Return of the Last McKenna (Harlequin Romance) Page 7

  She dropped his hand and vowed that no matter what, the only thing she’d be cooking up in her kitchen over the next few days was dessert. Not a relationship with a handsome doctor. She could see in his eyes, in those shadows and in his soft words, that he needed someone.

  And the one thing Kate vowed never to be again was the kind of person who filled that gap. To be a temporary pillow before the man returned to his driven life and discarded her like a forgotten towel on the floor. Because her heart was already scarred and one more blow would surely damage it forever.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE logistics of Brody’s plan required more finesse than negotiating a peace treaty. A busy family practice doctor couldn’t just up and walk out of the office to bake cupcakes. He’d told Mrs. Maguire he needed a bit of breathing room. “Just to get back into the swing of things,” he’d said. “It’s been a big change coming back from being overseas.”

  She’d put a hand on his shoulder, her brown eyes filled with kindness. “I understand. You take care of you and I’ll take care of the schedule.”

  In a matter of hours, she’d managed to free half his days for the coming week. Brody made a mental note to send Mrs. Maguire a big box of chocolates and a gift certificate to her favorite restaurant. Maybe two gift certificates.

  The day brightened as the sun began its journey to the other side of the sky. Odd how the same sun that warmed Boston’s streets created an oven in Afghanistan. And how the same sun that shone over a quiet neighborhood street could shine over a war zone peppered with the wounded and the dead.

  The dead—like Andrew Spencer. Cut down before he’d lived a fraction of his life.

  Guilt washed over Brody, teemed in his chest. He’d done all he could, but still, it never seemed he’d done enough. Had he missed something? Forgotten something? Taken too few risks—

  Or too many?

  The what ifs had plagued Brody ever since Andrew’s last stuttering breath. They’d been a heavy blanket on his shoulders as he’d boarded a plane to return to his family, knowing another plane had brought Andrew home to his family, stowed in a wooden casket in the cargo hold.

  He could still see Andrew’s wide green eyes, trusting Brody, hoping that Brody would pull off an eleventh hour miracle. Then trust had given way to fear, as the reality hit home. All the while, Brody battled death, tending to Andrew, then to the other wounded soldiers, assessing wounds based on survivability, and making his priorities off that grim reality.

  Those who would die no matter what were put to the end of the list. While those who had a chance were helped first. Brody and the other doctor with him had worked on the others, knowing Andrew’s chances…

  Brody cursed as he drew up short outside the cupcake shop. Why had he agreed to do this? And why would Andrew pick him, the doctor who had tended him until his last breath, to watch over Kate? The task loomed like a mountain, impossible.

  Inside the building, Kate crossed into his line of vision. She saw him outside and shot him a wave. Today, she had her hair up in a clip that poufed the back in a riot of curls. The style accented her delicate features, drew attention to her emerald eyes.

  Maybe not impossible, just tough as hell. As he watched Kate, he decided no matter what mountain faced him, it would be worth the climb.

  Brody opened the door and stepped inside. Sweet scents of vanilla, chocolate, berry, wrapped around him like a calorie laden blanket. “Damn, it smells good in here.”

  “Thanks.” Kate smiled. “If you ask me, it smells like temptation on a stick. Working here makes staying on any kind of diet impossible.”

  His gaze traveled over her lithe frame. She had on a V-necked black T-shirt emblazoned with the shop’s logo and a pair of body hugging jeans. Tempting was exactly the word he’d use, too. “I’d say you’re doing just fine in that department.”

  Had he just flirted with her? What the hell was he thinking?

  A pale pink flush filled her cheeks, and the smile widened. “Well, thank you again.” Her eyes lit with a tease. She wagged a finger at him. “But don’t think you’re getting out of dishes just because you complimented me.”

  “Damn,” Brody said, then grinned. “And here I thought you’d go easy on me.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Because of my charming good looks and great bedside manner, of course.”

  She laughed. “That might work with the nurses, but I’ll have you know, I am a tough taskmaster.”

  He closed the gap between them, and his gaze dropped to her lips. Desire warred with his common sense. “How tough?”

  “Very.” She took a breath, and her chest rose, fell. “Very tough.”

  The urge to kiss her roared inside him. If there was one woman on this planet Brody shouldn’t date, it was her. Already, he’d gotten too close, gotten too involved, when he had promised to help her, not fall for her.

  Damn. Holding back the truth only made it worse. Everything in Brody, all the practical, logical, deal with the facts sides of him, wanted to tell Kate who he was. But Andrew had been firm—

  Don’t tell her. I don’t want her to dwell on what happened to me or to blame herself for suggesting I enlist. I want her to move forward.

  Telling her, Andrew had said, would leave Kate hurting, in pain again. That was the last thing Brody wanted to bring to Kate Spencer’s life—more hurt and pain. He was here to make her laugh, not cry.

  “Here.” Kate thrust a bright pink apron between them. “Sorry I don’t have any in more manly colors.”

