Rumors: The McCaffertys

“Shouldn’t she see a specialist?” Thorne asked.

“She’s seeing several. Dr. Nimmo is one of the best neurosurgeons in the Northwest. He’s already examined her. He usually works out of Bitterroot Memorial and just after Randi’s surgery he was called away on another emergency, but he’ll phone you. Believe me. Your sister’s getting the best medical care we can provide, and it’s as good as you’re going to get anywhere. I think we’ve already had this conversation, so you’re just going to have to trust me. Now, is there anything else?”

“Just that I want to be kept apprised of her situation. If there is any change, any change at all in her condition or that of the child, I expect to be contacted immediately.” He withdrew his wallet and slid a crisp business card from the smooth leather. “This is my business phone number and this—” he found a pen in the breast pocket of his suit jacket and scribbled another number on the back of his card “—is the number of the ranch. I’ll be staying there.” He handed her the card and watched as one of her finely arched brows elevated a bit.

“You expect me to contact you. Me, personally.”

“I—I’d appreciate it,” he said and touched her shoulder. She glanced down at his hand and little lines converged between her eyebrows. “As a personal favor.”

Her lips pulled into a tight knot. Color stained her cheeks. “Because we were so close to each other?” she asked, gold eyes snapping as she pulled her shoulder away.

He dropped his hand. “Because you care. I don’t know the rest of the staff and I’m sure that they’re fine. All good doctors. But I know I can trust you.”

“You don’t know me at all.”

“I did once.”

She swallowed hard. “Let’s keep that out of this,” she said. “But, fine…I’ll keep you informed.”

“Thanks.” He offered her a smile and she rolled her eyes.

“Just don’t try to smooth-talk or con me, Thorne, okay? I’ll tell it to you straight, but don’t, not for a minute, try to play on my sympathies and, just to make sure you’re getting this, I’m not doing it for old times’ sake or anything the least bit maudlin or nostalgic, okay? If there’s a change, you’ll be notified immediately.”

“And I’ll be in contact with you.”

“I’m not her doctor, Thorne.”

“But you’ll be here.”

“Most of the time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve really got to run.” She started to turn away, but he caught the crook of her elbow, his fingers gripping the starched white coat.

“Thanks, Nikki,” he said and to his amazement she blushed, a deep shade of pink stealing up her cheeks.

“No problem. It comes with the job,” she said, then glanced down at his fingers and pulled away. With clipped steps she disappeared through a door marked Staff Only. Thorne watched the door swing shut behind her and fought the urge to ignore the warning and follow her. Why he couldn’t imagine. There was nothing more to say—the conversation was finished, but as he tucked his wallet back into his pocket, he experienced a foolish need to catch up with her—to catch up with his past. He had dozens of questions for her and he’d probably never ask one. “Fool,” he muttered to himself and felt a headache begin to pound at the base of his skull. Nicole Stevenson was a doctor here at the hospital, nothing more. And she had his number. Big-time. She’d made that clear enough.

Yes, she was a woman; a beautiful woman, a smart woman, a seemingly driven woman, a woman with whom he’d made love once upon a time, but their affair was long over.

And she could be married, you idiot. Her name is Stevenson now, remember?

But he’d checked her ring finger. It had been bare. Why he’d bothered, he didn’t understand; didn’t want to assess. But he was satisfied that she was no longer another man’s wife. Nonetheless she was off-limits. Period. A complicated, beguiling woman.

He stepped onto the elevator, pounded the button for the floor of the maternity level and tried to shove all thoughts of Nikki Sanders—Dr. Nicole Stevenson—from his mind.

But it didn’t work; just as it hadn’t worked years before when he’d left her. Without so much as an explanation. How could he have explained that he’d left her because staying in Grand Hope, being close to her, touching her and loving her made his departure all that much harder? He’d left because he’d had a deep sense of insight that if he’d stayed much longer, he would never have been able to tear himself away from her, that he never would have gone out into the world and proved to himself and his father that he could make his own mark.

“Hell,” he cursed. He’d been a fool and let the only woman who had come close to touching a part of him he didn’t want to know existed—that nebulous essence that was his soul—get away from him. He’d figured that out a couple of years later, but Thorne had never been one to look back and second-guess himself. He’d told himself there would be another woman someday—when he was ready.

