Never Let Go (3 page)

“How about dinner?” he said. “Have you eaten?” At her clearly startled expression, he added quickly, “You could tell me how it’s going with Davey.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?”

“Prescribing again?” This time his smile was full-blown, lingering and devastating.

Mallory winced. “Sorry. Force of habit. In my family, we’re all worriers. It’s a trait my mother built into us. She taught us to call if we were going to be more than ten minutes late, to wear sunscreen when we went outdoors, to stay away from the pool unless an adult was with us, to get eight hours of sleep, to eat our vegetables and to take our vitamins. If we didn’t follow the rules, all sorts of dire consequences were predicted, not the least of which was worrying her into an early grave. I can’t even pass a display of vitamins without feeling the urge to pop one.”

“It sounds like you had a happy childhood, though,” he said with what sounded to Mallory like a surprising trace of envy.

“It was very
happy. I think that’s why I chose this career, so I could help other kids who aren’t so lucky.”

“Are you going to tell me more about it over dinner?” His voice was persuasive, but it was the look in his eyes that did her in. He looked, impossible as it seemed, vulnerable. Mallory was a sucker for a hint of vulnerability in a man as self-confident as Justin Whitmore. It was another layer to be noted, another hint of the man’s startling complexity.

One of the pitfalls of being a psychologist was that she always found herself wanting to peel away those layers until she discovered the core of the human being beneath. She could just imagine how thrilled Justin would feel at being subjected to her professional scrutiny. Only in his case, she realized, it wouldn’t be professional at all. It would be very personal. Thinking again about that foolhardy moth, she shrugged in resignation and accepted his invitation.

“Sure,” she said at last. “Where shall I meet you?”

“Scared I’m so tired you wouldn’t be safe riding with me?” he teased.

She reacted with an unaccustomed blush. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just figured it would be easier if we both had our own cars.”

“To tell you the truth, I was hoping you would drive. I’m too beat to be behind the wheel. We’ll go to the Thai Orchid, if that’s okay. It’s close, and you can drop me back here afterward.”

“Perfect. I love Thai food. You give the directions, and I’ll try to get us there in one piece.”

It took less than ten minutes to reach the restaurant, a tiny place, filled with pungent, tempting odors. Each table was decorated with a small branch of miniature orchids, the delicate blossoms creating a touch of elegance amid the informality. Mallory studied the varied menu with delight, ordering a salad and a shrimp dish, both of which had a three-star spiciness rating.

“Does that
come with a fire extinguisher?” Justin asked, after he’d ordered his own milder dishes. “Or are you going to want something to drink?”

“Soda,” Mallory said.

“Make that two,” he told the waitress.

When she’d gone, he leaned back in his chair and studied the dark-haired woman opposite him. He wondered what it was about her that had convinced him to break his firm rule about avoiding personal relationships with all people—and especially women—at the hospital. He’d learned the hard way that they were complicated and often messy, especially when they ended. Even a dinner as casual as this one violated his long-standing code of behavior.

More important, he wondered why he’d let his guard down with a psychologist. Ever since his own tumultuous childhood, he’d had a well-founded distrust of anyone in that profession. There was something about Mallory Blake, though, that told him she might be different. There was fire and honesty in her eyes and compassion in her voice. Even when she’d snapped his head off, there had been an underlying gentleness about her that he trusted.

He didn’t want to trust her. In fact, he viewed this dinner as nothing more than an extension of his earlier apology and a chance to hear how it was going with Davey.

“Tell me about
our patient,” he said. “Any signs of progress?”

Mallory sighed. “Not really. I keep thinking it will happen at any moment, but I’m afraid to push too hard. Sometimes, I get so frustrated, I just want to yell to provoke him into responding.”

Justin’s expression became instantly wary. “Don’t you dare yell at that boy.”

“Of course I’m not going to yell at him. I know in the long run it would only be counterproductive.” Her wide-set, blue-green eyes watched him closely. “Why are you so concerned about Davey?”

“He’s my patient.”

“You have other patients. From what I’ve heard, you don’t spend a lot of postsurgical time worrying about their problems.”

Justin flinched as the barb struck home. He was well aware of his reputation for being aloof with his patients, and it rankled, even though he did nothing to change it. “My responsibility is to give them the best possible chance at survival with a decent quality of life, whether I’m dealing with a brain tumor or a spinal cord injury.”

