Miracles. Part 7

Meeting Sam's gaze directly, Kate said, "I can't go to Ontonagon Friday night. That's Doc's night to play pinochle with Cal Drinker in White Pine, and I'm on call. But if you don't mind spending the evening at my house"-she offered him a smile-"I'd be glad to fix dinner for us."

His lips curved slowly upward. "That sounds fine."

"Six o'clock?"

He nodded. Then, he glanced at his watch. "Now I've got to get over to the store and pick up the gla.s.s Mr. D. ordered for me. He said it ought to be in by noon."

She swung open the door of the Jeep. "And I've got to see what Doc found out this morning about our back-ordered supplies. If they don't come in soon, we'll- No, don't bother getting out. I lug this pack around all the time." Hauling her traveling medical kit out, she added, "Just give me some ideas about what you'd like for dinner on Friday."

When Sam didn't answer, she glanced at him, and it confused her to see him scowling as he stared at his hands wrapped around the steering wheel. What on earth was wrong now?

"How about spaghetti?" he asked. "Or maybe something with cheese."

He'd said it as though he expected prison rations, and she tried not to laugh. "Are you sure?"

His tone was anything but certain as he grumbled, "Yeah, well, I don't like too many kinds of meat, and I wouldn't want you to go to a lot of trouble to fix-"

"That's fine," she put in gently. "And it's no trouble. I'll see you at six on Friday. Now you should go before Mr. D. closes for lunch."

Kate stood at her front gate, watching as Sam drove up Main Street. Slowly, a bemused smile formed on her lips. What was a woman to think when a man she had pegged for steak and potatoes admitted, nearly blus.h.i.+ng, that he'd rather have a spinach pie?

Sam stopped at Davenport's, where he picked up the ordered gla.s.s, a can of window putty, and the tools necessary to do the job, then headed out to the cabin. Since he hadn't felt like settling in the night before, after fixing the window, he unpacked his few belongings and spent some time familiarizing himself with his temporary quarters.

The cabin was spotless and furnished to suit the needs of men who came to hunt the northern woods in the fall-inex-pensive but comfortable furniture, braided rugs partially covering the pine floors, and a noticeable lack of fussiness. Overhead, the rough-hewn beams of the rafters were exposed; the walls were paneled in light pine and decorated with prints of Canada geese and loons. An antlered buck's head hung over the door, and a black bear rug separated the dining and sitting areas of the main room.

The small bedroom contained two twin beds, which didn't suit his six-foot-two frame, so he moved the nightstand from between them, pushed them together, and decided he could live with the makes.h.i.+ft king-size results. There was no phone, but the generator's heat, light, and well-water system provided all the amenities he required. He didn't want to talk to anybody, anyway.

No, that wasn't true. He wanted to talk to Katie. He'd have liked having her there with him, helping put away the groceries he'd bought the night before and teaching him how to use the d.a.m.ned gas stove, which wasn't anything like the electric one he was used to. She'd have found his efforts at making pancakes funny-though she'd have tried not to laugh.

But she might have smiled.

Oh, that smile. Those irresistible, apple-pie dimples. He'd have happily burned the entire batch of pancakes for the pleasure of seeing them. He wanted to touch them-not with his finger, as Francis had done that morning, but with his mouth. h.e.l.l, he wanted to touch all of her, with his mouth and his hands and every other part of him. One part in particular was just itching to touch her. In fact, he thought as he slapped the last pancake on top of the six on his plate, she turned him on faster and harder than any woman had in a long while. Maybe because he knew he turned her on, too. It was tough not to want a woman who responded so obviously and with such melting honesty every time he looked at her. It was impossible not to wonder how she'd respond if he did more than look.

Sam drowned his pancakes in maple syrup and began digging his way through the stack. As he ate, he thought about how stupid it was to have asked Katie out-and how stupid it would be to spend an evening at her house. He was crazy for starting something with a woman when everything about his life was up in the air. Especially when the woman was the type he was sure would want a commitment, at least vows of love, before she'd even let him kiss her.

He didn't know anything about those kinds of commitments. He knew even less about love; it was an elusive thing other people always seemed to be in some stage of wanting or getting or having. If he'd ever wanted it, it had been a long time ago, so long that he had no memory of missing it. And it sure wasn't something that had entered into the picture with the women he'd known over the years.

