KIRSTEN ROLLED OUT of bed and gathered her clothes. Wow. Okay, so the not-being-able-to-walk thing was real, but it was more because her legs were so shaky that she could barely make them hold her up. A squeaked laugh came out of her.
He was leaning against the headboard watching her, hands behind his head. He looked totally relaxed. Totally at ease. And totally capable of walking unaided.
The thought of him sauntering naked to the bathroom made her mouth go dry.
“What?” he said.
There was no way she was going to tell him, so she just shook her head. “I didn’t expect to spend the night last night.”
“I’m glad you did.”
That surprised her. She hadn’t really thought the man housed any softer emotions. Even last night, he’d been all hard-edged and intense. And, actually, she was glad she stayed, too. Glad to see this transformation in him. She’d learned some things about him in the process. Her thoughts yesterday about how Snow and her ex were similar seemed completely off base now. They were nothing alike. Besides, she didn’t need to worry about her heart being broken this time, because it hadn’t been involved in what had happened last night.
And the sex had been...
Out of this world.
He’d woken and reached for her twice during the night and both times had topped the time before, which left her discombobulated, both mentally and physically.
Hence her uncooperative limbs. “I’m just going to jump in the shower, if that’s okay.”
One eyebrow went up. “Want some company?”
Her weak limbs somehow found new strength. She gave an internal eye roll. “As tempting as that sounds, I’ll never make it to work on time if that happens.” She reached for the doorknob and tried to twist it, but it didn’t budge. She tried again, thinking it was just because she was shaky, but it still didn’t move. A chill went over her. Hadn’t she asked him to leave the door open last night?
“Why is this locked?”
His eyes went from warm and satisfied to cool and wary in the space of two seconds. He levered himself out of bed and came over to unlock the mechanism. And somehow not even his nakedness took the edge off her shock.
“Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit.”
Force of habit? Locking himself in his bedroom, when the rest of his apartment was already shut up tighter than a penitentiary?
She swallowed. Something about that didn’t feel right. She’d told them he could do anything to her. And he had, but there’d been nothing sinister about any of it.
But the locked door...
She’d reminded him that they were alone. And yet, despite that, sometime during the night, he’d gotten up and not only shut the door, but also locked it.
The chill spread to her bones. Anything personal she’d asked him had been met with short answers that told her nothing.
“Is there something I need to know?” First his office, and now his home.
He didn’t meet her eyes this time. “Nope.”
Another one-word answer, like when she’d asked about his parents. His later explanation hadn’t been much more revealing. It was like he was withholding something. Something important.
He locked his bedroom door, even though he lived alone. Exactly whom was he expecting to try to get in?
Before she could stop herself a question came out. “Is someone after you, Snow?”
Maybe a disgruntled relative from a surgery gone bad? She’d certainly heard of that happening. And it would explain everything. Or almost everything.
The sudden pivot to face her came out of nowhere, causing her to take a step back. “What do you mean?” The wariness in his face had turned glacial, his jaw stiff, lips white. He might as well have been flash frozen.
Her idea didn’t seem so ridiculous now. “I don’t know. I’ve just never met anyone who lived alone and locked almost every door they had. I certainly don’t do that. It just struck me as...odd.”
Odd was the most neutral word she could think of. Because the other ones that were running through her head were things she wasn’t going to give voice to.
“No one is after me.”
He’d sidestepped her statement by answering her earlier question. So much for him not being like Dave. He’d evaded every question she threw at him as he was breaking up with her. She still had no idea what had gone wrong with that relationship. Had she been too clingy? Too ambitious? Was she horrible in bed? She had no idea, because he wouldn’t communicate with her!
Well, fine. If Snow wanted to act like that, she had no horse in this race. But, something was going on. If he’d told her that New York could be a dangerous place to live, she would have accepted it at face value...but it took a special key to even get up to his apartment. And no one else at the hospital seemed to need an extra lock on their office door like he did. The hospital had pretty tight security. And cameras.
She made a decision. “Well, that’s good to know. I think I’ll skip the shower. Do you mind driving me home? I can catch a taxi, if not.”
“Of course, I’ll drive you.” If anything, he looked relieved that she wasn’t staying. Wasn’t asking any more questions that he wasn’t willing to answer. So much for his being glad that she’d stayed over.
Her perfect night had just imploded, and she wasn’t even sure why. All she knew was that she needed to get home and clear her head before going to work. She definitely couldn’t do that here. Not when her feelings for him had gone from simple lust to... She wasn’t sure what these new emotions rolling around inside of her were. But she didn’t like them. They spoiled everything she and Snow had done last night.
