Perfect Chance

The realization registered very quickly with him. His gaze flickered and then went opaque. Did the bit of news pique his interest, or kill it? It was hard to tell. Neither option was good. And was she disappointed? Though she worked hard, she couldn’t come up with an answer to that, and her transparent face, as always, registered everything that went on inside her. His eyes narrowed. “Ah, so you’re one of those Newmans, are you?”

One shoulder lifted and rotated in a fine show of indifference. “So what if I am?” Of course I don’t care. Why would I care, for heaven’s sake? And besides, Victor’s going to find out I ate dinner with this man and be—be what, jealous? She tried hard to get there, to picture Victor jealous, then just sagged in her seat. No, he’d be surprised.

Her fork was out of line with her knife. She straightened it carefully. Out of her vision, Chance’s face broke into a predatory grin. He forced it away and said evenly, “I don’t know that Schubert and I are friends, but as a member of the faculty, I get invited to his parties now and then.”

Her little face tilted up and brightened as she snatched at that conversational tidbit. “You’re a member of the faculty? What do you teach?” It couldn’t be anything to do with medicine, or Mary would have heard of him or seen him by now.

“Journalism.”

“Oh.” That was clever repartee, Mary. She shut her mouth firmly and stole sideways glances at him. She felt as if she was looking at a different, rather dangerous, species in fascination. He didn’t strike her as the academic type. She couldn’t see him as a career professor and wondered what kind of journalist he would make. No doubt a very good one; she had firsthand experience of his tenacity.

Something danced in his eyes. “You don’t have to be worried. I won’t bite.” His voice dropped to a seductive purr. “At least, not without permission.”

This time she felt not only her eyes round, but her mouth, too. He was back to flirting, or teasing, and either one was frightening. He was a creature so very far out of her sphere of existence, she felt instinctively that the wisest course of action would be to throw her coat over her head and run for cover. He lounged back in his chair, a sleek, honed machine, and his heavy-lidded gaze traveled slumberously over her. She felt as if she had been physically touched by psychic tendrils that curled around her body and crooned of male intent.

Like a spider wrapping up its dinner in a cocoon.

She gulped. Now was the time to say something witty. “I have to go home,” she whispered. “It was nice visiting with you.”

Nice?

He unfolded from the chair and stood. She watched him go up—and up—and found her gaze at a level with the skintight shirt that rippled over an accordion stomach. She lunged to her feet and grabbed her purse.

“Do you have a ride home?” Chance asked her. “Because if you’ll pardon me for saying so, Dr. Mary, you don’t seem to be in any condition to drive.”

“I’m all right.”

“But it’s been a long shift for you, hasn’t it?” he asked shrewdly. “And the traffic is worse on land than it is on the lake.”

“Well…” she said reluctantly, fiddling with the strap of her purse. He did have a point. Even standing made her body groan, and the floor didn’t seem any too certain underneath her feet. “Maybe I can get a ride from someone else going off duty.”

“I’d be happy to drive you.”

I don’t know you, she almost said, but she bit it back. No doubt he was just making a generous offer, but every sultry movement and suggestive smile screamed danger. “Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“Let me make sure you’ve got a ride at least.”

“If there isn’t anyone who can take me, I can always get a cab.”

He smiled. “On the Fourth of July? You might as well hope for a ride on the space shuttle. Come on, Dr. Mary, your caution is praiseworthy, but I really am just a pussycat. Look—there’s old Shoe-Licking Schubert right now. He’ll tell you I’m okay.”

A pussycat, my belly button, she thought. More like a great prowling hunting cat, preening its whiskers with a Cheshire grin. But she followed his gesture toward the dinner line anyway.

The dean of the university, a slim, balding man in his late fifties, dressed smartly in deck shorts and a blue shirt, stood in line with a few other members of the faculty. They all looked sunburned, tired, and one of them had a bandaged wrist. Mary shifted from foot to foot. “I should go to say hello anyway,” she decided out loud.

Chance promptly took her hand, tucked it into the crook of his arm, and led her over to the dean and the others. Mary felt the heat from his bare skin burn into her fingers the entire way.

