Free Stephanie Mittman by A Heart Full of Miracles

smile.
    “Because if I were drunk, I’d take you in my arms and kiss those soft lips of yours,” he said, and he pulled her closer against him. “I’d drop kisses on the top of your head,” he said, doing just that. “I’d tip your head back until you were just at the right angle”—he tipped her head just so, until her lips were inches from his, until she could feel his breath on her face—“and I would kiss the hell out of you—”
    He dipped his lips to hers, gently, just barely brushing one against the other, pulling back slightly, coming at her a little harder then, pressing his lips against hers, easing hers open so that his tongue could play against the inside of her bottom lip, so that it could sneak into her mouth and do wicked things to her insides.
    “
If
I were drunk.” He stood up straight and made sure she was steady on her feet. “Is that how yourfriend in St. Louis kissed you?” he asked, folding his arms against his chest.
    “Like that?” she asked when she could talk again, when she could drag in a breath and push the words past the lips he had kissed. She leaned closer to him, wishing he would open up his arms and drag her against the length of him. “I’m not sure. Could you show me again?”
    And then she saw where his laugh lines came from. Tipping his head back he all but roared at her. “Your father ought to lock you up and throw away the key, young lady!” he said, and then the man who had kissed her seemed to vanish, and in his place was Dr. Hendon, cool, calm, collected.
    “To protect me from you?” she asked, but before she could add
I think not
, he shook his head.
    “Not me. I’m on my way out of this town, Abby dear, just as fast as I can find someone to take over this practice.”
    “And what will you do with yourself, Dr. Hendon? Or should I call you Seth, now that you’ll be giving up doctoring?”
    He seemed to give the matter more thought than it deserved. “You should continue to call me Doctor since I am your elder.” He took one of the teacups she had filled and went back to his desk. “Thanks for the tea. You ought to go on home now.”
    “You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “What will you do with the rest of your life?”
    “Maybe I’ll go pan for gold in Nome,” he said, and she let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she washolding. So he didn’t have a plan. There was nothing, and no
one
calling to him. Nothing and no one but her. “I read about a gold strike up there in your paper, Miss Newspaperwoman.”
    “Well, that sounds wonderful. No responsibilities. No one depending on you. Just what you’ve always wanted,” she agreed.
    His smile wasn’t all that bright, as if she weren’t supposed to have taken his suggestion so seriously. Well, she’d be just as serious about all of this as he was.
    “You won’t be leaving before the summer, will you?” she asked. “Emily is expecting again, and since you delivered Suellen—well, gosh, I guess you delivered everyone in this town under the age of twelve, huh?”
    “Eleven,” he corrected. He got a wistful look on his face, and shameless as she was, she meant to exploit it.
    “Remember when the Rogan boys were born? Three babies at once! Of course, no one expected them to live, being so tiny and all. They sure are little terrors now!”
    He smiled. Abby was sure that he knew just what she was doing, but for some reason he let her do it anyway. Maybe sometimes a body just needed to hear that things were better than they were thinking.
    She gasped. “Did you hear about little Stevie Solomon? Seems he wrote some dirty words on his slate at school and Miss Kearny caught him and threatened to wash his mouth out with soap!”
    “Why wash his mouth?” Seth asked. “Did he say them, too?”
    “Well, I don’t think she wanted to smack that boy’shand when it really is a miracle that he can use it at all, what with how bad it got mangled up in his pa’s reaper. Of course, I