Instant Gratification (5 page)

It was truly the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, and he lifted his gaze to Emma and found her already looking at him, her eyes suspiciously bright and misty.

And then she did something totally unexpected. She smiled at him.

Yeah, she was tough as nails and cynical and blunt. And sometimes just a little mean.

And she cried over a newborn.

Neely and Lilah were both laughing and sobbing. Once Emma said that everything was okay, Stone and TJ carried Lilah to TJ’s Jeep. They got her and the baby settled in and TJ drove them down the hill to Neely’s sister, who was a midwife and registered nurse in South Shore.

Which left Stone and Emma alone.

He walked to where she stood at the cliff overlooking the open meadow below. “You okay?”

“Always.” She turned her head toward him and did the damnedest thing. She smiled again, a God-given, sweet, warm, real smile that met her eyes and curved her mouth, and rocked his world. “And how are you?” she asked.

He let out a low laugh. “I’ll come right out and admit it. My knees are still shaking.”

She smiled again and blew at least a thousand more of his brain cells, which didn’t leave him with much. But wow, the smile softened her. Made her seem gentle.

Sweet.

All the things he’d thought her void of, all the things he tended to love in a woman, and he had one thought as he felt another catch from deep inside him, as his body went still on high alert and his pulse picked up speed—

Oh, shit.

He needed to back up. Or better yet, turn and walk away. That was the easy thing to do at this point. But did he ever take the easy route? Hell, no. The hard way was his only way, always, and he stepped close.

Her smile deepened, and his next thought was hell yeah, here it came, the thank you for his help. He’d shrug and say it’d been his pleasure, and she’d maybe move in for a hug, or better yet…

A kiss.

Yeah, a slow, hot, melting thank you kiss would suit him just fine, with lots of tongue and busy hands—

“So you’re afraid of needles
and
pass out at the sight of blood, huh?” she asked, amused.

She wasn’t thanking him.

She was laughing at him.
Openly
. He tried to be insulted, but Jesus, when she smiled? It was amazing.

She
was amazing. “Really?” he asked, letting loose of a stupid smile himself. “You’re going to go there?”

Still laughing, she nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s cruel, Emma. Very cruel.”

“Sorry.”

Sorry, his ass.

She wasn’t sorry, she wasn’t anywhere close to sorry. She was cracking up, and he should be annoyed. But she looked so damned sexy as she laughed at him.

“I thought you were going to pass out a few times,” she said.

“Well you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve never seen a vagina from that angle before.”

She only laughed harder and patted his arm like he was a four-year-old, before heading toward his truck in her fancy clothes now streaked with dirt, blood and other stuff he didn’t want to think about.

God, she was hot as hell.

They weren’t finished, not by a long shot, so he followed her. “For the record, I
didn’t
pass out. I was in it, all the way.”

She stopped at the hood of his truck on the passenger side. “You were, for which I’m most thankful. But seeing as you’re so weak-kneed and all, maybe I should drive.”

Yeah, she was sweet and gentle and soft, all right. Like a sleeping lion.

“We need to hurry.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m on a schedule here.”

He leaned toward her, his hands on the hood as he faced her. “What are you in such a hurry to go back to?”

“I have things to do.”

He had to laugh. “You ever slow down and smell the roses, Doc?”

“I’m not a roses kind of woman.”

“How about relaxing?” he asked, thinking he figured he knew the answer. She wasn’t much into that either.

“Relaxing bores me.”

“How about fun. Do you ever have fun?”

“Yes,” she said. “But not when I’m three thousand miles from home, in a town that pays in cholesterol-laden casseroles and looks at me like I’m an alien.”

An uptight, anal, sleeping lion, with
teeth
. “I don’t look at you like you’re an alien,” he said.

“Yes, but you don’t count.”

“Why don’t I count?”

She hesitated. “Because you look at me in a different way.”

“Like?”

“Like…” Interestingly enough, she blushed.

“Like I’m attracted to you?” he pressed, amused.

Her eyes met his. “Yes. Like that.”

“Because I am. Very much.”

