AFTER GETTING HIMSELF and Baldur out of the vehicle, Delano grabbed his dinner and let himself into the clinic via the side door, which led right into the hospital.
Mellie had turned on only one light in the other room, leaving the hospital in low, golden light, and was sitting on the floor beside Rufus’s cage, her little mutt, Sheba, lying beside her. Sheba’s whip tail beat a tattoo of greeting on the floor, while Mellie gave him a bland stare, without a hint of welcome. The change from earlier, when there’d seemed to be a distinct thawing of her attitude toward him, took him aback and raised his hackles.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, in that cool, distant voice that so irritated him.
He smiled, or tried to, using the baring of his teeth to mask the sudden flood of annoyance.
“The same thing you are, I suspect,” he replied, stopping himself from calling Baldur back to his side when the traitorous canine headed straight for Mellie, getting in her face for pets. “We came to keep Rufus company a little.”
She glanced at Rufus, who was looking back and forth between them from beneath the edge of the cone he was wearing to stop him licking his wound. Delano looked at the dog too, noticing that his eyes seemed brighter, but his head was low and his tail didn’t move.
“He has been a bit down,” Mellie conceded. “He misses his owner.”
Pulling a stool up to the nearest counter, Delano unwrapped his chicken from its foil envelope, said, “Well, he has as much company as he can get right now. Maybe having Baldur and Sheba here will help too.”
The sound she made was no doubt supposed to be some kind of agreement, but to Delano it immediately brought other, more erotic situations to mind.
He cleared his throat, suddenly glad he was on the opposite side of the table, where she wouldn’t be able to notice his physical reaction. And how ridiculous that response was, when taken in the context of Mellie reverting to her cool, distancing persona. It was as though the accord they’d achieved earlier had never happened, or had been a figment of his imagination.
“How did obedience class go?”
Delano chuckled around a mouthful of food, then swallowed.
“It was a mess. There were five people there who hadn’t a clue. One of the dogs even tangled me in their lead and tripped me. I went down like a felled tree. Never been more embarrassed in my life.”
Mellie’s gurgle of amusement lightened the atmosphere, and lifted his spirits. In between bites of his dinner, he regaled her with all the mishaps and comedic faux pas of the evening, just happy to hear her laughter ringing through the air.
Finished with his meal, he wadded up the foil and, ignoring Baldur’s baleful stare, tossed the refuse into the garbage bin. Then he hesitated for a moment, torn.
Mellie was still sitting in front of the cage, Sheba pressed close to her side, the little mongrel’s head on her lap. It would be politic to go back and sit on the stool where he’d been before, but Delano felt drawn to Mellie’s side, and gave in to the impulse to get closer to her.
When he stepped over to where she sat, Mellie silently shuffled over to allow him room to sit on her other side. Delano settled onto the concrete, trying to make himself as small as possible so as not to crowd her, but it was impossible for their bodies not to touch in the confined space.
Especially when Baldur came and leaned against Delano, his sturdy weight pressing his master into even closer proximity to Mellie. Now there was no ignoring the warmth emanating from her skin, and the soft, sweet scent filling his nostrils. Mellie shifted, not away, though, but just in place so her arm rubbed against his, leaving behind a trail of fire. Delano’s body tightened; a hot shiver started at the base of his spine and ran up to his nape, leaving goose bumps in its wake.
“Baldur, down.” His voice was gruff, the sudden rush of desire making him harsher than he meant to be, and he gave the dog a little nudge with his elbow. Then, getting himself back under control, he said to Mellie, “Sorry about that. He weighs a ton.”
“No worries,” she replied, but she shifted farther over, as though to give him additional room, lessening his discomfort.
They were quiet for a moment and, as he reached out to stroke Rufus, Delano wrestled his desire into submission.
It had been a while since he’d been attracted to a woman as strongly as he was to Mellie, but he knew this was someone he had to tread gently with. Not only was she his father’s employer and friend, but he realized he genuinely liked her—cared about her well-being. She was, in effect, the last woman he would want to hurt in any way.
Best and far easier for all involved to keep their relationship friendly, even if he couldn’t maintain the type of distance he normally found easy enough to preserve between him and others.
In the dim golden light, Delano gradually relaxed and turned his thoughts to something he’d wondered about for a while, but had never pursued.
“Can I ask you something?”
Mellie shrugged, smiling slightly.
“Sure.”
