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Every other weekend she served as an E.R. resident at the Berkeley County Hospital, but this past weekend had been particularly rough as she’d had to pull a double shift to cover for a colleague away on holiday. After that, she only had a four-hour break before starting her own second shift of the weekend. Sneaking what little sleep she could manage during the occasional lull, she’d made it through the roughest forty-eight hours she could remember since her early intern days. Her plans to sleep until noon, however, had been effectively derailed by her new upstairs neighbor.
Her very handsome and sexy new upstairs neighbor, with wavy black hair, eyes such an interesting shade of blue they looked almost lilac. Add in the sweet musky scent that clung to his skin, and her dormant feminine instincts had awakened from slumber.
Just what she didn’t need. Or want.
At first she’d tried to write off her physical reaction to the newcomer as nothing more than sheer exhaustion. So what if she’d experienced an accompanying thrum of anticipation when she’d first looked into his intense gaze. She’d had an extraordinarily busy weekend and probably only slept seven out of the last sixty hours. As dog-tired as she’d been, was it so unusual for her to feel a rush of longing when a tall, gorgeous stranger asked to borrow her phone?
For her, yes. He made her uneasy, in a man/woman, sexual desires running in high gear sort of way. As far as explanations went, she couldn’t find one worthy enough to rationalize the way her heart had ricocheted around in her chest when he’d laid his hand on her hip as he squeezed past her in the kitchen, or the way her thighs had tingled when he’d brushed against her.
No doubt about it. Coach Bracken made her hot.
Too bad a cool shower, followed up with a steaming cup of herbal tea and a crispy toasted bagel slathered with her favorite strawberry cream cheese, did nothing to alleviate the sneaking suspicion that sexual deprivation, not lack of sleep, was her problem.
At five minutes before noon, she pulled into the rear of the clinic and parked beneath the voluminous shade of an ancient elm. After locking her used Honda Civic, she followed the concrete path along the side of the building to the front door. There wouldn’t be any patients waiting for her, with the exception of Erma Dalton, whom she hoped to send home soon, which would give her time to get caught up on paperwork.
She climbed the wooden steps of the old Victorian where the Cole Harbor clinic was housed. The bottom floor had been converted to a medical office over sixty years before by the first Doc Claymore, with the living quarters taking up the two top floors. Three generations later, the clinic still existed, but the gruff old buzzard Dee put up with was the last of his line.
She pushed open the door and breathed in the sterile scent of disinfectant mingled with the more tantalizing aroma of the mulberry scented candle burning in the reception area. Netta, the clinic’s receptionist, was just pulling her oversize canvas bag from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.
“Good afternoon, Netta. Any messages?”
Netta, who dressed like a twenty-two-year-old, although Dee and Lucille both swore she couldn’t be a day under thirty-five, dropped her bag on the desk. She gave the short hem of the black knit skirt hugging her ample bottom a tug, followed by a dramatic put-upon sigh. The receptionist’s job was to take messages and schedule appointments. In Dee’s opinion, they were lucky to get that much from the five-foot-two bottle blonde, and had learned early on anything more taxing than answering the phone was asking for trouble. If it was up to Dee, Netta Engels would be history and she’d hire a real front-end person capable of taking the administrative load off the shoulders of Lucille, the registered nurse who’d worked for Doc Claymore the last twenty-five years. The decision wasn’t Dee’s, however, and for reasons that defied common sense, cantankerous old Claymore liked Netta.
As did ninety-eight percent of the male population of Cole Harbor, Dee thought with disgust, certain Netta’s talents went far beyond the kind best put to use in an office.
Two more months, Dee told herself. Provided she came to a decision about where she wanted to practice medicine once her contractual obligation with the government ended. One thing she knew for certain, no matter which offer she accepted, it’d be in a very large metropolitan area where she’d just be another face in a very large crowd. She had managed to narrow her choices down and was seriously entertaining offers from Presbyterian Hospital in New York, Boston’s Massachusetts General and a rather lucrative offer from a private, smaller bed facility in Miami, which would include a gradual partnership buy-in with stock options. Since living on the Atlantic Coast, she decided she preferred the eastern coastal regions to those on the Pacific, and was even beginning to like the idea of a white Christmas, a feature which would effectively eliminate Miami from her list. So, she wasn’t sure she was quite ready to narrow her choices just yet.
