Читать книгу The Last First Kiss - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

Dave found himself staring at the blonde, stunned. While the face was vaguely familiar in a distant sort of way, the name was familiar in a far more vivid, in-your-face kind of fashion.

He knew only one Kara, God help him.

That would be the only daughter of his mother’s oldest friend, Paulette Calhoun. Every single memory associated with Kara Calhoun was fraught with either embarrassment or frustrated annoyance—or both. He didn’t even try to remember one good moment spent in her company. There weren’t any.

Back when he was a little boy, his parents and hers would get together frequently. All the summer vacation memories of his childhood had Kara in them. Kara and turmoil. He’d been rather shy and introverted. Two years younger, Kara had been the exact opposite, as wild as a hurricane, and just as fearless. He’d felt inadequate.

And then mercifully, just before he turned thirteen, his father’s company began moving him, and thus them, from location to location. They traversed the Northwest and then the Southwest. Changing addresses so frequently made it hard for him to make any friends, but the upside was that at least during the rest of the year, he didn’t have to spend time confined in some remote summerhouse with the wild tomboy, counting the hours until September and the beginning of school.

If, after all these years, this gorgeous woman really was Kara Calhoun, then God, he couldn’t help thinking, had a very macabre and somewhat sadistic sense of humor.

Despite the pressures generated by an incredibly hectic morning stapled to the makings of an equally insane afternoon, Dave stopped what he was doing and waved his next patient into the first open room.

“Be right there, Mr. Mendoza,” he promised.

Then, instead of following the man, Dave rounded the reception desk and walked toward the sexy-looking blonde with the long legs.

That just couldn’t be Kara.

Still, why would she say she was if she wasn’t? He wasn’t going to have any peace until he found out for certain one way or the other, so, warily, he asked, “Kara?”

“Yes,” she cried with the same sort of feeling a contestant might display when their partner finally guessed the right answer after being supplied with countless clues.

He still couldn’t get himself to believe it. Why, after all these years, would she suddenly appear here, in a place where she was clearly out of her element? Her shoes alone looked as if they might equal a week’s salary for one of his patients—the ones who actually had a job.

“Kara Calhoun,” he said, trying to reconcile the image of a bratty, skinny girl with pigtails and a nasty sense of humor with the clearly gorgeous young woman who was standing in the packed waiting room. Obviously nature could work miracles.

Why all the drama? Kara wondered. The Dave she remembered had been a super-brainy geek. Had he been forced to trade in his brains for looks? Was that how it worked?

“Want to see my driver’s license?” she offered, wondering what it would take to convince this man who she was.

The touch of sarcasm in her voice was all he needed to convince him. “It’s you, all right. Still have the sunny disposition of an armadillo, I see.”

She stretched her lips back in an obviously forced smile. “You’ve filled out since I last saw you.” Which, she added silently, was putting it mildly. If the way his lab coat fit was any indication, the man now had muscles instead of arms that could have doubled for toothpicks. “Too bad your personality didn’t want to keep up.”

He would have liked nothing better than to turn his back on her and walk away, but she hadn’t just appeared here like some directionally challenged genie out of a bottle. There was a reason Kara had sought him out after all these years and he had just enough curiosity to wonder why.

He made it simple for her. He asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I was wondering the same thing myself,” she cracked. But then, as he apparently lost patience and began to turn on his heel to walk away, she relented. There was no point in coming all the way over here and not giving him the game. “I brought you a copy of the latest version of ‘The Kalico Kid’ video game. Your mother told mine that your cousin’s little boy’s birthday is coming up and he’s dying to get his hands on one.”

If this were anyone else, he would have expressed his gratitude, paid for the game and taken it. But this was Kara, and the ordinary rules didn’t apply here. His memory was crowded with a host of different sneaky tricks that a gangly ten-year-old played on his trusting twelve-year-old body. Spending summers trapped in her company had taught him to hold everything she was involved in suspect.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. Motioning her closer to create at least a semblance of privacy, he asked, “What’s the catch?”

“Catch?” Boy, talk about not being trusting. But then, looking back, maybe she couldn’t quite blame him. She had been pretty hard on Dave when they were kids. “The catch is you have to spin a room full of straw into gold by morning.”

