Holding the Dream

  "Did you ever punch Candy in her sassy nose?"

  "It's not her nose. She had rhinoplasty." Kate snacked on a strip of pepper. "And no, but we did stuff her naked into a locker. Twice."

  "Not bad, but that's girl stuff. Me, I just beat the hell out of Curt, salvaged masculine pride while earning the appropriate macho rep. And I could produce a chocolate souffle to die for."

  When she laughed, he paused and turned to face her. "Do that again." When she didn't respond, he shook his head. "You really ought to laugh more, Katherine. It's a fascinating sound. Surprisingly full and rich. Like something you'd expect to hear floating out of the window of a New Orleans brothel."

  "I'm sure that's a compliment." She lifted her water glass again, made herself keep her eyes level with his. "But I rarely laugh on an empty stomach."

  "We'll fix that." He tossed minced garlic into the hot oil. The scent was immediate and wonderful. The onion went in next, and she began to salivate.

  He pried the lid off a covered bowl, slid shelled shrimp and scallops into the pan. She thought it was a bit like watching a mad scientist at work. A glug of white wine, a pinch of salt, a slight grating of what he told her was ginger. Quick stirs and shakes to mix all those pretty strips of vegetables.

  In less time than it might have taken her to peruse a menu, she was sitting down to a full plate.

  "It's good," she said after her first bite. "It's really good. Why aren't you in food services?"

  "Cooking's a hobby."

  "Like conversation and old cars."

  "Vintage cars." It pleased him to see her eat. He'd decided on the menu because he'd wanted to get something healthy into her. He imagined her snatching junk food when she remembered to eat at all, snacking on antacids. No wonder she was too thin. "I could teach you."

  "Teach me what?"

  "To cook."

  She speared a shrimp. "I didn't say I couldn't cook."

  "Can you?"

  "No, but I didn't say I couldn't. And I don't need to as long as there's takeout and microwave ovens."

  Because she'd refused his offer of wine, he stuck with water himself. "I bet there's a place reserved for you at McDonald's drive-through window."

  "So? It's quick, it's easy, and it's filling."

  "Nothing wrong with the occasional french fry, but when it's a dietary staple—"

  "Don't start with me, Byron. This is why I'm here in the first place." Remembering her plan, she got down to business. "I don't like people, particularly people I barely know, interfering in my life."

  "We have to get to know each other better."

  "No, we don't." It was weird, she realized, how easily she'd become distracted, and interested, and at ease. Time had slipped by when all she'd meant to do was give him the sharpest edge of one piece of her mind. "Your intentions might have been good, but you had no business going to Josh."

  "Your eyes are fabulous," he said and watched them narrow with suspicion. "I don't know if it's because they're so big, so dark, or because your face is narrow, but they really pack a punch."

  "Is that one of your reserved lines?"

  "No, it's an observation. I happen to be looking at your face, and it occurs to me that it has all these contrasts. The snooty New England cheekbones, the wide, sexy mouth, angular nose, the big, doe eyes. It shouldn't work, but it does. It works better when you're not pale and tired, but that adds a rather disconcerting fragile quality."

  She shifted. "I'm not fragile. I'm not tired. And my face has nothing to do with the subject under discussion."

  "But I like it. I liked it right away, even when I didn't like you. Now I wonder, Kate," he continued, laying a hand over hers, twining fingers. "Why did you put so much effort into making sure I didn't look twice in your direction?"

  "I didn't have to put any effort into that. I'm not your type any more than you're mine."

  "No, you're not," he agreed. "Still, I occasionally enjoy sampling something… different."

  "I'm not a new recipe." She pulled her hand free, pushed her plate aside. "And I came here to have, as you termed it, a civilized discussion."

  "This seems civilized to me."

  "Don't pull out that reasonable tone." She had to squeeze her eyes shut and count to ten. She made it to five. "I hate that reasonable tone. I agreed to go to dinner with you so that I could make myself clear, so that I could do so without losing my temper the way I did earlier today."

  For emphasis, she leaned forward a little, was distracted by discovering that there was a thin gold halo around his pupils. "I don't want you meddling in my life. I don't know how to make it any more plain than that."

