Hero at Large

  “Land sakes,” she grumbled, “scared the daylights out of me.”

  “Why don’t you come down and have some cocoa with me?”

  Ken shook his finger at her. “Shame on you. That’s so cowardly.”

  “And so wise.”

  “A cup of cocoa,” Edna repeated happily. “Don’t that sound nice! I’ll go get my robe.”

  Ken reluctantly pushed himself away from Chris. “You’ll regret this as much as I will. You’ll lie in bed for the rest of the evening feeling unsatisfied and wanting me, and I won’t be able to come to you.”

  Chris shivered at the sexy timbre of his voice and the lethal calm in his eyes. She knew he was right, but she had no choice. Thank goodness for Aunt Edna. I have no defenses against this man. I feel like a moth being drawn into the flame.

  Aunt Edna’s slippered feet slapped against the stair carpet.

  Ken turned and left before Edna reached the kitchen.

  Chris wrapped her arms across her breasts and was consumed with an all-encompassing loneliness for Ken Callahan.

  Chapter 4

  Chris looked at the slim gold watch on her wrist and groaned. Five-ten. She was late. She was tired. She was cranky. And she certainly didn’t have time for breakfast. She slung the gray sports bag over her shoulder and shuffled down the dark stairs. Ordinarily, Aunt Edna would be up making breakfast, but she’d overslept today, too. Chris shrugged into her vest and reached for the door-knob.

  A large hand closed over her small one. “Making a hasty retreat?”

  Chris turned and found herself squashed between the door and Ken. He smiled good morning and kissed her softly, as if she were a delicate treasure. He was right, she thought, he was a terrific kisser. She halfheartedly reminded herself that she was grouchy and didn’t want to be kissed…or talked to…or smiled at. She tried to look stern. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “I want to watch you teach ice skating.”

  Chris wrinkled her nose. “It’s five-ten. It’s dark out. The birds aren’t even up yet. Go back to bed.”

  “Are you kidding? I even took a shower to do this.”

  “Well, I don’t feel like having an audience today. I’m tired and grumpy…and I don’t want to be bothered by you.”

  “Hmmmm, couldn’t you sleep last night?” His tone was mockingly innocent and maddeningly triumphant.

  She tilted her nose up defiantly. “I slept fine after I had my cocoa.”

  “I’m glad cocoa has such a soothing effect on you.” He nuzzled her hair, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. “I didn’t have any cocoa to soothe my frustration. I lay awake all night, thinking about you.”

  Chris wound her arms around his neck and murmured in contentment. “Poor Ken.”

  He chuckled softly and kissed her neck. “You’re so responsive. So nice to love.”

  And dumb. And weak. And sappy. Had that been her voice murmuring “Poor Ken”? “Ugh! Get away from me.” Chris pushed him away, stamping her foot in frustration. “What is it about you that turns me into mush?”

  Ken sucked in his breath as her boot accidentally came down on his bare foot. He stood absolutely still for a second, his right hand holding her arm in a viselike grip. He expelled his breath and closed his eyes. The expletive that escaped between his clenched teeth caused Chris to raise her eyebrows.

  “You’d better not let Aunt Edna hear you say that. She’ll let you have it with the wooden spoon.”

  He relaxed his hand, smoothed the fingerprints from the sleeve of her warm-up suit, and regarded her with calm fury. “You broke my toe.”

  Chris looked down at the bloody gash and already swelling toe. “Why don’t you have shoes on?” she wailed.

  “Because I can’t get shoes on by myself. Because you broke my damn arm. Because I haven’t had a chance to buy loafers, yet.”

  Chris bit her lip. “Maybe it’s not broken?”

  “I’m sure it’s broken. I’m getting good at recognizing broken bones.”

  “Maybe we should put some ice on it.”

  “I don’t want ice,” he ground out. “I want to go to the hospital.” He lowered himself gingerly onto a stair and held out a sock. “Just help me put this damn sock on…and this damn shoe. And then you can drive me to the damn hospital.”

