Midnight Kiss (4 page)

Autumn quickly turned and looked out the window next to her. There was nothing but darkness, just like the alley six months ago. Sure she had met the usual lowlifes of the inner city, but she had the luck of the Irish until six months before. Tears pooled in her eyes as she continued to stare outside. It had been a star-studded April night in New York when she’d entered the smelly, litter-filled alley and met her fate. It came in the form of a scared sixteen-year-old boy named Tyler with a stolen VCR under one arm and a quivering Saturday-night special pointed at the third button on her uniform shirt. Her revolver already drawn, she knew it was either him or her, but she couldn’t pull the trigger. He was only a kid; hell, he probably didn’t have all his adult teeth yet. With all her training and police work and the blood of generations of policemen in her veins, she still couldn’t bring herself to shoot that wide-eyed kid. Autumn O’Neil was a coward and a disgrace to the family name. As if in slow motion, she had watched his finger tighten on the trigger. Her eyes slammed shut as the explosion of gunfire echoed off the brick walls of the alley. Incredibly she felt no pain. She opened her eyes and saw her partner, who had entered the alley from the other direction, standing over the dead boy and the smashed VCR. Autumn had turned in her badge later that star-studded April night.

“Autumn?”

She jumped slightly as the waiter placed her dessert in front of her. Rapidly blinking, she glanced at a concerned Thane. “Yes, I met drug dealers, con artists, and burglars.” She smiled weakly and picked up her fork. “My, doesn’t this look delicious?”

He didn’t buy one minute of her act. Something was wrong. “Autumn?”

Forcing a wider smile to her lips, she asked, “Did you always want to be a doctor?”

Thane allowed the change in subject only because he couldn’t stand to see the distress on her face. “Yes, even before my mother bought me a practice dummy.”

“Practice dummy?”

“By the time I was four, I had bandaged every table and chair in the house, and the dog refused to come when I called her.”

Autumn burst out laughing, causing the couple at the next table to glare at her. “I’m having a hard time visualizing you as a child, let alone wrapping a dog in gauze.”

“I’ll have you know I was an adorable child.” Thane turned his nose up at the glaring couple. He wasn’t used to attracting attention, but as far as he was concerned, it was well worth it just to hear her sweet laugh again. “I started on table legs when I was three. By the time I was five, I could get the dog into a back brace.”

“So what does a practice dummy look like?”

“It’s this inflatable person.”

Autumn’s laughter earned another glare. “Your mother bought a five-year-old an inflatable doll?”

“Shhh.” Thane realized how bad that had sounded and started again. “It wasn’t a female.” Ignoring her smirk, he continued. “It wasn’t a male, either, it was nonsexual. It was just arms, legs, a body, and a head.”

“What did you name it?”

“The dummy?”

“Of course the dummy. What did you call it?”

“I didn’t call it anything. I don’t go around naming inanimate objects.”

Autumn chewed a mouthful of cheesecake and shook her head. Whoever heard of having a doll and not naming it? She named everything from Paddy’s beat-up pickup truck to the cantankerous washing machine that refused to fill with rinse water unless she pleaded. A picture of his sad, lonely childhood developed before her eyes. “Is your father a doctor too?”

“No, my father is a member of the Diplomatic Corps in Washington, D.C.”

“What does your mother do?”

“She’s a dutiful wife. She acts as his hostess, part-time secretary, and confidante.”

“Brothers or sisters?”

“I’m an only child. I think I came as a surprise to them, considering their age.” He finished the cake and reached for his coffee.

“Why geriatrics?”

Thane blanched and slowly lowered the cup back onto the saucer.
The million-dollar question and I don’t know how to answer. How do I tell the granddaughter of one of my patients that geriatrics wasn’t my first choice?

Autumn watched as Thane’s right hand slid off the table and onto his lap. It was the third time she noticed its disappearing act. Whenever her gaze landed on the faintly scarred hand, he hid it from view. Did the imperfection bother him? Considering how he earned the scars, he should be very proud of them. She had heard the story about his heroic deed from one of the residents. He had pulled a five-year-old boy out of the way of a speeding car, only to have its fender shatter his hand. She wondered what his reaction would be if he knew he was having dinner with a coward.

