quiet way, then leaned toward him as if only wanting to listen. And he, who never revealed, had told her about the elderly patient alone in the empty, faded room. By the time he’d left, he’d ordered an extravagant arrangement to be sent anonymously to the woman. He’d also felt better than he could ever remember.
The next day he’d stopped by the shop again after hours and had another lavish bouquet sent to the woman, then another and another, filling her room with flowers until even the other patients, visitors and nurses stopped as they passed and sighed with pleasure.
The woman had died at the end of the week—pneumonia complications—but Brady knew she had died surrounded by life and color and beauty and the thought that somebody cared. She hadn’t died like his mother, her smile not being seen again by those who needed to see it most.
Now Brady sent flowers almost every other day. There was always someone alone or sick or with a heavy heart. The deliveries were never signed. The flowers were always ordered after hours. Brady wouldn’t jeopardize his patients’ confidence or the hospital staff’s respect by being anything other than the strong, sensible, self-sufficient surgeon they expected. He had learned at the age of eleven never to expose your weaknesses. And he never had…until he’d gone to Eden.
Chapter Two
Cookies. Brady smelled cookies. Mixed in with the rose and the lavender, the sandalwood and the gardenia, there was cinnamon, melting sugar and a richness so dense, the air around him seemed thick.
“Eden,” he called, his voice sounding slow and full in the fat air.
“Hello, Brady.”
He looked to the right, past the deep stainless steel sink and the crowded shelves to the stairs that led to the second floor. On the landing two big fuzzy bumblebees, their antennae bobbing, greeted him. From the whimsical slippers, Eden’s thin, bare legs stretched up like lollipop sticks into baggy shorts beneath an oversize cotton shirt. Her hair was pulled back, twisted up high and tight into a knot, except for two ends that had broken free. They stuck up like the rabbit ears children sneak behind another’s head in a photo. She came down the stairs fast and, at the bottom, paused, panting. She smiled, a faint pink in her cheeks and her eyes the deep purple of dawn. He wanted to kiss her so badly, he could almost taste her like the promise of cookies that came down the stairwell. He wanted to take her right there on the softly lit stairs with the swirl of smells around them.
Great. He’d gone from leering at Eden to seeing her stretched out, waiting for him on the staircase. Guilt grabbed him, gave him a hard shake. Shame came next. This was Eden—sweet, awkward Eden who taught the ladies auxiliary how to make balsam wreaths for the Christmas bazaar and made sure Guy Teator, the oldest resident of Worthington House but still the snappiest dresser in Tyler, always had a fresh boutonniere, free of charge.
She was in no way the type of woman that normally drew his attention. He preferred a more sophisticated type of woman. A woman with more curves, with artfully curled hair and carefully chosen clothes. A worldly, ambitious woman who enjoyed a relationship based on mutual respect and physical pleasures. A woman who didn’t expect a long-term commitment.
Eden wasn’t that type of woman.
He saw her spindly legs, her knees as he’d imagined, hard and round as apples picked too early. No, Eden was the opposite of the woman he usually dated.
Eden was the type of girl who’d fall in love.
He was staring again. Eden looked at her oversize bee slippers. Could she blame him? Had she really imagined desire in those jade green eyes? This had to stop. She had to stop.
Yet she said, “I baked cookies.”
“I shouldn’t have come.” He spoke in the tone of a man who was listened to, but he was leaning on the edge of the sink where the flowers were processed. “It’s too late. I’ve kept you up.”
“They’re oatmeal chocolate butterscotch.” A buzzer sounded from the second floor. “Oops, there’s the timer.” She turned and trotted up the steps. Brady hesitated, then followed those fuzzy yellow feet up the stairs.
The door at the top opened into a blue and white kitchen. Cookies cooled on the counter, the heat and smells welcoming him as if he’d come home.
Eden switched off the timer and opened the oven door. More heat and smells came like a child’s hungry dream, and, at that moment, Brady couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than warm oatmeal chocolate butterscotch cookies.
Eden straightened, the cookie sheet in her gloved hand, her face flushed, her eyes bright from the heat. He’d seen a similar look on women before, but they hadn’t been baking. They’d been in his bed.
He looked away. He was irredeemable. There was only one thing that could save him, that had always saved him. He looked at Eden. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He was saved.
“You can sit down and eat as many of these cookies as possible before I do.” She blew at a strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead and smiled at him.
He saw the rows of cookies cooling on the wire racks. Since lunch he’d only had three large cups of black coffee and a cranberry juice grabbed off a nutrition cart on its way to the floors. He took off his suit jacket, hung it evenly across the kitchen chair’s high back. “I could do that.”
She set a ceramic plate piled with cookies in the center of the round table and a smaller matching plate before him. “Something to drink?”
He leaned back, a content man. Her hand, covered with the oversize pot holder, jerked away from the back of his chair where it’d been resting. He glanced up at her.
She looked at him with her dark-violet eyes and her delicate smile. Her hand covered with the plaid pot holder was now gripping the other, bare one.
“Tea?” she offered, taking another step back.
He hated tea. “Tea would be great.” He pushed back his chair. “But let me help you.”
“No, no.” Her hands flew apart and patted the air above his shoulders. “You sit.”
She moved about the kitchen, filling the bright-red teakettle and setting it back on the stove, opening the stenciled cupboard, standing on her tiptoes and reaching up to the tea boxes on the upper shelf.
“Let’s see, I’ve got orange pekoe, cinnamon apple, peppermint…” She looked over her shoulder at him.
“Whatever you prefer.”
Her gaze moved to his empty plate, then back to him. “Eat, Brady.” Her voice was low and coaxing; her smile quiet. She waited until he reached for the cookie plate before turning back to the tea boxes.
“Mmm, orange pekoe, I think.” She opened another cupboard, took out two brightly colored mugs, shook a tea bag into each. On the stove, the kettle steamed.
Brady looked around the tiny kitchen as full of colors and patterns and shapes as the store below. Hand-painted plates hung on one wall. A vine was about to flower on the scalloped shelf above the sink. More flowers twined on a grapevine arched above the door and poked
