A Match for the Doctor (10 page)

“No, it's not,” he contradicted.

“Oh?” Well, that peace treaty was short-lived, she thought.

“It's not settled because it's going to be my treat,” he informed her. “I can afford it a lot more than you can—unless you're really drastically overcharging me,” he slipped in. “And making a bundle that way.”

He didn't expect her to answer, or to challenge what he said. But even when she agreed with him, it sounded as if she was disagreeing.

“No, I'm not overcharging you,” she replied. “Or making a bundle. I'm going out of my way to find you the best deals, the best prices—”

“I know, I know. Uncle,” he cried. “I conceded the point, no need to keep heaping words on my head.”

She had more words for him. She wanted him to tell
her why he'd been looking at her that way all through dinner.

As if sensing that this was not over, Edna came in to gather up her stray workers. “All right, girls, dishes, remember?” Edna reminded them.

Scrambling off their chairs, the girls were quick to do as they were told—without any further objections. That was a thing of the past as excitement seemed to shine in their eyes.

They were definitely thinking about next Saturday.

“You made them very happy,” she said to their father once they were finally alone.

“Wasn't my idea, it was yours.”

“It was my idea for me to take them to an amusement park,” she clarified so that he wouldn't wind up missing the point. “They're excited because you're coming with us. With them,” she corrected herself. “
That's
the important part.”

He looked at her for a long moment, choosing his words slowly, debating not saying them at all, because in not speaking he would remain safe. But once he spoke, Simon knew he wasn't going to be safe anymore. Reason would dictate him saying nothing. But reason wasn't the leader right now.

His voice disrupted the temporary silence that had seeped in. “Actually, I think the important part in all this is you.”

The man was setting a record tonight in how many times he could stun her. “Me?” she asked incredulously.

Simon couldn't help himself. He had to laugh. “You do innocent well—for a devious person.”

She squared her shoulders in a defensive manner she wasn't aware of. But he took note of the action.

“I'm not devious,” she protested.

Simon didn't back off. He wasn't out for an argument. If anything, he was out for the exact opposite. “Yes, you are. But fortunately, you use your powers for good.” And then he saw Kennon grinning—not smiling, but grinning—at him. Why? “What?” he asked.

“I just can't picture you saying what you just said,” she told him.

He had to agree with her. He couldn't picture himself cracking a joke. She'd done that, had made him unearth a lighter side of himself. “And yet I did,” he said.

“Yes, you did.”

For a moment, she just studied him. Something stirred within her. Pride? No, it felt as if it was more than that. But she'd settle for the word until a better one came along.

“You've come a long way from that brusque cardiovascular surgeon I met at the front door a month ago,” she told him.

The fact that he didn't immediately protest her assumption told him that she was right. He had come a long way—without realizing that he was making the transition.

“I guess I have,” he conceded. His eyes met hers and held for more than a beat. “And it's all your doing.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I can't quite tell if you're thanking me or blaming me.”

“Then maybe I should try to make myself a little clearer,” he suggested.

It was hard to tell who was more surprised by what happened next, him or the woman who had covertly led
him down this path he'd had absolutely no intention of taking.

Until he did.

One moment he was sitting at the dining room table, trying to sort everything out for once by verbalizing his thoughts, the next he was leaning over that same table, framing her face with his surgeon's hands. Hands that were capable of doing the most delicate of surgeries, but now felt almost large and clumsy to him as he took the next unforeseen step.

Simon found himself kissing her.

I
f Simon felt any regret over what he was doing, for the moment it was hidden behind large, heavy drapes that had been drawn back in order to admit the sun, the warmth that existed outside the dwelling he'd exiled himself to so many months ago.

Right now, he was caught up in the moment. Caught up in the very fact that he could feel.

He'd thought that ability had been lost to him.

His mind reeled.

How could something so soft, so delicate have such a powerful kick?

Simon had no answer. All he knew was that Kennon's kiss, begun in surprise with a touch like a butterfly landing on a rose petal, grew in strength and magnitude until it was all encompassing. It was as if nothing existed outside its realm.

Simon rose from his chair, his hands on her upper
arms as he drew her up to her feet with him. He wanted to be closer to her, without a damn table between them like some kind of impeding obstacle.

And all the while, his lips remained on hers. And her soft mouth remained on his.

He couldn't begin to describe what was going on inside of him. It felt as if a shaft of light had shattered the oppressive darkness, laying claim to all of him.

Having brought her up to her feet, he pulled Kennon to him, holding her as if, at any moment, she would melt and slide through his fingers.

From the first moment she'd met Simon she'd had a feeling he was capable of this, of setting her on fire with just the touch of his lips to hers.

But
feeling
and
knowing
were two very different things.

She'd seriously underestimated just how powerfully he could rock her foundations. It was true that she hadn't been with anyone, hadn't so much as exchanged a quick, friendly kiss with a man since Pete had shattered her world and sent her self-esteem on a one-way trip to nowhere. That had been more than a little while ago.

