Miracles. Part 11

"You heard me."

Yes, she'd heard him, and before she could give him a mature, sane response, her stomach knotted and she went allover cold at the sudden, painful memories his question evoked.

"Now, don't go taking that the wrong way," he said when she stiffened in his arms.

"How should I take it?" she asked on a brittle note.

"Plain and simple. A point of fact." Locking her to him with one unyielding arm, his other hand lifted her face upward until she was forced to meet his gaze. "I wasn't insulting the way you kiss. You know d.a.m.ned well what that kiss did to me, and if it makes you feel any better, I haven't been that close to coming with my clothes on since I was, maybe, fourteen."

Well, if she hadn't been pink with embarra.s.sment before, she surely was now. Trying to look away, she murmured, "I'm sorry. I'm not reacting very well."

"Honey, if you were reacting any better, I'd be the one apologizing and feeling embarra.s.sed as h.e.l.l." His hand smoothed down the length of her hair to rest at the small of her back. "Katie, it's all right. I'd say we're both pretty strung out. But I would like an answer to my question"-his arm tightened when she started to pull away-"because I think the chances of my kissing you again are about a hundred percent."

She hesitated.

"And I think the chances are good," he continued, "that, sooner or later, we're going to finish what we just started. And I've got to tell you, my experience with virgins is pretty limited. Like zero. So I guess you' d better tell me what I've got to know, so I don't get my signals crossed again."

Her voice was barely audible. "You didn't get any signals crossed."

"You said I was going too fast for you."

"I was going to fast for me, too." And because he'd been honest with her, she added, "You weren't the only one who . . . came close."

"I guessed that," he murmured, his lips buried in her hair. "But you acted like it was an awful big surprise. So, are you or aren't you?"

She shook her head, and her eyes closed briefly as she steeled herself to say, "No, Sam, I'm not a virgin. But it's been . . . a long time and . . . and it didn't end very well."

"How long is 'a long time'?"

"Six years."

A moment pa.s.sed, then he growled, "He must have been a real sonofab.i.t.c.h if you still can't talk about him without s.h.i.+vering."

It wasn't so much that, she thought, as it was that, in six years, she'd never talked about Rick Sommers, not to anyone. Not because she wouldn't have liked to but because there was no one to tell who wouldn't have been horrified or deeply disappointed in her. And so, rather than disillusion any of those she loved, she'd allowed the feelings to become frozen inside her, along with the story of how they'd gotten there. For every day she'd had to live with the devastating consequences of her one disastrous attempt to find love and intimacy with a man, a new layer of pain had been added to the wall encasing her heart.

Yet the knowing look in Sam's eyes told her that he'd found the crack in her armor.

"I'm sorry he hurt you, Katie."

She lowered her gaze, and this time when she pulled away, he let her go. She didn't go far, though- only a couple of steps.

With her back to him, she managed to say, "He didn't hurt me so much as I let myself be hurt. But for pity's sake, it happened years ago, and if there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who cry over split milk. I think you're right. I'm just a little strung out."

When she turned to look at him, it was immediately obvious that he didn't believe her. She didn't blame him. Still, he let her get away with the act, even if it was woefully frayed around the edges.

In careful tones, he asked, "So, is this b.a.s.t.a.r.d the reason you're nervous about starting something with me?"

Yes, she thought. Because you know even less about commitment than he did. And because I'm afraid to trust a man who might leave me when I need him most-like you left me last night. Like you' ll probably leave me to go back to flying planes like the one that . . . killed you.

"Maybe," she replied. Then, gathering her wits a little, she added, "But, Sam, it's not just that. I meant it when I said it's happening too fast for me. I can't . . . have an affair with someone I just met a week ago. I know it seems like much longer, and so much has happened, but-"

"But it has only been a week."

"Not even a whole one. And I know you're probably used to things happening fast that way, but I'm not. My friends in college all thought I was just about the most unliberated, prudish female-"

"Prudis.h.!.+"

"-ever to come down out of the woods, but I can't help it. That's the way I was raised, and we aren't in a city where n.o.body gives a hoot what you do with your life. I've already had three neighbors ask me who that man was who carried me into my house, then stayed until ten o'clock Tuesday night, and if I-"

"If you sleep with me, everybody's going to know it."