  "That's plain." Since they seemed to have finished the meal, he picked up the plates and carried them to the counter. Sitting again, he took a cigar from his pocket, lit it. "But there's a problem. I've developed an interest in you."

  "Yeah, right."

  "You find that difficult to believe?" He puffed out smoke, considered. "So did I initially. Then I realized what kicked it off. I'm driven to solve problems and puzzles. Answers and solutions are essential to me. Do you want coffee?"

  "No, I don't want coffee." Didn't he know it drove her crazy the way he could slide from one topic to the next in that slow, southern drawl of his. Of course he did. "And I'm not a problem or a puzzle."

  "But you are. Look at you, Kate. You white-knuckle your way through life." He reached out, deliberately uncurled her fist. "I can almost see whatever fuel you bother to put inside you being sucked away by nerves. You have a loving family, a solid base, an excellent mind, but you pick at details as if they were knotted threads. You never consider just snipping one off. Yet when you're faced with the injustice, the insult of being fired from a job that was a huge part of your life, you sit back and do nothing."

  It grated and hurt and shamed. And because she couldn't explain to him, or to those who cared for her, it festered. "I'm doing what works for me. And I didn't come here for an analysis."

  "I haven't finished," he said mildly. "You're afraid to be vulnerable, even ashamed of it. You're a practical woman, yet you're aware you're physically run-down and you're doing nothing about that either. You're an honest woman, but you're putting all of your energy into denying there might be even a mild hint of attraction between us. So you interest me." He took a last drag on his cigar, tamped it out. "The puzzle of you interests me."

  She got to her feet slowly to prove to both of them she was still in control. "I realize it might be difficult—no, next to impossible—for you to realize that I'm not interested in you. I'm not vulnerable, I'm not ill, and I'm not even mildly attracted."

  "Well." He unfolded himself and rose. "We can put at least one of those statements to the test." His eyes stayed watchful on hers as he cupped a hand behind her neck. "Unless you're afraid you're wrong."

  "I'm not wrong. And I don't want—"

  He decided it was simpler not to let her finish. The woman could argue with the dead. He covered her mouth with his quietly, with barely a whisper of pressure and promise. When her hands jerked up to his chest, he scooped an arm around her waist and brought her gently closer.

  For his own pleasure, he skimmed his tongue over her lips, then dipped inside when they parted. He thought, foolishly, that he could hear a new window to a new paradise begin to creak open.

  Then she trembled, and he forgot to be amused at both of them. When he eased back he saw that she was still pale, her eyes dark and clouded. Testing, he pressed light kisses on either side of her mouth and watched her lashes flutter.

  "I don't—I can't—God." The hand pressed against his chest balled into a fist. "I don't have the time or the inclination for this."

  "Why?"

  Because her head was spinning, her pulse was pounding, and her juices were running in a way they hadn't in—ever. "You're not my type."

  That clever mouth curved. "You're not mine either. Go figure."

  "Men who look like you are always scum." She knew bette
r, absolutely knew better, but she couldn't stop her hands from streaking up his chest and grabbing all that wonderful gold-tipped hair. "It's like the law."

  His lips curved. "Whose law?"

  She could have had a snappy comeback for that, if she'd just been able to concentrate. "Oh, the hell with it," she muttered and dragged his mouth back to hers.

  Nerves and needs seemed to pulse from her in fast, greedy waves. He couldn't stand against them, could barely stand at all once her mouth started its assault. He should have known she wouldn't believe in the slow and the gradual, or the easy sweetness of a lazy seduction. But he hadn't considered that the fire-drenched demands of that mobile mouth would undermine his innate sense of reason.

  In the space of a heartbeat he went from enjoying her to devouring her.

  His arms banded around her, forgot about her long, fragile bones and soft, spare flesh. He used his teeth because that mouth, that wide, sultry mouth seemed to have been made for him to ravish. The scent of soap was absurdly sexy. He could almost taste it as he ran hot, wild kisses down her throat.

  "It's only because I haven't had sex in so long." She gasped out the rationale even as her eyes crossed.

  "Okay. Whatever." He curled his hands around her tiny, tight butt and muffled a moan against her throat.

  "A year," she managed. "Okay, it's been nearly two, but after the first few months you hardly… Jesus, touch me. I'm going to scream if you don't touch me."

