“Do you like being a doctor?”
“Yeah, especially here. I get to do a little of everything and sort of take over the surrogate dad role old Doc Seymour played—even though I’m too young for it,” he added with a laugh.
Reid as a dad—surrogate or otherwise. Not a subject she wanted to get anywhere near.
As if he’d thought the same thing after making that comment, he glanced at his watch and said, “I should go.”
Chloe didn’t dispute it. But she did say, “No more pizza?” And she said it with a touch too much hopefulness in her tone.
“I think I’ve had my limit,” he answered, closing the lid on the box. “Besides, the leftovers will give you something to eat around here. Didn’t you always claim that was your favorite breakfast?”
“Mmm, cold pizza—it’s a treat,” she confirmed.
He got to his feet then and so did she, keeping her distance as he put on his coat. But she did follow behind as he headed for the door so she could lock it after him.
He didn’t go out, though. He stopped there, and with one hand on the knob, he met her gaze.
“This was okay,” he seemed to conclude.
Not an accolade but under the circumstances Chloe took it as high praise.
“It was okay,” she agreed.
“So do you think we can do this? Let bygones be bygones or something?”
“What do you think?” she asked. “I mean, do you think you can let bygones be bygones? Or something?”
He studied her for a long moment with those brilliant green eyes. And while they still didn’t look at her the way they had fourteen years ago, they also didn’t look at her the way they had the night before or that morning. And that was a relief. Even if she did still yearn a little for more.
“I can give it a try,” he said when he finally did answer.
“I’d like that,” Chloe responded quietly.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then. How early can I start without disturbing you?”
“Anytime. Just use the key Betty gave you and come in. Even if it’s before I’m awake I can’t hear much of anything upstairs and I’ll probably sleep through it.”
“Okay, but I’ll be especially quiet until I know you’re up.”
She nodded.
“Good night, then.”
“Get home safely,” she joked, making him smile a little again.
For another moment they remained standing there, not too far apart, just looking at each other.
As they did, Chloe couldn’t help recalling so many other times when they’d said good-night at her door much like that. Only then he would have kissed her.
He would have kissed her in a way that would have filled her with a special kind of heat. That would have made her feel like his and his alone…
And of course that didn’t happen tonight.
Instead Reid broke the glance first, looking at the handle as he turned it to open the door.
“Thanks for the pizza,” she said belatedly.
“Sure,” he answered as he went out into the clear autumn night.
Then he closed the door behind him and Chloe stepped up to lock it.
When she did she could feel the warmth of his hand lingering on the knob and all on their own her eyes closed and she absorbed that sensation, picturing those other nights, those kisses that had sent her to bed with a smile on her face.
Those kisses…
She couldn’t help wondering if those kisses were anything like Reid’s kisses now. Or if, as had happened with his looks, his kisses had changed and matured, too.
And even though it was completely uncalled for, even though it was its own kind of torture for her, she also couldn’t help—in a secret, forbidden place deep inside of her—wishing she’d gotten a taste of his kiss, old or new, tonight.
Chapter Four
“Don’t get scared—I’m coming up.”
Chloe heard Reid’s warning from the bottom of the stairs to the attic. The sound of his deep voice and the thought that he was on his way to see her were enough to make her pulse race.
There was nothing she could do to slow her heartbeat; she just tried not to pay attention to it. Or to the fact that it meant she was glad he was coming to see her.
It was after seven o’clock Tuesday evening and although they’d both been in the house all day, they hadn’t actually connected. Chloe had been awake, lying in bed when she’d heard the front door open at 8:00 a.m. Moments later she’d also heard Reid climb the steps to the second floor, stop just outside of her bedroom door and then go back downstairs, leaving the scent of fresh coffee to drift in to her.
Curiosity had prompted her to get up and peek out the bedroom door where she’d found a foam cup full of wake-up-call waiting just outside.
She’d called a “Thank you!” in Reid’s wake, he’d hollered back, “You’re welcome,” and that was that. They hadn’t set eyes on each other.
Since coffee was frequently all she had for breakfast, she’d decided to skip the cold pizza and merely make the hot beverage her meal. Sipping it after she’d showered and dressed for the day, she’d gone directly to the attic.
When she’d stopped for lunch and finally trespassed into Reid’s territory downstairs, he’d been on his cell phone, apparently discussing a medical case. So Chloe had merely waved to him, snatched a slice of the cold pizza and a soda from the fridge and returned to the attic to eat while she attempted to put some sort of order to what she needed to do there.
Which was where she was and what she was doing still when he appeared in the doorway at that moment.
“Hi,” she greeted, slipping her hair behind her ears as she glanced up from the small stool where she was sitting in the middle of the attic floor.
“Hi to you, too,” he responded. “You’ve been up here so long without even poking your nose out that I was beginning to wonder if I should check and see if a giant attic rat had taken you prisoner.”
Chloe laughed and wrinkled her nose at the same time. “A giant attic rat? There better not be any rats up here, giant or otherwise.”
Reid came all the way into the attic, stopping not far from where she was and surveying the room.
As he did, she surveyed him. He was dressed almost exactly as he had been the day before—jeans and a white crewneck T-shirt, both of them similarly paint-stained. But unlike the previous evening, tonight his face was cleanly shaven, as if he’d left when the five o’clock shadow had appeared to remove it before coming back. Before climbing the steps to her.
Chloe liked the look of him both ways—scruffy and clean-shaven—but it gave her a bit of satisfaction to think that tonight he’d cared enough to do the second shave.
After a moment of studying the attic he said, “I was kind of surprised when we toured the house and saw how much stuff was up here.”
“Me, too. Apparently moving in a hurry leaves a lot behind.”
“It’s cleaner than it was when I initially saw it, but after all the hours you’ve put in, I thought you might have made a dent.”
“Yesterday was cleaning day—dust and cobweb duty. Today I’ve just been trying to get some idea of what I’m dealing with and how to organize it. Once I’d