by Janice Lynn
“I’m busy,” Amelia practically growled, making Cole refocus on the present, on the fact he stood on the USS Benjamin Franklin wanting to finish what he and Amelia had started years ago, wanting the fulfillment of the promises in her eyes when she’d looked at him that night. “So if there’s something you want…”
He itched to reach out, to brush his fingers over her sleeked-back hair, to loosen the long silky strands from the tight bun at the base of her head. He wanted to know if she’d thought of him during the time since they’d last seen each other, if she remembered all the hours they’d spent together as friends, if she remembered the passion of their kisses.
“I want to put the past behind us.” He couldn’t have spoken truer words had he searched the Holy Scriptures.
“Fine, you want to put the past behind us.” Her melted-chocolate eyes narrowed with growing irritation. “But why would I want to do that? Why would I even care?”
Because not a day has gone by since I last saw you that you haven’t crossed my mind. For two years he’d waited, hoping she’d forgive him, hoping time would heal the rift, but she hadn’t forgiven him and he’d gotten tired of waiting.
He’d done what he’d said he wouldn’t do, what she’d asked him not to do before she’d kicked him out of her dorm. He’d come for her. This time, he wouldn’t let her push him away. Not when there were unresolved feelings between them. One way or another, they would deal with the chemistry between them.
“We’re going to be working closely together for the next few months, Amelia.”
Her upper lip rose in an almost snarl at his use of her first name. He should call her Dr Stockton, but changing how he thought of her wasn’t going to be easy.
“If we don’t come to some sort of understanding, it’ll affect our jobs,” he told her honestly, knowing they did have to come to an understanding until they dealt with the past and appealing to her professionalism. “Neither of us wants that.”
“You’re the ship’s surgeon. I’m the general medical officer. You stay in your surgical suite, and I’ll stay in my sick ward.” Her gaze burned into him, searing him with her hatred.
Hatred he deserved in her eyes.
“Our paths don’t have to meet often,” she continued. “When they do, we’ll pretend we don’t see each other. No big deal.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. He didn’t want to pretend he didn’t see her.
He wanted to see her. Lots of her. All of her.
Every delectable inch of her. Right here. Right now.
Wrong. He couldn’t do that even if she begged him to. He couldn’t kill his career. Sexual relations were strictly forbidden aboard ship and most often punished with a dishonorable discharge.
Hadn’t he wanted time for him and Amelia to get to know each other outside the parameters of their former relationship? Hadn’t he wanted time to win her trust before they acted on the physical chemistry? Wasn’t that why he was here? He needed to focus on the here and now. On work. On building bridges with Amelia, not getting her into bed.
“I’ll expect to consult with you on cases, Dr Stockton. I’ll expect to help when the sick ward is busy, and I’m not in surgery. Don’t be naïve in thinking we can easily avoid each other,” he warned. “Our paths are going to meet often.”
He’d see to it.
Her lips pursed in displeasure. “As I said, we’ll just pretend not to see each other.”
Frustration surged through him.
“No.” Hell, no. Seeing Amelia was why he was here.
Her brow quirked upward. “No?”
“Under the senior medical officer, I’ll be next in command in the medical division,” he pointed out. “I won’t have the GMO pretending not to see me. How would that look?”
“Who cares?”
“I care.” Cole’s comment stemmed from professionalism as much as personal desire.
“Afraid it might hurt your precious career?”
His career? Yes, suddenly he was afraid that being here, with her, might hurt his career. They needed forced time together, but just being near her again made reason fly out the door.
“I did mention that our not working as a cohesive team could hurt our careers,” he reminded her. “Mine and yours. But I’m more afraid not working together will compromise our patients’ health and the working environment of our colleagues.”
True, but not the whole truth.
Her full lips compressed into a defensive bow. “I would never purposely compromise one of my patients or my crew.”
“If you’re unwilling to discuss cases with me because of the past, you might make the wrong choice regarding whether or not a person needs a surgical consult.”
