Holiday House Call Read online

  Holiday House Call

  By Jen Doyle

  Dr. Karen Carmichael prides herself on being capable, optimistic and always in control. But even neurosurgeons have breaking points, especially as the holidays approach. When Karen finds herself on the side of the road, explaining to a cop that her less-than-stellar driving was due to stress and tears rather than too much booze, it’s humiliating. When that cop turns out to be a one-night stand from her past, it’s icing on the bad-day cake.

  Officer John “Tuck” Tucker didn’t expect to see Karen again after their night together. The circumstances may not be ideal, but convincing this beautiful, stubborn woman to get to know him with his clothes on is more fun than he could have imagined.

  Karen swore she’d never fall for someone who risks his life for his job. She sees enough heartbreak at work without inviting it into her personal life, and she has no interest in becoming involved in the small town Tuck calls home. But despite valiant efforts to keep her walls up, her affection for Tuck is growing into something much stronger. With a life built around work alone looking less appealing by the day, Karen will have to take a leap of faith—and trust that Tuck will leap with her.

  This book is approximately 30,000 words

  One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

  Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Alissa Davis

  Dedication

  To the women and men who devote their lives to taking care of people who need to be taken care of. And, in particular, those who took care of us.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jen Doyle

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Thirty-two miles per hour in a sixty-five zone. Someone was getting a ticket tonight.

  Eventually someone was getting a ticket, at least, because if they didn’t get up over forty, Tuck would be sitting here forever. May as well put his feet up and take a nap; rest up for his overnight shift.

  And now they were stopping in the middle of the road.

  Jesus.

  John Tucker put down the radar gun and rolled up the window. Rather than wait for the driver to get to him, he pulled out of his spot and headed toward her, catching a glimpse of blonde hair as he passed. He pulled a U-turn at the wider part of the road and flashed his lights as he came up behind her so she would...

  No. No freaking way he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

  He knew that bumper sticker. 5280 Denver.

  He knew that GMC—intimately.

  He knew exactly how soft all the driver’s long blonde hair felt as he threaded his hands through it.

  Because once upon a time—six years back, when he’d been living in Denver—he’d been in that car. Been in the back seat of it, in fact, clothes every which way, watching her throw her head back, her hair cascading over her shoulders as she rode him.

  It was one of his favorite memories from his Denver days. Possibly one of his favorite memories, period. And it majorly sucked that he was going to have to slap her with a drunk driving charge.

  Now they were both stopped in the middle of the road. This was about to get awkward.

  But it was his job, and as the newly promoted Chief of the Inspiration, Iowa, Police Department, Tuck had absolutely no excuse not to do it. He sounded the siren and hoped she got the hint to pull to the side of the road. When she did, he pulled over behind her. A blast of wind hit him as he got out of his patrol car. She rolled down the window as he approached, her bloodshot eyes widening in what he assumed was recognition.

  “I need your license and registration, ma’am.”

  He caught himself just before he winced. Had he seriously just called her ma’am?

  She apparently felt the same way. Her eyes narrowed. “Did you really just...? You made me come four times in three hours and you call me ma’am?”

  He, uh... Well, yeah. He was quite proud of that, in fact.

  The making her come four times part, just to be clear. The ma’am thing, not so much.

  “If you’re going to pull me over,” she was saying, “you could at least call me by my first name.”

  Yes. That would absolutely be preferred. Except...

  “You don’t remember my name, do you?” Rather than wait for him to confirm or deny, she bonked her head against the steering wheel. “So done,” she mumbled. “I am so done with this day.”

  He cleared his throat. Because, no, he didn’t remember her name. Or maybe she’d never given it to him. He’d been too captivated by her mouth and the things she’d said she wanted to do with it for anything else to truly register.

  She straightened up and glared at him—as if he were the problem here—before handing over her license and reaching for her registration. She’d also turned on the interior car lights, which was a bit of a surprise since it indicated a basic knowledge of getting-pulled-over SOP. Tuck didn’t think that was a good thing.

  Nor was it a good thing when her lips settled into a grim line before she far-too-perkily asked, “Could you tell me what the problem is, Officer?”

  Yes, he supposed he deserved that sneer at the end. He hadn’t told her he was a police officer that night. Some women liked the uniform; he generally tried to stay away from them. The problem was that a lot of women didn’t like it, and that was an issue, too.

  He looked down at her license. Karen Carmichael. Ames address, thirty-seven years old. Huh. He would have pegged her for younger. She had a bright-eyed, innocent look about her. It was part of what had drawn his attention—not to mention the attention of more than a few other men in the bar that night. She’d come up to talk to him, though. Asked him to dance. Which, incidentally, had been an entirely new thing for him, as he generally did the asking. He was also generally more of a first-kiss-after-the-third-date kind of person. Always that kind of person, in fact, except for that night.

