Mercy (17 page)

“I’m still feeling guilty. I guess you could have my bed. It’s king-sized.”

“Yeah?”

He stood and gave her
the look.
She recognized it instantly. She’d seen enough late-night movies and had been around enough men on the prowl to recognize it. Theo made
the look
sexier than Mel Gibson did, and God only knew, she’d always been a sucker for Mel.

“Stop it.” She laughed after she gave the order. “Just stop it right now.”

He raised an eyebrow. Oh, God, now he was doing Cary Grant.

“Stop what?” he asked innocently.

What could she say? Stop looking at me as though I just asked you to get naked and have hot, mind-altering sex with me?

“Never mind,” she said. “So do you want to?”

“Sleep in your bed? What an invitation.”

“Excuse me?”

“You want to share your bed?”

Oh, boy, did she want to. How long had it been since she’d been involved with a man? She couldn’t remember. Probably because it had ended in disaster and she had deliberately blocked the memory.

Slow and easy. Oh, boy.

Her throat felt like it was closing up on her. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

He took a step toward her. “How come?”

If she were thirty years older, she would have thought she was having a hot flash. Her entire body felt as though it was on fire, and she was having difficulty catching her breath. Her endorphins were going crazy too. She was feeling light-headed. If he took another step toward her, she knew she’d start hyperventilating. And wouldn’t that be a wonderful turn-on. Men weren’t the only ones who needed to take a cold shower to squelch their sexual appetites. She felt like she needed to dive headfirst into her freezer.

She blamed him for her scattered thoughts. He was the one giving her
the look,
after all.

He was slowly walking forward, obviously giving her time to make up her mind. Her feet were rooted to the floor and her stomach started tingling. “It would complicate things.”

“How?”

“We’d have sex, and then —”

“Great sex,” he corrected. “We’d have great sex.”

He had her thinking about it, and the look in his eyes told her he was thinking about it too. She nodded, tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. Her pulse was racing. Probably a hundred sixty beats per minute. Irregular too. Great, she thought, a gorgeous man flirts with her and she goes into ventricular fibrillation. If he took another step, she thought she just might drop dead. Wouldn’t that be something? The pathology report would show cause of death was cardiac arrest.

He stopped a foot away from her. He gently stroked her cheek with his fingers and then nudged her under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. She felt awkward and unsure, until she saw the laughter in his eyes.

“So what are you thinking?” he asked.

As if he didn’t know. “That you’re making me nuts. Theo, you might as well understand before this goes any further . . .”

“Yes?” he asked softly. His hand had moved to her neck, his touch warm.

“What?”

“You said I need to understand something.”

He was rubbing the back of her neck now. She got goose bumps.

“Yes, you do.” She nodded. “No, I mean . . . oh.”
Breathe,
she told herself.
Take a deep breath and try to locate your brain.
“Okay, here’s the way it is. I’m not cut out for a casual fling. I have to have a . . . solid connection with a man before I go to bed with him. I don’t believe in recreational sex.” She forced a smile in hopes of lightening the moment and added, “I’m a dinosaur.”

“Did I mention I like dinosaurs?”

Oh, boy,
she inwardly sighed.
Oh, boy.

His fingers gently played with the hair at the nape of her neck. “Your hair is so soft,” he whispered. “The color’s like fire.”

“I get the red hair and freckles from my mother,” she answered, grasping for a rational thought.

“Did I mention I like women with freckles? I get this overwhelming urge to kiss every one of them.”

“I’ve got freckles all over my body.”

“We’ll get to those.”

She felt light-headed again. “It isn’t going to happen.”

“We’ll see.”

Lord, he was cocky. He really needed to work on that flaw, and she meant to tell him so when her head cleared. Right now, she was too busy trying to stand on her feet. The man aroused her simply by touching her. Every nerve ending in her body responded to him.

