Mrs. Porter had just come in, DOA.
Josh ran back into the hospital, but of course, there was no rush. Not for the dead. He grabbed the chart. There’d be no official cause of death until the autopsy, but all signs pointed to an aneurysm.
Josh stared down at Mrs. Porter’s body in disbelief. The possibility of an aneurysm had never been on his radar. It was a silent killer. So of course he hadn’t seen any signs of any impending illness, and it certainly hadn’t been in her patient history, which he knew by heart. Over the years, he’d probably spent a total of months talking to her. He knew she liked her margaritas frozen, her music soft and jazzy, and was a secret office supply ho. She didn’t have much family or any pets, she’d always said she was allergic to both, and she’d never missed a single episode of Amazing Race. She’d planned on someday being the oldest winner.
Soon as she could get over her fear of flying.
And now she was dead.
It wasn’t his fault. Logically, he knew this, but he felt guilty as hell, and sick. Sick that he hadn’t moved his patients along faster earlier in the day so that she’d have waited for him. Because if he’d seen her, maybe there’d have been signs, maybe he’d have somehow known that today was different, that she’d really needed medical care and not just a little TLC.
“I’m sorry,” he said, touching her hand, tucking it under the blanket alongside her body. “So damned sorry.”
Only utter silence greeted him. Devastated him. Still in his scrubs, he drove home in a fog and found Grace asleep on his living room couch. She sat up, sleepy, rumpled, an apologetic smile on her face. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she said.
He helped her to her feet, then pulled his hands back from her warm body and shoved them into his pockets, not trusting himself to touch her right now. He felt her curiosity but managed to walk her to the guesthouse without a word.
“Josh?” Standing at her door, bathed in the moonlight, she touched his face. “Bad night?”
Her eyes were fathomless, and as always, he knew that if he looked into them for too long, he’d drown.
But he was already drowning.
She shifted closer and brushed her willowy body against his. Soft. Warm. He could bury himself in her right now and find some desperately needed oblivion.
But taking his grief out on her would be an as**ole thing to do. “I’m fine.” Still numb, he waited until she went inside to go back to the house.
Not to bed, though. No, that wasn’t the kind of oblivion he planned to settle for. He went to the cabinet above the fridge for the Scotch, and then to the couch where Grace had fallen asleep waiting for him. It was still warm beneath the blanket from her body heat. And it smelled like her.
He inhaled deep and poured himself a few fingers.
He’d lost track of the number of shots he’d drunk by the time someone knocked softly on the glass slider. When he didn’t move, Grace let herself in.
Josh wasn’t drunk but he was close as he eyed her approach. She was wearing a camisole and cropped leggings. No shoes. Her hair was down. No makeup. He wanted to tear off her clothes, toss her down to the couch, and bury himself so deep that he couldn’t think.
Couldn’t feel.
He watched her cross the room, and some of his thoughts must have been obvious because she stopped just short of his reach and gave him a long, assessing look.
“Saw that the lights were on,” she said. “You can’t sleep.”
He shrugged and tossed back another shot.
“I’m sorry about Mrs. Porter.”
He went still, swiveling only his gaze in her direction.
“Since you were doing your impression of the typical tall, dark, and annoyingly silent male,” she said, “I went to the source. Facebook.” She paused. “Mrs. Porter was very sweet. And I know she adored you. You’re a good man, Josh. A good doctor. Don’t blame yourself for her death.”
Too late.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Maybe not. But plenty of other shit was his fault. Anna, still floundering in her new life. Toby thinking he had to be a Jedi warrior to warrant his mother’s return. His dad’s practice getting too big for its britches and losing the personal attention each patient deserved…
And Grace—the last lethal shot to his mental stability that had come out of nowhere.
She stood there, his own personal, gorgeous goddess, running his world in her own way along with her huge heart. She looked so soft and beautiful in the ambient light. So…his. His heart revved at just the sight of her, so he closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the couch. “You need to go.”
“Can’t.”
He didn’t ask why not, but she told him anyway. “I think maybe that’s the problem,” she said softly, and he could feel her leg brush his now.
She was getting braver.
“People go away in your life, don’t they, Josh?” she asked. “You get left, abandoned, whether by choice or through no fault of anyone.”
He heard more movement; then she tugged off one of his shoes. She was kneeling at his side, a position that brought dark erotic thoughts to mind. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
“I know.” Having gotten his shoes off, she rose up on her knees. “But you aren’t okay. And I’m not leaving you.”
He stared at her, ashamed to feel his throat tighten. “Grace. Just go.”
“No.” She lay her head down on his thigh and stroked his other with a gentle hand. “Tell me what to do to help you.”
She could start by moving her mouth about two inches to the right.
She didn’t. What she did do was take the shot glass dangling from his fingers and set it on the coffee table. Then she stood and pulled him up with her, hugging him.
His throat tightened beyond use as he buried his face in her hair and held on to her hard.
“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered.
No. No, he wasn’t. But rather than admit that, he took a deep breath. He didn’t want her concern.
She pulled back, and keeping a hold of his hand, led him down the hall to his bedroom.
Bad idea.
The worst sort of bad idea.
Stop her…
He had her by a good foot and at least seventy pounds. It wouldn’t be difficult to free himself, but instead he followed along after her like a lost little puppy.
She turned off the lights, and darkness settled over them. Over him. In him. He was just about as on edge as it got.
And he wanted her.
Needed her.
But he’d never been very good at asking. Not that she was making him ask…
She pulled him into his bedroom, nudging the door shut with her foot. “Come here.”“You’re shaking,” he said, wrapping his arms around her trembling body.