Of course he’d never found her.

And he hadn’t even worried about it until he’d seen Nikki Sanders again, remembered how it felt to kiss her, and the phrase what if had entered his mind. If he’d stuck by her, married her, had children by her, his father wouldn’t have gone to his grave without grandchildren. “Stop it,” he growled to himself.

* * *

Nicole let out her breath as she walked through the maze that was St. James. She was still unsettled and shaken. Used to dealing with anxious, sometimes even grieving relatives, she hadn’t expected that she would have such an intense and disturbing reaction to Thorne McCafferty.

“He’s just a man,” she grumbled, taking the stairs. “That’s all.”

But she met men every day of the week. All kinds from all walks of life and none of them caused anywhere near this kind of response.

Was it because he had been her first lover? Because he nearly broke her heart? Because he left her, not because of another woman, not because he had any good reason, just because she didn’t mean enough to him?

“Fool,” she muttered under her breath as she pushed open the door to the floor where her office was housed.

“Excuse me?” a janitor who was walking down the hall asked.

“Nothing. Talking to myself.” She offered the man an embarrassed smile and continued to her office, where she plopped into her desk chair and stared at the monitor of her computer. The notes that had filled her head only an hour earlier seemed scattered to the wind and she couldn’t budge thoughts of Thorne from her brain. In her silly, very feminine mind’s eye she saw him with the clarity of young, loving eyes. Oh, she’d adored him. He was older. Sophisticated. Rich. One of the McCafferty scoundrels—bad boys every one, who had been known to womanize, smoke, drink and generally raise hell in their youths.

Handsome, arrogant and cocky, Thorne had found easy access to her naive heart. The only daughter of a poor, hardworking woman who pushed for and expected perfection, Nicole had, at seventeen, been ripe for rebellion. And then she’d stumbled onto Thorne.

She’d fallen stupidly head over heels in love, nearly throwing all of her own hopes and dreams away on the rakish college boy.

Blowing her bangs out of her eyes she shook her head to dislodge those old, painful and humiliating memories. She’d been so young. So mindlessly sophomoric, caught up in romantic fantasies with the least likely candidate for a long-term relationship in the state.

“Don’t even think about it,” she reminded herself, moving the mouse of her computer and studying the screen while memories of making love to him under the star-studded Montana sky swept through her mind. His body had been young, hard, muscular and sheened in sweat. His eyes had been silver with the moon glow, his hair unkempt.

And now he was some kind of corporate hotshot.

Like Paul. She glanced down at her hands and was relieved to see that the groove her wedding ring had once carved in her finger had disappeared in the past two years. Paul Stevenson had been climbing the corporate ladder so fast, he’d lost track of his wife and young daughters.

She suspected Thorne wasn’t much different.

When she’d moved back to Grand Hope a year ago, she’d known his family was still scattered around the state, but she’d thought Thorne was long gone and hadn’t expected to come face-to-face with him. According to the rumors circulating through Grand Hope like endless eddies and whirlpools, Thorne had finished law school, linked up with a firm in Missoula, then moved to California and finally wound up in Denver where he was the executive for a multinational corporation. He’d never married, had no children that anyone knew of, and had been linked to several beautiful, wealthy, career-minded women over the years, none of whom had lasted on his arm too long before they’d been replaced with a newer model.

Yep. Thorne was a lot like Paul.

Except that you’re still attracted to him, aren’t you? One look, and your gullible heart started pounding all over again.

“Stop it!” she growled and forced herself to concentrate. This wasn’t like her. She’d been known to be single-minded when it came to her work or her children and she found the distraction of Thorne McCafferty more than a little disconcerting. She couldn’t, wouldn’t fall victim to his insidious charms again. With renewed conviction, she ignored any lingering thoughts of Thorne and undid the clasp holding her hair in place. No doubt she’d have to deal with him later and at the thought her heart alternately leaped and sank. “Great,” she told herself as she finger-combed her hair. “Just…great.”