Even so, she knew the difference between nice and teeth-jarring. Between okay and wonderfully soul-inspiring. And Simon Sheffield with his mind-blowing mouth definitely fell into the latter category.

Thankfully when he finally drew back, he was still holding on to her arms. If he hadn't been, she had more than a passing suspicion that she would have found herself unceremoniously sinking to the floor.

With her lips no longer hermetically sealed to his, Kennon had to concentrate on catching her breath. It felt as if she had just completed a twenty-six-mile marathon
inside of a time warp. Her head was spinning badly. It was a huge effort to get her mind back in gear, because right now rainbows and fireworks had taken over.

And she wanted to kiss him again.

Damn it, get hold of yourself. You're not some starry-eyed teenager—and neither is he.

But that was just the problem. She
did
feel starry-eyed. And the racing pulse, the sweaty palms, the shortness of breath, they
all
belonged to a naive, inexperienced teenager.

What had he done to her?

Blowing out a long breath, she drew an even longer one in. Desperate to divert his attention from what she assumed was her flushed face, Kennon said the first thing she could think of.

“I guess this means you're thanking me,” she said, referring to the last words that had left her mouth before the world as she knew it had burnt to a crisp.

“Something like that,” Simon agreed, his tone deliberately evasive.

Think, Kennon, think. Form sentences, don't just stand there like some kind of village idiot. He'll think you've never been kissed before.

Well, she hadn't. Not like this. Not
ever
like this.

Her brain took baby steps, searching for a subject. And then she found one, thank goodness.

“About the amusement park,” Kennon began haltingly, reverting back to the only topic that even marginally occurred to her. The rest of her mind was a charred wasteland.

“You change your mind about going?” Simon asked, surprised.

Maybe after he'd broken all the unwritten rules by
kissing her, Kennon had decided to avoid any additional complications by bailing on her initial suggestion. Not that he could blame her. He wasn't sure just what had come over him, except that for a single moment he'd wanted to be human again, wanted to know if he was
capable
of being human again.

Obviously he was and he could—apparently all too well.

He'd probably scared her, he realized. He sure as hell had scared himself. And yet, despite all that, despite crossing lines he knew he shouldn't have for a myriad of reasons, he felt like smiling. Smiling because, just for the length of that incredible encounter, he'd not only felt human, there'd been this glimmer of hope inside him. But even as he became aware of it, he could feel it fade with the stab of disloyalty, of guilt.

He had no right to reach for happiness, no right to
be
happy. Because Nancy couldn't be happy. Because Nancy had died in his place.

“No.” Did he want her to change her mind? But she couldn't. Once she'd made the suggestion, she couldn't go back on it. The girls would be heartbroken. “I just wanted to tell you which park I thought the girls—and you—might like to go to.”

Her voice sounded tinny to her ear. She stumbled, looked for words to hold back the silence that threatened to devour them. And as she looked up at Simon, she could see the happiness receding in his eyes. Worse, she could see what rose in his eyes to take its place. A sadness that tore at her soul.

She didn't want to have him withdraw before she got to explore what had just happened here.

Don't feel bad about this. Please don't feel bad about this.

She cleared her throat, hoping that her voice wouldn't crack as she spoke. “I thought that maybe Knott's Berry Farm might be fun for them.” She realized that it sounded as if she was calling all the shots so she added, “Unless you have a better idea.”

He didn't have a better idea. He didn't have an idea at all. He was still a little punchy, a little groggy from the impact of what they had just shared. What he had just started without thinking it through.

“No,” he murmured. “I don't have a better idea. Knott's Berry Farm's fine. I'm sure that the girls'll love it.”

Because apparently they love you.

He realized that Edna was right. The girls were desperate for a woman's attention. And they had picked their woman.

He couldn't complain that they had bad taste. Their taste was right on the money—and it bothered him that he thought that, but he did.

“Good.” Kennon caught her lower lip between her teeth, thinking. Debating. And before she knew it, she heard herself asking, “Are you all right, Doctor?”

It seemed ridiculous to call him by his title after he'd kissed her hard enough to knock the socks off her bare feet, but she didn't want him to think that things had changed between them.

Even though they had.

“I'm—” Simon was about to say
fine,
but then he thought better of it. “Actually, I'm not sure.”

A wariness entered her eyes. He wanted her to understand. Understand that he wasn't trying to take advantage
of her, or attempting to set the stage for a future, more heated encounter. This had just
happened,
without any deliberate premeditation on his part.

He needed her to know that. “Kennon, I'm still trying to get over things—I'm still trying to realign my day-to-day world and make sense out of it.” It was hard for him to admit this, hard to share something so personal. “My wife was a huge part of everything about me.”

She wondered what it felt like, to be loved that way. Cherished that way. But to put him at ease, she nodded and said, “I understand.”

