Ain’t Misbehaving

Chapter Two

“You certainly know your way around the clinic,” Kay remarked conversationally. “I don’t know where you found the gurney, and I wouldn’t have had the least idea how to elevate his bed-”

“Most hospitals are pretty much the same,” Mitch replied.

Kay waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. “You come here often?”

“Every other Saturday.”

“Same here.” At the sudden silence, Kay said softly, “Peter will be leaving soon.”

“And so will his mother.”

They’d already been dumped out of the elevator and had now covered the distance to the hospital entrance. Through the glass doors, Kay stared out at the steadily pouring rain. Conversation was not exactly going like a house afire. Mitch answered in more than monosyllables, but he certainly volunteered very little.

The less he volunteered, the more curious Kay became. Mitch was proving to be a very mysterious man. Kay had never had a high tolerance for mysteries, particularly when they were packaged with magic eyes and endless shoulders. Actually, the sex appeal was only part of it.

Mitch came across as indomitable and self-contained.

She liked his quiet assurance and she loved the way he’d handled Petie and she was increasingly captivated by his lazy, disarming smile. But those shadowed pain lines on his forehead and around his eyes bothered her; and for a man who’d threatened to make her personal earth move with his eye-to-eye contact, he was suddenly turning shy. No man with looks like that could conceivably be shy-not around women. Something about him proclaimed a loner-and yet he didn’t seem the type.

“You come to the hospital just for the children?” she asked.

Mitch flashed her a quick smile, an acknowledgment of her nosiness; the wry look was almost enough to make her flush with embarrassment.

Except that his eyes trailed down to her lips, as if he were evaluating their kissability, their touchability. The heat in her cheeks took a dive, settling in far more private regions. Not a reaction she was used to from the simple glance from a stranger.

“I have the feeling you know your share about kids stuck in hospital beds,” he said quietly.

Diverted from her wayward fantasies, she nodded, turning serious. “My little sister has Crohn’s disease. A digestive ailment, not common, almost impossible to diagnose…” Kay took a deep breath, trying to control the sadness in her voice and sound perfectly matter-of-fact. “There was nothing the hospitals could do for her here, so about five years ago my family moved to Connecticut to be near a specialist. Jana and I were always so close…”

“She spent a great deal of time in hospitals?” he probed gently.

“Far too much.” Kay’s eyes darkened perceptibly. “And no, my coming here on Saturday mornings doesn’t help her at all when she’s that distance away, but somehow I just feel better doing it. I can remember all too well what it was like for her.”

“But you didn’t go with your family when they moved?”

“No,” She tugged the shoulder strap of her purse higher. “I visit often-so do they. If they’d needed me, I would have gone, too, but I couldn’t really help and I was settled here with a job. Plus, at the time, I was engaged.” The “not-anymore” was implicit. Regardless, she seemed to have said something wrong, because Mitch abruptly pushed open the door. The half-lazy smile was gone from his mouth. An impenetrable neutral expression had replaced it.

Bewildered, she stepped outside, since he was clearly waiting for her to go through the door first. He followed. She fumbled in her purse for her car keys and then groped for the push button of her umbrella. It was still raining-not in buckets, but the drizzle was insistent and cold.

Behind her, Mitch dug his hands in his pockets and jerked his head back at the onslaught of rain. His hair abruptly dampened, molding itself to his scalp, the ends falling in waves over his forehead and cheeks. Kay glanced back. “Share my umbrella?”

He shook his head. “Our cars are undoubtedly in opposite directions.”

She nodded, mortified. Their cars could very well be in the same direction. He simply and clearly didn’t want to pursue the conversation. “Well…goodbye then.” She added quietly, “I thought you were terrific with Peter.”

Mitch said nothing. He watched her hesitate and then finally turn, adjust her umbrella and start walking toward the parking lot. His eyes followed the sway of her hips, mesmerized. Water was starting to run down his neck, and raindrops were collecting in his lashes, splashing on his cheeks.

He still couldn’t take his eyes off her. She wore a short jacket that didn’t cover the rainbow patch on her fanny. She barely had a rear end worth speaking of, but that little patch moved from side to side with a bounce that was distinctly feminine, entirely unconscious and irresistibly sexy.

He shivered violently.

She’d been engaged, which meant she’d slept with her fiancé. That assumption went with the times, but it went with the lady as well. She radiated feeling; she was the kind of woman who naturally expressed her emotions. She’d shown no embarrassment at the show of tears in the hospital corridor, no holding back in her hug for Peter.

Mitch hazarded a guess that her ex-fiancé was demented. True, Kay was no sex symbol, in spite of her extraordinary beauty when she smiled. But Kay was something infinitely more desirable-a lover. Any man who didn’t see that… But Mitch suspected most men did see that. How could they miss it, in the free way she moved, the vibrancy she brought to a smile, the emotions that shimmered in her eyes?

