The Magnificent M.D. (7 page)

It started to rain, and she forced herself to go upstairs to bed. She lay in her bed, sitting up every time she heard a car on the wet street. She watched the minutes tick by.
She was exhausted, but still she couldn't sleep. As soon as she did, she woke suddenly to the sound of something clinking against her window. She jumped out of bed and drew back the curtains. And there he was, standing in the front yard just as he had that night so long ago, throwing stones at her window. Only this time it was pouring. He must be soaked through. She shivered as the wind whipped her hair across her cheek and blew her nightgown against her body.

“H
ey,” he shouted. “The door's locked. I don't have a key.”

She pressed her hand against her mouth. How could she have forgotten to give him a key? What kind of hostess makes her guest stay out in the rain? Without stopping to put a robe on, she ran down the hall, took the stairs two at a time and skidded in her bare feet to the front door.

Breathless, she flung it open, and he stood there on the porch in the dark looking at her for a long moment, his wet hair hanging over his forehead.

“I'm sorry. I meant to give you a key. Have you been out here long?” she asked.

“Long enough,” he said shaking the water off his head. “You must be a sound sleeper. The last time it took you only a few seconds.”

The last time. So long ago. And yet the memory was sharp and clear in her mind. “You're soaked,” she said.

He took off his wet jacket and hung it on the coatrack. “Have you got any of that sherry left?”

“Of course. Or would you rather have a hot toddy?”

“If you'll have one with me,” he said, his gaze traveling slowly over her body.

“I'll just get my robe,” she said, suddenly aware she was only wearing a cotton batiste nightgown with nothing underneath it.

“Wait.” His voice dropped an octave. He didn't touch her, didn't grab her arm or even put his hand on her shoulder, but she couldn't move. They stood in the hallway under the Tiffany lamp staring at each other. His face was half in shadow and he looked dark and dangerous. He
was
dangerous. Dangerous to her mental health, dangerous to her well-being. Hayley couldn't breathe. The air had been sucked out of her lungs.

She knew he was going to kiss her. It was the look in his eyes. The set of his jaw. The tension in the atmosphere. So thick she could cut it with her mother's silver cake knife. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to fling her arms around his neck and pull him so close she could feel his heartbeat. To feel the solid muscles in his chest. And let her fingers sift through his thick, dark hair. She wanted to feel the rainwater from his jacket soak through her nightgown.

But he didn't. Instead he reached behind him and banged the door shut so loudly it sounded like an explosion. Her heart banged against her ribs. She turned and ran up the stairs like a frightened rabbit to get her robe. But who was she frightened of? Not Sam. She was frightened of her own runaway imagination. She'd imagined that Sam wanted to kiss her.

She didn't have to worry about Sam. He'd had a couple of opportunities to come on to her. But he hadn't. Obvi
ously he didn't want to. Because he really wasn't interested. It was a hard pill to swallow, but Sam was used to dispensing pills, and she'd better get used to swallowing them. He was full of himself, aware of his charm and a flirt to boot. That was all. That was enough. He'd always known how to push her buttons. He still did.

He was sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar when she came down, plaid flannel robe firmly belted around her waist. He looked up from the tourist booklet on the Oregon coast he was leafing through. And undressed her with a sexy, mesmerizing gaze that made her knees weak. She might as well have worn nothing at all, for the protection her robe gave her. Because he seemed to see right through it. What was he trying to do? Provoke her? Drive her crazy? She knew he felt nothing for her. She told herself to get over it. Or she'd get her heart broken all over again.

“Plaid flannel. You didn't have to do that for me,” he said, studying the lapels that formed a vee between her breasts.

“I didn't,” she said primly. “I run a bed and breakfast. I can't run around in a negligee.”

“Too bad. Sorry about waking you up,” he said, but he didn't look sorry.

“Sorry about locking you out,” she said. She reached for a bottle of rum and poured some into a pot and added some spices, grateful to have something to do besides analyze Sam. “Did you find someplace to go?” she asked. She didn't want him to think she was prying, but she had to fill the silence somehow. She was afraid of silence between them. Afraid of her thoughts, her runaway emotions. Of what she might say or what she might do. Something she'd regret later.