“How come we never knew each other when we were kids? I mean, our fathers are good friends. Even though I know you lived abroad, I would have thought you’d spend some time here. Summers, or Christmas vacation.”
Her sudden stillness made him wonder if he’d strayed into an area of her life she’d rather not discuss, and it was on the tip of his tongue to retract the question. But then she drew in a deep breath and released it on a sigh.
“I didn’t get to know my dad until I was in my late twenties, so I never had the chance to visit when I was young.”
The shock of that made his mouth dry, and although he wondered how that could have been, all he said was, “I’m sorry.”
She shook her shoulders, as though sloughing something off. “Don’t be. It turned out all right.” Sending him a searching glance over her shoulder, she continued, “I’m surprised you didn’t know that already.” Then she chuckled, and said, “Actually, I’m not. Dr. Milo never gossips about anything.”
“He despises gossip,” Delano agreed.
“Do you know how many times I’ve come to tell him something or other, and he’s said, ‘I already know’? Drives me nuts.”
He couldn’t help grinning. “You’re not the first woman to complain about that. Aunt Eddie does too, and my mother used to, as well. Mum would fuss at him because people told him all kinds of things, but he never passed any of it on. Mum said it was like being married to a priest who couldn’t divulge what he’d heard in confession.”
Mellie laughed so hard, she snorted, and the vibrations of her amusement transferred through where their legs rested against each other. “That’s the perfect description.”
While he laughed with her, it took Delano a moment to realize he’d spoken about his mother without feeling anything but love and amusement. Usually he pushed thoughts of her aside to avoid the inevitable sorrow and guilt. But somehow, with Mellie, he could bring out a happy, funny memory, and think of Mum with laughter and fond appreciation for her witty turns of phrase.
Then Mellie’s amusement faded and she nibbled on her bottom lip, regarding him through eyes narrowed by a little frown.
“I’m going to say something, and I hope you’ll take it in the spirit meant, because I’m not trying to hurt you, or put you on a guilt trip.”
Delano stiffened, and the glow of contentment he’d felt just seconds before evaporated.
“Okay,” he responded, stretching the word out, wondering where this conversation was going and bracing himself for whatever she came up with.
“Through no fault of his own, Daddy and I were estranged,” she started, speaking slowly, as though picking her words with care. “Once we got back in touch and developed a relationship, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now my only regret is that we missed all those years of knowing each other.”
She was trying to sound factual, but Delano thought he heard an undercurrent of residual pain in her voice. Mellie’s gaze was firmly focused on his, and her sincerity was unmistakable when she continued to speak. Yet, his muscles tightened, knowing she was probably about to say something he didn’t want to hear.
“Your father is a good man. He’s decent and kind and logical. You seem to take after him in that respect, as far as I can see. Whatever happened between you to cause a rift, don’t you think it’s time to mend it? Even if you’re determined to go back to Trinidad, wouldn’t it be better to do that with both of you knowing your relationship is solid?”
And the pain her words caused him made him retreat, unwilling to face it or the woman gazing at him with both compassion and determination.
As Mellie spoke, she’d seen Delano’s expression change, grow closed and distant, but she knew if she hadn’t spoken up, she’d regret it later. Dr. Milo was her mentor and friend, and whether Delano realized it or not, their fractured relationship upset the older man intensely.
Just as the silence between them was becoming uncomfortable, Delano stirred, as though he’d been far away, and the corners of his mouth quirked upward. Not into a smile, exactly, but a facsimile of one—forced and unnatural.
“I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about my relationship with Dad, but I’ll take what you said under advisement. After all, you know him better at this stage than I do.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him whose fault that was, but although his expression was carefully neutral, Mellie was sure there was veiled pain behind his dark eyes.
She knew better than most people just how heartbreaking estrangement from a parent could be. And while she still had her father to make the situation with her mother a little easier, Delano’s mother had been gone for a long time.
No matter how close he might be with his aunt Eddie, there really was no compensating for a mother’s love.
Delano looked down to where his hand slowly resumed stroking behind Rufus’s ear, and Baldur sidled closer, resting his head on his owner’s lap, as though in sympathy.
“I don’t know how to make things better with Dad,” he said quietly, as though the words were being drawn out of him unconsciously. As if he were talking more to himself than to her. “He won’t discuss the past, and I...” For a moment she thought he wouldn’t continue, but then he sighed, and said, “And I can’t seem to put it all behind me. There were things that happened—that were said...”
