Prima Donna (25 page)

With her tongue clamped between her teeth, Hazel twirled around him after each snip, humming something that sounded an awful lot like a funky mix of Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. Some cuts were easy, but others took all her concentration and both hands to work the scissors.

It was mesmerizing watching her flounce around Carter, fluffing her tutu and pushing the front wisp of hair out of her eyes. Regan’s heart both ached and beamed with every step Hazel took, especially when she stood back, studied Carter’s head, the amount of hair on the floor, and then twirled around him one more time before chopping off three more chunks.

It was beyond disastrous—worse than when he showed up at Regan’s salon on New Year’s. Crooked, short, long, patchy, and those cowlicks…

He’d never looked better than he did right then, sitting on that teeny-tiny plastic green chair with the paint-stained towel wrapped around his neck. He didn’t have to say a word; it was in the softness of his eyes and the peaceful, soothing way he smiled. This little peeps of a girl could have shaved him bald, and he wouldn’t care. She could have painted his nails in sparkly pink polish, and he would’ve worn it proudly.

Hell, she could have asked him for Jupiter and he’d have found a way to wrap it up with a giant velvety bow for her. Anything to make her life a little easier, a little happier.

When Hazel was finished, she squished Carter’s cheeks between her tiny hands and nodded.

“See, Miss Burt, isn’t he pretty now?”

The boy with the game controller cast a quick glance over his shoulder and snorted, but Carter’s grin widened, warming Regan down to the soles of her feet. She wanted to smile back, but her lips trembled so hard and her eyes burned so hot, she had to steeple her hands in front of her mouth to try and steady herself.

When she did finally answer, she spoke slowly, forcing each word off her tongue with a steadiness she sure as hell didn’t feel.

“Prettiest man I’ve ever seen, Hazel.”

The little girl unwrapped the towel from Carter’s neck, dumped it on the floor, and twirled off to the other side of the room as he pushed out of his chair and stood in front of Regan, his hands palm up. A second later, Hazel twirled back.

“Here’s your prize for bein’ good and sittin’ still.”

Without missing a beat, Carter held out his right wrist and she wrapped a new bracelet around it; this one a thick blue band covered in tiny pink and purple plastic daisies. She fumbled with the knot, her tongue once again clamped between her teeth until she got it secured.

“Thanks, Haze,” he said, fingering his new bling like it’d come straight from Cartier. “It’s my new favorite.”

“Hazel.” Her dad’s eyes widened when he saw Carter. “Oh, uh, that’s, wow. Great job, honey. Grandma’s here.”

“But I have to go with Doc Scott. ’Member how scared he was last time Miss Emily poked him?”

Regan’s gaze shot up to Carter, but he was still focused on Hazel.

“No pokes for me today,” he said. “I’m good for a while now.”

“For real?”

“For real. You go see your grandma; Miss Burke can help me clean up.”

“Okay.” Hazel handed him the broom, then twirled toward the door. “Bye, Doc Scott, bye, Miss Burt.”

It took Regan a long time before she finally stopped staring at the empty doorway and managed to stand up.

“That was…” she breathed, swiping her hand across her cheek before Carter saw her crying again.

Carter just shrugged as he ran his hand back through what was left of his hair. “She’s great, isn’t she?”

“She’s…wow. Just wow.” As they cleaned up together, every once in a while, it would hit Regan again and she’d just shake her head and repeat the same word over and over again. “Wow.”

Still in awe, she followed Carter back to the elevator and leaned back against the wall while he pressed the button and waited for the doors to close.

“Who’s Emily?” she asked.

Whatever Carter was about to say remained unsaid as the elevator stopped on the next floor and a couple other people got on. They rode in silence until the doors opened onto the lobby floor, but when Regan made to step off, he held her back with a gentle touch of his hand against her arm and the elevator continued down.

Frowning, she leaned back again, waiting for him to explain.

“I’m going to take you to meet Emily.”