She eyed him a long beat before hopping up into his truck without a word. Not exactly a glowing recommendation but she hadn’t slammed the door on that admitted attraction either, a fact he decided meant good things.

Or so he hoped.

E
mma’s dad had called her twice, and she’d missed both calls, so that night she hopped into his spare truck to go visit him.

His small, remote cabin was outside of town, about ten miles up a dirt road on the shores of Jackson Lake, where he spent his days rehabbing by fly-fishing to his heart’s content.

The problem wasn’t the dirt road, or the ten miles.

Okay, that was the problem. As was the fact that she drove like shit.

She didn’t drive in New York, though she did have her license. She actually liked to drive, but she didn’t have much opportunity to do so.

Until she’d come here. First of all, the truck was huge. And crotchety. And not exactly easy to handle. She held her breath each of the ten miles, but luckily it was a dry day and she managed only one or two near misses with wayward branches, and that one kamikaze squirrel, but they’d both survived.

By the time she arrived, she was sweating buckets and her father was just coming in from fishing. He was medium built, with only a slight pudge to belie his years. He had a full head
of curly gray hair that stuck straight up, whether from its own mind or lack of a brush, she had no idea. “You called. Twice.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to…connect. See if you were doing okay.”

“That was my question for you.”

“I’m doing good. The clinic driving you crazy?”

“No.” A lie.

He just looked at her, patient. Understanding. And she caved. “Yes.”

He smiled sympathetically. “Sorry. I know it’s a different pace than you’re used to. I guess I was hoping you’d enjoy it.”

“Jury is still out,” she said kindly. No use in telling him how restless she felt. “I brought more casseroles. The healthy ones.”

“I like the unhealthy ones better.” He had laughing eyes and an easy smile, but she didn’t find this funny.

“No fat,” she said, and he sighed.

“Your medical records?” she asked, as she did every visit.

“I forgot. Next time,” he said as he did every visit.

After the initial pleasantries, they stood inside his cabin, him in his fishing vest, she in the doctor coat she’d forgotten to remove, staring awkwardly at each other.

She wondered, as she did every single day—why had she come?

Because for better or worse, they were all each other had. In spite of being all work and no play, that meant something to her.

He meant something to her.

They had nothing in common, nothing to talk about, and he didn’t have cable, but they were family.

That didn’t mean that they actually liked each other. Truthfully, he looked just as grateful as she felt when she left.

She sweated off another two pounds on the way back, and then stayed up late reading some medical journals and eating a mystery casserole from the freezer. It was one that had
looked like maybe it was too high in fat content for her father, and as she chewed she could feel her arteries clog up as she gained back her two pounds.

Damn, she needed something to do other than eat, but Wishful tended to roll up its collective sidewalks at sunset. The baby delivery today had been great, but that had been the only exciting thing to happen to her in days. Weeks.

Two months.

Already she was drowning in boredom again, as in head under, going down for the count, drowning.

She didn’t want to resent her father for this, she really didn’t. It wasn’t his fault he’d had a heart attack, that he needed help to keep this place going until he made a full recovery.

Or that they were all each other had left, which essentially meant he was as stuck with her as she was with him.

Nope, she didn’t blame him. She just wished things were different. Wished she could look at his records and make sure he was recouping okay, or if there was something—
anything
—she could do to expedite it.

She had far too much time to obsess over that. Too much time for everything, especially at night when she had nothing left to do except watch the one channel she got—which ran nothing but screwball romantic comedies.

Her mom would be pestering her to get the hell out. God, she missed that noisy, pushy, bossy woman with her whole heart. Sandy wouldn’t be happy to know Emma was here, not one little bit.

Emma wasn’t happy either.

But…but now that she knew how bad her dad was at the bookkeeping and billing, she was worried that he’d run out of money by year’s end if he didn’t make some changes.

She had ideas for those changes. He could be treating bigger cases, could be far more successful if he tried to compete with the South Shore clinics.

But Eddie Sinclair didn’t think like that. He was much more laid-back than she, preferring to just let things happen. Every time she’d tried to bring up business talk, he got an amused look on his face and told her everything would be fine if she remembered to keep breathing.

