Authors: Carol Rose
Slowly, Caleb kissed away the darkness, his mouth gentle and lazy. Kissed her like a woman who had done all she could to fight the dragon and deserved rainbows for the effort.
Shadows of should-have-beens faded beneath the sensation of his kiss. His fingers curled through her hair, balancing her head easily in his hands. She felt beautiful, protected, desired.
The warmth of his touch chased out the cold. She'd been drowning in a long, dreary spell without sun-light-he gave it back to her now with sweet intensity.
Whispering kisses along her temple, Caleb smoothed the tangled curls back from her forehead. But she kept in mind that he was the same cold-hearted devil who had provoked her passion, then walked away. A man who wanted only sex from her.
Caleb was the last man with whom she should feel safe. If she had been possessed of all her mental capacities, she'd have run in the opposite direction. But she didn't. Comfort was a precious commodity in life when you spent your life fighting for dreams.
Julia was tired of being strong. Sometimes, she wanted to be able to fall apart and have someone there to pick up the pieces. There were a dozen reasons not to trust him. But now, surrounded by his touch and his warmth, none of them mattered.
Still cradling her in his arms, Caleb rose to his feet and strode down the rutted drive. Weariness hit her in an overwhelming wave, stilling her protest against his actions. She couldn't even bring herself to care where he was taking her.
Julia slipped into half-consciousness. Caleb's hard shoulder pillowed her head as muzzy thoughts slipped past. She'd spent the last ten days counting every scathing thing to say to Caleb Hayden when she stopped avoiding him. Things about the danger of playing games with women who'd thought dreams were worth everything. Only none of that came to mind now.
He carried her easily the short distance down the road to where she'd left her car on the grassy shoulder. Tall weeds grew thickly in the culvert beside the road, brushing against her car. Caleb didn't bother going around to the passenger door. He just leaned in from the street side and deposited Julia into the car. Her bottom slid across the seat, and he was in the car beside her before she could blink.
Caleb rummaged around the floorboard, coming up with her slender purse. She was vaguely aware of him flipping open the catch and sifting through it. He found the car keys and turned to clip her seat belt in place before fastening his own.
Julia lay back against the seat, weak from the impact of another wave of fatigue. How long had it been since she slept last? The ICU nurse had cal
led her at three in the morning
...
.
Was it yesterday or the day before?
She let her eyelids drift shut as the car rumbled responsively to life. Her brain felt so clouded and con-fused that it hurt to think.
The car engine droned on. Julia felt her body sag with the swaying of the car. She felt the car stop and heard Caleb getting out, coming around to her door. Julia lifted her head groggily, recognizing her apartment complex as he reached to hoist her out of the car.
With apparent ease, Caleb cradled her again. The apartment door was open a minute later, her keys still in his hand, as Caleb carried her into her bedroom without hesitation.
Sitting her on the bed, he didn't give the room even a glance. He opened several drawers before plucking a nightie from the drawer and dropping it beside her on the bed.
"Get into this in the next two minutes or I'm coming back to help." He pivoted on his heel and walked out. Moving in slow motion, Julia kicked off her low-heeled pumps and began unbuttoning her blouse. Out in the living room she could hear Caleb on the phone. Somehow he'd located her office number and was tersely informing her receptionist to cancel all Julia's appointments for
the day. She was staying home.
Julia smiled faintly. He must think she was really falling apart on him. She lay back on the bed, her muscles so geared for endurance that they felt like concrete. She couldn't cancel the whole day's schedule, though. She'd missed yesterday's patients already and she thought there was a hospital meeting at two o'clock. She'd have to make that before seeing the afternoon patients. The hospital rounds could wait till this evening.
Caleb came back into the bedroom. She felt his gaze flash over her lightning fast, taking
in the half-unbuttoned blouse.
He reached down to finish the job. Julia stared up with unfocused eyes. The blouse was skimmed out from under her. He unfastened the waistband of her skirt and lowered the zipper.
She lifted her head, a vague protest forming somewhere in the region of her throat. The words never made it out.
Grasping the hem of her skirt, Caleb gave a gentle tug, tossing her backwards on the bed, the skirt ending up around her ankles. One more pull and her legs were out.
Julia lay flat out across the brass bedstead in her bra, hose and panties feeling a wisp of thankfulness that her mother had taught her never to wear holey underwear. Two fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her hose as Caleb skinned them off with ease.
Gently, Caleb took hold of her shoulders and sat her up. Julia shivered at the touch of his warm hands in the air-conditioned coolness of the bedroom. Reaching around, he
unhooked her bra with one hand.
Julia's eyes drifted shut again. Her bra slipped from her shoulders and before she knew it, the coolness of silk settled over her shoulders. With an almost business-like detachment, Caleb lifted the gown enough to extricate her bra and then threaded both her arms through the short puffed sleeves.
He held her up with one hand as he tugged the bed sheets down. A second later, she sank into the pillow. Julia felt him tuck her feet under the sheets and didn't move as he pulled them up over her. Leaning over the bed, his breath tickled softly through the hair near her ear.
"You are to stay in this bed," he growled. "Forget about the damned patients and get some sleep. And when you do get out of bed
-
-not before four o'clock this afternoon
—
you are to eat something. All this bleeding-heart stuff burns up calories.
”
“
Yessir,
”
Julia murmured. He gave orders like a God-almighty physician. How could she have missed that clue?
“
Don
’
t be a smart mouth.
