crossed her arms. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that Blue doesn’t think the clinic is a good idea.”
Holt wanted to smile, but he managed to refrain. Kathryn Ellis was pretty cute when she was miffed. Why had he never noticed that before?
“Not at all. Blue thinks I should sleep on what you’ve said and then I’ll give you my reply tomorrow.” If they were going to work together, he was going to call the shots. He wasn’t going to risk a repeat of Lilith.
“I see.”
She didn’t, of course, but he had to give her credit for being a good sport about the whole thing.
“This isn’t a joke,” she said quietly.
She was right. “No, ma’am, it isn’t. I’ll be in touch. Real soon. That’s a promise.” And for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he held out his hand. It was, possibly, the dumbest thing he’d done in a long time.
Kathryn placed her hand in his and he closed his big palm around her much smaller one. As her skin slid against his, he was more aware of her as a woman than he’d been when he was undressing other women.
Quickly, she pulled away. Good idea.
Not like this business of him and Kathryn working together, he thought after she’d gone. That had bad idea written all over it. Unfortunately, he was already in. Now all he had to do was tell her. For real this time. Maybe he’d be lucky and she would decide he was a crazy man and find someone else to ask her favors for her.
But he knew that that was a long shot. Kathryn was determined to get her clinic, even if she had to put up with a man like him to get it.
Still, he bet it would be a long time before she would let him shake her hand again. That was a shame. And a blessing. At least one of them was thinking straight. It sure wasn’t him. Or Blue.
A short time later his phone rang. It was his sister Jess. His other sister Meg and his brother, Nate, would probably have been in on the call, too, but Meg was living in California now and Nate was still overseas with the army.
“I heard that Kathryn Ellis went out to the ranch today,” Jess said. “What did she want?”
He hesitated. “Mostly I think she just wanted to pet my dog.”
“I doubt that,” Jess said, laughing. “Secretive as ever, Holt? Are you going to help her with that clinic?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“Did she give you her reasons for wanting to build it?”
Oh, no, he wasn’t going there. Jess didn’t know exactly how much their father had suffered or about the nightmares that kept him awake at night about their father’s last days. She certainly didn’t know the horrors that his friend Hank had faced and she knew nothing at all of what had gone on between himself and Lilith. “We discussed a few things,” he said.
Jess sighed loudly. “You are the most frustrating man. Some day someone is going to get you to open up and talk.”
“I talk.” They saw each other frequently. But he also kept things to himself, kept things from the rest of the family, as he always had. That was his duty and right as the eldest. He knew that, just as he knew that Kathryn Ellis was not a part of his destiny.
That didn’t mean he could keep her waiting forever. By tomorrow she would be pacing the floor and she wouldn’t care two hoots about why he was going to help her. She’d just be glad that he was finally saying yes. He hoped.
CHAPTER THREE
THE next day after work Kathryn returned to her house with the almost-peeled-away white paint and the tilting porch where some of the boards were rotted through. Her parents hadn’t been able to find a buyer for the house when they divorced so it had sat here neglected and forgotten. She supposed she should be grateful that neither of them was interested enough to object to her staying here. Otherwise, she’d be out on the streets.
She freelanced at the local newspaper and did odd jobs around the clinic a few afternoons a week, but this afternoon she had nothing. The inactivity unnerved her. Not having a full-time job or any solid plan for the future scared her to death, so after lunch she tried to dredge up a positive outlook, donning her I’m-planning-for-the-future attitude. She sent off a few résumés the way she did every day even though she hadn’t gotten any nibbles.
Still, she was determined to move forward. So after lunch, she moved out onto the rickety porch swing with a pen and paper and began work on her doctor/clinic list. She tried not to think about the fact that Holt had promised her an answer today and that the answer might be no. She also tried not to remember how it had felt when he’d held her hand. Sensation had ping-ponged through body. And it had been much hotter than anything she’d felt in high school.
“The man is impossible,” she muttered. He could have given her his answer yesterday. That made her think that the answer was going to be no and he was just trying to come up with a way to let her down easy. This was almost like a repeat of high school, with her wanting something from him she couldn’t have. The only difference was that this time she didn’t daydream about him bending her back over the hood of his car and kissing her with wild abandon.
I don’t, she insisted as a hot sizzle went through her. “Because that would be completely inappropriate for an about-to-burst pregnant woman.” Not to mention stupid and totally disastrous for someone like herself. She’d learned a lot of lessons during these past few years of being married to a man who was controlling, judgmental and inclined to bursts of cruelty, but the most important went something like this. Don’t get too close to imposing, hard-to-deal-with men like Holt. James was a larger-than-life, brooding type just like Holt. People admired him and told her that still waters ran deep, but what she’d found was that behind that tough, quiet facade was a man with no soul and a lot of pent-up anger. Faced with that kind of man again, she knew to run. A woman who had been naive enough to fall for a man who hurt her would have to be ten kinds of stupid and something not very admirable if she did it again. But she wouldn’t let that happen.
Maybe she could do the entire project herself.
A groan escaped her and she closed her eyes at the impossibility of it all. These kinds of opportunities didn’t drop in everyone’s lap. This was her ticket to security for her unborn baby, herself and the people of the town who needed good medical care—yet she was already flailing because, once again, she couldn’t win over Holt Calhoun.
The sound of boots on pavement made her open her eyes.
As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Holt was crossing the street, heading toward her house. Dressed in jeans slung low on his hips and a pristine white shirt open at the throat, he was like some bronzed cowboy god with that dark hair and chiseled jaw. Instantly and against her will, her body reacted. When his gaze met hers, Holt nodded hello. Without waiting for her to invite him onto the porch, he simply stepped up as if he was used to doing what he wanted and going where he wanted. He probably was.
She struggled to stand so that she would be at less of a disadvantage. Unfortunately, her unwieldy body defied her.
Holt held out a hand as if to stop her. “No need. I just came to tell you not—”
“Holt? Is that you?” A woman’s voice had them both looking toward the road. Kathryn peered around Holt to see Mrs. Best, a retired schoolteacher and one of Dr. Cooper’s regular patients staring up at Holt as if she adored him. “It is you.” She sounded delighted. “I haven’t seen you since you came home, but I’ve been meaning to call.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Best.” Holt’s voice was utterly polite, but after his atypical teasing bout with Blue yesterday he had retreated back to strong, silent cowboy mode.
“How nice to see two of my former students together in one place,” the woman said. “I don’t often, you know. Kathryn was from my last class just before