“Were you not listening? I just said that I wouldn’t compromise my patients’ health. If a patient needs a surgical consult, I’ll send him or her to you.” Her gaze narrowed, nonverbally telling him where he could go and that she’d love to shove him down the elevator shaft to take him there. “Got it?”
“Amelia—” At her glare, he sighed. “Dr Stockton,” he began again, wishing he knew what to say to mend the bridges he’d had to burn. He hadn’t had a choice.
“For whatever it’s worth.” He kept his voice steady, held her gaze even though looking away would have been easier than seeing the contempt burning in her brown eyes. “I’m sorry about what happened with Clara. I never meant to hurt her.”
Amelia’s pupils dilated and she failed to hide the pain that flashed across her face.
Pain that he’d caused.
Almost immediately a frigid glare replaced her hurt.
“And what you did to me?” she asked, studying him with eyes he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in. She would likely never forgive him, never let her guard down. “Are you sorry for that, too, Dr Stanley?”
“More than I can say.”
Maybe, just maybe, a six-month stint with her would give him the chance to put right a few wrongs from his past.
CHAPTER THREE
“WOW, you’re really working up a sweat today,” Suzie, one of the two on board dentists and Amelia’s bunk mate, commented when she climbed onto the elliptical machine next to Amelia.
“You’ve no idea,” she mumbled, knowing she’d already beaten her best time on the exercise equipment by several minutes, yet still she pushed on. Faster and faster, drops of moisture running down her face, between her breasts, causing her sports bra to stick to her like a damp second skin.
Truth was, even if she weren’t on a stationary machine, all her efforts would be for naught.
Some things couldn’t be run away from.
Like Cole.
From the time she could walk, Amelia had faced life head-on. With one exception. Cole. Until the night before her sister’s wedding. As the maid of honor, she’d walked up the aisle toward him and been filled with longing. Longing she’d had no right to feel. Longing that had almost stopped her in mid-step.
She’d always been a bit in love with her sister’s perfect fiancé, had always hoped to meet a man like Cole someday. But during the rehearsal, when their eyes had met, she’d seen something she’d only caught glimmers of previously.
She’d seen matching attraction. Cole had wanted her. And not in a way a soon-to-be married man should want another woman, especially his bride-to-be’s little sister. He’d looked at her the way some dark, secret, forbidden part of her had always wanted him to look at her. He’d looked at her as if she were the most desirable woman in the world and he couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to stand in her presence, to see her walking down the aisle toward him.
Which was ridiculous.
She wasn’t his bride-to-be, wasn’t desirable. But even now she could recall the way he’d stared at her, and the way her heart had pounded in response to his burning blue gaze.
“Um, Amelia.” Suzie interrupted her thoughts. “You want to talk about whatever’s eating you before that machine starts smoking?”
Amelia slowed her pace a few notches, dragged air into her protesting lungs and shrugged. Her bunk mate would prise the truth out of her eventually. By being up-front, perhaps she’d waylay her friend’s naturally suspicious nature and avoid questions she didn’t have answers to. “My sister’s ex-fiancé is the new surgeon. I don’t like him.”
Two simple sentences that held a world of complexity and heartache.
Suzie programmed her stair machine to her preferred workout routine. “Ouch. That sucks.” Her gaze flickered past Amelia to the workout area entrance. “Is he really, really drop-dead gorgeous?”
Amelia glared. “What do you mean, is he drop-dead gorgeous? What does it matter what he looks like? He’s a creep who broke my sister’s heart.”
Who broke my heart.
“Never mind. He is or you’d have said so.” Her friend’s lips curled into a smile that flashed pearly whites that would make all her dental professors proud, her gaze still focused beyond Amelia toward the entranceway. “Besides, I see for myself, and I agree. He is really, really drop-dead gorgeous. Amazing eyes and that body—oh, my. Somebody should slap a warning label on that man’s forehead because just looking at him may send me into cardiac arrest.”
