Prescription: Baby

“Only because I’m afraid of what you’ll turn into.”

He chuckled. “Hard to tell. A werewolf or vampire.”

“Oh, no,” she said darkly. “Definitely something worse.”

“Definitely.” Further relaxing against the counter, he wished he shared this kind of easy repartee with his crowd, instead of long, drawn-out evenings at fund-raisers, talking about stock portfolios. Breathing in the wine, he then savored the taste and immediately wished he was tasting something warmer, headier…Katie. “I’ll miss you,” he found himself saying, his voice catching throatily, becoming unexpectedly hoarse. “You’re the best nurse we’ve got. And when you come back, Cecil Nelson’s going to get hold of you.”

As she tossed her head, her magical curls caught the light again. She laughed off the compliment. “No pun?”

Ford’s eyes lingered, roving over her hair, and he took another drink of the liquor to soothe the dryness of his throat. “Pun?”

“Nelson. Getting hold of. Nelson’s a wrestling hold.”

Leave it to Katie to get the best of him in conversation. “No pun.” And he was getting impatient with the fun and games. “When are you going to start calling me Ford, Katie?”

She grinned. “Never.”

“Damn, you can be irritating,” he countered with another playful smile. “C’mon, quit doing the dishes. I told you earlier, I’ve got a maid coming tomorrow. Have a glass of wine with me. I invited you over for your going-away party, not to clean.”

Giving in, Katie dusted her hands with a dishcloth, and when her eyes found his again, she sobered. “The party was nice. Thanks…Ford.”

He liked hearing her say his first name. He liked feeling those hot, searing emerald eyes on him, too. They were so sharp, so heartbreakingly green, and from working with Katie, he knew they never missed a detail. Usually, he didn’t, either. How had he overlooked the soft, female intent that she was trying so hard to hide?

“I read the recommendation letter you sent to Houston,” she added. “Thanks for that, too, Ford.”

He’d said she was the best nurse he’d ever worked with. “It’s the truth.” She was wonderful. Everybody loved her. “So many people wanted to give you a send-off that only my place was big enough for the party.”

She glanced around. “It is big.”

He couldn’t stop the low, suggestive and very ungentlemanly chuckle. “Size put you off?”

She sent him a droll glance. “Now, why would the size of a house put me off?”

Laughing, he shrugged. “I’ve got mixed feelings about the place myself. It was a family house, belonged to my grandfather.”

The previous innuendo had brushed color across her cheeks. “The one who started the Carrington Foundation?”

The one relative that Ford felt had truly loved him. “Yeah.”

Absently threading fingers through her hair, making him long to touch the springy, coiled strands, she shot another appraising look around the stainless steel kitchen. “Too big for one person,” she said decisively.

“I have a lot of servants,” he said defensively, though it wasn’t really true.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you get scared at night?”

His eyes locked on hers again. “Offering your company?”

“I never need company,” she returned easily. “Too much Irish in my blood. I don’t scare.”

No, she didn’t. He’d never met a nurse who was able to take so much pressure. She always hung in with him, even when it seemed too late to save a patient. Other nurses might tell him to give up, but not Katie…never Katie.

Another awkward silence fell, and the clink of glass sounded overly loud as he lifted the bottle and poured her some wine. “You’ve been drinking sodas all night, and I want you to try this. It’s from a California vineyard owned by a friend of mine.” She looked impressed, and while he wanted to impress her, he didn’t like the distance it created or how put off she seemed by his money.

“Maybe too rich for my blood,” she joked, still nervously running fingers through her curls. “Sure you don’t have any Ripple? Night Train?”

“I’m getting no appreciation here. Most women think money’s my best quality, Katie.”

She surveyed him a long moment, a brief sadness touching her eyes as if she were sorry for that, then another quick smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Do I look like most women?”

He shook his head, his gaze slowly drifting from hair that was like curly red ribbons to her milky, angular freckled face. “No. You’re one of a kind.”

Chuckling softly, she nodded toward the wine. “Okay, Dr. Carrington. You talked me into it.”

“What?” he volleyed dryly. “Have you decided to stay and love me for something other than my money?”

She grinned. “Don’t push your luck.”

Her decision to stay awhile did crazy things to his pulse, and with blood dancing through his limbs, he said, “Care to take another walk down to the stables while you sip your wine?”

“No, but I enjoyed going earlier.”