  Where? He nearly panicked. He was unable to tell one part of her from another. He was steeped in all of her. Instinct had him tugging her crisp white shirt out of the waistband of her skirt, fumbling with buttons.

  "Upstairs." He swore ripely as the buttons refused to yield. He didn't have enough sanity left to be appalled at how his fingers shook. "We should go upstairs. I've got a bed."

  Desperate, she grabbed his hand and pressed it to her breast herself. "You've got a floor right here."

  He managed a laugh. "I'm beginning to love practical women."

  "You haven't seen anything—" Then it hit her. The first wave of pain was followed so swiftly by a second she barely managed a choked gasp.

  "What? What is it? Did I hurt you?"

  "No, it's nothing." He was trying to straighten her up as she doubled over. "It's just a twinge. It's—" But the burning was spreading like wildfire, and the fear burst through with it as she felt her skin break out in a cold, clammy sweat. "Just give me a minute." Blindly she reached out for something to balance her and would have fallen if he hadn't scooped her up.

  "The hell with this." The words exploded between gritted teeth. "The hell with it. I'm taking you to the hospital."

  "No. Stop it." Desperate for relief, she hooked an arm under her breasts and pressed. "Just take me home."

  "In a pig's eye." Like a warrior hoisting his conquest, he carried her out of the house. "Save your breath and yell at me later. Right now you're doing what you're told."

  "I said take me home." She didn't bother to fight him when he strapped her into the car. All of her energy had to focus on dealing with the pain.

  He backed out of the drive, saying nothing as she tore Tums out of the roll habitually in her pocket. Instead, he snatched up the car phone and punched in a number. "Mom." He drove fast, whipping the car around curves, and interrupted his mother's apology for not returning his call. "It's okay. Listen, I've got a friend, a woman, five sevenish, maybe a hundred and five pounds, mid-twenties." He swore lightly, cradling the phone on his shoulder as he shifted gears. "It's not that," he said at the inevitable chuckle. "I'm taking her to the hospital right now. She's got abdominal pain. It seems to be habitual."

  "It's just stress," Kate managed between shallow breaths. "And your lousy cooking."

  "Yes, that's her. She can talk, and she's lucid. I don't know." He glanced briefly at Kate. "Any abdominal surgery, Kate?"

  "No. Don't talk to me."

  "Yeah, I'd say she lives with a lot of stress, brings most of it on herself. We'd eaten about forty-five, fifty minutes before," he said in response to his mother's brisk questions. "No, no alcohol, no caffeine. But she lives on goddamn coffee and eats Tums like chocolate drops. Yeah? Is there a burning sensation?" he demanded of Kate.

  "It's just indigestion," she muttered. The pain was backing off. Wasn't it? Please, wasn't it?

  "Yes." He listened again, nodded. He was grimly aware of where his mother's questions were heading. "How often do you get that gnawing ache, under the breastbone?''

  "None of your business."

  "You don't want to piss me off right now, Kate. You really don't. How often?"

  "A lot. So what? You're not taking me to any hospital."

  "And the grinding in the stomach?"

  Because he was describing her symptoms with pinpoint accuracy, she closed her eyes and ignored him.

  He spoke to his mother another moment, punched up the gas. "Thanks, that's what I figured. I'm going to take care of it. Yeah, I'll let you know. I will. 'Bye." He hung up, kept his eyes firmly on the road. "Congratulations, you idiot. You've got yourself a nice little ulcer."

  Chapter Eight

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  No way did she have an ulcer. Kate comforted herself with that thought, and the image of how foolish Byron was going to look for rushing her to the hospital with a case of nervous heartburn.

  Ulcers were for repressed wimps who didn't know how to express their emotions, who were afraid to face what was inside them. Kate figured she expressed her emotions just fine, and at every opportunity.

  She was simply dealing with more stress than usual. Who wouldn't have a jittery stomach after the two months she'd just had? But she was handling it, she told herself, shutting her eyes tight against the incessant burning pressure. She was handling it her way.

  The minute Byron stopped the car, she would explain yet again, calmly, that Kate Powell took care of Kate Powell.

  She would have, too. If she could have caught her breath. But he jerked to a halt in front of the emergency room, slammed out of the car, and plucked her out of her seat before she could so much as squeak.