The door opened and they stepped out into what appeared to be the bowels of the hospital. A fading yellow stripe on the floor led them past a clutter of gurneys, racks of bedding, and broken wheelchairs, and around the corner past two cold-looking gray doors with authorized personnel only signs.

“Good God, where are we going, the morgue?”

“Not quite,” he answered, a slight edge to his voice.

With every step, his breathing seemed to get a little more labored, his jaw a little tighter.

“Carter.” She stopped walking about twenty feet back from the large black-and-white plastic sign pointing them toward the lab. “Tell me.”

His head lowered slightly, his body heaving slowly with his intake of breath. After a second, he turned, but he didn’t look at her, just fell back against the wall with his hands stuffed in his pockets and stared at the floor.

“Remember I told you about that summer we spent scrubbing out the church?” He stopped, licked his lips and sighed. “A couple weeks after that, school had just started again, and I, uh, found out I had testicular cancer.”

“Oh my God.” Regan stared at him, waiting for him to say more, which he didn’t seem overly keen to do. “But you said you were only, what?
Fourteen?
I can’t even…oh, Carter…That must have been horrible.”

Finally, he looked up at her, slowly, his eyes searching hers as if he was expecting something, and she knew exactly what that was. He was expecting to see that look, the one she knew so well herself; the one that gives away how freaked out the person is. Regan reached for his hand, but it was jammed down so deep in his pocket, she had to settle for resting her hand on his forearm.

“And your poor mother—she must have been terrified, especially so soon after losing your dad.”

“Yeah, it sort of made everything else I’d put her through seem kinda lame.”

The tone of his voice, the barely there lift of his shoulder…of course! How many times had she done the exact same thing? It all made sense now; why he was never worried about his hair growing back, why he didn’t seem confused about why she felt guilty about her mom, and
yes,
why he always knew when she was bullshitting him.

He was a bullshitter, too!

“
You
didn’t put her through anything, Carter. You didn’t ask to get sick and you didn’t do anything to bring it on. It’s not your fault.”

“I know.”

“Really?” She quirked her brow at him. “ ’Cause you don’t look like you know, and you don’t sound like you know, so let me share a little bit of wisdom that was recently shared with me.”

She waited until he looked up at her and then she smiled, not because any of this was funny, but because for the first time she actually started to believe what she was about to say.

“Sometimes, for no apparent reason, biology and chemistry cause some kind of shit-storm inside a person. It’s no one’s fault, it just happens.”

Finally, a grin, small as it was.

“I know,” he said, doing a horrible impersonation of her. “I’ve read all about it.”

“Nice. Very mature.” She leaned back against the wall next to him and nodded slowly. “So is that what all the ‘poking’ talk was about? And is that why we’re standing outside the lab?”

Before he could answer, the door to the lab opened and out stepped an older woman in a dull white lab coat. At some point, her entire name must been embroidered across her right pocket, but all that was left now was an E, an I and an L. Her hair was pulled back in a loose gray bun and her hands were full of thick paper-filled folders.

“Carter! I was just about to call—” Her eyes widened at the sight of his hair. “Oh, Lord, you’ve been to see Hazel again.”

“Yeah. We, uh…” He cast a quick glance at Regan, then pushed off the wall, almost completely blocking her view, but she saw enough to know that when the woman shook her head, and mouthed “okay,” Carter’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “We just came down to say hi. This is Regan.”

“Regan?” The woman’s round face split into a huge bright smile as she juggled the charts to one arm so she could shake Regan’s hand. “Would you be the same Regan who told God’s Greatest Gift here that he looked like shit?”

“Oh my God, Carter!” Regan choked. “I
never
said that!”

“Yes she did, Em.” Carter’s eyes twinkled as he tried to look hurt. “Got me right in the feel-bads, too.”

“I said you looked God-awful, I never once said you looked like shit.”

Emily’s grinning face turned to Carter. “Same difference.”

“I know, right?”

Regan didn’t need a mirror to know her freckles were putting in an appearance. “I can’t believe you told her that.”