Right now facing Thorne again seemed an insurmountable challenge.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Thorne was still smarting from the tongue-lashing he’d received from a very sturdily built and strong-willed nurse who allowed him one glimpse of Randi’s infant, then ushered him out of the pediatric intensive care unit. Thorne had peered through thick glass to an airy room where two newborns were sleeping in plastic bassinets. Randi’s boy had lain under lamps, a shock of red-blond hair sticking upward, his tiny lips moving slightly as he breathed. To his utter surprise, Thorne had felt an unexpected pull on his heartstrings and he’d promptly advised himself that idiocy ran in the McCafferty family. Nonetheless Thorne had stared at the baby, so tiny, so mystifying, so innocent and unaware of all the turmoil he had caused.

As he’d left the pediatric unit Thorne wondered about the man who had fathered the child. Who was he? Shouldn’t he be contacted? Was Randi in love with him? Or…had she hidden her pregnancy and the fact that she was involved with someone from her brothers for a reason?

Thorne didn’t care. He’d find out about the kid’s father if it killed him. And he couldn’t sit idle just waiting for Randi to recover. No, there was too much to do. Ramming his hands into his coat pockets, he took a flight of stairs to the first floor.

“Think,” he ordered himself and a plan started forming in his mind. First he had to make sure that both Randi and her child were on the road to recovery, then he’d hire a private investigator to look into his sister’s life. Wincing at the thought of prying into Randi’s private business, he rationalized that he had no choice. In her current state, Randi couldn’t help herself. Nor could she care for her child.

Thorne would have to locate the baby’s father, interview the son of a bitch, then set up a trust fund for the kid.

Already planning how to attack the “Randi situation” as he’d begun to think of it, he shouldered open a door to the parking lot. Outside, the wind raged. Ice-cold raindrops beat down from a leaden sky. He hiked his collar more closely around his neck and ducked his head. Skirting puddles, he strode toward his vehicle—a Ford pickup that was usually garaged at the ranch’s airstrip.

Then he saw her.

Running to her car, her briefcase held over her head, Dr. Nicole Stevenson—Nikki Sanders once upon a time—dashed toward a white four-wheel-drive that was parked in a nearby lot.

Rain ran down his neck and dripped off his nose as he watched her. Her hair was no longer pinned to the back of her head, but caught in the wind. Her stark white lab coat had been replaced by a long leather jacket cinched firmly around her waist.

Without thinking, Thorne swept across the puddle-strewn lot. “Nikki!”

She looked up and he was stunned. “Oh. Thorne.” With raindrops caught in the sweep of her eyelashes and her blond-streaked hair tossed around her face in soft layers, she was more gorgeous than he remembered. Raindrops slipped down sculpted cheekbones to a small mouth that was set in a startled pout.

For a split second he thought of kissing her, but quickly shoved that ridiculous thought from his mind.

She jabbed her key into the SUV’s lock. “What’re you doing lurking around out here?”

“Maybe I was waiting for you,” he said automatically—actually flirting with her. For the love of God, what had gotten into him?

He saw her eyes round a bit, then one corner of her mouth lifted in sarcasm. “Try again.”

“Okay, how about this? I just got finished dealing with Nurse Ratched up in Pediatrics and was tossed out on my ear.”

“Someone intimidated you?” One eyebrow lifted in disbelief. “I don’t think so.” If she’d been teasing him before, she’d obviously thought better of it and her smile fell away. She yanked open the door and the interior light blinked on. “Now…was there something you wanted?”

You, he thought, then chided himself. What the devil was he thinking? What they’d shared was long over. “I didn’t get your home number.”

“I didn’t give it to you.”

“Because of your husband?”

“What? No.” She shook her head. “There is no husband, not anymore.” She was standing between the car and open door, waiting, her hair turning dark with the rain. His heart raced. She was single. “You can reach me here,” she said. “If it’s an emergency, the hospital will page me.”

“I’d feel better if I could—”

“Look, Thorne,” she said pointedly. “I understand that you’re a man used to getting your way, of being in charge, of making things happen, but this time you can’t, okay? At least not with me, not any more, nor with St. James Hospital. So, if there’s nothing else, you’ll have to excuse me.” Her eyes weren’t the least bit warm and yet her lips, slick with rainwater, just begged to be kissed.