The sooner they could go back to being colleagues who worked together and nothing more, the better. All she needed to do now was figure out how to get there.
And how to forget the iciness of his demeanor when she’d asked about that lock on his door.
The look on Kirsten’s face was going to haunt him for a long time. The shock when she’d turned the knob and realized she couldn’t get out of his room had shifted to a flash of fear before the emotion disappeared. He remembered feeling that exact same thing as a kid, when his dad had rattled the doorknob to his room. The thought of doing something that made her afraid...
She’d asked why it was locked, and all he could think of to say was that it was out of habit.
It was.
But there were reasons behind the habit. Reasons he didn’t want to explain, since she wasn’t going to be in his life forever. And so the alternative was to clam up. She probably thought he was some kind of serial killer or something. She hadn’t been able to get out of there fast enough.
All because of something he’d done.
Goddamn. This was why he didn’t do relationships. Would never do them again. His past was his past, and not something he wanted to relive with every question. And he certainly didn’t want someone to be afraid of him.
He’d tried sharing something with Theresa once, but the questions had kept coming in a never-ending barrage that had ended in cheating and divorce.
It was easier just to move through life without worrying about what others thought—when he himself didn’t have to think about it. It was what it was, and he had no desire to change. For anyone.
Especially after what had happened with Kirsten.
Honestly? He should probably sit down and talk to her so that there was no weirdness between them.
No weirdness? How about sleeping together when they barely knew each other? How was that for weirdness? How about locking the door and scaring the crap out of her?
There was nothing normal about that.
Anger rose up in him in a wave. So what if he locked the damn door? He’d slept with two other women—women he didn’t know very well—and it hadn’t seemed to bother them. One had practically turned into a stalker afterward. So why was he suddenly so worried about what Kirsten thought?
Something inside of him, though, said that this time he needed to talk to her. To at least explain a little bit of what had happened to him. Before she got some crazy thoughts that weren’t based in reality.
It boiled down to the fact that he didn’t want her to be afraid of him. To think that he housed some kind of monstrous compulsion.
How can you be sure you don’t?
His locked doors were a compulsion. He’d been able to admit that to himself a long time ago. But it didn’t harm anyone. Or so he’d thought. Until this morning, when he’d looked into Kirsten’s eyes and saw the size of her pupils.
Yes. He was going to pull her aside and talk to her. Maybe after they looked at her patient tomorrow. If she still wanted his opinion, that is. Maybe she wanted nothing to do with him now.
No, he had a feeling that Kirsten’s patients came first with her, no matter how uncomfortable things might get with her personal life.
That could work in his favor, if he was careful.
A knock came at his office door, and he tensed. If it was Kirsten, he hadn’t quite made a decision about how much to tell her.
“Come in.”
It wasn’t the pulmonologist who came through the door, though—it was Kaleb. Relief poured through him. He forced a smile. “Hey! I’ve haven’t seen you around in a couple of weeks. How are Nicola and the baby?”
His friend came in and dropped into one of the chairs in front of his desk. “They’re doing fine. I’m finally back at work after taking a week off to stay home and watch the baby while she recovered from RSV.”
“I didn’t realize she had that. No problems?”
Kaleb leaned back. “No, just fussiness and a lack of sleep. For both of us.”
“You, fussy?”
“Ha! Funny. You try taking care of a sick baby and see how well you do.”
“I can’t see myself doing that. Ever.” He changed the subject before Kaleb read more into the words than he should. “I saw Nicola around the hospital a couple of times, but just from a distance. She looked busy.”
“Yeah, her schedule was more hectic than mine last week, which is why I was the one to stay with Cass.”
“No lasting problems from the RSV?”
Kaleb adored his baby and Nicola. It was there in his eyes every time he talked about either of them. And Snow was glad for him. The pact they’d made may not have worked out for the facial reconstructive surgeon. In fact, it had seemed to backfire royally, as Nicola got pregnant after a one-night stand. But the pair was happy now. And despite Snow’s doubts during the wedding itself, it didn’t look like there were any problems in paradise. At least not yet. He was happy for them, even if that wasn’t the path that Snow planned on taking.
Especially after what had happened with Kirsten.
“None, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“Okay.” Snow had assumed his friend happened to be walking by his office and decided to pop in. Evidently not. “A patient?”
“No, you, actually.”
“Me?” That surprised him. But if the man was here to tell him their toast had been a big mistake, he was barking up the wrong tree. It may have been a mistake for Kaleb, but it hadn’t been a mistake for him.
“My wife actually sent me.”
Maybe they were having a barbecue or a get-together and wanted to invite him.