“I’m glad he did,” Emily laughed. “Because between you and me, this one could use a few more people talking to him like that.”

“Don’t I know it,” Regan grinned.

“I wish I had time to chat,” Emily said, more to Regan than Carter, as she lifted the files a little. “But with all the layoffs around here, there’s no one to come and get them, so it’s up to me. Can you stick around awhile?”

Regan glanced over at Carter, who shook his head slowly. “We gotta get going. It’s been kind of a long day.”

A knowing kind of look passed between Emily and Carter; her slight nod and smile followed by a shallow sigh of relief from him.

“Ride up with me, then,” she said.

Back in the elevator, Regan chuckled quietly. “Is it true what Hazel told me? Is Carter such a sissy when he gets poked that he brings her down for moral support?”

“I’d love to be able to say yes, but…” The smile on Emily’s face softened, warmed. “He does it to help the kids through their own blood draws. They sit with him when he gets his drawn, and he sits with them when they get theirs done.”

“Oh.” The tightness in Regan’s throat returned, making it impossible to say anything else, even after Carter chuckled and shook his head.

“That’s a lie,” he said. “I’m just really that much of a sissy.”

It was all Regan could do to force out a smile and a choked goodbye when they stepped out into the lobby and left Emily in the elevator. By the time they made it back to the car, everything inside her had twisted until she could barely breathe.

A couple months ago, if someone had told her she’d be spending the day this way, letting Carter Scott of all people into the most private corners of her life, or that he’d be letting her into his, she would’ve run screaming in the other direction.

And yet there they were, having seen into each other’s corners, and neither one of them were even jogging in the other direction. It was nothing like she’d expected.

She’d been prepared for him to be shocked, a little freaked out even; she’d been prepared for him to walk away, maybe not the very minute they left Hillcrest, but certainly by now there should have been signs that that’s how he was leaning.

What she hadn’t prepared herself for, and what was really starting to freak her out, was the idea he might actually want to stick around.

What the hell was she supposed to do about that?

Not think about it, that’s what she was going to do. It had only been a few hours since they left Hillcrest and anything could still happen, probably
would
happen, so in the time she had left with him, she wanted to know everything she could.

She shifted a little in her seat so she could look at him while he drove. “You must have been so scared.”

“Must have been? Shit, Red.” He had that look, like he was trying to decide what to say, then blew out a slow breath and muttered three words that he seemed wholly uncomfortable with. “I’m still scared.”

Three little words, that’s all they were, but they explained so many things.

For the rest of the ride home Regan listened as Carter told her about being diagnosed, about how he’d been in complete denial at first, and then majorly pissed off at everyone for a long time, especially his buddies who couldn’t bring themselves to go see him in the hospital. He told her how his mom cried all the time, about Nick and his endless supply of doughnut holes, about all the times he called Jayne a bitch, and how, no matter what he did now, he’d never be able to make that up to her.

He told her about Emily, how she’d been there right from the start, and how even though the doctor side of him knew it wasn’t necessary to have his blood tested every six months, he did it anyway, even though it meant paying for it himself.

“So that…with Emily just now, you were going down there to get your results?”

“Yeah.” It took a few seconds, but he finally glanced over at her and nodded. “I had the blood work done six weeks ago, but something showed up on the results, so we redid them last week.”

“What do you mean
something
?”

Carter shrugged slowly. “The old machines they had were crapping out on them, so they had to redo a whole bunch of tests just to be sure.”

“Sweet Jesus, Carter, so you’ve been walking around all these weeks thinking you might be sick again?”

Another shrug. “It happens.”

Regan just sat looking at him for a long time. He’d been through so much more than she ever would have imagined. He really did understand what it was like to have people shun you for something you had no control over, and he really did understand how much easier it was to let people think you were fine than it was to tell them the truth. And yet…

“There’s something else, isn’t there?”

He kept his gaze forward, his expression unflinching, but she knew she was right. She just didn’t know if he trusted her enough to tell her.

“Never tell me the odds!”