  “This’ll be fine.” He slipped it over his head. “Reminds me of med school when one of my roommates did the laundry one week and washed the lab coats with a red sweatshirt. We were all pink for a while.”

  Kate laughed. “My brother said the pink made him look approachable to the ladies.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Though, I have to say, Andrew was one of the most manly men I’ve ever known. When the war started, he told me he wanted to make a difference. So I said he should…” She shook her head and her eyes misted. “He joined the National Guard, and really took to the job. Everything Andrew did, he gave a hundred and ten percent.”

  Brody swallowed hard. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Such inadequate words. He’d said them many times over the years of being a doctor, but never had they run more hollow than right now. Maybe because he knew Andrew, and knew that loss didn’t even begin to describe the hole now left in the world.

  “It’s okay. I’ve always wondered and wished…” She shook her head again and bit her lip. “Anyway, he died doing what he loved. And although I miss him every single day, I’m proud of him.” She swiped at her eyes, and let out a long breath. “Now let’s to get to work so he can be proud of me, too.”

  Brody followed her into the kitchen in the back. Stainless steel countertops and machines gleamed under the bright lights. Here, the sweet scents were stronger, a tempting perfume filling the space. “So, where do we start? With Riley and Stace’s cupcakes?”

  “Not yet. We’ll be making those closer to the date of the wedding, so they’ll be fresh. Right now, we have another cupcake order to complete.” She pointed to a huge sack on the floor. “You offered to be the muscle, so let’s see how much muscle you have. I need five pounds in that mixer there.”

  He lifted the heavy bag, then gave her a blank look. “Do I just dump the whole thing in?”

 
She laughed. “No. Weigh it in that container on the scale, then when I tell you, you’re going to add it, a little at a time.” She dropped sticks of butter into the mixing bowl, then added sugar and turned on the beaters. “Have you ever cooked anything before?”

  “Does making grilled cheese with an iron count?” He grinned. “Old college trick. Some wax paper from a cereal box, a loaf of bread, a package of cheese and an iron, and dinner is done.”

  “All I can say is thank God you went into medicine instead of the restaurant industry.” She added eggs, one at a time, keeping the beaters whirring until the mixture blended into a pale yellow ribbon. She crossed to Brody and added the rest of the dry ingredients to the flour. “Now remember, add a little at a time, otherwise the flour will go everywhere and we’ll get covered. I’m baking cupcakes, not you and me.”

  Heat flushed her face. What was that? You and me?

  Focus, Kate, focus.

  So she did, concentrating on the recipe instead of on Brody McKenna. And the reasons why he was here. Why he had cut his schedule in half to help her. And why work with her, of all the people in the city of Boston?

  A few minutes later, the two of them scooped the batter into cupcake liners, then popped the trays into the oven. Kate started melting some chocolate, then laying out molds for the candy orders. “We’ll pour these, then make the pink flowers that go with them. By then the cupcakes should be cooled and ready to frost. If you want to start the buttercream frosting, I’ll get the ingredients out for you. Frosting is pretty simple. Dump and mix.”

  “That I can handle.” He shot her a lopsided grin, then he paused and stepped forward. The streetlights glimmered outside, casting a golden glow over the counter under the window. The city’s busy hum had dropped to a whisper. The storm had broken, and from time to time, a night bird called out.

  Kate’s gaze met Brody’s. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. A color as rich and true as the ocean. Eyes that studied her and analyzed her, and made her heart trip.

  What the heck was she doing here?

  Because right now it didn’t feel like baking cupcakes. At all.

  “You’re good at this,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I can make a huge mess just heating up restaurant takeout. But you…” he gestured toward the kitchen counters, “you manage to keep this place clean from start to finish.”

  The flush returned to her cheeks. “Oh, I’m not that neat. You should see my bookshelves and my closets.” Had she just invited him to her apartment? If she danced any closer to the edge, she’d fall over—and fall for Mr. Wrong. She wanted steady, dependable, quiet, not a man who turned her insides into Jell-o and sent a riot of desire roaring through her whenever he smiled.

  “I didn’t say you were that neat,” he said, and the grin played again on his lips, “because you, uh, have some flour…”

  He reached out a finger, slid it down her cheek. A warm, slight touch. Sexy in its innocence. She drew in a breath, held it. “Right there,” he finished.

  “Thank you.” The words were a whisper. Her heart hammered in her chest.

  “Anytime.” His voice dropped, low, husky, tempting.

  His hand lingered against her cheek for a long, dark second. Was he going to kiss her? Did she want him to?

  Then the oven timer beeped and broke the spell. She stepped back. “We…we should get back to work.”

  “Yeah.” Those blue eyes locked on hers. “We wouldn’t want anything to get burned.”

  “No. We wouldn’t.” She grabbed a pair of potholders and turned toward the oven before she could question whether he was talking about cupcakes—or them. She opened the oven, took out the trays and laid them on the counter to cool for a minute before she could remove the cupcakes and set them on racks.