Harold looked up as they neared and immediately smiled. “Armstrong, good to see you. Why, hello, Mary.”

As she returned his greeting, Mary felt more than relief at finding out that Chance was as legitimate as he had promised—was there perhaps some excitement? She scowled. No! He’d just offered her a ride home, for heaven’s sake!

Pleasantries were exchanged, but when Harold and the others thanked Chance, apparently again, for all that he’d done after the accident, he suddenly developed an urgent need to leave the scene. Before Mary knew it, they had said their goodbyes and she was being hustled down the corridor away from the cafeteria.

I knew it, she thought, looking up at his face as she trotted to keep up with him. I knew it would take a lot to knock you off your feet. And you don’t feel comfortable with the praise, do you? She said in all sincerity, “You’re quite the hero today, aren’t you?”

He threw her a frowning glance. “I’m no hero. Just some things needed to be done, that’s all.” Then, before she had time to even consider that as a rebuff, his mood changed entirely. “And I can drive and everything,” he added with a wink. “See what a nice pussycat I am? Let me take you home, Doc. That’ll be my last good deed for the day, I promise.”

Her soft laugh bubbled out. “All right,” she said, feeling mighty reckless. Bad though he might be, he was good medicine for her weary psyche. “Thank you.”

He had left his car in the parking lot just outside the E.R. entrance, so they walked back the way they had come. Kelly, Mary’s replacement, had indeed arrived and things still didn’t look too busy. Maybe the worst of it was over. There would be another rush tonight after the bars closed, but thankfully, several other doctors had volunteered their time for that shift.

She was going home on the arm of a rakish, unpredictable stranger. While it probably shouldn’t be giving her the thrill that it was and afterward her life would return to its normal placidity, she was still just happy to be going home.

As they passed the doctors’ lounge, Victor, who was relaxing on a couch with a cup of coffee, looked up. He caught sight of Mary, still arm in arm with Chance, and his eyebrows shot up before his fine-boned face went carefully blank.

Yes, she thought resignedly, he was surprised.

She suspected she might have some explaining to do.

CHAPTER TWO

MARY stepped outside, and Chance followed her. The early evening was beautiful, the wide sky clear and the distant, rolling trees hazed in sunlight.

Going from the hospital’s air-conditioned coolness into eighty-degree weather was an abrupt shock, though. It was making her heart pound, she decided, pausing to swipe tawny bangs off her forehead. The ponytail had slipped farther, and she dragged out the rubber band, shook out her thick, wavy mane of hair and swiftly put it up again. It wasn’t so much blond as tricolored, darker underneath but streaked so light by the sun it was almost platinum in places.

Chance watched, eyes gleaming, the fine lines at his eyes deepening as he squinted in the sun.

She frowned, trying to ignore her self-consciousness from being so closely observed, and asked, “So—how long have you been teaching?”

He indicated which way they were to walk, and they started across the parking lot. Foraging gulls scattered. Even though it was miles from the lake, the hospital nearly always had gulls around. “Ever since I came back to the States and decided to stay in one place for a while.”

“How long have you been back in the States?” she asked curiously.

“Just under a year.” He smiled at her crookedly, eyes twinkling. “And I’ve been meeting the most intriguing people.”

They reached a black Jeep Cherokee and Chance moved to the passenger door to unlock it. Mary watched the way his hair curled under at the nape of his neck, the balletic fluidity of the muscles in his wide, strong back and shoulders. His legs went on forever. Next to him, she felt very small and inexperienced. Maybe he wasn’t so much flirting, but teasing her, as she thought he might be. It was a horrible supposition.

She had no illusions about what she was. Bookish, gawky, she always felt like a duck out of water at any of the social gatherings her family was invited to because of their standing in the local community and their money. Maybe Chance’s offer to take her home was how he would treat a baby sister.

By the time Chance had swung around to face her again, she was frowning up at the sky, apparently watching a gull with fierce intensity.

He peered up at the sky, as well, then back down at her. Something curious was going on inside her; it showed in her transparent features. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up, Doc?”

Her attention came back to him, and she blinked. He was watching her with that crooked, sexy smile. She didn’t know why the corners of her mouth drooped.