Han Solo,
The Empire Strikes Back

For the last ten miles of the drive home, Carter went back and forth so many times he lost count. He’d told her everything else, why not tell her this, too? What was the worst that could happen?

The answer to that sent chills racing down his spine; he’d seen how she was at the clinic, and he’d seen how she was with Hazel, so instead of telling her the truth, he chose to spend the rest of the drive in silence.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked as she opened the door to her apartment.

“Uh, yeah. What do you need?”

“This.” She tossed her coat over the back of the tub chair, shoved him back against the closed door, and kissed him. Hard. Long. And hungry as hell.

Her nails scraped against his chest as she balled his shirt into her fists, dragging him down so she didn’t have to be on her tiptoes. They shouldn’t…he shouldn’t…but he did. He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her in as tight as he could.

This is what he’d wanted, what he’d needed, for weeks, and maybe that was why he sputtered when she ended the kiss and eased back.

“I, uh, whew…” He sounded like he was thirteen again, his voice all tight and pitchy.

The smile on her face was unlike anything he’d ever seen: dazed, satisfied, victorious.

“Sorry,” she murmured, her cheeks getting pinker by the second. “Hope that was okay.”

“No. I mean yeah. Okay.” Real cool, idiot. Maybe let her finish the sentence before you answer next time.

“Good.” Regan never took her eyes off him as she leaned back, pressing every inch of herself, from the waist down, up against him. “Because I might need to do it again.”

Oooh, boy.

“What, uh—” He stopped, tried to swallow, and failed. “What about—”

What the hell was wrong with him? Why was he questioning it?

“What about what?” Her smirk never faltered, even as she nodded slowly. “The fact that I’m about to do something that could cost me more than my job?”

“Uh, yeah, that…wait, what?” He managed to swallow this time, but it took a hell of a lot more effort than it should have, and it didn’t help that her tongue took its sweet time moving over her bottom lip like that. What else was she going to lose?

“I don’t care. I’ve been wanting to do this most of the day.”

She hadn’t even finished talking when he took her face between his hands and kissed her, just as hard, just as long, and just as hungry.

“Only most of the day?” he murmured. “Not the whole day?”

“No, not
all
day.” The pulse in her neck jumped, and her mouth—God help him—her mouth twitched slightly before she cocked her eyebrow at him. “You’re not that cute.”

Carter didn’t move. Any other chick, he might have taken her kiss as a green light, but that was before Regan. As much as he ached for her, it wouldn’t mean shit if she didn’t want him just as badly, and so help him, he wanted her vibrating in his arms before the night was over.

“Which parts of the day, exactly?” He ran his finger across her forehead, easing her hair back from her face. “I mean, if it helps, I can Groundhog Day today over and over until you get it out of your system.”

She snorted softly. If he hadn’t been hard already, having her blink up at him like that would have done it right there.

“Hmm. Let me think.” She squinted slightly, as though she was thinking hard, then nodded. “Well, there was that moment I walked up to the clinic and saw you standing there waiting for me.”

He didn’t mean to growl like that, but come on! The second he’d seen her coming toward him, he’d wanted to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss her, and if he’d had half a clue she was thinking the same thing, they never would have made it out of the parking lot.

“And there was a time or two…or ten or twelve…during the ride down to the city when you talked me out of my bitchiness, and then again when you stayed right there with me—”

He kissed her. It was the only thing he could think to do to stop the hurt he knew she was going to feel by talking about her mom, the only way he could think to show her it didn’t matter what her mom or anyone else said or thought or did.

All that mattered was the two of them, right there, right then. He eased one of his hands up her back, pulling her against his chest, while his other hand moved lower, over her hip to the curve of her butt. He knew it was probably the stress of the day that was making her do this, knew Jules and Rossick would freak when they found out, and knew he should probably be a good guy and stop this before it went too far, but he was sick of being a good guy.

He was a guy, period, and going by the way she wiggled her butt back into his hand, she wasn’t complaining.

