Heart Like Mine (20 page)

Joshua laughed. “It's not really a cliff. Just looks like it from here. There's a perfect rock just fifty feet down.”

“Um…” Delaney followed him toward the edge, and when she got there, she realized he was right. It wasn't a cliff at all—just a steep decline interrupted by massive glacial rocks. Still, she was in sandals and a dress, not climbing gear.

He looked back at her, seeming to notice her current clothing just as she did. He stopped, smiling. “I have a different idea. Ever watch the sunset from the hood of a Chevy?”

“Can't say as I ever have.”

He winked. “City girl.”

He headed back toward the truck, pulling a couple of beach towels from behind the seat. He spread them out on the hood, then looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“Need a boost?”

Delaney eyed the truck. “Depends how slippery your towels are. I'd rather not go home with gravel implanted in my knees.”

Before she could argue, Joshua's hands were at her waist, and she was in the air. She barely had time to wonder when he had time to work out before she was seated comfortably on the hood, her back leaning against the windshield. A moment later, he was beside her. They sat in silence for a few seconds before Delaney spoke.

“So … sunsets and Chevy hoods. That's a Vermont thing?”

“We're actually getting overrun with Subarus, but yes to the sunsets.”

She smiled. “I can't imagine growing up here. It's so—Norman Rockwell–ish.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged slowly. “I guess it is. Easy to lose sight of that part when it's all you've ever really known.”

He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head, and though all she wanted to do was sidle closer so he could put his arm around her, she held back. Papi's alcohol was starting to fade from her system, and with it, her confidence. What was she doing out here? With him? Where had her professional detachment gone?

Then he looked at her, and his eyes warmed her from her throat right to her toes. He smiled, and she was sure he could tell how nervous she was. How could he not?

She cleared her throat. “So is this spot top secret? Or does every guy in town know about it?”

“Every guy. First-date ritual. It's a small-town thing.”

He said the words seriously, but she saw his eyes crinkle.

“Fine.” She elbowed him. “But we're not on a date. Is it cheating to come out here if you're
not
dating?”

“Totally, yes, but I'll take the risk.” He pointed down the lake, where Delaney could see a flotilla of kayakers moving slowly westward. “See those kids paddling? They're from Camp Echo. Lots of city kids getting their first dose of wilderness. Local kids considered it our job to haze them as much as possible.”

“Another small-town ritual?”

“Yeah. But generally more fun than most first dates.”

Delaney laughed. “Sounds like there's a story there.”

“Nope. You first. Do you remember your first date?”

“First date, like, ever?” She pulled her knees up to her chest, fixing her sundress to fall around them. He nodded. She looked out toward the water, remembering a pink dress, a nervous Cory Mohegan, a sobbing mother. Every milestone Delaney hit, after all, was one that Parker never would.

“Junior prom. The theme was Magic Under the Stars—but it was anything but.”

Joshua laughed. “Uh-oh.”

“My—date—hung with me through dinner, then ditched the prom and got drunk with his buddies in the hotel parking garage.”

“Ouch.”

She rolled her eyes. “Turns out it's a lot easier to ditch your female date if you've recently realized you don't play on that team.”

“Oh. God.” He laughed. “Your prom date was gay?”

“Yes. And that would have been completely fine, had I
known
it. But my prom night fantasies went flying out the window pretty quickly when I realized he was bringing somebody
else
home.”

His face sobered. “He ditched you? At prom?”

“I guess he was done with the charade. The timing just happened to suck for
me
.”

Joshua dropped his arm so that it hugged her shoulders. “He sounds like a first-class jerk.”

She shook her head. “He wasn't. Not really. It wasn't like he planned for it to happen. And in all honesty”—she sighed—“my gaydar
was
seriously flawed. I dated two more guys after that who ended up coming out later.” Delaney elbowed Joshua as she felt him shaking. “It's not funny.”

“It's
kind of
funny.”