Netta thrust a small stack of pink messages in front of her, then sashayed around the counter in an overpowering cloud of perfume. “I have a lunch date,” she said, her big brown eyes filled with impatience. She slipped out the door before Dee managed to flip through all the notes.
Nothing out of the ordinary, she decided, except no call from the lab at County with pathology results from the Dalton delivery.
Dee made a mental note to call for the results as the bell over the door rang again. She looked up from the messages in her hand. Her heart stuttered beneath her breast, then resumed at a pace worthy of a few concerned bleeps from a heart monitor. Everyone in Cole Harbor knew the clinic was closed from noon until two.
Everyone, that is, except its newest resident…the incredibly sexy Chase Bracken.
3
NOT IN A MILLION YEARS would Chase ever place surgical scrubs under the heading Erotic Attire. That is until he’d had the distinct pleasure of seeing firsthand how the burgundy cotton played hide-and-seek with his neighbor’s curves. Since he had more than a hint of just how curvy she was under the boxy top and drawstring cotton pants, he considered himself a minor authority on the subject.
She set the pink scraps of paper she’d been reading when he’d walked through the door facedown on the desk. “The clinic doesn’t open until two,” she said. Her delicately arched eyebrows pulled together over a distrustful gaze filled with just enough curiosity to keep him encouraged.
His own curiosity was also piqued, and it had little to do with the case. Thoughts of what those enticing curves would feel like beneath his fingertips, without the cotton barrier, had occupied his mind the past two hours. Fantasies, rather than focusing on his purpose for even being near her, occupied his mind.
Fantasies better left unexplored.
Fantasies that had his body in an aching state of awareness.
He flashed her a grin and held up a white paper sack. “I figured I owed you one. Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for being neighborly, neighbor.”
Distrustful, curious or just plain cautious, he couldn’t care less because interest resided at the top of the list. He didn’t miss the way her fingers tightened around the back of the secretarial chair as if she had to force herself to concentrate on something solid instead of…what? Him? The way his body had felt brushing along hers as he’d slipped behind her this morning? The way his fingers had pressed into her hip? The way his thighs had grazed her bottom?
She had plenty of reasons to be cautious of him, but instinct told him her apprehension had more to do with the sexual awareness arcing between them than any suspicion about what he was really doing in Cole Harbor. Still, he had to get close to her, and the best way to do that was to set every single one of her suspicions aside, one by one until nothing lay between them except naked trust.
“I really don’t have—”
“It’s okay,” he said, rounding the corner of the low partition standing between them. “I’m not staying. Where’s your office?”
She let go of the chair and shifted to face him. Clasping her hands behind her back, she drew the cotton fabric tight over her breasts. “You’re not staying?”
“’Fraid not, Doc.” It took every ounce of willpower to keep his gaze focused on hers when he really wanted to look his fill elsewhere. “I’d like to stick around and share lunch, but I need to be heading over to the high school for a faculty meeting.”
“I didn’t mean you weren’t welcome, it’s just that—”
“You’re busy,” he finished for her. “I know. I just wanted to say thanks for helping me out of a jam this morning.”
And had she ever, he thought. Especially since he was pretty sure she hadn’t a clue how much trouble it was to obtain a legal wire tap.
She made a sound that might have been a laugh, but he couldn’t be sure. She tilted her head slightly to the side, causing her unbound sable hair to skim over her right shoulder and tease the gentle slope of her breast. “Why are you doing this?”
“Like I said, you did me a big favor this morning.” He held up the bag and wiggled it back and forth. The heavy aroma of fried burger and French fried potatoes wafted between them. “Office?”
