Kitabı oku: «The Last First Kiss», sayfa 2

Chapter Two

Dave found himself staring at the blonde, stunned. While the face was vaguely familiar in a distant sort of way, the name was familiar in a far more vivid, in-your-face kind of fashion.

He knew only one Kara, God help him.

That would be the only daughter of his mother’s oldest friend, Paulette Calhoun. Every single memory associated with Kara Calhoun was fraught with either embarrassment or frustrated annoyance—or both. He didn’t even try to remember one good moment spent in her company. There weren’t any.

Back when he was a little boy, his parents and hers would get together frequently. All the summer vacation memories of his childhood had Kara in them. Kara and turmoil. He’d been rather shy and introverted. Two years younger, Kara had been the exact opposite, as wild as a hurricane, and just as fearless. He’d felt inadequate.

And then mercifully, just before he turned thirteen, his father’s company began moving him, and thus them, from location to location. They traversed the Northwest and then the Southwest. Changing addresses so frequently made it hard for him to make any friends, but the upside was that at least during the rest of the year, he didn’t have to spend time confined in some remote summerhouse with the wild tomboy, counting the hours until September and the beginning of school.

If, after all these years, this gorgeous woman really was Kara Calhoun, then God, he couldn’t help thinking, had a very macabre and somewhat sadistic sense of humor.

Despite the pressures generated by an incredibly hectic morning stapled to the makings of an equally insane afternoon, Dave stopped what he was doing and waved his next patient into the first open room.

“Be right there, Mr. Mendoza,” he promised.

Then, instead of following the man, Dave rounded the reception desk and walked toward the sexy-looking blonde with the long legs.

That just couldn’t be Kara.

Still, why would she say she was if she wasn’t? He wasn’t going to have any peace until he found out for certain one way or the other, so, warily, he asked, “Kara?”

“Yes,” she cried with the same sort of feeling a contestant might display when their partner finally guessed the right answer after being supplied with countless clues.

He still couldn’t get himself to believe it. Why, after all these years, would she suddenly appear here, in a place where she was clearly out of her element? Her shoes alone looked as if they might equal a week’s salary for one of his patients—the ones who actually had a job.

“Kara Calhoun,” he said, trying to reconcile the image of a bratty, skinny girl with pigtails and a nasty sense of humor with the clearly gorgeous young woman who was standing in the packed waiting room. Obviously nature could work miracles.

Why all the drama? Kara wondered. The Dave she remembered had been a super-brainy geek. Had he been forced to trade in his brains for looks? Was that how it worked?

“Want to see my driver’s license?” she offered, wondering what it would take to convince this man who she was.

The touch of sarcasm in her voice was all he needed to convince him. “It’s you, all right. Still have the sunny disposition of an armadillo, I see.”

She stretched her lips back in an obviously forced smile. “You’ve filled out since I last saw you.” Which, she added silently, was putting it mildly. If the way his lab coat fit was any indication, the man now had muscles instead of arms that could have doubled for toothpicks. “Too bad your personality didn’t want to keep up.”

He would have liked nothing better than to turn his back on her and walk away, but she hadn’t just appeared here like some directionally challenged genie out of a bottle. There was a reason Kara had sought him out after all these years and he had just enough curiosity to wonder why.

He made it simple for her. He asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I was wondering the same thing myself,” she cracked. But then, as he apparently lost patience and began to turn on his heel to walk away, she relented. There was no point in coming all the way over here and not giving him the game. “I brought you a copy of the latest version of ‘The Kalico Kid’ video game. Your mother told mine that your cousin’s little boy’s birthday is coming up and he’s dying to get his hands on one.”

If this were anyone else, he would have expressed his gratitude, paid for the game and taken it. But this was Kara, and the ordinary rules didn’t apply here. His memory was crowded with a host of different sneaky tricks that a gangly ten-year-old played on his trusting twelve-year-old body. Spending summers trapped in her company had taught him to hold everything she was involved in suspect.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. Motioning her closer to create at least a semblance of privacy, he asked, “What’s the catch?”

“Catch?” Boy, talk about not being trusting. But then, looking back, maybe she couldn’t quite blame him. She had been pretty hard on Dave when they were kids. “The catch is you have to spin a room full of straw into gold by morning.”

