourselves, would you mind answering something for me about the male mind?”

  “Is this going to get me into trouble?”

  “It shouldn’t.” Pulling her glance from a shot of an arched back, she plucked at the loose thread on he
r sock again. “I just wondered if men are always after the finish, or if they ever just want to be held, too.”

  He hesitated, consideration entering his voice. “It depends on the man. And the woman.”

  “That’s very diplomatic.”

  “Thank you.” He shifted again. “More wine?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks.” Contemplating the thread, she gave it a tug. “Mike?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You mentioned the diseases out there.” A quarter inch of cuff unraveled from her sock. “What do you say to a woman when you want to know if she’s okay? If she doesn’t have anything communicable, I mean. Some of that stuff is so scary.”

  Because she was busy stuffing the thread under her cuff, she didn’t know when he glanced from the entwined limbs on the screen. But after several seconds passed and he hadn’t answered, she looked over to find him quietly watching her.

  “It hasn’t come up,” he admitted, clearly curious. “I meant what I said before. I haven’t been with anyone since Marla and I split Before that, the partners I’d had brought it up, and I made sure I used protection. Why? Have you met someone you’re getting serious about?”

  She gave a little smile, her hair brushing her shoulders as she shook her head. “Hardly. I’ve only been out with a couple of guys since Jim and I broke up. They never got past the peck-at-the-front-door stage.”

  It had been nearly two years since she and Jim Mitchell had parted ways, which was about how long the two of them had been together. He’d been a nice guy, an architect with a terrific future ahead of him, one he’d wanted to share with her. She’d seriously considered it, too, until she’d faced the fact that while she cared for him, she didn’t love him. She didn’t expect fireworks out of a relationship, but she wanted—needed—something more than what they’d had. Even as badly as she wanted a family and children of her own, marriage wouldn’t have been fair to either one of them.

  The only light in the room came from the flickering images on the television and the lamp on the end table beside Mike. With that lamp on low, his shadowed expression looked almost...protective. “The only one I knew about was the guy you met at the Octoberfest in Mount Angel. The investment broker. Who was the other one?”

  “Your cousin. Brandon. Remember? Your mom fixed me up with him when he was visiting from Medford.”

  “He doesn’t count. He’s family.”

  “He wasn’t my family.”

  Mike didn’t look any more pleased with her rationale than he had when she’d mentioned Jim. She wasn’t exactly sure why that was, either. He’d only met Jim once. That had been back when he and Marla had been married and living in Portland and Katie was already working at Honeygrove Memorial. There had been a four-year period after she’d graduated and moved back from Portland herself, when she and Mike had sort of drifted apart, the way friends sometimes do when marriage and relocation enter the picture. But, even though Mike had never said a word against Jim, she’d sensed that he hadn’t cared much for him. That was fair enough. She hadn’t cared much for Marla, either.

  “Maybe I will have a refill.”

  “You can have mine. I have to drive.”

  She didn’t really want the wine. She just wanted something to concentrate on other than the odd jealousy she’d felt toward his ex-wife. But she reached for the glass anyway, thinking to take a sip and set it on the coffee table. The glass didn’t make it that far. When Mike held it out, her hand collided with his, pale liquid sloshing over her thigh.

  Katie gasped.

  Mike swore.

  Reaching past her, he snatched a napkin from the coffee table. Katie, trying not to spill the few remaining drops in the glass, leaned toward the table with him to set down the glass. Angled as she was with her legs tucked under her, she had to lean sideways. To keep from tipping over, she also had to grab his shoulder.

  “Hold it!” Stifling a giggle, she gripped harder, trying to keep her balance when he moved closer. “I’m going to wind up on the floor.”

  “Then give me the glass. You’re going to drop it.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are to.”

  She was. Slipping one arm behind her back to keep her steady, Mike plucked the stemmed goblet from her fingers with his other hand. “You dope,” he muttered, grinning himself. “You’re going to break the glass and your neck, too.”

  He’d placed the glass on the table and her knee had jammed against his hip when he finally met her eyes. Warm brown, flecked with gold, they sparkled with humor. Beneath the hand supporting her back, he could feel the delicate bones of her spine and the edges of her shoulder blades as she shifted to keep her balance. The enticing fullness of her breast pressed to his side.

  He felt his own smile fade. The breath he drew brought her scent, that combination of spring and warm female that suddenly didn’t seem as innocent as it had before. Close up, there was a seductive edge to it that played utter havoc with the nerves at the base of his spine.

