After all, it wasn’t as if her life was so busy she couldn’t rearrange her social calendar.
So, when the phone call came, she’d turned right around and come back to the hospital and worked another twelve-hour shift. Twenty-fours always played havoc with her system. She just wanted to go home and fall into bed.
Then she realized she wasn’t alone in the room. Kane Fortune sat in a chair with his large, competent hands dangling between his knees. He appeared to be staring into space and his handsome features were drawn and wan. She wasn’t even sure he knew she was there.
Quietly, she approached him and sat down next to him. “Are you all right?”
He blinked, and she could almost see him dragging himself back to the present. He seemed to weigh his words for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Frankly, no.”
“Still brooding about the Simonds’ baby?”
“It’s more than that,” he said.
“Oh? Do you want to talk about it?”
Kane turned his head and looked at her, and the punch of hot desire she felt every time he turned those green-hazel eyes on her hit her hard in the stomach and quickly sank to a much more intimate location. Sweet heavens, he was beautiful. And she’d swear he didn’t know it.
Or if he did, he didn’t particularly care.
The first time she’d ever seen him had been four years ago, on her very first day on the job at County. He’d come into the neonatal unit for rounds, and the supervisor had introduced them. He’d turned those eyes on her and smiled and taken her hand—and she’d been lucky to be able to stammer out a garbled greeting.
That was just how strongly he affected her. Always had. And, she thought ruefully, always would. For the first year she’d told herself it was just a crush. Young, inexperienced-in-more-ways-than-one nurse; handsome, wealthy doctor. Normal. Natural. By the end of the second year, when she realized she still loved him no matter how tired he looked or how cranky he got with incompetent staff members, she started to worry about herself. By the end of the third year, when she realized he could be penniless and jobless and she’d still care, she’d accepted it.
Kane Fortune was the only man she ever wanted to own her heart. And the chances of that were about as likely as her chances of…of winning an Oscar.
Not going to happen. Not now, not ever. Men like Kane didn’t go for mousy blondes who weren’t comfortable in deep-cut blouses and makeup. They went for glamor. Just as her father had. And there was no way anyone could ever accuse plain little Allison Jane Preston of being glamorous. Plain Allison Jane.
“It would take half the night,” he said. “More time than you have, I’m sure.”
For a moment she thought he’d been reading her mind and was making a dig at the thought of her getting gussied up. Then she realized he meant time to talk. Tired as she was, all thoughts of bed and sleep went straight out the window. It sounded as though Kane needed a friend, and she didn’t intend to let him down.
“I’m off for the next twelve hours, and I’m a good listener,” she said. Not pushing, but letting him know she was there if he needed her.
He was smiling faintly at her, one hand coming up to scrub at the dark shadow of stubble along his jaw. “Yes, you are.” Then he appeared to come to a decision. “Want to go get a bite to eat?”
“Sure.” She tried to keep the giddy elation from her voice. They’d gotten coffee and chatted dozens of times over the past few years. Kane had seemed to single her out as someone with whom he felt comfortable, and loving him as she did, Allison was always grateful when she could give him a listening ear, ease the burdens that came with healing newborn bodies and occasionally losing the battle for life. But dinner after work, not on a hasty break in the hospital when one or the other of them was wolfing down a quick bite…this was different.
“Let’s go down to the diner,” he said.
“All right.” The diner was an all-night restaurant near County that was frequented by hospital personnel and the occasional repeat visitor who had gotten wise to hospital cafeteria food.
She stood and started to shoulder the large bag in which she carried extra clothes, but Kane reached for it, taking it from her and slinging it over his shoulder with his own duffel. “Thank you,” she said, mildly startled. How many men were that courteous anymore?
“My pleasure.” He smiled down at her as he opened the door for her, and her legs turned to jelly. “My mama raised a gentleman.”
“Your mama did a fine job.”
“She did,” he said reflectively as they waited for the elevator. “She was a single mother, but she worked darn hard to make sure my sister and I grew up with good manners and good sense.”
“Your father…wasn’t in the picture?” It was a personal question, the first time they’d ever crossed the line into such territory, and she wondered if he was as aware of that as she.
“No. Never.” There was such venom in his tone that it unnerved her. “He abandoned us when my mother was pregnant with my sister. I was about a year old.”
“That’s sad,” she said softly. “He missed so much. It’s a good thing your mother had money, or things could have been really tough for you all.”
A smile touched his lean face as she glanced up at him, but it wasn’t amused. “We didn’t have money then,” he said. “I didn’t even find out she was a Fortune until about six years ago.”
Now she was confused. “But your name—”
“I took the name Fortune by choice, and at my uncle’s request, not long after I found out. I had no desire to share the name of a man who could walk away from his family the way he did.”
She wondered if he realized how much unhappiness was revealed in that simple statement. “My father left my mother, too,” she said softly, wanting him to know she could identify in some way with his pain. “But I remember him. I was twelve when he left.”
“At least you knew your father.”
“Yes.” Though she wasn’t sure that knowing him had made any difference, since she apparently hadn’t known him at all. A too-familiar pain and regret stung her. He was dead now and she’d never have the chance to talk with him again, and the estrangement that had lain between them for years could never be bridged. She’d missed the opportunity, or more accurately, she’d refused the opportunity. And now, to her lasting regret, it was too late.
Still, she didn’t tell any of that to Kane. In the mood he was in, she doubted there was anything she could say that might ease his hurt. For a while they walked along the sidewalk in silence.
When they got to the diner, Kane paused, and Allison stopped with him. He was looking through the plate-glass window. “There’s a crowd tonight,” he said, frowning.
“Birthday party,” she said. “One of the techs from radiology turned forty.”
A slim, dark-haired nurse from the oncology unit caught sight of them from the edge of the dance floor where there were a number of people gyrating to the music. She waved, her gaze