When she realized she wanted to tear his clothes off, she pulled back. She gently pushed his arm away. Her legs felt like Jell-O, but she managed to turn and walk to her bedroom. As she was shutting the door behind her, she made the mistake of looking at him. He was leaning against the doorframe smiling at her.

She wasn’t going to let him know how potent his touch was. Mr. Big City Boy needed to be taught a lesson. He wouldn’t get his way.

“You mess with me and you pay the consequences,” she said. “You can take a cold shower after I do.” How telling was that? Too late, she realized what she’d given away. “I’m taking a cold shower because I’m hot,” she explained, and then realized she’d only made it worse.

“Michelle?” he drawled out.

“Yes?”

“I haven’t begun to mess with you.”

She shut the door and leaned against it. “Oh, boy,” she whispered.

M
ichelle was counting all the reasons she shouldn’t and wouldn’t get involved with Theo. She’d gotten up to number twenty when he knocked on the bathroom door.

“I haven’t taken my shower yet.”

“Yeah, I know. I was just wondering if you wanted me to hook up your computer for you?”

“You found it?”

She opened the door a crack and peeped out, holding her cotton robe together across her breasts.

“It was hard to miss. I tripped over one of the boxes when I put my clothes on the washer. So do you want me to or not?”

“Hook up my computer? Sure,” she said.

She shut the door in his face and started counting all over again. When she got to number twenty-three — she’d have to change the sheets — she realized she was getting desperate and went back to the number one reason. The man would break her heart.

She stepped into the bathtub and turned the shower on full blast. The icy cold water made her grimace. She adjusted the temperature and let the warm water soothe her.

By the time she rinsed the shampoo from her hair, she’d worked herself back up into a fit of indignation. Mess with her indeed. She wasn’t so easily manipulated, she thought as she combed the tangles out of her hair and then turned on the blow dryer.

He’d probably be a demanding lover . . .

“Hell,” she whispered. Slow and easy. Would she ever get those words out of her mind? It was like a song that kept replaying in her head.

She brushed her teeth, then put moisturizer on her face and stared at herself in the mirror. “Admit it,” she whispered. “You want to sleep with him.”

She shook her head. No, that wasn’t true. She wanted to have sex with him. And what was wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. She was merely fantasizing, and fantasy was a perfectly healthy function of the human psyche.

Acting upon the fantasy was another matter altogether. Reason number one . . . that heartbreaking thing . . . “Been there, done that,” she whispered.

Oh, no, she wasn’t going to get involved with Theo Buchanan. And so she didn’t put on one of the short nightgowns that she usually wore to bed. She got her long blue silk pajamas out of her bottom drawer instead. She buttoned every button, including the top one. The mandarin collar rubbed the sensitive skin underneath her chin. She reached for the matching blue slippers, but rejected those and found an old pair of thick white terry-cloth slip-ons under her bed. She brushed her hair to get it out of her eyes, dabbed on a little colorless, moisturizing lip gloss, then hunted through her closet and dug out her heavy white flannel robe. The hem dragged on the floor. The robe had buttons and she secured every one of them. It also had a belt. She double knotted it.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror. Good, she thought. She looked like a nun.

Theo was in the library. He’d unloaded the computer equipment and had it up and running by the time she came downstairs. He was reading something on the monitor. He glanced over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses at her when she entered the room, and his gaze froze. In a flash he noticed every little detail about her — how the blue pajamas matched the color of her eyes; how her hair, down around her shoulders, shimmered like russet gold in the soft light; how, without an ounce of makeup, she looked beautiful.

She was dressed for bed . . . as long as the bed was in Antarctica. Michelle was a physician, but she sure didn’t know anything about how a man’s mind worked. All those clothes . . . they just made him fantasize about what was underneath.

His imagination went to work, and he pictured her stripping off each layer before slipping between the covers. Ah, hell, don’t think about it, he warned himself. For the love of God, don’t think about the soft, warm skin underneath all that fabric.

