Midnight Hour (6 page)

“Yes. I do.”

“Darlin’, I’m out of practice at answering them, ’cause I don’t have anyone who asks anymore.”

Mercy immediately recalled the shadows in his eyes and the weariness she could feel beneath the surface in that brief moment at the kitchen table. She began to wonder why no one cared enough about Nick Devereaux to ask him personal questions. Lightly, she said, “I don’t believe a word of that. I have eyes, Nick. I’ll bet you have nurses swooning at your feet, asking
very
personal questions.”

“If you believe that any of my nurses would swoon, you’re sadly mistaken.” He jerked forward as if shocked by an interesting thought and then settled into the nook formed by the chair back and wing. “
Bon Dieu
, you probably believe in love at first sight too.”

“Hardly. I don’t even believe in love at second sight!” Mercy scoffed, and realized her response was delivered much too sharply.
Damn!
How did a personal discussion about Nick end up being about her? Because he was better at this game than she was.

“Ah, no,
chère
, don’t say that. Everyone believes in love.”

“Not everyone. Not me. Now, lust I believe in, but love is—you’ll excuse the expression—a pipe dream.”

Nick templed his fingers over his abdomen and studied her solemnly, finally asking, “So which of the two scares you most? The consummation of lust or the possibility of love?”

Mercy sucked in a breath and wanted to throw something. Preferably at Nick. He lounged in that damn chair like a cat lazily watching a mouse that would soon be dinner. Surely he didn’t expect an answer? An honest answer?

If he did, he’d have to wait until Miami averaged winter temperatures below freezing. She didn’t answer, but she silently considered his question. Since she didn’t believe in love, she obviously couldn’t be scared of it, but she did tuck tail and run at the first sign of attraction. Lust scared the hell out of her, because lust invariably fooled people into believing in marriage and love.

She’d watched enough marriages wash up on the rocks to last a lifetime. Her own parents had significantly contributed to the wreckage piling up on the shore of divorce. Her father had been married three times, and her mother was just about to take the plunge for the fourth time. When this one sank like all the rest, Mercy would have to help her pick up the pieces one more time.

“You’re stalling again,” Nick told her.

“I’m thinking again!” she shot back. Sidestepping chemistry was the easiest way to avoid lust, and over the years she’d done a good job of picking and choosing whom she dated. If Mercy was more than mildly attracted to a man, she simply didn’t go out with him. Unfortunately, Nick wasn’t like the other men she’d politely sidestepped in the past.

He didn’t appear to be satisfied with a pat on the head and being sent on his way. He liked to discuss things; he wanted answers and reasons. Nick obviously knew women, knew she ran from chemistry, and
he seemed to think it was funny. Damn, that made her mad!

It wasn’t as if she were a spinster who’d never had chances. She’d had chances! Lots of them. He had no right to waltz into her life and in a few short hours have her feeling as though she’d behaved like a coward—all because she hadn’t been willing to take any of those chances.

“Come on, Mercy,” he pressed gently. “You can tell me. What scares you? Lust … or love?”

“Doctors. Doctors scare me the most,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “Especially the ones who think they know absolutely everything about lust and love, which is impossible since they’re generally too damn busy saving the world from disease and pestilence to notice much of anything beyond the hospital door!”

Unruffled, Nick said, “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”

“No.” Mercy shook her head as she got up and tugged her white cotton shirt firmly over the waistband of her shorts. “My opinion is about on the money. You see, I’m an expert on doctors. My parents are doctors. All their friends are doctors. Every doctor I’ve ever met has one grand passion, and it’s medicine. So don’t sit there and shake your head, thinking I don’t understand doctors. Or for that matter lust and love. Because neither do you, Dr. Devereaux. Your grand passion is medicine, not lust or love.”

“You’re wrong, Mercy.”

“I don’t think so. You want some coffee? I want some coffee. Don’t get up.”

“Black and strong enough to stand a spoon in,”
Nick instructed before she hightailed it out of the living room.

While he hated to see her go, he also knew he’d never make it back to Louisville unless he got some caffeine into his personal carburetor. When he closed his eyes to wait, he whispered softly, “Ah, Mercy, you may know everything there is to know about Louisville doctors, but what do you know about Cajun doctors?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” murmured Mercy as she returned to the living room with two mugs of steaming French roast. She angled her wrist and checked the time. Nine-thirty.

