Indecent

And he’d had the strength to refuse her when another guy would have shoved up her skirt and taken her right then and there on the desk.

A shiver ran the length of her spine as she rushed inside Harry’s Sports Bar.

Lucky waved a quick hello to the head cashier as she hurried back to the employee lockers just to the right of the kitchen and then shoved her purse inside the one marked with her name. She was aware that a couple of the male waiters stood in the corner watching her strip down to her bra and shimmy into her Harry’s T-shirt and apron. She barely glanced their way as she closed her tank inside the locker then twirled the attached combination lock.

“You’re late.”

The manager’s name was Harry, although he wasn’t the Harry on the sign, no matter how much he liked to pretend he was, especially when introducing himself to customers. “Hi, I’m Harry. Are you enjoying your meal?” he would say, leaving them to think he was the Harry of note.

He was somewhere in his mid-forties, was at least that many pounds overweight, and more often than not could do with a shower.

Lucky caught the way he stared at her breasts under the tight T-shirt and put her hand on her hip. “I told you I had an appointment.”

“You also told me you’d make it here on time,” he said to her breasts.

Since she’d landed the job four months ago, Harry had come on to her no fewer than ten times, usually when she worked closing and after all the staff had shared a wind-down beer. Now she usually opted for the earlier shifts even though the tips were better later, her patience for his unwanted attention wearing thin.

As she looked at him now, she suspected the same could be said for Harry. He looked a broken plate away from firing her and hiring another waitress that might be more open to his advances, despite the wedding ring on his left hand that he tried to hide with his class ring.

“I’m sorry. The session ran over,” Lucky said then reached around him to pick up a tray so she could bus a table in her station nearby.

He caught her arm when she tried to pass. “Consider this your second warning, Lucky.” He smiled at her in a way that made her skin crawl. “I don’t think I need to tell you there won’t be a third.”

“Understood,” she said as Connie, another waitress, came up on Harry from behind. Since Connie had been there over a year, she was apparently more open to Harry’s attentions.

She was glad when Harry moved his gaze from her breasts to Connie’s, and she left to go clear the table and take an order from a couple of guys who were sliding into a booth near one of the big-screen televisions on the back wall.

Lucky had been waitressing since she was seventeen and the job was second nature to her. She liked the noisy atmosphere, the nonstop movement, the odd hours. If every now and again her feet felt swollen a point beyond pain and her back ached, she just treated herself to a long, hot bath and a day spent reading then rushed right back into the fray. She’d never given much consideration to doing anything else. She liked her life the way it was. Uncomplicated. Routine. Familiar. With a little spice like the delectable Dr. Colin McKenna thrown in to liven things up from time to time.

Just thinking of him made her smile.

“What’ll it be?” she asked the next table as she straightened the condiment caddy and took out her order pad.

She was doing pretty much the same thing an hour later when two men walked in and took a booth in the next station. She usually gave customers only a cursory glance, but one of the two warranted a double take. Simply because he was one unmistakable Dr. Colin McKenna.

Lucky stood staring in his direction. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world…of course, he would have chosen Connie’s station to sit in.

“Are you going to take our order or not?” the guy in the booth next to her asked.

“Not,” she said, walking away.

COLIN ACCEPTED a menu from the girl who had seated him and his best friend, Will Sexton, then stared at the five big-screen televisions on the walls tuned in to different sporting events. He raised a brow at an archery competition then settled his gaze on Will.

“Come here a lot?” he asked.

Will and he had roomed together in college and had remained best friends ever since. While he’d gone the psychiatric route, Will was now a surgeon at St. Vincent-Mercy’s Trauma I Center.

“Don’t you?” Will asked in his thick British accent, cocking a grin at him. “Reminds me of the pubs back home.”

Colin highly doubted that, but didn’t say anything. Mirroring their choice in careers, Colin liked things quiet and subdued while Will’s motto was the more chaotic the better. At least in most things. When it came to their sex lives Colin usually liked things a little more wild, while Will had always chosen the sorority girls with the pink ribbons in their hair. Even now he was dating a sweet little resident who planned to go into pediatrics.

