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His brow arched.
“Sir,” she added, in deference to his higher rank.
Cole’s gaze narrowed. “That’s not what I was getting at.”
“No? Not tossing around your weight, sir?”
“No.” He said the word slowly, studying her.
Hello, she was not a bug under a magnifying glass and could he please just go jump overboard? Anything, just so long as she didn’t have to look at him, didn’t have to remember.
Her fingers clenched into tight fists. “Then what were you getting at, Dr Stanley?”
He crammed his hands into his pants pockets. “I suppose asking you to call me Cole would be useless?”
“You suppose correctly, sir.”
Her eyes had to be tiny slits of disdain because she was holding back none of her anger, none of her frustration. However, she desperately held back all of her hurt, all of the pain she’d felt at his sudden absence from her life two years ago when he’d been such an integral part of her very being for the majority of her university days. God, how she’d hurt, ached to her very core.
“Amelia.”
“I did not give you permission to call me Amelia.” She did not want to hear her name on his lips. Memories of another time, another place, of him whispering her name echoed through her mind, twisting her insides with feelings she’d denied for so long, feelings she didn’t want. Not then. Certainly not now.
“Actually, you did,” he reminded her, his gaze not leaving hers, pinning her beneath intense blue. “Just because time has passed, it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.”
That she understood. Two years certainly hadn’t been enough time for her to forget a single thing about Cole. Sometimes she wondered if forever would be long enough or if she was doomed to spend eternity remembering every detail about the man looking so intently at her.
“We were friends once.” The color of his eyes darkened to a deep blue. “Good friends.”
Gritting her teeth, forcing her breathing to remain even, calm, she busied herself picking up a stack of papers from her desk and thumbing through them, reminding herself that she’d likely be thrown in the brig if she didn’t get her emotions under control. How could he say that after…after…?
“Well, I have forgotten,” she lied for pure self-preservation. “We were never friends. You’re just some joker who had a laugh at my sister’s and my expense and walked away from my family without a backward glance.”
“Amelia,” he began, then sighed, glanced over his shoulders down the narrow corridor leading off the sick ward to the office. When his gaze met hers next, steely determination had settled in. “We need to talk.”
She crossed her arms, glared. He wasn’t going to intimidate her if that’s what he was trying to do. “Was the surgical suite not to your satisfaction?”
“I haven’t been satisfied in years, Amelia.”
“Call me Dr Stockton.” She emphasized each word. “And I fail to see what your lack of satisfaction has to do with me.”
“Don’t you?” he asked softly, laughing with more than a hint of irony.
“Go away.” She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. How dared he bring that up, that crazy night, weeks after the non-wedding, when he’d come to see her and she’d eventually sent him packing? Besides, if he was trying to tell her he hadn’t been with anyone for two years, she’d never believe him. Not in a million years. Which meant he was trying to play her for a fool. Again. She touched the desk, running her fingers over the smooth surface, collecting her wits before glancing up. “I never wanted to see you again.”
“You made that obvious.”
“Yet here you stand,” she needlessly pointed out, riffling through papers as if she was bored with their conversation. Truth was, she needed to get away from him, needed to breathe. She couldn’t breathe with Cole standing so close, with him eyeing her with such intensity.
“Unless orders come stating otherwise, I’m here for the full deployment. Dr Lewis has been assigned landside.”
Six months. That was the usual duration of a surgeon on board a ship. Anything longer than that and their surgical skills might become rusty. Their usual days consisted of elective procedures such as vasectomies or ingrown toenail extractions, with the occasional gallbladder and appendix removal thrown in for good measure. Usually nothing as intense as working in a hospital setting like Cole must be used to.
“Good for you.” She kept her tone level but, as she had for much of the day, inside she screamed. Loud and fierce and full of frustration.
Six months she was stuck working with him. Six whole months. Fine. She could do anything for six months. She was a Stockton.
“Which means we need to work through your anger for me.”
She glanced up, met his gaze. “There’s nothing to work through.”
“You don’t hate me?” He didn’t look convinced. “Because I’m picking up pretty strong vibes that you’d like to dump me overboard.”
He was picking up on that, was he? Good, maybe he’d take the hint.
“You don’t rate that much of my thoughts.” Liar, liar, pants on fire, but she couldn’t admit that she’d thought of him often during the past two years.
Way too often.
“You’ve forgiven me?” He looked skeptical.
“For breaking my sister’s heart and making a mockery of her the night before her wedding?” she asked, laughing cynically. For making me look at you with stars in my eyes and breaking my heart right along with Clara’s? Never. “One thing you should know about us Stocktons, we’re a loyal bunch. We look after our own and don’t take kindly to anyone who messes with our family.”
“I remember. You have an exceptional family.” He smiled as if from fond memories. “Your father is one of the greatest men I’ve ever met.”
“Yes, he is.” No one was more dependable or loyal than her father and Amelia loved him with her whole heart. He deserved her love because a finer man had never lived. John Stockton ruled with an iron fist and expected everyone to jump to his tune. Everyone did, all the Stockton children included. “He thinks you’re a piece of no-good trash.”
