Just Right: The Bradfords, Book 1

by Erin Nicholas

  Jess sighed. “How can you not get this? Those two letters matter to people. They convey a certain understanding that you have advanced training and a commitment to helping others. People know you know what you’re talking about and assume that you automatically care about them.”

  “You realize that many physicians go into medicine for the power and the money,” he said flatly.

  “But not you.”

  His eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. “How can you be so sure?”

  She couldn’t totally answer that, other than to say that she had a feeling about him. Many factors played into that, including her brother’s friendship with Ben and observing him at work for so long. But some of it was an instinct. A twinge of awareness she had for him that she’d never felt for another person.

  And she could not forget the first day she’d ever seen Ben. He’d paced into the ER like a general into a war room. In the midst of the chaos and adrenaline, the noise and flurry, Ben brought calm confidence. She’d never even heard his name before that moment, but the feeling that everything was going to be okay now that Dr. Torres had arrived was something that she remembered distinctly even now. She loved calm and confident. She wanted someone who could quiet the storms, who knew in a heartbeat what was needed—and could provide it.

  Her faceless fantasy man suddenly had a face, name and personality.

  But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

  For one, he’d think she was crazy.

  And two, if he continued on the path he was on, it would no longer be true.

  “You walked out,” she finally answered. “If money and power were all that was important to you, you wouldn’t be giving them up.”

  “There are hundreds of girls like Sophie,” Ben said. “Why should this one matter to me?”

  “Because she matters to me,” Jess said, with no idea whether that made a difference or not.

  He bent his knees to put his eyes on the same level as hers. “Are you asking me for a favor?”

  The way he was looking into her eyes made it impossible to blink. She licked her lips, strangely restless under his gaze.

  “Because, if so,” he said before she could answer. “You’ll owe me.”

  She tried to frown even as her heart thumped. “You’re a doctor. You should want to check her out.”

  He moved closer. “But I don’t. What I want is about another woman all together.”

  And suddenly she wanted to owe him—and have him cash the debt in soon. In spite of the fact he was committed only to avoiding commitment.

  This was going to be a problem.

  She couldn’t sleep with a guy she was disappointed in. Could she?

  Jessica cleared her throat. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to sleep with him. She was pretty sure. “So, you’ll talk to her?”

  “If you go out with me after you’re done here,” Ben said with a sexy grin.

  “Out where?” Not that it mattered.

  “Dancing.”

  That wasn’t at all what she had been expecting. “Seriously?”

  “Unless you just want to go back to my place and have sex.”

  She really wanted to do just that. But she shouldn’t. And she had will power. Somewhere. Or she had at one point. Before Ben. “Um…”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I figured dancing was a good way to get up against you but not make you nervous.”

  She stood up straighter. “Why would I be nervous?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “You seem like the type to get nervous about an affair.”

  An affair. The words echoed in her head. Casual sex. Short term. That was all he wanted with her?

  While her pride wanted to tell him he was crazy to think he could walk away after a night with her and her heart protested anything so simple, part of her felt a whisper of relief.

  If it was just a fling, brief and minimally emotional, then she could have the amazing sex she was sure Ben would deliver—and that she deserved, dammit—but she didn’t have to worry that he would eventually let her down. She would know going in not to expect anything more.

  Could she could have an affair and not want more?

  She could admit that she’d wanted more than an affair. But that had been with the old Ben, the Ben she’d built up in her mind as the perfect guy. She wasn’t so sure this Ben could give her anything she needed beyond the best orgasm of her life.

  Not that a mind-blowing orgasm was anything to dismiss lightly.

  She rubbed the middle of her forehead. This was crazy. She could not sleep with him. She wasn’t the laid-back, unbelievable-sex-is-enough kind of girl. She would have expectations outside of the bedroom. Already did in fact. Expectations that she couldn’t shake.

  She really had three problems. One, she still wanted him—every damn inch of him—whether he was saving lives or not. Two, the more time she spent with him, the more she liked him—even unemployed and taking nothing seriously, Three, she had to spend time with him. Her future at the hospital depended on it.

  “Yeah, I’m a prude at heart,” she said weakly. Maybe that would turn him off.

  “I didn’t say you’re a prude,” Ben said, running his hand down her arm.

  “I said it,” she said firmly.

  If he believed it maybe he wouldn’t even try to seduce her and then she wouldn’t have to work at resisting him.

  “I could change your mind.”

  “I’m…abstaining.” Yeah, that sounded good. Not sleeping with the guys she’d met over the past year wasn’t technically abstaining. It was more like a no-brainer. But telling Ben she was abstaining was far less complicated than admitting to him that he was the first to make her happily wax her bikini line in a very long time. Maybe he would respect it and quit touching her so much. Which made her forget every good intention she had regarding the hospital and Ben’s future. And her own.

  Yeah, he definitely needed to stop touching her. That would make everything easier.

  Respectful wasn’t exactly how she would have described his expression. Mildly surprised was more like it. But interested too.

  “Why are you abstaining?” he asked.

  Because my vibrator has been doing a fine job and doesn’t make promises it doesn’t intend to keep. “I’m a role model.” She gestured at the kids. She’d never needed a reason before, so hadn’t thought of that, but it sounded good.