Feeling defensive, he asked, “Do you realize that with all the medical advances for prolonging life, geriatrics is the fastest growing practice in America?”

One auburn eyebrow rose at his tone. “I didn’t say anything against geriatrics, Thane. I was just curious as to why you chose it.”

He forced himself to keep his hand on his thigh instead of slipping it into his pants pocket. Autumn obviously didn’t know about his short, brilliant career as an orthopedic surgeon. “Maybe it chose me.”

“Grandparents?” she guessed. “Don’t all doctors have someone in their past who pointed them toward their careers?”

“By the time I came along, both sets of grandparents were gone.”

“Lord, when you said your parents were up in age when you were born, you weren’t kidding.”

Thane threw back his head and burst out laughing. His mother would have Autumn banished to Antarctica for suggesting she was that old. “I only meant my mother was reaching thirty and my father had put forty way behind him. Thirty-three years ago that was considered late in life to be starting a family.”

“Oh. So why geriatrics?”

Thane was ready to dodge the question again when he looked into her eyes and saw the interest blazing there. She was really interested in him; she wasn’t just making polite conversation. “I met a man named Franklin Turner.” Autumn leaned closer and offered a smile of encouragement. “We were roommates three years ago at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Franklin’s body was eighty-eight years old, but his mind was that of a man of fifty.” Thane’s gaze turned inward at some special memory. “The stories he could tell. I would keep him up hours into the night begging for more. Who needs history books when men like Franklin could tell you what it was like to live through the Jazz Age and the Depression. Franklin possessed dignity, honesty, and love for mankind. If only I had understood more about the aging process, I might have been able to prolong his life.”

Tears of compassion filled Autumn’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Thane felt a faint flush climb up his neck. He hadn’t meant to tell her everything. “What are you thanking me for?”

“For being Paddy’s doctor.”

What could he say to that? “It’s my job.”

An angelic smile curved Autumn’s mouth. Not only was he compassionate and sexy, but he was modest too. “If you say so.”

Thane scowled at the smiling couple next to them. Great, now the entire world thought he was a humanitarian when he wasn’t. What he was was a man who had his lifelong dream snatched away from him. An orthopedic surgeon couldn’t perform surgery with only one good hand. Throughout countless reconstruction operations, months of physical therapy, and time stretching endlessly in front of him, one vision stayed with him-- Franklin’s smile. One day Thane had picked up the latest
New England Medical Journal
and found an article on the problems of the elderly. The more he had read, the more interested he had become. Geriatrics might have been his second choice, but by hell, he wouldn’t be a second-rate doctor in it.

#

Autumn fidgeted with the clasp on her purse as Thane walked her up onto the dimly lit porch. Should she invite him in or not? The entire trip back to her house had been traveled in complete silence. What happened to the easy conversation they had shared over dinner? She’d felt then she had gained a friend in Thane.

Frustrated, Thane ran a hand through his short hair. Why had he spilled his guts over dinner? He had never told anyone about Franklin before, not even his parents, so why Autumn? To top that, he had spouted stories about bandaging table legs and his dog. Why didn’t he mention graduating at the top of his class or being on the advisory board for the Congressional Committee on Aging?

Autumn glanced up from digging the house keys out of her purse. “Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”

He gazed at her upturned face and resisted the temptation. “I’d better not, it’s getting late.”

She unlocked the door and flicked on the living room light switch. “Thank you for dinner, Thane. It was lovely.”

He stared at the shimmering moisture on her lower lip. “Figure out the calmest Halloween party possible and then run it by me. I’m sure I’ll be able to quiet it down some more.”

Autumn’s generous mouth formed a pout. “You’re depressing me, Thane.”

It’s better than kissing you.
Halfway through dinner he’d glanced up and suddenly wondered what her lips would taste like under his. Throughout his life many people had said he’d received more than his fair share of brains. He had never doubted that statement—until now. Standing in the shadows of the porch, he wanted to take Autumn into his arms to see if she’d put the same enthusiasm into a single kiss as she did life.