“Okay, what’s going on?”
“I think I should be asking you that question.”
He frowned. “I don’t follow.”
Kaleb leaned forward. “You know I don’t like sticking my nose in your business, right?”
“Uh, we’ve been sticking our noses in each other’s business ever since we were kids. And I was the one who told you to go after Nicola, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, you were. And you were right. Which is why I’m here.”
“If you’re going to tell me to go after someone, then you’ve got the wrong friend. There isn’t anyone. I mean it.”
Kaleb studied him for a minute. “Okay. I believe you.” He waited another second or two. “Nicola ran into that new pulmonologist this morning... Dr. Nadif. They’re friends. Anyway, she asked Nicola a kind of strange question. She asked what my wife knew about you.”
What the hell? He picked up a pen off his blotter and turned it end over end. What had Kirsten told her?
The pediatric nurse’s texts came back to mind. Had he read her that wrong?
“Why would she do that?”
One of Kaleb’s eyebrows lifted. Great. So now Nicola and Kaleb both knew.
“It was nothing. And I really don’t appreciate her going around telling people that we slept together.” He stood up. “In fact, I’m going to—”
“Hey, hold on a minute.” Kaleb held up a hand, stopping Snow in his tracks. “She’s not. In fact, I didn’t even know you slept together until this very minute. When you told me. Congratulations, by the way. That’s exactly how Nicola and I started out.”
This was just getting better and better. He dropped back into his chair. So Kirsten hadn’t blurted out the truth...he had. But what else would he have thought?
“Sorry to disappoint you, but it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. It meant nothing.”
So why were Kirsten’s scared eyes branded onto his soul? It was the fact that she hadn’t balked at anything they’d done. Not even when some of their foreplay had been passionate enough to sting. Because she’d dished out as much as she’d gotten. And there’d been no fear. No hesitation. It had been sexy and exciting, and he’d been imagining it happening again, even as she stood in front of his door the next morning wearing nothing but a smile. Except that smile had changed the second she tried to open the door.
Dammit!
“That’s what I once said, too, Snow. But that’s neither here nor there.”
Which brought them back to the reason for his friend’s visit. “So if she didn’t tell Nicola about last night, then what?”
“She asked why your office door has an extra lock on it when no one else’s does. She said she went around and looked just to be sure.”
So he was right. It had bothered her every bit as much as he thought it had. “What did Nicola tell her?”
“Well, contrary to what you think, I haven’t told my wife everything about when we were kids. It never came up. She knows we’re friends and that you spent a lot of time at my house, but as far as some of the rest of it...”
“You could have told her. It’s no big secret.” Except it was. To him. And Snow was glad his friend hadn’t said anything. He could only imagine the look of pity that would cross people’s faces if they learned about his past. Or wondered if Snow might somehow perpetuate the cycle of abuse.
“It’s not my story to tell. But Nicola thought maybe you should know about Dr. Nadif’s question.”
“Yeah, Kirsten asked me about it, too, and I avoided answering. I’ve already decided I need to say something to her.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “She got up this morning after we... Well, she found the door to the bedroom locked and got kind of weirded out.”
Weirded out was one way to put it.
“You are kind of over the top as far as security goes.”
“Yeah, I know. But I always figured it was my business. That it didn’t affect anyone else.”
His friend studied him. “And Theresa?”
“Well, even without the locks, that was probably destined to fail.”
The locks were a symptom of something deeper. Snow was no psychiatrist, but even he understood that.
“I think you’re probably right. I just don’t want Dr. Nadif causing problems for you. You’re a damn good doctor, Snow, but rumors—true or not—can twist things to make them seem far bigger than they actually are.”
Yes, they could. He knew that from his experience with that nurse. And he could see how this could be made to look like something it wasn’t. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll talk to her.”
“Good.” Kaleb stood up. “You don’t have to tell her everything. But you do need to explain enough to make her understand.”
“I will.”
They said their goodbyes, and Snow closed the door behind his friend, leaning against it, but not locking it. Why had Kirsten not just come to his office to ask him about it directly instead of going to Nicola? Well, she probably thought that his friend’s wife knew more than she did. And he could see that it might be hard for her to come and ask him. After all, she’d already tried twice. Once when she’d asked about his lock on his office. And then again last night, when he’d evaded the elephant in the room, stepping around it and trying to pretend it didn’t exist. Kind of hard when she was staring right at it.
So he wasn’t going to wait until tomorrow to talk to her. He was going to have this out now. Before she asked anyone else besides Nicola.
He picked up his phone and found her number. His thumb hovered over the call button for a second or two before he finally took a deep breath and mashed it. It rang twice, and then Kirsten picked up. “Hello?”
