The Wish List (5 page)

He stared at her as seconds ticked away, as if he was trying to decide if she was trying to manipulate him. His concerns were valid. She hated condescension and had occasionally seen people in her profession use methods that stole their patients’ dignity. It was rare, but it did occur.

Finally, he shook his head. “All right, then. There’s some discomfort, but no unbearable pain.”

It wasn’t exactly the answer she wanted. Unbearable was a relative term. Still, she knew it was all she would get from him today. She would have to be satisfied with what little he had given her.

“We’ve been at it a long time,” she said. “I’ll get us something to drink, if you don’t mind.”

His outstretched hand stopped her. “No. That wasn’t part of the deal. We work and then you leave.”

Faith let out a deep breath of frustration. “Were you always this big a jerk, or is this a recent addition to your personality? Nathan, we’ve been here awhile. I hardly think a drink of water is going to make a big difference in time.”

And without waiting for him to concur, she marched toward the back of the house in what she assumed was the general vicinity of the kitchen.

Nathan was right behind her, dogging her footsteps, so he was there when she stepped into the shadowy kitchen and came upon the mess. Dishes were everywhere, none of them clean. The floor was strewn with crumbs and bits of food. The place looked like an explosion had gone off, littering every available surface.

The words
Oh my God
came to mind, but Faith never let them leave her lips. Nathan had known what she would find. He hadn’t wanted her here.

Taking a breath, she picked her way across the floor gathering up dishes as she went, making her way to the sink. Behind her all was silent, the only sound in the room that of glass dragging against stoneware.

Faith felt a sliver of glass scrape her thumb as she reached into the sink to close the drain. She bit down on her lip, folding her thumb into her fist. Turning slowly, she faced him.

He was looking away.

“We’ll get someone in here right away, Nathan. I know a woman who cooks and cleans. She’s very good, very reasonable, and she needs the work.”

“I had someone here, but she quit. Besides, I’ve told Dan that I don’t want anyone hanging around.”

“And he let you get away with it? I’m beginning to have less respect for the man than I once did. If it wasn’t his urging that brought me here, I think I might have a talk with him. As it is, and given your resistance to everything I’ve tried to do for you, I guess I might understand. Like I said, I’ll call someone.”

“And I said—”

“Please.” Faith held up one hand. “Don’t say it. I know you want to be left alone. But given the status of this kitchen, I find it surprising that you don’t already have plenty of company. In the form of midnight visitors—six legged ones. For the last time, Murphy, don’t argue with me. You don’t want me to bring out the heavy artillery again, do you?”

“And that would be...?”

“I’m not leaving here tonight—”

His cough was sudden and unexpected. It stalled her in midsentence. But when she stepped toward him, he seemed to have nothing wrong with his throat.

“Don’t bother finishing that last sentence if you’re going to threaten me with a pajama party again, Faith. I’ve gotten the idea. You’re ready to play camp out if I don’t agree to your every demand. All right, damn it, call in the troops. Invite a woman to my house to cook and clean, invite a thousand. Right now I’m about ready to have the entire universe over if it will get
you
out of my hair.”

~ ~ ~

In truth, Nathan thought, he was ready to have anyone in his home. Anyone but her. Because she was the one making him squirm. She was the one who smelled softly of lemon, whose long, honey-colored hair dangled over her shoulders and played peekaboo with gently curving breasts—breasts that had been within reach of a caress for the last hour. If his hands had been capable. If he had been willing.

Biting her lip, she nodded, her eyes big and solemn. In spite of the tough-guy attitude she’d been wearing, he could see the vulnerability imprinted on her irises. She’d bluffed him time and time again. Or maybe she’d really meant what she’d said. He couldn’t take that chance. He wanted her out of his life, her and her little boy whose name he hadn’t wanted to know.

And he’d do whatever she said if it meant she would go. Soon.