Michelle walked over to the desk. Feeling extremely self-conscious because of the way he was staring at her, she fiddled with the knot in her belt and asked, “So? What do you think?”

“Theo?” she asked when he didn’t immediately answer. He had a funny smile on his face now and was staring at her feet.

“What’s the matter?”

“Are you expecting a snowstorm tonight?”

Her hand went to her throat. “I was chilly.”

He laughed.

“I
was,
” she insisted. “I get cold when the air conditioner is on. I turned it down so you would be comfortable.”

“Uh-huh.”

Now she felt stupid because he wasn’t buying her lie.

“Cute bunny slippers.”

“Thank you,” she said. “If you’re finished mocking me, answer my question. What do you think . . . about my computer?”

“It’s ancient.”

“Will you stop staring at my slippers?”

Exasperated, she leaned against the side of the desk and removed the slippers. Theo laughed again when he saw that she was wearing socks.

“Now
what’s so funny?” she demanded.

“I was just wondering if you were wearing long underwear too.”

“I don’t own any long underwear,” she countered. “Now, will you answer my question. Does my computer work or not?”

“Where did you get this thing?”

“My brother Remy gave it to me. He picked it up secondhand the last time he was home. I haven’t had time to set it up. I’ve only been in the house a couple of weeks. John Paul wanted to put another coat of varnish on the floors, and if you knew my brother, you’d understand he does things on his own schedule. I’ve been using the computer at the hospital. I know this one is outdated, but eventually, when I can afford it, I’ll get a newer one.”

Theo angled the screen near the corner of the desk, adjusted the keypad the way he thought she’d want it, then leaned back in the soft leather chair. “So, whoever is following you . . . he isn’t some broken-hearted guy you dumped?”

“We’ve been over that.”

“We’re going over it again.”

She didn’t argue. “No, I haven’t been involved with anyone. Besides that, I’m a physician. I don’t break hearts. I —”

“Yeah, I know. You fix them.”

“No, I refer them.”

His laptop was on the opposite side of the desk. It was a slick, expensive piece of equipment. As she was examining it, a big red
E
floated across the screen. It was followed by a single beep.

“You’ve got mail.”

He reached over, touched a key, and saw who had sent him the message. She read the name before he hit the key and the screen went blank.

She wasn’t sure if he was waiting until later to read the message because he knew it wasn’t important or because he didn’t want her to read it.

“Who’s Noah?”

“A friend.”

“I read the name,” she explained even though he hadn’t asked. “You were talking to him on the phone earlier.”

“Yes; he called. He must have been waiting by his computer, because I just sent him a message a couple of minutes ago, while you were in the shower, and he already responded.”

“If you want to read the message now, I’ll go in the other room.”

“No, that’s okay. You can read it with me. You won’t understand it, though.”

“Too technical?”

Before she could take issue, he said, “Too Noah. If you knew him, you’d understand. The guy’s got a warped sense of humor.”

“You make that sound like a compliment.”

“It is,” he said. “In his line of work, it helps to be a little warped.”

Theo hit a button and waited. Michelle leaned over his shoulder so she could read the message. It was convoluted, and didn’t make any sense to her.

“Is it in code?”

“No,” he answered gruffly. Damn, he wished she’d move back. He could smell the clean scent of her shampoo, feel the heat from her soft body.

He tensed in reaction. He pictured himself pulling her onto his lap and kissing the breath out of her. Then he expanded the fantasy until he was thinking about all the other things he wanted to do with her and to her. He’d start with her toes and work his way up until he had every button undone and he was —

“Who’s Mary Beth?”

“Excuse me?”

“Noah said he never thanked you for letting him use Mary Beth the last time he was in Boston. You boys share your women?”