She leaned beside him at the counter, he felt as if bands of steel were tightening around his chest. He could smell soap and skin, and beneath that, something that was pure Katie. He watched as she gazed through the picture window. Earlier, he’d let two mares and a gelding out of their stalls so she could watch them run, and now the gelding bucked, playing under the moonlight. Watching the horses, she seemed to be in rapture.

“That was the nicest walk I’ve had for a while, Katie.”

“Hard to mess up a moonlight stroll,” she said, glancing from the horses and sending him a sweet sideways smile. “Mostly we gossiped.”

Maitland Maternity’s latest scandals had made for plenty of talk. The place hadn’t been sane since the day the twenty-fifth anniversary bash was to be announced. Just before the Maitlands met the press, an unidentified baby boy, now called Cody, was found outside the hospital.

“I love gossip,” Ford confessed, sipping, then lightly licking wine from his lips.

“Me, too,” she said, the faint color on her face spreading downward to the smooth, unmarred skin of her neck, where he could tell her pulse was vying with his for beating too fast. Her breath suddenly caught, and the faint, involuntary sound made Ford’s groin tighten, then flex.

“I love your horses,” she murmured.

Love. Hearing the word on her lips, he flicked his gaze down the pale column of her neck again, remembering how she’d gently rubbed noses and scratched between ears until she’d found the special spot where each horse liked to be touched. There was something so genuine about Katie, so caring and unpretentious that she’d stolen his breath. He edged closer. “I can tell you like them.”

“They’re beautiful, Ford.”

When she glanced up, he could swear the clear emerald slits of her eyes held invitation. At least, Ford hoped he wasn’t misreading the situation. Risking it, he murmured, “You’re beautiful, Katie.” Very slowly, his eyes fixed intently on hers, he pushed aside his wineglass.

He could see her fingers tremble as she pushed her glass away, too. When her hand stilled, resting on the base, he knew she wasn’t steadying the glass but herself. Her voice held a tremor. “Maybe I’d better go home now, Dr. Carrington.”

“Ford,” he corrected huskily, catching her hand. “And I know you don’t want to leave, Katie.” With the words, his chest squeezed out the rest of his breath. “Stay. Let me give you the proper send-off.”

Seeing her gemstone eyes smolder with want, he threaded their fingers, bringing her hand to his chest. His response was amazing. He shuddered, and as his nipple beaded beneath her fingertips, he could barely process what was happening. Why hadn’t he guessed that, outside the OR, Katie Topper’s touch would shoot through him like wild volts of electricity? Why hadn’t he guessed she’d feel the same?

Katie sounded shaky. “Proper send-off?”

“Okay,” he admitted. “Not so proper.” No, what he had in mind wasn’t proper at all. Gently cupping her neck, he tilted back her head and glided his fingers into the flaming red curls he’d longed to touch all night. “Your hair’s soft as silk, Katie,” he murmured, rubbing strands between his fingertips. Bending, he released a shuddering sigh and pressed an unbroken strand of wet kisses from her ear to her collarbone, the sugar-salt flavor of her skin making his pulse fracture.

She melted. There was no other word for it. He felt the limbs of her petite body loosen and stretch and felt heat rise from her as if she were a burning taper. Groaning, he wrapped an arm tightly around her back, his groin thickening, becoming almost painful. “I’ve been fighting this all night,” he confessed, gasping as her hipbone ground against him. Ever so slowly, he stroked the space behind her ear with his tongue.

“We work together, Ford,” she whispered. “We’re two completely different people….”

“Did you hear me asking for a lifetime, Katie?” Ford half coaxed, half chided, his palms traveling down her back, molding the firm backside snuggled beneath tight jeans, while his five o’clock shadow roughened the creamy skin of her neck. “This is good old-fashioned lust,” he assured hoarsely, “nothing more.” Attempting to ignore how her denials prickled his male vanity, demanding he claim her, he kissed her velvet skin, deciding that days from now, when she was in Houston, she’d remember every minute of what he was about to do to her. “I’m too old for you, Katie,” he repeated, desire making the words sound strained. “And I’m someone you work with. I’ve got a whole other lifestyle. But I’m a confirmed bachelor, too. At thirty-six, I know exactly what I want.”

Breathless, Katie whispered, “You do, Ford?”

