Page 51

“Too bad,” she said. “All you Raffertys are darn photogenic from your mom on down. So are the new additions to the family, including young Mr. Brock.”

He ignored the implicit compliment to him and focused on her last words. “Those three,” he said, clearly meaning it, “are the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time.”

Over the savory meat loaf that arrived—it really was that good and she would eat every bite, because who knew when she’d have a meal like this again—Kaitlyn silently pondered the differences between being part of a family that had contracted down to two people who could barely stand each other versus one that was so full of love that it could easily expand to welcome others. So full of love that it could adapt to such varied people, from eldest Keller to youngest Cody, then take in Lucas and accept Sydney and Ariel and still have love to spare.

It was something she’d never known.

It was something she’d always wanted.

And something she’d never have.

Chapter Twenty-Four

When she openedthe door to her room, a blast of heat seemed to wash over them. Ry blinked, drawing back a little. He glanced at Kaitlyn, who lowered her gaze, half-shrugged, and said, “I was cold.”

“What you were,” he said firmly as he ushered her inside, “was hungry. And tired.”

“Maybe.”

“You’ve had a hell of a twenty-four hours, Kaitlyn. You’re exhausted.”

“Maybe.”

Exasperated, he nudged her inside and shut the door behind them. And almost immediately he regretted it as the heat of the room enveloped him. He pulled off his jacket and tossed it on the chair beside the small table in the room. He saw her gaze follow the jacket, more intently than the simple act deserved. What the hell was she thinking?

“Are you always so stubborn?” She was staring at him now, wide-eyed. Almost shocked? Sometimes he just did not understand this woman. “What?”

“I…” Her voice trailed off.

He was a little tired himself, and he had to reach for some patience. He pointed. “Bed. Get in it.”

She paled. Oddly, he noticed the tiny freckles across her nose stood out more. Then she looked down again, as if the rather wildly patterned carpet under their feet held the answers to everything.

“Kaitlyn?” He was worried now. She looked so…broken. Her shoulders had slumped and suddenly she looked fragile, and very, very vulnerable.

She didn’t look at him. She just said, in a voice that matched how she looked just now, “I know how much I owe you, but I…”

Her voice faded away as she glanced at the bed he’d pointed at. The bed designed for two. And at last it hit him. What she was thinking.

“Son of a—” He bit back the oath. “Do you really think—never mind, obviously you do.” His voice went hard, because what she’d assumed, that he’d want that kind of payment for just helping her out a little, stung him to the core. “Thanks for the compliment, thinking I’d take advantage of an exhausted woman dealing with the man she thinks of as a father in a hospital just down the road. For thinking I’d take advantage period.”

He turned on his heel and headed for the door, then looked back at her. She hadn’t moved.

“Good night, Ms. Miller,” he said harshly. “Be ready at nine to go back to the hospital.”

He didn’t slam the door on his way out, but it was a near thing. It wasn’t until he was at the door to his own room, reaching for the key in his jeans pocket, that he realized he’d left his jacket in the too-warm room. But he wasn’t about to go back now; he’d get it in the morning.

Twenty minutes later, despite his own weariness, he was still pacing the floor of his own room. Because the tired was matched by the anger. What the hell? What had he ever done to make her think he would ever expect that kind of payment for a simple favor? Nothing, that’s what he’d done. Of course Britt, Cody’s nemesis, had once said he invited those thoughts just by existing and looking the way he did. She’d done it in her “just one of the guys” way so he’d laughed her off, but it came back to him now with a whole different edge.

Did Kaitlyn think he expected her to fall into bed with him just because he’d helped her out a little, or because of what he looked like? She’d implied the former, but she’d actually said something else.

Obviously, you could just sail by on your looks.

He swore under his breath, still pacing. He needed help with this. He wasn’t used to having to dig this deep to figure someone out.

Obviously, you could just sail by on your looks.

He stopped dead. Had he been? It was hard not to know the effect what he looked like had on some people. In fact it annoyed him more often than pleased him, because he’d had nothing to do with it. And because his mother had pounded that fact home to him, and how much more important the inside was than the outside. For a moment he wished he could talk to her.