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She gave a little laugh and looked down at her hands.

“So I did. I found a place advertised in the paper. I don't know how I thought I was going to pay for it; I didn't even have a job yet. Actually, Luke was talking to his boss to see if I could work for her.” She looked up at Keith. “Can you imagine? I would have been a terrible waitress.”

“I think you're good at anything you set your mind to.”

He really believed that, she thought. What a strange sensation, to know someone believed in her.

“Well, anyway, it wouldn't have been very fun, serving people who used to be my friends. But it was better than nothing.”

“Michael didn't like that?” Keith asked when it looked as though she would stop talking.

“Oh, no. He definitely didn't like that,” she said, her eyes misting over. Dammit, hadn't she cried over him enough?

“Mal.” Keith started to get up, but Mal held out a hand to still him.

“Let me finish. Let me say this before I chicken out.” She took a deep breath. “He didn't like it. He found the lease that Luke had cosigned. Stupid me, I left it out so I would remember to drop it off at the rental agency. He found it, and he freaked out. No wife of his would shack up with a worthless bartender.” She waved her arms and raised her voice in imitation of Michael's anger. “No wife of his would make a fool of him, running around town with some piece of meat.” She laughed, and a tear escaped and ran down her cheek. “That was Luke, the piece of meat.”

“Got it.”

“So I said, ‘What do you care? We're not even married anymore! '” She wiped her cheek, but the tears wouldn't stop. She knew how this story ended. “Keep in mind that we're having this argument while there is a nurse upstairs sleeping in our bed. In his bed. Yes, it's true. I married a doctor who seduces nurses. It gets better and better, doesn't it?”

She was frantic now, pacing back and forth in the small space. Keith kept still in his chair, his hands locked in front of him.

“So I said, ‘What do you care? We're not married!' And he said, ‘We're married until I say we're not married. You can't just run around like a slut! You're my wife!' And I said, ‘Why not? He makes me feel better than you ever could! You're half the man he is!'”

Keith looked up.

“I don't know why I said that,” Mal continued, not meeting Keith's eye. “I never slept with Luke. I had never even
kissed
him, or thought about him as anything other than a friend. I shouldn't have said that to Michael. It wasn't right.”

“You were mad.”

“I was livid. All those years of doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and now he wasn't even going to let me go. I snapped. I shouldn't have said that about Luke, but I got what I wanted. Michael reacted.”

“He hit you.”

“Right in the face. I provoked him. I shouldn't have provoked him.”

“He shouldn't have fucking hit you.”

Mal finally looked over at Keith. She felt the tension coming off his shoulders in waves. He would never hit her, no matter what she said to him. She could feel his anger, and his disgust. It was what she was most afraid of, telling him this story. But she saw that his disgust was not aimed at her, but at Michael, at a man so weak that he could not control his temper. She understood that this was how Keith saw it, without his having to say anything. She understood him, and she knew where she stood with him. She always had.

It scared her silly. She sat on the edge of the desk.

“He shouldn't have hit me. But he did. And I can't say I'm glad that he did, but I do wonder if he hadn't, whether I would still be living there. Or whether I would have eventually found a way out. But if he hadn't, I wouldn't have come to Luke, and he wouldn't have brought me here. So, in a way, I'm grateful.”

Keith stood, closed the distance between them in two strides. He cupped her cheek in his hand and ran a finger under her eye, where Luke's bruise was fading. “It wasn't your fault that he hit you.”

She looked up at him, and startled tears began to run down her face again. “I provoked him. I shouldn't have said that stuff about Luke.”

Keith kissed her cheek, gently, softly. “It doesn't matter what you said. He was wrong to hit you, and that's not your fault.”

She shook her head, pursing her lips together to keep from sobbing. “It was my fault.”

“No,” Keith said. He gathered her in his arms, tucked her head against his warm chest, and gently rocked her back and forth while she wept. He had time to convince her that she was not to blame. He would take it.

When she was cried out, he pulled her face up to look at her. “I am grateful for my brother, though. I'm glad as hell he was there for you, and I'm glad he came up with this harebrained scheme to bring you here.”

“Even though we were lying to you?”

“I'll get over it.”

“I'm glad Luke brought me here, too,” Mal said, tracing the fine hair on his chest.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I'm even thinking about staying.”

Keith pulled her hand away and held it tight. “Before you commit to anything, Mal, you should know that I lied to you, too.”

Mal pulled back. “What?”

Keith pulled her back to him. “I lied yesterday. I'm not falling in love with you. I am in love with you. Maybe from the moment I first saw you, when I thought you were with Luke. I don't know if you realize what you do to me. I thought that part of me was closed forever. I don't really know what to do about it. But I do know that I want you to be here, with me.”

Mal looked at him, blinking as the tears spilled over her lashes.

“Oh, no, don't cry. Please, baby. Not over me.”

“I think that's the most you've ever said to me the whole time we've known each other.”

He kissed her gently. “Should I stop talking?”

“Well, I like what you're saying.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I want to be here with you. I want to see if this can work.”

He kissed her again, pulling her close against his chest. He ran his hands up her back, then cupped her face, pouring all of his love into the kiss. He wanted to show her more, though, so he ran his hands over her shoulders, her arms, under the hem of the shirt she wore. God, it made him so hot to see her in his shirt. He squeezed her behind and her thighs, nudging them open with his legs. When she went to lean in to him, he held her back against the desk and knelt down in front of her.

“Keith,” she whispered as he pulled her panties down.

“Shhh,” he said, and then his mouth was on her, making her crazy. He lifted one leg over his shoulder so he could taste deeper, and soon she was whimpering, then shaking as she came apart on his face. He caught her as her legs gave out and she collapsed on top of him on the floor.

