goodies, and so I took full advantage of it.”
“Full advantage. I’ll say.” Roxy’s amused voice held a wealth of meaning, but Maddy ignored it the best she could.
“One towel for my hair and one for the rest of me.”
Her mom’s brows cranked up in steady increments. “Why are you explaining, dear?”
“Well, because...” She was so going to get struck by lightning for lying. “...I wouldn’t want you to get any strange ideas.”
“I’ll just put these away so you can go make us some coffee. It looks like you could use some.” Roxy plucked the towels from her hand, leaning down to whisper, “If she didn’t have any ideas before, she certainly does now.”
“Just what I need,” Maddy breathed in return. But really she was glad to have something to do. And that Kaleb had made it out of the house unnoticed.
Just then the doorbell rang. Oh, no! What more could possibly happen? She looked through the peephole and was met by a familiar face. Her heart careened through her chest. Sending up a quick prayer, she opened the door and pretended he was a complete stranger. “Yes? Can I help you?”
Kaleb wasn’t smiling. And the flirtatious demeanor from this morning was long gone. But at least he kept his voice low. “I think I left my keys in your bathroom.”
Roxy appeared beside her. She glanced at Maddy and then at the man in the entryway. “I think you might be looking for these.” She let the keys dangle from her fingertips.
“Yes, that’s them. Thank you.” He took them from her with a perfunctory smile.
Then the worst thing that could have happened did. Without a word to her, Maddy’s mother marched right up to him and held out her hand.
“Since my daughters have evidently forgotten all their manners, hello, my name is Linda.”
A muscle worked in his jaw, but he shook her hand. “I’m Kaleb McBride. I work at the hospital where your daughter practices.”
Her mom blinked. “Nice to meet you. You work there as a...”
“I practice concierge medicine.” As if anticipating her next question, he added, “The hospital has a contract with the hotel across the street. I split my time between the two places.”
She could practically see the wheels in her mom’s head turning, rotating far too many times for comfort. Two towels. A colleague leaving his keys at her place. Her granddaughter staying with Roxy overnight.
Please don’t.
She sent her mother a quick look begging her not to take this line of questioning any further. Instead her mom nodded. “Well, it was nice to meet someone that Maddy works with.” She took her granddaughter’s hand. “Now, if you’ll tell me where that medicine is for her headache, I’ll get it for her.”
“It’s already all better,” Chloe said. “It wasn’t one of the mean ones.”
Her mom leaned down to kiss Chloe’s cheek. “I’m glad.”
“Could I have a glass of apple juice, though?”
Maddy swallowed, glad for the distraction and an excuse to send them away for a few more minutes. “Chloe, would you show Nana where the glasses and juice are? And see if she wants something to drink as well.”
“I’ll show them.”
Roxy was being extraordinarily helpful all of a sudden, moving away with the duo and talking a mile a minute about the kite festival.
Once again, she was left alone with Kaleb.
He flipped his keys into his palm, brown eyes meeting hers. “Sorry about that. I got all the way to my car and realized I forgot to put them back in my pocket.”
She’d forgotten as well. But now she could see it happen all over again in her mind’s eye. Kaleb’s big hand sliding into the front pocket of his jeans as he slowly extracted his keys and dropped them on the vanity in the bathroom. Of the way her breath hitched in her throat when she realized he was going to step into her tub without removing his pants. She wasn’t likely to forget what they’d done. Not for a long, long time.
It was then and there that Maddy realized she was in serious trouble. She’d dug herself a deep pit and had hopped right into it, not thinking about the consequences of her actions. And now she was stuck at the bottom with no way to escape. But she’d better either figure it out or find a ladder tall enough to climb to the top. And soon. Because if she didn’t, her mom would discover what she’d done last night. And not only her mother. But her sister, her daughter and probably the whole damn hospital.
“I DON’T WANT to go to the hospital.”
The woman lying in the bed in her hotel room was in obvious respiratory distress, her words coming out in a disjointed series of wheezes that reminded him of his encounter with Maddy in the lobby of this very hotel.
Last week had thrown him for a loop, and he realized what a huge mistake he had made by staying at her place. It was why he never stayed at a woman’s house. The less he knew, the easier it was to walk away when the night was over.
Instead, he’d wandered around Maddy’s living room, looking at intimate glimpses of her life. He’d even met her mother, for goodness’ sake. Something that never would have happened if he’d stuck to his internal rule book. He could have brought her back to his own place and made love to her without a care in the world. But no. He had to go and act as if he could do whatever he wanted without it costing one red cent.
How wrong he’d been.
Chloe saying that her head hurt had sent a shaft of pain through him that had cut him to the core. He’d heard that same phrase almost word for word from his own daughter. “Daddy, my head hurts.”
A few weeks later, she’d been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.
Forcing his attention back to his patient, he put the stethoscope in his ears and asked her to sit up for a minute. “When I tell you to, can you breathe deeply for me?”
“I’ll try.”
He pressed the chest piece of the instrument to her back. “Okay, breathe.”
Where Kaleb should have heard deep clear chest sounds, there was an ominous crackling instead, that originated in the lower lobe of Gloria Lowell’s right lung. He moved it a little higher. “Again.”
The crackling sound diminished dramatically the higher he got. He moved to the other side and had his patient take another deep breath. There it was again. Bi-basal crackling. Could be pneumonia. Could be something interstitial. But whatever it was, it wasn’t going away without treatment.
Her husband, who was standing nearby, must have seen something in his face. “What is it?”
“She needs to go to
