Everything You've Got: Anything & Everything, Book 2 (7 page)

The constant talk about naked time was making it hard to ignore that she’d asked him to lay her back on his desk. Which was about six steps away.

He frowned. “Well, that’s the deal, dammit. Nashville. RV. Spending time together. A relationship. Not just a weekend of sex.”

Her eyebrows went up. “You sound really sure about that.”

“I am.”

“Okay,” she said with a little shrug. “I guess there’s nothing I can do to change your mind.” She patted his cheek then turned and headed into the restaurant.

Shaking his head, he went ahead and appreciated the view from behind as she walked away from him.

Great. He’d been waiting to see her, to get her enthusiastic reaction to the trip together and she showed up wanting nothing more than a quickie on his desk.

He wasn’t sure he could last another day without knowing that they were moving forward. It sounded ridiculous, but it had already been iffy. Something was clearly happening between them, but she said she could only do sex. Well, sex wasn’t what he was missing in his life. He wanted more. A lot more. More as in babies and anniversaries and in-sickness-and-in-health.

And she was the one he wanted it with.

He wasn’t the most patient guy when it came to getting what he wanted. Something had to give. Soon.

He got busy making the rounds, greeting friends and guests, chatting about the upcoming town festival and making sure everyone was happy and taken care of. But his attention was never far from Kat. It was almost like he couldn’t help looking over periodically to see where she was, who she was with and what she was doing.

He watched her move, watched her laugh, watched her cross her legs on the barstool, then watched her slide into a booth across from Sabrina, her skirt pulling up on her thigh as she moved across the seat. Then she waved at someone across the restaurant and that made his heart beat as fast as the tight skirt.

Everyone in the restaurant welcomed conversation with her. She had grown up here and, in spite of her different way of dressing and doing her hair and makeup, everyone loved her. She was their doctor and a hometown girl. The fact that she fit here, that she was comfortable, accepted, was just one of the many reasons that Luke knew she was the one for him. Whoever he shared his life with would share all of this too—his work, his place in the community, The Camelot.

The Camelot was so much more than work or a paycheck to him. He’d known in high school that he wanted to have a business in Justice, but he’d wanted it to be big, important, something everyone wanted and needed. He and Marc did more than feed people, they gave them a place where they felt comforted, cared for—a place where they all belonged.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out, still watching Kat as she texted someone. He glanced down at his phone, prepared to ignore what it was.

Oh. Duh.

By the way, my panties aren’t wet.

Like hell they weren’t. He frowned and hit reply, but before he could type a letter another message came in.

I’m not wearing any panties.

He swallowed hard and typed,
Like waving a red cape in front of a bull.

He saw her smile and then her fingers move.

Ole.

Luke stared at the word. Suddenly a weekend of just sex didn’t sound so bad after all.

He was really going to have to focus. He wanted her on this trip with him, not just in his bed. And when they got back from Nashville there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind—even hers—that they were a couple. In every way. For good.

Chapter Three

“Nashville? Really?” Kat asked Sabrina.

Her friend smiled. “Sounds fun, right?”

“No offense, but I can come up with about fifty scenarios that sound more fun than an amateur country music festival. And they all involve whipped cream.”

Yeah, as if the country music was really her biggest objection.

“There’s a fridge in the RV that will easily hold a dozen cans of whipped cream,” Sabrina said, with a grin. “You need to concentrate on the fact that you’ll have Luke all to yourself for all that time. No distractions.”

Yeah. No distractions from things like work…or the fact that it took her a solid hour to look good in the morning.

“It’s just not good timing,” Kat hedged, running her finger around the edge of her wineglass. “Work is crazy.”

Yes, things with work were bad. But even without that, this trip wouldn’t be her fantasy. An airplane, a hotel suite, a beach…those were things she would go for. An RV and a weeklong trip to Nashville? Not so much. Like she’d said to Luke, the RV was small. Really small. And it would involve being together for more consecutive hours than she’d ever spent with a man. No way to spread out, find some quiet time…hide.

He had no idea how much time and space she took up in the bathroom. Or that she couldn’t sleep at night unless she read for at least a half hour and slept on the right side of the bed. And it would be six days minimum, just the two of them. Could she go six days without Hostess cupcakes or wearing sweatpants or checking Twitter? She wasn’t sure she was ready for morning breath and sharing a bathroom with Luke. And what would they do the whole time? Talk? There were a lot of deep dark secrets that could be spilled in that much alone time. Like the fact that she might have missed a life-threatening condition in a patient.

“You never take time off,” Sabrina said. “There’s no way they can be upset that you’re taking a few days.”

“It’s not really that.” She took a deep breath and looked up at the only woman she’d ever been close to, besides her sister. “If you won the lottery, but you cheated, would you keep the money?”

Sabrina looked like she wanted to ask what Kat was really talking about, but instead she said, “Well, I’d have to
really
want it, need it, be
desperate
for it even, to cheat in the first place.”

Kat swallowed a mouthful of wine. Yeah, so would she. “Okay, so you wanted it so bad that you cheated. And you won. Do you keep your winnings?”

“Maybe,” Sabrina said.

“Yeah?” This could be good. She needed an excuse—no, make that an
example
. “When would you keep it?”

Sabrina took a bite of cheesecake, watching Kat as she chewed. Then she said, “I guess it would depend if I was still desperate to have it. Because I might have started cheating a long time before I actually got what I wanted.”

Kat’s chest tightened. Desperate was such a…desperate word. But accurate in so many ways.

“And,” Sabrina went on, scooping up another bite of cheesecake, “if I thought I would always be desperate for it.”