“You can do that?” a small voice directly behind her piped up. Despite the distance, her voice had carried enough so that the only child in the room heard, and he was clearly awestruck.

Kara turned around to see a little boy of about eight or ten. He looked rather small and fragile, so he might have even been older. She couldn’t tell for sure. But she did know that he had the widest smile she’d ever seen.

He also, she noted, had an extremely pale complexion and, despite the fact that it was unseasonably hot outside, he was wearing a bright blue wool cap pulled down low on his head. She suspected that the boy’s mother, sitting behind him, had put it on him to keep people from staring. The stigma of a bald head on one so young was difficult to cope with.

“She was making a joke, Gary,” Dave told the boy. “She does that kind of thing.”

Or did, he added silently. The truth was that he had no way of knowing what Kara was like these days, but he suspected she was still true to form—even if her outer form had turned out incredibly well.

He got back to business. “How much do I owe you for ‘The Kalico Kid’ game?”

But Kara was no longer paying attention to him. Her attention was now completely focused on the little boy. Even if he hadn’t been the only child in the room, he would have stood out because of his near-ghostly pallor.

“You really have ‘The Kalico Kid’ game?” Gary asked. She would have had to be blind not to notice the wistful gleam that came into his brown eyes.

She smiled at him, blocking out everyone else, especially Dave. “Yes, I do.”

Reaching into her shapeless, oversize purse, Kara felt around until she located what she was looking for. Instead of the boxed game she’d brought for Dave, she pulled out a handheld gaming system that had become all but standard issue for every bored kid sitting in the backseat of his or her parents’ car, forced to endure yet another cross-country family vacation.

She guessed by the way the little boy’s eyes lit up that not only did he not have a copy of the new version—only a few had hit the stores—but he didn’t have a handheld set, either.

“Want to play the game?” she offered, holding the gaming system out to him.

“Can I?” he breathed almost reverently. His smile was the closest to beatific she’d ever seen.

She had to restrain herself from hugging the boy. Hugging was something she did when she became emotional. Instead, she nodded and choked out the word “Sure.”

“Gary, you’d better not,” his mother chided. The woman looked as worn-out as her son. “I don’t want to risk having him break it. I can’t afford to replace it,” she explained.

Her eyes went from the boy to his mother. There was no way she was going to separate Gary from the gaming system. That hadn’t been her intent when she’d handed it to him. “I take it he doesn’t have one.”

Pride entered the woman’s face as she squared her shoulders. “We manage just fine.”

“I’m sure you do,” Kara quickly agreed. “I didn’t mean to suggest you didn’t.” She looked back at the boy. “Would you like to keep that, Gary?”

Gary looked as if he’d suddenly stumbled into paradise. “Can I?” he cried in absolute disbelief.

“No, you can’t,” his mother told him firmly, even though it clearly hurt her to have to deny him.

Prepared, Kara was quick with her assurances. “It’s okay. I work for the company that produces the game. We’re giving out a few handheld systems as a way of promoting this latest version.”

The boy’s mother looked doubtful. Gary looked ecstatic.

“Really?” he cried excitedly, his eyes now bright and as large as proverbial saucers.

Kara had to struggle to contain her own smile. She nodded. “Really.”

Gary clutched the system, fully equipped with this newest version of “The Kalico Kid,” to his chest. “Thanks, lady!”

Kara solemnly put her hand out to him as if he were a short adult. “My name is Kara—and you’re very welcome, Gary.”

Gary quickly took her hand and tried to look serious as he shook it, but his grin kept insisting on breaking through.

Kara raised her eyes to look at Gary’s mother, half expecting the woman to voice some kind of objection. Instead, she saw tears gathering in the woman’s soft brown eyes. Gary’s mother mouthed, “Thank you,” over the boy’s head.

Her mouth curving just a hint, Kara nodded in response.

Behind her, Dave was busy instructing Clarice, telling her to send another one of the patients to the second newly vacated exam room. Done, he turned his attention to Kara.

“I’d like to see you in my office,” he told the specter from his childhood.

Kara couldn’t help grinning as she followed him around the reception desk, then toward the back of the office. “Bet you’ve been waiting years to be able to say that line to me.”

