Home Alone with the Children's Doctor
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Traci Douglass
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CHAPTER ONE
THE HOLIDAYS WERE hardly fa-la-la-la-tastic for Kalista.
And not just because of the usual reasons—overstressing, overspending, overeating, over-everything. Nope. Dr. Kalista Michell had recently discovered that what’d she’d thought were issues everyone dealt with weren’t the norm for most people. Which could’ve been the mantra for her life since she’d hit her teens: “Not normal.”
With a sigh, Kali locked her apartment door behind her, tossed the keys into the blue glass bowl on the side table by the door where she and her roommate, Jen, kept them, then leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. It had been another grueling on-call shift at Boston Beacon Hospital, and she was glad to be home.
She took a deep breath and inhaled the silence—a rarity, since Jen could usually talk the paint off a wall. But Jen had taken a leave of absence from her EMT job this December to travel to Israel to see relatives, which left Kali blissfully, delightedly, uneasily alone for Christmas.
After removing her coat and comfy work shoes, Kali padded into the living room, where Wednesday, the black cat she and Jen had adopted the year before from the local shelter, preened. So, she wasn’t completely alone for the holidays. Her therapist’s voice, forever present now in Kali’s head, said that was a good thing. Diagnosed at twenty-seven as having autism spectrum disorder with low support needs. The words still sounded strange to her. They were still too new. But they were hers, and they explained so much about her: all the troubles she’d had when she was little, the things she was going through now—everything. Her diagnosis had been both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because she finally had a name for the weird feelings she always got when socializing with others. Her penchant for trying to read what other people wanted from her and doing what would make them happy, her strange habit of avoiding looking people in the eye and instead focusing somewhere near the bridge of their nose to make it look like she was holding their gaze even though she wasn’t. Her constant “masking”—the name her therapist had given it—where she mimicked what others did emotionally, thinking it would hide her deep-seated insecurity and inability to innately know what was the “right” way to react in a situation. It was exhausting, honestly, and all that on top of being a busy resident had nearly run her right into the ground.
But now she was doing her best to be more real, to tune into her own emotions and reactions and act upon them instead of copying others. It didn’t always work, but she thought she was getting better. None of her patients had complained about her bedside manner recently, and her coworkers seemed more cordial, if not less distant, than before, so...
Her autism diagnosis became a curse, though, when Kali still found herself getting stuck in people-pleasing mode, which probably explained her crazy decision to volunteer for extra shifts in the children’s ward this month instead of taking some much-needed time off herself. But she figured it was better than sitting alone in the apartment and getting stuck in one of her “loops” again—another term her therapist had coined to explain the times when Kali’s anxiety got out of hand, and she kept repeating the same patterns or actions over and over to avoid making a mistake or failing at whatever it was that scared her. She hated those times. And lately, they’d seemed even worse because she could recognize when they were happening, even if she wasn’t able to stop them. Yet.
Kali’s therapist had assured her she would get there. It would just take time.
But Kali wasn’t the most patient person either.
She was twenty-eight and tired of sitting on the sidelines, watching everyone else have a life. She wanted a home, kids, family, romance someday. And as the years ticked by, the yearning got stronger.
And sure, she’d done enough cognitive behavioral therapy sessions to know that part of that yearning came from growing up without that stability in her life. Her own parents’ marriage had been a train wreck of epic proportions. They’d divorced when Kali was just a kid, and she’d ended up shuttled between two chaotic worlds—her father with his new girlfriends, who were usually barely legal—ew!—and her mother’s “flavor of the month” man. Kali suppressed a shudder at how many times she’d sat through dinners with those monthly guys making inappropriate passes at her mom over the mashed potatoes. She swallowed down the bile burning her throat and scooped some kibble into Wednesday’s bowl before refilling the cat’s water dish.
“It’s just you and me for the month, baby.” Kali smiled down as the cat rubbed against her shins. She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her scrub pants to set it on the charging pad on the counter. A message alert popped up on screen, but it was from Jen, not the hospital, so Kali didn’t bother checking it just then. Her best friend had touched down earlier in the day in Tel Aviv, and she probably just wanted to tell Kali how wonderful it was there—sunny and warm and beautiful—while Kali was stuck in cold, gray Boston. It could wait until after she showered and changed.
Kali scooped up the cat in one arm and carried Wednesday into the living room to turn on some music. This month Kali wanted to keep to her schedule as much as possible, even though she had the apartment to herself. She’d learned since her diagnosis that routines were good for her. They helped keep her on track and less stressed, both of which lessened her chances of a “looping” episode. Plus, with being by herself for the holidays, her routines would hopefully make the time pass quicker too. She planned to take lots of walks, bake some cookies and other recipes that had been passed down from her Scandinavian grandmother, and generally avoid too much peopling outside of work. Of course, most of her fellow residents and colleagues at the hospital were gung-ho for the holidays, so she felt even more like a pariah this time of year.
Quiet celebrations worked better for Kali, though, and she was trying to listen to her instincts more these days, so...
