Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

by Janice Lynn

She couldn’t have said what song was playing prior to his calling her attention to it. A slow tune about second chances and new love. Ha. Emily never planned to fall in love again. Sure, she wanted someone to love her and to love, but she never planned to experience the craziness she’d had with Lucas.

  That had been overwhelming, intense, too much for a heart to take when things fell apart.

  She wasn’t so naive as to think relationships lasted forever. Not anymore. Just look at most of the people she knew. Separated. Divorced. Achingly single.

  Give her good old dependable Richard.

  Sure, he didn’t light any fires or even smell half as good as Lucas, but he wasn’t a stick of dynamite burning at both ends, either.

  “You smell nice, Emily.”

  Not something she expected to hear Lucas say. She misstepped and probably scuffed the black Italian leather dress shoes he wore. She didn’t care. If she stomped his toes a dozen times, he deserved each and every smash.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to say.” She didn’t look up at him, just kept her eyes focused above his shoulders.

  Her gaze collided with Richard’s unhappy one.

  Great. Trouble in paradise. Well, not paradise, but...trouble in Just Okay Land?

  She inhaled sharply, then frowned at how her senses were overcome by Lucas. How could she have forgotten how good he smelled? Not that he wore cologne. At least, he hadn’t in the past. Did he now? Maybe the light spicy scent was his aftershave? Or maybe his bodywash? Or maybe some expensive and pheromone-filled fragrance that guaranteed to drive women wild?

  Not that he was driving her wild. He wasn’t. Crazy did not equate to wild. Just...well, he smelled nice, too. And felt strong and solid next to her. Yes, her heart was beating wildly, but that really was just crazy.

  “Honestly, I don’t expect you to say anything. Nor did I mean to say it. The words just slipped out, but they are true. You do smell good. You always did.” His breath brushed against her temple with soft, moist heat that prickled her skin with goose bumps. Why was he holding her so close? Why was she letting him?

  She took a step back to put distance between their bodies. She hated that she reacted to him in any way.

  If only every nerve cell in her body had quickly bored with Lucas.

  “I didn’t ask you for the walk down memory lane.” The last thing she wanted was more memories. “You’re the one who has instigated all this. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

  “That’s true.” His palm rested at the curve low on her back and pulled her close to him as they moved gently to the music. “I am the one who instigated our dance.”

  Emily’s eyes narrowed. Had he bribed the emcee to announce the date-winner dance? Looking at him, she knew he had requested the dance.

  “Why?” Did she even want to know? Probably not, but at least if she knew what he was up to, she could prepare a defense. She needed a defense.

  “I could beat around the bush, but that’s never been my style.”

  No, he’d always been blunt about whatever was on his mind. Like when he’d told her to move out of their apartment, for instance.

  “This job at Children’s is important to me.”

  His job. Of course this was about his job.

  “I want everything to go as smoothly as possible, for nothing to stand in the way of my accomplishing the greatest good for our patients.”

  “You think I’d stand in the way of our patients getting good care because of you? How dare you imply that I’d ever not put my patients’ needs before our petty past.” She quit dancing. Probably because her feet felt heavy as concrete blocks. Her jaw dropped somewhere near the basement floor of the high-rise building. She stared up at him, wishing she could erase the past month, erase his having reentered her life. She’d been fine without him. She’d been good, healthy, content in her Just Okay Land relationship.

  Lucas’s gaze didn’t waver from hers. “I don’t think you’d intentionally do anything that would put our patients at risk.”

  “You think I might do something unintentionally?” she asked incredulously.

  “No. What I think is that how you feel about me influences how you respond in front of our patients and coworkers. That could be problematic. That’s why I bought your date, so we could talk and forge some type of friendship between us.”

  “You’re crazy.” He was crazy. Crazy to be at Children’s. Crazy to be at the fund-raiser. Crazy to have bid on her auction. Crazy to be on the dance floor with her in his arms. Divorced people didn’t do this. She was sure of it. “You and I will never be friends.”

  “We at least need to forge some type of coexistence. There’s too much tension and you run every time I come near.”

  “Perhaps you failed to get the memo, but I don’t like you. Of course I leave when you’re near.”

  “You think others haven’t picked up on the tension between us?”

  Why would anyone have paid attention to how she reacted to the new doctor? Before tonight. Now, after he’d bid such a stupid high amount, she suspected lots of people would be watching them to see if any sparks developed on their “date.”

  “I don’t want you here,” she snapped, wondering if anyone would notice if she stomped her high heel into his toes. His absurdity deserved a little pain. A lot of pain.

  “I understand that,” he clarified. “Knowing you were at Children’s was my only hesitation. A mistake from five years ago shouldn’t stand in the way of my dream job. I want to make peace with you.”

  She laughed. A louder than it should have been, close to hysteria laugh. “Let me get this straight. You bought my date because you want to make peace with me because of your dream job?”

  His jaw worked back and forth. “Something like that.”

