Where The Heart Is. Kate Hardy

throat felt tight. ‘A colleague.’ Though Peggy had been much more. Peggy was the mother she’d never had. The kind of mother she’d wanted—and had discovered that she definitely didn’t have. And when she’d first joined the emergency department and Peggy had found out that the young doctor would be on her own for Christmas, she had insisted that Rowena join her family for the holiday. She’d even made up a stocking for Rowena to open—nothing expensive, just a bottle of nail varnish and a tangerine, some nuts and a silly toy—but it had been the first Christmas stocking Rowena could ever remember getting. Which had been something, at the age of twenty-five.

      ‘I lost someone, too.’

      So that was why he was out here. Trying to make a difference.

      ‘Even though we saved Stephen’s life yesterday, it’s not going to bring back the ones we loved, is it?’ he asked quietly.

      To her horror, Rowena felt a tear rolling down her face. She dashed it away. ‘I don’t cry. Ever.’ She’d cried herself out when she was much, much younger. ‘Just ignore me.’

      But he didn’t. Instead, he took her hand. The hand she’d used to brush the tear away. And he just sat there, holding her hand in a no-pressure silence. He, too, had gloves on, but she could feel the blood throbbing through his fingers, and panic welled up inside her. People didn’t hold her hand. Not even when…

      She wasn’t going back there. The past was staying exactly where it belonged. She didn’t need to explain anything to him. And she didn’t need kindness or affection. Not from him, not from anyone. She wrenched her hand out of his.

      ‘Why are you running away from me?’ he asked.

      She lifted her chin. ‘I’m not.’

      He didn’t try to disagree with her, to her relief. But his next words shocked her. ‘Rowena. You feel it, too, don’t you?’

      Oh, yes. She felt it. A weird kind of humming in the air between them. When he’d touched her just now, she’d felt as if her body had been supercharged. ‘I don’t do this sort of thing.’

      ‘Neither do I.’ His voice was wry. ‘But something about you makes me want to.’

      This was a very, very bad idea. She didn’t want to be his friend. Or his lover. Somehow, she had to push him away. And she could think of only one way to do it. ‘Don’t you have a girl on every trek?’

      ‘No. It’s against my principles.’

      How could he sound sincere and amused at the same time? She looked at him, and realised he’d meant it. In the starlight, his eyes were very dark and his face very sombre.

      And then he smiled. Just a tiny, rueful quirk of his lips. ‘But I want to, with you.’

      Just as well she was sitting down, because her knees had just turned back to jelly. ‘I…’ Her mouth was too dry to force the words out.

      ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to leap on you,’ he reassured her, clearly misinterpreting her silence. ‘I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But I’d really like someone to hold my hand right now.’

      He wanted comfort from her? That was a first. Nobody had ever asked her to hold their hand before, except a patient who was in pain. Part of her was in a flurry, not knowing what to do, how to make him feel better. But she suppressed her thoughts and acted on instinct. She reached out and curled her fingers round his hand, keeping the pressure light.

      He responded by curling his own fingers around her hand.

      And everything else vanished. There was just the two of them at the edge of the lake, under the stars.

      ‘Is it an anniversary?’ she asked softly.

      ‘No. Eighteen months and four days.’

      So he was still counting.

      ‘You?’ he asked.

      ‘Christmas.’

      ‘There’s never a good time to lose someone, but Christmas has to be the worst. Sympathy cards instead of season’s greetings.’

      Except Rowena hadn’t even had those. After all, she wasn’t Peggy’s relative, merely a friend and colleague. Peggy might have been the nearest Rowena had had to a mother—but Rowena wasn’t family. She hadn’t been able to intrude where she’d known she hadn’t really belonged. So she’d stayed on the sidelines and tried to ignore the huge empty space deep inside her.

      ‘It still hurts. Some days, I wonder if it’s ever going to stop hurting,’ he said. ‘Just when I think I’m doing fine, something triggers a memory and I’m back at the start.’

      ‘Me, too.’ Even something as silly as Peggy’s favourite dish being the staff canteen’s special of the day.

      ‘I’ve been single for eighteen months. I had all the tests you can think of before I came out here, and I’m clean. I don’t do flings. I don’t do happy ever after either.’

      He could have been speaking for her. Though she’d been single for a lot longer.

      ‘But right now I want you, Rowena. I want to lose myself in you. And maybe I can kiss you better, too.’

      ‘And tomorrow?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ he said simply. ‘I can’t think beyond right here, right now.’ He raked his free hand through his hair. ‘Hell. I’m not even thinking straight. Ignore me. And I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. I mean, asking you for a one-night stand. How tacky can I get? I didn’t—’

      She cut him off by leaning over and pressing her mouth to his. Just lightly. It was meant to be a ‘stop babbling, it’s OK’ kind of kiss, but it didn’t work out that way. The next thing she knew, her hands were threaded through his hair and his mouth was demanding more from hers.

      ‘It’s cold out here,’ he whispered when he broke the kiss. ‘I’d like to continue this somewhere warmer. Somewhere private.’

      ‘My tent or yours?’

      He smiled. ‘I hoped you’d say that rather than slapping my face. Though I should warn you that I don’t think I can stop at kissing.’

      She couldn’t either. His hand was resting lightly on her knee, and she was willing it to move higher. ‘We’re both doctors. We should be sensible.’

      He clearly guessed she meant birth control. ‘Uh-huh. I could go to the refugio.’

      Except that would mean asking round to find someone who had a stock of condoms. Rowena didn’t want the gossip. Or, even worse, the wait. She wanted Luke. Right here, right now. ‘I’m on the Pill. But I don’t sleep around,’ she emphasised. Been there, done that, when she’d been eighteen. Six months of trying to block out the worst of all rejections. She’d learned then that sex couldn’t fill the emptiness, so what the hell did she think she was doing now?

      The sensible side of her told her she should stop right now. The reckless side stuffed its hand over the sensible side’s mouth and cheered her on. So she tipped up her face in offering, and he kissed her again.

      He was shaking when she broke the kiss. ‘I don’t sleep around either.’ There was a long, long pause. ‘So. Are you saying we…?’

      ‘Uh-huh.’ She couldn’t resist mimicking him.

      ‘Right now, there’s nothing I’d like more,’ he informed her, his voice husky, ‘than to beat my chest, do a Tarzan yell, haul you over my shoulder and carry you back to my tent.’

      The image made her smile. At the same time, it excited her. Luke MacKenzie was a man who could make her lose control. If she let him.

      Rowena stood up and held out her hand. ‘Let’s be civilised about this.’

      ‘I don’t feel very civilised.’ But he stood up, took