Chapter 20

Clarissa sighed and electronically signed off the last of her orders for Jamison’s care. “He’s stable for now,” she told the intensive care head nurse. “I’ve notified his private doctor in Fairfield. He said he’d come in to check on him in the morning. If anything happens during the night, go ahead and page me. I’m five minutes out. His private doc is over an hour away.”

“Will do, Dr. Rogers.”

Before she left, she made one last stop at her patient’s bedside.

Jamison was hooked up to a cardiac monitor and his chest tube was attached to a collection container draped alongside his bed. Several bottles of intravenous solutions flowed into the subclavian catheter inserted in the emergency room. His color was a normal pink again, and he had an oxygen mask obscuring his chubby face.

All in all, he looked a great deal better than he had several hours ago.

She was about to turn and leave when he put up a finger and cocked it toward her, wordlessly calling her over.

“You should rest,” she said. Out of habit, she adjusted the top sheet over him.

Jamison pulled his oxygen mask to the side of his face. “Want to…say something…to…you.”

“I’ll repeat.” She smiled down at him. “You should rest. That means no talking.”

He reached out and searched for her hand. She gripped his with both of hers.

“Thank you.”

Clarissa nodded and patted his hand. “No need. I was in the right place at the right time.”

“No…” He tried to shake his head, but the effort cost him. He coughed once, the sound harsh and filled with pain. An alarm sounded on one of the numerous machines over his head. Clarissa reached up to silence it so the nursing staff wouldn’t rush to the room.

“Please, you really shouldn’t be talking. You need to rest.”

His eyes tracked her every moment. She moved the oxygen mask back into place across his nose and mouth and saw he was crying.

“I know it hurts,” she told him, rubbing a hand along his shoulder. “You have tubes stuck almost everywhere you can possibly have one stuck. But you need to relax. Believe me, the pain will subside if you don’t tax yourself.”

His eyes fluttered closed for a moment and then he nodded.

When they reopened, he pulled the mask away again.

“You’ll…come…back?”

A few hours ago this strong, commanding man had been barking orders, totally in charge of his world. Now, he was reduced to a bedridden invalid, dependent on everything and everyone around him. Clarissa didn’t miss the plea in his voice—or the fear.

“I’ll be by to check on you in the morning before my office hours. And don’t worry, I told the nurses to call me if you need anything during the night. I’m closer than your private doc.”

With one loud wheeze, he shook his head and said, “You…my doc…now. You.”

Clarissa nodded in reply. “Get some sleep.”

After a final check on his monitor, she left the cubicle.

When she exited through the I.C.U. double doors, she rubbed a hand along her neck and realized she had no way to get home. She pulled out her cell phone and was about to call a cab when she spotted Pat in the waiting lounge. He was standing, a tall willowy blonde wrapped in his arms. Her head was nestled on his shoulder and he was rubbing her back much the same way he’d rubbed hers after Teeny died.

Clarissa stopped dead in her tracks. Then her heart quit beating, as she watched the blonde pull back from Pat, cup his cheeks in her hands, and place a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

If it were possible, the world tilted on its axis. Clarissa’s legs turned to water and she had to fight to stay upright. Blood pounded in her temples while she watched the tender scene unfold before her. A scorching hot ball of intense jealousy radiated within her entire being from her head down to the tips of her toes, and all she could envision were her hands clawing at the woman’s face. It was a reaction so unfamiliar, so foreign to her, Clarissa went numb, dumbfounded by the power it had over her.

Pat glanced over and saw her. Clarissa willed her legs to sprint away, but for some unknown reason she was paralyzed to the spot. He said something to the woman, who then turned to her.

Her face was masked with tears. Clarissa could see her startling blue eyes were crisscrossed with red when Pat left her side.

“I’m glad I spotted you,” he said when he was within arms length. “That’s Jamison’s daughter, Dorothy. She’s worried sick about her dad. Can you talk to her? Tell her how he’s doing?”

Clarissa gaped at him. Jamison’s daughter. Daughter.

“Clarissa?” Pat reached out, gripped her upper arm and pulled her closer to him. When she felt his natural heat warm her, she blinked and took a breath.

“Are you okay?” The concern in his eyes was stark and naked, and helped bring her back to focus.

“I’m fine, Pat. Sorry. It’s been a rough few hours.”

She pulled out of his grip and went into the waiting room. Regaining her composure with each step, she introduced herself to the woman and then suggested they sit while Clarissa went over everything they’d done to her father.

After a few minutes, in which Clarissa was called a lifesaver and an angel more than once, Dorothy asked, “Can I see him? Please?”

“Only for a minute,” Clarissa said. “He needs to rest.”

