Healing His Heart (8 page)

"Yes, if you can accept the moment. Take pleasure without needing the future set in stone. We can satisfy each other beyond our wildest dreams."

The desire was in his eyes, as if he were touching her. How could he be so hot and so cold at the same time?

He wanted her, had wanted her that night in her apartment, but he'd pulled away because he thought she had expectations. In another man, his hesitation might look like honor, but Caleb just didn't want to get caught in something emotional.

"Damn you, Caleb Hayden. I wasn't asking for promises the other night. I don't want a commitment from you. I wouldn't agree to one if you begged me. The last thing I need is involvement with someone like you."

Somehow in the darkness, her shoes had fallen off. She scrambled for them now.

"If you don't want an involvement with me, what do you want?" he asked in an edgy tone.

"Not a damn thing," Julia snapped, still searching the long grass for one shoe.

"I see," Caleb returned tightly. "I should have stayed the other night since you were in the mood for a little tumble."

"Thank heaven, you didn't," she muttered. "I must have been out of my mind."

"Yeah, imagine that." His sarcastic tone frosted the air between them. "We wouldn't want the up-and-coming young doctor to sleep with her foreman."

Sliding her foot into the shoe that had been beside her leg the whole time, Julia stood. Misery ached in her throat. What an ugly ending for a lovely moment.

She turned to walk away and then hesitated. He sat watching her, his face inscrutable.

"I feel sorry for you, Caleb. You think you've found the perfect world. No responsibilities, no strings. But life doesn't work that way. If you don't take the risks, you don't get the rewards."

Without waiting for his reply, she fled the hillside.

*

Sunlight crept through the small window over the sink, and Caleb blearily watched the golden splash it made on the opposite wall. He sat at the table, his bare back sticking to the vinyl bench seat. The day was only minutes old, but he felt ancient.

Every night he lay in his bed cursing himself for walking away from Julia. So what if she'd had dreams about what it all meant? If he'd stayed they'd both have gotten something out of it and he wouldn't be walking around in a permanently hard state, working himself to exhaustion in an effort to drive the lust out of him.

Outside the tiny trailer stood the results of his labor
-
-his and that of the six other idiots who'd knocked themselves out in the last week and a half to finish the shell of the house. The hulk of timber sat there, empty and cavernous. The log crew had finished their work, gathered their tools, partied one last night and moved on. He wished it were that easy for him.

The place seemed empty. Hollow. She hadn't come once, not once, since the night of the meteor shower. Damn it to hell. The woman had been here almost daily from the moment they'd started, and when they got a little too close, she disappeared.

Caleb shoved aside the remainder of his breakfast with disgust and got up. He had work to do. The log crew may have finished the exterior of the house
,
but the major part of the process was still undone. Finishing it was his business.

He dumped his dishes in the sink and headed down the short hall toward the bedroom. He'd lived in the trailer for two years and only lately had he felt confined. When he'd escaped the trappings of his old life, the trailer had been his shell, his own corner to crawl into. Now he found himself wondering if turtles ever felt claustrophobic.

Pulling a t
-shirt over his head, Caleb reached for his cap. As he shoved the door shut, his gaze fell on a trench-coat that was stuffed into a corner of the cramped closet. His jaw clenched as he recalled draping it around Julia.

Ignoring the familiar heat that curled through him when he thought of her, Caleb turned abruptly to leave. There were definite drawbacks to a vivid imagination. He could almost see her standing there in front of him, her pale hair curling around her face, her blue eyes wide with passion. He swore again. Even working constantly didn't erase the sweet taste of her on his tongue, or the treasuring way she had touched him.

Hell, at least guilt was productive.

Dammit, he'd only wanted to sleep with the woman, not add her to his load of regrets.

Turning the knob, Caleb shoved the door open and dropped lightly to the ground.

The sun came early to the summer days. It rode high now in the sky, heating the morning. And the space that had once been filled only by Julia's dream now held a very solid reality.

The front of the house rose prominently like the bow of a ship, its log walls jutting out in a vee to form what would be a glass-enclosed living room. On either side of the vee, the house extended into two wings. The master bedroom and bath occupied the far side and the two smaller bedrooms with their shared bath made up the opposite side. The kitchen and dining areas sat behind the living room, which was divided from them by an open fireplace. Tucked into the eaves above the kitchen was a cozy loft, its space intended for a study.

It was barely six o'clock, yet the day promised to be a scorcher.

Surveying the house, Caleb adjusted the cap on his head. Mentally calculating the steps necessary for the front deck, he reached inside the trailer for his tool belt.

He stopped in the act of fastening it. A strangely chilly breeze came through the warm air and curled along the back of his neck, raising tiny hairs.

He stood unmoving for a moment, testing out the shiver of awareness, a sensation of being pulled toward something just beyond his line of vision. He turned slowly away from the house.

And saw Julia.

The sky was the pure, clear blue of early morning, but the light beneath the trees surrounding the house was gray and thick. Hackberry and native pecan trees formed a dense fringe around the clearing, hedging the house.

The tree she was under, ten or twelve feet from where he stood, was thickly leaved and blocked out the brilliance of the sun.

Julia sat there in full view, so still that he hadn't been distracted from his study of the house by any movement.

She looked like hell. Her face was pale, providing little contrast to her tousled silver-blond hair. Even from this distance, he could see her eyes were dulled with exhaustion and the faint smudge of her mouth, just visible in her white face. Her blue linen skirt and soft blouse had probably been crisp twenty-four hours before.