  Brody stood to the side, watching her. “You go a million miles a minute here. No wonder you never have time to eat.”

  “There are days when it’s slow.” Then she looked at the list of orders clipped to the board against the wall and laughed. “Though I have to admit, there aren’t too many of those. Thank goodness.”

  “Admit it. You’re just as Type A as I am.”

  She bristled. “I’m as far from Type A as you get.”

  “You run your own business, work too many hours, dig in and get the work done regardless of the obstacles in your way.” He flicked out fingers to emphasize his list. “That defines Type A to me.”

  “You’ve got me all wrong.” She turned away, and started taking the cupcakes out of the pans. Just as she’d thought. He’d admitted he was the exact kind of career focused man she tried to avoid. The kind who swept a woman off her feet, then left her in the dust when his job called. “My father was type A-plus. He worked every second he could. Took on extra shifts because he was convinced no other surgeon could do as good a job as he could.”

  “Your father was a doctor, too?”

  “Yes. So that means I know the type. Come home at the end of the day, dump an emotional load on the family dinner table, then leave again when it’s time for play practice or violin lessons. That is not me.” How could he see her in that same light? She had a life, a world outside this bakery. Her gaze dropped to the cupcakes before her. Didn’t she? “At all.”

  “Not all doctors are the same. And even so, being driven isn’t always a bad thing, you know,” he said. “That’s the kind of trait that encourages you to do things like expand the business, open new locations.”

  “You’re here to help, Dr. McKenna, not analyze me or my life choices.” Suddenly he seemed much closer than when he’d been touching her a moment ago. She didn’t need anyone to hold a magnifying glass to her life, or her choices. Because when they did that, all she could see was mistakes. “I’d appreciate it if you stuck to mixing dough and left the personal issues to the side. You stay out of my personal life and I’ll stay out of yours. I’m sure you don’t want me analyzing why you’re working here instead of taking care of patients.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. His jaw worked, then he let out a long breath. “Yeah, I agree. Keeping this impersonal is best for both of us.”

  “Agreed.” She should have been relieved that he agreed. Then why did a stone of disappointment weigh on her chest? She stowed the baked cupcakes in the refrigerator then removed her apron and laid it over a chair. “We’re done here tonight.”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “We are.”

  * * *

  That couldn’t have gone worse if he’d lit a flame to the night and set it ablaze. Regret filled Brody the next morning, heavy and thick. He sat in a booth at the Morning Glory, thinking for a man intending to do the right thing, he kept going in the wrong direction.

  “Hey, Brody, how you doing?” Stace plopped a coffee cup before him and filled it to the brim with steaming java.

  “Great, now that I have some coffee.” He grinned. “How about you? Getting nervous about the wedding?”

  She cast a glance toward Riley across the room, talking to one of the other customers. Riley caught his fiancé looking at him and gave her a wide smile. “How can I be nervous when I’m marrying the man of my dreams?”

  Jealousy flickered in Brody. Finn had Ellie, and wore the same goofy smile as Riley every day. His two brothers had found that elusive gift of true love. To Brody, a man who measured everything in doses and scientific facts, it seemed an anomaly worthy of Haley’s Comet.

  The door to the diner opened, and ins
tead of his older brother striding in, as Brody had expected, his grandmother entered. Stace went over and greeted her, followed by Riley. Mary said hello, then headed straight for Brody’s table.

  Mary McKenna wasn’t the kind of woman to make social calls. Even as she eased out of her position at the helm of McKenna Media and groomed her grandnephew Alec to take the top spot, she spent her days with purpose. There were lists and appointments, tasks and goals. So when she slid into the seat opposite him, he knew she hadn’t come by to chit-chat.

  “Gran, nice to see you.” He rose, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

  “Brody. I missed you at dinner the other night.” It was an admonishment more than anything else. His seventy-eight-year-old grandmother, Brody knew, worried about him, and that meant she liked to see him regularly so she could be sure he wasn’t wallowing away in a dark corner.

  “Working late. Sorry.”

  “Working late…baking?”

  “How’d you know that’s where I was?”

  “Your brothers are worse than magpies, the way they talk.” A smile crossed her face. “Riley said you missed your regular lunch with him and when he asked Mrs. Maguire where you were, she said you were making cupcakes. He told Finn, and Finn told me.”

  His brothers. He should have known. Finn and Riley had found their happily ever afters and seemed to be on a two-man mission to make sure Brody did the same. They’d done everything short of bring him on a blind date shotgun wedding. Brody rolled his eyes. “I wish my brothers would stay out of my life.”

  “They only interfere because they love you.” She pressed a hand to his cheek. “And so do I.”

  His grandmother had been a second mother to him for so long, there were days it seemed like it had always been just his grandparents and the McKenna boys. They’d been a rock in a turbulent childhood for all three boys, and stayed that way long after the McKennas graduated college, moved out on their own and became adults. After her husband’s death three years ago, Mary had taken over the full time running of McKenna Media, but still doted on her grandsons with a firm but loving touch.