“If you’ve done that, you think you can just slip out of your scrubs, go home and rest easy?”

“Exactly,” he said tightly, feeling a knot of tension form in his stomach. No matter what he said, though, he didn’t rest easy. There were nights when, despite the exhaustion, he tossed and turned restlessly, wishing he could give more, but he couldn’t. He needed that distance, worked at it. It was the only way he could do his job.

“Why did you become a doctor, if you don’t care about the whole person? Don’t you think you have an obligation to give them some moral support?” she persisted.

“I thought that
was your business.”

“In some instances with the kids I’m part of the team, yes. So are the social workers and nurses. That doesn’t mean you can just walk away and go on to your next case.”

“I have to. There’s no time for anything more.”

“That’s an excuse. Other residents find the time.”

“Check my schedule. Show me how to fit in any more.”

“I’ll take your word for it, but I ask you again: why is it different with Davey?”

Justin glowered at her, infuriated by her persistence. “I’m not on your couch,
Dr.
Blake.”

“I’m just trying to make a little friendly conversation. Davey seems to be the one thing we have in common.”

“Fine. We can talk all you want about Davey. Just leave my motivations out of it. If you can’t do that, let’s move on to the weather.”

That glint of fire was back in her eyes. “Damn it, Justin Whitmore, you are the most impossible man I have ever met in my life. I thought when you suggested dinner, you might be mellowing toward me just a little, but you haven’t, have you?”

“It depends on what you mean by mellowing,” he said cautiously. “If you’re referring to professional respect, maybe. If you’re referring to trust, let’s just say I’m still withholding judgment.”

His lips curved into an unwilling smile. “If you’re talking about my being attracted to you as a woman, I’d say I’ve definitely mellowed. In fact, if I weren’t so damn tired, I’d spend the rest of the night showing you just how attracted I am.” The admission, made lightly, was all too true. Even now, his body was responding to her in a way that he’d never intended.

If he wasn’t
particularly pleased about it, Mallory Blake was incensed. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t, you pompous ass.” She seethed with what he knew was thoroughly justifiable fury. He was surprised she didn’t jump up and punch him in the nose. She looked as though she wanted to, but she settled for berating him verbally. “Do you honestly think I’m flattered that you’re interested in my body, when you’ve just finished saying you
might
respect me and you
barely
trust me? Work on the respect and trust, doctor, and then we might have something to talk about.”

“That’s an intriguing invitation.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Justin chuckled, the knot in his stomach unraveling. “You are—”

Her eyes narrowed threateningly. “If you say one word about my being beautiful when I’m angry,” she warned, “I will dump that entire chicken dinner on top of your overactive hormones.”

He threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Never. I was simply going to say that you are the most fascinating woman I’ve ever known.”

“Humph.”

He regarded her warily. “Does that mean I can stop worrying about getting my lap doused with chicken and rice?”

“Maybe.”

“When will I know for sure?”

Suddenly she grinned and that flashing smile made his heart thump crazily in his chest. One of the things he found so beguiling about her was her knack for letting go of her anger so readily, for saying exactly what was on her mind and then moving on. She was apparently one of those enviable souls who carried around no excess emotional baggage.

“When you’ve
finished eating all the chicken,” she said primly. Their laughter bubbled up and ended the moment of tension, if not the sizzling feeling of awareness.

For the rest of the meal, they stuck to safer topics, mostly focusing on Mallory. She described her childhood in Arizona, her two rambunctious brothers and devilish sister, her salt-of-the-earth mother and generous father.

“Dad blustered and threatened a lot, but he never once took a switch to any of us. He didn’t have to. The minute he raised his voice, calling us by our full names, we knew the game was over. It was absolutely amazing how he could quiet a room, just by saying, ‘Mallory Marie, Theodore James, David John, Heather Jane, that’s enough now!’”

Something painful tugged at Justin’s heart as he listened. Just when he sensed that Mallory was about to question him about his own childhood, he called for the check.

“Sorry to end this so early,” he apologized. “I really am exhausted.”

If Mallory was thrown by the abrupt end of their evening, she covered it well. “No problem,” she said quickly. “I’m amazed you’ve made it this long.”

As they approached the hospital, she asked, “Where’s your car?”

“Don’t
worry about it. Just drop me at the front entrance.”

Her expression was horrified. “You’re not going back on duty, are you?”

