Luke(39)

"Tonight?" she gasped when they came up for air.

His hair was wild from her fingers, his eyes, hot, hot, hot. "Tonight." Lowering his mouth, he feasted on her throat, her shoulder.

At a knock on her office door, they breathlessly broke apart.

"Faith?" called Shelby. "Is Dr. Walker in there with you? We could use him in room three."

Faith looked at Luke. "He's coming."

"Am I?" he murmured with a wicked smile.

"You will tonight," she murmured back, soaking up his low laugh.

Oh, yes, he was going to break her heart, and oh yes, she wanted him anyway. If this was all she could have, well, then, she wasn't going to waste a second of it.

It was a cruel joke that she couldn't seem to get sated, that she always needed more, but she'd deal with that, too, when the time came. But for now, she was going to smile.

"Tonight then," he whispered, and with one last hard kiss, he was gone.

*

One day the next week, Luke staggered into the hospital, his body still humming from the night he'd spent with Faith. He'd just had the hottest, steamiest shower of his life, and it had nothing at all to do with the water temperature, but the fact Faith had joined him with a naughty smile and a handful of soap.

He wondered if anyone could read what his idiotic grin meant, and attempted to swipe it off with darker, somber thoughts of work, but he couldn't.

He practically danced down the hospital hallways. Passing the nurses' station, still smiling, he waved.

Clearly still a little cautious of him, they waved back.

One week left.

Ah, there it was. A thought that managed to dim his smile. Only one week.

Briefly he considered making another stupid comment to the press about the clinic, one which would guarantee the need to spend another three months there. But since he couldn't even remember how or why he'd felt so strongly against it in the first place, and since it would only hurt Faith anyway, he wouldn't do it. Couldn't do it.

At least for the next few hours, he was blessedly busy, and didn't have time to think about anything other than what he was doing. There'd been a pileup on the 405, and an odd strain of the flu, which caused appendicitis-like symptoms, so he was completely swamped, up to his eyes in puke and broken bones.

In the midst of the chaos, one of the nurses asked him to check a patient that wasn't his.

"She asked specifically for you," the nurse said with a shrug.

When he pulled back the curtain, he was shocked to find Emma there, the woman with cancer that he'd met at Faith's clinic. She was fast asleep, which gave him a moment to read the chart. She'd passed out in the grocery store.

"Emma?" Gently, he stroked her far-too-thin arm until her groggy eyes fluttered open. "Hey. What happened?"

She sighed. "I think it was just the pain."

"Have you been going to the acupressure appointments?"

"And massage therapy as well." Her eyes filled as she shook her head. "It's not enough. Faith told me to talk to you, that you'd get something stronger for the pain, but I thought I had it handled. Then the grocery store incident." She managed a smile but it was watery. "I guess the truth is, I'm getting scared."

This was the part he hated, not having all the answers, doing the best possible job and having it not be enough.

"Faith believes in you," she said. "So do I."

He looked into Emma's solemn eyes and inexplicably felt like crying. "We'll take care of you."

She sighed, even smiled, and trusting him, laid back and closed her eyes.

If only he trusted himself half as much.

Yeah, Faith believed in him. Enough to trust him with one of her patients. It was a stunning revelation, and a powerful one.

Soon, in one week, he'd go back to his life and Faith to hers. So simple in theory, but suddenly he didn't know how he could have ever believed it.

There was nothing simple about never seeing her again, never laughing with her, holding her, being with her. Nothing.

*

Later, Luke sat on a large rock on the beach outside his house and watched the waves hit. He'd conferred with Emma's specialist, and had learned what Faith had already told him weeks earlier—there was nothing to be done for her other than to make her comfortable.

He'd done that, while silently ranting at the fates that gave them such a vicious, demoralizing disease he couldn't conquer.

Luke liked to conquer his world, damn it, and hated it when something prevented him from doing so. And though they hadn't lost Emma yet, he felt the despair the same as if they had.

"What are you doing out here moping when I made you a Mexican casserole that tastes better than heaven?"

He looked up at Carmen as she lowered herself to the beach next to him. "Thanks, but I'm not really hungry."

She let out a theatrical, diva-like sigh. "You screw up with Faith?"

"No."

"Uh-huh. I suppose you messed up a good thing because you got to the usual two-month mark, and went claustrophobic. Si?"

"Actually, it's been nearly three months, and I never did get claustrophobic with Faith."

"Then she annoyed you in some way. Maybe she snores?"

"No."

"Okay, then, she chews with her mouth open. Or forgets to put the lid on the toothpaste."