His voice faded, leaving Mellie with an insistent sense of empathetic sadness. Without thought, she put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a little squeeze.
“I hear you,” she said. “But sometimes even when we can’t get at the answers, we really do need to move forward from where we are. Not leave the past behind us, necessarily, but accept we might never know everything we want to, and admit the present and future might just be more important.”
He turned his head, so they were face-to-face, and his gaze sought and captured hers.
“Is that what you did—when you came here? After you found your father again?”
He was so close his breath touched her lips, and the intimacy of the moment had warmth blooming in her chest. She wanted—oh-so badly—to kiss him, but the conversation was too serious to abandon.
“It was more than just rediscovering Dad that brought me here. But yes, I definitely had to remind myself I wasn’t the sum total of my family’s secrets and my own stupid mistakes so as to move forward. And thrive.”
His eyebrows rose, but she could no longer see the expression in his eyes, because his lids had fallen to half-mast. Something about the way he looked had her heart racing, and released a plethora of butterflies into her stomach.
“Secrets and mistakes, eh?” He was almost whispering, his voice rumbling and causing an answering echo in her torso. “You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine...”
“Maybe.” She found herself whispering too, and the distance between their mouths was suddenly too far. Or too close. Her addled brain couldn’t decide which, stuck on wondering how he would taste, and whether he would be as good a kisser as she thought. “One day. Not tonight.”
These moments were too sweet to disrupt with the ugliness of the world outside.
“No,” he agreed, his gaze dropping to her lips. “Not tonight.”
Was it an invitation? Mellie didn’t know, but she was suddenly willing to take a chance and find out. Every inch of her flesh tingled with anticipation, and her heart was set to hammer its way out of her chest.
If she didn’t kiss Delano, she thought she might spontaneously combust.
As she began to tilt her head toward his, she hesitated, wondering if she should ask, but it was a moot point since he met her halfway and their lips touched. Softly at first, testing and molding, learning the contours of each other’s mouth, breathing each other in with inhalations that grew increasingly rushed.
When the tip of his tongue swept her lower lip, Mellie shuddered, shocked by the intensity of her reaction, which swept out from her belly to heat every inch of her being.
She was insensate to everything but Delano—his scent and warmth, the hardness of his shoulders beneath her arm, the tenderness of his hand cupping her cheek, angling her perfectly for his kiss.
They both jumped, startled, when Sheba let out a sudden volley of barks then took off across the room and out the door toward reception. Baldur, although holding his position beside Delano, added his own deep warning.
Yet, even when someone knocked loudly on the front door, neither Mellie nor Delano moved, their gazes once more meshing, questioning. Was he trying to come to terms with what had just happened, the way she was?
“I should see who that is,” she said, shocked by the rawness in her throat, which rendered her voice whiskey-rough.
“Yeah,” he agreed, but his hand, which was now on the side of her throat, didn’t drop away.
For some reason, that made her huff with a little burst of amusement, and her heart did a strange dip when his lips curled into a smile.
It was Sheba’s increasingly frantic barking that had her tearing her gaze away from his and somehow getting to her feet. Her legs felt shaky and, as she followed Sheba into the reception area, she touched the tip of her tongue to her lower lip, searching for one last taste of Delano.
Switching on the light outside the front door of the clinic so she could see who was outside, hyperaware of Delano coming into the room, she pushed aside the blinds and looked out.
“Who is it?” he asked, standing way too close for comfort.
It made her want to ignore the person outside, and drag Delano back into their office and ravish him.
For the sake of her sanity, she shifted away, putting a modicum of distance between them.
“A taxi driver I know,” she replied, turning the lock. Pulling open the door, she tried to smile at the diminutive gentleman standing on the doorstep and holding a cardboard box. “Hi, Mr. Jolly. What’s going on?”
“I was coming down Pepper Hill, Dr. Mellie, and a woman flag me down and ask me if I coming to town and if I can bring you this.” From the meows coming from the box, Mellie already had a good idea of the contents even before Mr. Jolly continued, “She say the mama puss disappear yesterday, and she don’t see her come back, so she ’fraid the little one’s going dead without them mother. If the lights wasn’t on here, I’d have take them up to your house.”
More kittens, when she’d just found homes for the six she’d bottle-raised over last month! But, of course, there was no way she could or would refuse.
