“Does that hurt?”
“Like somebody jabbing a red-hot poker in my eye,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Sorry,” she muttered tersely. “I’ll need an X ray to be sure, but I think you’ve just overdone it. It doesn’t appear to have been reinjured.”
“Could have told you that.”
“Humor me, Alex. I am the doctor here.”
She went to the other room and returned quickly with a portable X-ray unit. He clenched his teeth tightly together while Macy situated him and took the pictures. It seemed to take forever for the films to develop, but finally, they were ready.
That done, she slapped the films on the viewing screen and looked at them carefully. “Looks like you were lucky. There’s no swelling and I see no evidence of any new injury. We’ll just bandage it and then you can go home to rest.”
Macy reached into one of the cabinets and returned with a rolled elastic bandage.
“I can do it myself.”
“I’m sure you can, but I’m in charge here. You can do whatever you want with it as soon as you get home,” Macy said as she expertly wrapped his leg. “I want you to stay off this as much as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, saluting and giving her a wicked grin. “I do thank you for fixing me up.”
Macy smiled. “No, you’ve been much more help to me than I’ve been to you. What can I do to thank you?”
A dozen sexy responses whizzed through his mind, but he swallowed them all. Except for one. “You don’t have to do anything, but…” Block answered huskily as another wave of desire surged through him. He glanced at her from lowered lids. Her chestnut hair tumbled around her face, and he longed to run his fingers through those enticing tendrils. Would they feel as silky as they looked? He drew in a deep, long breath. There was a way she could pay him back. Did he dare ask?
Block swallowed. “We could call it even with one little kiss,” he said. “You know, for old times’ sake.”
Chapter Two
Macy swallowed. How could he ask her that? She didn’t want to travel down that road again, but how could she resist? Wasn’t this what she’d been thinking about since the very instant she’d seen him through the smoke and the rain at the ravaged trailer park? She swallowed again, then moistened her lips.
Why not get it over with? She had to prove to herself that she was over Alex Blocker once and for all.
“All right,” Macy said slowly. “One kiss. And then I want you to go home and get some rest.”
Alex looked down at her, a wicked half smile on his face. He seemed to be taking his time collecting what she owed him. Macy tried not to squirm under his unrelenting gaze, but she couldn’t. She moistened her lips again. Why was her mouth so dry when her hands were so damp?
Finally, she could stand it no more. She stood on tiptoe and reached for him, circling her hands around his broad shoulders, then shifting them to his muscular neck. She took in a deep breath and drew him to her.
His kiss was tender, light as the morning dew, but suddenly Macy wanted more, and she didn’t know why. She pressed against him, trying to get closer, to feel his hard chest against her. Macy wasn’t sure who had taken the lead, but did it matter? She had what she’d dreamed of for five, long years: Alex in her arms again.
Without realizing it, Macy let out a low moan. Was it of pleasure or pain? She wanted this to go on forever, but she knew it had to stop. What if a patient came in? Still, she would let it go on as long as Alex wanted.
Suddenly Alex pulled away with a wrenching groan of his own. “We can’t do this,” he said thickly. “This isn’t the right place.”
Macy stepped farther away, her face burning with embarrassment.
Alex turned his back to her as he struggled to tug on wet jeans with the drape still wrapped around his middle. He zipped his pants, then sat on the metal stool to put on his boots. The drape slid to the floor. As he struggled with his wet laces, he finally said, “I have issues to deal with. The job, you, my knee…everything. It’s late. We’re both exhausted. It isn’t the right…
“Hell, I don’t know what it is.” He shrugged, raised his hands in a helpless gesture, then turned slowly to face her.
“Thank you for seeing to my knee. If you need some help with repairs to the clinic, let me know. I’ll be at my grandmother’s.” Then he turned quickly and made his way out into the night.
Macy listened until she heard his car start, and she peeked through the window as the red taillights disappeared around the corner. She wished that would be the last of it. That he’d go away for another five years or five hundred, but she knew he wouldn’t. As long as Alex was around, neither her emotions nor her secret were safe.
He might not know it yet, but he would probably know by tomorrow. He’d be seeing a lot of her. After all, she lived next door to his grandmother. And that was going to be an enormous problem.
ALL BLOCK wanted to do was to go to bed and sleep the rest of the night away, but as he drove through the darkened streets of Lyndonville, all he could think about was Macy. Of what could have been. What should have been. And he wondered why it wasn’t.
He remembered the way she used to follow him and her brother C.J. around like a lost puppy. She’d had a crush on him then. When he was sixteen and Macy was eleven, her puppy love or hero worship had been a pain in the butt.
But now he was thirty-six, and she was thirty-one. They were way beyond the age of puppy love, and the sexual energy that seemed to sizzle between them was a sure indication that Macy felt the same attraction, whether she wanted to or not. And after that night five years ago following C.J.’s funeral, there could be no doubt that they could have something good.
He’d never understood women, and maybe he never would, but he wished he could figure Macy out. If there was one woman he could find worth getting to know, Macy was the one. Why was she being so uptight with him? There was something odd about that…considering what they’d done five years ago.
Without realizing it, Block had made his way back to his grandmother’s house. The power around town was still off, but a hurricane lamp shone with warm welcome in Gramma’s front window. He shut off the engine, locked the car, and accepted the welcome light’s invitation to come inside.
“You be quiet, now, y’ hear,” his grandmother said in a hushed whisper as Block stepped through the door.
He looked around through the dim light and spotted her sitting in an old rocker in the darkened living room. “What are you still doing up?” he said in a stage whisper.
She held a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” she said and pointed to a small bundle wrapped in a quilt and sleeping on the couch. “You’ll wake him.”
“Who’s that?”
“Hush now. You just go on to bed. I’m waiting up for his momma, then I’ll be on to bed, too.”
“All right. I’ll have to confess I’m too tired to argue.”
Gramma made a shooing motion with her hands. “Now go on to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Block wondered about that last remark, but figured that Gramma had noticed him limping. Those old eyes were still sharp, and she didn’t miss much. Still, he was curious about the kid sleeping on the couch.
Why was the kid’s mother out this late at night? Especially considering the storm and the power outage.
He pulled out of his damp clothes, hung them over a chair and crawled into the too-soft