His Healing Touch (11 page)

Now, Adam forced himself to focus on the patient file open on his desk blotter. His patient, Mitchell Gardner, who was getting dressed after his examination, would be in to discuss the results of his most recent tests at any moment, and the elderly gentleman deserved Adam’s full attention. He took a swig of cold black coffee, frowning as he swished the bitter liquid around in his mouth.

The door opened, and Wade poked his head in. “Got a minute?”

Since he had a nagging suspicion that his partner intended to give him the third-degree about Kasey, Adam had been avoiding Wade since dinner at her place. “Yeah, but that’s about all.”

Closing the door, Wade looked at Adam. “So…?”

“So
what?
” He knew perfectly well what Wade was getting at, but maybe, if he stalled, Mr. Gardner would knock on the door and Adam wouldn’t have to go into it.

Wade sat in one of the chrome-and-tweed chairs in front of Adam’s desk and propped an ankle on his knee. “So, what gives with the Delaney girl?”

Frowning, Adam read and re-read Mr. Gardner’s home address. “I don’t know what you’re talking abou—”

“Don’t give me that. You’ve been dodging me for days to avoid talking about it.”

He met Wade’s hazel eyes. True, but he sure wasn’t about to admit it. “I’ve been busy,” Adam said. Equally true. But not so busy that he couldn’t have taken a moment to discuss Kasey with Wade.

Wade leaned forward. “We’re in this as deep as you are, pal.”

Yeah, right,
Adam thought angrily. “We?”

“Luke and Travis and me…we wanna know what she knows.”

He aimed a hard stare at his lifelong friend. “The three of you have been discussing this? Behind my back?”

Wade leaped to his feet, began pacing back and forth in front of the door. He stopped at the corner of Adam’s desk, then said, “You bet your sweet sports car we’ve been discussing this. We have as much to lose as you do. Now lay it on the line, Adam. Are we gonna need to hire a lawyer? What’s she planning?”

“Nothing. At least, I don’t think so.”

Wade looked toward the ceiling, loosed a loud breath. “You don’t think so. You don’t
think
so….” He walked to the door and, one hand on the knob, said, “You’d better find out what she knows, pal. Pretty Miss Green Eyes could be setting us all up for—”

Adam got to his feet and tossed the file onto his desk, spilling the pages onto the floor. “That’s ridiculous. Kasey isn’t like that. She’s—”

“Oh, it’s ‘Kasey,’ is it?” Wade stomped back to Adam’s desk, flattened one palm on the blotter. “You want some advice?” he demanded.

“No,” Adam shot back, “but I have a feeling I’m gonna get some, anyway.”

“We were idiots that night. What we did was wrong. No gettin’ around that. But with the exception of Buddy, we’ve all made amends, we’ve all taken the straight and narrow ever since.” He straightened and, slapping a hand to the back of his neck, added, “I didn’t spend the past fifteen years keeping my nose clean so some curvy little gal could waltz in and—”

A soft knock interrupted his tirade.

“Dr. Thorne?” his nurse called. “Mr. Gardner is ready to see you.”

Adam jerked open the door. “Give me a minute,” he said, gesturing to the mess he’d made of the file. Grinning sheepishly, he added, “I seem to be all thumbs today.”

She looked from the paper-strewn floor to Wade to Adam. The strained smile on her face told Adam that while she didn’t know what the altercation had been about, she was definitely aware there had been a dispute.

Her gaze returned to the file. “You want me to tidy that up for you?”

“Nah, I’ll take care of it. Just give me a minute,” he repeated.

Her expression reminded Adam of Mrs. Anderson, his seventh-grade English teacher, who had a certain way of saying, with little more than a glare,
You’re behaving like kindergartners.
The instant she closed the door, Adam stooped and began gathering up the papers that made up Mr. Gardner’s file. “Trust me, Wade,” he said from the floor, “even if she knows something—and I’d stake my life that she doesn’t—she’s not planning to sue anybody. Kasey isn’t like that.”

He heard the door open, heard Wade say from the hall, “I don’t know how you can be so sure, but I hope you’re right.”

Adam flopped onto his chair and began replacing pages in order by date.

He took a deep, shaky breath. “Me, too,” he whispered. “Me, too.”

“Are you sure it’s all right?”