“I promise I won’t stay long.” Dorothy bolted up from the chair, Clarissa following. She escorted her back to the I.C.U. and handed her over to the nurse in charge. Before she could leave again, Clarissa found herself trapped in Dorothy’s exuberant embrace.

“Pat said you were the best. He’s right. Thank you so much, Dr. Rogers.”

Clarissa patted her on the back and disentangled herself. “Go see your dad.”

Pat stood against a wall outside the I.C.U. doors, his cell phone in his hand, texting. When he saw her, he pushed off the wall with his foot.

“She okay?” he asked when she reached him.

“Yes.”

He exhaled deeply and raked his hands down his face. “I called her right after Q and I got everything settled at the farm. She’s a basket case. Dot is Jamison’s only living family. She had me call her husband who’s away on a business trip in Kentucky. He’s taking the first flight out he can get.”

Clarissa nodded and folded her trembling hands in front of her. The memory of how angry she’d become when she’d seen the woman in Pat’s arms was still fresh, and she didn’t trust herself to speak.

Pat’s gaze dropped to her hands and when he looked back at her eyes he frowned, the little groove between his eyebrows deepening. Like a streak of lightning, he bolted toward her and had her secured in his arms before she could form a protest.

“Clarissa, what’s wrong? Why are you upset?”

“I-I’m not.” She blinked several times in an attempt to keep the tears at bay.

Pat was having none of it. “Yes, you are.”

“Pat, please.” She rubbed her temples with the pads of her fingers. “It’s been a long day, and I really want to get out of here, get something to eat. Go to sleep.”

When he grabbed her upper arm, he nodded and said, “Let’s go.”

He held onto her every step of the way, through the hospital front doors, past the parking attendant and to his truck. He opened the cab and helped her up. When he stepped in he immediately pulled her across the cab into his arms.

He didn’t push; he didn’t ask her a thing; didn’t say a word. He simply held her, silently, rubbing a hand down her back, smoothing his fingers down her arm.

The tension slowly left her, gradually ebbing away at the calming, relaxing effect of his hands on her body. She nuzzled his shirt, hearing the steady solid beat of his heart when he cuddled her closer.

After a few minutes she sat back, his arms loosening around her.

“Okay now?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Want to tell me why you were mad at me?”

Her gaze flew to his. “How—? I wasn’t mad.”

“You were something. And it concerned me.”

She shook her head and sighed. “For a man, you’re remarkably perceptive.”

“Comes from growing up around two ridiculously sensitive women who do perceptive like nobody’s business.”

She cupped his cheek in her hand. When he shifted to kiss her palm, she had to fight off the tears again.

He turned and started the engine. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say this has something to do with Dorothy Jamison,” he told her.

“Beyond remarkably perceptive,” she muttered.

He slid her a glance, then focused back on the road. Twilight illuminated the horizon in front of them in a deep purple haze of shifting light.

“Talk to me, Clarissa. Please.” He reached over and took one of her hands from her lap and wrapped his own around it.

“You and Dorothy seem to be…friends,” she said, staring down at their joined hands.

Pat nodded. “We went all through grade and high school together. Dad took care of her grandfather’s horses. Since her father took over the business, Q’s been his vet.”

“Not you?”

Pat smiled and shook his head. “Up until about four months ago, Buddy hated my guts. He tolerates me now, but still prefers to deal with Quentin when he needs to.”

“Does the reason he didn’t like you have anything to do with his daughter?”

Pat slid her another quick glance. “I figured that’s what upset you. You think Dot and I dated, don’t you?”

“She looked very comfortable when you were holding her.” Clarissa bit down on her bottom lip, hating the subtle whine she heard creep into her voice. “Like you’d done it before.”

He eased the truck to a stop at a red light and turned to face her. “I’ve told you before I’ve dated a lot of women. I can’t and won’t apologize for it.”

“I’m not asking you to—”

“Let me finish.” He started driving again when the light changed to green. “Dot and I have been friends since second grade. Friends. That’s all. She’s been in love with Casey Daniels—her husband—since she was ten years old. They’ve only ever dated each other and finally got married last year.”

“So why did her father dislike you so much? I don’t understand.”

With a jagged breath, Pat turned the truck left at the end of Main Street. “When we were all fifteen, we did the stupid things most fifteen years old did. Snuck out after curfew, drank beer, drove when we shouldn’t have.”

Since Clarissa had been in medical school at fifteen, she could only imagine the troublesome things teenagers did, never having done anything remotely against the rules.

“One night a group of us, including Dot and Casey, borrowed a couple of her dad’s horses and rode out to the lake on my Aunt Carly’s property. The lake I was going to take you to today.”

“By borrowed, I’m assuming you mean you didn’t ask?”

“Yup. I’ll tell you there was beer involved and we weren’t thinking straight to begin with. Anyway, we made it out to the lake, drank the beer and got a little sick.” He glanced over at her. “And by sick I mean stinking drunk.”