What was he used to, anyway? Women he'd met at w.i.l.l.y's Bar. Divorced friends of his buddies' wives. There had been that cute redhead who worked ground crew at Rutger. And maybe any one of those women might have turned out to be one he stuck with if he'd given himself and them a chance. Some of them sure had dropped hints in that direction. But when a woman started acting like she might be thinking in permanent terms, that had always been his signal it was time to call it quits. He'd told himself it was because he wasn't ready to settle down. But now . . . well, like a lot of other things, he just didn't know.

He did know that he couldn't bring himself even to consider having a hot but meaningless affair with Katie. And he knew why. In light of all the other changes he'd been going through, it fit right in that his taste in women had suddenly taken a drastic turn toward the conservative.

Sam cursed silently-and somewhat guiltily-at the quirk of fate that had ripped the rug out from under him. The day he'd crashed that d.a.m.ned plane, his way of thinking and acting, his entire frame of reference, had been taken away from him. Maybe he could have handled that, if somebody had seen fit to replace it with something else. But, no. He'd been squirming for five months, since he'd gotten out of the hospital and found out just how different things were going to be. He'd tried to go on with his life, but it seemed that, piece by piece, everything he'd been and done was being examined, then tossed out, having been declared worthless. Now it looked like he was being told, if he wanted to end his long abstinence and get involved with a woman, he'd have to start from scratch.

And Katie Morgan was it. The bottom line. Exactly the kind of woman he didn't know a thing about and had spent all of his adult life avoiding. h.e.l.l, she could even be a virgin. And wouldn't that just give his conscience something to chew on?

Sam didn't know what he'd do with Katie, how he'd ever fit her into his mixed-up life. But he knew the memories of his past relations.h.i.+ps didn't satisfy him anymore. He didn't want another woman who wouldn't care when or if he came or went. He didn't want one who tried to use s.e.x as a way to tie him to her. He didn't want one he had nothing to say to when the s.e.x was over. He didn't want another woman who left him feeling empty.

He wanted Katie. And instinct told him that he could have her. All he had to do was keep her from finding out that the man who turned her on was a freak. A medically, scientifically verified freak, who had already altered the course of dozens of people's lives-her own and Francis Fournier's included.

Six.

"What did you say that's called?"

"Russian vegetable pie." Kate set the bubbling, golden-crusted dish atop the stove and closed the oven door. Then, pot holders in hand, she picked up the pie and started toward the small dining room, where her grandmother's old pine table was set for two.

Sam, who was leaning casually in her kitchen doorway, didn't budge as he eyed his dinner warily. "And what exactly is in this pie?"

"Well . . . cabbage and mushrooms and cream cheese and hard-boiled eggs and-"

"Stop." His gaze came up to meet hers. "It smells great. Let's leave it at that."

Kate tried-and failed-to hide a grin as she took another step toward the dining room, but when he didn't move to let her through the doorway, she stopped in front of him to give him an expectant look.

"Do that again," he said.

"Do what?"

Sam reached up and touched her cheek, and for an instant she couldn't breathe, though she was mortified for reacting so idiotically to such a simple gesture.

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?"

"Where is it?"

She stared at him, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, until suddenly it dawned on her what he was waiting for. Then she blushed a rosy pink. The smile she gave him was a little fl.u.s.tered and a little shy.

His eyes held a look of satisfaction as his finger trailed over her dimple, then traced the line of her jaw. "That's better," he murmured. "Now I can stop feeling guilty."

"Guilty?"

"Yeah. For being jealous of a two-year-old. I've been wanting to do that since I saw Francis do it Wednesday morning."

Well, Kate, here is-a man who's more interested in you than he is in your cooking. So what are you going to do with him? With her gaze holding his, she whispered, "Sam, the dish . . ."

His gaze dropped to the ca.s.serole she held, and with a growled "Sorry," he moved out of the way.

As they sat down and began to eat, Kate pondered what she might be in for when it came time for him to go home. More, she suspected, than a lukewarm peck on the cheek.

"Katie, you know, this is good." His tone was amazed as he stuck another forkful of the steamy concoction into his mouth. "It sure tastes better than it sounds."

"Most food does," she chuckled. Then, pausing to give him a quick glance, she asked, "Would it be too nosy to ask about your family?"

He helped himself to a biscuit as he replied. "No, but there's not much to tell. My dad works on an a.s.sembly line at the GM plant in Detroit. I've got an aunt-my mother's sister-I haven't seen in about fifteen years. And my father has a brother. I see Uncle Harvey and his wife and kids sometimes at Christmas.