  He moved in closer and his voice dropped. “You don’t act like you want to abstain.”

  She felt her blush. Yeah, no kidding.

  She evidently didn’t reply soon enough because Ben added, “In fact, you seemed to like having my hands on you today.”

  The memory of his hands, especially on her breast, zinged through her as if was touching her right then.

  As her blood hummed and her nerves sang, she also felt strangely comfortable.

  “Well, I…”

  He chuckled. “Then again, I’m not sure I’ve ever gone out with a virgin before so how do I know how they act?”

  Jessica froze, just resisting a large guffaw at Ben’s mistaken assumption. He gave her a wink and then turned and crossed the room toward Sophie. Thank goodness. The fact that she was dumbfounded was going to get hard to hide.

  He thought she was a virgin? How had that happened?

  Apparently her no-dating-guys-at-work policy and her luck with only meeting men outside of work that she didn’t want to sleep with had resulted in some interesting assumptions.

  And apparently Ben wasn’t intimidated or turned off by seducing a supposed virgin.

  She watched as Ben approached Sophie and introduced himself.

  He smiled at the girl and Jessica’s heart tripped. That damn smile. It was going to be the death of her. Or at least of her heart.

  Well, dancing with him was much less dangerous than everything else she wanted to do with him, and if he was going dancing, then she was going dancing. Russ wanted her to keep an eye on Ben. Ben out at a nightclub was precis
ely the type of situation that would make Russ nervous.

  Jess shook herself out of the Ben-induced stupor and went over to join Ben and Sophie.

  “You’re really a doctor?” Sophie asked as Jess arrived beside Ben.

  The way the girl’s eyes took in Ben’s shorts and T-shirt and ratty tennis shoes told Jess that the absence of a lab coat and stethoscope made Sophie suspicious.

  “Ben is a doctor. He’s a friend of mine,” Jess inserted.

  Ben raised an eyebrow at her introduction. Okay, maybe friend wasn’t entirely accurate but was he more than a friend, or less?

  Either way, he certainly wasn’t just Ben.

  “He works in the ER at Saint Anthony’s.”

  “I used to,” Ben added. “And I still have a medical license, for now anyway, and I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you?”

  Jess frowned at his explanation of his career status, but he didn’t look at her.

  Sophie shrugged. “I went to the free clinic for a checkup.”

  “That was three months ago,” Jess said gently. “In pregnancy a lot changes every month.”

  “Um…”

  Jessica could tell that Ben wasn’t inclined to insist or even persuade, and that annoyed her. “Please let him give you a quick checkup,” she said. “It will make me feel better.”

  “I guess,” Sophie finally answered.

  Jess showed Ben and Sophie to the dining area off the rec room and got him the blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, tape measure and the glucose test strips they had in their supplies, thanks to her ability to sweet-talk the hospital.

  When they were set, she headed toward her sister’s office, still thinking about Ben’s insistence that he was not an ER doctor. Why was he being so adamant about it? He was a doctor and it was clear that the ER was his domain. That didn’t disappear with a few days off. Perhaps he was considering not going back to St. Anthony’s, but surely he wasn’t permanently going to leave medicine all together. Doctors didn’t do that. Men who were dedicated to helping others, saving lives, didn’t suddenly stop being dedicated. That wasn’t heroic. And Ben Torres—in her experience and especially in her dreams—was first and foremost a hero.

  Ben emerged from the small conference room and his talk with Sophie feeling strangely tired.

  It hadn’t been easy. Sophie was sixteen and not at all ready for, or even aware of, what labor and delivery would be like. He’d had to start at the beginning. To her credit, the girl had asked questions. They were painfully naive questions, but at least she was trying to learn.

  He was ready for a big break. In the form of dancing and letting loose with Jessica.

  His eyes were drawn to her immediately when he stepped into the rec room. She was shooting pool with a couple of the guys and was laughing as she lined up and took the next shot. Which was a tough, brilliant shot and reminded Ben of how he’d underestimated her in the bar last night. In more ways than one.

  But though she was obviously beating them badly, the boys were laughing with her. It was clear that she took her role here, influencing these teens, seriously, but she wasn’t faking the enjoyment or the caring that he and the kids saw.

  Ben propped a shoulder against the doorjamb and watched her.

  He remembered thinking she was beautiful the first time he’d ever seen her. She’d been holding a teenager, like the ones here, away from the body of her injured brother. The foot-long shard of window glass that had pierced the boy’s lower abdomen was the reason Ben had been called into the ER.

  He didn’t let Jessica distract him every time they were in the ER together, but he was always aware of her. He knew where she was, what she was doing, what she wore and when she left.

  Which was why punching Ted in the ER on his last day was an easy, instinctive reaction. The man was one of the fools Ben had to patch back together nearly every day. He’d been out getting drunk and then treating the highway like his own personal racetrack. Ben had wanted to punch him the minute he saw him. The rage grew when Ben heard the two-year-old pronounced dead in the next trauma room. But when the man had grabbed Jessica, Ben couldn’t hold back. Sure, he’d been looking for a reason, but Jessica was a damn good reason.