“Are you teasing me, or flirting?” she burst out, and was immediately mortified. Her cheeks flamed, and she glanced down at her hands. She was holding her purse in front of her like a barrier, shoulders hunched.

Chance regarded her for a moment in fascination. Such a defensive, artless little thing she was. This bundle of awkward nerves was a world apart from the self-assured young doctor who earlier had told him so authoritatively to get out of her way. He had an innately cynical way of viewing the world, but she was outside his definitions. He doubted she could lie to save her own life.

She had removed her white coat, and what she wore underneath were simple buttercup yellow dungarees and a white T-shirt with a scooped neckline. The outfit was bright, cheerful and unsophisticated. The scooped neckline showed collarbones as fragile and as gracefully formed as butterfly wings.

He took a step forward and slid long, hard fingers lightly under her chin, tilting up her face. The shock of the touch was unmistakably intimate. “Oh, I’m definitely flirting,” he murmured, unable to resist rubbing the ball of his callused thumb across those velvet-soft, astonished lips.

She gaped at him, sensual alarm bells in her body clanging wildly. His thumb stroked her mouth unhurriedly, hazel eyes gleaming with pleasure. Every sensible notion inside her flapped away on the breeze, and she stood shivering, open to any possibility.

He was going to kiss her. He was going to devour her. How incredibly, frightfully delicious…He dropped his hand and stepped back, opening the car door for her. She blinked, breathing hard and still trembling. It was time to get in the car. The car, Mary. Going home, Mary. Remember? With a crash of air castles and expectations, she got into the seat. The Jeep sat high off the ground, and it was an unexpected stretch up. She practically had to climb to get in.

As Chance prowled around the back of the Jeep to the driver’s side, she numbly fumbled for her seat belt. Her fingers seemed made of putty, while a sense of anticlimax leadened her mind.

She didn’t know the rules of this game. She’d never played it before. Why hadn’t he kissed her? Because he was just flirting? But she had wanted him to flirt earlier, flirting being far better than teasing. What the hell was the matter with her?

Chance slid smoothly into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. Mary watched him and wondered what it would feel like, to have his mouth on hers.

His head angled toward her, eyes gone dark. All hint of amused lightness was gone, and he was shuttered, withdrawn. He took a pair of sunglasses from the visor and slipped them on. “Where do you live?”

Her brows twitched together. What was this? Absently, she gave him directions, and he backed the Jeep out of the parking space.

The Newman estate was located about twelve miles out of town, in a quiet, wooded stretch of land that Mary’s great-grandfather had bought at the turn of the century. Hugh Newman had determined early in his life to establish a dynasty and had made his fortune in the shipping business. He had passed the business on to his son, Wallis, and had died a contented man, secure in the knowledge that he had fulfilled his dream and that his descendants were going to continue being a major power in the country indefinitely.

Four generations later, it was an entirely different story. Mary’s entire family consisted of her fourteen-year-old brother, Tim, and her grandfather, Wallis, who was in his mid-eighties and in delicate health. Wallis sold the shipping business when his son and daughter-in-law died, and has spent the latter years of his life devoted to his two grandchildren.

Chance navigated smoothly through the crowded downtown streets, swung past the university complex, and they quickly reached the highway that skirted the bay. Half of the trip home was conducted in silence. Mary stared out the window at the familiar scenery, the sparkling blue water to her right and the rolling hills on the left, unable to shake a sense of letdown.

I’m tired, she thought. That’s all it is. No sleep the night before, and now I have to decide if I have the energy to go to the fireworks like I promised Tim. The thought of spending several hours in the company of Victor and her younger brother was vaguely depressing.

Chance glanced at her broodingly. The sound of his low voice in the confines of the Jeep was startling. “You awake?”

“Hunh?” She shook herself out of her reverie. “Oh, yes. Sorry—I was drifting.”

“That’s all right. You had a long day.”

“I went on shift last night at eleven.” She knuckled dry, scratchy eyes. “It’s hard to believe sometimes that I’ve only been a resident for a couple of months. That on top of my internship makes it seem like I’ve been doing double shifts my whole life, and I still have so far to go.”