“Yeah.” Releasing a low moan, he kissed his way up her neck, along her jaw, around her chin. “Yeah. I know exactly what I want. You, Katie.” His mouth covered hers, and as he registered the soft pliancy of her wanting lips, an unforgettable aching claimed him. Her taste—all dark wine and mint toothpaste and pent-up longing—sent luscious shivers rippling through him. Harder, his hungry mouth swooped and crushed. No, he wouldn’t rest until Katie Topper was naked and beneath him.

Already, he was imagining lifting off her T-shirt, pushing back her bra, freeing her breasts. Already, as he deeply, silkily thrust his tongue between her lips, he was admitting this woman could probably make him lose his mind. Beneath her shirt, the tips of her breasts had pebbled. When he became aware of the roughened nubs brushing his chest, a streak of lightning shot to his groin. “One night.” Sharply, he pulled in a breath of her. “I don’t want anything more than that, Katie.”

“No,” she agreed raggedly. “I don’t, either.”

Leaning back just a fraction, he swept a ravenous gaze from her well-kissed, wine-red lips to the red mark he’d left on her perfect neck. Further down, seeing the tight buds he intended to taste showing through her top, he thought he’d explode. Tightening his fingers through hers, he hoarsely said, “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“To my bed, Katie.”

CHAPTER TWO

Three months later

“WE DISCUSSED moving Katie to my team ages ago.” Dr. Cecil Nelson, seated on a bench in the doctors’ shower room, turned away from the lockers, toward Ford and lifted a small, red-and-green gift-wrapped package, weighing it so carefully in his hand that it could have been a gold nugget on the scales of justice. After a lengthy moment’s consideration, he set it aside. “Ford,” he continued, “what’s gotten into you?”

“Be kind, Cecil. ’Tis the season.”

Hardly looking ready to spread donated gifts and good cheer throughout the hospital, Cecil offered a grumpy “Humph,” shot Ford a surly look, then pinched a lint speck from the Santa costume he was about to put on. Staring at Cecil’s beefy hand, Ford shook his head, and Cecil suddenly laughed, holding the hand up for inspection. “People swore I’d never make it through med school.”

“You showed them.”

“Ay-yeah, young man,” Cecil agreed, his slow drawl elongating vowels and slurring consonants. “These hands might look more suited to manual labor than precision surgery, but I graduated top of the class. Showed them, indeed. Was born poorer than a son of a gun, too.” White-haired and burly, Cecil was just a year from retirement, and being the sort of wily Southern doctor who was far smarter than his manner of speech might indicate, and who always meandered before making his point, he only now added, “I look more like Santa than a cardiac specialist, too, Ford, but when I get a gift as good as Katie Topper, I don’t give her away. That little spitfire’s joining my team when she gets back to town.”

“Little spitfire,” Ford repeated with a chuckle. “If she heard you call her that, she’d serve you up on a platter.”

Cecil’s bushy white eyebrows drew together. “What’s wrong with little spitfire?”

“It’s right up there with little lady, Cecil. You’re an educated man, you ought to know better.”

Cecil’s lips twitched. “Feel free to sue me. I’m both Texan and male, and if anybody thinks I can still disturb a young nurse as pretty as Katie Topper at the ripe old age of sixty-four, I’d be more than flattered. Anyway, the point is that she’s my favorite nurse.”

“She’s everybody’s favorite nurse.”

“Maybe, but she’s mine when she gets back. I need her.”

“Not like I do.”

“What do you need her for?”

Plenty. Ford needed her the way a man needed a woman. Nearly three months had passed, but his mind drifted to her at the strangest times. At night he’d find himself painfully aroused, the sheets damp and twisted on the floor, his head full of Katie’s sweet moans. Before that night, Ford had accustomed himself to cool, distant women with too much eastern education and too little down-home desire. Women who, if the truth be told, had eyes that generally strayed to one place—a man’s wallet—and who viewed sex as an inconvenient requirement that came with marrying the right kind of man. Women like Blane Gilcrest, who had been trying—and failing—to arouse Ford’s interest ever since her daddy, the attorney for the Carrington Foundation, had gotten close to Ford’s father. Lanky and blond, Blane prided herself on being the kind of woman Ford needed, but he knew her beauty only went skin deep. She was all smooth polish, transparent as glass. Totally unlike Katie.

