back to his usual stoic expression. His gaze had narrowed, something cold and empty seeming to seep from his blue-green eyes. Despite the respect Tarah held for the man, she understood how everyone found his mechanical nature off-putting. She turned back to Dr. Forest. “I won’t disappoint, sir!”
With a tilt of his head, Dr. Forest turned his attention toward his colleague, the two men falling into conversation as Tarah exited the room. When the door closed behind her she jumped up and down, sheer joy gleaming across her face. Her excitement spilled out of every pore. The nurse at the desk stood with the telephone pressed to her ear. She laughed as she gave Tarah a thumbs-up. Dancing back toward the bank of elevators, Tarah didn’t know who to call first, but she was anxious to share her good news with her family.
* * *
The rest of Tarah’s day could not have gone any better. By the time she found her way home, she was exhausted but so amped with adrenaline that she’d actually considered going back to the hospital to work another shift. The only thing to stop her was having to be bright-eyed at seven o’clock the next morning to start working with the surgical team on the strategy that would change the lives of the two young boys and their parents.
As she pulled into the circular driveway, a wave of loneliness swept over her. She paused for a quick moment to take in the magnificent plantings and rolling landscape of the forty-acre compound. Her brother Mason’s Arizona home sat high on Mummy Mountain with panoramic views of the city and the mountains. Citrus trees lined the driveway, and a mountain waterfall could be seen cascading in the distance. It was one of the prettiest places Tarah had ever known, but living on the impressive estate by her lonesome had started to wear thin.
The first year of her internship, she’d had three roommates. Two had since married and moved out, and the third had been evicted after throwing an unauthorized party that had left her owing her brother Mason money for the damages. Afterward she’d followed her sister Maitlyn’s advice and had opted to go it alone since help wasn’t needed with the housing expenses. She had her family to thank for that, and although she considered her brother’s generosity a blessing, she knew her parents considered it a curse of sorts that continued to keep her spoiled.
Moving into the home, she disengaged the alarm system, then sauntered into the kitchen to make a cup of hot tea. The light on the answering machine was blinking for attention, and after she’d put a kettle on to boil, she pushed the play button to listen to her messages.
“Hey, baby girl! It’s Kendrick and Vanessa. You really need to answer your cell phone or at least reply to the messages. You still have a cell phone, don’t you? We just wanted to say congratulations. We know you’ll do great. Give us a call when you can. Love you, little sister.”
“Tarah, baby, call your parents, please. Senior says he’s coming in next week to check on you, and I need you to call the landscaper so he can be around when your daddy gets there. Now don’t forget, Tarah! I love you, honey!”
“Um, uh, yeah, Tarah, wow! You still have a house phone! I don’t know why, but I thought I was calling your cell number. Anyway, it’s Nick... Nicholas Stallion. I hope you’re doing well. You were on my mind, and I thought I’d give you a call to say hello. Okay...well...give me a call when you can.”
“Hey, it’s me again. Nick. I forgot to give you my number. It’s...”
Tarah laughed out loud as Nicholas called off the ten digits to reach him. He repeated the number three times to be sure she had it. After jotting the phone number down, she deleted all the messages, then turned back to her teapot.
She hated to admit it, but she’d thought about Nicholas often since spending time with him over the Christmas holiday. Celebrating New Year’s Eve alone in the hospital ICU with a patient who’d come through brain surgery had kept him in the forefront of her mind. That night she’d wondered who he’d kissed when that silver ball had dropped to signify the midnight hour. Since then, she’d been questioning why she hadn’t heard a word from him.
She had considered calling him but had talked herself out of it. Men like Nicholas had a host of women chasing after them, and she wasn’t interested in being part of the pack. Besides, calling him would have required reaching out to one of her siblings, or his, for his number. She didn’t need any of their family in her business that way. When another two weeks had passed with no call, she’d filed him away as interesting but unavailable. And now here he was, calling her.
Moving toward her bedroom, she dropped down onto an oversize recliner, pulling a cotton blanket over her legs and file folders into her lap. It was about darn time she heard from him, she thought as she sipped herbal tea from an oversize mug. And as she thought about calling him back, she couldn’t wait to ask him what had taken him so long.
* * *
Nicholas opened the glove box of his car and tossed in his cell phone. He took a deep breath, hesitating briefly before finally closing the compartment door. He had tried to reach Tarah four times now, and each time he’d gotten her voice mail instead. He had yet to hear her voice, and he couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t returned his calls. The silence had him feeling some kind of way. Every woman Nicholas had ever been interested in always called him back.
Twisting in his seat, he reached into the back and grabbed his gym bag. He sighed, then exited the vehicle and engaged the car alarm. As he moved from the parking garage to the entrance of the team’s training facility, fans and groupies asking for his autograph and vying for his attention besieged him.
Although he appreciated their interest, his mind was elsewhere, and he breezed right past the crowd, barely bothering to nod his head or acknowledge any of them. He ignored the catcalls, and as someone snapped his photograph, he imagined the headlines that would surely ensue about his attitude.
He had become notorious for what the media called mood swings and what sports enthusiasts had labeled bad behavior. Admittedly, his responses to the stress associated with the game hadn’t always been stellar, but few people truly knew him or his heart. Nicholas had learned early on that despite the boatloads of money and time he donated to the numerous organizations he supported, it was the tantrums and flagrant outbursts that kept his name in the headlines and the cameras focused on him. That, along with some seriously impressive plays on the football field, kept his name in everyone’s mouth. It had become just another part of the game that he’d learned to manipulate and play well. The payoff made him an endorsement gold mine as long as he never took it so far that he was an embarrassment to the team, the league or his family.
As the gym door slammed close behind him, he hurried down the short length of hallway toward the locker rooms. Once inside, he was assaulted by the smell of sour funk. The place reeked of sweat, feet and musk, masked by too much cologne and not nearly enough soap. Nicholas grimaced. Despite the number of times he had come and gone from the space over the years, he had never grown accustomed to the smell.
His arrival was met with amused looks as the whole team turned to stare in his direction. The team’s head coach stood with his arms crossed over his chest, annoyance creasing his brow. Nicholas’s eyes shifted from side to side as he took a swift inhalation of air.
“You’re late, Stallion!” the Marauder coach, Marcus Brandt shouted. “Again!”
Nicholas dropped his bag to the floor in front of his locker. He shrugged his broad shoulders and proffered an apology. “Sorry, Coach. It was unexpected. Something came up.”
“We’re going to the big game, Stallion. If you actually want to play in that game, you need to get your ass here on time!” the man ranted, spewing a lengthy list of expletives at Nicholas. “You’re lucky I don’t fine your ass. I just so happen to be in a good mood!”
Nicholas didn’t waste the breath to respond. He wasn’t moved by the profanity-laced diatribe, and he saw no reason to reply in kind. He himself didn’t cuss, his older brother Noah having told them time and time again that a man who needed to punctuate his point with obscenities really didn’t have a point to make. Neither he nor any of his brothers had ever felt a need to sit around with their buddies and trade vulgarities. And