As she stepped to the sink and turned on the water, she opened her hand and he saw the small trace of red. “You cut yourself.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, and save the stupid, macho lines for me. I’ve got more practice.’’ He moved to her side and motioned for her to hold out her hand, then cursed himself for his inability to fix even this small nick that was weeping blood and had to be painful.

“Damn it, Faith, call the woman,” he told her. “It’s my fault there’s broken glass in the first place. Call her. Tonight.”

Faith took his outstretched, useless hand. “Don’t worry, Nathan. I just need a bandage.”

He knew his eyes must look like storm clouds. He felt stupid, useless. More useless than he had felt since the accident. “I don’t even have a bandage,” he growled.

The woman had the nerve to laugh. She actually laughed. He was angry and ashamed, and she was laughing.

“It’s not a hanging offense, Nathan. You probably have lots of company in the world. But it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve got one. All mothers carry a large supply.”

Leaving the room, she retrieved her purse, pulled out a neon green strip and wrapped it around her finger. “Cory’s favorite color,” she confided. “Come on, let’s finish up your session while you’re not arguing for once.”

She was impossible, unbelievable. Any other woman would have left him alone and helpless hours ago. The way he’d snapped at her yesterday, she should have slapped him and slammed the door in his face on the way out. He wouldn’t have blamed her. But she was smiling. Joking. Teasing. He wondered if she treated all her patients that way and felt a return of his former sour mood.

Grumpily he sat down and slipped his hands across the table. She took them in her own strong ones, bending and straightening his fingers, explaining the exercises he was to do on his own time, as if she were dealing with a normal, pleasant man.

His eyes lit on her naked wrist. “Where’s your bracelet?” he asked.

She looked up, her eyes startled and wide as though he’d caught her by surprise. “My bracelet?” she asked, ringing her wrist with her thumb and forefinger. “Oh, I don’t wear jewelry when I’m working. It gets in the way.”

Nathan pushed his palms against the tabletop when she would have taken his hands in her own again.

“Does your kid know that? A kid gives his mother something, he’d be hurt if she didn’t wear it, especially if it was just to placate a bear of a patient, one who keeps his mom away at night.”

Faith stilled, desisting in her attempts to get him back to work. She slowly nodded. “Cory knows about my work and what it means, or as much as a four-year-old can comprehend. He knows about the bracelet, but I’ll be wearing it again by the time I get home. And by tomorrow, there’ll be something else. He’s always making something new. A picture. A badge. Something. I keep them in a special place, and he knows I do.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Nathan’s voice was gruff. He pulled his hands in close to his body.

“Besides,” she said softly, “Cory knows better than to be jealous of my patients. He knows that this is business and that he’s the most important person in my world, the only person I need or want in my world, really.”

Nathan wondered if her words were a warning to him, and if she’d had to give this speech before. “What’s he think of your being gone at night?”

When she shrugged, her faint lemon scent drifted to him. Her breasts kissed the thin cotton of her blouse. Nathan pushed his palms harder against the wood.

“I don’t know yet,” she said softly. “This is his first night without me. I imagine it will be an adjustment—for both of us. But we’ll get used to it. That’s the way of things.”

She reached out, but he didn’t place his hands in her own.

“It’s the first night, Faith. You’ve put me through my paces. Go home now. Go home to your boy.”

Faith stared at him. He saw her lips thin with determination and knew what she was going to say. Closing his eyes, he passed one hand across his face, stifling a shudder at the thought of the little boy watching out the window for the woman who wasn’t home yet.

“Go home, Faith,” he said, more gently this time, trying to keep the grating edge out of his voice. “Please.”

Ten seconds of silence. Then, “All right. You’re right. We don’t want to overdo things and risk overtiring your muscles on the first day.”

Nathan stifled his sigh of relief and let the guilt wash away, the guilt that had been building ever since he’d thought of that boy making a gift for his mother and waiting impatiently for her return. He didn’t want to think of four-year-old boys—or soft, silky women with sad blue-green eyes.