  Nope, still didn’t regret it.

  Handing the license back, he said, “Could you step out of the car?”

  He ignored the glare she gave him as she shut off the car’s light, opened the car door, and stepped out.

  “I’m pretty sure you need probable cause to pull me over,” she added, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned against the door.

  He very specifically did not let his eyes drift down past her neck. It was hard enough to concentrate on what he was doing at the moment; remembering how perfectly her breasts fit in his hands wasn’t going to do anything to help matters. “You drifted between lanes, drove well beneath the speed limit, and then came to a stop in the middle of the road. I had every right to pull you over.”

  Her glare went nuclear. Took him straight from roasted marshmallow to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. But instead of lighting into him, she let her head fall back, dropped her ar
ms to her sides, and breathed in deeply through her nose a few times. When she straightened up and met his gaze, she was cool and collected. “I’m not drunk.”

  No, he’d realized that as soon as she’d opened her window to him, her bloodshot eyes notwithstanding. Something was going on, though; even a rookie cop would have figured that one out. Before he could decide on what approach to take, she snatched the penlight out of his chest pocket and held it out to him.

  She wasn’t supposed to do that. No one did that. And if anyone else had, he probably would have...

  Well, he had no clue because no one did that. Yet all he could do was watch the way her lips formed the words—”Here. Feel free to check.” —and flash back to the way those same lips had felt on his about-to-burst-into-flame skin.

  He pushed the thought back as he took the penlight from her, careful not to make actual contact.

  “You want me to do the walk and turn thing?” she was saying. “Stand on one leg? Say the alphabet backward?”

  Yeah. Something was definitely going on. Her attitude was still up around DefCon 1 and she hadn’t backed down one bit. So he ran the tests, enough to confirm she was sober—which she was. But as he stepped back so she could get back into her car, he saw her eyes change. And something changed inside him as well. Enough of a something for him to step in closer. He only barely managed not to reach out to her. “Are you okay?”

  She stared up at him, no less shocked than he was. Then her lips trembled. Tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. She shook her head slowly, her voice no more than a whisper. “I had a really bad day.”

  Tuck had had some pretty bad days himself. They haunted him regularly, pushed away only by thoughts of much better nights. Thoughts of her, in fact, from time to time. He wanted to draw her to him, fold her into his arms. But he was already dangerously close to crossing that hard line called, oh, professionalism so he resisted, instead asking, “Is there anything I can do?”

  He was a policeman? That was unexpected. Considering how things had turned out with her parents, she tended to stay as far away from cops as possible. When she knew that was what they were, at least. His stiff posture and complete inability to acknowledge that, yes, once upon a time they’d screwed for three hours straight, didn’t do anything to help matters.

  But it had been an amazing three hours—the best she’d had before or since. And back then she hadn’t even been on her man diet, so she did have enough experience to make that call. She was a lot more selective now, keeping herself to a strict one-man-every-six-months regimen because there was only so much time and energy in the world. She could really use a little human warmth tonight, however. Tonight was...

  Well, it had been a seriously shitty day. She took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you’re interested in a repeat performance?”

  He took a quick step back. His eyes narrowed.

  Oh, Karen. This is why you should stick to the rules.

  If only he hadn’t been that damn good in bed—well, in the back seat of her car, at least—she wouldn’t have let those words get past the idea bubble in her head. Or let it hang out there for the two seconds before his inevitable reply. But she couldn’t handle the rejection tonight even if it was absolutely the right call. Hell, if she were him, she’d be running for the hills right now.

  “Ms. Car—”

  She held up her hands before he could get as far as actually brushing her off. “Sorry. Let’s pretend I didn’t say that. It was entirely inappropriate.”

  Making every effort to sound as if she weren’t ready to crumple to the ground right now, she jammed her hands in her pockets. “Can I go?” And this time she would hold off her sobbing until she was safe at home, rather than trying to drive while not being able to see. Or maybe she could hold off her sobbing, period. Yet another rule she was breaking: tears were only allowed to be shed on Tuesdays. This was a perfect example of rules being there for a reason. And he did nothing to make it easier, crossing his arms and staring at her. Studying her. The glare of the spotlight from his car caught every chiseled angle of his face, every contour of muscle.

  “It’s forty degrees out,” she said in her no-nonsense, people-fly-in-from-all-over-the-world-to-have-me-take-care-of-them neurosurgeon voice. Although it was a total non sequitur—she wasn’t generally one to chat about the weather—her tone usually at least brought people into line. “You really should be wearing a jacket.”

  He didn’t smile much. She remembered that, too. But something close to amusement flashed through his eyes.

  “I’m serious.” Those muscles were downright distracting.

