“Just give me a few minutes.”
He started to say no. She was sure of it, but she stuck out her hand and touched his arm. His blue chambray shirtsleeve was worn. His muscle was firm and warm beneath her palm. Kathryn didn’t know what the heck she was doing. She felt reckless and stupid and awkward, as she always had around him, but …
“We’ve already wasted several minutes arguing. Wouldn’t it be easier just to listen to me?”
“I have the feeling that nothing about this will be easy.”
So did she. “Just a few minutes,” she prompted.
“All right. Let’s get this over with. Sit. Talk.” He turned a chair backward, straddled it and looked at his watch. “You have ten minutes. No more.”
Kathryn swallowed hard and tried to find the right words. For the first time in her life she had Holt Calhoun’s attention and she couldn’t afford to waste the opportunity. There was too much at stake.
Holt felt like a volcano, bubbling hot and on the verge of blowing up everything around him. What in hell had the mayor been thinking when she’d recommended that he be the one to help Kathryn Ellis? And what was this about, anyway? Some nonsense about a clinic and donors, whatever that meant.
He wanted this conversation to be over, but he’d promised her ten minutes. And just look at her. Despite being heavily pregnant, which brought back terrible memories he didn’t even want to acknowledge, she was slender, bone-china fragile, and when she looked at him …
He noticed how her dark blond hair, streaked with a hundred shades of wheat, kissed her delicate jaw, how those big gray eyes looked so anxious. Despite her determined words, this woman looked as if a sharp wind could break her, both physically and emotionally. And then there was the fact that she was pregnant. That made her the last person in the world a man like him should be around. He’d seen her from a distance in town after the mayor had mentioned the situation, so he’d already decided that this wasn’t happening. And not just because he didn’t want to do what he’d heard she wanted him to do.
“Ms. Ellis,” he began.
“I’m Kathryn. You knew me when I was a teenager.”
He’d known who she was. Vaguely. A skinny, scared-looking little creature. That’s all he remembered. And by calling her by her last name he’d been trying to create distance, to make a point. “Ms. Ellis,” he said determinedly. “I’m afraid you’ve been led astray.”
“Johanna said you had business and political contacts that no one else in town has. Is that true?”
“It may be. But it’s irrelevant.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard why I’m here.”
He knew what he’d heard. The town already had a clinic, so …
“Why don’t you just spell it out?”
“I’m trying to get a new medical clinic built in Larkville. And lure a permanent doctor here. To do that, we may need the help of influential people.”
“Johanna’s the mayor. She has political contacts.”
“She’s the mayor of a town of less than two thousand. Her influence is limited. Your family name is known by people in high places.”
“I don’t suck up to them. I don’t ask favors. Ever.” He glared at her.
“I’m not asking you to—to prostitute yourself,” she said, all prim and librarian-like. Her eyelashes drifted down, just a bit before she righted them. Her slender hands were in tight fists. She was clearly nervous. Because she was determined to drag a yes from him or because he was out-and-out scaring her?
Holt wanted to let loose with a string of blue curses. He was rotten at situations like this, at dealing with women with expectations. He’d learned from his mother, his father, from his former fiancée, Lilith, that needing, caring, wanting too deeply, expecting too much, came with a hefty price tag. Emotion could cripple. He knew that. He’d paid that price before and was still paying it. So while he was used to doing all kinds of favors as the owner of the Double Bar C and he did them willingly, he kept things cut and dried, light, easy, uncomplicated by emotions. And he didn’t ask for favors himself. He was pretty sure based on what he’d heard that Kathryn Ellis was asking him to break several of his unbreakable rules. Be the giver, not the recipient. Remain in control of the situation at all times. Never let emotion enter into a deal.
“You’ll have to be more specific than that,” he told her. “Just what are you asking me to do?”
“I want you to help me get the clinic off the ground. I want you to help me get funding.”
“Which will most likely mean prostituting myself, as you put it.”
“Not necessarily. Some people will give out of the goodness of their hearts.”
“For a clinic that will only benefit one very small town.”
“It’s your hometown.”
“It’s not their hometown. You’re talking about people who have a million life-or-death causes pounding on their doors every day.”
Kathryn blinked. She bit her lip. “I suppose that’s true, but … you’re Holt Calhoun. You could convince them.”
The way she said that made it sound as if he could do anything. And no one knew better than he did how wrong that was. Pain sliced through him like a razor. Easy. Devastating. He slapped the flat of his hand against the porch post. “Dammit. Lady, I may not know much about you, but you obviously don’t know me at all.”
She looked to the side as if he’d embarrassed her. Maybe he had. Tact wasn’t his strong suit. And frankly, he didn’t care.
“We need a doctor,” she said. “I work part-time in Dr. Cooper’s office. He’s moving to California to be near his son, and then there’ll be no one. And the clinic, if you want to call a two-room building with an examination room the size of a closet a clinic, is crumbling.”
“I’ve heard that it’s slightly outdated.” But only in passing when Wes, his foreman, had gone in for some minor treatment.
“It’s more than outdated. It’s inadequate, and once Dr. Cooper leaves, we’re never going to be able to lure another doctor here to work in such a tumbledown facility.”
“I see. But Austin is only forty miles away and there are doctors there.”
She crossed her arms. It made her ample breasts more noticeable, and also emphasized her heavily rounded belly. She was a pretty woman, a delicate one, and her pregnancy only seemed to emphasize that delicate beauty. He could have slapped himself for noticing any of those things. “In an emergency, forty miles might as well be four hundred,” she pointed out.
“I see, Ms. Ellis. You’re concerned about the trip to the hospital.” He did his best not to think of another situation, another pregnant woman. Anger, dark and reckless, filled his soul.
“Stop that,” she said. “Stop pretending you don’t know my name. And this isn’t for me. I’m due to deliver in a matter of weeks. By the time the clinic is built … if it’s built,” she emphasized, turning those big, plaintive eyes on him, “I’ll be long gone.”
That got his attention. “Let me get this straight. You want to build a clinic in a town you don’t even intend to live in. Why?”
“I have my reasons. They don’t matter. They’re not the point.”
And she clearly wasn’t going to share them. That was okay. A man like him who never shared his innermost thoughts couldn’t blame someone else for holding back. Still, now that they’d slid past the topic of her pregnancy, he could deal with reality. He wasn’t the answer to anyone’s