The secretary nodded. “Absolutely! Dr. Thorne has had back-to-back patients all morning. He’ll appreciate a
friendly visit.” She waved Kasey toward the hall leading to the partners’ offices. “His door is the second one on the right.” With that, she went back to filling out insurance forms.

With an “if you say so” shrug, Kasey headed for Adam’s office. His door was slightly ajar, and as she lifted her hand to knock, she heard him say, “I don’t have time for this, Wade. I’m telling you, she won’t sue.” He gave an exasperated sigh. “Why don’t you do something productive with your time?”

Clearly, he was angry with Wade.
Strange,
Kasey thought. Hadn’t they told her at supper the other night that they’d been friends since childhood?

“See if you can wrangle a tee time out of the receptionist at Hobbit’s Glen,” he continued, “and let me handle this K—”

“May I help you?”

The suddenness of the woman’s voice made Kasey lurch, and she nearly dropped her packages. “Goodness!” she gasped, readjusting her grip on things.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” the nurse said.

“I—I’m here to see Dr. Thorne. His secretary said it would be all right….”

She gave Kasey a wary smile, then shoved Adam’s door open. “Expecting anyone, Adam?”

He’d had his back to the door, feet propped on the windowsill. Both feet dropped to the floor with a solid
thump
and he swiveled his chair to face them. A bright smile flashed across his face when he spotted Kasey.

She would have said he seemed genuinely pleased to see her, if not for the fact that he immediately shielded his eyes with one hand.

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Adam barked, then hung up the phone.
With a protective nod, his nurse backed into the hall and closed the door.

Adam stood. “Kasey.”

He sounded pleased to see her, too.

And yet there was something written on that handsome face. She would have named that “something”
guilt.
Did it have something to do with what he’d said the other night—that there were things she needed to know about him…?

“What a nice surprise,” he said, gesturing to one of the chairs facing his desk. “What brings you here?”

Kasey took a seat, draping her coat over the arm of the chair beside hers. She slid a blue-lidded plastic container onto his desk. “You forgot your lasagna the other night.” Plopping a brown grocery bag beside it, she added, “And your sweatpants. They were hanging on the banister, remember?”

“Yeah, I do.”

I do?

Chances were slim to none that she’d hear those words spoken on an altar, echoed by her own vow. Shaking off the silly thought, Kasey feigned a laugh. “Maybe we could both do with a dose of that memory-booster herb.”

“I don’t put any stock in that kind of bunk.” He frowned, waving her suggestion away.

What had put him in such a grumpy mood all of a sudden? she wondered. “Well,” she began, matching his tone, note for gruff note, “I’m not surprised to hear you say that. Doctors rarely put stock in anything but medical science.”

Adam’s smile tightened. “Name me one other thing
worth
putting your faith in.”

Several times since he’d left on Halloween night, Kasey had wondered about the condition of his soul, about his relationship with God…if indeed he had a relationship with
God. Adam seemed like a good and decent man, but experience had taught her that a man’s behavior was no barometer of Christianity.

“How about God?” she blurted.

She’d touched a nerve, mentioning Buddy in Adam’s cabin. She’d touched another just now, as evidenced by the furrow between his brows and the narrowing of his brown eyes.

So much for wondering where he stood on the Christian issue. His expression made her want to dig deeper, to explore his attitude further. But as the verse in Ecclesiastes said, there was a time for everything under heaven.

This, common sense told her, was not the time.

She forced a bright smile. “Aleesha wanted me to be sure to tell you the lasagna is best with fresh-grated Parmesan cheese.” She shrugged. “I would’ve brought some, but we’re all out.”

He glanced at the covered dish and sat back in his overstuffed black leather chair. “Nice of you to come all the way over here to bring it. You didn’t have to do that.”

Kasey laughed. “Oh, but I did! Aleesha and Mom have been nagging me since I got up yesterday morning to get this over here.” She tucked an annoying wayward curl behind her ear. “Besides, I was in the neighborhood, delivering an arrangeme—”

“Really?”

Calmly, he folded his hands on the desktop. Too calmly? Kasey wondered.

“Where’s your client?”

“Right here in your building, actually. A plastic surgeon on the fifth floor.”

“Ah, that’d be Dr. Kantor.” Adam chuckled. “Well, if anybody can afford flowers for his waiting room, it’s Bill.”
He pulled the bag closer. “Let me guess. He ordered an arrangement with lots of roses in it, right?”

