Page 53 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

The door opened and she emerged from a gaslight glow, her eyes the exact sapphire of Martin Tisdale’s lumberyard skiff. Those eyes widened before the shadows pulled her back in and concealed what she thought of him showing up at this hour on her front porch. A haunting chorus of sound drew them closer when neither moved a muscle, released a breath. Waves slapping the wharf, the frantic call of a heron in search of food, and in the faint distance, the rub and grind of a whaling ship anchoring at the dock.

Macy stepped back, took a long look. At his arm, the bandage, the blood dripping on her porch landing. A leisurely assessment that thawed him from the inside out, though he tried mightily to contain it. He started running calculations in his head, stern to rudder, transom to coaming, plank to bow, telling himself this wasnotthe time. Not thewoman. The numbers dissipated like mist as she nodded once and turned, expecting him to follow. Pulse racing, he closed the door behind him and leaned against it, wishing like hell his nervousness was due to her relative inexperience as a doctor instead of what he feared was making him jittery.

When he wasn’t, never had been, jittery around women.

“Mr. Garrett?” she called, having gone down the hallway and into a room he assumed was her office. When he got there, he found her calmly removing supplies from a bruised glass cabinet, arranging them next to a chair he supposed she wanted him to settle in. Gauze, needle, thread, cotton balls, bottle of this, metal tin of that. He sat as the pungent smell of camphor and soap enveloped him. Oh, and her scent underneath it all. Something light, floral, though he couldn’t peg what flower exactly. A feminine bit of nonsense he’d have expected from Savannah or Elle, but not Macy. Not this smart as a whip, capable, tough little thing. Barely reached his shoulder but with him sitting, unnervingly eye-to-eye.

She cleaned the needle, then began threading it with the steadiest regard he could imagine when you were set to poke it through skin. “Couldn’t go to Doctor Leland after punching him in the face, I gather.”

Caleb sat back with an indrawn sigh, alcohol stinging his nostrils and zipping to the back of his throat.Fine, he’d go there if confessing past transgressions was what it took to get medical attention. “My brother, Noah, came back to town after ten years gone. Without a word gone, don’t know if you’re dead or alive gone, and the town doctor feltheshould be the first one to tell me. Let’s just say I took it poorly. With my fist poorly.”

Macy placed the threaded needle on a towel and grasped the ends of his ruined sleeve and yanked, ripping the material to his shoulder. His eyes met hers, and he couldn’t help but notice the flush firing her cheeks, the first hint that she might be as disconcerted as he was. The image of her tearing off the rest of his clothing roared through his willing mind.

“Maybe he was heartbroken,” she offered. “Tends to send one into a tailspin, doesn’t it?”

“How should I know?” Though everyone in town presumed he knewexactlywhat being heartbroken felt like. “You didn’t grow up here, but Elle and Noah were legendary. Leland was a fool to get in between that.”

“Legendary,” she murmured, her gaze skating away from him.

He shrugged, not able to hide his hiss of pain. He didn’t know how to answer for what was and always had been, what he’d never actually experienced himself, so he observed in silence as she cut material into one long strip and a few smaller ones, the needle he wasn’t looking forward to piercing his skin winking in the gaslamp’s brilliant glow. She moved like a dancer, he decided, the most economical but to his mind elegant shifts and bends.

Her clothing definitely didn’t contribute to her appeal. Her dress was plain and serviceable. But tucked so agreeably around each gentle curve it could have been a fancy ballgown and not looked any better. He followed it to her toes and back, wondering in a forbidden part of his mind what her lithe little body would feel like spread beneath him.

“There isn’t glass in there, I’m hoping.” She pointed the scissors at his wound.

He shook his head, forcing the image of her wrapped around himand enjoying itto the basement of his mind. “No shards from a bottle, Doc, if that’s what you’re asking. A brawl didn’t bring me here.”

She raised a brow. “Did I imply you were involved in an altercation?”

“No, but you considered it.”

