Sanctuary (55 page)

“I don't know anyone who doesn't like Giff, and I don't know many who think of him as anything more than an affable and reliable handyman. Nathan—” She touched her lips to his. “You just told him he was more, and could be more yet. And you did it so casually, so matter-of-factly, he can't help but believe you.”

She rose up on her toes to press her cheek to his. “I really like you right now, Nathan. I really like who you are.”

“I like you, too.” He closed his arms around her and swayed. “And I'm really starting to like who we are.”

 

 

KIRBY had a firm grip on her pride as she walked into Sanctuary. If Jo was there, she would find a way to speak to her privately. Her strict code of ethics wouldn't permit her to tell any of the Hathaways what she'd learned the night before. If Jo had come home after speaking with Nathan again, Kirby imagined the house would be in an uproar.

If nothing else, she could stand as family doctor.

But that wasn't why she'd been summoned.

She had planned her visit to avoid Brian, using that window of time between breakfast and the midday meal. And she'd used the visitors' front door rather than the friends' entrance through the kitchen.

Since they had managed to avoid each other for a week, she thought, they could do so for another day. She wouldn't have come at all if Kate hadn't hailed her with an SOS after one of the guests slipped on the stairs. Even as she turned toward them, Kate came hurrying down.

“Kirby, I can't tell you how much I appreciate this. It's a turned ankle, no more than that, I swear. But the woman is setting up such a to-do you'd think she'd broken every bone in her body in six places at once.”

One glance at Kate's distracted face and Kirby knew that Jo had yet to speak of Annabelle. “It's all right, Kate.”

“I know it's your afternoon off, and I hated to drag you over here, but she won't budge out of bed.”

“It's no problem, really.” Kirby followed her up the stairs. “It's better to have a look. If I think it's more than a strain, we'll x-ray and ship her off to the mainland.”

“One way to get her out of my hair,” Kate muttered. She knocked briskly on a door. “Mrs. Tores, the doctor's here to see you. Bill the inn,” Kate added to Kirby in an undertone, “and add whatever you like for a nuisance fee.”

Thirty minutes later, and more than a little frazzled, Kirby closed the bedroom door behind her. Her head was aching from the litany of complaints Mrs. Tores had regaled her with. As she paused to rub her temples, Kate peeked around the corner.

“Safe?”

“I was tempted to sedate her, but I resisted. She's perfectly fine, Kate. Believe me, I know. I had to give her what amounts to a complete physical before she was satisfied. Her ankle is barely strained, her heart is as strong as a team of oxen, her lungs even stronger. For your sake, I hope she's planning on a very short stay.”

“She leaves day after tomorrow, thank the Lord. Come on down. Let me get you a nice glass of lemonade, a piece of that cherry pie Brian made yesterday.”

“I really need to get back. I've got stacks of paperwork to wade through.”

“I'm not sending you back without a cold drink. This heat's enough to fell a horse.”

“I like the heat,” she began, then came to a dead halt as Brian walked in the front door.

His arms were full of flowers. They should have made him look foolish. She wanted him to look foolish. Instead he looked all the more male, all the more attractive, with his tanned, well-muscled arms loaded down with freshly cut blossoms.

“Oh, Brian, I'm so glad you got to that.” Kate hurried down with her mind racing at light-speed. “I was going to cut for the fresh arrangements myself this morning, but this crisis with Mrs. Tores threw me off my stride.”

She chattered on as she transferred flowers from his arms to hers. “I'll just take it from here. You don't have any sense at all about how to arrange them. I swear, Kirby, the man just stuffs them into a vase and thinks that's all there is to it. Brian, you go fix Kirby a lemonade, make her eat a piece of pie. She's come all the way out here just to do me a favor, and I won't have her going off until she's been paid back. Run along now, while I take this upstairs.”

She headed up the steps, willing the two of them not to behave like fools.

“I don't need anything,” Kirby said stiffly. “I was just on my way out.”

“I imagine you can spare five minutes to have a cold drink and avoid hurting Kate's feelings.”

“Fine. It's a quicker trip home through the back anyway.” She turned and started down the hall at a brisk pace. She wanted to be away from him. When he found out about his mother, she would do what she could for him. But for now she had her own pain to cope with.

“How's the patient?”

“She could dance a jig if she wanted to. There's not a thing wrong with her.” She pushed through the door and stood stubbornly while he got out a pitcher of golden-yellow lemonade swimming with mint and pulp. When her mouth watered, she swallowed resolutely. “How's your hand?”

“It's all right. I don't really notice it.”

“I might as well look at it while I'm here.” She set her bag down on the breakfast table. “The sutures should have been removed a couple of days ago.”

“You were leaving.”

“It'll save you a trip out to see me.”

He stopped pouring her lemonade and looked at her. The sun was streaming through the window at her back, licking light over her hair. Her eyes were a dark, stormy green that made his loins tighten.

“All right.” He carried her glass to the table and sat down.

Despite the heat, her hands were cool. Despite her anger, they were gentle. She saw no swelling or puffiness, no sign of infection. The edges of the wound had fused neatly. He would barely have a scar, she decided, and opened her bag for her suture scissors.

“This won't take long.”

“Just don't put any new holes in me.”

She clipped the first suture, tugged it free with tweezers. “Since we both live on this island, and it's likely we'll be running into each other on a regular basis for the rest of our lives, perhaps you'd do me the courtesy of clearing the air.”

“It's clear enough, Kirby.”

“For you, apparently. But not for me.” She clipped, tugged. “I want to know why you turned away from me. Why you decided to end things between us the way you did.”

“Because they'd gone farther than I'd intended them to. Neither one of us thought it would work. I just decided to back off first, that's all.”

“Oh, I see. You dumped me before I could dump you.”