A tentative smile curved her mouth before she reached up and gingerly took the bag from his hand, as if trying not to make physical contact. She almost reminded him of the stray dog he’d found one summer as a kid. The poor animal had been teased and tormented by the neighborhood bully and as a result, had grown fearful of a human’s touch. He’d worked for months trying to get the dog to trust him, and by the end of summer, he’d finally managed to win him over. For twelve years Hobo, as Chase’s foster mother had named the mutt, had taken up residence on the Mitchells’ back porch and had been Chase’s staunchest protector.
He hoped he’d be able to win over the pretty doctor just as thoroughly.
“I don’t have an office,” she admitted, then opened the bag and inhaled deeply.
She looked up at him and offered him a smile brighter than anything he’d seen in a very long time. Too long, but he rapidly quashed that stray thought. Unable to stop himself, a satisfied grin tugged his lips in response to the pure pleasure lighting her intriguing eyes.
“Really? You’re the town doc, and you don’t have an office?” Boy, wait until Pelham gets a load of this daily report, Chase thought smugly. He’d have Pelham and the rest of the superior bastards scratching their heads in wonder with the progress he was making after only two hours of initial contact with the subject. They’d think twice about stuffing him behind a desk for the duration.
“It’s a long story,” she said. She set the bag on the blotter protecting the wood grain surface of the desk. A wry grin eased across her sweet-looking mouth. “I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.” He’d read the files. There wasn’t a single detail about her he didn’t know.
No matter how much he wanted to stay and test the getting-to-know-you waters, he figured he’d better continue to play it smart and put some distance between them. He wanted to build trust, not spook her by coming on too strong.
“Enjoy your lunch,” he said. “And thanks again.” He cut across the reception area to the front door. There really was a faculty meeting scheduled for the coaching staff and he was already at risk of being late. Not quite the kind of first impression he wanted to make, even though he had a good feeling about the kind of impression he was making on the formerly illusive Dr. Destiny Romine.
He paused at the door, his hand on the knob and looked over his shoulder at her. “Oh, and for the record, Doc,” he said, not bothering to contain the cocky grin, “I’m certain there isn’t anything about you that would bore me.”
DEE CRUMPLED THE LAST of the lightly wax-coated paper and tossed it in the white bag. As much as she hated admitting it, her new neighbor’s thoughtful gesture was very much appreciated. How he knew she adored grilled onions on her cheeseburger was as much a mystery as to why, after years of practically ignoring the opposite sex, did he have to be the one to reawaken her dormant feminine senses.
Her insistent feminine senses, she thought.
From the number of charts stacked up on the corner of Netta’s immaculate desk, Dee had a slew of patients to see before the end of the day. A welcome distraction, she decided, from the more intriguing thoughts of her sexy new neighbor that had been battering her senses since she’d found him on her doorstep this morning. His parting shot hadn’t done a thing to help curb the more base thoughts demanding attention, either.
She shoved him from her mind. She had work to do and suspected Lucille was keeping watch over Erma Dalton and the newborn until Dee released them. She certainly didn’t want to perform an exam with something so offensive as onions on her breath.
After quickly perusing the charts and list of patients with scheduled appointments, she made her way into the staff’s private bathroom to brush her teeth then slipped into her white lab coat. Before she could head upstairs to see about discharging mother and child, the telephone rang. The stack of messages Netta had left her hadn’t included one from the County lab. She’d feel much more comfortable about discharging Erma and the baby after getting word that the path report was indeed clear.
She snagged the ringing telephone before the call rolled over to the answering service. “Cole Harbor Clinic.” She grabbed her pen and searched the surface of Netta’s desk for a scrap of paper.
Silence.
“Hello?” Dee frowned and slipped the pen into the pocket of her lab coat. “Is someone there?” she asked.
Nothing…until the distinct sound of a horn shattered the silence. She’d recalled a similar sound, but it only teased the fringes of her memory bank. A foghorn? she wondered, seconds before her heart slammed painfully into her ribs.
She pressed her hand over her exposed ear, shutting out the steady hum of the office machinery, listening as closely and carefully as possible for anything she might recognize—a sound, a voice, another blare of the foghorn. All she heard was the painful thud of her own heart and her blood racing through her veins as her endorphin levels skyrocketed.