Nick Devereaux slept peacefully in her favorite chair, arms dangling over the rests and legs supported by the cushioned footstool. Sleep softened the intensity of his expression, transforming him from gorgeously hard-edged to boyishly appealing. For once, Mercy found she could look her fill without having to face the amused glimmer in Nick’s eyes.

When he’d put his shirt back on, he hadn’t bothered to fasten the first couple of buttons. Tanned skin and the glitter of his gold chain contrasted sharply with the crisp white of his shirt, reminding Mercy of the thoughts that had run through her mind as he had stripped to the waist to fix her pipe. He might be irritating as hell, but he was one incredible piece of God’s handiwork.

Mercy tiptoed around the sofa and set the cups down on the end table, using a news magazine as a coaster. Sighing didn’t help much, but Mercy did
it anyway. What was she supposed to do with the man?

Sending him out into the rainy, summer night with an hour’s drive ahead of him seemed heartless and was probably dangerous as well. Nick hadn’t complained of long shifts, but he was obviously bone-tired. Too tired to drive anywhere, her conscience added. Why else would he have collapsed so readily in the chair of a near stranger?

If she woke him, he’d be too stubborn to check into the local motel. No, Nick would drive back to Louisville, or die trying. However, the alternative was waking him up and suggesting that he spend the night with her. Ha! Mercy wouldn’t willingly borrow that particular cup of trouble. It seemed her only choices were: Send him out into the rain, or let him sleep until morning.

He does look harmless enough now that he’s asleep
.

What a day, thought Mercy. First the flood. And then Nick Devereaux. Two disasters in one day. Resigned, she got up and pulled a light blanket from the downstairs closet and covered Nick. Even in sleep he took her breath away. His chiseled jaw showed the shadow of his beard, and his lashes were ridiculously thick and long. Without a doubt, Mercy knew, this man would make beautiful babies.

Too bad she wasn’t in the market for a man to clutter up her life. Nick almost made her wish she were.

The first time she felt the featherlike touch, Mercy sleepily brushed at the sensation tickling her cheek
without opening her eyes. She might even have recaptured sleep if her well-trained nose hadn’t caught the scent of coffee, and when the touch turned into a gentle caress on her neck, realization ripped through her. Mercy’s eyes snapped open just as she heard Nick Devereaux’s smooth, creamy voice confirm her worst suspicions.

“Mornin’,
chère
,” he said as he rubbed his knuckles one last time down her neck and over the collarbone exposed by the loose T-shirt in which she slept.

He sat on the edge of the brass bed as though he brought her coffee every morning. Gone were the shadows beneath his eyes, and his shirt hung open all the way now. Now she could see that the small gold medallion on the diamond-cut chain was of St. Christopher, patron saint of children and travelers. Mesmerized by the need to find out if the medal was as warm as his body, Mercy reached up.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” She snatched her hand back just in time.

Nick chuckled, but wisely said nothing.

Closing her eyes, Mercy counted calmly while dragging her hair away from her face. One … two … three … When she told Nick to get his butt out of her bedroom, she wanted to do it without anger. Four … five … six … She opened her eyes.

Struggling to maintain her composure, Mercy sat up, pulling the thin, satin-edged sheet with her. Although the old UCLA college T-shirt wasn’t particularly revealing, she found herself wishing for a granny gown and a thick down comforter. Seven … eight … nine …

“You do take a while to focus on the world when
you wake up, don’t ya, darlin’?” Nick asked with a sexy grin, and offered her the “dolphins are people too” mug.

 … 
ten
, she finished silently.

“Sometimes the world is pretty hard to take first thing in the morning,” Mercy informed him as she plumped the feather pillows behind her. She took the coffee from his hand, but before she could coolly ask him to leave, Nick stood up and planted his hands on his hips.

“Pretty hard to take? Well, darlin’, you’d better be ready to take whatever comes your way if you gonna let strange men sleep in your house and then leave your bedroom door unlocked!”

Frustrated because Nick had managed to make a good point, Mercy retaliated with, “I don’t recall
asking
you to sleep over! You collapsed in my chair. What was I supposed to do with you? Put you in a car and let you kill someone when you fell asleep at the wheel? And I didn’t lock my door because it doesn’t lock!”