Of course, Colin’s preference had made turning down Lucky Clayborn in his office earlier all the more difficult.

Merely thinking of the hot, seductive woman made him tug at his collar, something he was free to do now that she was no longer in front of him.

“Welcome to Harry’s, gentlemen. Can I get you something from the bar?”

Colin looked up and nearly choked for the second time that day when he found himself staring at none other than the woman in question.

As soon as he had verified that not only wasn’t she a figment of his imagination, but that she was a waitress, he noticed that Lucky didn’t look anywhere near surprised. In fact, her predatory smile told him she’d probably spotted him the moment he’d walked in.

“Hello, Dr. McKenna,” she said with that sexy, throaty voice of hers. “Or may I call you Colin now that we’re no longer in the office?”

Will raised a brow at him. “Friends, are we? And here I thought you’d avoid a place like this like the plague.”

Colin dropped his hand from his tie. “Actually, we met elsewhere. Will, this is Lucky Clayborn.”

Will briefly offered his hand to Lucky. “Such an auspicious name. Nice. Very nice.”

Lucky stared at Will’s hand for a long moment then finally put her own into it and gave a brief shake, apparently not used to the greeting. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her gaze immediately re turning to Colin.

He tried not to notice the way her T-shirt hugged her just as tightly as her tank had earlier, the green fabric making her eyes look huge in her pale face.

“Can I bring you a draft?” she asked. “Harry brews his own.”

Colin swallowed hard and forced his gaze to his menu. “I’ll have bottled water.”

Will winked at her good-naturedly. “I’ll take a draft. Unlike the stuffed shirt here, I’m just knocking off work.”

Another waitress neared the table and stopped next to Lucky. Her whisper was none too subtle. “What are you doing? This is my table.”

Lucky shrugged her away. “Would you guys like to order now or would you like a few more minutes to go over the menu?”

Colin got the definite impression that if he so wanted, he could order her up with no problem.

His tie wasn’t the only item of clothing that suddenly felt tight.

The other waitress strode away toward the back of the restaurant. Colin looked around Lucky to watch the other woman strike up a conversation with a man he guessed was the manager or the owner.

“We’ll order now,” he said, thinking the less interaction with Lucky the better.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” he asked after he and Will had made their choices.

Lucky glanced back to where the manager was staring at her while the waitress pointed in her direction.

She smiled as she accepted their menus. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

She walked away. As soon as she was out of earshot, Will pulled at his own collar. “Did the temperature just get a little hotter in here or is it my imagination?”

Colin grimaced as he straightened his silverware. “It’s your imagination.”

“Well, I certainly hope so because I’m guessing she’s a patient of yours. And you don’t want to be taking any chances right now. Not with everything that’s hanging in the balance.” His gaze trailed back to Lucky. “That’s one hot number, though. I don’t know what I would do if a patient of her caliber came on to me the way she’s coming on to you. A package like that has a way of making you forget about medical degrees. Pass her on to one of your colleagues quick, mate.”

Colin had considered and discarded the option earlier. To pass her on to one of his partners wouldn’t look good. And right now he couldn’t afford even a hint of impropriety. “So why did you pass Miss Clayborn onto your partner?” he could hear himself being asked during a legal deposition. What would he say? “I wanted to screw her so bad my balls ached, that’s why.”

The sound of raised voices caught his attention. He looked over to where Lucky was facing off with the manager, the other waitress standing nearby with her arms crossed under her impressive chest. Colin couldn’t make out what was being said, but given the man’s stern expression he didn’t think it was good.

And when Lucky took off her apron and then peeled off her T-shirt and draped both over the manager’s head, he knew he’d guessed correctly.

There were hoots and hollers as Lucky strode, as casual as you please, toward the kitchen where she disappeared behind the doors.

