Lindsay McKenna by High Country Rebel

been abandoned. We’ve embraced her and she’s as happy as she can be. And now you’re home.” Cat’s voice grew stronger with feeling. “I know how much she’s been looking forward to this. You’ll give her a level of hope and care none of us ever could. This is the time when she needs you at her side.”
    Nodding, he stared down at Zeke, who had laid his head on his thigh. “She sounds so damned weak.” And it scared the hell out of him to realize how close she was to dying. When he’d call her from the Naval Hospital, about once a week, she was always cheerful, upbeat and hopeful . Not now.
    Cat placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. “She is weak. It’s the chemo. And I know you’re feeling pretty weak yourself right now. It’s going to take about two weeks for you to throw off this pneumonia and begin feeling halfway human. Did Sandy understand you couldn’t see her right away?”
    “Yeah, I lied a little.” Talon absorbed Cat’s touch, desperate for more contact with her. He’d wanted to kiss her. Make love to her. How she sensed his needs was beyond him, but he was grateful anyway. “I made light of my pneumonia because I didn’t want her to worry. She knows I can’t be sick and visit her or it could impact her lowered immune system in a major way.”
    “I think calling her daily will be a huge emotional boost for her,” Cat murmured, smiling a little. She couldn’t keep her hands off Talon. Just simply moving her fingers across his shoulder sent heated signals to her lower body. Wanting. Just him. Just Talon. Cat removed her hand. There was so much uncharted emotional territory with this man and she couldn’t trust herself.
    “I can at least do that,” Talon agreed, his voice gravelly. His flesh was tingling, heat radiating from where her fingertips had rested. Did Cat know her power over him? That she gently held his heart between her work-worn hands? That any contact with her made him grow hard? The innocence in her expression stunned him. She was old enough to understand a woman’s ability to inflame a man. Talon wanted to know everything about Cat. His finely honed sixth sense told him her innocence was real, that she wasn’t worldly.
    Something...God, he knew something terrible or traumatic had happened to Cat to make her this way. And his sexual response to her was like that of a hungry wolf. She’d saved his life, brought him back from the brink of death. She sure as hell deserved a helluva lot more than him stalking her like a selfish bastard. Talon moved his hands slowly up and down his thighs, scowling. Unhappy with himself.
    “I need to check your lungs and get your temperature,” Cat told him, forcing herself to move. A chance to touch him again, but this time, it really was about checking Talon’s temperature and making sure he stayed on the road to recovery. “Can you lie down?”
    “Yeah,” Talon grunted, easing Zeke from between his legs and then lying down on the bed. He watched Cat through half-closed eyes. When she looped the stethoscope around her neck, he couldn’t help saying, “Whoever the guy is in your life, he’s one lucky bastard.”
    Cat’s eyebrows moved up and she froze for a moment. She stared at Talon on the bed. He was a big man and his hands were tucked behind his head, his expression curious. She managed a short laugh. “There’s no one in my life.” She reached down into her bag and retrieved the handheld Braun ThermoScan thermometer.
    “Why?” Talon cursed himself for his bluntness. Pain flashed across Cat’s face as she sat down on the bed.
    “I have bad luck with men in general,” she admitted. Opening his shirt and folding it open, she listened to his lungs.
    Talon stared up at her. Cat had problems with men? He watched her closely as she listened intently through her stethoscope. When she was finished, he asked, “So, you’re not seeing anyone presently?”
    She picked up the ThermoScan and eased it into his ear. “That’s