What started out as a soft, slow kiss, enough for him to get another small taste of the lips he’d missed so much, turned into more when she tipped her chin up, sending him in search of that spot on her neck, right there, where it curved into her shoulder, and where one touch from him made her whole body shiver. Just. Like. That.

And holy crap, he loved it when she did that.

“And then, um, it might have crossed my mind again when you…” She blinked quickly, but not quick enough to hide the sudden moisture. “When you sat down on that little green chair.”

He lifted his head long enough to stare into those green eyes as they glowed back at him.

“And then again every second you just sat there,” she murmured, chuckling quietly against his mouth. “With chunks of your hair…falling…and…Hazel—”

“Yeah, you’re going to fix it for me, right?” Carter nipped the corner of her mouth just as she released a quiet sigh.

“No.”

“What? But look at it!” Keeping her tight, Carter leaned back just enough so he could see her face. “Last time she cut it, you told me it looked like shit.”

“That was before I met her.” She ran her cool fingers through his hair, toying with the ends and making him groan until he couldn’t stand it anymore and had to kiss her again. “Before I knew you.”

“What difference—”

She silenced him by pressing her mouth against his, not to kiss him, but just to smile against him. “It makes
every
difference.”

Carter didn’t know what to say; all he could do was stare at her and wonder how the hell an asshole like him could ever deserve to be standing there with a woman like her. He started to say as much when she started talking again.

“So,” she said, sliding her hands up his thighs. “Since I’m staring down the ugly end of a pink slip anyway…”

“Regan—”

“Don’t ‘Regan’ me, Carter. You were the one grabbing my ass a second ago.” Laughing, she took his hand, tugged him away from the door and headed straight for her bedroom, stopping just shy of the door. “But if you have something else you’d rather be doing…”

Something else he’d…?
Was she crazy?

“You know what I want,” he said, his voice low. “But you need to be damned good and sure this is what
you
want, because there’s no going back.”

And he wasn’t just talking about her stupid job.

Standing there in her tiny hallway, she simply yanked her blouse up over her head and dropped it at his feet in a puddle of green cotton. Her teasing gaze, fixed on his face, never wavered, but his went directly to her hands, which moved right past the thin white camisole and went straight to work on the fly of her jeans.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered as the worn denim landed on top of her shirt.

He tried to breathe but…ooooooh man…she wiggled out of her bra and added it to the growing pile at his feet, leaving her in nothing but that tiny little white camisole and a pair of black panties, cut high on the hip and covering just enough to tease another groan out of him.

“I’ll be in here if you decide you want to join me.” As she turned, she managed to hook her bra between her toes and flick it backward, hitting him square in the crotch.

She cleared maybe a step and a half when he caught her around the waist, spun her around and kissed her hard, muffling her low cry of surprise as he pressed her up against the wall in her room. Together they fought to get his jacket off, then his shirt, but when they both reached for his fly, he shoved her hands away.

“Touch that again,” he growled, “and this’ll be over before it even starts.”

He was serious, but hearing her laugh like that, mocking his lack of control, made him laugh, too. By the time he finally made it down to his Death Star boxers, Regan’s nails were already leaving crescent shaped gouges against his chest. Not that he was complaining.

“Nice.” Her gaze flicked over the bulge in his boxers, that sexy mouth of hers, swollen from his kisses, tipping up in a smirk.

Carter wagged his brow at her and grinned as he trapped her between his arms and leaned close to whisper. “I might look like an Ewok, baby, but I’m all Wookiee where it counts.”

“Oh my God,” she choked, crumpling back against the wall as she laughed. “You did
not
just say that!”

“Been waiting a long time to use that one on you.” With his gaze fixed on hers, he slid his hand under her camisole, gliding up her ribs one by one until he brushed her breast, barely, but enough to make her breath catch, and when he did it again, she arched forward, filling his hand, and making his own breath seize somewhere between his lungs and this throat.

