The Homecoming (23 page)

“What?” she asked as he turned her toward him.

“We forgot something.”

His eyes, in the spreading circle of light from the porch, turned from their usual electric blue to the color of a storm-tossed sea.

“What?” she asked again.

He cupped the fingers of his free hand under her chin. “This.”

Before she could utter a single word of protest, he’d pulled her into his arms.

Kara reeled from the raw hunger of Sax’s lips as he crushed his mouth to hers. Despite last night’s hot dream, where he’d kissed her exactly like this, again and again, all over, she couldn’t have imagined the tempest that suddenly swirled around them in the moist, salt-tinged air.

Unlike on that long-ago night, he wasn’t gentle. But as he fed her hard, passionate, openmouthed kisses, Kara didn’t want gentleness. There was an aggression in his kiss, a harshness that might have frightened her had her own needs not been equally as powerful. And as urgent.

If sin had a taste, oh, God, it would taste exactly like Sax Douchett! Hot, hungry, and dangerously male. The man tasted so good she could eat him up even as he devoured her. She twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back, hard, tongues tangling, matching his greed.

She was sandwiched between the hard metal door of her cruiser and the wall of his body. Her breasts, crushed against his chest, ached. Wanting, needing more, she wrapped her left leg around his, pressing her hips against his erection.

His strong hands grabbed her butt, not gently, lifting her up, grinding his pelvis against hers. One of them—it could have been either him or her, or maybe both—moaned.

Just when she feared they were on the verge of combustion, the same way he’d done so many years ago, he suddenly backed away, breaking the exquisitely painful contact and leaving her reeling.

She sagged a little against the cruiser. Stared up at him.

“For the record,” he said roughly, “unlike the first one, that wasn’t any damn pity kiss.”

That said, he opened the door of the black-and-white and waited while she unclipped her keys from her utility belt, climbed into the driver’s seat, and struggled to make her numbed fingers fasten the seat belt.

“Drive safely.”

“I’m a cop. I’ve taken tactical and high-speed driving courses. I know how to operate a vehicle.”

“Not saying you don’t.” He stood up again, shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I’ll bet you’re a dynamo behind the wheel. But the roads out here are narrow, winding, without any shoulders, and accidents can happen to the best of us. And since friends care about friends, I care about you.”

That was perfectly reasonable, Kara told herself as she drove back into town to her mother’s home.

But was it enough?

Deciding that she’d worry about what to do about Sax later, when she had time to absorb this new twist to her life, she turned her mind instead to a more immediate problem—the need to talk with her son about what had happened that day she’d almost lost her life.

She now realized she’d made a mistake by trying to keep it from him. Because, as bad as what had happened might be, she feared his imagination was making it worse.

When he’d been younger, he’d loved the children’s classic
Where the Wild Things Are
, begging her to read it again and again every night before bed. And just last fall she’d taken him to see the movie about the little boy who, after a fight with his mother, ran away to the land of wild things, who proclaimed him their king.

Unfortunately, he’d learned at too young an age that in real life, wild things could be just as unpredictable, but far more dangerous than their fictional counterparts.

Faith was tired. Not just the usual long-day-topped-off-by-emergency-surgery tired. But fatigued with a weariness that went all the way to the bone.

She’d been feeling this way for months, even before Ben had been killed, which was why she couldn’t merely blame her depression on having been widowed.

Realizing that the old adage about a lawyer representing himself was applicable to doctors, as well, she’d also had a full physical with her own internist, who’d ruled out clinical depression, and any physical reasons for what she could only describe as malaise.

And, although she hated to admit it, dammit, boredom.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love her work. She did. And just when cutting open a brain might seem to have become routine, she’d catch a rare case like Danny Sullivan’s, and that old adrenaline burst she’d first experienced as an intern on neurological rotation would kick in.

But like all adrenaline bursts, while exciting at the time, it only left her feeling even more drained.

She’d also discovered that she disliked the paperwork involved with serving as the hospital’s administrator. Soon after Shelter Bay Memorial Hospital had been bought by a health provider with several other medical facilities under its corporate umbrella, she’d been surprised to be offered the job by the company’s CEO.

She had, of course, gone home and discussed the offer with Ben. Although, until his dying day, he continued to believe he’d done the right thing for his family by moving from Portland to the slower-paced existence of Shelter Bay, and while she hadn’t hesitated when he’d suggested the idea, there’d been times over the years when he’d expressed regrets about the professional sacrifice she’d been forced to make.

Despite having always assured him, whenever the subject came up, that she was perfectly happy with how her life had turned out, Faith secretly missed the excitement working in a city hospital provided. So she’d accepted the job, hoping that it would provide a career challenge she’d been missing.

Instead, she’d found herself drowning in meetings and reports, many of which seemed unnecessary, others downright trivial.

Not that her job was trivial. Just the opposite. After all, the majority of U.S. health care was provided by small community hospitals like Shelter Bay’s, rather than large, academically affiliated tertiary-care centers such as OHSU.

But while all medical care facilities faced the same difficulties with financial pressures, increasing regulation, public reporting, and increasingly complicated health care for an aging population, the impact of those problems was magnified in smaller hospitals. The same way waves were more likely to capsize rowboats than ocean freighters.

She’d gone into medicine to fix people. To make them better. Which she liked to believe she’d done way more often than not. And those times when a patient would show up with brain cancer or an inoperable tumor, she liked to believe she’d helped make their inevitable passing a little easier.

Although she’d never adopted the God complex so many of her peers seemed to wear like a second skin, having worked with a range of administrators over the years—some good, some bad, and some downright ugly—she’d possessed what she now realized was an admittedly exaggerated Superwoman vision of what type of administrator she’d be if she ever received the opportunity to be in that position.