Cole flinched, but she felt no pleasure that her barb had hit home. She should be pleased, should want him to feel as much pain and remorse as humanly possible for the cruel way he’d treated her family.
Yet all she felt was the desire to be far away from him, to actually still be in her bunk, fast asleep, to wake up and find Cole’s presence on board to be a horrible nightmare rather than her current reality.
Tiring of whatever game he played, she took a deep breath. “What is it you want, Dr Stanley?”
You, Cole thought, reeling at how forcefully the thought hit him.
He had always wanted Amelia.
For two years she’d haunted him, showing up in his thoughts, featuring in his dreams. Knowing that at their last meeting she’d professed to hate him until the day he died, well, Cole had tried to forget her.
After all, even if she didn’t hate his guts, it wasn’t as if they could have a relationship. He’d been less than twenty-four hours from getting married to her sister and her family thought he was a heel.
Perhaps he was. Because when he’d watched Maid of Honor Amelia walk down the aisle during his wedding rehearsal, he’d wished he was marrying her, not Clara. For months, he’d tried to tell himself he was only have pre-wedding jitters, that he was being a fool, but when their eyes had met, his heart had gone into a mimicry of atrial fibrillation, fluttering like crazy and making him feel light-headed.
When the rehearsal had ended he’d gone outdoors, had had to have a moment to himself, to breathe, to process his thoughts, to figure out how he was going to tell Clara that he couldn’t marry her, that he loved her, but not in the way he should, not with passion.
Amelia had followed him.
“Cole? Are you okay?”
He’d wanted to touch her. To pull her to him and let her heat warm him. He’d closed his eyes, fisted his fingers and nodded.
When he’d opened his eyes, she’d moved closer.
“Go back inside, Amelia.”
But she hadn’t. She’d lifted her hand, run her fingers across his cheek, slowly, tenderly. He’d trembled. Trembled like a schoolboy being touched by a goddess.
“Tell me what just happened,” she’d prompted, her palm caressing his face.
Cole swallowed, reminding himself that he had to break things off with Clara, that as much as he wanted this moment, he couldn’t grab it. Not until he’d told Clara the truth. That he couldn’t marry her.
“We had the wedding rehearsal.”
She studied him with those adorable chocolate eyes he loved to see dance with laughter. They weren’t laughing now. No, they were staring up at him with great emotion shining in their depths. Emotion for him. “Are you having second thoughts about tomorrow, Cole?”
God, she was fearless, plunged ahead into dark waters without the slightest hesitation, knowing it was her Godgiven right as a Stockton to conquer the world.
“We shouldn’t be having this conversation.” Not yet.
“Why not?”
Had she moved closer or had he? Either way, mere millimeters separated their mouths. Her warm breath brushed his lips and need, hot and heavy, consumed him.
Need that he was tired of denying, tired of fighting.
“Because of this.” He’d foolishly closed the minuscule distance, devoured her mouth with his, held on to her as if she were his only lifeline.
In that moment, she was the heat that warmed the cold numbness in his veins. Time had stopped and all that existed was the two of them.
Unfortunately, the moment ended all too quickly. Ended when Amelia pulled back, stared up at him with wonder and shock in her eyes. “Cole?”
“That shouldn’t have happened.” Not before he had the chance to break things off with Clara. “I need to talk to your sister.”
He’d stepped back, determined to go find Clara, to put a stop to the events unfolding, then paused at the horrified look on Amelia’s face.
“But, Cole, I…” She hesitated. “You…” Her fingers closed on his biceps, clamping down as if for support. “You can’t, Cole. You kissed me. Me.”
“Amelia.” He raked his fingers through his hair, searching for the right words to tell her that somewhere along the line he’d fallen for her, but had denied his feelings even to himself for far too long. “This is complicated.” Such an understatement. “Wait for me. Let me talk to Clara and wait for me.”
Her lower lip disappeared into her mouth. “Are you getting married tomorrow, Cole? Tell me.”
“No, I’m not getting married tomorrow.” He’d tipped her chin toward him, pressed another kiss to her upturned lips. “Promise me that you’ll wait. I’ll explain everything.”
Because he’d had to talk to Clara first, to put a stop to their wedding, to be free to tell Amelia that it was her smile that warmed his soul.
Only, when he found Clara, she was crying, something he’d never seen her do. Never seen any Stockton do. He was hit with horrendous guilt, thinking she’d seen him and Amelia, had overheard what he’d said. She hadn’t.
Instead, she’d had similar realizations to his own and didn’t want to get married any more than he did. It seemed they’d both been hanging on to something that hadn’t existed, something neither of them had wanted, but each hadn’t wanted to hurt the other because they truly did love one another—just not in the way a man and woman should love the person they were going to marry.
He hadn’t been able to refuse her one request, to leave immediately without explaining to anyone why they’d decided to call the wedding off. But that one request had cost him more than Clara could imagine.
“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.