  Then it was worse, because she was inside, with all the sounds and scents of a hospital. Emergency rooms were all the same, everywhere. The air inside was thick with despair and fear and fresh blood. Antiseptics, alcohol, sweat. The slap of crepe-soled shoes and the whisper of wheels on linoleum. It paralyzed her. It was all she could do to keep herself from curling into a ball in the hard plastic chair where he'd dumped her.

  "Stay," he ordered curtly before marching over to the admitting nurse.

  She didn't even hear him.

  Flashes of memory assaulted her. She could hear the high, desperate scream of sirens, see the red lights pulsing and spinning. She was eight years old again, and the dull throb deep inside her ached like a wound. And blood—she could smell it.

  Not hers. Or very little of her blood. She'd barely had a scratch. Contusions, they had called them. Minor lacerations. A mild concussion. Nothing life-threatening. Nothing life-altering.

  But they had wheeled her parents away, even while she'd screamed for her mother. And they had never come back.

  "It's your lucky night," Byron said when he came back to her. "Not much going on. They're going to take a look at you now."

  "I can't be here," she murmured. "I can't be in a hospital."

  "That's the breaks, kid. This is where the doctors are." He lifted her to her feet, surprised when she went along like an obedient puppy. He passed her off to a nurse, then settled down to wait.

  Kate told herself the more she cooperated, the quicker they would let her go. And they had to let her go. She wasn't a child now who had no choice. She stepped into the narrow examining area, shuddering once at the sound of the curtain being drawn closed behind her.

  "Let's see what we've got here."

  The doctor on duty was young and pretty. A round face, narrow eyes behind wire-framed glasses, dark hair scooped back at the si
de with simple bobby pins;

  It had been a man before, Kate remembered. He'd been young, too, but his eyes had been exhausted and old. Mechanically, Kate answered the standard questions. No, she didn't have any allergies, she'd had no surgery, she was taking no medication.

  "Why don't you lie back, Ms. Powell? I'm Dr. Hudd. I'm going to check you out. Are you having pain now?"

  "No, not really."

  The doctor lifted an eyebrow. "No or not really?"

  Kate closed her eyes and struggled to steep herself in the here and now. "Some."

  "Tell me when it increases."

  Soft hands, Kate thought as they began to probe her. Doctors always seemed to have soft hands. Then she hissed as the doctor applied pressure under her breastbone.

  "That's the spot, huh? How often does this happen?"

  "It happens."

  "Do you find the discomfort occurs after a meal, say, an hour or so after a meal?"

  "Sometimes." She sighed. "Yes."

  "And when you drink alcohol?"

  "Yes."

  "Is there any vomiting?"

  "No." Kate swiped a hand over her clammy face. "No."

  "Dizziness?"

  "No. Well, not really."

  Dr. Hudd's unpainted mouth pursed as she pressed her fingers to Kate's wrist. "Your pulse is a little fast."

  "I don't want to be here," Kate said flatly. "I hate hospitals."

  "Yeah, I know the feeling." The doctor continued as she made notations on a chart, "Describe the pain for me."

  Kate stared up at the ceiling, pretended she was talking aloud to herself. "It's a burning in the torso, or an aching." She wouldn't stay here, she reminded herself calmly. On this table, behind these curtains. "More like sharp hunger pains in my stomach. They can get pretty intense."

  "I bet. How have you been dealing with it?"

  "My heartburn," Kate said dully. "Mylanta."

  The doctor chuckled, patted Kate's hand. "Are you under a lot of stress, Ms. Powell?"

  My father was a thief, I've lost my job, and the cops could be knocking on my door any minute. There's nothing I can do about it, nothing, that won't make it worse.

  "Who isn't?" She tried not to jerk when the doctor lifted her eyelid and shined a light to check her pupils.

  "How long have you been having these symptoms?"

  "Somewhere around forever. I don't know. They've gotten worse in the last couple of months."

  "Sleeping well?"

  "No."

  "Taking anything for that?"

  "No."

  "How about headaches?"

  "No, thanks. I have plenty of them. Nuprin," she said, anticipating the question. "Excedrin. I switch off."

  "Mm-hmm. When was your last physical?" When Kate didn't answer, me doctor