She clicked her tongue against her teeth and stepped in to wash the injury, her touch light but efficient. “Excuse me, I—”

“Can’t blame you. I’m known for it.” When she continued to stare without commenting, her hand poised over his arm, he added, “Using my fists. Hitting first, thinking later.” He paused, flexing those fists while trying to figure how to explain. “But I’m trying to improve my behavior. That’s the way Savannah puts it anyway.”

A smile raced across Macy’s face. Like lightning, it lit her up. She tilted her head at the end of her amusement and dropped the blood-stained rag in a basin at her side, the move sending her hair into her face. It was loose, which it usually wasn’t. A flaxen waterfall down her back, caressing her cheeks. Maybe those silken strands were where the floral scent was coming from, digging beneath his skin harder than the mast edge that had sliced him up had.

She grasped the needle, flicked her eyes his way as she gave the thread a hard tug. “I have liquor if you require fortification.”

He settled back, steeling himself because he honestly didn’t love needles. And he’d had enough encounters to know. But he just shook his head. Wagged his fingers.Go on.

Be a man, Caleb Eli,he heard his father say.Toughen up. He felt the shove accompanying the statement like his father was standing in the room with him. It was a misplaced memory. An unpleasant one. Distressing, when he’d fought his entire life to leave that bastard behind.

Though she had no idea, Macy Dallas was dealing with more than a shoulder wound today.

The first prick of steel beneath his skin was the worst, and he swallowed, allowing himself to get used to the sting. As she whispered soft words of comfort and worked her magic, he gazed out the lone window, where he could just see a slice of the ocean. She’d left it open and a weighty winter breeze slipped in, solace for his heated skin. The moon had arrived in a pitch sky, shooting a silvery strip across the carpet he was tempted to drag his boot through. “That degree all nice and tied up, right, Doc? I don’t want some”—he breathed through a swift jolt of pain—“raggedy scar after this because you haven’t completed your training.”

Her hand tensed on his arm as she released what sounded like an irritated exhalation. “I found a facility willing to do post-graduate instruction, so rejoice, your scar will only be moderately ugly.” She gently probed the wound, scrutinized, her body drawing so close his breath caught. “That’s where I was the past year. Residency. Philadelphia. The position ended, and I returned to help Savannah with a public health campaign. Also, honestly, not many hospitals employ female doctors. And if they do, the positions are very competitive. Until then, it’s private practice.” He turned his head in time to see her swallow tightly. “Even here, where there is great need, I may not have patients. Or not many. And it’s just me, so…” She pressed her lips together. “We’ll see.”

His heart did a dive as he sat there wondering what to say and wishing he didn’t want to touch her so desperately. Because touching would get them nowhere, especially if he couldn’t separate desire from compassion. And at the moment, he couldn’t. “I’m a patient,” he said to smooth over the awkwardness, sympathy winning the battle.

When she finished, she snipped the thread and passed her thumb over a very neat set of stitches. He’d counted ten but might have missed a couple with her scent twisting his thoughts.

A low hum was her only reply as she opened a tin of horrific-smelling ointment and dabbed it on with a light touch. A sure touch, which didn’t surprise him. A lock of her hair brushed his cheek, and he closed his eyes, settling into the contact. It had been months, a year almost, since he’d experienced anything even remotely soothing.

“It takes time,” she told him as she applied a dressing, covering it with a length of snowy cotton that wouldn’t stay pristine long, “to build a practice. They’ll trust me at some point, or as is evidenced tonight, they’ll have to.”

Most of the people in Pilot Isle had their heads up their asses, but how could he admit that? Truth was, he’d be sitting in Magnus Leland’s office, even though he despised the man, if heandhis brothers hadn’t gotten into it with him on more than one occasion. Personally, he had no qualms about going to a female doctor. Hell, he’d practically taken a college course in women’s freedom in the past year, what with NoahandZach marrying patriots for the cause. He’d even painted signs for Savannah’s last campaign to gain the vote, God help him.