“Well, it should!”

“Well, it doesn’t.” Mercy sipped her coffee and glared at him. “I’m not stupid. I called the hospital and verified that you really do work there. The girl in Emergency was happy to talk about the charming Dr. Devereaux. But despite her assurances, if I’d known you weren’t housebroken, I’d have barricaded the door! Where were you raised anyway? In a barn?”

“Close, darlin’, real close. On the Bayou Teche in a little shack with a
galérie
across the front and rain on the tin patched roof.”

The air Mercy had been storing up for her next
blistering retort sort of whooshed out. Quietly, she said, “That’s no excuse for barging into my bedroom uninvited.”

“I guess not, but you asked.”

Silently, Nick admitted that invading her bedroom had been overstepping his welcome a bit, but truth be told, Mercy Malone was a magnet that drew him. The moment he entered her room and saw her sleeping, he’d felt his gut stirring with protective instincts as old as time.
Dieu!
This woman felt right. This house, this room felt right.

Like every other room in her house, her bedroom was filled with an odd collection of furniture, and each probably had a story. There was an old wood-and-leather domed steamer trunk, a small sheepskin rug at the foot of the bed, which he assumed was for the dog, a bentwood rocker, a skirted vanity table in front of a round gilt-framed mirror, and a full-length cheval mirror. A fancy interior decorator hadn’t been anywhere close to this house, and all of it reminded him of home.

Mercy drank her coffee and stared at him, waiting for some act of contrition.

“I can see that I owe you an apology of sorts.” Nick rubbed his neck again, pacing toward the door.

“Of sorts?” Mercy snorted and shifted her legs under the sheet. “How charming of you. I let you get some sleep—which you desperately needed, by the way—and the thanks I get is a lecture on safety tips for the single woman.”

“The thanks you got was hot coffee in bed,” Nick pointed out. “Although I don’t know why you bother to drink such a weak excuse for coffee. It has no bite,
no soul.” He shook his head in disappointment. “That coffee can’t warm a man that’s been all day on the bayou, wet and chilled from a drizzle of rain. Next time I’ll bring my own chicory blend and show you what a real cup of coffee tastes like.”

“Next time?” As usual with Nick, Mercy found herself forgetting what she wanted to say and focusing on the time bombs he dropped into the conversation.
Next time he spent the night?

That set off warning bells in Mercy’s head. The only foolproof way to ensure that a relationship didn’t turn nasty and bitter was never to start it in the first place. “Next time” wasn’t a good sign. Phrases like “next time” were how relationships got started. Situations like this had to be dealt with ruthlessly. Mercy made what she thought was a valiant attempt to pretend nothing was happening between them.

She took a casual swallow from the mug and suggested, “Next time let’s meet at the hospital. I really should see Sister Aggie anyway.”

“Don’t you worry. We’re gonna meet in lots of places,
chère
,” Nick assured her as he turned the crystal doorknob and pulled. “Places where you’ve never been. I promise you that.”

“Where are you going? Wait—” Mercy ordered, but the master of innuendo was already out of her bedroom, and her gut told her he’d keep right on going out the front door. “Dammit!”

Quickly, she shoved the coffee onto her nightstand and flung off the covers. Racing to her closet, she grabbed a pair of black jeans and dragged them on while listening for the piercing screech of the screen-door hinge. She had to catch Nick before he left and
make sure he understood that she only promised to help with the fund-raiser. Nothing else.

Mercy zipped on the run, and the screen door slammed closed behind Nick as she flew down the staircase. “Nick, wait! I cannot believe this. You can’t just turn your back and walk away. I’m not through with you!” she called as she burst through the door.

Stopping on the bottom porch step, shirt still open, Nick turned. “Then that makes us even,
chère
. ’Cause I’m not through with you either. Not near through.”

Nick swept back up the steps and pulled her against his bare chest in one motion. Shamelessly, he snugged her body next to his, slowly making sure every possible inch of contact was made. The rush of sensation was incredible and Mercy didn’t fight it. She leaned into the embrace, admitting to herself that she’d wanted this kiss since yesterday, since the first moment she’d gotten a look at his sensual mouth. For a heart-stopping moment she thought he was finally going to kiss her, but then he smiled and released her.