And, damn it, he reacted. Knowing that she’d probably slap him silly, he grabbed her, hauled her body close to his and bent his head so that his lips were suspended just above hers. “Okay, Nikki,” he said as he felt her tense. “I excuse you.” Then he kissed her, pressed his mouth over hers and felt a second’s surrender when her lips parted and her breath mingled with his as rain drenched them both. The scent of her perfume teased his nostrils and memories of making love to her over and over again burned through his brain. Dear God, how she’d responded to him then, just as she was now. He was lost in the feel of her and old emotions escaped from the place where he’d so steadfastly locked them long ago. With a groan, he kissed her harder, deeper, his arms tightening around her.

Her entire body stiffened. She jerked her head away as if she’d been burned. “Don’t,” she warned, her voice husky, her lips trembling a bit. She swallowed hard, then leaned back to glare up at him. “Don’t ever do this again. This—” she raised a hand only to let it fall “—this was uncalled-for and…and entirely…entirely inappropriate.”

“Entirely,” he agreed, not releasing her.

“I mean it, Thorne.”

“Why? Because I scare you?”

“Because whatever you and I shared together is over.”

He lifted a doubting eyebrow as rain drizzled down his face. “Then why—?”

“Over!” Her eyes narrowed and she pulled out of his embrace. Though he wanted nothing more than to drag her close again, he let her go and tamped down the fire that had stormed through his blood, the pulse of lust that had thudded in his brain and caused a heat to burn in his loins. “I don’t know what happened to you in the past seventeen years, but believe me, you should take some lessons in subtlety.”

“Should I? Maybe you could give them to me.”

“Me?” She let out a whisper of a laugh. “Right. Just don’t hold your breath.”

She slid into the interior of the car and reached for the door handle. Before she could yank the door closed, he said, “Okay, maybe I was outta line.”

“Oh? You think?”

“I know.”

“Good, then it won’t happen again.” She crammed her key into the ignition, muttered something about self-important bullheaded men, twisted her wrist and sent him a look that was meant to cut to the quick. The SUV’s engine sputtered, then died. “Don’t do this to me,” she said and he wondered if she was talking to him or her rig. “Don’t do this to me now.” She turned the key again and the engine ground but didn’t catch. “Damn.”

“If you need a ride—”

“It’ll start. It’s just temperamental.”

“Like its owner.”

“If you say so.” She took a deep breath, snapped her seat belt into place and grabbed the handle of her door. “Good night, Thorne.” She yanked the door closed, turned the key again and finally the rig roared to life. Pressing on the gas pedal, she revved the engine and rolled down the window. “I’ll let you know if there are any changes in your sister’s condition.” With that she tore out of the parking lot and Thorne, watching the taillights disappear, mentally kicked himself.

He’d been a fool to grab her.

And yet he knew he’d do it again.

If given half a chance.

Yep, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Chapter 3

“God help me,” Nicole whispered, trying to understand why in the world Thorne would embrace her so intimately and more to the point, why didn’t she stop him. Because you wanted him to, you idiot.

As she wheeled out of the parking lot, she glanced in the rearview mirror, and saw him standing beneath a security light. Tall, broad-shouldered, bareheaded, rain dripping from the tip of his nose and the hem of his coat, he watched her leave. “Cocky son of a gun,” she muttered, flipping on her blinker and joining the thin stream of traffic. She hoped Thorne Almighty McCafferty got soaked to the skin. She switched her windshield wipers to a faster pace to keep up with the rain. Who was he to barge in on her, to question her and the hospital’s integrity and then…and then have the audacity, the sheer arrogance, to grab her as if she were some weak-willed, starry-eyed, spineless…ninny!

Oh, like the girl you once were, the one he remembered?

She blushed and her fingers curled around the steering wheel in a death grip. She’d worked hard for years to overcome her shyness, to become the confident, scholarly, take-charge emergency room physician she was today and Thorne McCafferty seemed hell-bent to change all that. Well, she wouldn’t let him. No way. No how. She wasn’t the little girl he’d left a lifetime ago—her broken heart had mended.

As she braked for a red light, she flipped on the radio, fumbled with the stations until she heard a melody that was familiar—Whitney Houston singing something she should know—and tried to calm down. Why she let Thorne get to her, she didn’t understand.