  Her hands went to her hips. “What if I already had my dream job and you pursuing your dream job is ruining mine? Why should I have to give up my dream job so you can pursue yours?”

  “It’s not as if I expect you to give up your job, Emily. Listen to what I am saying. I want us to coexist, maybe become friends.” As if to prove his point, he pulled her back to him and began to sway to the music. She let him for the sole reason that standing in the middle of the dance floor with her hands on her hips squaring up to the man who’d just bought her date was just asking for people to stare. Anyone paying the slightest attention to her and Lucas was the last thing she wanted. Already, Richard couldn’t take his eyes off them.

  Obviously, Lucas didn’t see a thing wrong with what he was saying. Or doing. That he was turning her world topsy-turvy. He thought it was okay to slow dance with his ex-wife and suggest they become friends. The nerve.

  She closed her eyes, prayed she’d wake up and find the past month had just been a bad dream. “I cannot believe this.”

  “Why is it unbelievable that I want us to be friends?”

  “We can never be friends,” she hissed.

  “Why not?”

  “We were never friends to begin with.”

  “We were.”

  She shook her head. “You were never my friend.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, because once upon a time you were my best friend.”

  His words gutted her and every cell in her body weighed down with lead, making movement almost impossible.

  “Why couldn’t you have just stayed in the past?”

  “Because Children’s offered me the position of medical director of the traumatic brain injury unit.”

  “I was here first.” Even to her own ears her words sounded whiny and childish.

  “I’m sorry that my being at Children’s is problematic for you.”

  Two apologies in less than a minute. Wow.

  “I’m not trying to force something on you, Emily. I just want th
e opportunity to make peace to where there isn’t tension on the unit.”

  “I’m professional enough that I can hide my tension.”

  He sighed. “Then do it for me, please, because apparently I’m not.”

  “I owe you nothing,” she stated.

  “Then do it for our patients. I’m good at what I do. This position gives me the opportunity to do more. Let me.”

  As if she could stop him.

  No hospital would give up a talented pediatric neurosurgeon just because a nurse, no matter how good she was, used to be married to him.

  “Please.”

  Her gaze lifted to his and his sincerity surprised her. He didn’t need her approval. They both knew it. So why did it matter? Why was he saying please? She didn’t want to think he’d changed. She needed to keep him categorized in the “bad guy” box.

  “None of this matters. What I think, what I want, doesn’t matter,” she reminded him. “You want this position, it’s already yours. Just because I was here, loving my job and my life without you in it, doesn’t matter to you. Nothing does except you getting what you want.”

  “This isn’t just about me getting what I want. It’s about doing the right thing, about what’s best for all involved.”

  “Me coexisting with you is what’s best for all involved?”

  “You know it is.”

  She knew no such thing. Just being in his arms was driving her crazy, the feel of him, the smell of him, the sound of his voice. Okay, so her mind and body had gone a little mushy, but that was nostalgia, right? He’d been her first lover, her husband, her fantasy. Once upon a time, he’d been the center of her world and she’d have done anything to make him happy.

  Her body had had a momentary lapse in memory, had responded to his spicy male scent, the feel of him against her, and, yes, she’d melted a little. A lot. But that was just old chemistry rising to the surface.

  All she felt for him now was loathing.

  Liar.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and took another deep breath before meeting his gaze again with steely resolve. “This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous.”

  “Your heart is racing against mine, Emily.”

  He was right. Her heart was racing and was next to his, but what that had to do with anything, she wasn’t sure. When had they moved so close that her body fully pressed against his as they swayed to the sultry beat? But she wasn’t alone in being affected by the other one’s presence. His heart was racing, too.

  “Hearts race for a lot of reasons. Fear being one of them.” Was that why his raced? She couldn’t imagine Lucas ever being afraid of anything.

  “Fear?” He looked taken aback. “I never gave you a reason to be afraid of me. Never.”

  He meant he’d never hit her or physically abused her in any way. He hadn’t. The ways Lucas had hurt hadn’t left visible scars, just jagged ones on the inside.

  “Not any reason that could be physically seen.” Emotionally, he’d beaten her to a pulp. She needed to remember that, to focus on how getting involved with him had devastated her whole world. She couldn’t coexist with him. Not without severe consequences.

  “You weren’t the only one hurt by our marriage falling apart.”

  His words stung. He’d been hurt, too? Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to believe him. He’d lost interest in her, in their marriage, long before the night he’d told her to leave.

  How could he have hurt by losing something he’d no longer wanted? By losing something he’d not even known about because he hadn’t wanted to know?

  Hadn’t wanted, period. Had accused her of depression when in reality she’d been... No. She wasn’t going there. She wasn’t.

  She glanced around the dance floor. No one was paying much attention to them. No one except Meghan, who gave her a thumbs-up when their gazes met.

  Oh, Meghan, if you only knew.

  She resumed scanning the crowd. Her gaze connected to Richard’s again. She was going to have to do some explaining when she returned to the table.