Katie had been glorious in her passion, her milk-pale silken skin damp and on fire, creamy in places most men didn’t see, as mouthwateringly sweet as honeysuckle where her freckles ended and as fresh as dew where sun and skin never met. Her plump pink mouth, always so sassy, had slackened with release, and her upturned green eyes, always so sharp, had glazed like boiling sugar. She’d given as good as she got, just as she did in the OR, and she’d turned Ford on as he’d never been before. Just as she’d tested his horses that night in the stables, finding their weakest spots, she’d tested him and discovered secrets no other woman had ever bothered looking for. It wasn’t because Katie was so experienced, either, but because she made love the way a woman should, with her heart.

“So, what do you say, Ford?”

“What, Cecil?”

Cecil squinted, then suddenly slapped his thigh and loosed a belly laugh. “Hope you’re done for the day.”

“All I’ve got left is the insertion of a feed tube.”

“Good. ’Cause you’re definitely not playing with a full deck at the moment. While you were busy thinking, I said maybe Katie can shift back in another few months, but I need her now. About a week ago, when she called, I could tell she’s done great things in Houston. Fact is, I think that little spitfire knows more about the human heart than I do at this point, and since my team covers heart and lungs, we want to see what she learned. Some of the other nurses are considering enrolling in that Houston program, too.”

Ford’s mind, usually as sharp as spurs, hadn’t quite caught up. “You talked to her?”

Cecil nodded. “She called last week. They loved her there, even offered her a job. Scared me, since we need her.”

Katie had phoned Cecil? She was thinking of taking a job in Houston? Ford had considered calling her for months, but every time he picked up the phone, he’d visualize her lying across his bed—short-winded, her chest heaving and lamplight from his upstairs hallway shooting streaks of gold through her tight red curls. He wished that he hadn’t, in the last breathless minute before he’d removed her clothes, reiterated the reasons they wouldn’t make a good couple—that he was too rich, too much older than she was, too caught up in a world unlike her own. At the time, he’d meant it. Women like Blane, not Katie, peopled his life.

But the body had a mind of its own, and now he’d crawl right out of his skin if he didn’t make love to her again. Unfortunately, after sex that had taken the back of his head clear off, he’d awakened to find her gone—as if she couldn’t leave fast enough. No note. No panties he might keep in his drawer to remember her by. Nothing.

Because he was a gentleman—at least sometimes—for three months, he’d left the ball in Katie’s court. Now he’d started thinking that if she worked with him in the OR again, she might decide to date him. Maybe they could just start off slow and easy. Grab a bite to eat. See a movie. See what happened.

“She didn’t take the job, right?” Ford asked casually.

“I assume she didn’t. She would have said otherwise.”

Ford’s mind turned over, playing the options. “But there’s a chance she’ll move to Houston?”

Cecil’s blue eyes were as intrusive as scalpels, and his powerful shoulders suddenly shook with merriment. “About five minutes ago I said I wasn’t positive, Ford. But I guess you quit listening.”

“When did she call?”

“Last week. Keep it up and I’ll think you want to move Katie to your team for personal reasons.”

“Oh, you’re swift, Cecil,” Ford said. “You caught me.”

Cecil laughed. “You’re crazy.”

Ford thought about the night they’d spent together. It had been crazy. Hot, sweaty and wild. They’d shared the kind of sex people only dreamed about.

“I’d forget about her if I was you, Ford.”

Since there’d be no forgetting that night, Ford decided the older surgeon was starting to get on his nerves. “Why?”

“Your lives couldn’t be more different. You’ve got a fancy East-coast education, money, family, power. If you want the best table in Austin, any maître d’ will move the governor of the state to give it to you. But Katie Topper?” Cecil’s chuckles got the best of Ford, darkening his mood, mostly because he knew what the elderly man was thinking: for once, Ford Carrington, who’d been born chewing a silver spoon, was going to have trouble getting something he wanted.

But there was a lot Cecil didn’t know.

Like most men who’d pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, Cecil couldn’t imagine the wealthy having any hardships. He’d never guess what it had been like for Ford—a lone child in a big house who, at the age of ten, had felt blamed for his little brother’s death. Cecil would never guess how, despite his professed hatred for medicine, Ford had become a surgeon to win family approval that never came, or that to this day, the cold withdrawal of parents for whom he professed not to care had left a core of anger burning in Ford, just as strongly as the desire to find love. Inside him was an empty hole that no one had ever really filled. But just for a second, on a night three months ago, he’d felt satisfied, maybe even loved. No woman had ever touched him the way Katie had, which was why he was still single at thirty-six.