He didn’t want to go into the fact that Kaleb had come to his office or that he knew that she’d gone behind his back and asked Nicola, when she couldn’t get any answers out of him. Instead, he simply said, “Hey, do you have a few minutes sometime today to come by my office so we can go over your patient’s chart before I actually see her?”
“Oh, um, yes. I have some time after lunch, if that works for you.”
No hint of them going to eat lunch together. Not that he wanted to or was even going to suggest it. “I do. Say around one o’clock?”
“That sounds...doable.”
Her slight hesitation wasn’t lost on him. But she didn’t mention last night, and he wasn’t going to, either. Not over the phone, anyway. Was she afraid to meet in his office? He’d hate it if that was true, but who could he blame for that besides himself? There might not be anything he could do about what had already happened, but he could sure as hell try to change what happened in the future. Starting with giving her a choice of where to meet. “Would you rather we met somewhere else? We can always go sit on one of the benches outside.”
“No. Your office will be fine. Besides, it’ll be easier to look at her records on an actual computer rather than on one of our phones.”
She had a point there. And her response sounded stronger this time. She was more sure of herself.
“Okay, I’ll see you here at one, then.”
“See you there.”
He tossed his phone onto his desk and leaned back in his chair. What should have been relief wasn’t quite there yet. But hopefully that would come. Once he figured out how to broach the subject of what had happened last night and how to tell her enough, while sparing her the gory details of what his childhood had been like. Well, since he hadn’t been able to find the fine line that divided the two, he was just going to have to do the best he could and hope like hell that she just forgot about what had happened and moved on to something else.
That little voice in his head reminded him of their conversation at the Statue of Liberty. Repair what was broken while it was still possible, so that there was no need for a transplant. He thought that was still possible, but he’d have to leave that up for Kirsten to decide.
With her computer tucked under her arm, Kirsten walked the distance from the elevator to Snow’s office. Nicola hadn’t shed much light on his behavior, but then again, Kirsten hadn’t wanted to share everything that had happened last night and this morning. It was all too new and raw to do that. And although she liked her new friend, she didn’t want to chance the news of their sleeping together getting around to other people in the hospital. Especially since she was already pretty sure she’d made a huge mistake.
Why?
Was she afraid people might think she was sleeping her way up the ladder? Well, that fear hadn’t exactly stopped her from spending the night with the transplant surgeon, had it? And, good or not, that move could prove to be career suicide if it got around. She was still very new at this hospital, and she wanted people to take her seriously. Impulsive decisions like last night didn’t exactly lend themselves to inspiring confidence in patients or co-workers. Sure everyone made mistakes, but she’d known it was a mistake before it even happened. And yet she’d done it, anyway.
She knocked on the door.
Half expecting to hear twenty or thirty locks being unlatched, she was surprised when he simply called for her to enter. She did, noting he wasn’t at his desk.
“Over here.”
She turned her head and saw him sitting on his sofa, his laptop parked on the glass-topped table in front of him. Shutting the door, she hesitated over the dead bolt. Did he want her to lock it? Leave it alone.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”
Great, he’d read her mind. She moved over to the seating arrangement, wondering how this was going to work if they were sitting on opposite sides of the table. So she perched on the very edge of the long sofa and placed her own laptop on the table beside his, then booted it up.
“Hey, before we start, I wanted to talk to you about something. I debated on just letting it go, but I don’t want it to interfere with our working relationship.”
“If it’s about last night, don’t worry about it. We can acknowledge it was a mistake that won’t happen again.” She didn’t want to sit here while he dissected everything and then tossed it all in the trash. Ha! Hadn’t she done almost that very thing?
“It is about last night, but not in the way you might think.” He stopped, as if searching for how to begin. “You asked me yesterday about my parents.”
Why did he want to talk about that, when it had nothing to do with what they’d done? “It’s okay, you don’t need to—”
“I do, because I don’t want you to have the wrong idea about something.” He shifted so that he was facing her. “I told you I don’t have any contact with my dad, and I don’t. Because he’s in prison.”
Shock filled her, knocking away any additional words she might have tossed out about mistakes and what had happened last night. “I’m sorry, Snow. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have asked that question.”
“Yes, you should have. We ask people all the time about where they’re from, whether they have any siblings...what their parents do for a living. You can see how that might be a hard question for me to answer. Because when my dad wasn’t drinking or doing drugs, he was using my mom as a punching bag.”
Horror filled her. She’d thought all kinds of things. Even thought maybe he was in the witness protection program or something. But none of it came close to the reality of what he was telling her.