  Resentment built up in her and threatened to spill free.

  “If you hurt, too, then why are you here opening up old wounds, Lucas? I’ve healed, am happy and could do without the twisted walk down memory lane.”

  She felt more than heard him swallow.

  “I told you why I’m here.”

  “You and I will never be friends, Lucas. Leave me alone.”

  With that she stepped out of his arms and made her way back to where Richard waited. Richard, who clearly had a hundred questions waiting to spring from his mouth.

  She didn’t want to explain why she was upset about a shared dance with a man she worked with.

  She bypassed the table and headed to the little girls’ room.

  Oh, yeah, she was happy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “HI, CASSIE. I’M DR. CAIN,” Lucas introduced himself to the little girl he’d be doing surgery on soon if all went as expected. He’d spent a lot of time reviewing her medical records. She’d been diagnosed with a noncancerous brain tumor that had been increasing in size despite treatments to shrink the mass.

  His true love within his field was traumatic brain injury, but he dealt with a lot of brain tumors and other brain maladies, too.

  “Hi,” the six-year-old answered, staring at him with big brown eyes that filled with uncertainty and a lack of trust.

  No doubt over the past few months she’d been poked and prodded, tested and treated repeatedly to where she felt on constant guard long before his being asked to consult on her case by Dr. Edwards.

  “What’re you doing there?” He gestured to the puzzle she worked on.

  She resumed scanning the puzzle pieces. “My mom says I need to do more puzzles. That it will keep my brain sharp.”

  “Your mom is a smart lady.” He sat down at the table next to her. “Can I help?”

  She shrugged. “If you want to. I’m not sure all the pieces are here. It’s just a puzzle I found here, but it wasn’t put together when I started.”

  Here being in the hospital playroom. A large room equipped with kid-sized tables, video game stations, toy centers and table activity centers.

  He sat at the table, seeming to search for a place to fit the puzzle piece he’d picked up. In reality, he studied Cassie, watching her movements, her facial expressions, how she moved her hands, her body. How she grimaced repeatedly when she tried to focus on what she was doing, how she squinted her eyes and had a slight tremor to her movements.

  “Does your head hurt, Cassie?” The answer seemed obvious, but sometimes asking a child an obvious question, even one he already knew the answer to, could help break the ice. He wanted Cassie to trust him.

  “Yes, but sometimes not too bad.”

  Her headaches were the first symptom that had clued her parents in to the fact that something wasn’t right with their little girl. Never had they imagined they’d be told she had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. Fortunately, Cassie’s tumor wasn’t cancerous, but, due to the size and the fact it was growing, she’d begun to have more and more problems. Visual changes, hearing changes, speech changes, motor-skill changes. She’d started falling for no reason other than poor balance. Because the mass was taking over vital brain tissue and causing increased pressure in her head.

  Although it would be tricky due to where it was located within the brain and the amount of tissue it encompassed, Cassie needed surgical excision of the mass.

  Lucas was the doctor who was going to perform the surgery.

  “Are you going to take my blood?”

  At the child’s suspicious question, he shook his head. “No, I’m not here to take your blood, Cassie.”

  “I don’t kick and scream,” she told him, not looking u
p from her puzzle. “I used to, but I don’t anymore.”

  “That’s good to know, but I’m not going to take blood.”

  She cast him a dubious glance. “What are you going to do?”

  “Right now? Help you put this puzzle together and talk about your headaches.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like my head wants to blow up.”

  No doubt.

  “I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon. My job is to make your head stop hurting.”

  The child looked up and squinted at him. “Can you do that?”

  He nodded. “I’ve consulted with the neurologist you’ve been seeing, looked over your imaging tests. It’s not going to be easy, but, yes, I believe I can make your headaches go away.”

  The child glanced toward her mother, who was sitting in a rocking chair watching their interaction. Looking tearful and tired, the woman nodded.

  “I’d like my headaches to go away,” the girl said.

  “Me, too.” He told the truth. Unfortunately, a lot of his cases weren’t things he could correct or effectively treat. Once he removed the tumor, Cassie should get great relief.

  Of course, nothing about brain surgery was ever that easy.

  With removal of her tumor came a lot of risk. A lot of worry about what type of residual effects she’d have from his having removed a portion of her brain. Her tumor wasn’t small and hadn’t responded to the chemotherapy meant to shrink it. There was a chance Cassie would be permanently brain damaged after the surgery, that she wouldn’t be able to do the things she currently did.

  There was an even bigger chance that, at the rate her tumor was growing, the mass would take over her good tissue and cause more and more damage and eventually death.

  Those were things he’d discussed with her parents in private already. They’d wanted to schedule surgery as soon as possible. He’d wanted to meet Cassie, to interact with her and to do a consult with a trusted pediatric neurosurgeon colleague to be sure he agreed with how Lucas intended to proceed with Cassie’s care and predicted outcome.

  He popped a puzzle piece into place. “Let’s see if we can get this thing figured out.”