His finger reached out and gently caressed the graceful line of her jaw. Desire swept through him as her lips softly parted. He knew that kissing her would be the worst move he could make. He finally had Autumn where he wanted her, and the VCRP award for the number-one nursing home in the state was within his grasp. There wasn’t room for personal feelings between them. He lowered his finger and took a step back. “Thank you for an enjoyable evening, Autumn.”

Bewildered and lonely, she stood in the doorway and watched as Thane retraced his steps to his car and drove away.

Autumn let out a high-pitched squeal, did a feisty bump and grind, and belted out the second verse of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” Keeping time with the music coming from her iPod, she valiantly tried to rake brightly colored leaves into a neat pile, but it was scattered in every direction by the crisp afternoon breeze. She frowned, then grimaced at the blister forming on her thumb. It looked as if her hands were having a harder time adjusting to Dogwood, Virginia, than she was.

With renewed determination and rhythmic sways of her hips, she gathered the leaves once more and quickly began to dump them into an empty basket. But the wind blew away half of every armful she’d dropped and then showered her with the foliage. This was turning into a never-ending battle.

She glanced around her neighbors’ yards and sighed. They were all raked and looked immaculate. A smile touched her lips when a gentle breeze sent a dozen leaves floating down onto the Gardners’ yard. Good. now hers didn’t look so bad. She was turning back to her pile when a blast of chilly air gusted her way, along with the leaves from the Gardners’ yard. Sometimes life wasn’t fair.

Thane parked his car and silently watched Autumn dance around her front yard raking leaves. Whoever named her had chosen well. She looked like autumn. Her mane of wild red curls flew around her shoulders. The thick gold sweater she wore blended perfectly with the array of colors surrounding her. Old jeans and sneakers gave her a tomboyish appearance, until she bent over to scoop up an armful of leaves. There was nothing boyish about the curves he saw then.

When he received the message that Autumn had been trying to contact him about the Halloween party, he decided to stop by instead of calling. For some perverted reason he wanted to see if she still had the same effect on him she did two nights before. The kiss he hadn’t experienced had been haunting his dreams. He needed to put the issue to rest once and for all. He got out of the car and slowly walked to where Autumn was trying to fill a basket. “Anyone can tell you’re a city girl.”

Autumn continued to swing her denim-clad bottom and sing along with the tape.

Thane swallowed hard and memorized the faded gold stitching across her right rear pocket. He moved around the basket, away from temptation, and positioned himself in front of her.

Autumn jumped in surprise and yanked her earphones down around her neck when she saw him. “Thane!”

“Anyone can tell you’re a city girl,” he repeated. He picked up the rake and used it to hold down the remaining leaves in the basket. “You should never rake when it’s windy. It defeats the purpose.”

Autumn lifted another armful, waited for him to move the rake, and dumped her load into the basket. “So far I haven’t been able to figure out the purpose. Every time I fill the basket, the wind blows and bombards the yard with a few hundred more leaves.”

Thane chuckled as he placed one foot in the basket and flattened its crisp, colorful contents. “I believe the main benefit is exercise and fresh air.” He noticed the healthy glow of her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes and quickly glanced away. If possible, she looked more kissable in the sunshine than on a dimly lit porch.

Autumn concentrated on raking and tried not to stare at Thane. She hadn’t expected him to show up in person. She reached up to capture her windblown hair and frowned as she plucked a dead leaf from it. Thane looked as if he could be hosting a garden party with his light-blue sweater and creased black pants. Even his shoes had the distinct glow of a recent polishing. His only imperfection was the slight tossing the wind was giving his hair, and that only made him look casually rumpled. He looked out of place standing in the middle of her yard with one foot firmly planted in a bushel basket. “Do you make a habit out of rescuing ladies from endless raking?”

Thane ran his gaze over her wrinkled sweater and tight jeans. “No, this is a special service reserved for an elite few.” Considering this was the first time, he wasn’t going to tell her how few.

Autumn suppressed the joy his statement had sent rushing to her heart. She liked being linked to the word
elite
, but the
few
had to go. She had never cared for being lumped with others, and she especially didn’t care for being lumped with a bunch of women by Thane. “Did you stop by to find out about the Halloween party?”