  And it had felt so good.

  The pent-up aggression that had been building against all the villains, all the bad guys of the world that hurt others through their selfish actions, all came pouring out in that one decision. He would not try to fool even himself by pretending it hadn’t been a very conscious choice. He’d known as he’d moved, as if in slow motion, that he was going to get suspended. And he hadn’t cared. Still didn’t.

  In fact, he hadn’t cared about much since the phone call from Africa…

  Ben shook off the memory. It did no good to replay it. He couldn’t change what had happened.

  Instead, he strode toward the only thing he’d been able to work up any enthusiasm for in days. And she was, oddly enough, a perfectionist virgin that disapproved of his career choices. Go figure.

  He took her arm when she stood from her last shot. “I’m ready to go.”

  She turned and gave him the smile that felt like a soothing balm on his wounds. “I have to put in some more time.”

  He wondered if she could put that time in somewhere a little more private. With him. And fewer clothes on. “I’ll stay, too.”

  “You sure?”

  “Why not?” He certainly wasn’t going to get to kiss her, or touch her, or talk her into going dancing if he left.

  “Then there’s something else I could use your help with.”

  “What’s that?”

  She pointed a finger at something over his left shoulder.

  He turned and saw a woman of about sixty sitting next to one of the teenage boys who had helped carry David into the center. She wore a blue dress and panty hose, clunky patent leather shoes with a slight heel, and even a strand of pearls around her neck.

  “Who is she?” Ben asked.

  “Tony’s grandmother.”

  He heard Jess take a deep breath, then rush through the rest.

  “She’s got a bad infection in her foot. Tony ran home as soon as he realized you were a doctor to tell her so she could come get it checked.”

  Ben pursed his lips. Complicated. That’s what all of this was turning into. Which was precisely what he wanted to avoid. But this was Jessica and he was going to take her dancing. At least. No sense in ticking her off yet. No doubt Tony’s grandmother got to Jessica as much as Tony did.

  “She looks like she was on her way to church,” he said, turning to face Jess.

  “She dressed up to see you.”

  He snorted. “Right.”

  Jessica looked exasperated. “Ben, I realize the ER is different, but it surely isn’t so hard to believe that doctors are important? That people respect them?”

  “They dress up to go to the doctor and church?”

  “Two very important appointments with people they want to make a good impression on.”

  Ben huffed out a breath of frustration. Great. Expectations. Expectations that came to see him with pearls.

  “Fine. I’ll see her,” he agreed. “But not for free.”

  “Ben!” Jess protested. “These people don’t have any—”

  “I don’t want her to compensate me.” He moved in close to her and his gaze dropped to her lips. “And I don’t want money.”

  He knew the moment she understood his meaning. He watched her suck in a quick breath and her tongue darted out to wet the bottom lip he’d just studied.

  “What…” She had to stop and clear her throat. “What do you want?”

  Oh, what a question. Ben’s imagination took it and ran. What he wanted involved an awful lot of naked on Jessica’s part. But he didn’t think she was quite ready to hear that.

  “We’re already going dancing,” she said when he didn’t answer right away.

  “That’s an excellent decision, by the way.”

  �
�So there’s more?”

  Ben looked at her, her breaths coming quicker than they should for casual conversation.

  “I want you to spend the day after tomorrow with me too.”

  Her eyes got wide. “The day after tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. You still owe me tomorrow, from the initial forty-eight hour deal, but I want the next day too.”

  “All day?”

  “Yes. Like we did today.”

  He saw her cheeks flush slightly and realized she was thinking about the arcade. Which pleased him.

  She hesitated.

  Ben glanced at Tony’s grandmother. “I bet her foot hurts.”

  “That’s low,” Jessica said.

  Ben knew, however, that Jess didn’t believe that he’d walk away from the woman. And he wouldn’t. As much as he wanted to.

  “That’s the deal,” he lied.

  “Fine.”

  “The whole day,” he clarified.

  She smiled and Ben realized that this was a very good idea.

  “Go check her foot already,” Jess said. “I want to go dancing.”

  Tony’s grandmother spoke softly and politely to Ben, of course, but requested that Jessica be present for the examination. Ben didn’t mind. Having Jessica around was nice. Distracting to an extent, but nice. He liked her laugh, which he’d heard a lot since coming to the center.

  Ben stopped his thoughts right there.

  “Let’s take a look at that foot,” Ben said, forcing himself to concentrate on the older woman in front of him and not as much on the younger woman to her right.

  “It’s been bad lately,” Mrs. Wilson told him as Jessica assisted her in pulling off her knee-high panty hose. “It throbs.”

  Ben could see why. The entire forefoot was purple and swollen, including the toes. In fact, her first three toenails were becoming blackened. The portion of the foot from the mid-arch and up to the ankle was also reddened, though looked healthier than the rest. Farther up the ankle and leg became less and less red and swollen, to a point below the bulk of her calf muscle.

  Jessica handed Ben a pair of latex gloves before he could ask. He probed the area, finding a few sore spots, but others where Mrs. Wilson didn’t react at all.