“More or less.” He wished he couldn't smell her. He wished she'd had the decency not to rub that damned peach-scented lotion all over her skin to torment him. “I'd see it more as just a matter of simplifying.”

“And you like things simple, don't you? You like things your way, in your time and at your pace.”

Her voice was mild, and though he wasn't sure he could trust it, particularly when she had a sharp implement in her hand, he nodded. “That's true enough. You're the same, but your way, your time, and your pace are different from mine.”

“I can't argue with that. You prefer a malleable woman, a delicate woman. One who sits patiently and waits for your move and your whim. That certainly doesn't describe me.”

“No, it doesn't. And the fact is I wasn't looking for a woman—or a relationship, whatever you choose to call it. You came after me, and you're beautiful. I got tired of pretending I didn't want you.”

“That's fair. And the sex was good for both of us, so there shouldn't be any complaints.” She removed the last suture. “All done.” She lifted her eyes to his. “All done, Brian. The scar will fade. Before long, you won't even remember you were hurt. Now that the air's all clear, I'll be on my way.”

He remained where he was when she rose. “I appreciate it.”

“Don't give it a thought,” she said with a voice like frosted roses. “I won't.” She left by the back, quietly and deliberately closing the screen behind her.

She didn't start to run until she was into the shelter of the trees.

“Well, that was fun.” Brian picked up Kirby's untouched lemonade and downed it in several long gulps. It hit his tortured stomach like acid.

He'd done the right thing, hadn't he? For himself and probably for her. He'd kept things from stringing out, getting too deep and complicated. All he'd done was nick her pride, and she had plenty of it to spare. Pride and class and brains and a tidy little body with the energy of a nuclear warhead.

Christ, she was a hell of a woman.

No, he'd done the right thing, he assured himself, and ran the cold glass over his forehead because he suddenly felt viciously hot inside and out. She would have set him aside eventually and left him slackjawed and shot in the knees.

Women like Kirby Fitzsimmons didn't stay. Not that he wanted any woman to stay, but if a man was going to start fantasizing, if he was going to start believing in marriage and family, she was just the type to draw him in, then leave him twisting in the wind.

She had too much fuel, too much nerve to stay on Desire. The right offer from the right hospital or medical institute or whatever, and she'd be gone before the sand settled back in her footprints.

God, he'd never seen anything like the way she'd handled Susan Peters's body. The way she'd turned from woman to rock, clipping out orders in that cool, steady voice, her eyes flat, her hands without the slightest tremor.

It had been an eye-opener for him, all right. This wasn't some fragile little flower who would be content to treat poison ivy and sunburn on a nowhere dot in the ocean for long. Hook herself up with an innkeeper who made the best part of his living whipping up soufflés and frying chicken? Not in this lifetime, he told himself.

So it was done, and over, and his life would settle back quietly into the routine he preferred.

Fucking rut, he thought on a sudden surge of fury. He nearly hurled the glass into the sink when he spotted her medical bag on the table. She'd left her bag, he mused, opening it and idly poking through the contents.

She could just come back and get it herself, he decided. He had things to do. He couldn't be chasing after her just because she'd been in a snit and left it behind.

Of course, she might need it. You couldn't be sure when some medical emergency would come along. It would be his fault, wouldn't it, if she didn't have her needles and prodding things. Someone could up and die, couldn't they?

He didn't want that on his conscience. With a shrug, he picked the bag up, found it heavier than he'd imagined. He thought he'd just run it over to her, drop it off, and that would be that.

He decided to take the car rather than cut through the forest. It was too damn hot to walk. And besides, if she'd dawdled at all he might beat her there. He could just leave the bag inside her door and drive off before she even got home.

When he pulled up in her drive, he thought he had accomplished just that and was disgusted with himself for being disappointed. He didn't want to see her again. That was the whole point.

But when he was halfway up the steps, he realized she'd beaten him back after all. He could hear her crying.

It stopped him in his tracks, the sound of it. Hard, passionate sobs, raw gulps of air. It shook him right to the bone, left him dry-mouthed and loose at the knees. He wondered if there was anything more fearful a man could face than a weeping woman.

He opened the door quietly, eased it shut. His nerves were shot as he started back to her bedroom, shifting her bag from hand to hand.

She was curled up on the bed, a tight ball of misery with her hair curtaining her face. He'd dealt with wild female tears before. A man couldn't live with Lexy half his life and avoid that. But he'd never expected such unrestrained weeping from Kirby. Not the woman who had challenged him to resist her, not the woman who had faced the result of murder without a quiver. Not the woman who had just walked out of his kitchen with her head high and her eyes cold as the North Atlantic.

With Lexy it was either get the hell out and bar the door or gather her up close and hold on until the storm passed. He decided to hold on and, sitting on the side of the bed, he reached out to bundle her to him.

She shot up straight as an arrow, slapping out sharply at the hands that reached for her. Patiently, he persisted—and found himself holding on to a hundred pounds of furious woman.

“Get out of here! Don't you touch me.” The humiliation on top of the hurt was more than she could stand. She kicked, shoved, then scrambled off the far side of the bed. Standing there, she glared at him through puffy eyes even as fresh sobs choked her.

“How dare you come in here? Get the hell out!”

“You left your doctor's bag.” Because he felt foolish half sprawled over her bed, he straightened up and faced her across it. “I heard you crying. I didn't mean to make you cry. I didn't know I could.”

She pulled tissues out of the box on the bedside table and mopped at her face. “What makes you think I'm crying over you?”

“Since I don't expect you ran into anyone else in the last five minutes who would set you off like this, it's a reasonable assumption.”

“And you're so reasonable, aren't you, Brian?” She yanked out more tissues, littering the floor with them. “I was indulging myself. I'm entitled to that. Now I'd like you to leave me alone.”