Page 66 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
Caleb released an anxious breath. “Macy, he didn’t. Because you were…”
“He didn’t, Cale.” She cupped his cheek, sighed, dropped her hand. Maybe he’d think differently of her after hearing this. “But to stop him…well, I had—I used a scalpel on the table he shoved me into. I caught him beneath his chin. The wound was horrific. He’d roughed me up in the process, torn my clothing, so when I ran into the street, covered in blood, mine and his, looking exactly like what I was, someone who had been assaulted, it was a disaster. A scandal my family never recovered from.”
“The police?”
“Oh, yes. It hit the newspapers, too. Such intrigue! My family was prominent in the community, that sort of thing. And, somehow, it was my fault in the eyes of most. I had asked for his mishandling by the way I dressed or my openly affectionate manner. I believe the reporter called it ‘behavior indecorous enough to drive a prominent physician to lurid recklessness.’ My father moved his practice out of town. He and my uncle died two years later, months apart. I never spoke to either of them again. The worst of it was, he took something from me. Nothing so concrete as my virtue. My innocence, I suppose, which sounds trite. My ability to trust. Except for medicine, he changed my view of my future. Of myself. My mother had a distant cousin who lived here, so after university—” She wiggled her toes, wishing for the heat of his body. “Now there’s no one. Just me.”
He rounded his arm around her waist and dragged her against him. Smoothed his lips over the crown of her head. A nurturing soul, he’d have made an excellent physician. “Why would you want to talk to them ever again? The bastards.”
She laughed and drew back to look at him. There were tiny creases beside his eyes she’d not noticed before. Like lines drawn in the sand. Another item for her treasure chest. How to catalogue everything about this wonderful man in the short time they had? “It’s that simple, yes?”
Without comment, he released her and presented his back, squatting before the fire. Grabbed a poker and worked it through the wood and ash in the hearth. To keep from greedily recording the shift of lean muscle and sinew, she looked to the window, surprised to see a purple and crimson wash coloring the horizon. Her heart squeezed. Sunrise was upon them. The end of their magical night. As if he sensed her mournful reflection, his gaze reconnected with hers. “Nothing involving family is simple, even if it looks that way to the ones with their faces pressed to the pane.”
“Your family—”
“They’re myworld.” He turned on one heel, a violent movement, his hand going to the floor for balance. “But sharing blood meansnothing, Macy. Or not all, anyway. And I know for a doctor, that’s a hard statement to take in. Biology doesn’t always win out.” He tapped his chest. “Take this advice into your heart, not your head. Some people need to be set adrift, put in a boat that will never again meet yours, and sent out to sea.”
“Your father,” she whispered. It wasn’t a blind guess; she’d heard the rumors.
He blinked, as if deciding whether to admit it. Then he nodded and tossed the poker aside, where it struck the hearth with a clatter. “He ruined things. His marriage, my childhood. With no consequence attached. His actions, how abusive he was and the decisions my mother made to survive, almost tore Noah away from us.”
She shook her head.Why?
“He wasn’t Noah’s father. We had no idea until Elle read my mother’s diary. She and I were digging through boxes in the attic, not knowing the chaos we were about to unleash.” He drew his finger along a gash in the floorboard. “I was so distraught, because even from the grave, he was still upsetting my life. That’s what set me off, not the fact Noah and I were half-brothers, which I could have cared less about. Going in like I do, without thinking, I took my anger out on him, the one person I loved most in the world. So, Noah left in the middle of the night, up north to college, although we didn’t know where he’d gone. He didn’t come home for ten years, until we reckoned we’d lost him.”
“But he’s back.”
He wiped at a streak of ash on his palm. “Yeah, and we’re healing.”
She kept herself from crossing to him, understanding as a woman, not a doctor, that telling her might help speed the healing process along. And that he needed space to be able to tell her. “There’s more?”
“One year, on Christmas Eve, my father manhandled my mother. Back when Noah was a baby, and Zach was out piloting. I got in the middle of the struggle, even though I was a pretty little fella still, because someone had to. Her lip was bleeding, her cheek bruised. I don’t know, maybe it’s when I started feeling so comfortable using my fists. Because, honestly, what I did to my father, going at him like that, felt good. Our relationship was over then, even if he stuck around another year or so. We were both broken. And I was left not knowing what to believe in, who tobe. It would break Zach’s heart if he knew, because he wants to protect us so badly, so he doesn’t.” He looked to her, placing his trust out there like he had apples for their picnic. “And he’s not going to. For some reason, I don’t want to tell anyone else, I only want to tellyou.”
Her heart expanded, pulsed, a sluggish, hard thump. She wanted to wrap her arms around that boy, whatever had been done to him, and never let go. Perhaps someday, he would share the full story.
She was doomed. Falling in love. Already there, maybe.
“Is Christabel on one of those boats you’ve sent out to sea?” she found herself asking.Gracious, what a question, Mouse.
He rocked back on his heels, the shock streaking his face laughable. “No,no.” He snagged his hand through his hair, leaving it in adorable twists on his head. “She’s always going to be my friend. It wasn’t, itisn’t, like that. It’s whispers in the dark, Doc. The less and the more. We didn’t have them, not at all.”
“Care to explain what that means?”
He moved in, the penetrating way he looked at her bringing that frenetic, now-familiar throb between her thighs.Oh, what he did to her. “Your hair is wild, sweetheart.” She went to tuck, tame, but he captured her hand, lacing their fingers before she could. “I like it crazy. No need to fix it on my account. Not when I’m going to mess it up again before I walk you home.”
“I’m confused.” She palmed the nape of his neck, slid her fingers into his hair. One hard tug to the strands, which she’d noticed during their adventures he liked.A lot. “I thought our night was ending.”
He dropped his head back with a moan that sounded like surrender. In the distance, the ferry bell clanged, a reminder of the clock counting off the time they had left. “For a healer, you sure fight dirty. Using what I like against me.”
“As if you wouldn’t use what I like against me.”
With a growl, he yanked her to him. Beneath the thin cotton of his breeches and her shirt, their heated skin merged. Unbelievably, he was hard. Ready for her. And she was ready for him. “Is that a dare?”
She sent him a look she hoped conveyed every erotic impulse directing her mind and body. “If it was, would you take it?”
He laughed and laid her back, his body claiming hers before she took her next breath. “You’re damn right I would.”
CHAPTER SIX