"Yes, and I'd better be darned sure I'm ready to take what the grapevine dishes out. Because after you're gone, I'll have to live with it, and-"

"And that's the problem, isn't it?"

His question stopped her.

"You're scared of getting into something with me, then having me take off next week."

"Well, Sam," she began in sensible tones, "I understand that you-"

"I told you, I can't make you any promises, Katie. And by now, you ought to see why."

"I do. I'm not asking you to. It's just that . . ." She trailed off, half turning away and wrapping an arm around her waist as a stab of antic.i.p.ated pain shot through her.

"It's just that you need a little more rea.s.surance than I've given you," he finished.

Pressing her lips together, she nodded. "Something like that. I guess."

Sam let out a sigh. "I started to tell you the other day, since the crash, I haven't been involved with anyone. And I didn't come up here looking for a woman. I ought to tell you to get the h.e.l.l out of here, because getting involved with me can't do you a bit of good, but . . . dammit, Katie-"

When he didn't continue, she turned her head to see him struggling for control. Their gazes met, and a moment later, he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "I don't want you to go."

The admission cost him as much, or more, she thought, than anything else he'd said that morning.

She searched his features, torn between the need to protect herself and the almost overwhelming desire to give him what he wanted-what he needed-which, she was beginning to believe, was more than he'd ever allowed any woman to give him. His next words only strengthened the belief.

Dropping his gaze from hers, he muttered, "I'm not good at this-talking about relations.h.i.+ps. I'm used to things being casual and loose-ended. No pressure, no strings. But that's not going to work for you . . . and, to tell you the truth"-he pa.s.sed a hand over his face, then back through his hair-"I'm not sure it'll work for me anymore, either."

With a soft, disparaging noise, he admitted, "Dying has a way of making you think about what's important, or if all you've been doing wasting time."

Cautiously, Kate asked, "Is that what you think you were doing before you . . . died? Wasting time?"

He waited a long time before he answered. "In some ways, yes. In others . . ." He trailed off with a one-shouldered shrug.

Then, with a frustrated sound, he began pacing as he said, "I do know one thing, though. Friends are in d.a.m.ned short supply these days. Most of the people I know were totally freaked out that their old buddy Sam, of all unlikely people, woke up one day and discovered he could cure the sick and dying. Even Sid doesn't know what to say to me anymore. And I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm going to find a woman who can watch me do what I did last night without getting freaked out, then make her run away because she's afraid that all I want is to get laid."

He came to a halt five feet away and met her gaze as he finished, "It's not true, Katie. That's not how I think of you. And it sure as h.e.l.l isn't all I want from you."

It was as close as he could come to a promise, and it wasn't enough. Yet it was more than she'd expected to get. He was asking for her friends.h.i.+p, and that, she couldn't refuse him.

Holding his gaze, she spoke clearly. "Sam, if I haven't run away from you yet, I don't guess I'm going to."

A moment of silence pa.s.sed between them, and finally she had to look away. She stared, unseeing, at the forest floor, listening to him walk slowly toward her. He stopped in front of her and slid his hands under the curtain of hair that had fallen to hide her features, bracketing her face to lift it until she looked at him.

"Katie Morgan, you're a pretty amazing woman," he said.

She returned his look steadily. "Funny, I've been thinking you're a pretty amazing man."

A corner of Sam's mouth quirked upward. "So, does that mean you're willing to take a chance on hanging out with me some more, even if it means we end up like we did last night?"

"You're the one taking chances." A tiny smile formed on her lips. "Hanging out with me means you'll be exposed to more sick people than if you stayed put here, in the woods, like you planned to do in the first place."

"Yeah." He grimaced. "It's a real pain in the a.s.s that you're a nurse. But, h.e.l.l, Katie, we've all got our faults. You keep kissing me like you did a while ago, and I think I can forget about you being a nurse-or just about anything else."