Frantically she calculated the weeks since she’d last heard from her brother.
The foghorn sounded again, breaking the silence.
“Hello? Is someone there?” she asked again, unable to squelch the desperation from filtering into her voice. She knew it was Jared. Her pounding heart told her it was her brother.
She spun around to search the days on the big ninety-day calendar hanging on the far wall. It’d been late June, a little over eight weeks since the phone call with no one on the other end had woken her in the dead of night.
“Jared? Oh my God. Are you all right? Let me help—”
The line went dead. Dee let out a string of curses that would have had an entire ship of sailors blushing crimson if they’d heard her. She hung up the phone with a snap and balled her hands into fists. God, she wanted to scream from the frustration of it all.
She made a mental note to mark the day on the small calendar she kept in the drawer of her nightstand. A small red check mark next to the date as a reminder of the last time her brother had let her know he was still alive.
And still running for his life.
“YOU WANT ME TO TEACH WHAT?”
Chase glared when the defensive line coach, Charlie Harrison, snickered. “Senior sex,” Harrison blurted, then slapped his hand on the conference table and guffawed with the rest of the Cougar coaching staff.
Chase carefully set his pen on the table next to the yellow pad he’d been doodling on for the past hour. “No way,” he said, leaning back in the hard plastic chair, shifting his attention to the principal, Aaron Johnson. “Criminal justice and phys ed are all I’m qualified to teach. No way am I taking on a bunch of hormonal teenagers and talking about sex for forty-five minutes every day.”
The principal shot the coaches a look bordering on full-blown irritation. They’d been in the meeting for nearly an hour going over additional assignments. Chase being the new guy had definitely drawn the shortest, dirtiest straw. He knew a raw deal when he saw one and he’d just been dished up one hell of a stinker.
“We prefer Senior Health Issues, Mr. Bracken,” Principal Johnson said. His thick southern accent dripped with impatience that equaled the contempt for the coaching staff in his murky brown eyes. “Budget cutbacks have forced our faculty to double up their classload. It’s unfortunate that it extends to the coaching staff as well, but unless you want to see the football program completely shut down, then might I suggest you—”
“Bone up on sex,” Charlie Harrison interrupted.
“It won’t be so bad, Chase,” Walter Tompkins, the Cougars’ head coach told him, unsuccessfully hiding his grin at Charlie’s bad pun. “If it’s the only way we can afford to maintain our extracurricular programs without shortchanging the students, then we’ll just have to deal with it.”
“We all have to do it, Chase,” the offensive line coach, Sean Crawford added. “Consider yourself lucky. At least you didn’t get stuck with Home Ec.”
“Family and Consumer Studies, Mr. Crawford,” Johnson corrected.
“Yeah. Whatever.” Crawford rolled his eyes. “Look, Cole Harbor lives, eats and breathes football. They’d string up old Johnson here, along with the rest of the school board, in a hillbilly heartbeat if they dared cut the football program.”
“Damn straight,” added Coach Tompkins in his own thick southern drawl. He shot a threatening glance in the principal’s direction. “And I’d supply the rope.”
Johnson nervously shifted his attention to the schedule in front of him and wisely remained silent.
Chase glanced down at the class description then back at Johnson. “What do I know about Senior Health Issues?” he argued, not willing to give in to Johnson’s demands so readily. He knew two things and he knew them well—criminal justice and sports, primarily football. Even though he held a degree in criminal justice and a chipped hipbone from a bad hit to back up both claims, he still didn’t want to think about the strings the Bureau had pulled to land him this current undercover gig. No one, not even Johnson, knew Chase’s true identity or that teaching and coaching were the last items that should be listed on his curriculum vitae.
He couldn’t care less about the sexual habits of a bunch of oversexed teenagers. What he wanted to know was where in the hell Jared Romine was hiding.
His gut told him Dee Romine had the answer to that burning question, while his record-setting rise in testosterone levels told him the chances of him playing it out hard and fast to get that answer was good. Too good, he thought shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He knew without a doubt he’d definitely enjoy bending more than a few rules if it had the pretty lady doctor talking nice to him.