She
was
breathing, dammit, but his lackadaisical ways didn’t help. How he’d ever lived alone all these years was beyond her. He’d
chosen
to do so.
Chosen
to let her mom leave,
chosen
not to have joint custody, or any sort of visitation.

Old wounds, she reminded herself. She was over it. So over it. She got over things quickly, always had. Except usually she had something to occupy her mind, something like work.

At least Spencer was flying in for a few days. She was counting on her co-worker and closest friend to liven things up around there.

She set down her casserole and walked through her father’s place. It was familiar to her. It should be, she’d lived here for her first six years, and being here gave her an undeniable sense of nostalgia. Oddly enough, she remembered every nook and cranny of the three tiny bedrooms, two tinier bathrooms and postage stamp size living area and kitchen. She remembered her mom cooking in that kitchen…

She swallowed the sorrow that never seemed to go all the way down, and right there in the middle of the living room, she let it all wash over her.

Her mom had been born in New York. A city girl at heart, she’d fallen in love on a college science field trip in the Sierras with the brand new young doctor teaching the course.

Her father.

Blinded by nineteen-year-old love, Sandy had given up everything and moved across the country to be with him. They’d lived in wedded bliss until her first Sierra winter.

It’d hit hard.

The twenty feet of snow had been a rough shock, but going
weeks at a time with no contact with the outside world had slowly done her mom in. When a bear had broken into their kitchen and eaten the Junior’s Cheesecake she’d had shipped from Manhattan, she’d tossed up her hands, said, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done, Eddie”, and had packed herself and Emma up.

Eddie hadn’t tried to stop her.

Back in New York, Sandy had rented a one room flat, and though Emma knew now that money had been tight as Sandy worked sixty hour weeks nursing, Sandy had never once let on.

Emma wandered to the log mantle over the fireplace, and looked at the frames. There was one of herself as a newborn, another of her around five and missing her two front teeth. Then there was a glaring gap in the pictures because the next frame was of Emma at her college graduation, when her father had made an unscheduled appearance.

But the one that caught her by surprise, the one that grabbed her by the throat, was of her mom. She looked to be in her early twenties, and was smiling with easy whimsy into the camera. Emma reached for the frame, picking it up, running her finger over the glass as if she could touch her mom one more time. “I’m back,” she whispered. “Back in Wishful. Who’d have thought it, huh?”

Yes, well, make sure you check for spiders before you get into bed, darling. Those wolf spiders are everywhere.

Her mom’s soft, laughing voice echoed in Emma’s head, clear as a bell, making her laugh in shock. Clearly, she was far more tired than she thought. That, or she needed a mocha latte pretty damn bad.

She settled on sleep.

The next day, Stone took a group on a moonlight hike up Sierra Point. It’d been five days since his accident, and he felt
much better. Finally. After the hike, his guests, who were up from the Bay Area, requested he drop them off at a local bar, where they could drink the rest of the night away.

Though there wasn’t much left to it—it was nearly one in the morning—he dropped them off at Moody’s, then walked back out to his truck and faced an annoying dilemma.

A flat tire.

He pulled out the tools and changed it himself, somehow managing to kneel on a rusty nail, cutting open his knee in the process. Probably the same rusty nail that had wrecked his tire to begin with, and besides bleeding down his leg, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

As if he didn’t have enough injuries to deal with.

With a sigh, he went to the glove box for his first-aid kit, and found…nothing. “Goddammit, TJ.”

TJ was always too lazy to restock his own kit, far preferring to grab Stone’s. He looked down. He was bleeding like a stuck pig through the new hole in his favorite Levi’s. Shit. Maybe if he just cleaned it out really good, he’d be fine—which seemed to be the theme of his life lately.

Problem was, he didn’t want to die of tetanus. He could go the twenty minutes home to clean out the cut, or be at Doc’s in two.

In the old days, he’d have had no problem showing up on Doc’s doorstep in the middle of the night. Hell, Doc had given each of the Wilders a key, and there’d been many, many times when Stone had just let himself into the clinic, grabbed what he needed, gone on his merry way without waking Doc, who’d appreciated not having to get up.