“You say that, but you've never been a twenty-two-year-old woman trying to figure out why guys date you, then immediately head for the other side of the field.”

“You thought you were
turning
them—”

“Well, what did I know? I didn't have any experience. I went to boarding school, for God's sake.”

Joshua laughed out loud, and the sound of it tickled her way down low. Then he squeezed her shoulder, letting his fingers linger on her skin.

“If we were, in fact, dating, I might be worried right now. Just saying.” He winked. “You'll feel better when you hear about my first date.”

“Was
she
gay?”

“No. She was a nympho.”

Delaney rolled her eyes. “Oh, poor you. Every teenaged boy's nightmare.”

“It was a summer camp romance, and we had one fumbling, awkward, terrible kiss. But by the next morning, we'd apparently done a whole lot more than that.”

“Uh-oh. Did she put your name on the girls' room wall?”

“Under the dock, actually. That's where the tallies were.”

Delaney laughed. “That's kind of funny. But at least you got credit for more than you deserved. That couldn't have been all bad.”

“Not the kind of credit I wanted.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “I think getting ditched by a gay prom date beats nympho overcrediting.”

“They both kind of sucked.”

“Agreed.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Good thing we're older and wiser and all that. First dates are so much easier now.”

“Right. Exactly.” Her stomach fluttered as his fingers caressed her shoulder. “Not that we're having one.”

“How about first kisses? Think those are easier now?” He kept his eyes on the lake, but her face heated like he was staring straight at her.

“I—don't know.” She swallowed. “It's been—a while—since I've tried one.”

He looked at her then, his eyes skating over her forehead, her eyes, her lips before his left hand came up to caress her cheek.

“Me, too,” he finally said, then tipped up her chin, leaning closer as the pad of his thumb traced her lips. “But I'm game to try one if you are.”

“Okay,” she whispered, but before the word was fully out of her mouth, his lips touched hers gently—a sweet, promising caress. His hand slid through her hair, bracing her head as he deepened the kiss, and she struggled to remember to breathe. As the twilight darkened around them, all she wanted to do was bury herself in the kiss … in
him
.

No, a first kiss had never felt so … perfect. Joshua was gentle and demanding at the same time, his fingers skating over her skin like he had all night, but couldn't wait to undress her. He pulled her closer, closer as his lips moved to her neck, her collarbone, her earlobe, and his hand inched achingly up her ribs, then back downward.

A long while later, he pulled back, kissing her gently on the nose, and Delaney struggled to catch her breath. Her heart felt like it might launch its way right out from between her ribs, and she knew he must be able to see her pulse hammering in her neck, even though it was almost dark.

When she looked at his face, though, she was relieved to see that she wasn't the only one affected. There was color in his cheeks, and when he brushed her flyaway hair back from her forehead, his smile was genuine.

“That was
way
better than my
first
first kiss.”

She closed her eyes, assaulted by emotions she wasn't ready to process. “Mine, too. By, like, a million times.”

He kissed her again, but just as his hand slid tantalizingly up her ribs, she heard the incessant whine of a mosquito, and she hated that it matched the incessant warning tone pinging inside her brain.

Just as she felt another mosquito pierce her shoulder, he pulled away and slapped his neck. “I think we're about to be dinner.”

“I think you're right.”

He slid down the hood, reaching up to lift her down, then kissing her softly one more time before he handed her up into the truck. After he'd jumped into his side, they sat in silence for a long moment, and Delaney tried to return her heartbeat to a normal pace while she berated herself for letting tonight happen at all.

“Delaney?” Joshua's voice was soft as he looked across the almost-dark cab.

“Mm hm?”

“Think I could talk you into a second date?”

 

Chapter 17

“No.” Delaney's voice came out in a whisper, but she knew it must feel like a slap.

“No?” Joshua cocked his head. “I'm sorry. Were we not just—was that—” He looked out the windshield, his head still tipped in confusion, and Delaney's stomach hurt. “Do you not
want
—”

“We were. It
was
.” She took a shaky breath. “I do. But we can't.”