Taking the box from Mr. Jolly, she said, “Okay, but next time you’re going back through Pepper Hill, if you see that woman tell her if the mother cat comes back, she should contact me about getting her spayed so she won’t have any more kittens.”
“I will.” The taxi driver smiled, gesturing over his shoulder. “She send you some jelly coconuts too, Dr. Mellie, for your trouble.”
“I’ll get them,” Delano offered, slipping by her to follow Mr. Jolly to the car, leaving a heated spot on her arm where he’d brushed against it.
Mellie told herself to take the kittens back into the hospital yet she didn’t move. Instead, she watched Delano walk alongside Mr. Jolly to the trunk of the car. Delano had a confident, sexy stride that commanded her attention.
How much simpler all this would be if she wasn’t so intensely attracted to him. And now that she knew he was interested in her too, everything was even more complicated. She was mentally kicking herself for giving in to her desire.
What should she do now? Tell him it was a mistake? Pretend it didn’t happen?
As Delano laughed at something Mr. Jolly said, Mellie’s heart did a flip and heat flamed up from her belly into her face at the rich, decadent sound.
Maybe he could pretend that kiss was a figment of their imagination, but Mellie knew she wouldn’t be able to.
Thankfully, just then Sheba stood up on her hind legs, nose snuffling at the bottom of the box, her tail wagging a mile a minute. It was just the distraction Mellie needed to stop mooning over the most handsome, fascinating and utterly frustrating man she’d ever met.
Slowly making her way to the hospital, Sheba prancing and jigging around her as she went, Mellie was still thinking about their prior conversation and its aftermath.
Delano came back inside and closed the front door, and Mellie heard the click of Baldur’s nails on the tile along the corridor as she was opening the box.
“How many kittens?” Delano stood on the other side of the table and leaned to peer into the box.
“Looks like three,” she replied, glad he seemed determined not to mention what had happened before, at least for a while. Reaching in, she pulled out the first kitten by its scruff.
“A ginger.” Delano touched the tiny body, stroking down its back. “About four weeks old, do you think?”
“Yes, and that’s such a relief to me,” she said, trying to sound normal, although with the way her heart was pounding, she wasn’t sure what that even meant anymore. Replacing the kitten in the box, she took out a fluffy gray one. “I just weaned and rehomed a litter of six and wasn’t looking forward to having to bottle-feed another.”
Delano nodded, bringing the smallest of the kittens out of the box, a little black ball of fur that gave an almost soundless hiss, which made Delano chuckle.
“Okay, tough guy,” he said, juggling the squirming kitten. “I’ve got you, whether you like it or not.”
“Can you confirm it’s a guy and not a girl?” she asked. She’d had a look at both the ginger and the gray, and thought they were female, but the gender of kittens of this age was notoriously difficult to determine.
He laughed, whether at her question or the fact that the kitten was trying to run up his shirt, she wasn’t sure.
“As confidently as anyone could be at this point,” he replied, not putting the kitten back into the box with its siblings, but cradling it between his palms. “What are you going to name them?”
Tearing her gaze away from his hands, she stared blankly down into the box.
“I usually try to do linked names,” she replied, her brain refusing to give his question its full attention. It was too busy wondering what it would feel like having those hands on her body. “It makes it easier to keep them all straight. The last ones were Star Trek TNG themed—Troi, Wesley, Riker, Worf, Jean-Luc, Beverly. I’m drawing a blank on these.”
“How about going really retro?” he asked, actually bringing the kitten up to his face and snuggling it, making Mellie’s heart melt. “Ginger, Mary Ann and Gilligan, for this dude?”
“I like that,” she said, glad he’d come up with something since her brain was still stuck on their kiss. And the way he was cuddling the little black kitten, which was happily curled up in his hand, wasn’t helping.
She wanted to be embraced like that!
Snap out of it, Mellie!
Hadn’t she just been thinking how much more complicated life would be if she slept with Delano?
What she needed to do, right now, was make as graceful an exit as she could, and hopefully he’d get the hint and not mention what had happened before.
“I have to get these babies home,” she said, making her voice brisk and businesslike. The little black kitten was fast asleep against Delano’s chest, and Mellie almost couldn’t stand the cuteness. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes,” he replied, in a voice that sounded not one whit upset. He gently lowered the kitten into the box, and closed the flaps, while sending Mellie a little smile. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
And while she was walking to the car, Mellie was cursing herself for swinging wildly between elation at their sudden intimacy and disappointment at the easy way he’d let her leave.