by Leanne Banks
“It’s Mimi,” the girl corrected cheerfully, showing off perfectly white teeth and a million-dollar smile to go with her athletic, tanned body. “No one calls me Megan except my parents.” She laughed and gazed at Gabe a little starry-eyed. “And you.” Then she turned her attention back to Lauren. “So Gabe said you might be filling in for Cameron while he’s away if we get too busy. The beaches have been crazy today.... Gabe just pulled an old man in from the rip.”
Lauren smiled and looked at Gabe. That explained why his clothes were wet and why he had sand on his feet. “Is the man okay?”
“Shaken up, but fine,” he replied and smiled. “But I wouldn’t call him old. He was probably only forty.”
Perfectly toned and tanned Mimi laughed loudly. “Ancient,” she said, and grabbed Gabe’s arm, lingering a lot longer than Lauren thought appropriate. “Well, I’d better get back on patrol. See you.”
She breezed out of the room with a seductive sway that Lauren couldn’t have managed even if she’d wanted to.
“Do you need help with that?” Gabe asked, looking at the tape in her hand.
Lauren shook her head. “No.”
“So you’re organizing the benefit with Grace?”
She looked at him. “The fashion parade. Why? Are you interested in modeling?”
He laughed. “Ah, no thanks. I did promise your brother I’d help out setting up, but that’s all.”
Lauren placed the retractable tape at one end of the room, and when it bounced back into her hand, he walked over and held it out straight for her. “Thanks,” she said, and pulled the tape out across the room.
“If you need models, perhaps Megan can help?” he suggested and came across the room.
“Mimi,” she corrected extrasweetly, and placed the notebook on the desk. “And I think I have all the models we need.” Lauren remained by the desk and raised a brow. “She’s a little young, don’t you think?”
He frowned. “No. She’s a strong swimmer and a good lifeguard.”
Lauren flipped the notepad open without looking at him. “That’s not what I meant.”
The second he realized her meaning, he laughed loudly. “She’s what, nineteen? Give me some credit.”
Lauren glanced sideways. “She’s perky.”
“And a teenager.” He moved closer. “Why all this sudden interest in my love life?”
“I’m not interested,” she defended, and shrugged as she faked writing something on the notepad. “You can do what you like. Although, everyone knows that interoffice romances can be tricky and—”
Lauren was startled when he touched her arm gently. Mesmerized, she turned to face him. Side by side, hips against the desk, there was barely a foot between them. She tilted her head back and met his eyes. His gaze traveled over her face, inspecting every feature before settling on her mouth. It was intensely erotic, and her knees quivered. The hand on her arm moved upward a little, skimming over her skin, sending jolts of electricity through her blood.
Her lips parted...waiting...anticipating...
It had been so long since she’d been kissed. Too long. And she knew he knew that was what she was thinking.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” he said softly, his gaze still on her mouth. “Even though I want to, and it would certainly stop you talking nonsense about Megan.”
“All I—”
“Shh,” he said, and placed two fingertips against her lips. “Keep talking, and I will kiss you.”
Lauren knew she had to move. Because if she didn’t, sanity would be lost, and she’d fling against him and forget every promise she’d made to herself. The fleeting attraction she’d experienced the first time they’d met six months ago had morphed into heady, hot desire that was slowly becoming all she could think about.
And it’s not what I want....
Mindless passion was dangerous.
And if I’m not careful, I’m going to get swept up in it all over again....
“You promised,” she reminded him on a whisper. “Remember? No making passes.”
“I know what I promised,” he said, and rubbed his thumb against her jaw. “I did warn you I could be a jerk, though.”
Lauren took a deep breath. “You know what I want.”
“And you seem to be of a mind to tell me what I want,” he said, still touching her lips. “Which is not, I might add, a teenager with a silly crush.”
“She’s more woman than teenager, and—”
He groaned. “You really do talk too much.”
If the automatic doors hadn’t whooshed open, Lauren was certain he would have kissed her as if there was no tomorrow. And she would have kissed him back. Vow or not.
”Gabe,” Mimi’s squeaky voice called frantically from the doorway. “I need your help.”
He dropped his hand and stepped back. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a lady on the beach who’s had a fall, and I think she might have broken her ankle.”
Gabe moved away from her and grabbed the first-aid bag. “Okay...show me where.”
He was out the door in a flash, and Lauren took a few seconds to get her feet to move and follow. By the time she reached the first crest of the sandbank, Gabe was already attending to the elderly woman. He was crouched at her side, one hand on her shoulder and asking her questions while Mimi unzipped the first-aid bag.
Lauren moved closer to assist. And took about ten seconds to realize that Gabe didn’t need her help. He knew exactly what he was doing.
* * *
It wasn’t broken, but his patient, Faye, had a severe sprain and probably tendon damage, and as he wrapped her ankle, he instructed Megan to call for the ambulance. The woman was well into her eighties, and her tender skin was bruising quickly. She needed X-rays and the type of painkillers he couldn’t administer.