“Oh, God. I—I had no idea.” Everything fell into place in an instant, and she felt awful for thinking it was Snow who had something to hide. That he had something to be ashamed of. She had a feeling he felt both of those things, though, and her heart ached for him. She felt awful for going to ask Nicola about him.
“I know. I don’t tell very many people about it. Kaleb knows because we grew up together, and because I rode my bike to his house during the worst of it.”
His bike. She pictured Snow as a little boy pedaling as fast as he could, his fear propelling him to find safety. She swallowed past a knot of emotion that threatened to turn into tears. Tears he probably wouldn’t appreciate.
“You were young when this started?”
“Yep. He’s my actual birth father, not a stepfather or boyfriend who came along later. And he was there the whole time I was growing up.” He shrugged. “You saw some of the residual junk from my past last night. You just didn’t realize what you were looking at.”
“The locks.” She felt like such an idiot. All that talk about whether someone was after him or wondering if he was hiding some kind of nefarious activity. He had been. But he was hiding himself. Not because he was using drugs or had any kinky habits.
“Yes. When I was about seven, my mom came home from work and found me crying. My dad hadn’t hit me. Not that time. But he’d come close, and I was scared. Anyway, my mom installed a lock on my bedroom door to help keep me safe.”
Did he even know how that sounded? How could a mom leave her child in that kind of situation? Then again, she couldn’t see inside the woman’s head to see what her reasoning was. Maybe she couldn’t get away. Or maybe she had no support system to help her. No one to turn to.
“But he’s in prison now, you said.”
“Yes. He is. But old habits die hard.” He propped his ankle on his knee. “That first lock didn’t keep my dad out, but when I was a teenager, I got a job at a locksmith and learned all about how they worked—how to install my own. I worked my way from simple to complicated, until I found a lock that included a steel bar that when turned fitted into a hole on the floor and top of the door frame. I realized I couldn’t leave, because then my mom would be all alone. So I did my best to protect her. And me. Using locks.”
“He’s in jail now, so your mom must have turned him in.”
“No, that was me, when my mom ended up spending a month in ICU. I told the police everything. Testified at his trial.”
She couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been. How heartbreaking for him and his mom. “How old were you when that happened?”
“I was seventeen and about ready to graduate from high school. I stayed with Kaleb and his family to avoid going through the foster-care system.” He sighed. “So the locks became a habit. A symbol of safety and freedom. But more than that, I like installing them. And, yes, there’s a neurotic element to it. I no longer need them. But they brought me comfort during a hard time in my life. And that’s hard to let go of.”
His eyes met hers. “I am very sorry, Kirsten, if I scared you by locking the door to my bedroom last night. I hope you know I would never knowingly hurt you, or anyone.”
“I do.” She decided to be honest. “It took me by surprise, and I’ll admit a lot of thoughts ran through my head before I discarded each of them. I wondered if you were in the witness protection program or something.”
“That’s why you asked me if someone was after me.”
“Yes.” She’d also wondered if something from his past had been chasing him. Evidently it was—it just wasn’t a physical presence.
“Feel better?”
She did about the reasons for the extra security, but not about why he had it. “I have to confess something. I’m embarrassed about it now.”
“Okay.”
“I asked Nicola about you. I didn’t tell her about last night, but I did ask if she knew anything about you. About why your office door has a lock when no one else’s does.”
“It’s okay. Kaleb already came to see me this morning to ask what was going on. He told me about Nicola. But I’d already decided to talk to you before he showed up at my office door. I was just going to wait until tomorrow to do it. It made me decide that I needed to address it sooner and not give you the watered-down version I’d planned on.”
“So you didn’t ask me to come here to talk about my patient?”
“I do. It just wasn’t my only reason for meeting you today. And it kills two birds with one stone.”
“Don’t other women wonder why you have extra locks?”
He chuckled. “Well, maybe, but there haven’t been that many and they’ve never actually come out and asked before. No one else knows the whole story, except for Kaleb, obviously, but not too many others outside of my family.”
Not even his ex-wife? Not that she was going to ask that kind of question.
So she was the first casual acquaintance he’d given this explanation to? Well, she had kind of freaked out about it, so maybe the other women he’d been with had been cooler about the whole situation.
Well, starting now, she was going to become one of those “cool” women. As glad as she was that he’d told her about his past—and as horrified as she was by what he’d gone through—it didn’t change anything. Last night had been a mistake before his explanation, and it was still a mistake after it.
So no more asking questions or trying to figure him out. Because in the end, it didn’t matter. They were colleagues at work and nothing more. The sooner she got that through her thick skull, the better off they both would be.