Impulsively, Justin leaned across and brushed a kiss across her lips, which parted instantly in what he realized subconsciously was astonishment. He was every bit as shocked as she was, but it was something he admitted now that he’d been wanting to do all night, something he couldn’t deny himself.

The kiss, for all its innocence and brevity, was everything he’d imagined it could be. Her softness was like velvet, her warmth like an autumn sun, tantalizing in its intensity. Heat surged through him, awakening his tired senses, and he was tempted to linger for more, but he knew the dangers were multiplying with every minute he spent in Mallory Blake’s company.

“Thanks for worrying about me,” he said softly, “but don’t. I’m just going back in to say good-night to Davey.”

“Oh,” she said, her cheeks turning an attractive shade of pink. It intrigued him, seeing a woman so uncompromisingly sure of herself display a little sign of uncertainty.

“Thanks for dinner.”

“See you around,” he said in the most noncommittal tone he could manage. He moved quickly away before he could make the terrible mistake of setting an exact day and time for that next meeting to take place.

“Admit it,” he muttered to himself as he made his way slowly through the quiet corridors to Davey’s room. “You weren’t joking. You want that woman.”

Worse, he knew that
sooner or later he was going to do something about it. He shook his head. “Fool!”

T
he dinner had only whetted
her interest. As maddening as it was, Mallory found Justin Whitmore more seductive and alluring than ever. If it had been nothing more than professional curiosity about an intriguing enigma or even a healthy infatuation with a fascinating specimen of the opposite sex, it might not have been so worrisome. Something told her, however, that it was much more.

To be sure, she found him both complex and devastatingly attractive with an almost raw, primitive sexuality of which he seemed totally unaware. The hints of vulnerability, the gentleness with Davey, the respect accorded him by his colleagues gave him a substance that appealed to her. More than that, though, she also found him infuriating. She knew exactly what that implied—there was a potentially explosive chemistry between them.

Most men, even
after weeks of trying, did not rouse her temper or passions to quite the heights that Justin had with just two short encounters and a kiss that had been so brief as to be almost elusive. He had reached a long-untouched spot in her heart and threatened to twist it in two before he was done.

No one since Alan had done that. Even now, with time and distance between them, the memory of Alan was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Her hand shook as she picked up the cup of black coffee from her tray and took a long swallow. The pain was as fresh as if it had been only yesterday that he’d left her facing a life from which all sunlight seemed to have vanished.

Alan had been as much a part of her childhood as her own family. When her brothers had scoffed at her, she’d served a besotted Alan mud pies with cactus on the side. He’d taught her how to handle a horse, and they’d ridden for hours through the desert, galloping toward the future in a rush of anticipation. She’d listened to his dreams, and he’d made hers come true. They were married when they finished college.

Alan had been a gentle boy, a decent man. What they had shared had been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. They had been soul mates in every sense of the word, understanding things that were never spoken, fulfilling needs that had been left unsaid.

Perhaps because their own communication had been so incredibly special, they had both been drawn to psychology as a profession. She had chosen to work with children, Alan with adults. Their practice in Phoenix had flourished until the day, more than a year ago one of Alan’s patients, outraged at his lack of progress and blaming his psychologist for it, pulled out a gun and shot him. Horrified by the sharp, cracking sound that had ripped through the early-evening quiet, Mallory had run in from the next room to find Alan bleeding and dying, the patient sobbing in a chair with the gun pointed at himself.

Holding her
husband in her arms, feeling the life ebb out of him, Mallory had instinctively talked Alan’s killer out of committing suicide. The story had made national headlines, painting her alternately as some sort of saint or as a fool. She knew perfectly well she was no saint. She’d hated what happened to Alan and the man responsible, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to watch an anguished man die before her eyes. It wouldn’t have saved Alan. Perhaps she’d done it simply because even in a crisis her training helped her to understand, if not forgive, him.

For months afterward, she had fought to maintain her own tenuous hold on sanity, questioning her profession, even the meaning of life itself. Finally, when she found she had nothing left inside to give to the troubled children who came to her, she had turned her practice over to a colleague. After the healing was done, she had chosen to leave Arizona, to relocate in San Francisco where no memories of Alan lurked in every whisper of the hot, dry breeze, in every brilliant setting of the desert sun.

