A Most Desirable M.D.. Anne Marie Winston

get started. It’s a long and ugly story, as I said.”

      “I’m a good listener, remember? And a good friend. And that’s what friends are for, to share burdens.” She put her hand on his arm, right on his bare skin, and rubbed her thumb lightly over the hair-roughened, sinewy flesh.

      Kane put his hand over hers, squeezing lightly. “You’re a treasure, Allison. I value our friendship.”

      The words were a balm to her hungry heart, the sweetest sounds she’d ever heard and the last ones she’d ever have expected. She hadn’t expected anything. She could never hope to have Kane’s love, but she was grateful at least to hold his friendship.

      He sighed, removing his hand from atop hers and dropping his head back against the cushions of her sofa, slouching so his long body stretched bonelessly and his hip grazed the knee she’d drawn up beneath her. “You asked me about the Simonds’ baby this morning. And you were right. I was upset. Angry, too. I’ve spent years in school learning how to save pre-term infants, and it really gets to me when I fail.” He tried to smile, but the effort died before it really got going. “I guess I want to be God.”

      She didn’t comment, but she kept her hand on his arm, lightly stroking as she sensed the tension within him.

      “Anyway,” he went on, “I decided to sleep at my mother’s for the few hours before rounds, since her home is much closer to the hospital than mine. But I was awakened by a phone call.” His voice grew taut and angry and he stopped abruptly.

      “Someone who made you mad,” she ventured.

      “Someone who made me furious,” he corrected. “Only he didn’t know I was on the phone. He was talking to my mother.” His lips thinned and his nostrils flared in disgust. “It was my father. All of a sudden this creep who’s been gone for three decades just can’t wait to see us again.”

      “But…why?”

      “My sister.” He rolled his head toward Allison and their eyes met. His softened fondly and his tone was wry. “Gabrielle’s always been a soft touch. She has a little girl of her own now and she recently thought it only decent to let dear old Dad know. I have no idea how she found him but she invited him to come down here and visit.” His tone grew hard again. “I’d strangle her barehanded if I thought she had any idea what she started. But I know she was just following her heart.”

      “So, your father’s coming to San Antonio?” She could see why he would be upset, but the fury that seemed to be so tightly coiled beneath the surface was almost too much. It wasn’t like Kane to overreact. And she should know, since she’d worked with him in situations where grieving people did all kinds of bizarre things, occasionally aimed at the hapless physician whose skill hadn’t been enough to save their loved one.

      “Yeah, but that’s not the worst of it.” Kane sprang to his feet so quickly she jumped back, startled, and he began to pace the length of her small living area like a great tiger confined within a small cage. “He threatened my mother. Blackmailed her, actually.”

      “Blackmailed?” It was so weird she just blurted it out. “What kind of secret could your mother have that would invite blackmail?”

      He wheeled and looked across the room at her, and his eyes were wild. “My mother,” he said slowly, enunciating each syllable, “ran away from home when she was seventeen. She told us she just couldn’t get along with her father, but it turns out she was pregnant. She was headed for California but she got hung up in Nevada where she had her babies—twins, a boy and a girl—and gave them up for adoption. Actually,” he said, “she left them on the steps of the sheriff’s office with notes pinned to their blankets.”

      “Your poor mother.” Allison’s heart was soft; she could imagine the young, pregnant woman’s desperation.

      “Yeah. She was young, not even twenty, and I suppose she was about at rock bottom financially and too proud to go home—”

      “And her self-esteem was probably rock bottom as well,” she interjected softly.

      “Probably,” he agreed. “Soon afterward, she met my father. Lloyd Carter was a rodeo cowboy. They got married and I was born nine months later. By the time I was a year old, she was pregnant again. Very shortly after he found out, my prize of a father took off for greener pastures.”

      The thought of a young woman, barely twenty years old and pregnant for the third time, probably grieving over her lost children and her poor choices, brought tears to Allison’s eyes. Instinctively, she reached out a hand to Kane, and he took it briefly, dropping back onto the couch beside her with his head in his hands.

      “Carter’s threatened to tell the biological father about the twins,” he said. “If my mother doesn’t pay him fifty thousand.”

      She sucked in a sharp, horrified breath. “Where in the world—” Then she remembered to whom she was speaking. “She has the money?”

      Kane nodded. “But neither of us thinks that’ll be the end of the matter.” His voice shook with contained rage and he slammed one fist into the other. “I hate not being able to fix this! All my life I’ve tried to help, to make things easier for my mother.” His tone lowered and filled with such hopelessness that it tore at Allison’s heart. “And this time there’s not a thing I can do.”

      “Oh, Kane, just being there for your mother is doing something.” Allison looped her arms around his shoulders and leaned her forehead against him, hugging him tightly. If only there was something she could do to relieve the anguish he was living!

      “I can’t explain to you how strange it feels to know I have a brother and a sister out there somewhere whom I’ve never met. We’ll never share childhood memories,” he said slowly. “For my mother, it’s like it all happened yesterday. I had to sedate her. God, it was hellish.”

      Allison urged him to her, cradling him and rocking instinctively as he reached for her, burying his head in her neck and clutching her so tightly she could barely breathe. For the longest time, she simply held him, loving the whisper of his warm breath over her neck and the hard clasp of his arms around her. If this was the closest she would ever get to Heaven, she was going to memorize every second of it to relive later when the real world and loneliness returned.

      Kane moved then, and she started to withdraw her arms from around him, aware that this was probably more comfort than he’d needed or wanted. But before she could move away, he turned to her, lifting one large hand to cradle her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For listening.”

      “You’re welcome.” But her voice died away to nothing. He was looking at her lips. She held herself perfectly, utterly still as he smoothed his thumb along her bottom lip, and then, as his head came down, she realized that Kane was going to kiss her.