He bit off his initial response to her flippant remark. After all, she’d just been very kind to one of his regulars. Instead, he waited until Kara had walked into the closet-size office, and then closed the door behind him.

The scarred, faux-mahogany desk listed a little to the right. It and the two chairs, one in front of the desk, one behind it, took up most of the available space. He didn’t bother trying to angle his way behind the desk. He anticipated that this was going to be short.

“You’re not really having some promotional giveaway, are you?” It wasn’t a question.

She would have played this out a little longer just to see how far she could take it, but she was running out of time. As senior quality assurance engineer, she was supposed to set an example for the others when it came to keeping decent hours. “No.”

“Didn’t think so. That was rather a nice thing you just did.” He didn’t bother going into any details about how very strapped Gary’s mother was, or what a brave little person the boy was. That was the kind of stuff that violins were made for and he had a feeling it would be wasted on Kara anyway. It definitely would be on the Kara he remembered.

Or thought he remembered, he amended.

Getting what sounded like a compliment from Dave felt awkward to Kara somehow. Not to mention unsettling. She shrugged, dismissing the words. “Well, I make it a rule not to eat children on Wednesdays.” And then she sobered. Raising her eyes to Dave’s green ones, she started to ask, “Does he have—?”

He cut her off, sensing that talking about the disease that had ultimately claimed her father was difficult for her. “It’s in remission, but I’m not all that hopeful,” he confided.

“That was always your problem,” she recalled, not entirely critically. To her, that was just the way things were and she viewed it as something that needed improvement. “Not enough hope, too much practicality.”

“You were just the opposite.” Almost to the point where she’d stick her head in the ground, he recalled.

She flashed him an irritating smile. “And pleasingly so.”

He needed to get back to work before they were literally drowning in patients, and he knew from experience that Kara could keep up the bantering responses all afternoon.

“So, you didn’t tell me,” he reminded her, taking out his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

Right, the game. She still hadn’t given it to him. Kara dug into her purse again. This time, she pulled out the copy of the video game she’d brought for him. The cellophane around it crinkled as she said, “Your immortal soul.”

He pinned her with a look. “Exactly how much is that in cash?”

“I’ll let you know.” She had no intentions of selling him the game. That made her too much like a lackey. Giving it to him was far better. Besides, she liked the idea of having him indebted to her. “Maybe I’ll take it out in trade sometime. I might need something stitched up someday.”

He suddenly had an image of her sitting on a rock by the lake, blood running down her leg. The wound had appeared a lot worse than it actually was. That was the summer he’d made up his mind to become a doctor. “You mean like that time at the lake?”

She knew he was referring to that last summer at the lake before he and his family had moved away. She’d been eleven at the time and had slipped on the rocks, trying to elude him after playing some prank. She’d gotten a huge cut on her knee and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She’d valiantly struggled not to cry.

“Those weren’t stitches. That was a butterfly bandage you put on it.”

The point was that it had done the trick and had held until her father could get her to the emergency room. “Would you have let me come at you with a needle?” he asked.

A rueful smile curved one corner of her mouth. “Point taken, Davy.”

He stopped the cringe before it could surface. “No one’s called me that in years.” She had been the only one to ever do it. Dave looked at her pointedly. “I hate being called Davy.”

She grinned, her eyes laughing at him. “I know.” She had to get going, and from the sound of the noise in the next room, so did he. “Forget about owing me anything for the game,” she told him. “It’s on the house. For old times’ sake,” Kara added.

If she was making restitution for things she’d done to him all those years, this didn’t begin to make a dent. But he saw no point in saying anything. After all, Ryan really wanted the game, and she had been nice to Gary, who had enough hard knocks against him. Besides, saying anything remotely adversarial to Kara would only embroil him in another no-win verbal match. She was probably still a master at that and he wasn’t up to one at the moment.

“Thanks.” As he said the word, his stomach growled, as if adding a coda.

She stared at him. He couldn’t begin to read her expression. Some things never changed, he thought.

“I had no idea you were a ventriloquist.”

His stomach growled again, a little softer this time. This was getting embarrassing. “I am on the days I don’t get to eat breakfast—or lunch.”

She cocked her head, as if she found the information fascinating. “You haven’t eaten yet?”

