House Calls Read online

  “Yeah, we do,” he agreed.

  “When you’re not being bossy and overbearing,” she added.

  He gave her a wry smile. “Yeah, because we both know you don’t have a bossy bone in your body.”

  She smiled. The truth was, she liked that he kept her on her toes. It made life interesting. She’d never had a roommate like Pete before. And while she’d had lots of male friends over the years, there was something more than that with him.

  Something…special.

  He took a bite of fish, chewing slowly, eyes fixed on his plate. “By the way, I wanted to um, talk to you about last night.”

  She forced herself to take another bite. “What about it?”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  Chew…chew…swallow. “What for?”

  “For waking you. For making you feel like you had to stay with me.”

  She’d kind of expected him to be embarrassed about the nightmare. It probably made him feel weak, and, like most men she knew, Pete hated feeling weak.

  She took another bite. “Do you have nightmares a lot?”

  “At first I did. Almost every night. They stopped after a couple of months. Now they’re back.”

  Bite. Chew…chew…swallow. “Did it help having me there?”

  “Yeah, it did, but—”

  “Then don’t worry about it. I didn’t mind.” Bite. Chew…chew…swallow. If she thought of eating as a process, and forgot about the ramifications, it was a little easier to do. “Out of curiosity, have you ever talked to anyone about it?”

  “About my dreams?”

  “No, about the shooting.”

  He shrugged. “What’s to talk about? It happened, now it’s over. I’ve dealt with it.”

  “Have you really?”

  “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Maggie.”

  “It was only a suggestion. Just know that I’m here to talk if you need to.”

  They ate in silence for several minutes, until Maggie’s plate was nearly empty. And she felt full. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten until she was satisfied. But instead of satisfied, she began to feel edgy and panicked, like she’d just done something reprehensible. Like she needed to get the food out of her body, before it broke down and turned into fat. She could practically feel the fat cells forming and sticking to her insides. The waist of her shorts felt too tight and her top stretched snugly over her stomach.

  Pete had piled twice the amount of food she’d had on his plate and had eaten every bite, down to the last grain of rice, but he wouldn’t be gaining any weight.

  It was so unfair.

  What was wrong with being a little underweight, anyway? Maybe if she promised not to lose any more weight they would let her stay the way she was. How bad could it be really? There were lots of skinny people in the world.

  The panic multiplied. Her stomach clutched, feeling bloated and overfull. Sweat popped out on her brow and she felt nauseated. She glanced in the direction of the bathroom. Would it really hurt, just this once…?

  “Don’t even think about it,” Pete said sharply and Maggie jumped at the sound of his voice.

  “Th-think about what?”

  “Losing your dinner. It’s not going to happen, so just forget it.”

  She made an indignant noise. “Now you think I’m bulimic?”

  “All I know is that you look like you’re about to crawl out of your skin, and you keep glancing in the direction of the bathroom. But I won’t let you do it. If I have to duct-tape your mouth shut, I will.”

  She resented the implication, but what bothered her even more, what had fear gripping her, was that he was right. She was actually considering making herself throw up. Suppose she did do it this one time. What would stop her from doing it a second time and a third?

  “I’ve seen first-hand what happens to women who binge and purge, Maggie. Trust me when I say, it’s not a pretty sight. It’s a control issue. And once you start, it’s nearly impossible to stop, not without intensive therapy. Is that what you want?”

  She sucked in an unsteady breath and clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. He was right, she wasn’t used to this feeling of helplessness. She might have made her share of mistakes, but she’d always been in control of her life. She felt as if that had suddenly been snatched away.

  “You’ll get through this,” Pete said. There was so much compassion in his eyes it made her go all mushy inside. He leaned across the table and put a hand over both of hers. “We both will.”

  The fact that she wasn’t in this alone, that in a small way he understood what she was going through, made it a little less scary. She wondered what might have happened if Pete hadn’t been there to boss her around. Would she have had the ability to see what she was doing to herself, or would she have just kept losing weight until there was nothing left of her?

  Ten

  Maggie flopped on her stomach, driving her fists into the pillow in a fit of pure frustration. This was the fourth night since Pete had taken her to the hospital that she couldn’t sleep. The fourth night she’d tossed and turned until she felt like screaming and banging her head against the wall. She wasn’t sure if it was the sudden lack of activity or the abnormally high calorie intake or the fact that she felt as though her life was spinning out of control. Whatever it was, it was driving her crazy.

  She heard a noise from the other room and pushed herself up on her elbows to listen. Pete hadn’t had a nightmare in days. He’d begun work at the clinic on Tuesday, as promised. After his shift, when he got home, she’d asked him how it went and he gave her a noncommittal shrug. She hadn’t pushed. She knew when he was ready to talk about it he would.

  Sure enough, during dinner, as she forced herself to choke down a grilled chicken breast and a baked potato, he mentioned how swamped he’d been with patients.