“I can't believe we just did that on top of the invoices,” she said into his neck.

He laughed and held her close.

“No more of that rabbit food!”

Cal was participating in his new favorite activity: sitting on the couch and yelling at Mal and Miss Libby as they cooked in the kitchen. He had been out of the hospital for less than a day before he started going stir crazy, and it was just getting worse. The doctor ordered him to rest (impossible) and diet (unheard of).

“You can't teach this old dog new tricks,” he pleaded.

“You can if you want to live to see your grandchildren,” said Miss Libby.

Mal felt like everyone was looking at her and she blushed down to her toes. “I'm not pregnant.”

Cal looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Why would you be pregnant?”

 

 

Mal was really starting to embrace healthy food preparation. She visited the library, and the librarian helped her pick out a few diet cookbooks. She did it so often that the librarian even kept them aside for her for her regular visits. “No one else around here uses them. Have you been to the fair? That food on a stick is delicious!”

Mal's favorite was a low-fat vegetarian cookbook, which she had to hide in her bedroom. She would write down the recipes, then head to the kitchen to surreptitiously cook them. Even Miss Libby was concerned about a meal without meat; even patient Keith, who never complained about anything, was aghast.

“Where's your sense of adventure?” she asked, serving a fake-meat veggie casserole.

The Carsons may have been a lot of things, but they were not adventurous. They also, apparently, were not vegetarians. So now Mal hid the vegetarian nature of the meals she served (most of them, anyway), and figured they would thank her when their cholesterol lowered.

She was pleased to discover that there were a few things she could teach Libby in the kitchen. Libby was an expert at cooking with butter and shortening, but she genuinely seemed to appreciate the low-fat substitutes Mal showed her. Mal was not pleased that her knowledge came from Michael pressuring her into dieting with cruel comments, but, as Libby said, she should be grateful part of it turned out to be a blessing.

 

 

Miss Libby was looking for blessings everywhere. The Carson kids, such as they were, were shaken up by Cal's heart attack. True, they had faced the mortality of a parent before when their mom died of breast cancer all those years ago, but this was their father. Cal was always there, usually in the background, silently offering guidance. A force to keep from disappointing. He always made his presence known, in his way, and it was frightening to imagine him not being there.

But Miss Libby was taking it extra hard. She and Cal were at each other's throats all the time, and not in the playful, teasing way that Keith was used to seeing. He walked into the kitchen once to find Miss Libby crying quietly into the sink.

“I was a coward,” Keith told Mal as they cuddled in bed that night. They had been spending the nights together since Cal came home. Libby pretended to be too busy to notice. “I just backed out of the kitchen like I hadn't seen her.”

“Well, she probably would have been embarrassed. She doesn't want you to know how hard she's taking your father's illness.”

“I feel bad, it's just more work for her.”

Mal lifted her head off Keith's shoulder. “That's not it at all. She was terrified she would lose him.”

Keith grunted, and stroked Mal's hair. He liked doing that; her hair was short and soft, and the stroking made her relax, which right now meant she was cuddling closer into his side. He definitely liked that.

“Keith.”

“Mmm?”

“I think Miss Libby is in love with your father.”

Keith shot up, knocking Mal aside. He absentmindedly grabbed her arms and held her to him. “That doesn't make any sense. My father is a miserable grump.”

“OK, first of all, are you seriously expecting love to make sense?”

Keith grudgingly agreed. “But they argue all the time now.”

“I think Cal likes her, too. They just can't admit it, so they take it out on each other. Like Katie and Chase do.”

“Katie and Chase? Now I know you're being crazy. They hate each other.”

Mal sighed and snuggled back into Keith's side. His arms automatically came around her.

“Anyway, your father is not a miserable grump. He's a little rough around the edges, maybe, but he has his charm.”

Keith snorted. She was definitely crazy. He loved it.

 

 

Mal had been sleeping in the bunkhouse with Keith since she got back. At first she thought she shouldn't, she should continue to respect Miss Libby's house rules. But then Keith had come over, throwing rocks at her window again, sneaking her out of the house. In the morning, he snuck her back in. One morning Libby caught them kissing on the doorstep at dawn.

“You two might as well come in and help me with breakfast. Keith, put the coffee on. Mal, get in here, you're freezing!”

“Miss Libby, I'm sorry that—”

“Don't you mind that, you're a grown woman. Although I do appreciate you making the effort.”

She and Keith were definitely a couple now. They spent time together, sorting out paperwork (her favorite) and making plans for Keith to get his vet certification back (Dr. Monroe's favorite). The whole family put in time on his old cottage, tearing down walls, painting. Keith didn't think he was ready to live there, but he hoped he and Mal would start looking for a place together soon. He couldn't expect her to live in a bunkhouse forever. Anyway, Katie seemed to be staking a claim on the cottage, so maybe that would force his hand. He was starting to get that itch to buy some property; he had been raised with the idea that a man needed his own land. Mal said she didn't care where they lived, and that he should focus on preparing to take over Dr. Monroe's practice. He figured they would get sick of each other then—she was still doing Dr. Monroe's books, so they would be working together all the time.

But even now, when they were working separately, they always sought each other out before too long. Mal tried not to compare it to her relationship with Michael (who still hadn't returned any of her calls). When she was with Michael, she never sought him out, and in fact, she spent as much time as possible avoiding him without looking like she was avoiding him. Their time together was strained and, even when they were young and at their best, she'd never felt as comfortable as she did with Keith.

Or as loved.

Keith told her he loved her every chance he got—when they ate together, when she fought with power tools, and especially when they made love. She would find herself stopping in the middle of cooking a meal, lost in the memory, blushing. She burned a whole pile of asparagus that way, much to Cal's delight.