He knew her well enough to wonder what she was up to now. “No.”

“But you will.”

What kind of a question was that? Everyone had to eat—or expire. “Eventually.” He could feel her eyes delving into his skin. Just what did she expect him to say? “Someday,” he allowed, then amended his answer to, “Yes,” as he brushed past her to get back into the tiny hallway that was desperately in need of a paint job. “Right now there’s no time to go get something.”

She could see how he couldn’t leave, but that didn’t mean he had to go hungry. “Why don’t you send out Ms. Personality?” When Dave looked at her blankly, she nodded toward the reception room. “The anaconda at the front desk.”

“We’re shorthanded. Clarice’s my backup nurse—and the only one manning the front desk. I can’t spare her, either.”

Dave always did make things more complicated than they were, she recalled. Resigned, she dug into her purse yet a third time. “In that case, take this.”

Though he would have preferred not to admit it, Dave stared in fascination as the woman from his past pulled out what appeared to be an entire foot-long sandwich from her purse. It was cut into two equal halves.

What else did she have in there?

“Is that your equivalent to a clown car?” he asked. “Do you just put your hand in, then pluck an endless amount of things out?”

She didn’t feel like being on the receiving end of what he might call wit. She had traffic to face and a game with her name on it waiting to be further deconstructed. Holding it out to him, she asked, “You want this roast beef sandwich or not?”

He’d always thought of her as being rather unusual, but he had a feeling she wasn’t given to arbitrarily carrying food in her purse. There was only one other explanation for it. “Isn’t that your lunch?”

“Well, if you take it, it becomes yours,” she pointed out with a trace of impatience. And then she sighed. “Look, it’s not like I can’t buy myself another one on my way back to the office. You, on the other hand, look like you haven’t a prayer of making it out the door without that gestapo agent throwing a net over you and stopping you before you take three steps.”

He felt honor bound to defend the woman working with him. “Clarice’s okay.”

“I’m sure. For a gargoyle,” Kara agreed. She raised the sandwich a little higher, into his line of vision. “You want this or not?”

She might be annoying, but that was no reason to deprive himself in order to show her he didn’t need her help. “I’ll take it.”

She placed the wax-paper-wrapped sandwich into his hand. “Very kind of you.” With that, she turned on her heel to leave.

“Kara?” he called after her.

Pausing, she looked expectantly at Dave over her shoulder. “Yes?”

He still really hadn’t thanked her—and found that it was difficult to form the words where she was involved. He settled for: “Tell your mom I said thanks.”

Amused, Kara inclined her head and said, “Sure.”

That, he knew, was a cop-out on his part. He was better than that, Dave reminded himself. Just because this was Kara shouldn’t mean that he reverted back to behaving like an adolescent. “And thanks for bringing it by.”

She gave him a quick two-finger salute. “I live to serve.”

Same old Kara, same old sarcastic remarks, he thought as he walked out behind her.

“You look good.”

The words had slipped out without his permission, going directly from his gut to his tongue without pausing to clear it with his brain. His brain would have definitely vetoed having the words said aloud.

Surprised, Kara stopped abruptly and turned around, causing a near collision between them. He immediately took a step back.

“Are you addressing that assessment to me in general or just to the back of me?” she asked, an amused smile on her lips.

She could still fluster him, Dave thought. He’d assumed that reaction was years behind him. After all, he’d graduated at the top of his class, been voted into all sorts of positions of honor and had, in general, become confident in not just his abilities but in himself, as well.

Five minutes around Kara and he turned into that gangly, tongue-tied geek whose physique was all but concave the last summer their families had vacationed together.

“Let me think about it,” he said evasively.

She nodded. “Thought so.”

As she walked out, Gary rose to his feet. “Thank you,” he called after her.

She spared the boy a wide smile. This made everything worthwhile. “My pleasure, Gary. All my pleasure.”

With that, she was gone.

But not, Dave thought as he turned away to see the patient in room one, forgotten.

Chapter Three

Kara barely had time to run to the sandwich shop to purchase another roast beef sandwich for herself and get back to her desk before her lunch hour was officially over. Just when she’d managed to finally catch her breath, the phone on her desk rang.