Gabe wrapped her in a thermal blanket to ensure she didn’t go into shock and stayed with her and her equally elderly husband until the paramedics arrived. The beach was busy, and he sent Megan back onto patrol and remained with the couple...excruciatingly aware that Lauren was watching his every move.
Once the ambulance arrived, it was about a fifteen-minute process to get Faye from the beach and safely tucked inside the vehicle. Her husband chose to travel in the ambulance, and Gabe accepted the old man’s car keys for safekeeping and was told their grandson would be along to collect the car within the hour.
His shift was over by three o’clock, but he lingered for a while to ensure the remaining bathers were staying between the boundary flags, as the water was choppy. Megan took off for home, and Gabe headed back to the clubhouse to lock up. He found Lauren in his office, sitting at the desk and writing in her notebook. He watched her for a moment, thinking that an hour earlier, he’d been on the brink of kissing her. It would have been a big mistake. Definitely.
“Did you get your work done?” he asked when he came into the room.
“Yes,” she replied and collected her things together.
“I gather this benefit is important?”
She nodded. “It will raise money for the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Cameron said you’ve been working with the program, too.”
“A little,” he replied, reluctant to tell her any more. Like the fact he volunteered his time to help coach an under-twelve’s swimming and lifesaving team twice a week.
“You and Cameron put me to shame.”
“How so?”
She shrugged and stood. “He’s always been community focused. Not...self-focused. You’re like that, too, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing this job you’re clearly overqualified for, or do things like volunteering with the kids from the Big Brothers program.”
Discomfiture raced across his skin. So she knew. “It’s nothing, really. Just a couple of hours
twice a week.”
“It’s more than most people do,” she qualified. “More than I do.”
“You’re helping with the benefit,” he reminded her. “Raising money for the program is something important.”
She shrugged again. “I guess. You know, you were amazing with that elderly lady. Cameron was right about you...you have a talent for the first-aid side of things in this job.”
Gabe’s insides crunched. He could have told her the truth in that moment. He could have told her that she was right. But that it wasn’t talent. It was experience. He could have told her that for ten years he’d worked as a doctor in the E.R. at the finest hospital in Huntington Beach. But if he did, she’d want to know why he left.
Why I quit...
And how did he tell her that? One truth would snowball into another.
And Gabe wasn’t ready.
He wasn’t ready to admit that an innocent woman and her baby had died on his watch.
Chapter Five
Lauren dropped Jed off at her brother’s house on Sunday afternoon. The house sitter was back and would be in residence until Cameron and Grace returned from their honeymoon. It was past five by the time she got home, and by then she only had half an hour to shower, change and prepare an array of snacks for the girls’ night she was having with Cassie and Mary-Jayne.
It was impossible to not notice the bright yellow car parked at the entrance of Gabe’s driveway.
She’d spotted the same vehicle outside the surf club. Megan’s car. Obviously.
So what? He can do what he likes.
But Lauren had to force back the swell of jealousy burning through her veins.
She’d never done jealous. Not even with Tim. And she certainly wasn’t going to waste time thinking about her neighbor and the perky Mimi doing whatever over the hedge.
When her friends arrived, Lauren headed through the front door to greet them and immediately heard a woman laughing. She noticed that Megan and Gabe were now outside and standing by the yellow car, clearly enjoying one another’s company. And her stupid, rotten and completely unjustified jealousy returned with a vengeance. She willed it away with all the strength she could muster. When Cassie and Mary-Jayne reached the porch steps, they must have noticed the scowl on her face, because they both had raised brows and wide smiles on their faces.
“Trouble in paradise?” Cassie asked and walked up the steps.
Her friends knew what had happened at the wedding. They’d called it fate. Kismet. Providence. The fact he’d moved in next door simply added fuel to their combined romantic foolishness.
Mary-Jayne blew out a low whistle. “That’s some serious competition you have there.”
Of course she meant Megan. Young, perky, chirpy... Everything she wasn’t. Lauren’s scowl deepened. Her friends were teasing, but she felt the sting right through to her bones. For Gabe’s no-commitment, casual-sex-only lifestyle, the effervescent Megan was no doubt perfect. She was pretty and uncomplicated. She probably wasn’t haunted by memories of a lost love. She almost certainly wasn’t looking to settle down and raise a family. So, perfect.
“Glaring at her over the hedge won’t make her turn to stone, you know,” Mary-Jayne said, and grinned.
Worse luck.
She jabbed her friend playfully in the ribs. “I need a drink,” Lauren said as she turned on her heels and followed the two other women back inside.
Ten minutes later they were settled in the living room, a tray of snacks on the coffee table and a glass of wine in hand. Except for Cassie, who made do with sparkling grape juice.
“Have you heard from Doug?” Lauren asked her pregnant friend as she settled back in the sofa. “Has he warmed to the idea of the baby?”
The fact that Cassie’s much older soldier boyfriend hadn’t taken the news of her pregnancy very well had become a regularly talked about subject between them. It had been a month since Cassie had told him the news about the baby, and Lauren was concerned for her friend.