He still wasn't certain that he had made things right. “If I gave you the wrong idea—”

Now, what did
that
mean? Was he sorry he'd kissed her? Or just sorry if she thought he was forcing himself on her in a minor way? Just what was the “wrong” idea—and what was the right one?

“No, no wrong idea,” she told him brightly, doing her best to seem as if she was making light of the whole situation. “No ideas at all,” she emphasized. “You know, like that song in
Casablanca
said, ‘a kiss is just a kiss'.”

Although she knew that she felt a follow-up would have been more than a little nice, maybe this was for the best after all. No complications for him, and she wouldn't run the very real risk of feeling like a fool once it was over.

“It's not like I'm expecting to find roses scattered all over my store,” she added, tongue in cheek.

When she pressed her lips together, she could still taste him. Her pulse jumped. Okay, it was time to retreat before she gave in to the desire to kiss him again.

“I think I'd better be going. I do have some things to
catch up on,” she added, hoping he didn't think it was as lame an excuse as it sounded.

Simon nodded. “I guess we were monopolizing your time.”

Even though it gave her a way out, she couldn't let him think that was how she felt. It added a negative edge to things that just wasn't true.

But coming on too strong might give him the wrong idea, too. So she kept her tone light as she told him, “That would only be a problem if I minded being monopolized.” Then, in case the man harbored even a kernel of a doubt, she assured him, with feeling, “I don't.”

Reaching for her purse, she slipped the strap onto her shoulder and began to head for the door. He fell into step beside her. That was when she heard the sound of two pairs of feet, running quickly and heading in her direction.

“You're leaving?” Madelyn cried, dismayed, her lower lip protruding just a little.

“Without saying goodbye?” The accusation came from Meghan.

“It's just until Monday,” Kennon told them as she cupped Meghan's chin in her hand. If she ever had daughters, she'd want them to be just like this—

Hold it, don't get started down this path,
she warned herself.

Right now, there were no daughters on her horizon. She had a business to run and a profit to turn. Beyond that, her most complicated endeavor should be deciding which movie to put into the Blu-ray player. She'd promised herself a break from men, from thinking of them in any other light than as potential clients.

Her heart just wasn't ready to undertake another journey down Niagara Falls.

But if it had been, a little voice inside her head whispered, Simon Sheffield would have definitely been right up there as a leading candidate to bring the journey to fruition.

“Can't you come by tomorrow, Kennon?” Meghan asked.

Simon came to her rescue. “Give the poor woman a break, Meghan. Seeing the two of you seven days would be above and beyond the call of duty. You guys are more than a handful,” he told them, draping an arm around each girl's shoulders.

Meghan wiggled free, her eyes on Kennon. “But we like seeing you seven days a week,” she told the woman she'd decided was her new best friend. And then she looked over at her older sister, clearly asking for backup. She received it readily.

“If you don't want to come over here, can we go over to your house tomorrow?” Madelyn asked hopefully.

Simon appeared stunned at his daughter's question. “Madelyn, you don't just invite yourself over to someone's house,” he chided.

The little hurt face was just more than Kennon could bear. Besides, she had no plans for Sunday other than sleeping in late. She gave Madelyn a warm, encouraging smile. “Sure, you can see it,” she told her. “If Edna doesn't mind bringing you.”

“Sunday's Edna's day off,” Madelyn said. A fighter, she wasn't about to accept defeat easily. “But Dad can bring us, can't you, Dad?”

Kennon didn't want to put Simon on the spot. But she would have been lying to herself if she pretended that
she didn't want to hear his answer. Now that the idea had been presented, she would really love to see him on her own home territory.

So rather than volunteer to swing by and pick the girls up herself, Kennon waited to hear what he had to say.

Caught off guard by his daughter's request, it took him a moment to answer. When he finally did and said, “Sure, I can bring them,” Kennon felt something inside grow warm, spreading out to all parts of her, along with a tingling sensation.

Quickly writing down her address on a piece of paper, she handed it to him. “How does eleven o'clock sound to you?” she asked.

The question was for Simon, but it was Meghan who answered, declaring, “It sounds perfect!”

Both girls were grinning from ear to ear.

“Then it's all settled. I'll see you tomorrow,” she said.

Turning on her heel, she walked quickly away before Simon had a chance to declare his previous response null and void. As she closed the front door behind her, she caught herself humming.

 

Kennon heard her cell phone ringing in her purse as she drove home. She stifled her urge to reach for it and answer the call. But because she hadn't mounted the phone on its stand on the dashboard or activated her Bluetooth before starting up the car, she had to let the call go to voice mail. Doing so drove her crazy as well as set her curiosity into high gear.

There was nothing she could do about it without risking a fine should a policeman suddenly materialize
behind her. California frowned on cell phones and hands making contact while driving anywhere.

Ten minutes later, the cell phone rang again just as she entered her development. Her curiosity swelled another notch, tempting her to at least sneak a peek at who the caller was. That was when she saw him. A motorcycle policeman taking the major cross street right where she'd turned into the development. The cell phone remained where it was.