Picking it up, she cradled it against her neck and ear. She needed her hands free for the control pad. The newest version of the game still had the pesky Black Knight’s horse water surfing.

“Hello?” Kara said absently, guiding the horse and rider over the water to see just how far this glitch extended.

The voice on the other end of the line responded with a single word. “So?”

Kara came to attention as she recognized her mother’s voice. The Black Knight and his horse were temporarily forgotten.

“So?” she repeated, having no clue what her mother was asking or saying.

She heard her mother sigh on the other end of the line, then carefully enunciate her question. “Did you bring the game to Dave?”

The question irritated her. Why wouldn’t she take the game if she’d already told her mother that she would? “I said I would.” She picked up the control pad again. The horse resumed galloping erratically. “Yes, I brought the game to Dave.”

“And?”

Kara frowned. Just what was that supposed to mean? “And what?”

A note of frustration entered her mother’s voice. “How did he look?”

Damn, the horse just rode off the edge of the earth. This was not good. “Like a maniacal serial killer. What do you mean, how did he look? He looked like Dave. Only taller.” She paused for a moment, then added, “And handsomer.”

“Aha.”

“Aha?” Kara repeated, confused. Okay, just where was this conversation headed?

“Never mind,” her mother said quickly. “Sorry, I need to go.”

Her mother definitely had too much time on her hands. “What you need, Mom, is a hobby.” Other than me, she added silently. Kara paused to make a notation about the game on the pad she kept by the computer.

“Agreed. Maybe someday you’ll give me one,” she thought she heard her mother say. The next moment, the line went dead.

Kara looked thoughtfully at the receiver in her hand. Maybe someday you’ll give me one. Under ordinary circumstances the most logical “hobby” would be one involving playing on a gaming system. But she had a feeling that her mother was not referring to anything as run of the mill as a video game.

And then, just like that, that strange, unsettling feeling that the universe was tilting began to come into focus for her.

The “hobby” her mother was referring to was a grandchild. Her mother wanted a grandchild. And the only way to get one of those, according to her mother, was to get her married and pregnant.

The woman was actually trying to play matchmaker. Damn. Ordinarily, her radar was better than this. How had she missed it?

For the time being, the black stallion was on its own. His aquatic adventures were definitely the last thing on her mind now.

Kara looked at the framed photo on her desk of her mother, her late father and her, taken when she was seventeen. It was the last family photo she had. Looking at her mother now, she shook her head.

“Why, you little sneak. I know what you’ve been up to. I’m really disappointed in you, Mom,” she murmured.

Jake Storm, the man occupying the cubicle next to her, rolled his chair back a little in order to catch a glimpse of her. He had hair and eyebrows that made him look like an affable sheepdog. One shaggy eyebrow arched in amusement now.

“Talking to yourself, Kara?”

She glanced to her right. “No,” she told him. “To my mother.”

Jake rolled his chair out a little farther, allowing him a clearer view of her space, which was, due to her position in the hierarchy, twice the size of his.

“That would be your invisible mother?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “That would be the meddling mother on the other end of this now defunct phone call.” Putting the receiver down, she pushed the offending instrument back on her desk.

“Ah, meddling mothers. Tell me about it. Mine isn’t going to be happy until I chuck this game-testing job to the winds, get a degree in something she can brag about, marry the perfect girl and give her three and a half grandchildren—none of which is really doable,” he said with a heartfelt sigh, then brightened as he looked at her again. “Unless you’re free tonight to drive to Vegas and become Mrs. Jake Storm.”

She knew he was kidding. They were friends—without benefits. “And the three and a half kids?” she asked, mildly curious.

“We could rent them.” He grinned. “I think a month of endless babysitting might teach my mother a valuable lesson, as in ‘careful what you wish for.’ Might even be worth the effort,” he said wistfully.

However unintentionally, Jake had just given her an idea. A very good idea. She looked at him sharply. “Jake, that’s brilliant.”

“Clever, maybe,” he allowed, “but not brilliant. By the way—” he leaned in closer “—what clever thing did I just say?”

“Something,” Kara told him as she shifted over to the other monitor on her desk, the one directly hooked up to the internet, “that just might get my beloved mother to back off.”