Amelia battled to keep from looking toward the door. Cole was there? In the workout room? Why? Well, she knew why. A man didn’t have a body like his without being active.
“I might not have guessed it was him except he’s new. No way would I not have noticed if Tall, Dark and Yummy had ever been in this room before.” Suzie gave a smug smile, gliding back and forth on her elliptical machine with practiced ease. “Plus, he walked in, scanned the room and paused when his gaze settled on my very own Little Miss Sunshine.”
Cole was looking at her? Why? Ready for round two? Or was it three? Please don’t let him be looking, because even after two years and a million attempts to compartmentalize what had happened between them, she still felt ill prepared on how to deal with Cole. Was he still looking? She was not going to check. She wasn’t. She didn’t even want to.
Much.
And then only to glare.
“He’s still looking, by the way.” Suzie’s voice held a teasing quality. “Just in case you were wondering.”
The heat spreading across her cheeks had nothing to do with her friend’s knowing snicker. Overdoing it on the elliptical was why her face burned. Really.
“Don’t stare,” she ordered in the sternest tone she could manage, trying to keep her pace on the stair machine casual rather than returning to her frantic break-neck speed on a new wave of adrenaline. Why the heck had she pushed herself to the point her limbs were water? To the point her black gym clothes clung to her body? To the point her face was on fire? “He might think we’re talking about him.”
“Honey,” Suzie said, her eyes still eating Cole up, “he’s used to women talking about him. Has to be. That is one fine specimen of man. Looking at him makes my tongue want to wag and I’m not ashamed to say so.”
“Hello. The man broke my sister’s heart into a billion pieces,” Amelia reminded her, not mentioning her own billion-pieced heart.
Suzie’s gaze reluctantly returned to Amelia. “What happened? Give me the gory details so I can look beyond his lip-smacking exterior to the disgusting bastard filling.”
The gory details? That might be a bit of a problem. Amelia didn’t know the specifics. Even in the midst of a crying jag, Clara hadn’t offered the whole story. Afraid of what her sister might say as to the reasons Cole had called off the wedding, Amelia hadn’t pushed for the full details.
“They were engaged to be married. Following their rehearsal, he decided he didn’t want to be married after all and left.” How could her words sound so calm? So just stating the facts? She was talking about an event that had forever changed her sister’s life. He’d made Clara weak. Her, too. “Clara was devastated.”
Amelia had been, too. And guilty. Had her questioning him on the way he’d looked at her when she’d walked up the aisle, their amazing kiss that shouldn’t have happened, played a role in Cole calling off his wedding? Of course it had. She’d unwittingly sabotaged her sister’s happiness. Oh, yeah, she’d lived with guilt.
“I see why.” As if she couldn’t resist, Suzie’s eyes shifted toward where Cole warmed up by stretching his long limbs.
Amelia’s traitorous gaze played follow the leader to Cole, not content to only see him in her peripheral vision.
He wore gray cotton gym shorts that loosely hung to mid-thigh, riding up to reveal well-defined quads when he touched the tips of his tennis shoes. A white cotton T-shirt with “NAVY” emblazoned across the front caressed his thick chest. He straightened, reached high over his head, his shirt hem riding up to reveal a sliver of toned abdomen.
Suzie sighed with great appreciation. “If I’d thought I was going to spend the rest of my life curled up in bed next to that and suddenly found out I wasn’t, I’d be devastated, too.”
“Be serious,” Amelia snapped, wanting to physically drag her friend’s eyeballs away from Cole, practically having to do the same to keep her own gaze from bouncing around like an overeager puppy wanting another glimpse of tanned flesh. Did he know they were talking about him? “There’s more to a man than the way he looks.”
“Yeah, but when a man looks like he does, a girl can forgive a lot of flaws.” Suzie sighed, moving her arms back and forth in motion with the handlebars, her workout making her sound slightly breathless.
Or maybe it was Cole making her friend breathless.
“I can’t forgive his flaws.” Amelia refused to be so superficial. She’d once been fooled by his in-your-face male magnetism and charm. Never again would a man weaken her that way.
