Obsession (Southern Comfort) (7 page)

A silver gift bag, stuffed with white, star-studded tissue, sat inside.

Cautiously, feeling absurdly like a man sticking his head into the open mouth of a crocodile, he lifted the bag
and rifled through the tissue to reveal the contents.

A book.  Shoulders sagging – although why he was relieved, he could not say. The fact that the truck had been locked remained the same – Justin snatched the hardback out and examined the cover. 

Dean Koontz.  His favorite author.

Anger rippled through him, surprising him with its intensity.
He’d always been the calm one, the cool head which prevailed whenever his brothers were trying to pound each other into pulp or when there was a crisis in the operating room.  It’s why he’d elected trauma as a specialty.

But he was seething now.

What the hell did Mandy think she was doing?  Trying to woo him back by, what, leaving him these anonymous gifts? Was she aiming to create the sort of mystery thriller he liked to read?  Some mystery. Who else knew his reading tastes, knew that there was an informal hospital business meeting tonight
and
had had enough access to his keys at one point to make a copy of the one for his truck.

Torn between
low-grade fury and disgust, Justin crumpled the tissue paper before tossing it and the book onto the seat.  He and Mandy were going to have a discussion tomorrow.  A brief, to-the-point discussion in which he made himself clear about a few things.  Of course, he’d thought he’d made himself clear when he’d said:
I’m sorry, but this isn’t working for me and I don’t want to see you anymore.
But apparently there had been room in Mandy’s mind for some doubt. 

T
he truck started with a comforting rumble, and Justin pulled out of the lot, letting up the pressure on the gas pedal when the tires started to spit gravel.  He took a few deep breaths to get his rare show of temper under control.

He turned the wheel,
causing the book to slide across the bench seat and hit him in the thigh. Justin glanced down, the glow from the street lamp flickering through the windshield. It was only then that the title registered.

It was a copy of Koontz’s
The Husband.

CHAPTER SIX

JUSTIN
clutched the potted plant – some kind of brightly colored daisy wrapped in even brighter foil – in one hand as he pushed the button for the elevator with the other.  He felt a little silly. Not that flowers were an unusual sight around here, obviously.  There were two flower shops within a block of the hospital grounds, not to mention the big cooler stuffed full of blooms in the gift shop.  But as a physician, he didn’t often – ever – give flowers to his patients. Not that this girl was a patient of his. She’d been under someone else’s care since she’d been brought in.  But given the… uniqueness of their doctor/patient relationship – she’d been his first field experience, after all – Justin didn’t think that this was outside the bounds of propriety.

And besides, he liked the girl. 
Natasha. The waitress.  He’d gotten into the habit of popping in to see her almost daily over the past couple of weeks, and he admired her spunk.  She was funny and sarcastic and tough.  She was a good kid.  And she was going home today.

The elevator dinged and Justin stepped inside as the doors slid open.

And his emotions shifted from silly to grim.

“Mandy.”

Her face lit up in a beatific smile.  “Hi.”  She straightened up from her slouch in the corner, and nodded at the gaily colored plant.  “Aw, aren’t you sweet.  You shouldn’t have.”

She reached for the pot and though he knew she was kidding – probably kidding – he
yanked it away.  The temper he’d thought to have completely under control began to quietly simmer. He punched a button and as the elevator began its ascent again, he did his best to keep the desire to wring her pretty little neck out of his voice.  “We have to talk.”

He’d planned to track her down later.  But this opportunity worked out well enough.

“Okay.”  With a puzzled look – Justin guessed his tone wasn’t quite as neutral as he’d hoped – she slid her hands into the pockets of her cartoon character-printed scrubs.

“I want the keys,” he said clearly.  “And I want you to stop.  It’s not going to work. You’re embarrassing yourself and you’re angering me.  It’s over.”

Her pink-painted lips formed a surprised “O” just before indignation puckered her brow.  “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The ornament?” he reminded her caustically.  “The book? And those things on their own would have been… inappropriate enough, but letting yourself into my truck borders on criminal, Mandy.  Or creepy at the very least.  Either way, this ends.  Now.”

The elevator dinged, signaling they’d arrived at Mandy’s floor, and she glared up at him, quivering with rage.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  The words strained between her clenched teeth.  “But you can rest assured that if I ever had any thoughts concerning the rekindling of our relationship
, I
certainly
don’t have them now.  Get out of my way.”

Justin stepped aside and she gave him a wide berth, the heat of her anger practically sing
eing him as she stormed past.  

Justin sighed.

He really had a way with women.

KATHLEEN
fingered the straps of the black lace bra which lay folded in front of her, before raising her gaze across the display table. 

“Shouldn’t you be…” she made a
vague gesture with her hand “buying, I don’t know, sturdy cotton maternity garments or something?”

Sadie looked up from where she’d been delightedly studying something hot pink and slinky.  “Are you kidding me?” She turned her hands inward to indi
cate her expanding breasts, the only visible sign of her pregnancy.  “Do you see these things? 
Boobs,
Kathleen. I have lingerie-worthy cleavage for the first time in my life, and you’re insane if you don’t think I’m going to capitalize on this opportunity.”

Kathleen tried not to let her lips pucker with distaste.  The thought that it was her brother –
ew
,
ick
– who’d be enjoying the benefits of this capitalization was sometimes difficult to block from her mental imagery.  Especially considering she’d walked in on the two of them once, in the early stages of their relationship.  Post coitus, thank God, and completely accidentally.

But still.