“Well, I’ve heard residency’s pretty tough. Kind of like boot camp for doctors. You like it?”

She smiled but it was fleeting. Did she like it? “Does anybody like boot camp?”

He chuckled. “Good point. There must be a sense of satisfaction when you’re doing your best, but it’s not the same as liking it, is it?”

She sighed, and was rather disturbed at how heavy and dispirited it sounded. “No, it isn’t.”

He reached out and covered her hands briefly, and she stared down at the large, square back of his hand, the tanned skin sprinkled with golden hairs and webbed gracefully with veins. Sinewed, strong, the tapered fingers sensitive; she liked his hands. “You sound awfully unhappy, Dr. Mary. Why are you doing it?”

From nowhere a pressure welled up inside her, and suddenly the urge to confide in someone, a stranger who had no expectations of her and no demands, became irresistible. She sighed again. “I had good reasons once. I think I still do. I love taking care of people, especially children. I love seeing them get better and knowing I’m one of the reasons why. It’s just that sometimes I wonder if I’ve gone about doing it the right way.”

Everybody was so supportive of her. Her grandfather had encouraged her every step of the way. Victor had offered her lots of guidance in her career choices. Even Tim had brought her coffee and rubbed her shoulders during late-night study sessions when she had been in medical school. She couldn’t let them down, not after all that they’d done for her.

It’s just that she wondered sometimes when she was going to find time for her own life. Sure, she wanted to take care of people, but when was she going to get the chance to take care of her own children? After two frenetic years of residency would come a busy career.

The times when she and Victor had talked cautiously about a possible future together, he had always evinced satisfaction with how things were going. He liked the idea of having a wife who was as career oriented as he was. He liked the respect and prestige, and the life-style. Lots of people managed two demanding professions in their relationships. Was that too much to ask?

Chance said quietly, “It’s easy to get bogged down in a career and forget you’re a human being.”

Mary turned to look at him. He looked so remote, attention trained on the road, half of his expression covered by the dark glasses. Was he talking about her, or himself? A career in journalism, traveling all over the world—how many opportunities could he have had for a normal life, wife, kids.

Good Lord—could he be married? With an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach, she sneaked a look at his left hand. No ring, and no tan line, either. But some men didn’t wear rings.

If he was in his late thirties, he could have three or four marriages by now, and any number of kids. Mary could just picture them, blond hair dripping into their sad eyes, wanting their daddy to stop flirting with her and come home to them. She gritted her teeth, revolted by the image.

Now, wait a minute. Find a nice roundabout way to ask him. “Have you—found time for a career and maybe marriage, too?”

His lips twitched. “Plenty of career, but no marriage. Not yet. I’m one of those men that got bogged down. One day I got home, walked into my apartment in New York, and everything was covered in dust. No food in the fridge. Hell, I couldn’t even keep a cat. Everybody I knew was a work contact. I’d lost touch with most of my friends years ago. That was when I decided to slow down. Nobody ought to work that hard.”

Her depression stopped riding her shoulders and blew out the window, and she gave him a sunny smile. “I thought about becoming a pediatrician, but that would be four more years of training on top of what I’m doing now. And then I’d spend all my time taking care of other people’s children.”

“And when would you find time to have any fun?” he asked dryly. “Let alone have any children of your own.”

“Well,” she said self-consciously, “yes.” So what. She could admit that she wanted children. That was a perfectly reasonable desire. A lot of people wanted children; it wasn’t as if she was hinting at anything.

And fun. What a pretty, simple, three-letter word that was, but what a concept. When was the last time she could say to herself, gee, I had fun?

Then the realization shook through her: she didn’t have any idea whether Victor wanted children or not. That was such an elemental knowledge of another person, but in the two years they had gone out together, the subject had never come up. And Mary couldn’t even make a good guess based on what she knew of his personality.

Victor and she were practically engaged. He was certainly by far the most serious relationship she’d ever had. In college she’d dated a few times, but she was mostly preoccupied with her schoolwork and her brother, who had needed her to be a surrogate mother. He didn’t even remember their parents, who had died in a car crash when she was seventeen and Tim was only five. She hadn’t had time for more than casual relationships, but Victor, who was also a doctor, and understood the stresses of her life, had pursued her with patience. She’d not only been flattered by his attention, but comforted by the companionship.

