Prescription For Seduction. Darlene Scalera
He saw the rows of cookies cooling on the wire racks. Since lunch he’d only had three large cups of black coffee and a cranberry juice grabbed off a nutrition cart on its way to the floors. He took off his suit jacket, hung it evenly across the kitchen chair’s high back. “I could do that.”
She set a ceramic plate piled with cookies in the center of the round table and a smaller matching plate before him. “Something to drink?”
He leaned back, a content man. Her hand, covered with the oversize pot holder, jerked away from the back of his chair where it’d been resting. He glanced up at her.
She looked at him with her dark-violet eyes and her delicate smile. Her hand covered with the plaid pot holder was now gripping the other, bare one.
“Tea?” she offered, taking another step back.
He hated tea. “Tea would be great.” He pushed back his chair. “But let me help you.”
“No, no.” Her hands flew apart and patted the air above his shoulders. “You sit.”
She moved about the kitchen, filling the bright-red teakettle and setting it back on the stove, opening the stenciled cupboard, standing on her tiptoes and reaching up to the tea boxes on the upper shelf.
“Let’s see, I’ve got orange pekoe, cinnamon apple, peppermint…” She looked over her shoulder at him.
“Whatever you prefer.”
Her gaze moved to his empty plate, then back to him. “Eat, Brady.” Her voice was low and coaxing; her smile quiet. She waited until he reached for the cookie plate before turning back to the tea boxes.
“Mmm, orange pekoe, I think.” She opened another cupboard, took out two brightly colored mugs, shook a tea bag into each. On the stove, the kettle steamed.
Brady looked around the tiny kitchen as full of colors and patterns and shapes as the store below. Hand-painted plates hung on one wall. A vine was about to flower on the scalloped shelf above the sink. More flowers twined on a grapevine arched above the door and poked from the terra-cotta pots scattered around the room. Home Sweet Home was stenciled on the dish towels that hung from the oven door handle. Through the doorway that led into the next room, he saw peach-colored walls and a framed Norman Rockwell print. Eden was humming. She set a ceramic cow milk pitcher and a matching sugar bowl on the table. Next to them she placed a plastic bear of honey.
“Or do you prefer lemon?” she asked.
Definitely the marrying type. He shook his head. The uneaten cookie still waited in his hand.
A fat tangle of fur sauntered in from the next room.
“There you are, Penelope.” Eden set a steaming mug smelling of orange and cloves in front of Brady. “Come and say hello to Dr. Spencer.”
The cat stopped in the doorway and stared at Brady, as if reading his every thought.
“So…” Eden sat at the table, her mug cupped in her hands. “You had a late emergency?”
He nodded. The cat stared at him, its pupils narrow. The cookie was going cold in his hand. He took a bite and was ruined forever for any baked goods that came cellophane wrapped.
He finished the cookie in two bites and reached for more. He saw Eden watching him. “These are great.”
“Thank you.” She dropped her gaze, blew across the tea’s surface, but Brady could see she was smiling. She glanced up. The tiny smile was still there. “Have some more.”
Brady chewed. Definitely the marrying type. He glanced at the cat eyeing him. The cookies stuck in his throat. He picked up the mug beside his plate and took a large sip. He hated tea.
Eden lifted her own mug and sipped. “Good, huh?”
He swished the liquid in his mouth and gulped it down. “Delicious.”
Her smile widened, the corners of her eyes lifting. The steam from the cup warmed her face, made her eyes gleam. She had flawless skin, smooth as cream, meant to be touched.
He took a big bite of cookie and focused on the flavors blending in his mouth. He refused to look at Penelope.
“Was it very serious?” Eden asked. “The emergency?”
“Appendectomy. Routine procedure,” he said through a mouthful of cookie, “but the patient had been taking aspirin all day for the abdomen pain, and his blood was thinned out. Gave us some trouble clotting, but we got it under control. It just took a while longer.”
He took a bite of cookie and chewed. “You know…” He pointed the cookie at her. “You could take over the world with these cookies.”
She tipped her head back and laughed. She didn’t often laugh so loud and full. Not that she was grim. Not at all. It was just that silent smiles were more her style. This was nice, Brady decided, sitting here in this cozy kitchen, eating homemade cookies, listening to the sweet sound of Eden’s laughter.
“I mean it,” he said. “One bite would make the mightiest, meanest men your slaves.”
Her laughter continued. He watched it ripple up her throat’s long length, thinking how white and tender the skin was there.
His thoughts were interrupted by a soft, warm weight landing in his lap. “What the—?”
“Penelope, where’s your manners?” Eden scolded. “Get down off Dr. Spencer this minute.”
Staring up at Brady, Penelope blinked her wide-set eyes once and plopped dead center in his lap.
“Penelope Maybelle Patterson.” Eden sprang up, clapping her hands as she rounded the table. Penelope gave Brady one final slitted look, then slid off his lap.
“Shame on you. Getting cat hair all over Brady’s expensive suit.” Eden swiped at Brady’s pant legs.
One brush of her hands across the length of his thighs and he felt the low, beginning heat of desire. He looked at her. Penelope stared at her, too.
Realizing the intimacy of her touch, Eden stopped. Her face colored. As she straightened, she met Brady’s stare and froze, her color deepening.
He smiled the smile used to reassure anxious patients. “You surprise me, Eden.”
“I do?” It was a whisper, her vivid-colored eyes wide.
“Do you give all your pets full names?”
A smile started. “Don’t you?” She went back to her seat. A little more of her smile returned, but when she picked up her tea, she had to grip the mug with both hands.
“Except for the occasional frog or lightning bug, I never had any pets.”
“None?”
“Seth had a collie once when we were young, but it got loose and ran away. About a week later my dad was driving us to the fishing derby up at Timber Lake, and we saw the collie lying on the side of the road. A car had hit him.” His gaze moved past her. “We never had any more pets after that.”
He picked up his mug and took a sip. He really hated tea.
“I didn’t have any brothers or sisters.” Eden was still holding her mug too tightly. “For my parents, after twenty-two years of trying to have children without success, I was a total surprise. A nice one, they always assured me, but after all that time when it’d only been the two of them, I definitely disrupted their lives. Anyway, I guess I always thought of my pets as real people, the brothers and sisters I’d never had.”
Brady thought of his own brothers, how close they’d always been—especially after their mother had left them. Not that they ever talked about what happened. Their father had forbidden it. There’d been twenty-three years of silence until a few months ago when his father had relented and given Cooper Night Hawk permission to look into his wife’s whereabouts. It was Coop