Reaching for the blue Fiestaware pitcher to fill their water gla.s.ses, Kate said, "You told me your mother died when you were two. Who took care of you after that?"

"The Happy Days Day Care Center. It was close to the GM plant and cheap, which meant it was mostly full of kids whose parents worked for GM." He frowned as he examined a piece of hard-boiled egg on his plate. "Katie, what are these little green specks?"

"Dill weed."

"Dill weed? Never heard of it. But, h.e.l.l, you can't argue with success."

"Thanks. Remind me to give you some to take home-you put it on eggs and cuc.u.mbers. So, did you like this day-care center?"

"It was okay," he answered. "There was one older lady, Mrs. Montague-we called her Miz Monty. I liked her a lot. But she was only there part-time. Then, after a while, she left. I guess she retired." He tilted his head thoughtfully, remembering. Then, with a shrug, he dismissed the matter.

Kate thought that careless shrug said a lot about how Sam had learned to cope with the harder side of life. Everything was "no big deal." Except, of course, that wasn't true. The picture of the alone, and surely the lonely, fict.i.tious young pilot had lingered in her mind since Wednesday morning. As he continued to relate the bare-bones facts of his life, the picture came into better focus.

He'd grown up in an old apartment building in a rough section of Detroit. His father, Carl Reese, was fair and honest but strict in an old-school sense. Things were either right or wrong in Carl's book; Sam learned early that it was easy to make a mistake and that the consequences of making one were tough. He' d done okay in school but didn't really like academics, except for math and history; he wouldn't have bothered with college, but he'd had to have a degree to get the Navy to teach him to fly. So he'd gone to Wayne State, graduating with a degree in math, then headed straight to Aviation Officers Candidate School.

He'd been in the Navy for a little over seven years, much of it spent overseas, nearly all of it spent racking up flight time in fighter jets. And he'd probably have stayed in if he hadn't been offered a job he couldn't turn down. No, it wasn't the money that had tempted him-it was the planes he'd be flying. He'd traded the Navy and F-14 Tomcats for the Mojave Desert and a strange list of mostly unheard of, experimental aircraft designed by a man others in the aviation industry considered a renegade. He'd never regretted the decision.

He didn't see much of his father; he wrote now and then but didn't usually expect a reply-his father wasn't big on communicating. Carl Reese had remarried eight years ago, and Sam described his stepmother, Susan, as a "real spitfire." He smiled as he admitted he'd never have dreamed his father would tolerate a woman who refused to iron s.h.i.+rts. But Sam liked Susan and was glad to see his father enjoying himself; they even had a vacation to Florida planned for the winter, which surprised Sam, since the farthest his father had ever been from Detroit was the Upper Peninsula.

"Did he come up here to hunt?" Kate asked.

"No." Sam laid his knife and fork across the top edge of his empty dinner plate with a satisfied sigh. "We came up here on fis.h.i.+ng trips when I was a kid. I remember it being real pretty, especially in the fall."

"That's my favorite time." Resting her elbows on the table, she wrapped her hands around her water gla.s.s and gazed wistfully over the top of it. "I had a friend in grade school whose father ran a seaplane service. He flew people all over Lake Superior-Isle Royale, Thunder Bay, even into the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. On my eleventh birthday, he took Patsy and me for a ride. I'll never forget it." She glanced at Sam and smiled. "My birthday's in September, and the birch forests were at peak. Looking down on those trees, I thought we must be flying over the Land of Oz, following the yellow brick road."

His mouth slanted in a crooked grin. "The yellow brick road, huh?"

"Well, it was beautiful."

"I know. I've seen it. I've seen aspen groves in the Rockies, too, from the air. And pine forests covered with snow . . . and whales migrating south along the Pacific coast . . ." He looked away, his grin slowly fading, and for an instant his eyes lost their focus, the gray irises turning clear as crystal. An instant later, his countenance changed, quickly a.s.suming its usual unrevealing lines.

s.h.i.+fting his gaze to her, he asked, "So is that why you're still up here? You're bent on following the yellow brick road?"

Kate had to fight to swallow her disappointment. Sam had given her another peek at that side of him he kept so carefully guarded-but then he'd s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

"Well, maybe that's part of it," she said. "I really do love the U.P., no matter what time of year it is."

"You must have gone away to school."

She nodded. "When I was twenty, I went to Ann Arbor and did my bachelor's and first master's degree at the U. of M. Then I went to the School of Midwifery at GeorgetownUniversity in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. for my master's in nurse midwifery. I was away eight years, total."

"But you came back. Because of your family?"