Dragging the chair away from the table with a backward thrust of his body, Nathan rose as Faith busied herself putting things away, making sure things were ready for the next time.

“How long do you think it will be before we’re done for good?”

She paused in her packing. “I’m not sure. That’s going to depend on you and your body’s limitations, but I can assure you that we’ll finish as soon as we can.”

Nathan watched her as she went about her business, despite his best intentions. He didn’t want to notice her or the way her white slacks cupped her bottom when she reached across the table to pick up something.

Sitting across from her today had been hell, and not just because of the physical pain of trying to work fingers that were used to lying stiff and still. Her lemon-scented hair made him want to lean closer, to move in and invade her space. And her skin...although the sensation in his fingers was still returning, the rest of his nerve endings were perfectly intact. Faith Reynolds had skin that was meant for nuzzling with lips and teeth and tongue. The urge to bend close, to breathe in the essence of her, had caught him by surprise and made him angry. With himself, not her. She seemed oblivious to her appeal or to the fact that she was like a sensual magnet, calling up needs he’d pushed out of his life long ago. Needs he wasn’t going to tend to no matter what the provocation.

And when she’d spoken of her son—damn, he wasn’t going to think about this. This was day one of something that might go on for a very long time. He damn well wasn’t going to allow himself another thought of her, not one. Because thinking was all he would ever do anyway, and thinking about things that were off-limits and out of reach, he’d learned, could drive a man stark, raving crazy.

“Nathan?” She had planted herself in front of him, all five feet three inches. She was smiling up at him with that warm, wary expression. It was time to take a step back. Maybe more than one step.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, striving for distance.

“Tomorrow, Nathan.” And reaching out, she placed her hand on the bare expanse of his forearm. Not his hand. She knew his grasp was imperfect, that he would have trouble with a handshake. But his arm was still alive with nerves.

Her small hand was velvet soft, her fingertips cool as she pressed them to the heat of his exposed skin. Nathan’s lungs stopped pumping air.

If he hadn’t been so shocked at his reaction, he would have laughed. He’d just spent an hour in her company as she ran her hands over his own, again and again. Now, with her palm simply resting on his skin, he was wild with sensation.

And ashamed. The way she jerked away suddenly, the alarmed look in her eyes just before she moved out the door, he almost wondered if he hadn’t said something, done more than he thought he had. At the very least, she’d surely felt the pounding of his pulse beneath her fingers.

Staring out the window long after she’d gone, Nathan cursed himself for a fool. At his age he should be capable of controlling himself better than that.

Especially when his reactions couldn’t be allowed to mean anything.

He’d had his chance at life, at happiness, at love, and he’d blown it, abominably, hurting his wife and his child, not being there when they needed him. He wasn’t about to risk involvement of any kind, on any level. Not again.

And neither was Faith if he hadn’t misunderstood her words.

Realizing that Faith had her own barbed wire fences helped Nathan breathe a little easier. She wasn’t interested in him. Not as a man, anyway.

That was good.

He’d come face-to-face with temptation and battled it down. Everything would be all right. He’d withstood the test of touch.

But in the dark of the night, in the midst of a dream, Nathan woke to the memory of long feminine fingers sliding against his skin, stroking his flesh.

And the memory was not of his Joanna; this was not his wife’s touch. The knowledge seared his soul. Joanna. He had failed her in life and let his career get in the way of her needs. He hadn’t protected her when it had mattered most. Now he’d even betrayed her in his dreams.

But now he was awake, Nathan realized, shunting aside the memories of Faith’s innocent touch. Awake and very aware of the difference between reality and dreams. Reality was that Faith was his therapist, and as such, he had to work with her, like it or not. Reality was knowing that one day she’d be no more than a woman, or rather a medical professional, in his past.

Nathan lay back, waiting for morning. All too soon Faith would return, and everything would start all over again. He should sleep, get some rest so that he’d be up to the challenge of dealing with her. But still he lay there, eyes open, watching for the dawn. He didn’t want to risk having those dreams again.

Chapter Three