“Whoa,” Will said, his eyes wide. “Something tells me I won’t be getting that ale any time soon.”

Colin watched as Lucky came back out of the kitchen wearing the same tank she’d had on earlier. She ignored the manager as she walked through the place then out the front door.

He started to push from the table.

Will caught his arm, his expression stern. “I wouldn’t if I were you, Col.”

Colin considered him. “I know. But you’re not me.”

And then he went out after Lucky.

3

IT WAS raining.

Figured. Lucky kept her chin high and her shoulders back. It was raining in her professional life, so why shouldn’t it be in reality?

She squelched a groan. She’d really needed that job. Aside from the good tips, the flexibility had allowed her to work around her morning job at the pancake house within walking distance of the bar. And considering that the pancake house didn’t have an item on the menu that cost more than five dollars and ninety cents, her tips were minimal, by no means enough to live on.

And she’d thrown the job away for a man….

She tripped over her own feet, missing a puddle by millimeters. Had she ever done something so spontaneously irresponsible before? Not when it came to the opposite sex. Sure, she might like to shake things up a bit wherever she was, and she didn’t take well to leering bosses, but a few unwanted stares at her breasts had never been enough for her to walk away from a well-paying job. And in this case, she had not only walked away from it, she’d gone to Colin’s table knowing full well she’d be fired.

Of course, at the time it had seemed more than worth the unguarded expression on his face when he’d looked up to see her.

Now? Well, now she wondered which errant hormones had made her act so impulsively and how she might go about getting them back under control.

Sure, the shrink was thigh-quiveringly sexy. But no man was sexier than a good night’s worth of tips. Not when she had bills to pay.

She opened the door of her twenty-five-year-old Chevy and slid onto the well-maintained leather driver’s seat, breathing in the scent of old car and raspberry air freshener as she fished her keys from her purse. The ping of rain against the roof was the only sound…even after she turned the ignition key.

Not even a sputter, a whine or a crank from the old vehicle. Nothing.

Lucky tried starting the car again with the same results.

She rested her forehead against the cracked leather steering wheel and closed her eyes. Great. Just what she needed considering she’d just lost her main source of income.

There was a light tap on her window. She leaned back to stare at the blurry image through the rain-spattered glass. Was that…

Colin.

“Are you all right?” she read his lips rather than heard the muffled words.

Lucky blinked at him. Was the doc really standing out in the rain with no protection, his hands tucked into his slacks pockets as he bent to look inside her car? Yes, he was. And in that one moment everything that had transpired in the past ten minutes had been worth it.

She yanked open the door and climbed out of the car to stand in front of him. He straightened, seeming to squint at her in the gloomy light.

“What was that you said?” she asked.

“I asked if you were all right.”

Lucky twisted her lips, giving his tall, lean body a full once-over before returning her gaze to his eyes. “Considering I just got fired five minutes ago, my car won’t start, and the lack of an umbrella has made my tank top transparent? I’m just peachy.”

His gaze dropped down to her breasts. Lucky didn’t have to look. It didn’t take a physics professor to know that white cotton and steady rain made her look like a wet T-shirt contestant.

Only she was unprepared for the warm shiver that slaked through her at Colin’s slow perusal.

She rounded him to stand at the front of her car. After sliding her fingers in between the grill slats, she tugged on the release then braced herself as she hauled open the old car’s hood.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about cars, would you, Dr. McKenna?” she asked.

He came to stand next to her, staring at the grease-covered engine. “I know enough.”

“And would any of that knowledge help me out with what’s happening now?”

He looked at her, his mind appearing to be on everything but the status of her car. “It’s my guess your battery’s dead.”

He walked to the driver’s door, opened it, then pushed in the button that turned off the headlights. When she’d gotten into her car, Lucky hadn’t even been aware they were on. Then again, why would she? If the headlights had drained her sorry excuse for a battery, then there wouldn’t be any juice left to illuminate them now, would there?

Great.

Colin closed the door then reached to close the hood.