In the end the experience, rather than destroying her, had made her even stronger. It had reaffirmed her conviction and Alan’s that every moment of life was precious, not to be wasted on half-truths or self-pity or doubt. She would treasure her memories always, but she would not live with them as a constant companion. She had loved incredibly well before. She would again.

And when she
did, she certainly would not fall in love with an uptight, contradictory man like Justin Whitmore, she reassured herself as she headed back to visit Davey one last time before going home. She’d find someone as open and caring as Alan, not a man who drove her to thoughts of mayhem.

The thought of how Justin would react to her trying to shake some sense into his stubborn head made her smile. She was still smiling when she walked into Davey’s room and found Justin standing by the boy’s bed, his arms resting on the high railing, his head bent in dejection as he tried to coax Davey to talk. His voice was low and tender.

“You know, pal, the sooner you get better, the sooner you and I can go to a ball game together. The season’s about to start and I’m a big fan of the Giants. I might even be able to get tickets for opening day. Maybe when you’re better you could play on a Little League team.” There was a long hesitation before he added tentatively, “I’ve been thinking about signing up to coach one. We could do it together. How would you feel about that?”

There was a restless stirring on the bed, and Mallory held her breath as she watched from the doorway. Davey rolled toward Justin and opened huge blue eyes that stared solemnly up at the man above him. Mallory saw the exultant lift of Justin’s shoulders and felt her eyes grow misty.

He reached out a gentle hand to brush the blond hair from Davey’s forehead. The boy flinched, but kept his gaze fixed trustingly on the doctor. She could see Justin’s normally steady fingers shake as they touched the pale skin. Under Justin’s soothing touch, Davey relaxed at last.

“So,” Justin
said again, “what do you think? Want to go to that game?”

Davey nodded almost imperceptibly.

“That’s my boy,” Justin said, his voice soft and encouraging, but shaking slightly with justifiable excitement.

Davey’s eyes closed and he drifted back to sleep, Justin still standing by his side. A deep, shuddering sigh rippled through the tall man as he watched the boy.

Mallory tiptoed into the room then and instinctively put her hand on top of Justin’s. Startled, he looked down at her, and she realized for the first time that his eyes were bright with unshed tears. He tried to blink the tears away, glowering at her, and then he started from the room. Mallory caught him at the door and pushed it shut, determined not to allow yet another retreat, especially not at a moment like this.

“Why are you running away?” she demanded, brushing at her own freely falling tears. “Surely you’re not afraid to let your emotions show.” The taunt was deliberate, an appeal to what she suspected was a very macho self-image.

“I’m not running. I have things to do.” After his display of sensitivity, he was all stiff-necked pride again, and the urge to shake him came back with a vengeance.

“You just got through to that little boy. Don’t you feel like celebrating?”

“I feel…” He shrugged, apparently unable to express to her the mixture of joy and pain swirling through him. A smile tugged at his lips, even as his eyes brimmed with tears again.

“It’s your
victory, Justin,” she said without a trace of jealousy. “You got through to him and you have every right to feel good about it. Damn it, you can even cry if you want to. Look at me. I’m a mess and I was only an observer.”

She was not an especially competitive person. As long as Davey became whole again, it didn’t matter to her which of them claimed the breakthrough. Davey would be the real winner. It was that way with all of her patients.

Justin refused to meet her gaze. “There’s a long way to go. You should know that better than anyone,” he said curtly.

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be grateful for each step along the way. Today he responded. By tomorrow, maybe he’ll talk to you.”

Mallory was a toucher and without thinking about what she was doing, she put her hand on Justin’s cheek as she spoke. The stubble of his beard was rough beneath her fingers, the flesh warm, the line of his jaw strong. The gesture would have been, under any other circumstances, between any other two people, an innocent expression of sympathy. Between them it was an explosive invitation.

Before she even recognized the touch for what it had been, Justin groaned and pulled her into his arms, his kiss desperate, yet gentle, possessive and yet uncertain. His lips slanted across hers persuasively, his tongue venturing a tentative touch that left her gasping and wanting more.

After the initial instant of shock, her arms crept up and circled his neck. Her body arched into his embrace until she could feel every solid inch of him pressed against her, and she knew for certain exactly how aroused he was. He was strength and tenderness, hungry passion and silent desperation. He was the flame and she, God help her, was drifting toward it with swift inevitability.