  Chris glared at him and tugged the sock onto his healthy foot. She slipped his running shoe on and tied the laces. “I don’t see what you’re so damn mad about. It isn’t as if it’s entirely my fault.”

  “Not entirely your fault?” he sputtered. “Lady, you’re a fruitcake. I suppose you think I saw your boot coming down, and I slipped my toe underneath it on purpose.”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. You…you take advantage of me.”

  “Well, you’re not going to have to worry about it anymore. I can’t afford to break any more body parts. At this rate, I’ll be a paraplegic by Friday. And God forbid what might happen if I ever got you into bed! A man would have to be crazy to take his clothes off anywhere near you.”

  Chris grit her teeth and held his other sock out to him. “Do you want me to put this on you?”

  “Don’t touch my foot!” he shouted. “Just get me a towel so I don’t bleed all over my truck.”

  By the time she returned with the towel, he’d already hobbled out to the curb.

  Chris stopped for a light and nervously cracked her knuckles. It had been a long, silent ride to the hospital. Ken slouched in the seat next to her, staring stonily straight ahead, his arms crossed in front of him. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left the house, and Chris was afraid to begin conversation. What on earth do you say to a man after you’ve broken his toe? And his arm. Glorioski, Mr. Callahan, I’m really sorry! Chris felt tears burning behind her eyes. Thank goodness for the darkness, she breathed. This is awful enough, I don’t need to have him see me crying. I don’t even know why I’m feeling such anguish over this whole silly episode. She blinked back the tears and decided it must be hormones. The man was hell on hormones.

  She heard him rustle in the seat beside her, and knew with a sinking heart that he was watching her. His fingertips brushed across her cheek.

  “What’s this for?”

  Chris ignored the question. She turned into the hospital lot and cut the motor. “Would you rather I come in with you? Or should I wait here?”

  “I’d rather you tell me why you’re crying.”

  Chris stared miserably down at her warm-up jacket.

  He reached over with his good arm and hauled her across the seat, onto his lap.

  “Be careful! Your arm! Your toe!”

  He kissed the tears on her cheek and nestled her into the crook of his arm. “Honey, when I’ve got you on my lap I can’t even feel my arm or my toe.”

  Chris closed her eyes and buried her flushed face into his shoulder.

  His lips feathered lingering kisses in her orange curls. “You like me, don’t you?” he said in a husky whisper that sent her heart tumbling in her chest.

  She couldn’t speak. She was overwhelmed with a rush of conflicting emotions. She did like him. Even more horrible, she might be falling in love with him. How else to explain the lump that was becoming a permanent fixture in her throat? How else to explain the sense of dread—of impending doom—of unwanted, fingertip-tingling excitement? She nodded her head yes, and pressed her cheek against his chest.

  “And you’re sorry you broke my toe?”

  She nodded again.

  “Is there anything else?”

  Chris sighed. There were about a million other things, but none she wanted to say out loud. And nothing she could coherently explain when he was kissing her hair. Warm waves of desire were washing away sensible thought. She concluded that if she stayed in his arms for another thirty seconds she would lose all control and attack him, and they’d probably be arrested for doing X-rated things in a hospital parking lot. She took a deep breath and pushed herself from his lap. “I suppose I do like you, a lit
tle,” Chris admitted. “And I’m sorry about your toe, but I think we should keep this living arrangement strictly business.”

  “Why?”

  Chris squeezed her finely arched eyebrows together into a frown. “Because I’m not too happy about having a man in my house. And I definitely don’t want one in my life. I like my life just the way it is…was…before yesterday.”

  He regarded her with open amusement. “What a load of baloney.”

  “Unh!” she grunted. “You are the most exasperating man.” She threw her hands into the air in frustration. “Go get your blasted toe fixed.”

  Ken looked at the stretch of cold macadam between the truck and the reception room. He looked down at his blue-and-purple bare foot partially wrapped in an apricot hand towel.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I wasn’t thinking.” She started the truck and drove to the emergency entrance where he got out and hobbled inside.