They reached the turnoff and began the long drive through the wooded twenty-acre estate to the large house. The clock on the Jeep’s dashboard read almost eight o’clock. The sun had set behind the tree line, and it was growing dark. Chance removed his sunglasses, pulled the Jeep to a stop, and regarded the sprawling manor house with raised eyebrows. Some of the windows were well lit, but the shadows outside were spiky and dark.

“You live in that?”

Mary started to chuckle. “Yes,” she said, “I know. It’s a monstrosity, isn’t it? But my great-grandfather was so proud of it.”

“There’re about three or four different plans going on. What’s it look like from the back?”

“Worse. There’re a couple of pavilions, an over-grown topiary garden, an arched bridge that doesn’t span anything, an unsuccessful artificial pond that turned to swamp around World War II and a rotting boathouse. It must have been something in the roaring twenties, but now it’s a little sad, like an abandoned carnival. Every two years or so, my grandfather swears he’s going to tear it down and build something more sensible.”

“I saw something like it in a horror movie once. All these college kids were being chased around by a maniac with a meat cleaver.” He cocked his head. “I don’t think I could sleep in that place.”

She covered her mouth and giggled at the image of such a tough, self-reliant man huddled wide awake in bed with the night sweats. “It’s not so bad when you’ve been raised in it. Then you don’t know anything different, you see. I always hoped to find a secret passage, but I never did. The attic is a wonderful place to play on a rainy day. It’s huge and filled with all kinds of junk.”

He shook his head, smiling, and opened his door. The song of crickets and the fresh smell of the woods filled the night air. Mary opened her door, as well, then realized that he was coming around to her side of the Jeep.

She looked up at him, her heart starting another idiotic tap dance. The creases on either side of his mouth were deepened by his smile, and he reached out for her with both hands. “Such a fancy manor house,” he drawled, twin devils laughing in his eyes. “It must be bringing out the genteel in me.”

Eyes riveted to his reckless face, she held out her hands, but instead of taking hold of them, he took her by the waist and lifted her lightly out of the Jeep. At some point her feet touched the ground. She wasn’t sure when; all of her attention had plummeted to the warm, firm grasp of his hands that nearly spanned her middle.

They stood very close together. Somehow her hands had found their way to grip his upper arms. The heat from his lean torso and legs radiated through her light cotton dungarees, and she caught the merest hint of his scent, clean and redolent of fresh air and very male.

Mary was fixated, electrified. At no time during her sheltered life had she experienced anything like the sensations that rioted through her. The shape of his down-bent head against the sky was a hieroglyph with archetypical meaning, and the shadowed, intent expression on his face made her stare in wonder.

Chance murmured, “Walk you to the door, Mary?”

It was so old-fashioned. Genteel. She was enchanted. “Thank you,” she breathed. “Oh, and thank you for bringing me home, too.”

“My pleasure.” After holding her a pulsing moment too long, he turned and slid one hand to the small of her back as they strolled to the porch. “I’ve enjoyed meeting you.”

“Me, too.” She stared at the steps hard, willing herself to negotiate them properly and not do something stupid like trip and fall flat on her face. That was hard to do when her knees seemed to have a mind of their own. They paused at the door.

“Are you planning to go watch the fireworks on the beach tonight, or are you calling it a day?”

“I—haven’t made up my mind yet.” She wasn’t that tired after all. The celebration didn’t start until ten. She could have some more coffee, a shower, maybe a quick nap, and she got to sleep in as late as she liked tomorrow. Just an hour or two, for Tim’s sake. “Are you going?”

“I thought I might.” His low voice was somewhere between gravel and velvet, a fascinating combination: dangerous and smooth. “Perhaps I’ll see you there, then.”

“That’d-that’d be nice.”

Nice?

He had never removed the hand from her back. Now he brought up the other one and stroked her cheek lightly with the back of his fingers. The sensation was so liquid, so gentle, she nearly melted into a puddle at his feet. Then, slowly, his head came down and his mouth covered hers.