The Passion of Patrick MacNeill (10 page)

She blinked at him owlishly. "What?"

"You do talk too much."

Chapter 7

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"
T
his whole visit," Kate announced in the car going home, "was a mistake."

The yellow caution markers flashed in her headlights, rushing down the current of a dark river. Concentrating on the road, she didn't look at Patrick, but awareness of him beat through her body like a pulse. He crowded her car, his knees almost touching the glove compartment. He turned to check on Jack, sleeping in the back, and his arm stretched along the top of her seat. She felt its heat against her neck, imagined the brush of his fingertips.

"Lunch was good," he offered mildly.

Kate snorted. "Lunch was sandwiches.
And about five hours too long."

"Your sister said she lost track of the time."

"Sure."

"She always
take
advantage of you like that?"

"I…" Kate sighed.
"No, of course not.
She's just started a new job, and she probably needed to get away. She's had a busy week."

"Yeah, and being a doctor is a walk in the park, right?" It was so rare for someone to take her part that Kate actually smiled before shaking her head. "I still should never have invited you."

"The kids got along okay."

"The
kids
… Well, yes. I was talking about us." He lifted one dark eyebrow. "Honey, if we weren't getting along, I'd love to be around when you're feeling friendly."

Kate bit her lip. She could handle the man's sex appeal.
Maybe.
Once she got used to it. So what if his attention made her feel like a fourth grader who'd gotten more Valentines than anybody else, or a duty date suddenly presented with a wrist corsage by her escort? She'd been taken in by a man's flattering interest before.

But she was a sucker for his humor. No one before Patrick had ever bothered to tease with bookish, serious Kate. And she was discovering the urge to laugh with him was even greater than the need to freeze him out.

How could a man who'd been through all Patrick MacNeill had endured still have the heart, the guts,
the
nerve to make her smile?

"We got along too well, and you know it."

"Lighten up, Kate. It was just a kiss."

"Like a
subdural
hematoma
is just a bruise."

His eyes gleamed. "Don't get medical on me now."

"I don't know any other way to be. I'm a doctor."

"And kissing me makes you less of a doctor?"

She wasn't sure. "You're missing the point. Jack—"

"Likes you."

In spite of her defensive attitude, his words warmed her. Of course, Jack was such a wonderful little boy, he probably liked everybody. But it was nice to be liked. She relaxed her grip on the steering wheel.

"I think I've been effective with him," she admitted cautiously.

"Effective. Yeah, you could say that." Patrick shifted to face her, and the scent of him, soap and sweat and some spicy aftershave, drifted through the dark. "I still think Jack should have that surgery this summer, but you were dead-on about his needing kids his own age. He really took to your sister's boy."

In spite of the doubts started by his mention of the surgery, she smiled, pleased. "He did, didn't he?"

"Yeah.
The visit was good for him, Kate.
But not for some medical reason.
Not because you're his doctor. Because you invited him into your family and gave him a friend."

It was too tempting, too dangerous, to believe him. If she wasn't a doctor, she was nothing. "All the same, he's my patient."

"He's Swaim's patient."

"And Dr. Swaim is my boss."

"So."
He studied her face in the dim glow of the dashboard. She fixed her gaze firmly on the road. "It's political?"

"Yes. No. But I am attached to the hospital where Jack is a patient. It's not unethical, precisely, for me to see you, it's just … unwise."

 
"Come off it, Kate. You said it yourself. You're a doctor, first and last. I can't see you letting any relationship compromise Jack's recovery."

"Not on purpose, no.
But—"

"And I'm not conceited enough to suppose I'd be the man to distract you from doing your job. I've seen you with Jack. I've seen you at the hospital. Hell, I've seen you with your sister's kids. You're not going to neglect your patients' care for a stunt roll and a loop-the-loop. So what is it exactly that you're afraid of?"

Of you, she almost said, but that wasn't true. He'd proven his essential kindness, his basic decency, over and over again. She was afraid of herself. Not that she would be less of a doctor for Jack, but that she wouldn't be enough of a woman for Patrick.

She signaled her exit. The car's tires rumbled through the long, slow turn. "I've worked very hard to get where I am," she said as steadily as she could. "I don't want to compromise my position at the hospital because of a temporary attraction, and I don't have time for anything else."

Patrick leaned back against the passenger side door, but there was nothing relaxed about his pose. She could feel the weight of his interest, like the building air pressure that forecast a storm.

"Our involvement doesn't have anything to do with the hospital. It's the other one that's the kicker. No time, no energy. No sex for either of us."

Patrick MacNeill without sex?
The mind boggled. His masculinity proclaimed itself in a dozen ways: his coiled intensity, his controlled strength, the obvious ease with which he inhabited his broad-
chested
, long-boned body. How had this potent, passionate man managed since his wife died?

Her own case was different, Kate thought. Her ex-lover had always accused her of a lack of enthusiasm in bed. She was honest enough to acknowledge that it was the intimacy she'd craved in that brief, disastrous relationship, not the physical gymnastics. Since their breakup, she'd sometimes wondered if the fault had been at least partly
Wade's
, but, frankly, going without sex had never been a problem for her.

Until now.

Her grip tightened on the wheel as she guided the car into the parking lot and under a light. The overhead glow threw Patrick's face into sharp relief: dark eyes, strong nose, sensitive mouth. Her insides contracted. She turned the key in the ignition.

"We're here," she said unnecessarily, and fumbled with her seat belt.