  Chris parked and joined him at the front desk, where he was filling out a form. An inquisitive nurse leaned over the desk and looked at his toe. “Weren’t you folks in here yesterday?”

  Ken raised his bright green cast. “Yesterday she broke my arm,” he announced merrily.

  A second nurse appeared. Chris felt her face flame as the two nurses studied her suspiciously.

  Ken completed the form. He raised his foot. “Today she broke my toe.”

  “It was an accident,” Chris gasped.

  The nurses looked at each other knowingly and studiously returned to their work.

  “How could you embarrass me like that?” Chris looked around furtively to see if anyone else had heard.

  “It’s okay.” He grinned. “She probably thought it was part of some bizarre sexual ritual.”

  “Good heavens.”

  “You should probably call the rink now and tell them you’ll be late, again.”

  Chris stared at Ken, struck by the unpleasant reality that she’d sent this man to the hospital two days in a row—and that if positions had been reversed, she doubted she could be so good-natured. “I suppose I should be happy you have a sense of humor,” she ventured.

  “Honey, my good mood has little to do with my sense of humor.”

  Aunt Edna’s eyes opened wide as she stood back from the door. “What the devil happened?”

  Ken carefully swung his foot over the doorjamb and eased himself into the room with the help of a single crutch. “It’s nothing serious, Aunt Edna. I stubbed my toe in the dark this morning and broke it.”

  Chris slammed the door behind them. “He did not. He got fresh with me, and I stomped on it.”

  Ken rested on his crutch, and looked at her quizzically. “I thought you found that story embarrassing.”

  “Oh, what the hell,” she exclaimed in an offhand huff. “So I broke it. What’s the big deal?”

  Ken smiled at Aunt Edna. “She’s sorry she broke it.”

  Edna looked at the swollen toe taped to the one next to it. “He got fresh with you, huh?”

  “Yes. Well, no. He sort of got me…disturbed.”

  “Hmmm,” Edna said. “Disturbed?”

  Ken slouched into the wingback chair and stretched his long legs in front of him, watching Chris with unguarded affection. “Disturbed?” he asked, the twitching corners of his mouth the only evidence of strangled laughter.

  “I’d love to stay and explain all of this,” Chris told them, “but I’ve got to get to the rink.”

  “Will you be home for lunch?” Edna asked.

  Chris kissed the old woman good-bye and headed for the door. “No, I have to do some choreography today. I probably won’t be back until suppertime.”

  Chris checked her watch as she walked up the steps to her town house. It was six-fifteen, and she felt as if she hadn’t slept in days. She opened the door and sniffed. A delicious aroma of herbs and spices wafted through the house. Aunt Edna’s world-famous oven-fried chicken, she decided. She flung her bag into a corner of the hall and shuffled toward the kitchen. It was after a terribly long day like this that she was especially thankful for Aunt Edna. If it weren’t for Edna, Chris knew she’d be staring into the freezer right now, wondering what the heck she could shove into the microwave. If it weren’t for Edna, the role of breadwinner and single mother would leave little time for Chris to read Dr. Seuss or listen attentively to Lucy’s exploits in school. Chris pushed through the kitchen doors. “Aunt Edna—”

  Ken turned from the stove and gave her a look like the cat who swallowed the canary. “Nope. Just me, slaving away over a hot stove.”

  “Where’s Aunt Edna?”

  “Kansas City.”

  “What do you mean, Kansas City?”

  “Your cousin Stephanie had the baby three weeks premature and Edna flew out to stay with the twins.”

  “How could she do that?”

  “Stephanie? I don’t think she had much choice. George said her water broke at three twenty-five and she went right into labor…”

  Chris blinked in dazed disbelief. Yesterday he’d been a stranger. Today he was ensconced in her kitchen, talking about her family as if it were his own. Babies and labor and broken water. “No,” she intoned mechanically, “not Stephanie…Aunt Edna. How could Aunt Edna do this to me? It will take me days to find someone reliable to watch Lucy.”

  “Edna took Lucy with her.”

  “She can’t do that! What about school?”