  “I don’t mind the cold.” And now he did smile. She had a feeling it had something to do with the fact that she wasn’t wearing a jacket either.

  Well, who had expected it to be this cold in September, even if it was the end of the month?

  She brought her arms up in front of her chest. “Well, I guess that’s good, then. Since you made that piss-poor decision to blow me off.”

  Everything about him turned serious again. He straightened to his full height and looked down at her. She tried to ignore the full body, non-cold-related shiver that ran through her when, his voice husky and low, he said, “I’d like nothing more than to get lost in you again, but I’m pretty much on duty for the next three days.”

  And she’d been on for the last three. Yep. As previously determined, there was nothing good about falling for a cop. The urge to lean into him was nearly overwhelming, though. To touch him. To close her eyes and remember the way he’d made her body sing despite the most unromantic of hook-ups everywhere. Maybe one day there’d be time to thoroughly enjoy a man like him. Today, however, was not that day.

  Or tonight, to be exact. “Is it midnight yet?”

  Obviously thrown by the change of topic, it took him a few seconds to register the question and look at his watch. “12:03.”

  A new day. Thank the lord. She repeated her earlier question. “Am I free to go?”

  After staring at her for a few seconds, he ran his hand through his closely cropped hair. Then he nodded.

  She nodded back and turned to get into her car. Just as she was about to climb in, however, she paused. She wasn’t an impulsive person. She didn’t typically need or want the company of another human being—between her patients and the people she worked with, she had more than enough on her plate, thus the diet.

  But one shouldn’t be expected to starve.

  She spun around, reached up and pulled him down to her in a motion so quick she made herself dizzy—partly because she wasn’t big on kissing. At all. His clutching her waist to steady them should have had a calming effect, but instead it only served to make her more lightheaded even as her back hit Bruiser’s side—Bruiser being her big old GMC.

  Despite his shutting her down, Tuck—whose name Karen remembered, even if the feeling wasn’t mutual—clearly had at least a little interest, considering how hard he was as she pressed herself up against him. And although he seemed tense about the whole thing, that only turned the heat up higher. He’d moved her away from him, yes, but his hands were so tight on her hips that she could practically taste his restraint.

  Except, oh, boy. This was why she didn’t go around kissing men. It was why she’d started her whole diet in the first place. So much of her wanted so much more of him, and that was far too dangerous to contemplate, especially since his uniform and very official-looking car indicated he no longer lived in Denver but instead was established right here in her cousin’s hometown, and no more than half an hour from hers.

  She shuddered at the perfection of feeling him against her and savored the taste of him, knowing she could never have him again. Then she ended the kiss as abruptly as she’d begun it, pulling her head away and ducking down so she could get under and out of his arms before she lost complete control of h
er senses. She jumped up into her car, turned up the heat, and smiled as he took a dazed step back before folding his arms and turning to watch her. Blessedly, she no longer felt the need to cry; all she wanted to do was sleep.

  Finally able to smile, she fixed her gaze on the road ahead and gunned the gas. If he pulled her over again, so be it.

  Suck it, shitty day from hell. She’d take it from here.

  Chapter Two

  One week later, Tuck was breathing shallowly through his mouth, telling himself that if he had no problem disarming an out-of-his-mind meth head, entering the lobby of Ames Medical shouldn’t be a big thing.

  Tuck hated hospitals. Hated doctors. His mother had been sick for most of his childhood and his dad had worked three jobs to keep her in treatment and make sure they were all fed. Tuck was thirty-nine years old and, yes, saw his share of horrible things without blinking an eye, yet stepping through those doors sent him spinning every time. But he’d promised a friend he’d pick up a box of donations for Inspiration’s Christmas toy drive before realizing the guy he had to pick them up from was a lab tech at the hospital, so here he was.

  He’d made it all the way up to the lab and was almost back outside to safety, box in hand, when he saw the wife of an old classmate standing in the lobby.

  He recognized the look on her face. He’d worn that look. His heart sank.

  “Taylor.”

  She turned as if working her way through molasses. “Tuck.” Her lips trembled for a few seconds, but then she bit them and regained her composure. “Funny seeing you here. Everything okay?”

  Holding up the box, he said, “Just picking up a donation for the toy drive. We kicked it off Monday. Everything okay with you?”

  Sometimes it was because of the uniform, sometimes it was just that he was a familiar face. He was never really sure which. But he wasn’t at all surprised when she practically crumpled in front of him. Grabbing on to her so she wouldn’t actually collapse, he could barely make out the words she said into his chest. “... Having headaches. ... Needed to come right away. Oh, God, Tuck. I have five kids.” Who, apparently, her husband was wrangling right now, which was why she was here, facing this alone. “I can’t even...”