couldn’t deny her assertion, but he didn’t want to fight with her right now. So he went back to the original topic, picking up where he left off.
“All in all, my parents’ divorce was a surprisingly painless experience. Four people who split up and went their separate ways only to find happiness in other arenas. To this day, I can’t even form a mental picture of Alex as a two-year-old.”
“Then why did he leave his daughter in your care?” Zoey asked.
Jonas shrugged. “I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times since January. Our parents have both been dead for years. And from what the attorney said, Alex’s wife had estranged herself from her own family to the point of not seeing them at all. I suppose I am, in effect, Juliana’s closest living relative. And really, what couple in the prime of life draws up a will expecting their wishes to be fulfilled before their child reaches adulthood?”
Neither answered the question, because no response seemed necessary. They sipped their coffee in thoughtful silence for a moment until Zoey ended it with a quietly offered, seemingly benign observation.
“So now you’ve got a baby to raise, Dr. Tate,” she said with a smile.
Jonas wished he could embrace the same warm, positive attitude about it that she so obviously did. “Yes,” he replied.
And with that simple, one-word response, his first good mood in more than two months evaporated, and he felt the world drop out from beneath him. Everything he’d been refusing to think about since Juliana’s arrival exploded in his brain like a time bomb. He was solely responsible for another human being, a girl child he didn’t know the first thing about raising.
“Help me, Zoey,” he said suddenly, unable to stop the words that tumbled from his mouth without him even thinking about saying them. “Please. I can’t do this by myself.”
Three
Zoey stared at him in disbelief, her voice failing her completely. Help him? she thought incredulously. Help him? Help Jonas Tate? With a baby? What was he, nuts?
She continued to gaze at him in silence, and the coffee she had sipped as he’d uttered his request—his plea—sat in her mouth until it tasted like mud. Finally, she remembered to swallow, but when she did, she gagged and began to choke. The hacking that ensued brought Jonas around the table to pat her soundly on the back, an action that just made her cough harder because it was such an unexpectedly inflammatory gesture. Inflammatory because the feel of his palm pressing into her well-covered flesh, in a manner that was in no way seductive, somehow felt just that—seductive.
Alarmed, Zoey jerked away from him and leapt out of her chair, moving blindly toward the sink in an effort to escape. But Jonas followed her, seeming to pen her in where the countertops came together at a ninety-degree angle. Honestly, all he was doing was making sure she was okay, she told herself. But for some reason, he seemed to be much closer than he really needed to be, seemed to be intent on doing much more than helping to alleviate her cough.
Zoey had never liked it when people got too close—emotionally or physically—without her permission. There was a reason for that, she recalled all too readily, and without thinking further, she flattened her palms against his chest and pushed him away. Hard.
Jonas stumbled backward, his eyes reflecting his surprise at her gesture. But apparently undaunted, he approached her again and lifted his own hand slowly toward her. “Are you all right?” he asked as he cupped his palm cautiously over her shoulder.
Zoey flinched a little, but made no move this time to restrict him. Evidently encouraged by the less violent reaction, he dipped his hand lower to rub her back again. She told herself to stay calm and not overreact, forced herself to stand still and let him touch her. Unfortunately, that plan of action didn’t work, either. Because his simple caress still felt like the most inviting of gestures and, instinctively, she wanted to pull away before things got out of hand.
“I’m fine,” she lied, taking a few deep breaths to steady her heart rate and get her lungs moving normally again. For some reason, though, when she inhaled the musky aroma of him, her heart rate became anything but steady, and her lungs wanted to gulp in the air at a staggering speed. “I’m fine,” she repeated, though whether she was trying to convince Jonas or herself of that, she wasn’t entirely sure.
His hand continued to make lazy circles on her back, and she found herself standing there, immobile, gazing into pale brown eyes that were fixed on her face. For long moments, the two of them only stared at each other in silence, until Zoey made a halfhearted move to pull away.
But instead of removing his hand from her back to allow her passage—because, clearly, she was okay now, Zoey thought, and there was no need for him to remain so close—Jonas settled his free hand on the counter to prevent her from going anywhere. He cupped the fingers of his other hand lightly over her nape and, exerting just the slightest pressure on her neck, he started to bring her head toward his.
“Don’t,” she said softly, trying to pull back.
But Jonas seemed not to hear her and continued the gentle coercion of her head toward his. For one wild moment, Zoey forgot about the animosity she felt for him, forgot the reason she was normally so cautious around men. For one wild moment, she allowed herself to be drawn forward. His eyes were so compelling, the shape of his mouth so intriguing. He smelled so good and his touch was...oh...so gentle. No man had ever touched her in quite that way before. But when she realized what he was trying to do, understood that he had every intention of kissing her, she panicked, bolting from his arms to race to the other side of the room.
She purposely positioned herself so that the kitchen table was between them, knowing the gesture was silly even as she completed it. As if that meager barrier might actually keep him away from her if he wanted to try to again kiss her again, she thought. As if such a move would prevent her from reaching out to him.
“I’m fine,” she insisted for a third time, clutching the back of a chair when she realized how badly she did, indeed, want to reach for him again. Good heavens, what was happening to her?
“You certainly are,” Jonas agreed in a quiet, ragged tone of voice unlike any she’d ever heard from him.
He cleared his throat abruptly and returned to his seat at the table, then proceeded to sip his coffee casually, as if the past few moments had never occurred. Zoey eyed him curiously, wondering if maybe she had completely misinterpreted what had just happened between them.
Of course she had, she told herself with a silent sigh of relief, lifting a shaky hand to her forehead. She must have. He’d only been trying to stop her coughing. There was no way he had intended to kiss her. She simply must have misread the signs. She’d just pulled a double duty at the hospital, she reminded herself, and had just come off the graveyard shift. She was tired and, as usual, Jonas Tate’s presence was making her edgy. Considering their history and the quickness with which the two of them generally went for each other’s throats, the last thing the man would want to do was kiss her.
The realization brought with it an odd mixture of reassurance and regret, but she ignored the feeling as she returned to her own seat at the table and pulled the chair away. Before she could sit down, however, Jonas stood, moving quickly toward the other side of the room to stand in precisely the same spot Zoey had just vacated.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he stared at the ceiling as he asked, “Would you? Help me out, I mean. With...with