Lots of men had seen, if not touched. Mitch had only needed to learn of one. He’d tensed up like barbed wire the instant she mentioned having been engaged.

Ducking his head, he tried to fend off the assaulting rain. He’d been sharing ribald jokes with nurses for thirteen years. Before that, he’d been a fifteen-year-old with an active libido.

The libido was still active-hollering to make up for lost time. His physical reaction to Kay had been instant, uncontrollable and darned near impossible to hide.

Unfortunately, he’d missed the entire decade of sexual experience that men his age were supposed to have. How would he dare approach Kay? She was damned…real.

With his head bowed low, he was barely aware he was following her until she whirled around suddenly. Her umbrella tilted back, and those sherry-brown eyes leveled furiously on his from a dozen feet away.

“If there’s anything worse than a stubborn man, it’s certainly a stupid one,” she announced with foot-tapping impatience.

His jaw dropped.

“Look. You’re soaking wet. Now, just get under my umbrella.”

He hesitated, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch as he strode forward. When he ducked under the umbrella, Kay jammed the handle into his hand as if it were a lethal weapon and hunched her shoulders as if to announce that he didn’t have to touch her for God’s sake.

“Where’s your car?” she demanded stiffly.

“One row over. The gray BMW,” he replied meekly.

She said nothing, licking up the silence like an offended kitten. She was clutching her purse and walking so stiffly she might have had iron bones.

He could smell the rain in her hair and the faint hint of some springy perfume; his hip brushed hers and he felt an instant, potent desire rise up in him like flames. Kay was trying so damned hard to establish that her earlier friendliness wasn’t a come-on; she was saying she’d caught the message that he wasn’t interested.

She was so dead wrong. He would have been happy to seduce her right there in the parking lot, rain and all. There was just the issue of how she felt about raw recruits. Regardless, he’d never meant to hurt her feelings with his coldness.

Clearing his throat, he began a peacemaking speech. “Listen…”

She cocked her head but said nothing.

He groped for something to say. “You said you had a job. What kind of work do you do?”

“I teach,” she said curtly.

A huge puddle welled up in front of them. Instinctively, his hand went to the small of her back to steer her around it. Like steel, that spine. She’d stopped puffing steam, but it was obvious that she wasn’t risking any more friendly overtures.

“What subject?” he prodded her.

“Don’t ask.”

“Kay?”

She stopped dead, glaring up at him, her sherry-colored eyes so defensive that he was startled. “I teach sex education,” she said defiantly. “You want to make something of it?”

Obviously, over the years a few men had, but, Lord, no. Mitch had no inclination to make anything of it. He didn’t need more bad news. Why couldn’t he have fallen victim to a runaway attraction for a nice, quiet, retiring woman who wouldn’t be able to guess that the closest he’d come to an erotic experience was reading the Kamasutra?

Still, she looked so defensive, so furious, so ready to make a chilly comeback, that he had to reach out and push back the strand of hair that was bouncing down in front of her nose. Gently, he tucked it behind her ear. “You take a lot of ribbing, do you?” he asked.

Those lovely eyes gradually softened, inches from his. Suddenly, she was chuckling. “You bet I do. I start out the year taking rabbits to the kindergarten classes so they can see how a mother takes care of her young. I teach life, not pornography, but whenever I tell anyone-”

“You work with all grades?”

She nodded. “I started the program with the health department, and it evolved into a full-time job with the school system. There were just too few teachers who felt comfortable with the subject. Generally, I give a month-long course, starting with the younger grades and proceeding through high school. I go from school to school.” She stopped abruptly, as if suddenly aware she was chattering in a friendly manner again. “Where’s your car?”

“We passed it.”

She glanced up at him, startled, and then that special smile of hers lit up her face. Her soft, throaty laughter echoed through the rain, delighting him. And when, almost unconsciously, he tucked a hand across her shoulder to turn her around and pilot her toward his car, her limbs no longer felt like iron; her body was warm and giving beneath her jacket.

Her eyes lifted again to his, soft but still serious. “You know, I wasn’t trying to…pry before. I didn’t mean for you to think-”

“That you were looking for a fast pickup?” Mitch’s dry chuckle reflected just how easily he had read her mind, and chided her for having come to such a foolish conclusion. “Somehow I don’t think you usually go to the hospital on Saturday mornings to pick up men.”

“Don’t give me that much of the benefit of the doubt,” she said gravely. “Take Peter, for instance. Don’t think for a minute that I wouldn’t pick him up and spirit him right out of there if I thought I had the ghost of a chance of getting away with it.”

They’d stopped at his car. “So you’re that kind, after all,” he said with mock disgust. “I think I guessed the moment I saw you acting out your monster story that you were the cold-blooded, heartless type.”