  “You wouldn’t believe how many people can’t afford decent health care,” he’d said. “Without the clinic these people would have no place else to go. I had a little boy in today suffering from recurring ear infections. He’s had so many he has significant hearing loss.”

  “Can you help him?”

  “He needs a myringotomy. It’s a simple out-patient procedure, but his parents don’t have health insurance. Without insurance it could cost thousands. His mother said her husband was laid off and they’re barely making ends meet as it is. They just can’t afford it.”

  “What about public assistance?” she’d asked.

  “She makes enough money that they don’t qualify. In the ER we treat everyone, whether they have insurance or not, so I never really considered the effect a lack of insurance would have for non-emergency health care.”

  “So, what you’re doing there is good?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  That afternoon after work he’d told her about the other doctors who worked there and a few of his more interesting cases. “It’s kind of a challenge,” he said. “Trying to figure out the best and cheapest way to treat people. And the gratitude in their eyes…I feel like I’m really making a difference.”

  “You are, doc,” she had told him, and he’d smiled. For the first time since they’d come here she could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. She had real hope that Pete was beginning to accept his disability and his limitations.

  Herself, now, that was another story altogether.

  Maggie lowered her head back down on the pillow and closed her eyes, then she heard the noise again.

  “Rachel, no!”

  Oh, damn, Pete was having another nightmare.

  She scrambled out of bed and darted across the hall. She didn’t turn on the light this time, knowing she would get an eyeful if she did. And sure enough, as she stepped closer to the bed she could see that Pete was sprawled out, only half-covered by the sheet. She couldn’t see a lot in the dark, but she could see enough to know that he was naked. Even with Pete in this distressed state, she wasn’t immune to all that le
an muscle and tanned skin.

  His head thrashed across the pillow and he moaned in his sleep. She slipped into bed beside him, grabbed his shoulder, and gave it a shake. His skin was hot and slippery with perspiration. “Doc, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”

  He moaned and grimaced in his sleep.

  “Pete, wake up!”

  As he had the first time, Pete shot up in bed, his breath coming hard and fast.

  “It’s okay,” she said softly, smoothing her hands down his back. “It was just a dream.”

  He looked dazedly around, as if he wasn’t sure where he was. Then he blinked a few times and asked in a raspy voice, “What time is it?”

  She combed her fingers through his damp hair. “Two o’clock.”

  “I woke you again,” he said, dragging a hand over his face.

  “It’s okay. I was already awake.” She eased him back against the pillows. “Lie down, relax.”

  “Are you leaving?” There was a note of panic in his voice that made her smile. He wouldn’t ask her to stay, he was too proud for that. Too macho. But he wanted her to.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She scooted down beside him and he shifted closer, wrapping his arm around her waist and resting his head on her shoulder. She enjoyed this far too much for her own good. The sheet was tangled around his legs and she did her best to keep her eyes from wandering south. If this became a habit, the man was going to have to think about wearing pajamas to bed. A girl could only take so much of that body before her thoughts turned wicked.

  She was already ninety percent there.

  “You don’t have to stay,” he said, though he had an awfully tight grip on her. His breath was warm against her neck, the hand wrapped around her waist so large and sure.

  Things had been so uncertain for her lately, but here, lying with Pete, she felt…safe. Maybe she needed this as much as he did.

  “I’m staying,” she said.

  “I’m naked, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “I have my eyes closed.”

  He paused then asked, “Do you really?”

  “No, not really.”

  He chuckled lightly, and she knew he was feeling better. “Like you said, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, huh?”

  “Don’t forget, I’ve seen yours.”

  He was quiet for a second, then said, “That’s a little unfair, don’t you think?”

  “What is?”

  “That you’ve seen mine. To make it fair, you should show me yours.”

  Oh yeah, like that would ever happen. “Who ever said life is fair, doc?”

  He gripped her nightshirt, gathering the fabric in his hand, easing it up over her thighs. “Just one little peek…”

  She didn’t make a move to stop him, positive he was bluffing, or at the very least just trying to annoy her. And maybe a small part of her was intrigued by the idea of a little show and tell—until her shirt was up to her waist and he hooked his fingers in the top of her panties, lifting his head like he was really going to take a peek. Then she smacked his hand. Hard.

  “Ow!” he said, yanking his hand back, but she could hear a smile in his voice. “Jeez, you’re mean.”

  She tugged her nightshirt back down. “Try that again and you’re liable to lose that hand.”

  “Yeah, but it would be worth it,” he said, and the comment warmed her all over. If he was only saying it to be nice, to make her feel good, it had worked. That charm could play dangerous games with her head.

  He was quiet for a minute then asked, “Do you think this is weird? Us sleeping together? I’m assuming you don’t do this with your other patients.”

  She laughed softly. “No, this isn’t usually part of the therapy. Of course, I don’t move in with my other patients either. So, yes, I guess you could say the entire arrangement is a little weird.”

  “We’ve definitely transcended the typical therapist-patient relationship.”

  “Definitely.”

