The Night Remembers (14 page)

"Daphne?"

"What about Ginny?" she said.

"What's Ginny got to do with anything?"

Lord, how could he be so dumb? Did she really have to spell it out for him? Apparently, she did. "The other woman is not a role I'm particularly interested in playing. Not even for you. So…" She shrugged and asked the question she was burning to know the answer to. "Are you and Ginny a couple?"

"No, Ginny and I are not a couple," he said forcefully. "If we were, I wouldn't be here. And, in case you're wondering, we've never
been
a couple and there is no possibility of us
ever
becoming a couple. We're colleagues, nothing more."

She felt something inside of her flame into sudden joy.
Ginny and I are not a couple.
Had he ever said seven more beautiful words to her?

"So, what now?" she said, to keep herself from saying all the things she wanted to say.

"Well, now, I guess I get out of your hair so you can get ready for your appointment and then, well, we figure out the rest as we go."

Daphne blinked. "What appointment?"

"The one with I. Magnin."

"Oh, that appointment." She paused, considering. "There isn't one," she said, deciding to tell the truth. "Well, that is, there is one but it isn't until Monday."

"Not this morning?" Adam thought about that for a moment, his blue eyes holding hers. "You mean you lied?"

"I didn't lie. I just rearranged the facts a little." Her brows arched. "Don't you ever rearrange the facts, Adam?"

"Why did you feel it necessary to—" his lips turned up at her choice of words "—rearrange the facts?"

"Because you came to Sunny's party with Ginny and I thought you were a couple and—"

"We're
not
a couple—"

"—I needed a good excuse to leave, so—" she shrugged "—I lied. Want to make something of it?"

Instead of answering her, Adam stood and brushed his hands off against the seat of his jeans. Reaching across the remains of their uneaten breakfast, he lifted her out of her chair by the shoulders and eased her around the table, maneuvering her pliant body toward his. "I want you." He cradled her neck, his fingers on her nape, his thumbs lightly stroking her throat. "Now."

"Yes, Adam," she said, tilting her head back as he pressed his thumbs to the underside of her chin. Her eyes drifted closed.

He bent his head.

Daphne's stomach growled loudly, a low complaining rumble that seemed to go on for several seconds.

Adam halted his advance.

"Just ignore it," Daphne advised, reaching up to pull his head down to hers.

Their lips touched.

Daphne's stomach growled again.

Adam sighed and lowered his hands to her shoulders. "I refuse to make love to a woman who's stomach is growling at me," he said. "Let's go get you some real breakfast."

"But Adam," Daphne began, her voice rich with disappointment.

He stopped her words with a quick, hard kiss. "The next time we have sex," he said clearly, staring down into her eyes, "it's going to take a good long time. Not ten minutes like the other night. Hours," he promised gruffly and kissed her again, lighter this time. "I intend to savor every luscious inch of you and I don't want you fainting from hunger right in the middle of it. So..." He released her with a last quick kiss on the end of her nose and turned her toward the bathroom. "You go get dressed and I'll take you out for a real breakfast. Okay?"

"Okay," she said reluctantly, allowing herself to be propelled away from him. She paused by the open suitcase on the other bed to fish out some suitable clothes and then, tossing them over her arm, she disappeared into the bathroom.

She showered quickly, thanking current fashion for the fact that she had hair that could be washed and styled in less than fifteen minutes. Using a blow-dryer and her fingers, she fluffed the feathery golden-brown curls into order around her forehead and temples, teasing seemingly artless wisps to cling to the nape of her long elegant neck. Her makeup took as little time. A dab of sheer ivory foundation, a dusting of peachy blusher, was all her complexion needed to make it glow.

She had never looked better in her life, she thought, deftly applying the ivory and brown shadows that would make her eyes appear even larger than they already were. That's what love did for a woman. It made her sparkle as if she were lit from inside by a thousand candles.

Resolutely, like a child who refuses to think about the punishment that will come at the end of a forbidden act, Daphne pushed all thoughts of tomorrow firmly out of her mind. She was happy now. Deliriously, insanely, deliciously, giddily happy for the first time in years.

Okay, yes, it was true her business gave her a great deal of happiness—it was something she had always, and would always, want and need—but that happiness was completely different from the feeling that was coursing through her now.

And it was true that she had found a mild sort of happiness with Miles. More friends than lovers, they had drifted along in a sort of placid contentment, sailing through their life together as if it were a small sheltered lake, protected from even the mildest emotional storms. There had been no highs with Miles, no lows and, thus, no excitement.

Being with Adam, though, was like being out on the bay on an especially windy day. Exhilarating, challenging, exciting—and just the tiniest bit frightening.

No, she amended. No, it was more than a tiny bit frightening. It was terrifying. What if he set her adrift again before she was ready?

And he would, she told herself, staring wide-eyed at the woman in the mirror. That had to be faced up front. Because Adam would eventually get her "out of his system" and she would be left alone again, still loving him.

"So what else is new?" she said to her reflection.

She had fallen in love with Adam when she was seventeen years old, and had continued loving him, in absentia so to speak, even after he divorced her. She had survived the heartbreak then—and even gone on to make a success of her life—she would survive it when it happened again. As it surely would. But until then... Well, until then, she told herself, she would enjoy every minute of every day with him and not think about the future. They were going to have a glorious affair. Simply glorious.