“Yeah.” Her friend nodded in agreement. “But you’re made of fortified Stockton steel and only have an Achilles’ heel for stray kittens.”
“Stray kittens?” Amelia scowled. “I do not.”
“Sure, you don’t,” Suzie teased, knowing Amelia well enough, unfortunately, to push her buttons. “If you lived inland you’d have a yard full of fuzz-balls, and you know it.”
Would she? Amelia rarely thought of what her life would be like if she weren’t in the military. Not that she’d ever considered doing anything other than military medicine. She hadn’t. It’s what their family did. Her father had been a surgeon with the navy, her mother an air force nurse.
“I don’t even like cats,” she protested half under her breath. She’d actually never had a pet to know if she’d like a cat or not. Growing up in a military family where they’d lived either on base or with whatever relative could look after them while their parents served their country, they’d moved too often to accumulate pets. Or close friends. Was that why she’d latched onto Cole? Had treasured their friendship so much?
“Don’t look now, but something else you don’t like is headed this way.” Suzie slid a sly look her way. “Or should I say someone?”
Before she could stop, Amelia glanced toward where Cole had been stretching. Her gaze collided with his vivid blue eyes. His lips curved upward in an amiable, hopeful smile and her breath caught in a way no exercise equipment could ever induce.
In a way that was pure Cole Stanley breathless.
She almost agreed with Suzie. A woman could forgive a multitude of sins when a man looked like Cole. It would be easy to get caught in his charm, in the warmth of his smile, the intensity of his azure eyes, the lure of his friendly demeanor. He wasn’t her friend, though.
In that moment, Amelia hated Cole. Hated him for hurting her family, hated him for whatever it was that seeing him did to her insides, hated him for turning her brain to mush by merely slanting his gorgeous mouth upwards.
She ignored the little voice warning that she protested too much, that hate was a strong emotion and she should be careful: the opposite of hate was love.
That was one emotion she could never feel for Cole.
Great. Cole sighed in frustration at Amelia’s
narrow-eyed rejection of his smiled peace offering. Right back to square one.
For just a millisecond when their gazes had met, before the anger had slid into place, he’d glimpsed the same curiosity that burned in his soul. A curiosity that made him long to open Pandora’s box and dive into the unknown depths of whatever mysteries lay between them.
He cursed that her anger had quickly bubbled to the surface and drowned out all other emotions. Amelia hated him for what she believed he’d done to Clara and she wasn’t going to forgive him any time soon. If ever.
Damn it. He wanted her forgiveness. Now. Yesterday. Two years ago.
Patience had never been one of his virtues, but surely he didn’t expect her to welcome him on his first day aboard ship?
No, Amelia Stockton was like a wild mustang. To gain her trust would require endurance, fortitude, strength of mind, diligence.
Why Amelia? Why Clara’s sister? He’d asked himself why a thousand times. More. But he never came up with a satisfying answer.
Satisfying. A wry smile twitched at his lips. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Amelia he hadn’t been satisfied in years.
He hadn’t. Amelia had bewitched him and he simply didn’t want anyone other than her. No doubt that played into his current level of frustration, but sex for the sake of sex had been a poor substitute. After a few failed attempts to forget Amelia, he hadn’t been willing to settle for that.
He still wasn’t, which explained the insanity of his request to serve on the USS Benjamin Franklin.
Amelia’s glossy dark hair was swept back in a ponytail, swishing to and fro with each movement of her tight body. Her legs pumped the elliptical machine back and forth, her arms making a rapid ski motion while she stared straight ahead as if she couldn’t see him, as if he no longer existed. Was that what she’d done? Written him out of her life as if they’d never shared kisses that had set his insides aflame?
Cole bit back an appreciative groan. He wasn’t the type who ogled women at the gym. Usually. Today, he was thankful his gym shorts were loose. Otherwise he’d find himself in an embarrassing predicament. She was hot—and not just because sweat glistened on her skin, dampened her hair.