“You can do that?” a small voice directly behind her piped up. Despite the distance, her voice had carried enough so that the only child in the room heard, and he was clearly awestruck.

Kara turned around to see a little boy of about eight or ten. He looked rather small and fragile, so he might have even been older. She couldn’t tell for sure. But she did know that he had the widest smile she’d ever seen.

He also, she noted, had an extremely pale complexion and, despite the fact that it was unseasonably hot outside, he was wearing a bright blue wool cap pulled down low on his head. She suspected that the boy’s mother, sitting behind him, had put it on him to keep people from staring. The stigma of a bald head on one so young was difficult to cope with.

“She was making a joke, Gary,” Dave told the boy. “She does that kind of thing.”

Or did, he added silently. The truth was that he had no way of knowing what Kara was like these days, but he suspected she was still true to form—even if her outer form had turned out incredibly well.

He got back to business. “How much do I owe you for ‘The Kalico Kid’ game?”

But Kara was no longer paying attention to him. Her attention was now completely focused on the little boy. Even if he hadn’t been the only child in the room, he would have stood out because of his near-ghostly pallor.

“You really have ‘The Kalico Kid’ game?” Gary asked. She would have had to be blind not to notice the wistful gleam that came into his brown eyes.

She smiled at him, blocking out everyone else, especially Dave. “Yes, I do.”

Reaching into her shapeless, oversize purse, Kara felt around until she located what she was looking for. Instead of the boxed game she’d brought for Dave, she pulled out a handheld gaming system that had become all but standard issue for every bored kid sitting in the backseat of his or her parents’ car, forced to endure yet another cross-country family vacation.

She guessed by the way the little boy’s eyes lit up that not only did he not have a copy of the new version—only a few had hit the stores—but he didn’t have a handheld set, either.

“Want to play the game?” she offered, holding the gaming system out to him.

“Can I?” he breathed almost reverently. His smile was the closest to beatific she’d ever seen.

She had to restrain herself from hugging the boy. Hugging was something she did when she became emotional. Instead, she nodded and choked out the word “Sure.”

“Gary, you’d better not,” his mother chided. The woman looked as worn-out as her son. “I don’t want to risk having him break it. I can’t afford to replace it,” she explained.

Her eyes went from the boy to his mother. There was no way she was going to separate Gary from the gaming system. That hadn’t been her intent when she’d handed it to him. “I take it he doesn’t have one.”

Pride entered the woman’s face as she squared her shoulders. “We manage just fine.”

“I’m sure you do,” Kara quickly agreed. “I didn’t mean to suggest you didn’t.” She looked back at the boy. “Would you like to keep that, Gary?”

Gary looked as if he’d suddenly stumbled into paradise. “Can I?” he cried in absolute disbelief.

“No, you can’t,” his mother told him firmly, even though it clearly hurt her to have to deny him.

Prepared, Kara was quick with her assurances. “It’s okay. I work for the company that produces the game. We’re giving out a few handheld systems as a way of promoting this latest version.”

The boy’s mother looked doubtful. Gary looked ecstatic.

“Really?” he cried excitedly, his eyes now bright and as large as proverbial saucers.

Kara had to struggle to contain her own smile. She nodded. “Really.”

Gary clutched the system, fully equipped with this newest version of “The Kalico Kid,” to his chest. “Thanks, lady!”

Kara solemnly put her hand out to him as if he were a short adult. “My name is Kara—and you’re very welcome, Gary.”

Gary quickly took her hand and tried to look serious as he shook it, but his grin kept insisting on breaking through.

Kara raised her eyes to look at Gary’s mother, half expecting the woman to voice some kind of objection. Instead, she saw tears gathering in the woman’s soft brown eyes. Gary’s mother mouthed, “Thank you,” over the boy’s head.

Her mouth curving just a hint, Kara nodded in response.

Behind her, Dave was busy instructing Clarice, telling her to send another one of the patients to the second newly vacated exam room. Done, he turned his attention to Kara.

“I’d like to see you in my office,” he told the specter from his childhood.