“Can't what, exactly?”

“I don't know.” Her voice revealed only half the pain she was feeling inside. “
Anything
, really. We can't date, Joshua. We can't do—this.”

“Because?”

“Because we're colleagues. Because in less than two weeks, I'm supposed to stand in front of the hospital board and deliver a proposal for how to cut the pediatric budget. And right now, my professional recommendation is to leave that budget intact, at whatever cost to other areas of the hospital. That proposal's chances of flying are hanging at about zero percent already. If somebody suspects I'm involved with the head of pediatrics, do you have any idea what will happen?”

“Your proposal will go down in flames, and we'll all be looking for jobs?”

Delaney nodded sadly. “It's possible.”

“I was exaggerating.”

“I'm not.” She shook her head, an image of Kevin McConnell popping suddenly into her brain. Kevin, who wanted nothing less than to roll his overpriced chair to the CFO's office once Gregory retired. Kevin, who'd do anything in his power to get there, despite the fact that he was dismally unqualified. Delaney was his direct competition for his dream job, and if he saw an opportunity to discredit her in order to pave his own way to the corner of the executive suite, she knew he'd take it.

Her dating Joshua Mackenzie, interim head of pediatrics, was an avenue paved with gold bricks. Even if they were ridiculously careful to stay under the radar, somebody would find out, and that somebody would tell another somebody, and before Delaney or Joshua could control this particular spin, the entire hospital would know. She hadn't been at Mercy long, in small-town-hospital tenure terms, but she'd certainly been here long enough to see the rumor mill in action. It was an impressive machine, to say the least.

As much as she'd love to turn to Joshua right now and ask him to take her home—and stay there till morning—she had to do the exact opposite, and it made her chest actually hurt as she tried to formulate the words.

“I've had a really great time tonight, Joshua.”

He closed his eyes, his jaw set in sudden frustration as he turned the key in the ignition. “Okay.”

“I'm sorry. You know it's the right thing to do. There's too much at stake—for both of us.”

“I get it, Delaney.” He backed the truck around, and she held the door handle, praying he knew where the edge of the bluff was now that it was almost pitch dark. But apparently he'd done this move enough times in the dark—
dammit
—because before she'd taken two breaths, they were heading back down the dirt pathway, bouncing through potholes once again.

When they finally got to the paved road, silence stretching uncomfortably between them, he reached for her hand, and she let him take it.

“I had a great time tonight, too. And I don't want to be the reason you compromise your professionalism. We can pretend this never happened, if that's what you want.” He made a swiping motion with their entwined hands. “No lake, no sunset, no first kiss—or second, or third, or…” He let the words drift off in a whisper that had her almost reaching for the seat belt so she could slide onto his lap and say to hell with her damn professionalism. “We'll forget tonight ever happened. Deal?”

She swallowed, but it wasn't easy, given the golf ball suddenly lodged in her throat. There was no way she'd ever forget the way his lips had heated her up from the outside in, and back again. No way she'd forget the way he'd lifted her onto his truck hood, no way she'd stop thinking about the way his fingers felt on her skin.

Dammit.

She took a deep breath, hating herself for ever going to Bellinis tonight and opening the door to this moment that she was going to relive for a long, long time. Then she pulled her hand slowly, painfully free of his.

“Deal.”

*   *   *

An hour later, Josh tossed his keys on the kitchen table of the old Victorian he'd inherited from his parents, then clicked on a light in the living room. Habit made him pull the curtain back and glance up the hill toward Avery's House. Lights twinkled from the expected upstairs rooms, and it looked like the bottom floor had been buttoned up for the night.

He let the curtain fall, then looked around the room. It was late—he needed to head upstairs to bed, but there was no way he was going to sleep anytime soon, and he knew it. He hadn't been able to get Delaney out of his head since she'd showed up at his office door last week, and now?
Good God
. Now he'd actually touched her, tasted her … wanted her.