She would be understanding. Kind. Honest, forthright, and ethical. Her obligation would be to both the hospital staff and patients, and most of all, she’d be fair to all.

It had taken her less than one week to discover that in this new position, her true work would no longer revolve around patient care. That she’d be single- handedly responsible for ensuring there was enough operating capital for proper health care, equipment, and employee payroll.

She’d once spent several weeks on an OB/GYN internship in a Sister of Mercy hospital, and when she’d complained about how much time was being wasted diligently documenting every billable item down to the last aspirin, the nun who was CEO of the hospital had succinctly explained, “No money, no mission.”

What Faith hadn’t understood was that as much as she might try to play the role of a benevolent leader, issues of loyalty and fairness came up on an almost daily basis. An act of generosity to one was, especially in this self-centered culture, inevitably seen as depriving someone else. Even a proposed solution to modernize and streamline the cafeteria kitchen had been met with union opposition because it risked putting some employees out of work.

Faith understood that the need to protect one’s own situation was merely human nature, but over the past few months she’d come to the conclusion that even Wonder Woman—were she to ever find herself in Faith’s position—would become discouraged.

There were times when she felt that if she heard, “It’s not fair,” one more time, she’d scream. Then throw herself off the top of the Shelter Bay Bridge.

“What’s wrong?”

The male voice shattered her introspection and she glanced over to see John, looking about as haggard and exhausted as she felt, standing in the doorway leading to his hotel suite bedroom.

He’d argued that he wanted to spend the night in the ICU with Danny, which hadn’t been allowed. Faith could have possibly found an empty room for him to bunk out in for a few hours, but she’d felt he needed time and space to decompress and unwind. Which was why she’d talked him into letting her book them a two-bedroom suite at the hotel closest to the hospital campus.

He had, naturally, insisted on paying not just his share, but the entire amount. Understanding male pride, and also realizing that he wanted, in some personal way, to pay her back for taking care of her nephew, she hadn’t argued.

Nor had she protested when he’d stopped in the lobby store on the way to the elevator and bought a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. She figured they could both use a drink after what they’d been through.

“Nothing.” She managed a smile. “I was just talking to myself.”

“I thought maybe you had a call from the hospital.”

“We’ve only been gone ten minutes.”

“Yeah. But stuff happens.”

Indeed.

“If I didn’t think Daniel would be fine, I wouldn’t have dragged you away,” she assured him. Then she picked up her purse and gestured toward the bottle of Cloudline pinot noir still on the table. “Why don’t you open that while I go freshen up?”

Each bedroom had its own bathroom, and Faith had to bite back a groan as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Although she’d loved her husband beyond description, when John had been walking toward her across the hospital cafeteria, for a fleeting moment her heart had taken a little leap and she’d felt exactly like a teenage girl again.

Unfortunately, the makeup she’d applied before going to work had long ago melted away. She also had flat surgical-cap hair, and the dark shadows beneath her eyes betrayed both age and exhaustion.

She dabbed concealer over the bruiselike shadows, a bit of peach blush to add some much-needed color to her cheeks, touched up the shine on her nose, and brightened her lips with a subtle, nude-tone lipstick that hopefully wouldn’t have John realizing that she’d spiffed up solely for him.

“And once again the teenage girl rears her insecure head,” she muttered, trying to finger- fluff some body back into her hair.

He’d opened the wine and had poured two glasses when she’d returned to the living room.

“Thank you,” she said as politely as if she’d been having tea with the queen of England. Or the First Lady.

Would he think she wanted him to sit next to her if she sat on the sofa? Or if she chose the chair, would he feel she was seeking distance to warn him away? Uncharacteristically indecisive, after accepting the glass he held out to her she wandered over to the window.

“We lucked out with the view. Last time I stayed here, my room looked down on the highway.”

And wasn’t that sparkling opening repartee?
Next you can dazzle him with an update on tomorrow’s weather forecast.

“Yeah.” He came over to stand beside her. “It is nice.”

She’d never noticed before how large he was. Not fat. He was remarkably fit for a man of his age, and as a physician, she’d seen a lot of men. But unlike Ben, who’d been tall and lanky, John O’Roarke was tall, and well . . . substantial. He towered over her in a way that could have been intimidating, had he not possessed such a kind and gentle soul.

They stood there in a silence that managed to be charged, yet still oddly comfortable at the same time, sipping their wine, looking out at the river.

After a while, he slanted her a sideways glance. “You look tired.”

So much for the hoped-for cosmetic fix. “It’s been a long day. I’m not as young as I used to be. I guess I don’t bounce back as fast as I used to.”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” That he’d picked up on that feminine pique she’d been appalled to hear in her voice reminded Faith that he was, after all, a trained investigator. And expert at catching nuances and listening as much to what people
didn’t
say as what they
did
.

He touched his palm to the side of her face, turning her head toward him. Then skimmed a calloused finger beneath her eye. Although she knew it was physically impossible, she felt as if he’d touched one of those sparklers the kids had been waving around at the park during the fireworks to her skin.

“You look tired,” he repeated. “But beautiful. You’ve never looked anything but beautiful to me.”

“I’ve never been as dramatic-looking as Gloria.” His wife had been a striking brunette who’d always made Faith feel washed-out by comparison.

“Glory was dramatic. Both in looks and temperament.” He smiled, as if to himself, at some memory. “See this?” He touched the finger that had created such warmth to a thin white line at his temple.

“It’s a scar.”

“From a coffee cup she threw at me our first year of marriage.” The smile reached eyes that were as tired-looking as her own. “Woman had a temper that could blow like Mount Saint Helens. And a pitching arm like Sandy Koufax. But she was just as quick to make up.”