She felt herself blus.h.i.+ng, but she enjoyed the sound of his deep, earthy chuckle.

"Besides," he went on, casting his gaze around the dense forest, "I've had about all I can take of these d.a.m.ned trees. It felt good being alone this week, but enough is enough."

She grinned. "Getting a little stir-crazy, huh?"

"A little. . . . Well, make that a lot. I've never been good at sitting still. And I've done enough of it this past year for another two or three lifetimes."

"There aren't too many accidents on the streets of Bourner's Crossing. I don't think a trip into town now and then would be too risky. And you could always . . ." Kate trailed off, her breath catching at a sudden thought. A second later, her expression brightened. "I'm going to Cressie and Steve's next Sunday, for dinner. Dad and Kyle and his wife and kids will be there, and Steve's going to fly Josh up from Kalamazoo for the weekend. I know you'd be welcome to come, and goodness knows, you'd have plenty of people to talk to."

It had seemed like a good idea, but when she saw a frown appear on Sam's brow, she started to brush aside the suggestion. "Of course, it'll probably be chaotic. And I can't promise they wouldn't ask you a bunch of questions you might not want to-"

"I'd like to go with you."

She hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"If you think it's okay to invite a stranger for a family dinner."

"You're not a stranger to me."

The light in his eyes grew warm. He let his gaze fall to her lips, brus.h.i.+ng them with the pad of his thumb as he asked, "What time should I pick you up?"

"About one. Dinner isn't until four, but I want to get there early to help Cressie get ready."

"Sounds fine."

"Sam, I hate to say it, but I really ought to get back to town. I'm on call all weekend, and all I have with me is my pager. I can't hear the CB in my truck from here."

He made a vaguely affirmative noise, but instead of letting go of her, his hands tunneled under her hair to hold the back of her neck. His gaze remained fixed on her mouth, and she knew very well what he was thinking about doing. She also knew she couldn't handle another kiss like the last one-definitely not.

"Sam, I really have to-"

"Not yet."

"But-"

"One more, Katie." His head lowered, his lips parting over hers on a whisper. "Just a kiss. I promise."

He kept his word and didn't attempt to push her further- although the actual number of kisses was closer to three or four, not counting the one he gave her through the open window of her pickup once she was safely inside. By the time Kate was on her way to town, her hands were trembling, her knees were rubbery, and certain parts of her were throbbing with pure s.e.xual excitement. She felt as if she were floating along in a sensual fog, and she wanted to relish the feeling.

But she couldn't. Not when her heart was at such risk. She was very close to being in love with Sam- a realization that came as no great surprise but terrified her all the same. In the first place, it was shocking enough that she even knew somebody with the kind of healing powers he possessed; the idea of being in love with him was . . . well, it was sobering.

Even more sobering-indeed, downright panic-inducing- was the notion that she might be in love with a man who, by his own admission, had never had a relations.h.i.+p with a woman last more than a year. She wondered if he even knew the meaning of the word love, much less what it meant to be in love with someone. He wanted her, but he talked about it in terms of going to bed together, not of making love. And if he couldn't say it, then she couldn't do it.

With every tender instinct in her, she wanted to give him the warmth, the shelter, the love she suspected he'd never had and that she knew he needed. She knew in her heart, though, that he had the power to hurt her in ways Rick Sommers never had. If Sam wanted her, he'd have to prove he had the emotional honesty-and the staying power-that Rick had lacked.

She was asking a lot of a man whose entire life had been turned so recently upside down.

Then again, maybe she wasn't. Sam was a strong man, one who possessed a powerful and very special gift. And his awesome ability to heal other human beings had tapped into a well of emotion inside him, the depths of which left her breathless. The feelings frightened him, embarra.s.sed him. Still, if he could accept that compa.s.sion and tenderness were part of his essential humanity, not weaknesses to fight against, she thought he might discover something else that, thus far, life hadn't taught him: that being able to understand and feel for others left a person's heart open to the possibility of love. And when Sam found out just how deeply and fiercely he could love . . .