  This is Katie, he chastized himself.

  Repeating the admonition, he steeled himself and prepared to move back. He would pull her upright, drop his hands and ignore the raw, unexpected hunger burning low in his gut. Or so he was thinking as he watched her smile slowly die.

  In the space of a heartbeat, she’d gone utterly still. He didn’t know what she saw in his expression, but there was no mistaking what he saw move through hers. Confusion. Hesitation. Considering that he was holding her as intimately as a lover, neither surprised him. What caught him totally unprepared was the awareness that darkened her eyes, turning the gold flecks molten.

  That awareness jolted through him like lightning, frying his logic on the way. This was Katie, and somewhere in the back of his mind, sanity was telling him he should let her go. At the moment, he just couldn’t think of why that was necessary. His glance skimmed her face, moving over her clear, poreless skin to the wild tangle of tawny hair brushing her shoulders. She wore it loose tonight, and it looked so sensuously soft that it fairly begged him to sink his fingers into its spirals and curls.

  The sensations elicited by the eroticism in the movie had been nothing more than physiological reaction to visual stimulus. Predictable, uncomplicated, undirected. The desires stirring inside him now were infinitely stronger and screaming with complications. As his glance dropped to die inviting fullness of her mouth, there was no mistaking their direction at all.

  He gave her every chance in the world to pull away. But she didn’t move. As he slowly lowered his head, he wasn’t sure she even breathed.

  He wasn’t sure he was breathing himself when his mouth touched hers. The contact was tentative, testing, an experiment driven by opportunity as much as longstanding curiosity. That curiosity seemed to be there for her, too. Or maybe she was just curious to see what he would do. When she still didn’t move, he cupped his hand to the side of her neck and slipped his fingers into the silk of her hair. With his thumb on her cheek, he angled her head the way he wanted it, coaxing her open to him, and touched his tongue to hers.

  He didn’t expect the heat. The fire. The warm, sweet taste of her strafed through him like a flame set to dry tinder, incinerating any intention he had of ending the kiss right there. He drew her closer, drinking deeper. If she’d given him any indication at all that she wanted him to stop, he would have found a way to let her go. Somehow. But the small sound that caught in her throat hinted far more at longing than protest.

  The next sound he heard was his own, the moan torn from deep within his chest when she started kissing him back. Shifting her curvy little body in his arms, digging her fingers into his shoulders, she mated her tongue with his. Her breathing quickened, her heartbeat racing against his chest.

  She wants this.

  A fist of pure need slammed into his gut.

  This is Katie, he repeated, only this time, the phrase held more realization than warning.

  Her unexpected impact on him would have had him pulling back himself, i
f he hadn’t just felt her stiffen. As if suddenly aware of what she was doing, she lowered her head, turning away to hide the confusion he’d glimpsed in her eyes.

  With his hand still on her neck, he traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. “Should I have done that?”

  She shook her head, her loose curls caressing the back of his hand. “I’m not sure.”

  She dropped her hands from his shoulders. He let her go, watching as she pushed her trembling fingers through her hair and rose from the sofa. She didn’t pace, as he’d thought she might do. Or start clearing the coffee table or straightening and fussing as she tended to do when she was agitated. She just stood there, looking as if she didn’t quite know which way to turn.

  She was trying for distance. But, apparently, not from him since she stayed right where she was.

  Reaching for the remote on the coffee table, he punched the mute button, instantly killing the squeal of tires, and rose beside her. When she didn’t look up, he turned her face to him and cupped her cheek with his palm.

  “I can’t say I haven’t thought about kissing you before, Katie. You’ve just never given me any reason to think you wanted me to touch you.”

  She’d given him plenty of reason now. “I know.”

  “Then you’ve thought about it before, too?”

  The play of emotions on her face was fascinating. Guilt and caution collided with need. She didn’t have to say a word for him to have his answer.

  With the edge of his thumb he traced the corner of her mouth. “What we were talking about before,” he prefaced, drawn by the almost unconscious way she moved her head toward his hand, “was there a reason we were talking about safe sex, or were we just making idle conversation?”

  Katie’s heart jerked against her ribs. “I thought we were just talking. To divert ourselves from the movie,” she explained, finding his earlier analysis as good as any. “We talk about a lot of things.”

  His fingers traced her collarbone, slipping up to curve at the side of her face. “It seems there are few things we don’t talk about, too.”