Like this surreal encounter? He glanced around again, really taking in his surroundings this time. Standing in his tuxedo in a roomful of costumed adults, Kaleb felt out of sorts. And definitely out of place. Especially when there was what looked like a deflated cat’s head on the ground beside a beautiful woman.
Even as the thought went through his mind, she reached down and scooped up the mask, letting it sit in the crook of her left arm. “Thank you again. I probably would have been better off going to the hospital’s fund-raiser instead. But I don’t do stuffy...”
The words cut off abruptly, and her teeth sank deep into her lower lip. Rich color swept all the way to her hairline.
Kaleb allowed one side of his mouth to curve up. “You don’t ‘do stuffy’—” he gestured around the room “—but you’ll do this.”
She laughed. And the sound cut straight to his gut. It was rich, melodic and made things tighten in awkward places. Her palms floated up and down, as if weighing her options. “Stuffed shirts or make-believe. I can’t decide.”
Suddenly, he wanted to hear that laugh again. He bent closer. “I would offer to take you upstairs and show you what you’re missing...” When her eyes widened, he realized how the suggestion sounded. “Upstairs, as in the party going on in the fifteenth-floor ballroom.”
“Oh.”
Was there a tiny bit of disappointment in that single word?
Of course not. It’s all in your imagination, bud.
“How about a cup of coffee instead? I want to make sure that asthma attack is all the way under control.”
“Coffee sounds wonderful, but I can’t go anywhere dressed like this. I need to go home and change.” She hesitated. “I have coffee there.”
He gave another half smile. “You do? Is that an invitation?”
“Well, I...I mean if you want to join me, that would be okay. And no one’s there at the moment.” She shook her head. “Well, I mean my cat is there, and my sister is...”
Her voice trailed away.
“Your sister is there? With the cat?”
“No.”
There went those white teeth nibbling at her lower lip again. “But the coffee is there. With the cat. Right?”
“Yes. Why don’t you stop by for a cup? It’s the least I can do to say thank you.”
“No thanks necessary, but I would love to. Especially if you won’t agree to run by the hospital for a quick checkup.”
Something told Kaleb he should be heading in the opposite direction, back toward the elevators...back up to the safety of the fifteenth floor, where his obligations lay. But something about seeing Madeleine in that suit made him want to find out if there were other things about her he didn’t know. Not that he knew her at all. But he wanted to. If only to satisfy his curiosity. So one cup of coffee it was. And then he would be on his way back to his own life. In his own high-rise apartment.
* * *
Maddy squirmed on the beige leather seat of Dr. Kaleb McBride’s luxury car. What had started out as a halfhearted invitation—one she had not expected him to accept—had somehow ended up with her riding beside him.
She could not believe she was bringing him—a man—to her place. It had been ages since she’d had a guy over. Well, Kaleb wasn’t a guy, exactly. He was a...a colleague. She had always been tongue-tied around the resident bad boy of West Seattle Hospital, so she’d learned the hard way to keep that tongue firmly planted on the bottom of her mouth. She’d allowed one man to reduce her to a stuttering mess. Never again.
Still, she couldn’t resist a quick sideways glance at the figure in the driver’s seat. Then she slouched lower into the smooth upholstery. There was a reason the nurses at West Seattle whispered about Kaleb long after he strode down their hallways.
Inky dark hair curled over the collar of the man’s equally black tux, and warm brown eyes had flirted with her as easily as he flirted with every other woman at the hospital. Only Maddy had usually been immune, switching on her anti-charm force field and aiming it at any man who ventured into her personal space. So far, it had worked. Up until now. When she’d forgotten to hit that internal panic button. Thanks to her asthma. The feel of Kaleb’s fingers cupping her chin as he’d administered her medication hadn’t helped any.
Okay, she could explain away all of that. She’d been oxygen deprived. But what she didn’t understand was why she hadn’t told the man the reason Roxy wasn’t at her apartment: it was because she’d gone on a girls’ night out, with the person Maddy loved more than anything on this earth. Her daughter.
None of that was any of his business, right? He was coming to her house to have a quick cup of coffee. To make sure her asthma attack really was over—just as he’d said. There was no need to tell him about Chloe. It wasn’t as if her daughter were a deep dark secret. Her friends at the hospital all knew about her.
But not the circumstances surrounding her birth.
She shook off the thought. That was behind her. A year had gone by since she’d moved to this city, and she loved it here. It was huge, compared to what she was used to. She could actually get lost here. Well, not lost, but she could blend in. No one knew anything about her. Not like in the tiny town of Gamble Point, Nebraska, where you “couldn’t belch without the whole county knowing about it,” according to her father. She still missed him.
She needed to call her mom to let her know she was still okay. Still out of reach. She had Roxy to thank for that. Her sister had given her a precious gift: a new beginning in a brand-new city. She owed her big-time. And if putting on a slinky cat costume could help cover a little of that debt, Maddy would do it a hundred times over.
“Are you cool enough?”
“Wh—what?” She glanced over to find Kaleb fiddling with the climate-control buttons. “Oh, yes. I’m fine, thank you.”
This was a stupid idea. She should just have him drop her off at the nearest corner. She could catch a cab back to her place.
But it was too late, and if she tried to explain now she’d only wind up blurting out something that would make her look like a foolish child. As if she hadn’t already looked like one when he’d come across her splayed on the ground in her costume.
Debt or no debt, Roxy was going to pay for that for sure. Although watching Chloe’s eyes light up when she’d seen her dressed up as a sexy cat had made the whole fiasco of an evening a little less humiliating.
“Go down two more stoplights and then turn left. My building will be on the right.” In truth, she also didn’t want to have to call Roxy and admit that she hadn’t lasted even an hour. Barely even twenty minutes. Nor had she met her date. But none of that was her fault. Something in the costume had messed up her airways. But she had a feeling Roxy would think she’d simply wimped out on her.
Well, too bad. Maddy was a grown woman who could make her own decisions. And leaving her hometown with her daughter had been one of those decisions. Matthew hadn’t even tried to follow them. Then again, he’d be arrested if he came within a hundred yards of her, according to the courts. He wasn’t allowed to see Chloe. In fact, he hadn’t even asked to visit her. And if Maddy had her way, he’d never get the chance. Too much tainted water had passed under that particular bridge. Her ex had never wanted to have kids in the first place...had been disgusted when her birth control—because he couldn’t be bothered to think about those kinds of things—had failed. As her pregnant body had begun to change, his disgust had morphed into something sinister. Something...
She shook herself from her thoughts just as Kaleb pulled up to the entry of her modest apartment