“Mary Beth
is a fishing boat. I invited Noah to drive to Bowen to go fishing. I told him about the tournament, and he wants me to sign him up. He’s going crazy in Biloxi. He’s doing a training program, and he hates it.” He turned back to the monitor, removed his glasses, and set them on the desk. He was having trouble concentrating now. It was all he could do to restrain himself from grabbing her. What the hell was the matter with him? Michelle was a complication he didn’t need now. She wasn’t the love-her-and-then-leave-her type of woman, and he wouldn’t be staying around.

He knew he wasn’t making any sense. He had come to Bowen because of her, and yet . . .

She poked him in the shoulder to get his attention. “Who’s Priest?”

“Father Tom Madden,” he answered. “He’s like a brother,” he added. “When he was just starting grade school, he moved in with our family. He’s Nick’s age, and the two of them are best friends. They went to Penn State together. Nick’s going to marry Tommy’s little sister.”

“Why does Noah call him Priest?”

“Because, and I’m quoting Noah now, ‘It pisses him off.’ That’s why he does it. Tommy lets him get away with anything.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Noah almost died saving Tommy’s life. He drives Tommy crazy, but they’ve actually become good friends. The three of them go fishing every once in a while,” he said.

She nodded, then asked, “That last line Noah wrote . . . what does he mean, ‘regarding the other, no problem’?”

“It means he knows I’m out of my element here, and so he’s going to check out a couple of things for me.”

“Your answer is as ambiguous as his message.”

She walked away from the desk and opened the French doors connecting the library to the living room. There were medical journals strewn along her sofa. She picked them up, stacked them on an end table, and sat down with a sigh.

She lifted her hair up so her neck would get some air. God, she was hot. The heavy robe was suffocating her. She picked up one of the journals and was going to fan her face, then realized how telling that would be and put the magazine down.

Theo leaned back in his chair and peered around the half-open door. “Are you okay? You look a little flushed.”

The man didn’t miss anything. “I’m just tired.”

“How long have you been up?”

“Since four or five.”

He finished typing into his computer. “I’ll leave this on,” he said. Then he stood, stretched, and rolled his shoulders.

He reminded her of a big old tomcat. “How come you packed your laptop? Going to check your e-mail while you’re fishing?”

“It’s like my cell phone. I never leave home without it. Do you want something to drink?”

“No thanks, but you help yourself.”

Theo went into the kitchen, grabbed a Diet Coke out of the refrigerator, then searched through her pantry. He found an unopened box of low-fat, low-sodium Triscuits and carried the box with him back to the living room.

He sat down in the big, overstuffed easy chair, kicked his shoes off, and swung his feet up on the matching ottoman. Placing his drink on a cardboard box next to the chair, he held up the Triscuits and said, “Want some of these?”

“I just brushed my teeth. Do you ever fill up?”

“Not on stuff like this.”

He opened the box and began to munch on the crackers. “I’ve got some friends making calls and a couple of my interns doing some research for me. It isn’t a tough assignment, so hopefully, they’ll e-mail me tonight and have everything ready to go tomorrow.”

“Justice Department work while you’re on vacation?”

“Sugar mill work.”

She perked up. “Oh? Do you think you might be able to help Daryl and his family?”

“I’m going to try. What do you know about the Carson brothers?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “You should talk to Daddy. He’s known the brothers for years. He can answer your questions. This is a small community, so information is pretty easy to get. Everybody keeps up on what everybody else is doing.”

“And yet, no one knows anything about the break-in at the clinic,” he remarked. “I’ve given it some thought, and I don’t believe kids trashed it.”

“Then what do you think?”

“It was a one-man operation. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. There was a pattern.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean by ‘a pattern’?”

“There was order to the chaos. He came in through the back door —”

“But the window in the reception area was broken.”

“He broke it while he was inside. That was easy to figure out. The glass fragments prove it.”

“What else?”

“I don’t do this kind of thing for a living,” he said. “I prosecute. But if they were kids looking for drugs, as your dad and your friend Ben Nelson believe, then how come the examination rooms were barely touched?”