“Well, I’m all for that,” Jake declared with feeling. Anyone who knew him knew that to be true. His mother was forever trying to set him up with the offspring of her friends. “Let me know how it goes.” He nodded toward his own area. “Gotta get back to that crazy horse. He’s still walking on water.”

“Tell me about it,” she murmured under her breath as Jake moved back into his cubicle.

She had no idea what Dave’s number was, but she assumed that, as an M.D., he had to be listed somewhere. Starting out in the most obvious place, she did a people search through the white pages. The effort took several tries, but ultimately, she came away a winner.

Dialing the phone quickly, she was connected to Dave’s office in less than a minute. And then she got to listen to an answering machine. He wasn’t in, which only made sense since she’d just seen him at the clinic. His message said his office was closed today.

“Better than nothing,” she murmured under her breath with far less enthusiasm than usual as she waited for the outgoing message to end.

If Dave didn’t call her back by tonight, she was fairly sure she could find his private number using some creative methods on her laptop at home.

The beep sounded in her ear and she started talking. “Hi, Dave, it’s Kara. Remember I said that I’d take that favor out in trade? Well, trading time just arrived. We need to talk. Call me.” She rattled off both her cell phone number and the number to her landline in her apartment.

Hanging up, Kara smiled to herself, relishing her plan. Once it got rolling, it would be just what the doctor ordered, she thought, feeling very confident about the outcome. This was going to teach her mother—and possibly Dave’s—never to even think about matchmaking again.

Dave was more than a little surprised, when he picked up his messages that evening, to find Kara’s among them. Not only was it the only phone message that didn’t describe some symptom in depth, but he and she hadn’t had any contact in—what, eighteen?—years, and now twice in one day?

Exactly what was up and why did he feel so uneasy about it?

Dropping his mail onto the coffee table, Dave made his way over to the phone on the kitchen wall.

“Only one way to find out,” he said aloud. But even so, he didn’t begin dialing immediately.

It wasn’t that he wanted to renege on the unofficial agreement to reciprocate when she asked. After all, Kara had produced the much sought after game. Then again, how hard could it be for her? She did work for the company that put it out.

Still, she didn’t have to deliver it herself—or even give him the game in the first place. Once upon a time, he would have bet his last dime that she wouldn’t have given him the time of day, much less gone out of her way, to bring him something he needed.

He also wouldn’t have thought that there was a kind bone in her excessively skinny little body. But her treatment of Gary in the waiting room showed him he’d been wrong in his assessment of her. Or at least the “new” her.

No, none of that was holding him back from immediately keeping his word. What was stopping him was the hour. He’d just walked in and it was after eleven. Added to that, he was bone tired.

He had no one to blame for that but himself, he thought. Himself and the endless line of sick people who just kept on coming. Clarice had finally closed the doors two hours later than the clinic’s official closing time. And he’d gone on treating patients until there was no one left in the stale-smelling waiting room.

Now, two steps beyond dead tired, he was too exhausted to even get anything to eat out of the refrigerator. One way to lose weight, he mused. That sandwich Kara had pulled out of her magic bag was practically the only solid thing he had to eat all day until Clarice had called her grandson to bring some food from the Thai takeout place in her neighborhood. He hadn’t really recognized what he’d eaten, but whatever it was had substance to it and ultimately had helped to keep him going, which was what counted.

His mind came back full circle to Kara. Okay, she’d given him a game and her sandwich. If nothing else, that meant he needed to return her phone call.

And if, God willing, she didn’t answer, well, at least he was on record for trying. Recorded record. He punched out her numbers on the keypad and crossed his fingers that she didn’t answer, but he might as well have saved himself the trouble. Kara picked up her phone on the second ring.

“Hello?”

Her voice sounded a bit sleepy, he thought. An image of Kara in bed, wearing nothing but the moonlight breaking through her window, suddenly popped up in his head.

He really needed that social life he was sorely missing out on.

“Hello?” he heard her say again.

He dove in. “Kara, it’s Dave. You called.”

At the sound of his voice, Kara dragged herself up into a sitting position. She’d fallen asleep on her sofa, playing a portable version of the game that was bedeviling her and the staff she supervised. She struggled to clear the fog from her brain. She didn’t even remember shutting her eyes.