Dreams & Desires. Kat Cantrell

than a few minutes, he hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. As a resident he could function on one or two hours of sleep a night for a week or more, but he was getting too damned old now.

      “Sure you won’t change your mind?” she said, nibbling his earlobe.

      Oh, man, did he want to. Maybe if he were ten years younger... “I wouldn’t be much good to you like this.”

      She frowned, looking disappointed.

      “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because believe me, I’m not, but I have to know, why now?”

      She shrugged. “I thought I would give the water jets in my tub a break.”

      Oh, damn. “Seriously?”

      She grinned. “I shudder to imagine my next water bill.”

      The mental picture had his neurons firing and his blood boiling, but exhaustion won out. So he shelved the image for future reference. Not that he believed her. Or maybe he did.

      “So,” she said, disentangling herself from his arms to sit up, “I want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

      Oh, boy, here we go. The Talk. “What? No afterglow?”

      “I don’t do afterglow. This isn’t a relationship. This was just sex.”

      He’d used that same line on dozens of women and the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him. Because this time, he didn’t want “just sex.” He wanted her, in every way there was to want someone. It felt almost as if the force of the universe was propelling them toward one another. He knew that she felt it, too. She just wasn’t ready to let herself accept it. But she would in her own time, and thankfully he was a very patient man.

      “Whatever you want,” he told her, and she looked as if maybe she didn’t believe him.

      “No one can know about us. And I mean no one.”

      “Be careful, you’re going to bruise my tender ego.”

      She laughed and climbed off his lap, grabbing her robe from the floor. “Somehow I doubt that.”

      “Where are you going?”

      “I have to get dressed and get out of here. I’d like to spend some time with Janey before they take her.”

      “Maddie,” he reminded her.

      “Right. It’s going to be weird calling her by a different name. I also promised I would work a few hours at the free clinic this afternoon.”

      “Can I see you later?”

      She hesitated, then said, “That’s probably not a good idea.”

      “Why?”

      She shot him a look as she tugged the robe back on. “You know why.”

      “I knew it,” he said, throwing his arm dramatically over his eyes. “You’re ashamed of me.”

      She grabbed his shirt off the floor and tossed it to him. “I need you dressed and ready to go by the time I come back down.”

      “Sure thing,” he said, but the second she was gone he tossed his shirt on the floor and dropped his head back against the arm of the sofa. He must have drifted off, only to be roused by a loud thud.

      He peered out through the slits of his eyes, trying to get his bearings, then saw his clothes in a pile on the floor beside the couch and grinned. Clare must have decided to let him stay, or maybe she had tried to wake him and he hadn’t responded. The house was quiet and the angle of the sunshine filtering through the closed blinds meant it had to be late afternoon. Clare had covered him with one of her quilts before she left, and it smelled like her. He knew he should get dressed and get home for a few more hours of shut-eye, but he was so comfortable...

      He looked back over at his clothes and a few feet away sat an unfamiliar pair of shoes. Women’s shoes. He didn’t recall them being there that morning. Clare hadn’t been wearing them. Then one of the shoes started tapping, and he realized that there was an actual person inside of them.

      And he had the sinking feeling that it wasn’t Clare.

      Parker bolted up on the couch, catching the blanket just before it fell to the floor.

      The shoes were on an older, attractive woman, and the noise that roused him must have been the front door closing after she’d come in.

      He was assuming she was Clare’s aunt. So much for her being out of town.

      Having heard her referred to as an old maid, Parker had formed a specific impression in his head of how Kay probably looked, but reality bore no resemblance to his imagination. Her clothes were casual but neat, fashionable and very expensive. She had long dark blond hair like Clare’s, but hers was peppered with shades of silver and gray, and while Clare’s hair had a sort of wild and free quality to it, this woman’s was smooth and sleek.

      Thankfully, she wasn’t holding a gun on him. Because people in Texas loved their guns. And he was guessing she had one or two herself.

      “It’s not every day a woman comes home to find a naked man on her couch,” she said with a heavy Texas twang. “This must be my lucky day.” Then she looked him up and down, smiled and added, “Or maybe it’s yours.”

      Boy did he hope she was joking. “You must be Aunt Kay.”

      “I must be.”

      He could only imagine what she was probably thinking, and damn would he like to put some clothes on. The blanket was feeling awfully thin and a little small.

      “And who might you be?” she asked.

      “Parker,” he said. “Parker Reese. I work with Clare.”

      One brow rose slightly. “Among other things?”

      No, this wasn’t awkward at all. “Uh...yeah.”

      “You’re better looking than I imagined. But that might just be the absence of clothes.”

      So she knew who he was? That was interesting. “Has Clare mentioned me?”

      She gave him one of those bless your heart looks. “I’m afraid that I’m not at liberty to say.”

      Ooookay.

      “She was right about one thing,” Kay said. “They would have a field day with you.”

      Huh? “They who? And why would they have a field day?”

      She flashed him another placating smile. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

      Of course she wasn’t. This was too weird. He was the naked stranger in her house, yet he was the one asking all of the questions. Though she seemed to have a pretty good idea of who he was. “Maybe I should call Clare,” he said.

      “Maybe you should put your clothes on first.”

      Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. He just hoped she wasn’t expecting to watch him.

      “Go on up to Clare’s room, and for the love of all that is holy, take the blanket with you. My heart isn’t what it used to be.”

      Somehow he doubted that. Despite her age, she looked strong as an ox. Sturdy, yet refined. And as much as he appreciated the offer of privacy—and oh, did he appreciate it—he wasn’t so sure Clare would appreciate him using her bedroom. He’d gone up there the other night to tease her, but this was different. It felt like an invasion of privacy to be in there when she wasn’t around. If he was going to make this relationship work, he had to respect Clare’s boundaries. “Would it be all right if I just use a bathroom down here? I don’t want to invade Clare’s space.”

      His request seemed to surprise Kay, and he was betting it earned him a few brownie points, too.

      “That’s awfully thoughtful of you. There’s a half bath just off