“He said we needed to talk about it,” Cassie explained, her eyes shadowy. “I know he’ll come around and consider this baby a blessing. But I don’t want to distract him while he’s on a mission.”
“He’s a total jerk,” M.J. said bluntly, and tossed her mass of dark curls. “You know that, right?”
Lauren quickly took the middle ground. Something she often had to do. Cassie was a calm, sweet-natured woman who avoided confrontation and drama, while effervescent M.J. attracted it like a bee to a flower. Lauren figured she was somewhere in between. As different as they were, she knew they shared one common trait—unfailing loyalty to one another and their friendship.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t judge him too quickly,” she said, and ignored M.J.’s scowl.
“He should be judged,” M.J. said, and grunted. “Do you even know where he is at the moment?”
Cassie shook her head. “Not really.”
Lauren tapped Cassie’s arm. “His brother might know. Perhaps you should—”
“Tanner’s in South Dakota,” Cassie said quietly. “And he and Doug rarely talk. Besides, Doug will come around. You’ll see.”
Lauren hoped so, for her friend’s sake. And if not, she’d be there to support Cassie, just as her friends had rallied around her when she’d needed them.
Cassie smiled. “So let’s talk about you, not me. What’s been going on between you and Mr. Gorgeous from next door?”
“Nothing,” Lauren replied, and drank some wine. She wasn’t about to tell them about the near-miss kiss at the surf club the previous afternoon. They’d be all over that information in a second. It wasn’t as though she really wanted to exclude them. She knew they worried about her. They’d been her rocks after Tim died. And then again when James had walked out. But they didn’t really understand her determination to avoid those kinds of feelings...even though they supported her. But Gabe was a complication she didn’t need to discuss with her friends. The more time she spent with him, the less she felt she knew.
And she had to get him out of her system once and for all.
Only, she had no idea how she was supposed to do that when he had a habit of invading her thoughts...and her dreams.
* * *
It was ironic how much Gabe had come to avoid hospitals. At one time, the four walls of Huntington Beach’s largest health-care facility had been his life. But then everything changed. Funny how some lingering fatigue and a small lump in his armpit could so quickly alter his fate.
Biopsy...cancer...surgery...chemo...radiation therapy...
The disease had been caught early, and with a bit of luck he’d been assured of a long life, but that didn’t mean he could avoid the necessary follow-up examinations every six months. The specialist asked the usual invasive questions on his visit—questions he’d never considered invasive until he’d been on the other end of the conversation. Being a cancer patient had certainly altered his perspective on having the right kind of bedside manner. If he did decide to practice medicine again, he would do it with a renewed respect for what the sick endured.
If...
Gabe missed his career more than he’d ever imagined he would. Becoming a doctor had been his dream since he was twelve years old, and getting into medical school had been the realization of years of study and hard work. But things changed. Life changed.
And then one arrogant decision had altered everything.
He’d gone back to work too soon. Everyone around him said so. His family. His colleagues. His oncologist. But after a bad reaction to the treatment and medication, and after six weeks in bed chucking his guts up, he’d had enough. He was determined to reclaim his life and return to the job he loved.
Two weeks later a young mother and her baby were dead.
Perhaps technically not his fault, but he knew i
n his heart that the blame lay at his feet. Nauseated and tired from that day’s round of treatment, Gabe had left a second-year resident alone in the trauma room for a few minutes and headed for the bathroom. While he was gone, a patient had been brought into the E.R. and the young doctor didn’t have the experience to handle the emergency. The young woman, who was seven months pregnant, had hemorrhaged, and both she and her unborn child died.
Plagued by guilt, after the inquiry, an undercurrent of uncertainty had shadowed him and he’d stuck it out for another month before he bailed on his career, his friends and his family.
His life as he knew it.
And Crystal Point was as far away from all that as he could get.
It was a place where he could wrap himself in anonymity. A place where he could forget the past and not feel defined by his illness or the tragedy of that terrible night in the E.R.
“Gabe?”
He stopped beneath the wide doorway of the specialist’s rooms. Lauren stood a few feet away. Discomfort crawled along his skin. She was the last person he’d expected to see. And the last person he wanted to see outside the specialist’s office.
“Hello,” he said quietly, and wondered how to make his getaway.
She came to a stop in front of him. “What are you doing here?”
He took a second and considered all the things he wouldn’t say. “What are you doing here?”
She frowned. “My friend Cassie works on reception in Radiology. I’m meeting her and Mary-Jayne for lunch.”
She had a friend who worked at the hospital? One who might recognize him when he came in for testing? His discomfort turned into an all-out need to get away from her as quickly as possible before she asked more questions. Before she worked things out.
“I have to go,” he said, and stepped sideways.
Her hand unexpectedly wrapped around his forearm and she said his name. Her touch was like a cattle brand against his skin, and Gabe fought the impulse to shake her off. Being this close didn’t help his determination to stay away from her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, and glanced up at the signage above his head. The word oncology stuck out like a beacon.
