He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her up to him. He consumed her with a kiss so hot, it melted her all the way from her core to her toes and the roots of the hair on her head. He started to undress her. Colleen didn’t protest this time. It felt too amazing, and besides, if she gave him enough practice, maybe he’d get used to the idea of her being the one to ravish him once in a while. A girl could always hope, anyway.
And it was a nice, long weekend…
The next day they lingered in bed until late morning. Eric had pulled back the draperies on the window that faced Lake Michigan. They held each other and watched the heavy snowfall.
“Did you ever consider becoming anything besides a doctor?” Colleen mused during one of their many murmured conversations. She lay on her side, facing the snowy window. Eric’s long body traced hers from behind. She dreamily was stroking his forearm, which surrounded her belly.
“Sure. I wanted to be a hockey player. What kid doesn’t dream of being a professional athlete? My mom wasn’t too thrilled about the idea.” He chuckled and nuzzled her neck. She felt his smile pressed against her skin when a shiver coursed through her.
“Was it your mother who wanted you to be a doctor?”
“Yes. Luckily, I decided the same thing before she died. The winter that I was seventeen, I got a bad knee injury during the high-school playoffs. I was out of commission. Thought my life was over. My mom made a comfortable life for Natalie and me, but she worked her hands to the bone to do it. She couldn’t afford insurance. She’d religiously save money every month for Natalie’s and my medical care. When I started working, she made me do the same thing.
“My knee was really screwed up after the playoffs, and the doctors said I needed surgery. We didn’t have the money to pay for it. I took the news hard…acted like a real ass,” he said bluntly.
Colleen turned in his arms. “What do you mean?”
“I thought hockey was my whole world. My golden ticket. I sulked a lot when my mother told me we couldn’t afford the surgery.”
“That’s not too surprising,” Colleen murmured. “Not if hockey meant so much to you, and you were so talented at it.”
He shrugged. “I made such a big deal about it, my mom did something she’d never considered before. She applied to get state medical aid.”
Colleen studied the angry slant of his mouth and averted gaze. It obviously still bothered him that his mother had done such a thing for him.
“She was your mother, Eric,” Colleen said softly. “She didn’t apply for the aid because you were being a sulky teenager. She did it because she would have done whatever was necessary to get you the care you needed.”
“You think so?” he asked levelly.
She touched his shoulder. “I know so. I’m a single mother, just like your mother was. I’d do the same for Brendan and Jenny in a second if I had no other choice,” she whispered feelingly.
His gaze flickered over her face before he brushed his finger over her jaw. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. My orthopedic surgeon’s name was Mac Harkman. Harkman loved what he did, and he managed to pass his enthusiasm on to me. When he found out I was a natural in math and science, he sort of took me under his wing. He joined league with my mom in encouraging me to go to medical school. Changed my life, I guess you could say.”
Colleen smiled. “And we’re all luckier for it, Brendan and I included,” she murmured before she kissed him. He groaned and came down over her, pressing her back into the mattress.
The snow continued to fall outside the window, thick and silent, but they were too absorbed in one another for the next half hour to notice.
They finally got up, showered and made a breakfast of whole-wheat toast, scrambled eggs and fruit. After Colleen had called Brendan and Jenny, hearing their enthusiastic report of the good time they were having in Chicago, they began working on Lucy. By the time they called it quits at around nightfall, Lucy looked glossy and smart with her second coat of varnish.
Eric looked out a window in the kitchen. “The snow is getting thick on the ground. I’ll get out the snowblower in the morning. It’s a good thing we took your car back to your house, though. It might have gotten stuck. I’ll be able to take you home in the SUV tomorrow.”
Her eyes went wide when he abruptly turned around, an odd, intense expression on his handsome face, and stalked over to her. She’d been in the process of getting some tea bags out of the cupboard, but she dropped the box when she noticed his determination. She yelped in amazement when he lifted her and set her on the counter before him.
“What are you doing?” She laughed when he pressed his mouth to her neck and started kissing her hungrily, his hands busily unbuttoning her shirt.
“I just realized I don’t want to take you home. How would you feel about me kidnapping you indefinitely?” he growled softly before he slipped his hand between the folds of her shirt and over her left breast.
Her heart hitched beneath his palm, but then he seized her mouth and she forgot everything but his scent, his texture, his heat. How could a man who had once claimed to be the champion of rational thought have the capability to erase it so completely from her brain?
Eric drifted off to sleep, but Colleen wasn’t tired. She was feeling pensive and a little heartsore. Eric’s lovemaking had been wild, delicious and intense. Did he recognize that their time together was drawing to a close? All the what-ifs she’d been shoving into the periphery of her brain while she luxuriated in her time with Eric started to crowd to the forefront once again.
She got up, dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and wandered downstairs. She checked her cell phone for messages and saw Mari had called. Worried something was wrong with the kids, she called her back. Mari hadn’t been calling about the kids, however. Instead, she wanted to get all the details about what was happening between her and Eric. Since Colleen was feeling especially vulnerable on that particular topic, she managed to make light of Mari’s inquiries and cut the conversation short.
After she’d hung up with Mari, she noticed her sister, Deidre, had called. She immediately returned the call.
“Deidre? Is everything all right?”
It turned out that everything was not all right. Death hovered close in Lincoln DuBois’s Lake Tahoe mansion tonight. It broke Colleen’s heart to hear her usually fearless, indomitable sister sounding so fragile and lost.