Kara couldn’t help grinning as she followed him around the reception desk, then toward the back of the office. “Bet you’ve been waiting years to be able to say that line to me.”

He bit off his initial response to her flippant remark. After all, she’d just been very kind to one of his regulars. Instead, he waited until Kara had walked into the closet-size office, and then closed the door behind him.

The scarred, faux-mahogany desk listed a little to the right. It and the two chairs, one in front of the desk, one behind it, took up most of the available space. He didn’t bother trying to angle his way behind the desk. He anticipated that this was going to be short.

“You’re not really having some promotional giveaway, are you?” It wasn’t a question.

She would have played this out a little longer just to see how far she could take it, but she was running out of time. As senior quality assurance engineer, she was supposed to set an example for the others when it came to keeping decent hours. “No.”

“Didn’t think so. That was rather a nice thing you just did.” He didn’t bother going into any details about how very strapped Gary’s mother was, or what a brave little person the boy was. That was the kind of stuff that violins were made for and he had a feeling it would be wasted on Kara anyway. It definitely would be on the Kara he remembered.

Or thought he remembered, he amended.

Getting what sounded like a compliment from Dave felt awkward to Kara somehow. Not to mention unsettling. She shrugged, dismissing the words. “Well, I make it a rule not to eat children on Wednesdays.” And then she sobered. Raising her eyes to Dave’s green ones, she started to ask, “Does he have—?”

He cut her off, sensing that talking about the disease that had ultimately claimed her father was difficult for her. “It’s in remission, but I’m not all that hopeful,” he confided.

“That was always your problem,” she recalled, not entirely critically. To her, that was just the way things were and she viewed it as something that needed improvement. “Not enough hope, too much practicality.”

“You were just the opposite.” Almost to the point where she’d stick her head in the ground, he recalled.

She flashed him an irritating smile. “And pleasingly so.”

He needed to get back to work before they were literally drowning in patients, and he knew from experience that Kara could keep up the bantering responses all afternoon.

“So, you didn’t tell me,” he reminded her, taking out his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

Right, the game. She still hadn’t given it to him. Kara dug into her purse again. This time, she pulled out the copy of the video game she’d brought for him. The cellophane around it crinkled as she said, “Your immortal soul.”

He pinned her with a look. “Exactly how much is that in cash?”

“I’ll let you know.” She had no intentions of selling him the game. That made her too much like a lackey. Giving it to him was far better. Besides, she liked the idea of having him indebted to her. “Maybe I’ll take it out in trade sometime. I might need something stitched up someday.”

He suddenly had an image of her sitting on a rock by the lake, blood running down her leg. The wound had appeared a lot worse than it actually was. That was the summer he’d made up his mind to become a doctor. “You mean like that time at the lake?”

She knew he was referring to that last summer at the lake before he and his family had moved away. She’d been eleven at the time and had slipped on the rocks, trying to elude him after playing some prank. She’d gotten a huge cut on her knee and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She’d valiantly struggled not to cry.

“Those weren’t stitches. That was a butterfly bandage you put on it.”

The point was that it had done the trick and had held until her father could get her to the emergency room. “Would you have let me come at you with a needle?” he asked.

A rueful smile curved one corner of her mouth. “Point taken, Davy.”

He stopped the cringe before it could surface. “No one’s called me that in years.” She had been the only one to ever do it. Dave looked at her pointedly. “I hate being called Davy.”

She grinned, her eyes laughing at him. “I know.” She had to get going, and from the sound of the noise in the next room, so did he. “Forget about owing me anything for the game,” she told him. “It’s on the house. For old times’ sake,” Kara added.

If she was making restitution for things she’d done to him all those years, this didn’t begin to make a dent. But he saw no point in saying anything. After all, Ryan really wanted the game, and she had been nice to Gary, who had enough hard knocks against him. Besides, saying anything remotely adversarial to Kara would only embroil him in another no-win verbal match. She was probably still a master at that and he wasn’t up to one at the moment.

“Thanks.” As he said the word, his stomach growled, as if adding a coda.

She stared at him. He couldn’t begin to read her expression. Some things never changed, he thought.

“I had no idea you were a ventriloquist.”