"Kate."

Her hands stilled on the shoulder strap. She looked out at the moon- and fluorescent-washed parking lot. "What?"

He shifted on the seat beside her, checking to see if Jack still slept, and his knee brushed her thigh. With the engine shut off, the car's interior was warm and close and very silent.

"I respect that you don't have room for a grand passion in your life. Neither do I. Thing is," he continued slowly, "I'm already spending too much time thinking about you.
Wanting you.
Imagining how it could be between us. Maybe it would be less … distracting for us both if we found out."

She turned to face him, choosing indignation over the quaking in her stomach. "Are you suggesting we sleep together to get it out of our systems?"

"That's one way to put it. Neither one of us wants a complicated relationship in our lives."

With an effort, she kept her voice low, to avoid waking the child in the back. "And am I supposed to be flattered by this limited offer?"

He shook his head, his smile gleaming in the darkness. "Not flattered.
Interested, maybe."

She was interested, all right.
More tempted and more scared than she'd ever been in her life.
She folded her hands tightly together in her lap to disguise their shaking. "I don't know. I'll have to think about it."

"Kate." His deep voice was gentle. "I don't want to hurt you. I like you. But you need to know up front how things are with me. I may want you until my teeth ache with it, but Jack is the center of my life right now. If that's not enough for you, if I misunderstood you, just tell me no."

Her nails dug into the backs of her hands. Kate had long ago accepted that she wasn't the kind of woman men wanted to marry. Wade, brutally breaking their understanding, had gone so far as to suggest she wasn't the kind of woman men wanted, period. But Patrick wanted her. And maybe she owed it to herself, just once, to experience a man like Patrick MacNeill.

"I understand. I'll get back to you."

"Good. That's good." He paused a moment, as if there was something else he wanted to say, and then unfolded abruptly from his seat. "Let me walk you to your door."

She glanced over her shoulder at Jack, still asleep in the back. "What about…?"

"I've got to shift him to our car anyway."

She waited, jingling her keys, as he lifted the sleeping boy from the car. "Go home. I'm fine. I don't need an escort."

Patrick adjusted Jack over his chest like an examination drape. The boy stirred and clung. "I'll walk you to your door."

She shrugged irritably.
"Whatever you want."

He grinned at her over his son's dark head. "Is that a promise?"

Kate swallowed. Ridiculous that he could make her feel this way without touching her, with the child between them. "I'll let you know."

"Fair enough."

He followed her along the cement walkway, gravel from the cracks grinding beneath their soles, and then stood to one side as she unlocked her door.

"I'll be gone a couple of days next week," he offered abruptly.
"Charter flight to the Outer Banks.
My partner Ray doesn't want to be away overnight so close to his wife's due date, so I'm covering it."

It was none of her business. She found herself asking anyway. "What about Jack?"

"My brother Sean's between jobs right now. He'll come down and stay. Is it okay if I give him your number?"

She was gratified that he'd ask. The request didn't seem to fit what he'd said about—what was it?
oh
, yes—a stunt-roll relationship. "He really should call Dr. Swaim. Jack's not my patient."

"Yeah, but he likes you." He hesitated. "This isn't medical, Kate. I just want Sean to have backup. If it's not okay…"

"No, no. Please. He can call any time."

"Right."

Holding Jack against his shoulder with one large hand, Patrick dipped his head. Briefly, his lips touched hers.

"I'll call you," he said.

It sounded like a line. Wasn't that what her father had whispered in the driveway as he left, what a parade of boys had promised Amy? Hadn't her ex-lover said something similar just before he got the offer from Baltimore General and decided he didn't need her anymore?

But looking into Patrick's deep-set, dark blue eyes, Kate was tempted to believe him.

Of course, he wanted her help with Jack.

That was all right, Kate told herself stoutly. He wasn't trying to deceive her about his aims or his motives. He hadn't pretended his physical passion. He genuinely respected her rapport with his son.

Maybe this time.
Maybe this once.

* * *

In spite of that flutter of hope, the following Wednesday, when Sharon Williams popped into her office and announced that Mr. MacNeill insisted on seeing her, Kate stiffened.

"Is Jack with him?"

"Yes, but—"

"Fine."
Kate stood. "But I have rounds in twenty minutes. He's going to learn that I can't drop everything every time he blows in."

Sharon
smiled knowingly. "I'm not sure this one can be taught, Dr. Sinclair."

Kate's spine straightened another degree. Maybe she was no man's dream date, but as a surgeon she'd learned to value herself and her time. She hadn't endured the slights and rigors of her male-dominated surgical training to let one cocky pilot dictate to her now. She marched down the hall, banged through the glass and steel doors—and stopped short.

For an instant, she was convinced she was seeing double. The waiting room appeared full of MacNeills. Patrick paced, fists jammed in his pockets, his wide shoulders and contained intensity dwarfing his surroundings. She felt her heart trip into double time at the sight of him.

But nothing could dwarf the man beside him.

Taller and younger than Patrick, his companion had the same dark hair, longer and curlier, and the same male assurance. He wore a gold hoop in his ear, like a pirate, and exuded cheerful good nature and unabashed sex. There were at least three nurses craning for a look at him, and one patient's mother was openly fanning herself.

Three months ago, such blatant good looks would have frozen Kate into a cold and inarticulate block of insecurity. She discovered now that after knowing Patrick, his brother didn't alarm her at all. No more than she would be afraid of a wolf-hound after petting a wolf.