  “I think what we have is a lot more than a friendship, too.”

  “I do, too.”

  “You do know how much I care about you?”

  Not as much as I care about you, she wanted to say. Too much to be anything but friends. “I care about you, too,” she said.

  He settled his head back against her shoulder. “Maggie, why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just curious.”

  “I had a…bad experience.”

  “With a boyfriend?”

  “He was sort of my fiancé.”

  He rose up on one elbow and gazed at her through the dark. “This isn’t one of those stories that’s going to make me feel like punching something, is it?”

  “He was a patient.”

  “I thought you don’t get involved with patients.”

  “Normally no, and it wasn’t the first time one had a thing for me, but I really thought it was different with this guy. He really seemed to care about me.”

  “And…”

  “And I was wrong.” Yet another failure in the ever-growing list her mother had been keeping since Maggie had left the womb.

  When she’d started dating her ex, her mother had been ecstatic. He was attractive, successful—the perfect man in her mother’s eyes. When he’d asked Maggie to marry him, her parents had been over the moon with joy, and Maggie finally felt as if she had done something right, she’d pleased them—until her mother threw in a little disclaimer.

  “You finally have a chance at real happiness,” she told Maggie. “Don’t blow this.”

  As if the relationship had been destined to fail otherwise. And maybe it had been. Maybe she was really that unlovable, that undesirable.

  Telling her parents the wedding was off, that she’d been unceremoniously dumped, had been the most humiliating thing she’d ever had to do. And of course her mother saw it as another failure. Instead of drawing Maggie into her arms and soothing her, she’d berated her.

  “I should have known,” her mother had said, shaking her head. “I swear, Maggie, you do this on purpose just to hurt me.”

  Once again, she’d made it all about herself, how she felt. That had been the final straw for Maggie. It was the moment she realized that her mother didn’t care about her feelings and probably never would.

  “What happened?” Pete asked.

  “He met someone else,” she said. Someone thin and delicate and submissive.

  You’re so bossy, he used to tell her. Do you always have to be right? And he would nag her constantly about her weight. It was her mother all over again.

  But she’d stayed with him. It was that or disappoint her parents. However, she’d discovered, there were worse things than making her mother unhappy. Being stuck in a relationship with a man who would have made her miserable, who would have constantly fed her low self-esteem—that would have been the ultimate mistake.

  When she got over the hurt and realized how much better off she was, she was grateful he’d dumped her. She never would have had the courage to end it herself. And it had taught her an important lesson. Good things, happy relationships, didn’t happen to people like her.

  There was a long stretch of silence, then Pete said, “You know I would never hurt you, Maggie.”

  “People don’t usually go into a relationship intending to hurt someone,” she said. “But they still do.”

  “I like being with you. You’re so different from anyone I’ve been attracted to before.”

  “You’re in limbo, doc. Right now a lot of your world revolves around me. It’s normal to form attachments. When you’ve finished your therapy, the feeling will fade. Trust me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes,” she said, with a finality that shot a dagger of pain through his heart. “I do.”

  Pete woke with his hand cupped around something soft and warm. He didn’t have to open his
eyes to know it was still dark or that the warm body curled up beside him was Maggie. She lay in the crook of his body, pressed tightly against him, her head resting on his other arm, her cute little behind tucked intimately against his crotch with only a very thin pair of panties in between. He could feel her nightshirt bunched around her waist and the backs of her bare legs against his upper thighs. The soft thing in his hand was her breast, and he was more than a little aroused.

  Well, this was awkward. And wonderful.

  Her breathing was slow and deep, so he was guessing she was still asleep, giving him plenty of opportunity to rearrange them out of this compromising position. The problem was, he didn’t want to move. It just felt too damned good. She felt so warm and sweet in his arms. He liked this softer, vulnerable side. She was usually so capable and independent. Meaning, the instant she woke, he ran the very possible risk of getting an elbow jab to the ribs.

  Despite the inevitable consequences, the hand cupping her breast seemed to take on a will of its own. His thumb grazed slowly back and forth, until he felt the peak of her breast tighten into a rigid point. Maggie made a soft mewing sound and tucked her behind more firmly against him.

  He felt like a degenerate, taking advantage of her in her sleep. Of course, she’d wanted to stay, and he’d warned her their second day here that it had been a long time for him. Sleeping in the same bed, something like this had been bound to happen eventually. She’d had every opportunity to go back to her own room, so this couldn’t really be construed as his fault. And he hadn’t even opened his eyes, so technically he wasn’t awake yet. She couldn’t expect him to be responsible for his actions while he was asleep. Right?

  Any other excuses you can dredge up, Pete?

  He gave her breast a little squeeze. She sighed, wiggling her backside against him, and he struggled not to moan. He felt like a ticking bomb. A little more of her squirming just might be enough to set off an explosion.

  He felt like a hormonally challenged kid. It was taking every ounce of willpower he possessed not to rub himself up against her. Even he had limits on how blatantly inappropriately he would behave.