We are sooo good to you for this holiday! thanks for the feedback - seriously, it keeps the story flowing. Quid Pro Quo g>
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Chapter 12
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Patrick rang the doorbell again and immediately buried his ungloved hand in his pocket to protect it from the frigid wind. His breath billowed visibly out in front of him as he stared at the closed door to Robin's cottage. The lights were on inside and her car was still there so he assumed she was inside, but she wasn't answering. The image of her collapsing in front of him in the lab began to flash before his eyes and he tried the door knob. Finding it open he got even more worried, her father's concern for her safety ringing in his ears.
He walked in and called Robin's name out. He wandered into the living room and heard the loud music coming from upstairs. Laughing at himself for his paranoid musings – a man-made mutant virus epidemic and a colleague with back-from-the-dead parents tended to do that to him – he loped up the stairs to see what was going on.
He found her at the top of a ladder painting a wall of the guest room. Blue this time.
"What are you doing to my room?" He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. He had to yell to be heard over the loud music.
"Did you at least make the pretense of ringing the doorbell?" Robin asked, not seeming at all surprised to find him in her home. Or upset for that matter.
Patrick's eyes narrowed and he walked into the room and circled her on the ladder, turning off the radio on his way.
"You're supposed to be resting."
"I took a nap. Then I decided with all this time off I might as well make this place livable. So, what are you doing here?" Robin covered the last white spot on the big wall with her roller and leaned back and nodded in appreciation.
"Checking up on my patient, who clearly needs it since she doesn't understand the concept of recuperation."
"I can't wait to see you after your surgery." Robin climbed down the ladder and put the roller in the tray. Kneeling down she looked up at him. "Come to think of it, what are you doing after the surgery? It's a pretty major one you know." A concerned expression on her face.
"I got that lecture from my dad today, but you know being a surgeon I kind of know these things." He walked over and looked down at her.
Robin stood up and pulled her hair out of the pony tail she'd had it in for painting, her brown eyes still darkened with concern. "Serve you right to have a doctor with your bedside manner so you'd know what it's like. But seriously, what are you going to do?"
"Go back to my hotel and take some good pain killers." Patrick shrugged and watched Robin wash her hands in the attached bathroom. He walked back out of the bathroom. "Have you had dinner?"
Robin shook her head, sensing that he didn't want to talk about the surgery and deciding to let it drop for now.
"How about I make something for us?" He offered, his voice overly casual.
"Inviting yourself for dinner?" Robin teased.
"I offered to cook." He put his hands in his jeans pockets and shrugged, a boyish grin on his face. When Robin didn't object he loped his arm around her shoulder and led her out of the room.
"Can you cook?" Robin asked, shrugging out of his embrace and following him down the stairs. His touch had made her thoughts scatter.
"Of course I can. I'm a modern man of many talents. Let's see what you have." He opened the refrigerator and then the freezer searching out ingredients.
Robin watched, bemused, as he jumbled through her cupboards. "You're serious about this!" She watched amazed as he began piling ingredients on the counters and sifted through her pots and pans.
"Baby, I've never exaggerated my talents." He waggled his eyebrows at her and then punctuated it with a shake of his hips.
Robin laughed. "I'm going to go light a fire in the living. And don't make a smarmy comment on that. Please." She laughed her way into the living at the sight of him clamping a hand over his mouth.
She was sitting on the floor staring into the fire fifteen minutes later when Patrick came walking out of the kitchen, a dish towel slung over his shoulder.
"Where'd you learn to make a fire?" He sat down next to her, crossing his legs.
"Lucky Spencer. Where did you learn to cook?" She leaned her cheek on her knees and looked sideways at him as he sat down next to her.
"My mother. She wanted to make sure I could seduce women." At Robin's wry smile he amended his statement. "She wanted me to be self-sufficient. So what's with the deep thoughts just now? Are you feeling all right?"
"I'm fine." She lifted her head and looked back into the fire. "I talked to my father. It was good. Thanks for encouraging me."
"Why so sad then?"
"My mother left town today, just for a few days. She had some person things to take care of in Pennsylvania and my dad is probably going to have to leave soon to track down the makers of this virus. I think Luke Spencer is going to go with him which brings back old times." She smiled at the thought, though she still looked sad. "Life has changed so much in the past few months."
"Is that a bad thing?" Patrick asked curiously.
Robin shook her head. "No." She sighed and turned her head back to look at Patrick who was watching her with those dark brown, almost black, unreadable eyes. "Just a lot to take in and it seems to have all come to a head just today."
"The talk with your father?" Patrick asked, his voice as unreadable as his eyes.
"My father. I spoke with my mother before she left about some things." Robin stopped as her thoughts touched on the little sister she never knew. "Simon."
Patrick stiffened almost imperceptibly beside her, but she sensed it. Wondered what it meant. If anything.
"I told him I was getting a divorce with or without him. I think he got the message this time." Robin shook her head and looked back into the fire.
"Does that…upset you?"
"No. I just wonder what the heck I was thinking marrying him. It was a weekend lark, really. Not my usual m.o. and now I'll be a divorced woman. It's a failure. Even worse, I realized today I never really loved him. It was pure unadulterated infatuation taken too far." Robin shrugged and continued to stare at the dancing flames.
It was on the tip of Patrick's tongue to ask if the sex was worth it at least, that was his usual m.o., especially with Robin. But he didn't really want to know, and neither did he want to resort to being glib and defensive when she seemed to be finally opening up to him. She had called that one right that night at their first official date.
"We never had another date," he said out loud.
"Huh?" Robin looked at him and shook her head. "Where did that come from?"
"I was about to be glib and then I remembered what you said that night." He shrugged and smiled ruefully. What was it that was different about Robin tonight? His eyes roamed over her face, lit by the flickering light of the fire.
"Nice self control, Drake. We're having dinner together tonight." She left the invitation dangling.
"Are you saying this is a date?" He asked, a grin breaking out, his dimple peeking out.
And now Robin could easily read the gleam in his eyes.
"Yes."