“You might want to contact Dr. Romine from the clinic,” Johnson continued, as if completely oblivious to Chase’s objections. “She’s come to speak to classes in the past about things like safe sex, condom application and other methods of birth control. All under proper parental consent of course.”
“Who?” he asked carefully, not certain he’d heard the principal correctly.
“Dr. Romine,” Johnson reiterated, then cleared his throat before looking at Chase, carefully avoiding the constant glare from the head coach. “Dr. Romine was extremely instrumental in the development of the curriculum two years ago. Mrs. Billings taught the class prior to her retirement and you’ll be our replacement.”
A grin tugged Chase’s lips. God, could this assignment get any easier? What could be more interesting than talking sex with Dee? Nothing, in his opinion, so long as she ended up telling him what he wanted to know about her brother.
He picked up the pen and wrote Dee’s name on the yellow pad, underlining it twice. Maybe teaching a course in Senior Health Issues wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all…especially if it gave him an excuse to get in closer contact with his prey.
Crawford elbowed Harrison in the ribs. “Uh-oh,” Crawford said, his voice laced with humor. “Looks like Bracken’s met the delectable Dr. Romine.”
Chase set the pen aside. “I’ve had the pleasure,” he answered carefully. Something in his chest tightened. Certainly not jealously for a lady he hardly knew. So why then did he have the sudden urge to give ol’ Charlie a poke in his large bulbous nose?
A wide grin split Charlie Harrison’s weathered face. Chase ground his teeth.
“You asked her out yet?” Harrison asked.
“What makes you think I’m interested?”
“Ain’t a man with a pulse in Cole Harbor who hasn’t been interested,” Harrison countered.
Forget the poke. A black eye would make him feel a whole lot better.
“Or shot down,” Crawford added.
That bit of knowledge gave Chase a surge of pleasure he didn’t dare examine too closely.
“Oh, yeah?” he mused unwisely, giving in to his overgrown ego.
Harrison chuckled while Crawford tossed him a knowing look.
It wasn’t the thrill of the chase, he told himself firmly. His interest in her was strictly professional.
Mostly.
CHASE WAS NO CLOSER TO DEE Romine the following Saturday than he’d been the day he’d arrived in Cole Harbor. He wouldn’t exactly say she went out of her way to avoid him, but he couldn’t help wondering if the sparks of sexual attraction between them had only been a conscious awareness of nothing more intriguing than the firing between synapse and neurotransmitter inside his own gray matter.
The accompanying state of semiarousal that occurred whenever he thought of her denied that hopeful musing.
With a grunt of disgust, he closed the file he’d been staring at for over an hour with a snap and tossed it carelessly on top of the open box containing more of the Romine case. He’d checked and rechecked the detailed schematic of her whereabouts and habits over the last twelve months until he knew them by heart. Since she’d worked the previous weekend at Berkeley County Hospital, she should’ve had the weekend off, but as Chase had learned from the bug he’d planted in her telephone, Friday morning she’d received a call from the hospital asking if she could work a couple of additional shifts over the weekend. She hadn’t hesitated and Chase wished she’d been asked to work the graveyard shift. That was something he could’ve used to his advantage. There was no way he could risk sneaking into her apartment during the light of day. The chances of someone spotting him were too great.
Twenty minutes later he knew if he didn’t get out and do something he’d go stir-crazy. He thought about heading off toward town, but this late on a Saturday afternoon, the few businesses that were open on the weekend had either already shut down or were preparing to close up shop. His options ranged from the D.Q. and the high-school crowd, the Surf & Turf Diner and the geriatric generation, or one of three local taverns. The latter appealed to him even less than his first two options. During his college days when drinking and carousing were practically a part of the curriculum, more often than not he’d assumed the role of designated driver. He had a hang-up about drugs and alcohol, but kept his opinions to himself lest he be forced into an explanation. Certain information was better kept buried in the past where it belonged, especially when he had no desire to admit to anyone his less than stellar beginnings.