No, a man like Cecil wouldn’t understand. Maybe Katie Topper wouldn’t, either. Ford hadn’t forgotten how her eyes had assessed his house, and while he’d sensed her ability to love a man not for what he did or owned but for who he really was, Ford knew she was put off by wealth. He’d noted it in the OR, when they teased each other. Like Cecil, she seemed to think that silver spoons bought the end of trouble. But the truth was, money always had a price.

Cecil was still laughing. “Sorry, Ford, but even if Katie had been secretly in love with you for years, you’d never get hold of an Irish spitfire like that without a fight.”

“Fine by me.” Ford smiled easily. “You know I live for the challenge.” Difference was, where Katie would come out swinging, Ford was the type to apply slow, silent pressure. He’d win, too. Cecil was right. The all-powerful Carringtons had everything at their command, including wealth, charm, connections and good looks.

Ford Carrington had everything but Katie.

And while he’d probably never be the marrying kind, he’d decided months ago that she was coming back to his bed.

THE PHONE RANG, and for a missed heartbeat, she was sure the caller was Ford. “If it is, don’t be a wuss, Katie Topper!” she coached nervously, pacing around her apartment. “Just tell him the truth, hear what he says, and if he blows his stack, calmly tell him you’ll think things over and get right back to him.”

Slipping an anxious hand over her belly, she felt her heart pull with a bittersweet mix of excitement, joy and worry for which there was no name in the English language. Then, startled into action, she began quickly tossing aside empty boxes and lifting couch cushions, muttering, “C’mon, where are you, phone?”

Before she’d left for Houston, she had sublet the apartment furnished but had packed her breakables, and since she’d spent Christmas at her papa’s farm, she’d only now gotten around to unpacking. Not the most thrilling New Year’s Eve she’d ever spent, she thought, wishing her brothers hadn’t had dates and that her papa hadn’t left town for a few weeks, as he often did, to do a contracting job in Dallas. Of course Katie had lived through worse. Yeah, like the past three months when you didn’t so much as see Ford Carrington.

It took six rings to unbury the phone and another to take a very deep breath just in case it was Ford. Why Katie bothered, she didn’t know. It had been a one-night stand, pure and simple. No man could have been clearer about wanting only sex. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Trouble was, every blessed second had been pure, delicious fantasy, as if Ford Carrington had looked into her mind and then done everything she’d imagined. It had been three o’clock before common sense and pride kicked in and Katie bolted, heading to the farmhouse and sneaking into bed. How could she have given herself so brazenly to a man who so clearly didn’t want more from her? Sure, she’d said she didn’t want a relationship, but she’d been lying.

“And you still are, at least by omission,” she snapped as she punched the talk button, still wondering what she’d say if it was him. Just a quick, Hi there, Ford. I’m pregnant. Or, Remember how I said I liked dining at Pok-E-Jo’s? Well, it’s all ice cream and pickles now, cowboy. Maybe she should have taken the job in Houston and solved the problem by simply vanishing. “Happy New Year,” she found herself saying, nervously tapping her bare foot on the wood floor. “So far, it’s shaping up to be a doozy. Katie speaking.”

“I hope you don’t have plans tonight, sweetheart.”

Realizing how tightly she was clutching the phone, Katie relaxed. A relieved sigh whooshed from her chest. “Sue? Is that you?”

“Yes, aren’t you lucky,” the nursing coordinator from Maitland Maternity said in a rush. “It’s me. And I’m majorly glad you’re home. You’re not due at work for a couple of weeks—I know that—but I gave as many people as possible the night off since it’s New Year’s Eve, and now we’ve got an emergency. We need another nurse and a surgeon and—”

She fought it, but the name escaped. “Ford?”

“Dr. Carrington’s cohosting a party at Blane Gilcrest’s. You know, that socialite he dates who’s always in the papers? She’s got that mansion on Lakeview? Anyway, I’m looking for Cecil Nelson. He’s on call.”

Katie barely heard. Jealousy had come to her in a quick, unwanted mental flash of Ford dancing with Blane under soft, fuzzy lights. Or whatever. Who knew what wealthy people did on New Year’s?

Katie’s eyes slid to the TV, where, just an hour shy of midnight, the ball was dropping on Times Square, and she calmly reminded herself she had no right to the murderous feelings coursing through her. What happened between her and Ford, while magical for her, was a one-time thing. That was the deal.