She laughed, and then sobered. Her lips were parted. She had a sweet, soft mouth, small, the top lip exquisitely shaped.

“Anyway,” she said lightly, “in spite of my dubious character, I just wanted to make one thing clear. Maybe my questions offended you, I don’t know, but I was just making conversation, not-”

“I’m going to kiss you, Kay.” She looked as alarmed as if he’d suggested robbing Fort Knox. He took advantage of her parted lips. It was her fault, he told himself. He certainly wasn’t to blame for the fact that she’d been born with an alluring mouth and an irresistible scent. And he wasn’t responsible for all those years of frustration that just then clamored for release.

He bent down, adjusting the umbrella, using his other hand to tilt up her chin. The mechanics of a kiss were always so annoying to maneuver. He’d learned that at thirteen. For an instant, he was afraid he’d forgotten how, that he’d be as awkward as a kid.

Some things, he reminded himself, a man never forgot. Relearning to ride a bike should be so easy.

Her lips were cool and still. At first. She didn’t fight the gentle pressure, but then she was obviously still suffering from shock. He almost smiled, but didn’t. He had forgotten some details. A woman’s lips had a certain crushable, sensitive texture; there was nothing as soft, nothing as pliant, nothing quite as delicious.

He savored the taste of her, his tongue teasing the corner of her mouth. A tiny sound escaped her lips, like the purr of a kitten. She really shouldn’t have done that, he thought fleetingly, because that faint murmur of pleasure was all it took to set off a trip-hammer in his blood. His lips homed in, with a rough pressure he couldn’t seem to help, not a bruising pressure but the soft crush of possession.

Her head tilted back responsively, offering another dangerous threat to the self-control he’d always taken for granted. Her hand reached tentatively for his shoulder. He felt the softness of her breasts beneath her jacket, the lift of her as she rose up on her toes to meet him…

He doubted that she knew she was setting off dynamite inside him. All he knew was that his whole body suddenly ached. His tongue slipped between her teeth; she suddenly stiffened a little, her fingers tightening on his shoulder. She murmured a protest, but her body language gave it the lie. She wasn’t moving away. She was so very warm…

And he felt so damned drugged. Her lips were so sweet, so giving… He wasn’t going to hurt her. He’d murder anyone who tried to hurt her. He wasn’t even going to see her again. This was just…a moment in time. He’d learned to value such fleeting moments of happiness. For years, he’d thought that was all the joy he would ever know.

His palm gently traced the line of her back, ending up in the curtain of her hair, captured there. The damp silk curled around his fingers, scented with the softness of rain, more sensuous than a thousand fantasies of women he’d conjured up over the years. This wasn’t a schoolboy’s libido talking, but a man’s. Her lips were infinitely responsive, returning his pressure, wildly returning his pressure for one fleeting instant…

Kay broke off, staring up at him. Her eyes weren’t sherry-brown at all, but suddenly very dark. And her lips were red and trembling.

He still held the umbrella in one hand, but it had tilted. Rain was pelting down on both of them; neither seemed to have noticed.

“Now, you listen here…” Her voice was shaky. Her lashes lowered; she ran her hand through her hair. “Is this your car?”

“Yes. Kay…”

No one had ever kissed her like that. As if she were the first Christmas present opened, during one of those too-few years when one honestly believed in Santa Claus. As if she were brand-new and ever so special, and so desperately wanted it hurt.

The skies suddenly exploded, the rain hurtling down in a torrent. Kay glanced up, then took a step backward. Enough of that. Kay, we are twenty-seven-we no longer fall in love at first sight. In fact, we usually have the sense to back off at the first pass.

“Kay-”

She backed off another pace, refusing to meet his eyes. She’d never given herself to a man like that in her life. What on earth was there to say?

Nothing.

She turned and darted through the rain toward her own car.

Ten minutes later, Kay reached the outskirts of Moscow. Welcome, said the sign on Main Street, a soothing reminder that she was within minutes of home.

No one seemed to know why the town had been named Moscow; its residents certainly had no affinity for Russian politics. Paradise Valley had been its original name, and that, to Kay, captured the flavor of the place. Steep hills, ancient maples and oaks and ash, a delightful blend of rustic and cosmopolitan. Wheat farmers had been buying supplies at Ward’s for generations, and homemade ice cream was still sold on Main Street, yet the University of Idaho sponsored a wide range of cultural events. Muscovites enjoyed the symphony and ballet and even the Moscow sci-fi convention.

As Kay shoved her car into first gear for the steep climb to her home, she passed regal old houses half hidden in bushes and trees. All of the houses were familiar, and so were their inhabitants. The world had not abruptly changed, contrary to what the beat of her heart was telling her.

As she parked and stepped out of her car, the lingering smells of late fall wafted toward her like a soothing balm. The rain had stopped, but the wind had brought down the last of the leaves, and walking along the sidewalk was like wading through oceans of crimson and gold.