“Yeah,” he said.

There it was. Silence. She racked her brain but couldn't think of another thing to say.

“I drove out to the Red Barn,” he said.

“For a drink?” she asked. Of course he went for a drink. You didn't go to the Red Barn for a hot chocolate or any other reason. Not at this hour. There was no pool table. Nothing but a big, empty barn with sawdust and cigarette butts on the floor and a sour smell in the air.

“No. For old times' sake. My old man hung out there. I hated that place with a vengeance. I went back to see if I could stand to go in.”

“Could you?”

Sam shook his head. He'd stood out in front of the bar, the fluorescent outline of a beer bottle in the window, the distorted sound of an ancient jukebox filling the night air. The rain ran down his face and soaked his jacket. But he couldn't bring himself to open the door.

“I was afraid,” he said. “Can you believe that? I'm thirty-four years old, for God's sake. My father's got to be dead by now. And I'm afraid to walk into a bar. Afraid I'll see him in there, roaring drunk and shouting obscenities like the night my mother sent me to get him. I'm afraid of a dead man.”

He reached for the cup Hayley held out, without looking at her. He didn't want to see the expression on her face. He hadn't meant to tell her what had happened tonight. But somehow it had come out anyway. If she despised him for his cowardice so be it. If she pitied him, let her.

He couldn't keep his feelings bottled up any longer. There was no one else he could talk to. No one else he wanted to talk to. No one knew him as she did. She'd once said she loved him anyway. Which she must have regretted as soon as she'd said it. Or at least regretted it when he ran away. At eighteen, who knows what love is? He cer
tainly didn't. Growing up without love, he could only imagine it. He took a drink of the hot beverage and felt it sting his throat as the warmth traveled through his body.

“Thanks,” he said, setting his glass down. “I didn't mean to blather on like that. To put a burden on you. Forget I said anything. It must have been…oh, hell, I don't know why I did it, I don't know what's wrong with me.”

She put her hands on his shoulders. He didn't move. She pulled him so close he buried his face between her breasts. She was warm, she was soft and he'd missed her all these years with a fierce longing, and he hadn't even known what he was missing. His heart thudded. He stifled a moan. He reached for the belt of her robe and untied it with sure, steady fingers. Underneath was a nightgown of the sheerest, softest cotton. Underneath that, the softest, smoothest skin he'd ever touched. And the memories came flooding back. A rainy day a long time ago. A dash through the rain to the back gate of the Bancroft House where they found shelter in the playhouse. Where their pent-up teenage passion exploded.

But that was then. This was now. They were grown-ups now. With experience and judgment. And self-control. And needs that only seemed to have intensified with the years. He lifted her nightgown, and splayed his hands across her back, inhaled her scent, the smell that clung to her skin. And gave in to the frustration of seeing but not touching her for the past eight hours, for the past seventeen years, by running his hands across her hips and over the curve of her sweet little butt. He'd thought he could last longer than one day. He'd thought he could make it through the six months without giving in to temptation. But he couldn't. Not when she was so warm, so sweet, so giving. He stood and shoved her robe to the floor, and lifted her nightgown over her head.

She stood in the middle of the kitchen, completely naked and so beautiful he lost his breath. He couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at her. Her pale skin, her perfect breasts, the flat stomach and her nest of blond curls at the juncture of her thighs. And the years fell away. That rainy day in the playhouse. The day they'd gone clamming together, got soaked and came back to her house. But not to this house, this house bursting with people and lights and noise. No, they'd gone to the playhouse…

“You are so beautiful,” he said gruffly. “So damned beautiful. And I want you so much…” But he couldn't have her. Not then and not now. There were too many ghosts standing between them. Her parents, his parents, her grandfather, the whole town— “Good God, what am I doing?” He grabbed her robe from the floor and threw it over her shoulders. Just as he heard a baby cry.

She stuffed her arms into the sleeves and picked up her nightgown from the floor. They stood frozen while the baby's cries rose.

“I've got to do something,” she whispered.

“No, you don't. Babies cry,” he said.