She finished making up her face and dressed quickly, stepping into a pair of peach silk bikini panties and a matching camisole before wiggling into the same tight, brown leather pants she had worn to Sunny's party. She pulled a butterscotch-colored sweater over her head. It had a high cowl neck that nestled under her chin, long loose sleeves meant to be worn pushed up, and a hem that ended halfway down her thighs. She hitched it up a bit with a wide, woven-leather belt that buckled over her left hipbone.

Satisfied with her appearance, she opened the bathroom door to find Adam stretched out on the unmade bed, sneakered feet crossed at the ankles, arms folded under his head as he watched the Roadrunner make mincemeat out of Wily Coyote.

"Very highbrow stuff you're watching there," she commented, flicking a hand at the television screen. She began digging around in her suitcase for a pair of socks.

Adam grinned at her from the bed. "Hey, these are classics. Besides, there's nothing else on TV on Saturday mornings."

"Brain candy," she said dismissively. "Known to cause severe cavities in the cerebral cortex," Daphne sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on her socks.

"'Zat so?" he said, his gaze on the screen.

"Umm-hmm." Daphne stomped her feet into leather half boots that matched her sweater and stood up, walking across the room to the dresser. Rummaging through an open vanity case, she picked out a pair of shiny bronze metal discs set with gleaming tiger's eye. "And, according to Sunny, cartoons are also thought to encourage violence in children," she said, watching Adam in the mirror as she inserted the earrings into her pierced ears.

"It's okay," Adam assured her, laughing as Wily Coyote was launched into space on a keg of dynamite. "I'm not a child."

Daphne's eyebrows rose. "Says who?"

"Whom," Adam corrected, jackknifing up from the bed to turn off the television. His eyes ran up and down her slender form. "You look like a ragamuffin," he said, his eyes approving. "A very sexy, elegant little ragamuffin but—"

"I'll have you know, Dr. Forrest," she interrupted, pretending indignation, "that this is a highly expensive, original design."

"One of yours?"

Daphne shook her head. "No. I only do evening clothes." She picked up her bag, a rich brown suede hobo big enough to hold a week's worth of clothes, and slung it over her shoulder. "Well, I'm ready." She arched an eyebrow at him as she headed for the door. "Let's get breakfast out of the way, shall we?" Her grin was lascivious. "I'm starving."

Chapter 8

"You're sure you don't mind?" Adam asked again as he pulled the dark green BMW into his designated parking place in the lot at Children's Hospital. "You could take the car to my place and wait for me there if you'd rather. I can always grab a taxi."

"No, I don't mind, Adam," she told him for the fourth time. "Honest. Besides, how long could it to take to check on one patient? Fifteen minutes?"

"At least thirty," Adam said truthfully. "Maybe more, depending."

"Depending on what?"

"On how she's feeling, mainly. How much pain she's in. If she's restive or fretful or needs a little extra cheering up." He lifted his shoulders in a small shrug as he reached to set the parking brake. "Whether or not her mother's there and wants to talk to me. Any number of things." He turned toward her, a look of concern on his face. "Are you sure you don't mind waiting?"

"I'm sure," she said firmly. As long as he smiled at her like that she wouldn't mind anything. "After the way we've been running around all day, it'll be a pleasure to sit down with a cup of coffee for a few minutes."

"You say that because you haven't tasted hospital coffee."

"It can't be any worse than the stuff I make myself. And, besides, if I have a bad reaction, I'm in a hospital, right?"

"Right," he agreed, opening his door. Then, before Daphne could do it herself, he came around to the passenger door and was reaching down a hand to help her out.

He let it go of her hand as they entered the hospital and took her elbow instead, guiding her to the nurses' station. The nurse on duty, a fiftyish bright-eyed brunette, looked up at the sound of their footsteps, a wide smile replacing the professionally polite expression on her face as she saw who was approaching.

"Dr. Forrest," she said, standing practically at attention as he came up to the counter that separated the nurses' station from the rest of the wide hall.

"Hello, Peg." Adam returned her smile warmly. "How's it going?"

"Fine. Been quiet as a tomb for the last hour."

"Ah, so they're letting you catch up on your reading." He glanced at Daphne. "Peg is addicted to detective thrillers. The gorier, the better." He looked back at the plump, dark-haired nurse, affection in his blue eyes. "What is it tonight? Clive Cussler?" He leaned over the counter to read the title of the paperback that was lying facedown on the desk. "Micky Spillane?"

"Travis McGee." She flashed him an impish grin. "I'll lend it to you when I'm finished."

"Thanks, but I don't think my nerves can take it." He shuddered theatrically, hunching his shoulders. "All that blood."

Daphne's eyes widened with surprise. She had never known Adam to make even the smallest joke in connection with his work, no matter how harmless. He had always treated it with the utmost seriousness. Unlike other med students, he had never been one to indulge in bedpan humor or make ghoulish jokes about cadavers. Apparently, he had changed. Oh, not that he would ever make those sorts of jokes. Medicine was too close to a holy calling to him for that, but he had obviously mellowed enough to tease about it.

"Tell me another funny story," Peg snorted. She flapped her hand at Adam in a dismissive gesture and then reached down and pushed the book aside. "I know you didn't just drop by to discuss my great taste in literature. So..." She ran a quick eye down the list on her desk. "The little Jenkins girl?"