She cranked the wheel and turned into a side street where the neon lights and Western facade of Montana Joe’s Pizza Parlor came into view.

She pulled into the lot, raced inside and waited in line between five or six other patrons whose raincoats, parkas and ski jackets dripped water onto the tile floor in front of the take-out counter. A gas flame hissed in the fireplace in one corner of the room that was divided by fences into different seating areas. Pickaxes and shovels and other mining memorabilia were tacked to bare cedar walls and in one corner, Montana Joe, a stuffed bison, stared with glassy eyes at the patrons who were listening to Garth Brooks’s latest hit while drinking beer and eating hot, stringy pizza made with Joe’s “secret” tomato sauce.

As Nicole stood in line and dug into her wallet to check how much cash she was carrying, she couldn’t help but overhear some of the conversation of the other patrons. Two men in front of her were discussing the previous Friday’s high school football game. From the sound of it the Grand Hope Wolverines were edged out by an arch rival in a nearby town though there was some dispute over a few of the calls. Typical.

Other conversations buzzed around her and she heard the name McCafferty more often than she wanted to. “Terrible accident…half sister, you know…pregnant, but no mention of a father and no husband…always was bad blood in that family…what goes around comes around, I tell you…”

Nicole grabbed a menu from the counter and turned her attention from the gossip that swirled around her. Though Grand Hope had grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years and had become a major metropolis by Montana standards, it was still, at its heart, a small town, where many of the citizens knew each other. She placed her order, lingered near the jukebox and listened to three or four songs ranging from Patsy Cline to Wynona Judd, then, once her name was called, picked up her pizza and refused to think about any member of the McCafferty family—especially Thorne. He was off-limits. Period. The reason she’d responded to his kiss was simple. It had been over two years since she’d kissed any man and at least five since she’d felt even the tiniest spark of passion. She didn’t even want to think how long it had been since she’d been consumed with desire—that particular thought led her back to a path that she didn’t want to follow, a path heading straight back to her youth and Thorne. She was just susceptible right now, that was all. Nothing more. It had nothing to do with chemistry. Nothing.

Once in her SUV again, she twisted on the key and the engine refused to fire. “Come on, come on,” she muttered. She tried again, pumping the gas frantically and mentally chiding herself for not taking the rig into the shop for its regular maintenance. “You can do it,” she encouraged and finally, on the fourth attempt, the engine caught. “Tomorrow,” she promised, patting the dash as if comforting the vehicle, as if that would help. “I’ll take you in. Promise.”

On the road again, Nicole drove through the side streets to her little cottage on the outskirts of town. Her stomach rumbled as the tangy scents of melting cheese and spicy sauce filled the rig’s interior and her mind, damn it, ran back to Thorne and the feel of his lips on hers. He was everything she despised in a man: arrogant, competitive, in control and determined—a real corporate Type A and the kind of man she had learned to avoid like the plague. But beneath his layer of pride and his take-charge mentality, she’d caught glimpses of a more complex man, a gentler soul who stumbled through the awkwardness of talking to his comatose sister. He’d tried to communicate with Randi, the back of his neck flushing in embarrassment, his steely gray eyes conveying a sense of raw pain at his sister’s condition—as if he somehow blamed himself for her accident.

“Don’t read more into it than there is,” she warned herself as she cranked the wheel and braked in her driveway. She pulled to a stop in front of her garage and made a mental note that between helping at preschool, the twins’ dance lessons, the housework and the grocery shopping, she should call a roofer for a bid on the sagging roof.

Juggling her briefcase and boxed pizza, she made a mad dash to the back porch and was able to unlock the door, then shove it open with her hip.

Patches, her black-and-white cat, streaked through the opening and Nicole nearly tripped on the speeding feline. Tiny footsteps thundered through the house. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” the twins cried, flying pell-mell into the kitchen and sliding on the yellowed linoleum as Patches slunk down the bedroom hallway. Molly and Mindy were dressed in identical pink-and-white-checked sleepers that zipped up the front and covered their feet in attached slippers. Their hair was wet and curled in dark-brown ringlets around cherubic faces and bright brown eyes.