“And throw up,” she added. “And have colic. I know, but…”

“Didn't the parents come back?” he asked.

“Yes, but…” She turned abruptly and said, “I'll go make sure everything's okay.”

He followed her up the stairs and by the time they reached the door of the master bedroom the cries had subsided.

“See what I told you?” he said under his breath.

She nodded. “Goodnight, Sam,” she whispered. Her eyes were burning bright in the pale nightlight. She reached up and brushed his lips with hers, then she went
into her room. He didn't let himself respond. Didn't let himself pick her up and carry her into his room and make love to her all night. Because it wasn't meant to be. She knew it, he knew it. That kiss she gave him said it all. It was casual and affectionate. No passion there. As if they were old friends. Nothing more. Obviously she felt nothing for him except compassion. Which he could live without. He could also live without love and affection. It was obvious Hayley was glad he'd stopped when he had. What had happened down there in the kitchen was an example of lust out of control.

He stood staring at the closed door for a long time before he walked to his room, took off his wet clothes and went into the white-and-black-tiled bathroom with the stacks of fresh towels and soap redolent of fresh lavender. He opened the glass door and turned on the shower. Not a cold shower, which he badly needed, but a hot shower which he needed even more. The hot water stung his back and shoulders as he realized that only one day back in New Hope and he'd learned he was still lusting after the most beautiful girl in town, who had become the most beautiful woman, not just in New Hope, but anywhere.

And he'd learned he was still afraid of his father's ghost. Just two things he had to get over. He hadn't made progress on either front yet. But tomorrow was another day. He would try again.

Before he came to in the morning there were the smells. Creeping in under the door and filling the air. Of coffee and muffins and scones. All the things she'd promised. All the reasons to stay at a bed and breakfast. All the reasons to stay away from a woman you couldn't have. Waking up in a home with a woman in the kitchen making breakfast. Something he'd never missed because he'd never had it. Waking up to an incomparable view of the ocean out
side his window and to the roar of the ocean, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks a quarter of a mile away. More reasons to stay at the Bancroft House. The inn ought to be filled every night.

He looked at the old ship's clock on the bedside table and was shocked to find it was eight o'clock. He was normally in the OR by six. He never drank at night or slept late. How would he ever get back to normal after a six-month stay at the Bancroft House? How would he go back to a stark, sophisticated condo on Russian Hill that was more like a hotel than a home?

“I have to tell you,” he said, sitting in the same seat at the breakfast bar, unable to tear his gaze from the curve of Hayley's hip as she bent over to lift pans out of the oven, palms itching to grab her around the waist and wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair. “I can't stay here for six months.”

She set the muffins on the counter. Her face was flushed from the heat of the oven, and her hair was pinned back behind her ears. “Why not?”

“Isn't it obvious?”

She blushed, her face turning a deeper shade of scarlet.

“Drinking hot toddies at night and hot scones and lattes in the morning? I won't be able to fit into my scrubs.”

“Oh, that,” she said with relief.

“What did you think I was going to say?” he asked with a half smile.

“Nothing.”

“Seriously, I can't impose on you this way,” he said.

“It's not an imposition. It's my contribution to the community. Naturally if you were to stay on beyond the six months…”

“I won't be,” he said curtly.

“You'd have to get a house of your own,” she said as
if she hadn't heard him. “That's no problem. There are several for rent or for sale. And the community would be glad to—”

“I said I won't be,” he repeated, reaching for a blueberry muffin and slathering it with sweet butter.

“Then there's no problem. I'm committed to providing bed and breakfast for the temporary doctor.”

“You did that before you knew it was going to be me.”

“It doesn't matter who it is. A guest is a guest.”

He shrugged. Secretly relieved. He didn't want to leave this house. This house that she'd changed from a cold, elegant showpiece into a warm and welcoming home. He didn't want to give up seeing her at night and in the morning. “All right, but no more dinners.”

She wiped her hands on her apron. “Okay,” she said. She sounded hurt. Dammit. He'd hurt her feelings. When all he wanted to do was avoid falling into a routine that was going to be awkward to break.

“I already owe you for last night. And I always pay my debts, as you know,” he said. “So tonight I take you to dinner.”