Hoping the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, even while knowing it had, Stone put the truck into gear and drove to the clinic. It was locked up tighter than a drum, all lights off. Limping now, dammit, he knocked lightly on the door to be polite, then fished out his key and let himself in. He flipped
on the reception room light because if Emma woke up, he didn’t want to scare her. Doc had always kept the staff kitchen stocked up for the few times he had to use it as a third exam room. Stone limped across the room and flipped on that light as well, heading for the supply closet. He pulled out the hydrogen peroxide, some gauzes and—

“Hands where I can see them, asshole, or I’ll kick your balls into next week.”

He raised his hands in the air—slowly because he was still aching like crazy—and turned. Emma stood in the doorway in a pair of men’s boxers and a thin camisole, wielding a baseball bat like she knew how to use it. Her hair was loose and a bit wild, but her eyes were ice. She wore no make up, which he loved, and he really loved the bed head, but mostly his brain stuttered and came to a screeching halt on the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

He really, really loved that part. “Just me,” he said lightly. “And FYI, you can’t threaten a guy’s balls when he’s facing the other way.”

She didn’t lower her bat, not a single inch. “I can threaten them now.”

He resisted the urge to cover them. “Okay, let’s all just relax.”

“Relax? You broke in!”

She was looking and sounding very New York, and maybe he was sick, but he liked it.

A lot.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d meant for this to happen tonight. “I didn’t break in, I have a key. Your father gave it to me. I tend to have a lot of emergencies…” He flashed a smile. “And he liked his sleep.”

“You want me to believe that my father let you come and go through his medical supplies whenever you wanted?”

“As the situation required,” he corrected, trying another smile.

She still didn’t match it. She was scowling, actually, and that sharp gaze ran down his body, stopping on a dime at the hole in his jeans revealing the bloody knee. “You’re hurt.”

“Just a little. I want to clean it out and—”

“Let me guess. Get a Band-Aid.” With a sigh, she finally lowered the baseball bat and jabbed it toward a chair. “Sit.”

Instead he pulled himself up on the counter and eyed the bat as she set it down. “You actually ever use that thing?”

“Didn’t I just threaten to kick your ass?” She smiled grimly. “Trust me, I could have done it.”

Maybe. Only because he’d been too busy dropping his jaw to the floor to protect himself. Holy shit, the woman had been hiding a smoking hot bod; full breasts with nipples that were pressing up against the material of her cami, a sweet set of hips and a strip of bared belly, revealed by the boxer shorts she’d rolled over several times to adjust to her frame.

She moved past him, picked up one of the doctor’s coats hanging on a rack and slipped into it. Damn.

“Sorry,” she said at his expression. “Only invited midnight callers get to see me in my pj’s.”

“Can I get an invite?”

Her laugh told him no way in hell was he getting an invite, but he smiled anyway. “You look pretty when you laugh.”

She was still smiling when she came close and bent, peering at his knee. “No stitches this time.”

“Good.”

She straightened and eyed the cut over his eye. “And that looks to be healing. I thought maybe you’d need some antibiotics, but you don’t.
But
.”

Ah, hell.

“You need a tetanus shot. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.” He felt his vision go a little fuzzy. Jesus, he was fucking pathetic.

“You going to pass out on me?”

“Not if you take your coat off again.”

“Nice try.” She was preparing the tetanus shot, and he was sweating and feeling sick when she glanced over at him. She shook her head and sighed. “Unbelievable.”

“I know.” He swiped his brow. “I—”

“Not you. Me. I can’t believe I’m going to do this for you, but…” She let the coat hit the floor. “Consider it a present, from me to you.”

It was a great present. She had great legs, long and toned. Great arms, too. But his gaze dropped to her breasts as she came to a stop at his hip, shoved up the sleeve of his shirt and swiped his skin with an antiseptic gauze. Her skin was smooth and creamy, and his mouth watered. She smelled amazing, too, like—“Ouch!”