She tilted her head. At least his mood seemed to have improved. “What makes you say that?”

He shrugged, opening the paper sack. “Most of his patients are women.” He met her eyes. “And don’t all women prefer roses?”

Kasey narrowed her eyes. “They’re pretty enough, but they’re not my favorite flowers.”

He stuck his face into the bag and inhaled, making Kasey wonder if maybe the big secret he’d been hiding had something to do with his sanity.

“Smells great,” he said. Adam glanced at the clock on his wall, then back at her. “Say, have you eaten yet?”

“No.”

He got to his feet again. This was the perfect opportunity to pump her for information. By the time she’d downed the last morsel of her lunch, he’d know for sure whether or not she’d dropped into his life calculatingly…or like manna from heaven.

If he were a betting man, he’d put his money on the manna. “There’s a terrific little café, walking distance from here. I could buy you—”

“Adam, really. I couldn’t. I owe you so much already.”

Ignoring her comment, he grabbed his sports coat from a peg behind the door and nodded at the boxed lasagna. “Does it need to be refrigerated?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Dorothy,” he called to his secretary, “we’re going to Mi Casa.” He picked up Kasey’s coat with one hand, the food dish with the other. “Could you put this in the fridge, please?”

Dorothy relieved him of the container. “Mi Casa, eh?”

“That’s the plan.”

“I’ll do it on one condition.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Conditions. Don’t you gals ever do anything with no strings attached?” He was only half kidding.

But Dorothy blundered on. “…if you’ll bring me back an order of sugar-fried dough.”

He held up Kasey’s jacket. “Deal.”

Slipping into it, Kasey said, “Olé.”

He hesitated. “Olé?”

“You did look a little bit like a bullfighter, standing there holding her wrap,” Dorothy injected.

“Seems fitting,” Kasey said. “Somehow, I find myself on my way to lunch, and I don’t recall saying
sì
or
hambriento.
” She shot Adam a teasing look. “And something tells me that even if I had said ‘yes’, or ‘I’m hungry’, we’d be halfway there, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because,” she said, slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, “I have a feeling you’re more like Ferdinand the bull than the bullfighter.”

“Ferdinand?”

“The bull.
Stubborn
like a—”

Dorothy’s laughter bounced up and down the hall. “Oh, I like her, Doc. You don’t wanna let this one get away!”

He liked this one, too. But he had a sinking feeling that Kasey wasn’t going to
get
away so much as he was likely to
drive
her away.

Unless he could keep her from finding out the truth about him….

Kasey liked the way Adam put himself on the street side of the walk as they strolled to Mi Casa. It was an old-fashioned, chivalrous action that reminded her of her father, who had always held doors, pulled out chairs, and helped Kasey’s mother into her coat.

In the restaurant, the hostess suggested a spot near the door, near a table of rowdy teenagers. Politely, he suggested a table closer to the kitchen, where they could enjoy the soft beat of Mexican music that flowed from the overhead speakers.

He pulled out Kasey’s chair, then handed her a menu.

“So what’re you in the mood for?” Adam asked, sitting across from her.

She studied the lunch offerings. “Maybe a nice crispy salad.”

“Rabbit food? Nah, get something that’ll stick to your ribs, something with meat in it!”

“There’s ground sirloin in the taco salad….”

“They make a mean
chimichanga
here,” he tempted.

The waitress stepped up to the table. “What can I get you folks to drink?”

“Two iced teas,” Adam said, his tone businesslike yet cordial. “You still serve that terrific salsa with homemade tortilla chips as an appetizer?”

“We sure do.”

His easy way with people—the waitress, his secretary, his nurse—told her something about Adam’s character. His choice of restaurants said a lot about him, too: he was a simple man, with simple tastes.

Though she’d never much enjoyed it, Kasey had dined in Baltimore’s best eating establishments—thanks to Buddy’s “connections”—where tuxedoed waiters delivered meals on sterling silver serving carts. Here, cartoon chili peppers decorated the aprons of waitresses who balanced stainless flatware on plastic trays. Kasey knew there wouldn’t be scented hand soaps and lotions in the ladies’ room, or a strolling violinist to play romantic tunes beside a linen-cloaked table. Instead of velvet draperies, shinyleafed philodendrons hung at Mi Casa’s windows, and in
place of brocade-upholstered furnishings, there were hardwood chairs.