  Ken took a bag of noodles from the counter and looked at it, mystified. He turned the bag over and read the instructions, his face brightening with the realization that he now knew how to cook noodles. “Edna said she’ll only be gone for a week, and that Lucy could use a vacation. I don’t think Edna is very impressed with first grade.”

  Cold panic squeezed at Chris’ heart. The two people she loved most in the world were gone without even so much as a hug good-bye. And she was left alone with Ken Callahan. It was the latter condition that set her stomach churning and adrenaline flowing.

  Ken reached out and gathered her to him. “You look like a lost little kitten,” he said. He stroked her hair. “Don’t worry. They’ll be fine. I took them to the airport myself. And Edna said they’d call as soon as they got to Kansas City.”

  “How did you get them to the airport?”

  “Taxi.” He raised his foot to display a bright red woolen sock covering the broken toe. “A broken toe isn’t so bad.”

  She stepped away from him. “It was nice of you to help Edna and Lucy to the airport, but you’re going to have to leave, now.”

  “I live here, remember?”

  “I don’t want you to live here.”

  Ken filled a pot with water and put it on the stove to boil. “Of course you do. Who will make your supper when you come home late like this?”

  “You?” she snorted.

  He pulled a package of frozen vegetables from the freezer and read the instructions. “I always wanted to learn how to cook.” He set the vegetables aside and dumped the entire bag of noodles into the boiling water.

  “Holy cow,” Chris muttered. “I hope you like noodles. That could feed a family of six for two days.”

  He seemed undaunted. “Hmmm,” he replied and emptied sixteen ounces of peas into a small saucepan. He smiled at her. “I surmise by the look of horror on your face that I’m cooking too many peas too.”

  “I usually measure out about half and then tie the rest of the bag up with a twister tie.”

  “Twister tie?”

  Chris wrinkled her nose. “This isn’t going to work. I don’t need a cook. I think your aptitude is dubious, anyway.”

  “Boy, you get cranky after a hard day at the skating rink,” he teased. He pushed her into the dining room and held her chair.

  Chris looked at the table. Matching mauve linen tablecloth and napkins. Crystal goblets. The good china. Sterling candlestick holders and ivory tapers. Freshly polished silverware. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble. It’s very pretty.”

  ??
?Actually, Aunt Edna did it. She wanted me to make a good impression on you.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “She likes me.”

  “She’s not too choosy, you realize. Last week she fixed me up with the meter reader. And before that it was the butcher.”

  “Why is she so determined to get you married?”

  “I suppose because she had a wonderful marriage, and she wants the same for me.”

  Ken leaned against the table and studied Chris. “Wouldn’t you like a wonderful marriage?”

  “I’ve already tried marriage. It wasn’t wonderful.”

  “But it could be. Don’t you want to give it another shot?”

  “No.”

  “Edna told me you were a great skater because you never gave up.”

  “I never gave up on skating because I knew I was good. I’m not good at being married.” Chris turned away from the intensity of his blue-black gaze. Why was he doing this—it wasn’t like he was ready to propose or something.

  “I think you’d make a great wife. You just need some practice.”

  “Uh-huh.” Chris turned back toward him, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

  “I could help you out…” He grinned. “You could practice on me.”

  “That’s a very generous offer, but I think I’ll pass.” The sound of sputtering water turning to steam hissed from the kitchen. “The peas”—Chris gestured—“turn down the heat.”

  A lid clanked in the kitchen. Silence followed. “Okay,” he finally called, “I give up. How the hell do you get these peas out of all this water?”

  Endearing, Chris thought. Ruggedly masculine but soft on the underside. And very skillful at using his devastating smile and easy humor. She took the copper colander from the kitchen wall and placed it in the sink. “You can pour the peas in here. And then you can use the colander to drain and rinse the noodles.”

  He gave a light husbandly kiss. “Thanks. Any other cooking tips I should know?”

  “Are you really serious about this?”

  “Absolutely.” He put the peas in the glass bowl Edna had left on the counter for him. He poured the steaming noodles into the colander and ran water over them. “How am I doing?”