Her lips lifted and she squeezed his hand.

“Dot was the worst. She could barely sit in the saddle when we all realized it was time to get home before our parents sent out search parties. Casey took the horses back to the stable and I was elected to help Dot sneak back into the house.”

“Why you?”

Pat’s mouth pulled into a thin line and she thought he looked embarrassed.

“I’ll tell you I was an expert at sneaking into houses and ask you to leave it at that. Anyway, I got Dot in, which wasn’t easy because she was hammered and could hardly stand upright. I was about to carry her up the stairs when her father bolted out of the den and found us.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Big uh-oh. He screamed for about ten minutes, then called my parents. When my dad arrived, Jamison gave him an earful about what a menace I was, taking girls out and getting them drunk. I was a delinquent and not safe to be around innocent young things like his daughter. I should be shipped off to military school. Lots of that.”

“What happened?”

“Dad convinced Jamison not to call the police, which is what he was aiming to do. On the ride home, dad asked if anyone else was involved and I truthfully told him who else was with us. He wasn’t mad, more disappointed, which believe me, was way worse. The next afternoon, Dot called and begged me not to tell her father Casey was with us because if he knew, she wouldn’t be allowed to see him anymore. It was better if he thought I was the only one with her.”

“So you went along with it? Let her father think you were such a horrible boy you’d get a girl drunk and then try to sneak her in without anyone knowing?”

Pat’s shrug spoke volumes. “Like I said, we were fifteen and did dumb things. My parents knew the truth. And since Jamison knew my dad was the best horse vet around, he didn’t have any other choice but to continue to use him. And then Q.”

“For thirteen years this man has thought you were responsible for corrupting his daughter, and you’ve never told him the truth?”

“It didn’t seem necessary to tell him. When Casey and Dot got married, Jamison finally stopped looking at me like he wanted to murder me every time we saw one another. That’s something.”

Clarissa snaked her other hand over the one in his. “Pat.”

He sighed long and deep. “Clarissa, she was, and is, my friend. Friends take care of friends.”

He’d told her the same thing once before. In that moment, she knew the man he truly was.

And with the knowledge, she knew he deserved an explanation for her actions. A truthful one.

She inhaled deeply, bracing herself, and said, “When I saw her in your arms all I wanted to do was scratch her eyes out.”

“What?”

“I know. Not the kind of response you’d expect to hear from me.”

“Why? You didn’t even know her.” Pat turned the truck down a narrow road.

“She was in your arms, for one thing. For another, she looked pretty comfortable there. All I could see was red.”

“Because I was comforting her?”

She felt the blush start at her neck and quickly rise up her jaw and cheeks, and said, in all sincerity, “I didn’t know you were friends at the time. I wanted to scratch her eyes out because I was stone cold jealous you were holding a woman in your arms who didn’t happen to be me.”

Pat stopped the truck with a squealing brake. He threw it into park, turned and yanked her across the cab and into his arms. With their faces only a whisper apart, he stared deep and hard into her eyes. “You were jealous?”

“Completely. I realized right then I didn’t want your hands touching another woman. I want them only on me. Only me.”

Pat’s smile started in the corners of his eyes and very slowly, very heart-stopping sexily—so she was happy she was sitting and not standing—spread down to his lips. Right before he kissed her, he said, “That’s a promise from me to you.”

He’d never kissed her this way before. Passion and desire bubbled on the surface. But along with them was profound tenderness. And it filled her heart.

“You have nothing to worry about, Clarissa. Nothing, when it comes to other women. I want you and you alone. More than I can even tell you.”

She lost herself in the emotions gamboling in his tired eyes.

He tucked an arm around her shoulder and brought her in close to his side while he started the car again.

Clarissa closed her eyes and let his words steep into her system. She believed him. Completely.

A few minutes later she felt the truck pulling to a stop.

When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t outside her house as she’d expected to be, but somewhere she was surprised to see.

“Why are we here?”

“We were summoned.”

“Summoned?”

His grin lit the cab. “When my mother suggests you come for dinner, it’s not a request. You come. No questions asked.”

He opened her door and helped her down.

“Pat, I’m not dressed for company—”

“You look gorgeous,” he told her. “You always do.”

“But—”

He took her hand and pulled her through the cars littering the driveway and up the porch steps.

“No buts. We both have to eat. And we both deserve to be pampered and fussed over a little after the day we’ve had. No one’s better at it than my mother.”

He pushed open the front door. They were immediately engulfed in the delicious and mouthwatering aromas wafting through the house.

The sound of Clarissa’s stomach groaning with hunger echoed in the entranceway.

“Well, it would be nice to be fussed over,” she said, smiling, when Serena came through the kitchen to greet them.