Wednesday jumped down and sauntered away. Kali got up and walked over to flip through the channels on the satellite radio. Every station seemed to be playing Christmas carols nonstop, even though the holidays were still three weeks away. She was already sick of most of the songs. Kali finally found the least objectionable station and headed down the hall toward her bedroom, stripping out of her scrubs as she went.
Man, it felt good to relax and let go a bit after spending all day dealing with other people and their emotions. Introverted and studious, Kali had always been on the quiet side, and those tendencies had only worsened during her teens and early twenties when her autism disorder had really started to manifest. At first, Babs—her mother preferred to be called Babs, not Barbara or Mom—had put Kali’s “quirks” down to normal teenaged stuff and thought she’d outgrow them. But Kali never did and finally decided enough was enough. Last year, she’d made an appointment with a therapist to figure out what was wrong with her before she dropped out of medical school and ended up in a psych ward somewhere. Having a label for her condition and knowing there were other people like her out there made the autism easier to deal with. Made her feel a bit less isolated and alone. Babs still thought it was something Kali could just “get over,” but her mother was who she was, Kali chose which battles to fight and which to let go these days.
Kali walked into the bathroom across from her bedroom and closed the door behind her, then flipped on the shower to let it heat up as she sang at the top of her lungs to lower her stress from the day. She’d forgotten to grab a bath towel from the linen closet in the hallway, but it was fine. There was no one there to see her anyway. She belted out the lyrics to the pop song playing as she opened the door to the walk-in shower.
Clunk.
Frowning, Kali stopped with one foot in the shower and looked back over her shoulder. Sounded like something had fallen in the living room. The cat must’ve knocked something over.
Click. Clunk. Thud.
“What the...?” She shut off the water and walked back to the bathroom door just as footsteps echoed down the hallway. Footsteps that were far too loud and solid to be Wednesday’s. Kali’s pulse stumbled and her throat dried.
Someone’s in the apartment.
Kali distinctly remembered locking the door when she’d gotten home, so...
Oh, God.
The footsteps drew closer to the bathroom, and blood thundered in Kali’s ears.
Her phone was still on the charging pad in the kitchen, where she’d left it, and her scrubs were scattered down the hall. She grabbed the last clean hand towel in sight to cover herself—at least it covered the front parts, if not the back—and tried to find a weapon to use against the intruder.
Razor? No, not very effective. She and Jen both used the kind of cheap razors where the blades were sealed inside the plastic handle part, so it wouldn’t do anything unless she planned to shave the intruder to death. Her loofah? Nope. It was wet and soft. It wouldn’t do much either. That left the can of hair spray in the medicine cabinet. Not much, but if Kali could spray it in the intruder’s eyes, it might give her a chance to get around them and run to her phone.
Hair spray it was.
Armed and ready, Kali held her towel in place with one hand, then placed her other hand on the cold metal doorknob just as the footsteps stopped outside the bathroom door. Eyes wide, she took a deep breath for courage Three, two, one...
She pulled open the bathroom door, then grabbed the hair spray, still managing to keep her towel in place. Locked and loaded, finger primed on the nozzle, Kali froze a split second before spraying as she stared into the face of the last person she’d ever thought she’d see again.
“Dylan?”
Dr. Dylan Geller had expected a lot of things when he’d agreed to leave his busy practice in Providence in his partner’s hands and come to Boston to support the single mother of one of his young patients. He’d expected to get some rest. He’d expected to stay in his sister’s apartment. What he hadn’t expected—especially on his first night here—was a naked woman. Especially this naked woman. He’d known Kali would be here. She lived here. But he thought she’d be fully clothed. And not ready to blind him with chemicals.
Speaking of Kali, it took him a second to recover from the shock of seeing her again after six years, then the added stunner of realizing she was basically naked, except for that little hand towel she held to her front, barely covering the important parts. He’d forgotten about all those freckles covering her amazing body—all soft curves and creamy skin and...
What? No. Stop it.
But the more he tried to look away, the more he couldn’t. Finally, Dylan forced his gaze down to the floor and away from that silly little towel, with its grinning Christmas character that revealed far more than it concealed.
“Uh, hello.” He forced the words past his suddenly tight vocal cords. Dylan coughed to clear the constriction and tried again. “I thought you knew I was coming.”
“Hell no, I didn’t know.” Kali still had that can of hair spray aimed at his face, her cheeks flushed and her blue eyes bright with anger. “What are you doing here, Dylan?”
He held up his hands and took a step back from the line of fire. The last thing he needed was to have his vision compromised when he had an important case to consult on at the hospital in the morning. Plus, he’d agreed to volunteer his services at the understaffed pediatric day clinic while he was in town for the month, so working eyeballs were important. “Jen said I could use her room while I was here. She left you a message.”