The rock she sat on was barely big enough to raise her above the grass. She stared ahead, not reacting to his presence, her eyes brooding stonily on the shell of the unfinished house.

For a long minute, Caleb watched her from where he stood. Then, allowing the tool belt to drop to the ground, he walked quietly to where she sat.

In the past week, he hadn't been looking forward to their next meeting. She was too much temptation, only a liability while her lips kept forming the word, "no."

But now he saw only the anguish in her eyes.

Caleb approached her with care, like a man coming to a wounded animal. Assessing her, he noted the exhaustion in her face, the stiff, tense line of her shoulders. This was more than overwork. There was an emptiness in her eyes that set off a warning in his head.

Stopping, Caleb crouched down, balancing himself on the uneven ground. He was a mere foot away from her, but Julia made no move to acknowledge his presence.

"How's your night been?" he asked, gently and slowly. The clearing extended before them, warm in the morning sun. She took a deep breath and let a little of it out. The moment lengthened until he wondered if she was going to answer.

Finally, without turning her head
, she responded. "It's been...
long."

He hesitated before saying, "Tell me about it."

Despite her obvious exhaustion, she sat straight against the tree. "Sunrise always looks so damn hopeful, like all the trouble in the world went away with the darkness."

The bitterness in her voice was like a slow dying. Caleb restrained himself from pulling her into his arms. Determination showed in the set of her jaw, but her fatigue was evident.

"Sometimes I hate life." The words spilled out abruptly and were cut off. Her hands clenched in her lap.

"And this is what I've fought so hard for. To be a family doctor," she continued, her voice harsh and mocking. "The one who cures their rashes, their sore throats, delivers their babies. I get to be the one who first notices the bad signs-
-
the lump in the breast, the untreated diabetes."

She bent forward to pluck viciously at the ragged grass. She didn't seem aware of the tears that traced silently over her cheeks, but Caleb felt them like sleet against his naked heart.

He moved closer. Something strange and indefinable was stirring in him. He'd looked into her eyes too many times, felt the brush of her passion too close. She was just a woman.

But somehow her touch ignited him, and made him want to slay dragons in a world where women no longer needed white knights. She needed him now. Now she sat beside him cracking into small pieces. Five years ago, the choices might have been different, but he'd changed his life long ago to escape the very emotions she was struggling with now.

There could be nothing permanent between them. She refused to act on the hunger they both felt. But, at this moment, none of that mattered.

"Remember how they tell you in med school that the family doctor is the lifeline?" Her voice was hard. "The only face patients recognize in an alien world. They turn to me when it's time to make a decision between all the options."

Scalding, impotent anger raged in her words and bit into Caleb's soul.

"Dammit, I got into this for the people, but I can't make it rig
ht for them. Not often enough."

"Tell me about it, Julia. Who couldn't you make it right for?" His voice was soft. Better than anyone, he knew her hurt, knew the rage vibrating in her.

"Her husband wanted me in the operating room. We worked for hours. I was there the whole time, assisting. But there wasn't any use. She was too far gone." Julia's head sank onto her hands. "I had to go out and face them afterwards. Her parents. Her husband. I had to tell them."

Her voice shook now, the tears spilling down. Angrily, she slammed a fist against her knee. "She was only twenty-eight. Dammit, I'm a doctor. I'm supposed to save people. Only this time I couldn't, none of us could. She died. Not eight hours after the accident, she died."

Julia dropped her head into her hands. "We did what we could. But there was too much damage."

She raised drowning blue eyes to Caleb's face, looking at him for the first time since he'd come to her. "She was so young. I saw her in the office a week ago. She wanted a baby."

Caleb moved then, shoving aside the memories her words evoked. His heart raw, he scooped Julia into his arms, easing onto the rock where she'd been sitting. Unresisting, Julia laid her head against him and cried. The night had been too long and too full of the unchangeable.

Cradling her against his chest, Caleb gently rocked her in his arms, and held back his own emotions. He knew this was the moment for reassurances, but the words were clogged in his throat. There was nothing he could say to her.

Around them the world stirred and woke. Oblivious, the sun rose higher into the sky and began to bake the Texas earth. Caleb held her. He murmured words of comfort softly against the crown of her silky head, her warmth easing his own need.

The sobs seemed wrenched from her, as if she were too weary to hold them in. She lay against him, shaking in a storm of tears, accepting his dictation of terms. If she had to suffer, then she'd do it in his arms. Somehow he had to offer Julia the very thing he couldn't find for himself.

CHAPTER FIVE

Julia felt Caleb's t
-shirt damp against her cheek. A hiccu
p
ping breath shook her. His body radiated warmth and she'd been cold too long. A shiver traced down her spine as the memory of the chill in the operating room flashed in her head. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The dark fog of her emotions receded slowly, burned away by the glare of the sun and the warmth of Caleb surrounding her. Details filtered through to her consciousness. The silence rubbed against her already raw nerves and a paralyzing self-consciousness choked her suddenly.

She must look like hell. One of her shoes had come off, exposing a run in her hose. Her bottom was nestled against the hardness of muscled thighs.

Julia tilted h
er head up to meet his gaze...
and found him staring down at her. His eyes were impossibly dark and serious.

After two days of living in her own personal hell-
-
two days since her patient Sandy's death-
-
Julia felt herself coming back to life. The misery receded gradually to a dull sense of sadness.

She opened her mouth to speak...
and felt the brush of his mouth on
hers. Softer than velvet, his
tongue stroked along hers wiping out the bitter flavor of despair.