Because her dad was still napping, she did the mac-and-cheese thing, finished making up a fresh bed for him, and then made the usual nightly calls…Ginger, her sister. Merry, her best friend. Her cousin Russell miraculously managed to connect between her calls—something was new with him, she could hear it in his voice, but he didn’t mention anything except stopping over soon. And finally, her mom got a turn at the phone lines.
“Is he there, Lucy?”
“Yes. Do you want to—”
“No. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want him to know I called. And I don’t care where he is. I just…” Eve sighed on the other end of the line. Lucy could picture her mother, so beautiful, her blond hair never looked fussed-over but always wonderfully styled, makeup just so, elegant as roses. But angry. “I just wanted to be sure he was all right. That’s all. Kick him out, Luce.”
“Mom, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. I’m sure he’s talked you into staying tonight, so that’s fine. But if you let it go on, he’ll suck all the energy right out of you, taking and taking and taking. You’re a grown woman. You don’t have to take care of your parents. We’re adults. Kick him out and don’t look back.”
It occurred to her around midnight that she hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone about her promotion. God knew, she wanted to. There just never seemed to be a chance. She was just nodding off, so tired she hadn’t even flossed, when a short, scrawny shadow showed up in the doorway.
“Lucy, are you awake?”
She jerked to a sitting position. “Yeah, Dad. What’s wrong?”
“I just wondered if you had anything around to eat. I don’t want you to bother. I don’t need anything. Just tell me where to look. And then go back to sleep—”
If he’d opened the fridge or cupboard, he’d have found various kinds of food. But apparently he’d done that. And nothing he found looked like grilled chicken and green beans and a baked potato, which was apparently what he was in the mood for.
“I don’t suppose you have any pistachio ice cream for dessert?”
“Nope. I’ve got chocolate. And Cherry Garcia. And some cookies. And bananas—”
“Your mother always has pistachio ice cream.”
“Uh-huh. Dad. I’m not going out after midnight for pistachio ice cream.”
“Good heavens, honey. I’d never ask you to do such a thing—”
“I have to work tomorrow. I’ve got a big day. I have to get some sleep.”
“Me, too. Although I think I’d better cancel my surgical schedule for a few days. I’ve never done that, but I think I’d better. Only every time I start thinking, I seem to get more…unsettled. Which is probably why I couldn’t get my mind off the pistachio ice cream. I know it’s foolish. I know…”
Okay, she thought. He’d had a terrible, terrible day. He was afraid that Eve meant it this time. Lucy couldn’t imagine her father surviving a divorce. He probably couldn’t take a shower and find a towel on his own. He was brilliant in the operating room, but real life always seemed to bewilder him.
So she went out and found his ice cream.
It was past two when she tumbled back into bed, musing that this had been an extraordinarily wild day. Tumultuous. Filled with both exhilaratingly wonderful events…but worrisome ones, too. Still, through it all, she’d barely spared a moment thinking about Nick Bernard.
That was progress, she thought.
Major progress.
Only thinking about him last thing before sleep meant, inevitably, that every darn single dream had him in the star cast.
CHAPTER THREE
EVEN THOUGH Nick drove the satin-black Lotus from the house to the labs, the dogs managed to beat him. He could have walked, but the whole idea of driving was to avoid the slobber and dog hair. He had a business flight at noon, was hoping to stay clean until then.
“But that was silly thinking on my part, wasn’t it, girls?” he murmured when he opened the car door and was immediately assaulted—lavishly, lovingly assaulted—by the two tail-wagging dimwits. Baby was the kisser. Boo Boo was the devil incarnate—trying to climb in the Lotus, nearly killing them both, threatening the soft leather seats, then after kissing him senseless with her long, wet tongue, taking off with his driving glove. Two pawprints the size of footballs showed up on his gray slacks.
“Women,” he muttered, although he really didn’t mean to disparage the gender. Not when the female gender was found in dogs, anyway. Women were another story entirely. Some days it just didn’t pay a guy to get up, you know? Linnie had called that morning.
Their conversation was still sucking the energy out of him. When he first met her, Linnie had seemed every guy’s daydream. She had no morals. No inhibitions. Money of her own. Nothing was too wild for her, in bed or in life. She was fun, crazy, unpredictable. Hell, when she dressed for a party, you never knew if even her critical parts were gonna be covered.
It had been an entertaining, worthless, fun affair—until he’d broken it off. It never occurred to him that she’d care. She’d never hinted at wanting more than an occasional good time. There were other guys in her life, he knew, and that was totally okay with him. He only called it off because he was so damned busy, really didn’t have time to do the planning, the partying, couldn’t just take off and vacation whenever she had the whim. He never thought it’d be a big deal to her. He just thought calling a friendly halt was being honest.
Apart from the ear blistering she’d given him—and that was several months ago—she’d kept calling ever since. She needed an escort for something. Then a favor about something else. This morning was another one of those “something elses.” And when he couldn’t—he honestly couldn’t—she did the ear blistering thing again.
All his life—as of kindergarten anyway—girls had chased him. All his life, he’d liked it.
Only lately, he felt like he was batting a zero. Nothing he did with women was right. “Including you girls.” He crouched down to scrub both Baby and Boo Boo’s heads before straightening again. “You can’t go into the greenhouses. You know that.”
They went up to the door anyway, wagging their tails, expectant. They knew Lucy was in there.
So did Nick.
Not a good idea to see Lucy when he was already having a bad-woman day, but there was no help for it. The new project loomed like a mountain in his mind. They needed to figure out how they could best work together, talk about both the details and the big picture, establish some timetables, put a plan on paper. Possibly Lucy didn’t need every possible t crossed—but he did. Either that or he was going to drive himself bonkers worrying about it.
The truth was, that guilt had chewed on his nerves ever since the night—around seven weeks ago—when she’d called him with the news about her experiment’s success. Until that night, he’d had no measure of how strong her crush on him was. Until that night, she’d never been this awkward around him.