Catching her bottom lip between his, he kissed her again…God, he couldn’t get enough…and pressed himself against her, amazed yet again by how soft she was, how she fit against him so easily. Her fingers dug into his arms, one second holding him right where he was, the next second urging him to touch more.

“I’m gonna have to buy you a new one of these,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck where she smelled so good. As he spoke he grabbed the straps on her camisole and ripped them clean off, letting the silky little scrap slide down her body, over her hips and down her legs.

She skimmed her fingers up his chest and around his neck, never losing contact with his skin, and slid them up into what was left of his hair. “Wasn’t one of my favorites anyway.”

The second he lifted her off her feet, Regan wrapped her legs around his waist and let him carry her to edge of the bed where he kicked off his boxers and stood smiling down at her, still wrapped around him.

“I’m good either way,” he said, flicking his thumb under the waistband of her panties. “But unless you want me to replace these, too, you might want to let go for a second.”

A frown flashed across her face, then a guilty little smile, but a heartbeat later, she pulled them off and tossed them on the floor.

“Sorry,” she laughed lightly. “I like that pair.”

“So do I,” he grinned. “But I like them better when you’re not wearing them.”

As ready as he was, he lifted her arms up over her head, wanting to take his time over every inch of her, but she kept reaching for him, pulling his mouth back to hers. It meant this was going to take a while, but that was just fine with him. The longer the better.

Kissing his way down the long delicate column of her neck, he took his time over the edge of her collarbone and across the swell of her breast. He slid his hand over her stomach, slowly, loving the way she arched into his palm every time he touched somewhere new, but the lower he moved, the more her low, soft moans turned into quick, sharp gasps.

He shushed her with a long, slow kiss, capturing her cry as he slid his finger through her slick folds and eased her over the first wave of release.

“In the drawer,” she gasped. “For the love of God, hurry up!”

They scrambled for the box of condoms, careful not to rip one this time, and as Carter pushed into her, Regan arched up, eager, desperate for as much of him as she could get.

They crashed over the edge in a crazy tangle of arms and legs, laughing at their clumsiness, neither one willing to untangle from the other as they fell back against the pillows, trying to catch their breath.

After he’d disposed of the condom, Carter climbed back into bed and smiled when she immediately curled up next to him, draped her leg over his, and laid her cheek against his chest. Carter pulled the quilt over them, then wrapped his arm around her and ran his fingers up and down her arm. So soft, so smooth, and pressed up against him like that, shoulder to ankle, nothing had ever felt that good. Nothing had ever felt that right.

Or so he thought until Regan squirmed up so her face was buried against his neck. She inhaled a long, deep breath, expelled it in a slow, barely there kiss under his ear, and a moment later was snoring softly in his arms.

Shhiiiit.

He was so screwed. After the day they’d had, it was easy for both of them to think this was a good idea; hell, if it had been up to him, they’d have spent a hell of a lot more time in her bed since New Year’s, but who was he kidding?

Once she woke up and realized what they’d done, and what it meant, what chance did he have to keep her? None. Bottom line, he’d just cost her her job, the job she needed to help pay for her mother’s care; care that just became more expensive with the added medication costs.

He had no intention of saying a word about any of this to Jules or Rossick, but he knew Regan would, because it was the right thing to do. And once they found out, she’d not only be out of a job, but they’d probably rip up the paperwork they’d all signed a couple days ago, and he had no one to blame but himself.

He was such an idiot—an
asshole,
thank you, Jayne—but it was really hard to feel bad about it when Regan was tucked up against him like that, skin to skin, her honey-vanilla scent all over him, and the taste of her kiss still fresh on his lips. Hell, if it came down to it, he’d open a new practice somewhere else, some place where she could have her own salon again, and they could spend every night the way they were spending this one.

Sounded like a helluva good idea to him, except for one small problem: of all the chicks in the world, he’d gone and fallen for the one who had no interest in picket fences or minivans.

“Don’t supposed you’d consider a nice tall hedge and an SUV?” he murmured, pressing a kiss against the top of her head. “What about no hedge and you keep the car you have?”