Then, before she
could get burned, he was gone. She stood there staring after him, her heart thundering in her chest, heat sizzling through her to create an almost unbearable tension. With trembling fingers she reached up and touched her swollen lips, which had curved into a rueful smile.

“So, Mallory Marie, so much for good intentions. Like it or not, I guess that’s your answer,” she muttered wryly. “Now what the hell do you intend to do about it?”

The first thing she did after picking at a dinner she didn’t want was to call home.

“Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“Mallory, sweetie, how are you? We miss you. Are you settling in okay?”

Mallory glanced around her half-empty apartment. She hadn’t had her furniture shipped from home yet, and she was making do with a few rental pieces that were both nondescript and uncomfortable. “If you like an apartment that looks like it was furnished by a particularly inept and color-blind decorator, I suppose you can say I’m settled.”

“You could have your things sent.”

“I know. I’m still looking around for a better apartment, though. I’d like to buy something overlooking the water. After all those years in the desert, it seems I can’t get enough of the Bay.”

“I would have to go and have a child born under a water sign, wouldn’t I?” her mother said with a laugh. “It wasn’t particularly good timing on my part.”

It was an old joke
between them. Her mother was a great believer in astrology. “I don’t blame you, Mom. I could have held out for another couple of weeks and altered my chart.”

“If you had, your daddy might never have forgiven you. I was mean as could be those last few weeks as it was. It was hotter than blazes here and I was so swollen up I could hardly move. I was darn glad you came early.” There was a brief silence, then her mother said softly, “What’s really on your mind, Mallory?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t try to kid a kidder, girl. You never were any good at it. You’re upset about something or you wouldn’t be calling here at this hour on a weeknight.”

Mallory groaned. “I never should have gotten into the habit of only calling home on Saturday morning. Now you’ll think any other time I call, there’s a crisis.”

“Is there a crisis?” her mother persisted, then asked more gently, “Or are you just missing Alan?”

“Maybe that’s it,” Mallory said, seizing on the possibility as a way to make sense of her tangled feelings. Maybe this sense of confusion, this overwhelming attraction, was nothing more than loneliness.

“Maybe? You’re a psychologist. Can’t you figure out what’s going on in your own head?”

“It’s a whole lot easier to figure out what’s going on in someone else’s, and it is definitely easier to give advice than it is to take it.”

“Have you been giving yourself some advice and ignoring it?”

“Something like that.”

“Mind a little from me?”

“You don’t even know what the issues are.”

“Doesn’t matter. I know you. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’re loaded with common sense and sensitivity. It’s a wonderful combination. Trust your instincts.”

“Thanks, Mom. Maybe you should
be the psychologist,” she said, feeling better somehow, though nothing had really changed. “I’ll talk to you on Saturday.”

Once she’d hung up, Mallory thought about her mother’s advice to trust her instincts. The only problem was her instincts seemed to be all twisted up with her hormones this time, which left her right back where she’d started: wondering what to do.

What she intended to do, she decided at 4:00 a.m. after hours of restless tossing and turning, was to put a lid on her emotions. Rational thought protested valiantly that people did not fall in love in a couple of weeks, that it took longer to choose appropriately. She was definitely lonely. Other than Rachel she hadn’t made any real friends yet. It was natural enough to feel a bond with a man who cared for Davey as she did. It would be crazy to think it was anything more. Thus satisfied that she had the whole thing in proper perspective, she slept soundly and dreamlessly.

Everything might have resolved itself exactly as she’d planned, if she hadn’t run into Justin in the park on Saturday. Literally. The impact knocked the wind out of her and put her in his arms when he tried to steady her. Then she realized exactly who the lout was who’d come around the curve on the wrong side of the jogging path. She jumped away so quickly that she stumbled and found herself right back in his strong embrace.

“We have to stop meeting
like this,” he said dryly, and to Mallory’s amazement she found there was a twinkle in his eyes as he pointedly reminded her of the last time they’d seen each other. He seemed to have gone out of his way to avoid her since that night in Davey’s room when they’d kissed, and she was surprised to find him so completely at ease with her now. The fact that he seemed to be joking nonchalantly about an incident that had left her breathless with wonder was enough to rile her all over again.

Not to be outdone by his casual attitude, she searched for and found an equally light tone. “Have you thought of wearing a bell?”

His expression grave, he seemed to consider the idea. “I suppose that might work here, but it could be a little distracting at the hospital. The paging system is bad enough.”