His stomach growled again, a little softer this time. This was getting embarrassing. “I am on the days I don’t get to eat breakfast—or lunch.”

She cocked her head, as if she found the information fascinating. “You haven’t eaten yet?”

He knew her well enough to wonder what she was up to now. “No.”

“But you will.”

What kind of a question was that? Everyone had to eat—or expire. “Eventually.” He could feel her eyes delving into his skin. Just what did she expect him to say? “Someday,” he allowed, then amended his answer to, “Yes,” as he brushed past her to get back into the tiny hallway that was desperately in need of a paint job. “Right now there’s no time to go get something.”

She could see how he couldn’t leave, but that didn’t mean he had to go hungry. “Why don’t you send out Ms. Personality?” When Dave looked at her blankly, she nodded toward the reception room. “The anaconda at the front desk.”

“We’re shorthanded. Clarice’s my backup nurse—and the only one manning the front desk. I can’t spare her, either.”

Dave always did make things more complicated than they were, she recalled. Resigned, she dug into her purse yet a third time. “In that case, take this.”

Though he would have preferred not to admit it, Dave stared in fascination as the woman from his past pulled out what appeared to be an entire foot-long sandwich from her purse. It was cut into two equal halves.

What else did she have in there?

“Is that your equivalent to a clown car?” he asked. “Do you just put your hand in, then pluck an endless amount of things out?”

She didn’t feel like being on the receiving end of what he might call wit. She had traffic to face and a game with her name on it waiting to be further deconstructed. Holding it out to him, she asked, “You want this roast beef sandwich or not?”

He’d always thought of her as being rather unusual, but he had a feeling she wasn’t given to arbitrarily carrying food in her purse. There was only one other explanation for it. “Isn’t that your lunch?”

“Well, if you take it, it becomes yours,” she pointed out with a trace of impatience. And then she sighed. “Look, it’s not like I can’t buy myself another one on my way back to the office. You, on the other hand, look like you haven’t a prayer of making it out the door without that gestapo agent throwing a net over you and stopping you before you take three steps.”

He felt honor bound to defend the woman working with him. “Clarice’s okay.”

“I’m sure. For a gargoyle,” Kara agreed. She raised the sandwich a little higher, into his line of vision. “You want this or not?”

She might be annoying, but that was no reason to deprive himself in order to show her he didn’t need her help. “I’ll take it.”

She placed the wax-paper-wrapped sandwich into his hand. “Very kind of you.” With that, she turned on her heel to leave.

“Kara?” he called after her.

Pausing, she looked expectantly at Dave over her shoulder. “Yes?”

He still really hadn’t thanked her—and found that it was difficult to form the words where she was involved. He settled for: “Tell your mom I said thanks.”

Amused, Kara inclined her head and said, “Sure.”

That, he knew, was a cop-out on his part. He was better than that, Dave reminded himself. Just because this was Kara shouldn’t mean that he reverted back to behaving like an adolescent. “And thanks for bringing it by.”

She gave him a quick two-finger salute. “I live to serve.”

Same old Kara, same old sarcastic remarks, he thought as he walked out behind her.

“You look good.”

The words had slipped out without his permission, going directly from his gut to his tongue without pausing to clear it with his brain. His brain would have definitely vetoed having the words said aloud.

Surprised, Kara stopped abruptly and turned around, causing a near collision between them. He immediately took a step back.

“Are you addressing that assessment to me in general or just to the back of me?” she asked, an amused smile on her lips.

She could still fluster him, Dave thought. He’d assumed that reaction was years behind him. After all, he’d graduated at the top of his class, been voted into all sorts of positions of honor and had, in general, become confident in not just his abilities but in himself, as well.

Five minutes around Kara and he turned into that gangly, tongue-tied geek whose physique was all but concave the last summer their families had vacationed together.

“Let me think about it,” he said evasively.

She nodded. “Thought so.”

As she walked out, Gary rose to his feet. “Thank you,” he called after her.

She spared the boy a wide smile. This made everything worthwhile. “My pleasure, Gary. All my pleasure.”

With that, she was gone.

But not, Dave thought as he turned away to see the patient in room one, forgotten.