“A message?” Kali frowned, her strawberry-blond brows knitting. “I didn’t get a message.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Kali. I’m sorry, but all the local hotels are booked for the holidays, so this was my only option. I’m in Boston for a case and—”
But she’d already pushed past him and headed down the hall, her bare butt jiggling as she walked away, grumbling under her breath. And once again, Dylan was speechless. The last thing he should be looking at was her ass, but how could he not? Firm and round, it was a fine butt, no doubt. Memories of those cheeks filling his hands as he’d pulled her closer that night on his parents’ deck six years ago flooded his mind before he could stop them. Man, that summer had been a revelation in so many ways. It was the first time he’d dealt with real, true heartbreak because his then-girlfriend of three years had left him for his best friend. The first time he’d sought solace in what he knew would only be a fling. A fling with Kali...
He’d been twenty-six, she’d been twenty-two, and while they’d always been on each other’s radar because of Jen, he’d never looked at Kali sexually until that fateful night she’d come out on the deck. They’d sat there alone, listened to the crickets, surrounded by the smell of freshly mown grass, and the air between them had seemed to sparkle with possibilities. Then Kali had turned to him and asked the last question on earth he’d ever expected. “Will you take my virginity?”
To this day, Dylan couldn’t shake the feeling it had all been a dream. She’d been beautiful, and vulnerable, and so very willing. There were nights he still dreamed about the way she’d felt, how she’d tasted of the cheap wine they’d been drinking, the sounds she’d made as she came apart in his arms...
Gah! Stop thinking about that!
He’d moved well past that now, and his night with Kali had become one in a string of many one-night stands since then. In fact, Dylan had become quite the playboy over the years, at least according to his sister. Sex for him was a means to an end, a stress reliever. No strings attached.
Give him free and fun any day of the week.
“Crap,” Kali called from down the hall, jarring him from his thoughts. “It’s here.”
Cautiously, Dylan made his way toward her voice, not sure if he should guard his eyes or not. He found Kali in the kitchen, glad to see she’d pulled on the blue scrub top he’d seen lying in the hallway earlier. “What’s here?”
“Jen’s message,” she said, scowling over at him as she held her cell phone to her ear.
The hand towel from the bathroom now sat atop the breakfast bar, the ridiculous reindeer on the front grinning maniacally at him. He’d bet good money his sister had bought that. She went full-out tacky for the holiday, even though they were Jewish. The kitschier, the better for good old Jen.
He started to move into the living room, then stopped as a medium-size black cat climbed his jeans-clad leg like a tree. The cat’s piercing green gaze dared him to do something about it as its nails dug into his skin like tiny needles. He would’ve removed the beast, too, except he couldn’t seem to get his brain to focus on anything other than the fact Kali had put her phone down and was now walking toward him with that scrub shirt she was wearing barely hiding her essentials, stopping a few inches above mid-thigh.
God, what the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t go gaga over women like this. He was a successful thirty-two-year-old man with a life and a thriving pediatric practice back in Providence, Rhode Island. But he should’ve known better than to trust his sister when she’d suggested he use her apartment while he was in town. There were always complications where Jen was concerned.
“Stay here.” Kali gave him a wary glance as she passed him and headed down the hall again. “I’m going to change. Then I’ll be back, and we’ll talk.”
She disappeared, leaving Dylan with the cat who’d reached his chest and now stared into his eyes like it saw and knew everything. Maybe it did. Maybe he should ask it what the hell was going on here because he sure didn’t know.
With a sigh, Dylan sank down on one end of the sofa, the cat still attached to his front. Good thing he wasn’t allergic and liked animals. “Hello, kitty. What’s your name?”
The cat hissed and let go, stalking away with its tail in the air, like a big middle finger, feline-style. A perfect metaphor for how his evening had gone so far. His drive down, which should have taken an hour at most, had ended up taking nearly three because of traffic. And he hadn’t eaten since breakfast because his office had been crazy busy, as usual. He rubbed his tired eyes, then looked around the place for the first time since his arrival.
No holiday decorations other than the towel. Huh. Normally, Jen would’ve covered every available surface with gaudy snowmen and stars and all manner of sparkle and shine, like she’d usually done when they were kids.
The stereo switched to a song about Santa hurrying down the chimney tonight, and Dylan rested his head against the cushions and stared at the ceiling, wondering when the day’s chaos would end.
A few minutes later, Kali returned, covered from neck to toes in a gray tracksuit and socks. Her long reddish hair was pulled up into a messy topknot, and her cheeks were pink. She looked good. More than good, if he was honest. Healthier, happier, more mature than he remembered.
More direct, too, if their previous interactions were any indication.
He’d always had a thing for confident women.
“So...” She returned to the open-style kitchen, pulling things out of the cabinets and setting them on the counter in front of her. “I’m sorry about the hair spray thing. But like I said, I didn’t know you were going to stay here. My schedule at the hospital has been nuts since Thanksgiving and won’t get better until January.” She held up a mug and a tin of something. “I’m making hot chocolate. Want some?”
“Uh.” Dylan’s stomach growled. He ran a hand through his messy hair, then shrugged. It wasn’t dinner, but it was better than nothing. “Okay. Sure. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Kali turned away to make their drinks. “Then we can figure out this mess of a situation.”
