Tami Hoag - Heart of Gold

Her gaze wandered around his room, taking in every detail that might give her some clue to the enigma that was Shane Callan. He was neat. His clothes hung in the armoire rather than over the furniture. What few personal items he left out were on the oak nightstand. There was a silver flask, a pack of cigarettes, two guns, and a book of poetry.

Smith and Wesson, and William Butler Yeats.

He was a riddle inside a puzzle inside an elegantly handsome facade.

Unable to stop herself, Faith reached out with one finger and traced the length of his arm. It was a trail that followed the hills and valleys of muscle of a man who used his body as well as his mind. The hair on the back of his forearm rasped gently against her fingertips, and tingles of awareness shot through her. She pulled her hand away as if his fevered skin had singed her. Her gaze jerked back up to his shoulder, where a fresh bandage covered the bullet wound that was giving him such grief.

She wanted a simple life, a quiet life.

“No, Faith,” she whispered to herself. Even now attraction tugged between them, but she denied it. “You don’t want to get involved with this man.”

“YOU LOOK LOTS better.”

Shane’s brows shot up as he opened his eyes and slowly turned his head on the pillow to see little Lindy planted beside his bed, staring up at him with an expression of almost adult certainty on her cherubic face. Remnants of her bout with the chicken pox dotted her cheeks and forehead, but her dark eyes glowed with energy.

“Me and Mama are taking care of you,” she informed him, lifting a small red plastic case onto the bed. Opening it, she revealed an array of miniature doctor’s tools and a stash of candy. “It’s my turn now ’cause Mama’s busy. We have to see if you have a temp’ture. Open up!”

Obediently Shane opened his mouth and let Lindy stick a toy thermometer between his teeth. She pulled a pint-sized stethoscope out of her case, stuck the ends in her ears, and pressed the business end to his muscular biceps.

“Hmm…” she mused, pursing her lips, her eyebrows pulling together in thought.

“Well, nurse,” he asked soberly, “what do you think?”

Lindy beamed a smile at him, dimples cutting into her rosy cheeks. “I think you’re all better enough to color for a little while, but Mama will probably make you take a nap after that.”

Pushing her doctor’s bag aside, she scrambled up on the bed beside him with a coloring book and box of crayons clutched to her.

Keeping a discreet hold of the quilt that covered him, Shane eased himself up so he could lean back against the headboard. He tucked the blankets tightly around his waist, and Lindy settled in against his good side, as content and trusting as if she had known him her whole life.

A mysterious knot lodged itself in Shane’s throat. He swallowed it down and told himself he was just thirsty. He wasn’t in the least affected by this sweet, innocent darling with the unruly blond curls. Not in the least.

“This is the color book Aunt Jayne gave me for having the chicken spots,” Lindy explained as she opened the book to a fresh page and offered Shane his pick of the crayons. “I’m sharing it with you because I think you’re nice.”

Oh, hell, Shane thought, selecting a stubby blue crayon, of course he was affected. He and little Lindy were from opposite ends of the spectrum. She was everything good, and he had seen everything evil, yet Faith’s daughter cuddled against his side in her fuzzy pajamas, completely unconcerned. How could that irony not bring out all his protective instincts?

“Aunt ’Laina gave me that nurse game,” Lindy explained as she started in enthusiastically on a picture of the Care Bears. “She said I could grow up to be a doctor, and she would chase the am’blances.” She scrunched up her little pixie face and giggled. “Isn’t that silly?”

Shane chuckled. He should have been hauling himself out of bed and seeing to the case, but somehow the idea didn’t appeal to him as much as sharing these few moments with this child.

You’re losing it, Callan, his little inner voice muttered. For once he managed to ignore it.

Faith froze in the doorway, then sagged against the jamb. Nothing had prepared her for the sight before her or for the effect it had on her heart. Shane, sitting up in bed, bare-chested, black hair tousled, looking impossibly masculine and sexy and in need of a shave. And Lindy curled up against his side in her pink pajamas, jabbering away a mile a minute as the pair of them colored.

“Lord, don’t do this to me,” Faith whispered despairingly. She was too exhausted, too emotionally drained right now to fight off the wave of feelings that assaulted her on seeing that big tough cop coloring with her four-year-old daughter. Wearily she closed her eyes.

In a flash every memory she had of Shane Callan passed through her mind-his initial arrogance, the intense sadness of his music, his vulnerability as he’d lain sick with fever and whatever memories tortured his sleep. She thought of the book of poetry she’d found on his nightstand. She thought of the incredible physical magnetism that drew her to him. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him again as he bent his dark head and murmured something that made Lindy giggle.

And in that instant Faith fell hopelessly, totally in love.

It wasn’t a pleasant thing. It wasn’t flowers and church bells and bird song. It was a long hard fall down a bumpy hill to the rocks of reality. She was in love with a man who distanced himself from people. He kept to himself behind a wall of cynicism and distrust. She didn’t want to be in love with him. Any woman with an ounce of common sense would have taken one look and known Shane Callan was nothing but a heartbreaker.

That had to mean she didn’t have a shred of intelligence then, because she was looking at him now, and all she wanted was to go join him on that bed and have him take her in his strong arms and hold her.

The fingers of her left hand curled around the smooth wood of the door frame as if to keep her from giving in to that desire. It seemed she didn’t have the strength or the sense to keep from loving the wrong man. First William Gerrard, now Shane Callan.

“Darn it all,” she muttered on a sigh of resignation. Why did she have to be such a blasted romantic? Bryan had always counseled her to hang on to that trait. He’d said the world needed more romantics. Maybe that was true, Faith thought, but why the heck did she have to be one of them?

“Hi, Mama!” Lindy chirped, shooting her a grin that was lacking a tooth on the upper right-hand side. “Me and Shane are coloring!”

Faith gathered herself together and stepped into the room, trying to look unruffled. “Lindy, sweetie, you shouldn’t be in here. Mr. Callan needs his rest.”

“But he’s all better,” Lindy said earnestly. Twisting around to look up at Shane, she said in a loud whisper, “Told you she’d make you take a nap.”

“Scoot, pumpkin.”

Lindy crumpled against her oversize playmate and sent her mother her most plaintive look. “Can’t we color a little more? Please, Mama. Shane’s real good. He stays inside the lines.”

Shane lifted the book for her perusal, looking up at her with smoky eyes as a lock of night black hair tumbled across his forehead. “See, Mom?”

His voice was low and rough, more so than usual. This was probably what he sounded like first thing in the morning or just after making love. Faith’s skin blossomed with heat at the images that thought evoked.

“Very nice.” She shot him a wry look and motioned her daughter toward the door. “Lindy, go on and see what Aunt Jayne is watching on TV.”