Not that she wasn’t thrilled.  Sadie and Declan, odd as it may seem, were unbelievably well-matched and seemingly very happy.  But that didn’t mean she enjoyed picturing them together, physically, in any way.

“I’m going to go look at the sleepwear,” Kathleen said, pointing in the direction of the racks of nightgowns and
pajama sets against one wall.

Sadie frowned in that direction and then opened her mouth, clearly wanting to mak
e a snide remark about the sex appeal of flannel. But then she appeared to change her mind.  “Okay,” she said instead.

Kathleen stared at the top of her friend’s blonde head.

Without looking back up, Sadie waved her hand in the traditional nonverbal signal to get lost.

Kathleen wandered toward the flannel.  It wasn’t that she couldn’t appreciate a nice negligee.  She could.  In fact, she had one in her underwear drawer.  Somewhere.
 

But she’d felt like a fraud the few times she’d
put it on.

It was just that she’d always been a tomboy.  Whether her brothers were climbing trees or making mud pies or tossing a football
or playing pranks on the much girlier Maureen, she’d been right in the testosterone-laden mix.  Other than Sadie – who’d grown up next door and been a remarkably good sport despite definite inclinations toward girliness in certain areas – Kathleen found that she just didn’t relate that well to most women.  She found them to be catty far too frequently, and a little on the vapid side more often than not.  Men were more straightforward.  Easier.

Most of the time, anyway.

Which made it even more frustrating that she had this ridiculous mental block about contacting Justin.  She’d started to several times last night. Tony had left after the movie to catch up on some paperwork, and she’d just been kicking back in her apartment, reading a book.  The perfect opportunity to call Justin, tease him a little about the Christmas party by saying she had no idea he couldn’t hold his eggnog or calling him Doctor Hot Lips.  Any of the things that she would normally have done if it had been someone else he’d been kissing.  Set their relationship back on its familiar course.

Kathleen picked up a pajama set without really seeing it. 

So why hadn’t she called him?  And why had her stomach and her lungs attempted to perform Vital Organ Origami every time she’d put her hand on the phone?

“Oof.”

Kathleen was pulled from her reverie when she crashed into something, hard.

“Oh hell.  I’m sorry,” she said to the brown-haired woman she’d just mown down, causing her to spill her newly acquired lingerie purchases all over the floor.

“No, no. It’s okay.” The woman bent down to start shoving lacy undergarments back into the pink-striped shopping bag.  “It was my fault, really.  I’m in a hurry and wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“I’m sure that’s more gracious than I deserve,” Kathleen said, squatting down to help.  “It was probably my
land pontoons that tripped you up.”

The woman looked confused until Kathleen gestured to her boots.  Being tall, her feet were
slender, but not exactly petite.

“Oh.” The woman
smiled, her brown eyes crinkling as she returned her attention to the scattered lingerie.  “Well, I can relate.”

She gestured to her own foot, which looked to be about the same size as Kathleen’s, or maybe even a little bigger. 
Something about her struck Kathleen as familiar.

“Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so.”  The woman shook her head, flipping her sleek brown hair out of her face.  “Um…” she nodded toward the item still clutched in Kathleen’s hand.

“Right.” Kathleen looked down at the… what the hell was this thing, anyway?  Some kind of
bright blue, fluttery, lacy thing that escaped immediate identification “Sorry.”  She thrust the whatever it was into the woman’s bag.

“No problem.  Thanks for the help.”

A faint pink blush tinged her cheeks as she hustled out the door of the boutique.  Kathleen shook her head, musing that you really never knew what went on beneath someone’s conservative business suit until you knocked over their bag of kinky underthings.

“That’s a new look for you.”

“What?” Kathleen turned to find Sadie, clutching her own bulging pink bag, peering with interest at the pajama set Kathleen still held in her hand.

Kathleen looked down, realizing that she’d picked up something from the sale rack, a leftover Christmas set that said: “Santa’s jolly because he knows where all the naughty girls live.”

Good lord.

“The pants are extra
-long,” she sniffed, having no idea whether or not that was true. “You know what a hard time I have finding things to fit my legs.  And besides, it’s on sale.”

With that, she headed toward the counter, Sadie’s chuckle
ringing like impish sleigh bells in her ears.

JUSTIN
heard the boisterous voices through the partially closed door, and hesitated outside Natasha’s room. He’d already taken a few minutes to drain the dregs of his temper, but he wasn’t sure he was up to dealing with a crowd. He clutched the plant, second guessing the instinct which had inspired him to purchase the gift in the first place.  To hell with it.  He’d already bought the thing and he was standing right here.  Besides what was he going to do with it?  Take it home?  He might have a medical degree, but he did not possess a green thumb.  Left with him the poor daisy would be, well, pushing up daisies, so to speak, within a week.

He rapped gently on the door.

“Come in!”

Justin cautiously edged inside, bracing himself for the inevitable when he saw who
Natasha’s guests were.  He nodded at Shelley and Hannah, two of Natasha’s coworkers from Jugs, who both greeted him with enthusiasm, not to mention the bold wink he’d come to expect from Shelley.  Over the past couple weeks she’d made no secret of her “mad crush.”  He then turned to address Natasha, who was sitting cross-legged and fully dressed in jeans, boots and a sweater, on the bed. She was a little pale still, and certainly leaner, but on the whole she looked remarkably well considering what she’d been through.

His mouth snapped close
d as he noticed her hair.

“You like it, Doctor Wellington?” She reached up to run her hand over the bright blue streaks emanating from each temple.  “
Shelley brought some stuff over and helped me color it in the bathroom. God knows I needed some color somewhere.”