The Last First Kiss. Marie Ferrarella

heard her mother make a noise and could just envision the disapproving look that came over the woman’s heart-shaped face.

      “You’re always up against deadlines. That’s all I ever hear. I never see you anymore, Kara,” her mother complained.

      Pointing out that, yes, she did, would do her no good and Kara knew it. “Get out the pictures you insisted on taking at Easter and look at them, Mom. I haven’t changed any since then.”

      “You still haven’t gained any weight?” Paulette lamented.

      Trust her mother to turn her remark against her. “That’s a good thing, Mother.”

      Unable to concentrate on two things at once when one of those things involved her mother, Kara stopped working on the game and turned away from the monitor. She lowered her voice. This was not a conversation she wanted anyone in one of the other cubicles to overhear.

      “Are you actually calling me to find out if I’m eating?”

      “No, I’m calling to ask you a favor. Your company puts out that ‘Kalico Kid’ video game, doesn’t it?”

      This was a trap of some sort, she could smell it. “You know we do,” Kara answered cautiously. She’d mentioned how hard her team had worked on getting the game out on time. What was her mother up to?

      “Can you get a copy?”

      The company store had several copies set aside. “I probably can,” she allowed, “seeing as how I worked on it for six months.” Kara sat up, her body at attention. “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly decided to play video games.” Mentally, she crossed her fingers. It would be nice if her mother found another hobby other than watching over her life, Kara thought. She also knew that the chances of that happening were as unlikely as her striking gold in the company’s first-floor ladies’ room.

      “Lisa’s son, Dave, needs to get his hands on a copy for his cousin’s little boy. It’s a birthday party and Ryan, Melissa’s son—Melissa is his—”

      “I get it, Mom, I get it,” Kara protested, trying to stop her mother before the woman verbally drew an elaborate family tree for her.

      “Anyway, Ryan has his little heart set on getting that game. Can you come through with one, or is he going to be heartbroken for his birthday?” her mother asked her bluntly.

      No doubt about it, when it came to wielding guilt, her mother knew no equal. “Stop, Mom,” Kara pleaded, holding the receiver away from her ear. “I’ll see what I can do.” Pulling her calendar over, she picked up a pen, intending to mark the date. “When do you need it by?”

      “Tomorrow.”

      “Tomorrow?” Kara echoed. Talk about being last minute. “Mother, that’s—” She stopped herself. She knew better than to attempt to argue with the woman who’d made it into an art form. Instead, she said, “I’ll see what I can do, Mom.”

      “That’s my girl.” Warmth radiated from the phrase. “I told Lisa you’d come through. By the way, would you mind dropping it off with Dave when you get it? Tomorrow is his day to work at the Seventeenth Street Clinic. He volunteers there, you know.”

      As if her mother hadn’t already told her that little tidbit countless number of times. “You don’t say.”

      “The clinic isn’t all that far from you,” Paulette went on, ignoring the sarcasm in her daughter’s voice.

      Kara suppressed a sigh. If she sighed too often, she was going to wind up hyperventilating. Worse, she’d have her mother fussing over her, which was the last thing she needed.

      “I know where Seventeenth Street is, Mother.” This time, a hint of impatience came through.

      Sadly, it appeared that her mother hadn’t perceived it. “Wonderful, then we’re all set. Dave’ll be there all day,” Paulette stressed. “That young man is positively selfless, never takes any time off for himself,” Paulette marveled.

      This was getting a little too thick. Kara smelled a rat—the kind that wore high heels and was given to being sneaky.

      “Mother—”

      “Oops,” Paulette exclaimed abruptly. “I’ve got to go. Talk to you later, Kara. Bye!”

      Her mother’s flood of words came at her fast and furious—just before the receiver on the other end went “click.”

      She’d been right, Kara thought as she leaned forward and replaced the receiver into its cradle. The universe was out of whack today. Now all she had to do was figure out why.

      There were times, like today, when Dr. David Scarlatti wished he’d been blessed with an extra set of hands. Either that, or had learned to increase his energy level and work twice as fast as he normally did. There just never seemed to be enough hours in the day for him to do everything he needed to.

      That was especially true whenever he volunteered at the free clinic. He’d been here since seven and he didn’t feel as if he was making a dent. For every patient he saw, two more seemed to pop up to take his or her place. After six hours straight, the waiting room was still jammed. So much so that some of the patients were sitting cross-legged on the floor.

      Nobody was here for something as mundane as a routine checkup. Everyone had something wrong, usually something that they had been enduring for at least several weeks before grudgingly swallowing their pride and making the pilgrimage to the clinic.

      It was one o’clock. Typically, most doctors’ offices were closed for lunch at this hour. But for him, lunch was only a faraway dream. Other than a candy bar, he hadn’t had anything to eat—nor the time to consume it if he’d thought to bring something with him.

      He didn’t like being hungry, but they were down one doctor today, which made him not low man on the totem pole but sole man on the totem pole. Added to that, one of the nurses didn’t show and the one who did looked as if she were running on empty. Clarice, a normally no-nonsense nurse whose age he wouldn’t dare attempt to guess—he knew she had grandchildren—had been out sick for a week, and it was rather obvious to him that she needed a couple more days.

      Too bad neither he nor the clinic had that kind of luxury. There were patients to attend to, and there was no putting that on hold.

      As Dave walked out Mrs. Rayburn and her allergy-challenged twins, Megan and Moira, he paused by the reception desk to pick up the next file. There had to be a break coming soon, right?

      “How many more, Clarice?” he asked the full-figured dynamo, who was, among other things, his first line of defense.

      “You don’t want to know,” the woman informed him darkly.

      Since the clinic had originally opened its doors, Clarice Sanchez had seen doctors come, burn out and go. For reasons he wasn’t quite sure of but was eternally grateful for, after an initial butting of heads, the somber nurse had taken him under her large, protective wing. Clarice was the one who kept things moving, even when she was operating at less than her usual maximum efficiency.

      Dave read the side of the folder and was about to call the name of his next patient when suddenly, someone was calling out his instead.

      “Dave!”

      Caught off guard, he momentarily forgot about Ramon Mendoza and glanced about the waiting area to see who had just addressed him by his first name. No one did that around here. It was disrespectful. If they spoke to him, they always invoked his title in a grateful voice.

      He didn’t have far to look. His line of sight was immediately engaged by a vaguely familiar, rather sexy-looking blonde. She was striding across the packed room, heading toward him as if she were the bullet and he was the bull’s-eye. From the expression on her face, he could see that she seemed agitated.

      One thing was for damn sure. She certainly didn’t look as if she belonged here. It was like a lily