"Please wear a shirt."
Gray pulled the door closed behind him. He sagged against the porch rail, hands braced on his knees, and struggled for air. His heart jackhammered against his ribs.
Lord have mercy, that woman knew how to make her point.
His throbbing body screamed at him to go back inside and take what she offered, consequences be damned. The wall between them did nothing to block the vision of her wearing just a silk bra and miles of whiskey-brown hair.
Her small but firm br**sts had always fitted perfectly into his hands, just as her body fitted perfectly against his. After a year apart, he hadn't found any woman who came close to knocking him flat the way she did with one smoky-eyed look.
He'd searched, determined to get over her, but ultimately turned down any and every invitation.
Gray straightened and stared at the closed door. He shoved away from the rail, toward the door and reached for the knob.
Carved wooden letters spelling out Welcome mocked him from the twist of homey daisies arching over the door.
Damn.
His hand fell to his side. Sliding back into bat-out-of-hell mode, he charged down the stairs.
He had two days to douse his libido before he and Lori picked up Magda from the hospital. Each pound of his boots on the steps echoed his prayer that Lori would wear not one, but two shirts.
* * *
Lori wore a turtleneck. The sleeveless ribbed cotton swept all the way up to her neck like a breastplate of armor.
She tucked the shirt into her straight-cut olive pants and considered pulling on a short-sleeved silk blouse over it. Then tossed it aside. Two shirts would be too obvious. The last thing they needed was a reminder of her stupid, fruitless stripping stunt.
Magda wouldn't be released for another hour, but Lori had finished up work for the day and planned to leave early for the hospital.
Coward.
Not that she was dodging Gray or trying to skip out. She'd left a message on his answering machine for him to meet her at the hospital.
Big coward.
Okay. So she was a great big chicken, scared and flat-out embarrassed to see Gray again without an entire hospital staff acting as a distraction.
And if he followed her home after she picked up Magda? A four-year-old would make a fine chaperone. How much could he upset Lori's equilibrium with a needy child in tow?
Of course, her parents had always managed romance, even with her around. Images of them flashed through her mind like a movie reel on fast play.
Her mother and father walking hand in hand down the Champs Elysées, while Lori skipped behind. The vivid red of her mother's lipstick as she leaned to kiss Lori good-night before a night on the town. A postcard from her father of Trevi Fountain, the trip a private celebration of their thirty-fifth anniversary. Her parents had been wildly in love, still were, and everyone who saw them knew it.
What was wrong with holding out for love?
Not a thing.
An essentially pragmatic part of Lori also acknowledged she needed a different kind of love than her parents had found. As much as she loved her parents, she was realistic enough to know there wouldn't have been enough time or energy left over in their lives to care for more than one child, certainly never a child with Magda's problems.
Love was better put off for another time and place. Magda needed her.
And what did Lori need?
She needed to wear two shirts after all.
Grabbing the extra silk blouse and a welcome-home gift for Magda, Lori left her apartment. She locked the door, turned to the stairs and stopped.
Gray sat sideways on the bottom step, boot pressed to the wall across from him. His head lay back against the porch post, his eyes closed. He'd once told her that doctors cultivated a talent for snagging catnaps when and where they could. Obviously, he'd meant it.