Kat thought about that. Did she want Luke as much now as she had when she’d first started analyzing what he wanted in a woman? Would she always want him? Then she sighed. Yes and yes. If anything, Luke had gotten better with age.

Did that mean she could keep him even if she wasn’t sure
she
was exactly what
he
wanted?

“Bree, I—”

“Just go on the trip with Luke. Quit thinking about it so hard.”

Kat stared at her friend. Sabrina’s grin told her that the other woman had been paying more attention than she’d realized.

“I want to
date
him,” she said. “Not live with him.”

“Why not? Makes constant sex easier if you’re together constantly.” Sabrina took another bite.

“Sex is great.” At least she was sure it would be great. Or even better than great. “But I just think it might be a mistake to jump from mild flirtation to showing each other our holey underwear.”

“So be sure to shop for new panties before you go,” Sabrina said.

“It was a metaphor.”

Sabrina stuck her tongue out at her. “No kidding.”

“We should take this slower. Don’t you think?”

“What are you afraid of?” Sabrina asked, finally putting her fork down and leaning onto the tabletop. “Luke thinks you’re amazing. Even with holey panties.”

Kat sighed. “I’m not amazing twenty-four seven.”

“No one is,” Sabrina said.

“Does Luke know that?”

Sabrina took a moment to think about that. “Okay, it might be a surprise to Luke.”

“Exactly!” Kat slumped back in the booth. “He’s got this whole thing with me built up in his mind. Just like he did with you. And when he realized he was wrong about you he was
crushed
.”

Sabrina frowned at her. She hated reminders of how things had been between her and Luke at that point in their history. “Luke’s grown up, Kat. I’m sure he doesn’t expect that you’re perfect.”

Kat raised an eyebrow, just watching her friend.

Finally, Sabrina sighed. “Okay, maybe he does.”

“It’s too soon for him to find out differently.”

“So he finds out that you suck at world history, you can eat your own body weight in Doritos and you only scrub your bathtub once a month.”

“I’m the only one who uses my bathtub,” Kat grumbled. “Once a month is fine.”

Sabrina laughed. “I’m sure he’ll see your side of it. Or you could, you know, start scrubbing it more often.”

Kat rolled her eyes.

“The point is,” Sabrina said, “none of this is insurmountable.”

No. It didn’t seem to be. Because Sabrina didn’t even know what all Kat had been faking.

Sabrina thought Kat had raised all the money they’d needed for the new soccer uniforms, when actually she had dipped into her own savings to make the goal because she was sick of fund-raising. Sabrina didn’t know that Kat had agreed to sit on the carnival committee only to avoid getting involved with upgrading the church’s kitchen. Sabrina didn’t even know that Kat hated thongs. Liking thongs was part of her sexy bad-girl image.

And Sabrina didn’t know about her screwup with Tom, either. Yet.

Kat’s phone beeped with a voice-mail message. Speaking of her bigger problem… “Sorry, I should probably take this.”

“Sure.” Sabrina pushed her plate away and then slid to the edge of the booth. “I have to get back onstage soon anyway.”

“Thanks for listening,” Kat said.

“Well, God knows I owe you some listening. I was a mess with everything with Marc and the baby.” She got to her feet a little more awkwardly than she used to.

“When you first came home maybe,” Kat said. “But you’ve got your stuff together now.”

“Well, not all by myself,” Sabrina said, putting a hand on her stomach. “It’s pretty damned tough to have it all together without help.”

Yeah, she might have something there. Kat thought about that as Sabrina headed over to kiss her husband before taking her place back onstage. At least Kat could talk to Nancy about what was going on with work. But not about how it affected her situation with Luke. She could talk to Sabrina and Marc about Luke. But not about what was going on with Tom. For one, she couldn’t discuss her patients with anyone besides other caregivers. For another, she didn’t really want Sabrina and Marc to know she’d screwed up.

Or anyone else for that matter.

She’d kind of gotten used to being respected and trusted.

The missed call on her phone was from the hospital so she dialed her voice mail with trepidation. She listened to the message from Britney with growing frustration and alarm. The results of further testing showed Tom had suffered a hip fracture and a skull fracture when he’d lost consciousness and fallen to his kitchen floor.

The skull fracture was of concern not so much because of the fracture itself—little was done with a crack in the skull—but because there could be a brain injury under the crack. Though CT scan could show an injury, it would be difficult to assess the effects—just like with the stroke—while Tom was still unconscious. They would stop any bleeding, deal with any swelling and so on, but they wouldn’t know if Tom’s motor skills or memory or problem-solving skills were affected. Or to what extent.

Feeling frustrated, guilty and helpless, Kat had decided that the only thing powerful enough to take her mind off things was Luke. Specifically, Luke naked and doing delicious, dirty things to her. She wasn’t convinced the trip was a good idea, but she was quite certain sex with Luke was.

It was also the best way to avoid conversations with any of the other restaurant patrons. Conversations that might lead to questions about Tom. She could, of course, fall back on HIPAA to avoid truly discussing anything, but bursting into tears might be a giveaway that things were not all fine and dandy.

And she had to pull out all the stops in seducing Luke this time. Once he found out that she was far from the perfect woman he thought she was, she might not have another chance.

Luke was in his office when she finally found him. She was restless, wound up, tense. Worry about Tom was eating at her, worry about her boss distrusting her was wearing her down and the fact that she could do nothing about either thing at the moment, that she just had to wait, was making her nuts. Then there was Luke and all this sudden emotion. She felt like her mind was bouncing from one impossible situation to the other and it was making her dizzy.

The difference was she could do
something
about the Luke situation.