Her hands glided up his chest to cup his face. “Not me,” she said very gently, eyes shadowed. “You. You’re shaking.”
Well, hell. He tried to pull back, but she gripped him tight and refused to budge. “Josh—”
“I need to go—”
“Honey, this is your place.” Her fingers slid into his hair, gentle and soothing. Tender. So were her eyes when she tilted his face down to hers to see it in the dim light. “No one’s going anywhere,” she said. “You’re already right where you need to be.” Then she locked the door and gave him a push that had him falling onto his bed.
Shit, he was pretty f**king far gone if she could catch him off guard like that. He came up on his elbows, and there she stood in that shimmery top and leggings, looking like everything sweet and warm and caring. Too caring. He didn’t want that. He wanted her na**d and sweaty and screaming his name. “I want to be alone,” he said.
“You don’t need to be alone tonight.”
“You don’t know what I need.”
She stared down at the hard-on he was sporting, the one straining the front of his scrubs. “I think I have a pretty good idea.” She let the straps of her camisole slip to her elbows, and the whole thing fell to her waist. She urged it past her h*ps with a little wriggle, and it hit the floor. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
Sitting up, he settled his hands on her rib cage, fingers spread wide.
“It might help if you did,” she said.
He took in her pretty pink bra. It was one of those half-cup things that gave him tantalizing peek-a-boo hints of nipples, which were already hard. They puckered up even tighter, and his mouth watered.
“Josh?”
“Sorry. I haven’t heard a word since you took off your top.” He closed his eyes. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Give me one good reason why not.”
He didn’t have any logic skills in that moment. None. He searched for words. “I’m temporarily unavailable.”
“Incapacitated, maybe.” With a hand to the center of his chest, she pushed.
He fell flat to the bed and stared up at the ceiling, which was twirling. And there was something else. He badly wanted to roll her beneath him and take her. Take her hard and fast and dirty. “You need to go, Grace.”
“Yeah? And why’s that?” she asked. “You might actually let your control slip? Or worse yet, an emotion?” She shook her head, a small smile curving her lips. “You’ve seen me reveal lots of emotions. Fear, sadness, anger…You’ve seen me totally out of my element and freaked out. You’ve seen me everything. So I think I can handle whatever you’ve got, big guy.”
He blinked. “Big guy?”
She crawled onto the bed and then over him, letting her stomach brush over his erection. “Feels big to me.”
Through his haze, Josh felt her hands stroke his thighs. And then higher as her fingers deftly untied and tugged enough to free him. “I’m not feeling gentle,” he warned.
“I don’t need gentle.” She smiled at him. “Remind me sometime to show you my sexual fantasy list. It’s quite comprehensive. In fact, you in your scrubs are on it. Being not gentle.”
He groaned.
“We play doctor. And in a variation, I get to be the doctor.”
Jesus. “Grace—”
“Shhh,” she murmured, her warm breath brushing over him as she wriggled some more, right out of her leggings. At the feel of her bare legs entangled with his, he groaned again.
“I have your attention?” she asked.
“You always have my attention.”
“Good to know.” As light and teasing as her words were, she made a little movement that rubbed her thighs together, and it occurred to him that she was as turned on as he was. He felt himself twitch at the thought. “Grace—”
“No.” She covered his mouth with a finger. “You just sit there and look pretty.”
His low laugh turned into a husky groan when she grasped him with her hands and let her lips slowly descend over him.
“Oh, Christ.” He had to close his eyes after that, his hands fisted tightly in the bedding instead of in her hair, because she was right—he wasn’t at all sure he could control himself. Two minutes in, he was drowning in pleasure and hot, desperate need. “Grace—” he gasped, trying to warn her.
She merely let out a hungry little murmur and tightened her grip, humming her approval, and blowing his mind right along with his favorite body part.
He came fast and hard, and he figured he should be mortified—tomorrow. For now, all he could muster was a blissed-out exhaustion…
When he woke several hours later to the alarm, he was all alone, leaving him to wonder—real or Memorex?
The next day came too early, and Grace cursed her alarm. It’d been two when she’d left Josh sprawled out spread-eagle on his bed, eyes rolled back in his head. She’d been pretty sure he’d still been breathing.
He must have been, because his car was already gone.
She drove into Seattle for an interview at a second firm that had called late yesterday, and it went well. On her way back to Lucky Harbor, she got a phone call from Anna.
“Toby’s school called. He fell into a mud puddle, and he needs a change of clothes.”
“Okay,” Grace said. “I’ll be there in twenty.” When she got to the house, she went through Toby’s dresser and pulled out a pair of pants.
“Don’t forget socks,” Anna said from the doorway.
“Socks.” She grabbed those too.
“And shoes. And a shirt. And a coat…”
Grace looked at Anna.
“Apparently, he’s quite the mess.”
Grace drove the change of clothes to the elementary school, and Anna had been right. Toby was a mess, but a happy one.
“I didn’t need new clothes,” he said, not quite so happy now that he had to change. Apparently little boys like to wear their mud like badges of honor.
Grace handed him the clothes and gave his hair a tousle. Or tried. Her fingers caught on the mud in his hair. “What, did you bathe in the stuff?”
He grinned, and she shook her head. “See you at the bus stop in a little while, handsome.”
She left the school and met Amy and Mallory for a late lunch at Eat Me. Lunch was chocolate cupcakes, of course.
“So sad about Mrs. Porter,” Mallory said. “We’re all taking it hard at the hospital. Especially Josh.” Her eyes cut to Grace. “You hear from him?”
Not since she’d left him boneless and panting on his bed. She shook her head and peeled her cupcake from its wrapper.
“He might need some TLC,” Mallory said.