"Yes, and because I don't like living in big cities. And because they need good medical professionals here. I suppose I could have found another isolated spot where I'd be just as useful, but Cal Drinker-he was my family's doctor until he retired, and he helped me through school-he told me about Doc Cabot needing help, and . . ." She trailed off with a palms-up gesture.

Sam completed the thought for her. "You felt like you owed it to him."

"Partly. Cressie was here, and that made a difference. But I wanted to do it, too." Dropping her gaze, Kate added, "I wanted to come home."

When she looked up, she found him studying her closely.

"In that talk I had the other night with Mrs. D.," he began, she said your mom died having a baby. Does that have something to do with your being a midwife?"

Kate drew a quiet, steadying breath. "If you mean am I on some kind of crusade to improve obstetrics in the area because of what happened to my mother, no, I'm not. First of all, she didn't die from lack of medical care. She had heart failure during delivery, and there wasn't any reason to suspect ahead of time that it might happen. Besides, I don't really perform that many deliveries-only when there's no way the woman can get to the hospital. I just-" She tried to smile. "I just like babies, that's all. And I like taking care of women who are getting ready to have them. It's such a . . . a happy time."

Sam's gray eyes remained unblinking as he continued to search her features. "You spent a good part of your childhood taking care of people," he said. "And I think most people in your shoes would've been pretty d.a.m.ned resentful. But you're not. And when you were given a choice, you decided to be a nurse and go on taking care of people. You get real pleasure out of it, don't you?"

Her lips parted, and a bewildered frown appeared on her brow. "Of course, I do." With a little flap of her hand, she added, "Oh, I guess maybe if the reason I had to help my family was somebody's fault, I'd feel resentful. But it wasn't. My mother's dying was just a horrible thing that happened. Dad loved us, and we loved him, and we all did what we could to make things better. As for my being a nurse-" She paused, looking for words that explained what she'd never really thought about consciously. "Sam, I like taking care of people, and I think I'm pretty good at it. And I truly believe a person ought to do what he-or she-likes and does best."

He gave her the strangest look, one that reflected a great deal of respect; but there was something troubled, too, hiding in the depths of his eyes, something she had the most compelling desire to understand.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "A person ought to do what they like and do best. Can't argue with that."

She sensed she'd said something very important. Encouraged, she started to ask if that was how he felt about flying. Before she could speak, though, she heard a sound that made her heart skip a beat.

Sam straightened in his chair as she jumped from the table and hurried toward her bedroom.

"Is that your CB?" he called.

"Yes." She tossed an answer over her shoulder. "Sounds like Bob Bradley over at Wanagan Campgrounds."

The CB sat on a small table in a corner of the bedroom, and by the time she grabbed the handset, she was aware that Sam was standing in the doorway behind her, listening.

"KRT17 calling KMP- Ah, the h.e.l.l with it. Kate! Kate, are you there? Over."

"I'm here, Bob. What's wrong? Over."

"I've got a bad one for you." Bob's voice was raw as he rushed to explain. "A bear wandered in, and these two guys I've got staying down in section three tried to shoo him out. Well, you know all they did was rile him, and he attacked one of them, and- Oh, G.o.d, Kate-" His voice broke. "He's bleeding like crazy-from his leg, mostly. Over."

"How far up the leg?" she asked."Just above the knee.""Have you radioed for a medevac?"

"Yes, but I had a h.e.l.l of a time getting it. Big truck wreck down on Route 51. All the crews are out. Lord knows what they're sending us-or when. I don't know if this guy's going to make it."

"Bob, do what you can to stop the bleeding. Keep him warm. Elevate his legs. I'll be there in ten." Signing off, Kate dropped the radio mike, s.n.a.t.c.hed her pager off her nightstand, grabbed her jacket out of the closet, and rushed past Sam, who was still standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry, Sam. I have to go. There's pie in the kitchen. You're welcome to stay and have some."

"You've got a chopper coming?" he asked, grabbing his jacket off the couch to follow her.

"I hope so."

"What's flight time to the trauma center?"

"About forty-five minutes, over to Marquette." She pulled on her jacket over her yellow blouse and linen skirt as she ran down her front steps; she'd dressed for Sam, not for work-a mistake, she realized, but one she'd have to live with.

"Listen," she continued, "you don't have to rush off. It's fine if you-" She stopped with a hand on the door handle of the pickup. "Where are you going?"

"With you," he said, opening the pa.s.senger door and swinging into the front seat.