Pushing open her front door, Kay tossed her purse on the white couch. An indefinably enticing aroma was drifting out of the kitchen; her eyebrows cocked curiously. As she slipped off her damp shoes, her stocking feet immediately curled into the fluff of cherry-red carpet.

Kay’s best friend was into interior decorating. Susan had definite ideas about color schemes and furnishings for an old Spanish-style house with stucco walls and arched doorways. Susan had suggested heavy scrolled furniture and rich, dark colors.

Unfortunately, Kay was a big fan of red and white and wanted a hodgepodge of things she loved around her. A restored trunk was her coffee table; a collection of alabaster elephants stood on top of it. More collectibles cluttered the bookshelves; music boxes and porcelain owls jostled for space with dozens of books, most of them with dog-eared pages. The old Morris chair had been her father’s; it didn’t go with anything else, but it was familiar and comfortable. And besides, the antique love seat with its white velvet cushion didn’t go with anything else either.

Susan regularly despaired of her taste, but Kay felt delightfully relaxed whenever she came home. At least most days. But then, most days she didn’t go around kissing strangers in the pouring rain.

For the fourth time in ten minutes, she shoved the incident determinedly from her mind. Following her nose, she wandered toward the kitchen and paused in the doorway with a grin.

Two dozen fresh doughnuts lay in an open box on the kitchen table. Next to them was an astonishingly large pair of cowboy boots; above that was a pair of long, jeaned legs. The rest of the body was hidden behind an open newspaper, except for one long arm that extended around, groped for a doughnut and disappeared behind the newspaper again.

Five doughnuts had already disappeared from the two dozen.

“Good morning,” she said severely.

The paper folded down. “I was going to leave them on the kitchen table, but then-”

“You got greedy.”

“I didn’t eat breakfast.” Stix grinned at her beguilingly.

Stix had grinned at her just that beguilingly when she was sixteen. He’d been her first date. The traditional boy next door-give or take a few houses. He’d taught her a lot about kisses, most of which was hard earned. Since he was six foot six and she was five foot four, any physical contact had been hard earned, and not, they’d discovered, worth all the trouble. Stix had moved on to taller women, about nine thousand of them, by Kay’s last count, but he popped over regularly and made himself at home.

Lots of people did that to her, actually. She’d never figured out if it was just that kind of neighborhood or if there was an invisible sign on her door that said Endless Open House. She would have missed her family a great deal more if it hadn’t been for her friends, and Stix, unquestionably, was a special friend.

Choosing a cherry-filled doughnut, she plopped down on the kitchen chair across from him and glanced disapprovingly at his feet on the table.

The cowboy boots obediently dropped to the floor.

“You’ve got to stop using this house as a second home,” she remarked idly.

“Can’t understand you.”

With a grin, she swallowed her mouthful of doughnut and repeated the comment, adding, “People are going to think you live here. This is your third visit this week. You do still have a home of your own?”

“Certainly. That’s the place I keep my dirty laundry.”

Kay sighed. “So who’re you going out with tonight?”

“Samantha.”

“Heavens, that’s lasted two months now. Don’t tell me you’ve finally convinced someone you’re worth keeping?”

They bantered over two more doughnuts, after which Stix hinted tactfully that he was honestly hungry. Shaking her head resignedly, she fed him four peanut-butter sandwiches. She felt obliged to feed him. If Samantha ever discovered how much food he consumed, Kay would never have him off her hands.

It was a lazy kind of Saturday afternoon. Stix roused himself long enough to take a wrench to her leaky faucet, then settled in front of the TV set to watch a football game while she got out a dust cloth. The next time she looked, he’d been joined by Sandra, a teenager from across the street who claimed she would have been forced to clean the garage with her family if she hadn’t escaped.

Kay threw them both out before dinner, to allow herself time to get ready for her date. Just a movie and drink afterward, with Tim, a teacher at the high school. They had a reasonably good time, and she was home, kissed at the door and in bed by midnight.

The entire day she’d had Mitch on her mind. He wasn’t an obsession, but he was there, like a dream one couldn’t forget when one woke up, like the lingering taste of champagne after the glass was long empty.

She kept remembering his gentleness with Peter, so much in contrast to the hard lines of his face. She kept remembering his aloofness when she’d tried to talk to him, so much in contrast with the blazing warmth of his eyes when he looked at her. His simple announcement out of the blue that he was going to kiss her-but his kiss hadn’t been at all simple…

Impatiently, she switched the light back on, fluffed the pillow under her head and reached for a book. The old torch song “Stormy Weather” kept crooning in the back of her mind, nostalgic and moody and…disgustingly romantic. She flipped impatiently through her newest book on trivia.

The weather had been stormy, all right. So why had she had this warm glow inside her ever since Mitch had kissed her in the parking lot?