She wanted to be there.

He hadn't wanted to let her go.

Sam stood watching as Katie's truck disappeared down the track, wis.h.i.+ng he could have kept her a little longer. Like maybe all day. Or all week. Or forever.

He felt alive. Good. Happier than he'd been in a long, long time. His body ached in all the right places, and he didn't even mind that it might go on aching. The thick, heavy throbbing in his loins was real, something familiar and normal that he understood. In fact, it was d.a.m.ned rea.s.suring. His only qualm about it was that he was hot for a woman his conscience said he ought to leave alone.

She'd been hurt bad. It had made him ache to see the pain in her eyes-the kind of pain he couldn't touch and make better. She did a good job of hiding it, but under her sweet, cheerful surface, she was about as defenseless as a woman could get. And if he hurt her again, he thought, he'd be no better than the sonofab.i.t.c.h whose face he'd had ideas of rearranging a little while ago.

He could hurt her, too. It stunned him to realize how easy it would be. He'd known from the start that Katie was the kind of woman who needed security, the kind who expected marriage. And the idea of spending the next eighty years or so with her struck a faint but strangely resonant note somewhere deep inside him.

The note was drowned out, though, by what he saw as the realities of his life. How the h.e.l.l could he think about the next eighty years when he couldn't even plan for tomorrow? Katie needed a man who was ready to settle down and have a home and kids and the whole nine yards, and it was stupid for him even to consider whether or not he might want those same things. It was stupid to be thinking about leading a normal existence, when nothing about him anymore-except the hard bulge in his jeans-reminded him that he was a normal man who had a right to expect a normal life.

h.e.l.l, forget the chaos he knew would ensue if anyone found out there was a healer living in Fournier's cabin. He didn't even know how he was going to earn a living. And he wasn't about to tell Katie why he couldn't go back to Chris Rutger-or anybody else-and tell them he wanted to fly their planes.

She'd handled it real well this morning when she'd found him turning green over the fish, hadn't uttered a word to make him feel any worse than he already had. But how would she react if she knew he'd been throw-up-and-pa.s.s-out scared last night just looking at that chopper? He didn't want to know. The fish had been humiliating enough.

No, there were too many problems he had to work out for him to go making promises to Katie or any other woman. Which led him to wonder why he was standing there wis.h.i.+ng she hadn't gone, when he ought to be packing and leaving himself, before things between them went any further.

But then, the answer was pretty simple: She hadn't treated him like a freak. She'd listened to his story. G.o.d knows, she'd seen him at his worst. Then she'd turned around and given him the sweetest, hottest, most honest pa.s.sion he'd ever had in his life. She'd made him feel starved for something he couldn't even name. And when she was still shaking from it-and from hearing him say he couldn't make her any promises-she'd looked at him with those big, brown, serious eyes and said, if she hadn't run away from him yet, she didn't guess she was going to.

No, he wasn't going anywhere-except to Katie's sister's for dinner next Sunday. After that . . . well, he didn't know. But for the first time ever, he began to see that there might be rewards in sitting still he'd never considered.

Up until a year ago, he'd been hurtling through life at multiples of the speed of sound, his only goal being to punch bigger and better holes in the sky. Yet all he had to show for it was a bank account he rarely touched, the things he could pack into his Jeep, and a bunch of scars. In the long run, the only place it had gotten him was dead.

So this was supposed to be his second chance. He'd gotten the message loud and clear that a big part of it was going to be spent doing things for other people. Last night, he'd also gotten the message that he wasn't going to be punching any more holes in the sky. He didn't know how he was going to face that; the thought of not being able to fly was . . . G.o.d, he couldn't think about it without wanting to howl.

But if he had to sit still, maybe he could have something else that would help fill the empty place inside him that flying had always taken care of. Because sitting still, taking things slow and easy, might get him Katie. And it occurred to him that having her-even if it was just for a little while-might be worth as much . . . and maybe more . . . than anything he'd ever had before.