”
He leaned closer and dropped a kiss onto her temple.
“
Get some sleep.
”
“
Mmmmm.
”
Julia sank into oblivion as the front door shut quietly behind him.
*
His teeth clenched, Caleb stared ahead. It was over and done with. Remembering couldn't change a thing. He shook his head angrily as he drove Julia's car, hurtling over the country roads. But the images in his head didn't waver.
His fingers gripped the wheel. Erin had loved him, clung to him despite his own uncertainty about his feelings. And he'd killed her as surely as if he'd shot her.
Dammit, he couldn't do anything to change the past now. But he could have then. Maybe. If he hadn't been so caught up in his own doubts about their relationship, Erin would be alive.
If he hadn't been so blinded by emotion.
Caleb stared at the road ahead grimly. He should have turned and run the instant he'd seen Julia's empty eyes and white face. She could have been his mirror image two years ago. He'd known-known, dammit, from the minute he'd seen her! He had instantly recognized the face of someone who had seen death come a little too close.
The only way to survive in the medical profession was not to get too involved, Caleb reminded himself. You couldn't, shouldn't, ever care very much. Or you ended up empty from grieving over an endless string of losses.
Only sometimes the feelings went deeper than grief. Julia's self-blame hadn't surprised him. He'd almost been waiting for it.
All those years in medical school gave doctors a power that was sometimes illusory. Life-threatening diseases could be conquered with the magic of medicine, but there was no forgiveness when the magic didn't work, and all the medical knowledge in the world meant nothing.
Never in a hundred years would he face it again. He'd walked out of Erin's hospital room determined to wash himself clean of th
e claustrophobic smell of death..
and failure. Never again would he put himself in that position. He'd never again hold the weight of a suffering soul's last breath.
He'd failed Erin in so many ways.
Damn Julia for bringing the nightmare to him, all over again.
*
Julia walked through her house, unable to believe the progress. Her dream home was coming to life before her eyes.
Although she'd been here for ten minutes, Caleb was nowhere in sight. She hadn't seen him since the day a week ago when he'd found her huddled outside his trailer, lost in rage and grief.
Julia blushed every time she remembered him stripping her clothes off and tucking her in to bed. The memory brought embarrassment and an even more disturbing feeling-
-
never in her life had she felt more cherished.
And by Caleb of all people, the man determined not to care.
She rounded the hall corner, running headlong into a solid chunk of male muscle.
"Whoa." Caleb steadied her.
"Sorry," she said, smiling up at him.
His hand dropped. "How are you?"
"Good," Julia assured him. "I've just been going through the house. Everything looks so wonderful."
"Yeah." He g
lanced around absently. "So...
you're back in the swing of things?"
"Yep," she said, "running behind as usual. More patients than I have time for and more meetings than is sane. I've been trying to get by here for two days."
Outside, Caleb's crew called back and forth, their work on the exterior continuing. The sounds of construction wafted through the open doors and windows.
She'd known she would be fraught with mixed feelings when she faced him again. How could one man be such a combination of irritating and seductive qualities?
Walking away after the meteor shower, Julia had been determined to avoid any and all personal contact with her soulless foreman. Then he'd found her here that morning, exhausted and b
roken up over Sandy's death
and Caleb had comforted her as if he were the most sensitive man on earth.
He turned away now, leaving her to follow him.
"So it's business as usual," he said, an edge to his voice.
"Pretty much," Julia answered, puzzled by his tension.
"You recover quickly for a woman who seemed devastated to the point of incoherence a week ago."
"You mean about Sandy?"
She watched him cross the living room, turning to face her. Although his features gave no hint of emotion at all, Julia sensed his agitation, the faintest hint of a barbed anger.
"Was that her name?" Caleb's question flirted with sarcasm. "Do you fall apart for all your dead patients, grieve for them for a few days and then bounce back so quickly?"
''I'm not sure I understand," Julia murmured.
"Never mind," he said, shaking his head as he turned to walk out the door. "I clearly misunderstood the level of your grief."
"Wait a second." Julia snagged him by the arm, realizing his meaning at last. "You think because I'm back in my normal life, that I didn't really care about Sandy?"
Caleb looked down at her for a long moment. "You talked like her death really got to yo
u, but nothing really changes."
"A lot changes," Julia shot back. "Sandy's dead and I'll never forget that or her. What else is supposed to change?"
"You, maybe," Caleb said. "Maybe you wouldn't want to keep doing what you do, having people die on you, crying yourself sick over them."
"You quit because a patient died," Julia said, the sudden conviction hitting her.
"Never mind," Caleb said shortly. "What you do with your life is none of my business. I'm just here to finish your house. Unless you're interested in a mindless fling, just ignore me."
*
The pay phone stood sentinel on an empty corner of the convenience store parking lot. Of all the crummy times for her car to self-destruct, this was the worst. Seven o'clock in the evening at her building site with only Caleb there to rescue her.
If she'd tried to start her car half an hour earlier, one of the other workers would have still been there. She'd have much rather asked her favor of them, knowing how distressing her job was to Caleb.
Julia punched in the number displayed on her pager, aware of Caleb's eyes boring into her back through the windshield of his truck. Her fingers fumbled awkwardly with the buttons.
Damn him, she fumed. His talk about meaningless sex distracted her, but she knew it wouldn't be enough. Still, being around him made her restless.
Waiting to be connected, Julia leaned her head against the pay phone. She was tired of needing to be rescued by Caleb.