Lucky turned to face him. The fact that they stood without a raincoat or an umbrella in the pouring rain didn’t matter to her. Nor did it appear to matter to him as they stood just staring at each other.

“Well,” she said slowly, feeling oddly turned on by the attention. Attention she had wanted only a few hours earlier in his office but that now seemed somehow…very intimate to her. “I guess you won’t have to worry about running into me again here.”

He nodded. “Fired?”

“Very.”

His mouth turned up into a small smile. “How do you feel about that?”

Lucky narrowed her eyes. “Dr. McKenna, are you trying to psychoanalyze me in a parking lot in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

He looked up. “It would have to be thundering in order for it to be a thunderstorm.”

Lucky could have sworn she’d heard a few cracks and felt the ground shake, but she wasn’t going to say anything in case the sensations had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with Colin McKenna.

“And you’re avoiding my question,” she said just as he had in his office earlier.

The very handsome Colin McKenna looked even more delectable mussed up and wet. “Sorry. Hazard of the trade, I guess.”

“What is? That you always end up sounding like a doctor?”

He nodded. “Especially when talking to a patient.”

That’s right. They still were doctor and patient, weren’t they? Despite all that had happened in her own life in the past half hour, their connection remained the same. A connection that prevented the more sexual one she wanted more in that minute than she had at any other point during the day.

“Mmm.”

His smile widened. “Can I give you a lift?”

“What would your lunch companion have to say about your disappearance?”

He glanced back toward the sports bar.

Lucky reached into her car, took her keys from the ignition, and grabbed her purse. “That’s all right, Dr. McKenna. I wouldn’t want to ask you to do something that might appear inappropriate.”

Actually, she wanted to ask him to do something very inappropriate. She wanted to ask him to kiss her. To brand her skin with his hands. To show her what she’d only felt earlier in the office when she’d provocatively brushed up against him.

“How will you get home?”

She took a card out of her purse and waved it at him. “It’s called the bus.”

Lucky began to round Colin to start toward Secor Road and the bus stop across the street, then stopped parallel to him. Despite the weather, she made out the warm scent of his cologne. Or was it aftershave? Whichever it was, the smell made her want to press her tongue to his skin to see if he tasted as good as he smelled.

And before she knew it, she turned to do exactly that.

COLIN HAD KNOWN a moment of disappointed relief when Lucky turned down his offer of a ride. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking when he’d made the offer, but he knew it was linked to what ever had compelled him to come outside to see if she was all right.

And he needed to get a handle on it before he and the sexy waitress…patient crossed paths again.

He was pretty sure he exhaled when she began walking toward the road.

After a few steps, she stopped and turned. “Actually, there’s one thing you can do for me real quick, Doc,” Lucky said lightly grasping his arm. “You can kiss me.”

Colin opened his mouth to protest. The problem was the movement allowed her better access as she took his bottom lip between her teeth, then kissed him like a woman who could teach classes on the subject.

He felt a groan grumble up from his chest. It had been a long, long time since he’d so thoroughly enjoyed a kiss. More than three months, though he’d gone without sex that long.

He stood still, reveling in the soft, uneven texture of her lips. The rasp of her tongue as she took full advantage and slid it past his teeth.

“Mmm.”

Lucky made that sound again that tugged on something within him. Something deep and elemental and undeniable.

He reached out to pull her closer when she pulled away.

Raindrops clung to her lashes, making them look longer and thicker and giving her cat-green eyes an even more vivid appearance. Whatever makeup she may have had on had long since been washed away by the rain, revealing a light smattering of freckles over her pale skin. And her red hair shone almost black with wetness.

“That was even better than I imagined,” she said softly. “And I have quite an imagination.”

Then she was walking away from him, her hips swaying, seeming completely oblivious to the rain and to him as she made her way toward the road some hundred yards away.

Colin absently rubbed his chin, then held out his hand, absently watching the rain pelt his skin then run off to accumulate in a puddle at his feet. He was soaked and somehow couldn’t remember how he’d gotten that way. He glanced up toward the battle-gray sky then back to the street, only Lucky was long gone.

FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK Colin both dreaded and anticipated the moment when Lucky would walk through the door to his office and either prove or disprove his attraction toward her. A case of raging hormones, he’d tried telling himself over and over again. An instance of temporary insanity. But no matter how many times he tried to apply reason to the erotic kiss he’d shared with Lucky in that parking lot seven days ago, he fell well short of the mark.

Then the moment he’d been waiting seven long days for never came.

Colin sat back in his chair, tapping his pencil against the incoming mail and files the practice secretary had placed on his desk after the group he’d finished with had vacated the room. The group that should have included Lucky.

He leaned forward, browsing through the files, looking for hers. Normal procedure dictated he contact the court, let them know the terms of their orders were being violated. But he was reluctant to do that. Maybe she’d got caught up at work. Perhaps she hadn’t repaired her car.

He couldn’t find her file.

Grimacing, he went through the pile again with the same results. A pink envelope fluttered from the files in his hands and landed squarely in the middle of his lap.

That’s odd. It looked like expensive personal stationary. Definitely not the type of thing he would think of Lucky possessing. He slit open the side with his opener and took out the single sheet of pink paper.

She’s pretty. I could have been pretty for you.

Colin’s blood ran cold.

While the handwriting wasn’t familiar, the words—or rather the taunt in them—was.

Jamie Polson.

He pushed from his chair and didn’t stop moving until he stood in front of his secretary’s desk.

Having been out with the flu the week before, Annette looked the worse for wear.

“Where did this come from?” he asked, flashing her the envelope that simply said Colin across it.

Annette blinked at him. “I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing it when I sorted through your things a little while ago.” She took the envelope and turned it over. “This I definitely would have remembered.” She smiled as she handed it back. “Love letter?”

Far from it, he wanted to say.

“Hi,” the breathless greeting sounded behind him.

Colin turned to find Lucky Clayborn smiling at him sexily. He nearly crumpled the letter and envelope in his grip. Someone had gained access to his office to put Jamie’s card there. And the card itself bore an unspoken threat of sorts that upped the level of tension. He’d hoped time would allow Jamie the space to move on. To drop the case.

Instead Jamie appeared even more determined to keep him on the run, both in court and out. And he couldn’t help wondering at the coincidence of Lucky’s presence at the same time he’d discovered the card.

Colin discovered he was staring at Lucky’s full mouth and allowed his gaze to linger there before lifting it to her eyes. “You’re late,” he told her. “The session’s over.” He stared at his secretary. “Where’s Miss Clayborn’s file?”

Annette appeared puzzled as she answered the phone then put someone on hold. “In with Dr. Szymanski’s files, of course. Miss Clayborn called and asked to be transferred last week.”

Lucky had moved to Morgan Szymanski, one of his partners?

Colin’s pulse rate leapt at the knowledge that Lucky was no longer his patient.

“Do you have a few minutes?”

Lucky had asked the question from behind him, but Colin didn’t trust himself to look at her. Without the doctor-patient wall standing between them, there was no longer any reason to resist her. He stared at the note in his hands then glanced at her.

“Why don’t we talk in my office?” he suggested.

4

BEING INSIDE Colin’s office with him, alone, was exactly what Lucky had had in mind.

She followed the handsome doc through the door to the right of the secretary’s desk, waiting until he closed the thick wood before she did what she’d been yearning to do all week.

She stepped within breathing distance and kissed him fully on the mouth.

Incredible…

Lucky had just spent the past hour getting to know her new therapist and her three new group mates. She’d volunteered more than during last week’s session, though Dr. Szymanski had been even less impressed with her participation than Colin had. But, with the simple touch of her lips against Colin’s, she forgot all about the fact that she was to begin keeping a daily journal. Gone was her agitation at her inability to find a job. A distant memory was the dent to her savings made by the money she’d had to pay to replace her car battery.